Authors philosophical
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Will be considered the main representative of the “analytical theory” philosophy that has been devoted to the study of language. Two are his works: Tractatus logico-philosophes phicus and Philosophical Investigations. For him, language function is to provide an image, a picture of reality. Therefore, the limits of language are the limits of the world. There is only appropriate language: the logical or scientific. He said: <what can not speak better shut up> and after that he retired from the world of philosophy and dedicated to children’s education, gardening … But Wittgenstein returned with a very different theory: there is no ideal language which should govern the rest of the languages. There is a language, but “many languages”, and each has a way of life behind. For Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, philosophy has a critical task: indicate when a certain type of language has ceased to have effect, by not responding to the ideal language of logic, for the second Wittgenstein will have to define a new mission for philosophy.Realism and idealism. Realism: Believes that the human being can access the real. The reality is something that exists that is there and we can know. Anything else would be absurd because we have experience of reality. From the observation that the perception of reality is misleading and is conditioned by the physical (optical illusion) and also by cultural factors. Knowledge is the interpretation of something real. Idealism: They say the lack of material reality. The reality is just a product of our thinking or an ideal entity, but not a substrate material that we can ascertain. The reality is constantly changing and we can not say what is in itself. There needs to be an ideal reality, of which material reality is a mere copy. So Plato the distinction between the visible world, perceived by the senses, and the world intelligible, accessible only by intelligence.
Diversity of approaches. Hume discusses the deception of the senses and the situation in which human knowledge is, restricted to the observation of phenomena. Establish causal relationships derived from a habit or custom of always related phenomena in temporal succession, but without any solid foundation to establish the actual cause and effect. Kant believes that reality has two dimensions: the first: the phenomenon, which is what manifests itself and the second: the noumenon, the thing itself, the reality is that subject to the phenomenon and can not be anything but postulated, not known. There must be something real that is the source of appearances that we see, but our ability to know can not go there or know the noumenon. Nietzsche believes that the history of philosophy has always tended to support a real world to the world of appearance, hoping they can get to reality. But this is a mistake because the only thing real is the apparent world. The truth is defined bypractical value, not by adaptation to a noumenal reality.
Skepticism, dogmatism and relativism. The Skeptical states that it is possible to reach the truth. All our knowledge is useless, because you can not achieve its objective. The Skeptic’s question may arise at three levels: can doubt that there is truth, can doubt that it can be known and may doubt that it can be said. Dogmatism is the conviction that human reason can attain true knowledge , assumed to have access to reality and therefore to the truth. There is no possibility of error: there is only one truth that is knowable. The consequence of relativism is skeptical, stating that knowledge depends on the subject or group you know. That is, there is no true knowledge, but there are differences as to who is the truth and that something is true depending on individual factors or social or historical factors.
Free actions. Despite the multiplicity of actions we take or suffer, which fully define us are those where we exercise our freedom (free actions). ? are intentional: we can use intentions or reasons when running them. The free event is from a reason or intention, ie, has a reason (voluntary action). ? Have Purpose: to perform this action, we want to achieve an objective or goal. It is what draws and drives our desire. ? Are Projected: before being carried out have been designed. The free actions need to be reflected, so it is intelligent behavior, because the free behaviors are the ones we propose. This is very necessary for creativity. ? attributable to an Agent: free actions come from an author. This person is the one that decides something and decide to do so. Every action is part of a subject, to which he is charged and which is ultimately accountable.
? Characteristics of culture. Culture is learned: it is not something given, we need to integrate into a culture, learn it, is what anthropologists call “inculturation.” The culture exists through this process of transmission between generations. Culture is symbolic: it is a form of communication and bonding between individuals. The culture subjected to nature: the biological needs not live directly but interpreted by the culture. Culture is general and specific: it is a skill that all men (hence general), but only live in a particular culture or specific. Culture covers everything: nothing is outside of culture. Set standards, rules or patterns of behavior or activities. Culture is shared: it is an attribute of isolated individuals but of individuals as a group. It is therefore difficult to separate society and culture (there are two sides of the same coin).Culture is adaptive and mal-adaptive: the man can adapt to nature through culture, but certain cultural norms can be mal-adaptive, because they endanger the continuity of human species on earth.
José Ortega y Gasset. His thought can be described as ratiovitalism: vital reason, which is closely related to human life, history and culture. For Ortega, culture is a form of discourse that gives meaning to things. The meditations of Don Quixote is his first great book, compared to the great themes of philosophy, begins by addressing the smallest things, the closest. These are the things that make our culture are our circumstances. And in them we have to focus so we would not occur as a Don Quixote, who forgot the closest. Culture may be the culture of immediacy, of the near-that is, of life. <Yo Me and my circunstancia, and if you do not save unless I yo> ella, told in the meditations. Save the circumstances is to place them in relation to all, to establish its meaning. Thus, culture is connected to the world. The man can not be understood without these relationships, and without culture. The critique of culture Ortega, is directed to that culture that has forgotten the life, the fundamental reality. It is a culture that has betrayed itself. The masterpiece of cultural criticism is the revolt of the masses (talking about the situation in which Western culture is).
