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Allegory Of The Cave And Skepticism Essay

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Skepticism or Justified True Belief Elizabeth McIver ID: L25662046 PHIL 201 B06 Spring 2018 Abstract How do the Matrix, Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, and Descartes’ “Meditation 1 of the Things of Which We May Doubt” compare and contrast to each other? Also, can we truly depend on our senses to aid us in our quest for knowledge? There is much belief to suggest that we can depend on our senses unless there is just cause or evidence suggested to question their reliability. Therefore, the belief of reality may be subjected to interpretation or skepticism, but without solid evidence to discard what we believe to be true, we should be confident in what we hold to be true. Skepticism or Justified True Belief …show more content…

When those beliefs are questioned, we find ourselves questioning the reliability of our senses and our memory of our experiences.Yes, there are times when our senses are called into question as well as our memory of experiences. For example, as a young child, I was able to see without glasses; however, now my eyesight is significantly worse and I require glasses to see everything. Without corrective lenses the world around me would be completely different (mostly blurry blobs of color), instead, I can see things almost perfect. Another example of how our beliefs come into question is our memories. As a child, we have little that takes up space in the memory bank of our brains, but as time goes on we develop new memories, develop beliefs based on new knowledge. We access those old memories less and less, making the reliability of those earlier memories questionable. On the other hand, suppose a person has developed a mental disorder or age has caught up to them and they suffer from Dementia or Alzheimer's, the reliability of their memories would also be questionable but on the grounds that their minds aren’t functioning

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