Reformed epistemology Essays

Reformed Epistemology is a school of thought regarding rationality of religious belief. The core of the thought is the idea that belief in god is a properly basic belief; and does not need to be derived from other truths for it to be reasonable. It is important to correctly stress what ‘basic’ truly means, a basic believe is one that is rationally held and yet not derived from other beliefs that one holds The Great Pumpkin Objection was put forward by Alvin Plantinga in 1983 and is the main criticism

By definition, a hero is “a person who, in the opinion of others, has special achievements, abilities, or personal qualities and is regarded as a role model or ideal.” (www.dictionary.com) In the modern world, the majority of people perceive a hero as a person who has superpowers and save the world while wearing capes and tight suits. Even so, regardless of how people visualize a hero, without some characteristics such as bravery and self-sacrificed, no one would fully agree that that person is a

Baruch Spinoza’s geometric structured view of the universe, and everything in general, is beautifully broken down for present and future thinkers to ponder in his work, Ethics. Although complex at times, his method of demonstrating each discovery of proven proposition aids readers to conceptual God-Nature. At the base of these propositions are the definitions and axioms (truths) Spinoza accounts as certain truths and are critical to understanding God-Nature (substance). I will here provide an account

Alvin Carl Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga born on November 15, 1932. He is an American analytic philosopher who major in logic, justification, philosophy of religion, and epistemology. Moreover, from 1983 to 1986, Plantinga also known as a prominent Christian philosopher and served president of the Society of Christian Philosophers. “America’s leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God” is the title that being given to him and it was described by Time magazine. Alvin Plantinga has avowedly

In the seventh book of his most famous work The Republic, Plato describes a tale popularly known as the Allegory of the Cave. This tale depicts a cave where many prisoners are chained and live in the dark with a single blaring fire in the distance. The tale prompts the character Glaucon, a fellow philosopher, to imagine there are shadows cast by fake creatures. The prisoners are not sure of what is real and what is not; only of the reality of the dark cave. However, there is more to life then living

Comparing Hume’s Casual Doctrine In the Enquiry and the Treatise Modern Philosophical Texts MA Course 0364481   The first definition of cause Hume presents in his Enquiry is ontological, whereas the second definition is psychological. The key blunder of the skeptic’s interpretation of the Enquiry is the supposition that both definitions are equal, and also the critical error of the supposition that from merely one experiment, an association of ideas can be derived. The aim of this paper is to

Allegory of the Cave vs The Good Brahmin Ruben Damian Corbo University of the People The Allegory of the Cave and The Good Brahmin are written by two different philosophers. Although they both do have some similarities about knowledge and enlightenment, they both have an undertone about knowledge some in a negative, but also very positive light. Also, comparing the two from completely different time periods, there’s a way of seeing how two different philosophers thought about knowledge

Although the concepts of truth are the same, no person will have the same exact definition of truth. Many people can share a truth, but none of them will always be the same. In O'Brien's The Things They Carried, there's an excerpt called How to Tell a True War Story, an example of O’Brien’s claim can be found when he talks about Mitchell Sanders’ story. It involves a troop that went into the mountains for a listening post operation. He mentions that these men began to hear strange echoes and music

Metaphysical Issues of Consciousness: How do we define Consciousness? Consciousness in its very fundamental form can be defined as an inherent and intrinsic property of mind. And in fact no other aspect of mind is as intriguing, appealing and perplexing as consciousness, and our conscious experience of ‘self’ and everything else except the ‘self’. Both the notions evidently appear as totally complementary to each other. The very concept of ‘Consciousness’ is undoubtedly the principal issue to be

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, innatism refers to a philosophical belief in innate ideas and knowledge which suggests that one is born with certain ideas and knowledge. Therefore, it contradicts tabula rasa, an epistemological argument that the mind is a blank state at birth. In the history of philosophy, innatism has been widely discussed between rationalists and empiricist. While rationalists assert that certain ideas and knowledge pre-exist in the mind independently of experience, empiricists

1. Professor Dennett does not believe in the "hard" problem of consciousness as he believes that any aspect of it that is based in reality will have a scientific basis. The issue is that many people see the aspects of consciousness that there is a scientific basis as not real consciousness; which can actually be seen in the comments on that very video. As different pieces of consciousness become explainable, the definition in people's minds seems to change. I agree with him in the fact that the hard

Dichotomies as false reflections of reality: Scholars also argue that dichotomies are not concrete reality but rather assumptions and metaphors which hardly correlate with the reality, which is fluid and in which such fixed concrete categories are rarely found (Barbe 2001, Eckel and Weber 2007). Katharina Barbe (2001) suggest that there is a serious need to re-evaluate dichotomies before their repeated use since its use can lead us to misconceive “relationship between opposing hypothesis” (Wilkins

Explain Plato’s theory of forms. What is the function of the forms in relation to platonic metaphysics? What is the relation between the sensible and the intelligible? To begin I would like to firstly establish Plato’s theory of forms, which, is inextricably linked with his metaphysical theory and Platonic Dualism, (intelligible world and sensible world). Plato can be regarded as the first ever Metaphysician, as Plato is searching for the true nature of being, and believed that the world in which

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, French philosopher René Descartes proposes the concept of the cogito as an incontrovertible basis for his metaphysical system. This essay will explain the nature of Descartes’s cogito, assess his argument for the concept and its implications, and evaluate its merit as the “one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable” he so desired. This essay will begin with an explanation of the principle of cogito ergo sum and a gloss of Descartes’s argument

"Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again." The above quote of Karl Popper himself makes the overall point of his philosophy clear in a single sentence. He claims that we can never prove a theory, we can only fail to falsify it after many attempts, and if we do falsify the theory, we guess a new one. It does arises the following questions. What is a good test? What is a good theory? Can no guess be the final answer? After these questions are answered I will some reactions on

The philosopher Socrates and his thought process have shaped Greek philosophical thinking for generations. He is revered by academics and feared by others due to his complex method of thinking and attempt to understand the deeper workings of life. He believes that knowledge is directly related to virtue so in order to live a virtuous life one must seek knowledge. The main goal of Socrates’ philosophical work and teaching was not to get someone to realize a particular fact but rather to entice philosophical

Introduction Correspondence theory can be looked at as the most common and widespread method of understanding the nature of truth and falsehood. This theory maintain in reasoning that truth is whatever is in agreement to reality. Therefore any idea which is in agreement with reality is true while any idea which does not corresponds with reality is false. The main features of correspondence theory which are discussed in the subsequent paragraphs includes; there exists an independent realm of fact

B. Argumentum ad baculum and Non Sequitur. 1. Argumentum ad baculum is an Informal fallacy argument that is made through coercion or use of threats in order to force individual to support a particular position. 2. Argumentum ad baculum was employed by Nazis through his notice to Germans. He claims that their paper deserves support from every German. He threatens the Germans that if they will not have their support there were going to be some consequences in the case of cancellation. 3. The fallacy

Many great minds in the history of the world tried to find the “birth” of morality; its development and its own place in the world. People provided tons of theories and lots of conjectures and still have not come to the exact theory about the origin of moral ideas. However, there are some theories which are close to the truth and are based on Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative”, Edward Osborne Wilson’s “The Biological Basis of Morality” and on Andres Luco’s work “The Definition of Morality:

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, appearance is defined as “the way that someone or something looks.” The same dictionary defines reality “as the true situation that exists.” This poses the question of whether the way things appear is how they truly exist, and it is along that line that René Descartes wrote his Meditations on First Philosophy. Over 350 years after Descartes published his famous discourse, the American science fiction film, The Matrix, premiered, and pondered a similar