Plato, Aristotle and Descartes. Plato distinguishes between soul and body. For him, the soul is imprisoned in the prison of the body, and contaminated by it, so it must be purified to return to the divine world. The soul is the divine, immaterial, eternal, who rules over the body and the body is the human, material. The rational soul is the very essence of being. Aristotle extends the dual field-shape living things and man. According to him, the individual is a complete substance, composed of matter (body) and form (soul). However, the entire subject (soul-body) that is affected. You can not separate. Descartes introduces a new method of thought and basic principle of doubt. Consider that there are two different types of realities: the res extensa (which is the material, spatial and mechanical) and body-res cogitans (which is immaterial, spaceless, and conscious) – the alma.Mantiene a dualistic view of soul and body as separate and distinct realities that communicate through the pineal gland in the brain exists.
Rationalism and Empiricism. ? Rationalism: full confidence in reason, is the only true source of knowledge and secure. The reason is able to extract itself the fundamental principles of reality. There are innate ideas in the mind on the knowledge obtained. Knowledge talks about the ideas of reason, no reliable access to real things. Descartes and Spinoza. ? Empiricism: All our knowledge comes from experience. The mind receives data provided to us by the senses and associates and commands. It denies the existence of innate ideas, which are those from birth. All knowledge refers to the ideas, not the things themselves.Hume and Berkeley.
? Characteristics of Science:
1. It is an ordered set of skills: ordered according to criteria of order and establishing relationships between knowledge. 2. Part of the Phenomena: data portion of events, of things. 3. Raises scenario poses possible answers to problems. 4. Explain Phenomena: reasoning causes, relationships and consequences. 5. Search regularities of nature, trying to detect causal relationships for understanding what is happening and what will happen. 6. Specialized is, every branch of science is specialized in a particular aspect of reality. 7. Try to be objective: seeks to explain phenomena and empirical tests that can be repeatable and with equivalent results. 8. Seek the truth. 9. Is historical: historical science is changing and dynamic. 10. It is rational: it is a kind of knowledge that uses reason and logic. 11. It is autonomous: it has a degree of independence of their own field of objects and their method of work. 12. Is rigorous: it has methodological rigor and explanatory.Reflection on the scientific method. Francis Bacon believed that the sciences of his time were not able to make new discoveries. A new method based on the collection of data and its subsequent management in tables from which can be achieved, by a process of exclusion, the first hypothesis. It is an inductive method. René Descartes proposed a mathematical method, consisting of four rules: 1. Evidence: (not to be true anything that is not presented in a clear and distinct). 2. Analysis: divide what is discussed in the constituent parts. 3. Summary: drive the thoughts order to go from the most simple to the complex, in a deductive process. 4. Verification: Review the process for not making any mistakes. Galileo Galilei: father of modern scientific method works with two basic elements: Experiment and mathematical principles. The key to their method is the unity of both for the advancement of knowledge. Your proposal will lead to the hypothetical-deductive method is based on: 1. Analysis of the phenomenon, reducing it to its essential properties. 2. Construction of a mathematical hypothesis linking the elements analyzed. 3. Extraction of the consequences of that hypothesis and testing.
The scientific method has explanatory claim: its aim is to account for how things are and why they are so. Regularities reasons for establishing laws temporarily valid. C ontrasta their hypothesis comes to corroborate or refute hypotheses. The most common way is experimentation, which has to be rigorous, repeatable and controlled. Establishes predictions: anticipate what is expected to occur if the hypothesis is valid.You can obtain hypothesis by generalization (induction) by implication (law) by analogy and imagination. Develops hypothesis attempts to explain the questions raised by a conjecture. Part of the observation: collecting the data that suggest a search for meaning .
Karl Popper. Popper maintains some critical positions that result in a peculiar way of understanding scientific knowledge: it is of critical rationalism (whose central claim is that science should have the primary purpose of falsification or refutation of hypotheses rather than verification). the checking of the conviction that the scientific method should produce hypotheses which are then contrasted to verify its validity. Popper emphasizes the opposite objective: the contrast should seek the falsification of hypotheses, because it will force us to raise further attempts explanatory and, development of scientific knowledge will be assured. can we achieve it? This implies two statements: one – learning from the mistakes, because the advance of science is based on the resolution of the errors of previous speculation. New theories must be better. 2, we can not achieve the truth, only we approach it gradually. The falsified conjectures are valid explanations only temporarily, until they are refuted. Verificationism against falsificationism: we feel that science does not have have nothing to do with the quest for certainty, probability or reliability. We want to establish that scientific theories are safe, we are only interested in criticizing the hope of discovering we are wrong, learn from our mistakes and if we’re lucky, to achieve better theories.