Heusser Philosophy
100 SG
#6b
Philosophers have
considered the problem of knowledge since ancient times. Essentially, we are
inquiring into the nature of knowledge in general and human knowledge in particular.
The Greek Philosopher Plato distinguished between opinion and knowledge. Later
followers such as Descartes asked what (if anything) we could be certain about.
Why might knowledge be a problem? There are many reasons why philosophers are worried about this issue, but I will propose a few to get us started.
Our experience is limited
and our tools of knowledge are faulty. If our knowledge is primarily based on
the senses, then we might worry about how reliable our senses actually are.
This limitation is in more than one sense (way).
4 Problems of Knowledge:
1)
We may have fewer
then all of the various ways that things can be known. We seem to have no
problem saying we “cannot taste food” when we have a cold. However, if there
are senses that exist besides our own five, then perhaps we are missing much
more content than mere flavor.
2)
Even our own five
senses are not being used to their maximal capacity. If we compare
ourselves to animals, it is obvious that our visual and listening capacity (the ones we most depend on!) are mostly inferior
to certain animals.
3)
It is not clear
that all things can even be known through the senses. Even if we had all
of the various sensations that existed (say, 17 senses instead of 5), this is
no proof we would “obtain” all of the information needed to be certain about
something.
4)
There are “bad
guys”. Not only do we have hallucinations, mirages, and voices in our heads
on occasion (or simply distortions like an object in water), but sometimes we
are deceived by others. Political conservatives oftentimes point to big (and
fat) government as the ultimate deceiver (e.g. the film Gattaca
or the book 1984 by George Orwell), while liberals oftentimes prefer to
focus on irresponsible corporations (e.g. the film The Insider). Of
course, the “bad guy” is us much of the time, when we choose to lie to
ourselves (e.g. a decision of happiness over truth as in the films The
Matrix (as Cypher chooses) or Memento).
We will see the ultimate “bad guy” conjured up by Descartes in his “evil deceiver” hypothesis. This skeptical worry about being deceived has a long tradition in Christianity (Satan and “original sin”) as well as in Plato (the Allegory of the Cave).