Sources, Forms, and Classification of Knowledge
What is Knowledge?
To know is to be in contact with reality in order to understand it. It also relates to other concepts: to make conscious what is known, to systematize what is known. Therefore, to question what knowledge is, is a critical examination. Knowledge is an apprehension of reality through which reality is fixed in an individual, expressed, and transmitted to other subjects, incorporated into a system and tradition.
Sources of Knowledge
Sensitivity and reason. Experience provides basic things.
Read MoreSaint Augustine’s Philosophy: Reason, Faith, and Existence
Saint Augustine: Reason and Faith
For Christians, the truth is found in the Bible. Augustine sees a reconciliation between reason and faith, so why not reach where faith reaches? Saint Augustine distinguishes three steps:
- The reason helps man to achieve faith.
- Faith guides the reason.
- The reason, in turn, helps to further clarify the contents of faith.
Saint Augustine summarized this process in two propositions: the prevalence of faith over reason, and reason is an instrument of clarification to the
Read MoreDescartes’ Philosophy: Key Concepts and Definitions
**Alma (Soul)**
A finite spiritual substance has no beginning. It is also simple, with no breaks, and is therefore immortal. It is a substance independent of the body and does not require the body in order to exist. It is a principle of consciousness, i.e., that by which I am aware. According to Descartes, the soul is easier to learn than the body.
**Truth**
An act of the spirit that recognizes with clarity and distinction the truth. Confidence and conviction are subject to the truth. It is collateral
Read MoreFeminist Theory and the Evolution of Citizenship
The Exclusion of Women in Traditional Political Thought
The concept of man is invariably associated with reason and culture, which characterize the public sphere. Moreover, the concept of woman is linked with emotion and nature, which defines the private scope. Feminist theory proposes a political philosophy that addresses the concepts designed for the private sphere. However, the public sphere cannot be automatically applied to the private sphere. To this end, feminist theory analyzes and revises
Read MorePhaedo: Socrates’ Last Day and the Immortality of the Soul
Equécrates Asks Phaedo About Socrates’ Final Hours
Equécrates asks Phaedo to recount Socrates’ last day, and Phaedo agrees to do so. He begins by saying that Socrates, Apollodorus, Critobulus, Hermogenes, Antisthenes, Ctesippus, Simmias, Cebes, Phaedondas, Euclid, Terpsion, and Phaedo himself were present. Socrates observes that pleasure and pain are closely related, yet they never occur simultaneously; one follows the other, like two people joined at a single head.
Socrates on Death and the Philosopher
Faced
Read MorePlato’s Theory of Forms: Key Concepts and Definitions
Plato’s Theory of Forms: Key Concepts
Idea
In the Platonic sense, an idea has value, not only mental but also an absolute reality. It is independent, single, intelligible, immutable, universal, and eternal. Ideas are part of a hierarchical world, in which the supreme idea is the Idea of the Good. Ideas are known by reason, and the science that gives us access to them is dialectic. In the Allegory of the Cave, ideas would match the beings of the exterior.
Good
The Good is the supreme idea of the intelligible
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