Knowledge: Sources, Forms, and Scientific Methods
Knowledge
What is Knowledge?
Knowledge is contact with reality to distinguish, understand, and relate information. It involves making something conscious or known, systematizing it wisely, accounting for it before others, and critically questioning what one believes.
Knowledge is a grasp of reality fixed in a subject, expressed, communicated to other subjects, systematized, and incorporated into a tradition.
Sources of Knowledge
The two main sources of knowledge are sensibility (experience) and reason.
Read MoreHistorical Materialism: Foundations of Social Transformation
Marx and Engels not only exposed the materialistic dialectical
development in nature, but also applied it to society. With his action created the scientific theory of social evolution, ie historical materialism, which aims at the study of society and the laws governing its development. These laws are objective, that is as independent of consciousness as are the laws of nature. They are also knowable, and in this sense man
employs in his practical activity. For historical materialism, we must
Society, State, and Individual: A Philosophical Exploration
The Human Being: A Social Animal
The human species, being one of the least equipped to survive naturally, has a fundamental need for community. Plato recognized this social essence of humankind, stating that the human being is a social animal. However, this doesn’t mean humans are the only social creatures. Many non-human animals also form societies. Human society differs from other animal societies due to rationality, a humanizing characteristic.
Human society is a group of human beings who share
Read MoreEmpiricism: A Comparison of Locke and Hume
Empiricism (Locke and Hume)
Elements of Knowledge
All knowledge comes from sensory experience. There are no innate ideas; all ideas are acquired.
The individual mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) upon which sensory knowledge (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) is inscribed.
To clarify this, Hume states: “If by innate we understand everything that is natural, all our perceptions are innate, inborn. If we understand what is original and not copied, all our impressions are innate, but not at birth. There
Read MoreObjectivism, Perspectivism, and Ratio-Vitalism in Ortega’s Philosophy
Objectivism in Ortega’s Philosophy
Ortega’s early philosophy grapples with the concern of avoiding “objectivist” thinking. In a Spanish context steeped in individualism and subjectivity, he emphasizes the importance of scientific rigor and objectivity, distinguishing European thought from Spanish intellectual traditions.
Perspectivism: Embracing Circumstance
Ortega’s philosophy evolves with Meditations on Don Quixote, marking the shift towards perspectivism. His famous phrase, “I am myself and my circumstance,
Read MoreThe Religious Creativity of Man: Exploring Humanity’s Relationship with the Sacred
1:
The religious creativity of man
In the ultimate enigma man has tried to imagine, define the mystery in relation to itself, and therefore tried to devise a form of relationship with him and express all aesthetic reflections that the act of imagining to the latter gave him .- (Here is the religion that is essentially man’s relationship with the sacred and as exposed as numinous numinous value .-)
This human effort, called Imagination, is strictly on the basis of the link with reality and is therefore