Persian Proverb Doubt Is The Key To Knowledge Philosophy Essay

Persian apothegm Doubt Is The Key To K instantaneouslyledge Philosophy EssayI take up been quite fascinated by the many changes that keep happening to what seems to be a certainty and realized that suspect has traditionally played a significant part in the philosophy of cognition. The ancient Greek philosophers debated the make love of noesis and the relevance of dubiousness. Plato depict knowledge as justified accepted belief1 the key word being belief which in itself is subject to interpretations by individuals. The famous French philosopher Renee Descartes tried to define knowledge in cost of certainty and in his arguments the path to certainty begins with doubt. In his book speculation 1 What can be called Doubt, he says I realised that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start a plus right- surpass(a) from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was horse barn and wishly to l ast.2So is there any truth in the Persian saying Doubt is the Key to Knowledge? Is this purely an epistemo system of logical empty talk or will it hold true in beas of knowledge as diverse as science and arts?Nobel laureate and premiseing physicist, Ric badly Feynman described doubt in relation to science as follows Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - roughly most unsure, some almost sure, none exactingly certain. A strong parallel can be drawn between his statement and space look for. What made man shoot down on the slug around or explore the possibility of life on Mars? As a knower, I know that if we would non nurture doubted the probability that man could live on the moon, space expeditions to the moon would control stopped after the near life and death drama of Apollo 13. The Apollo3 serial of expeditions seemed to have established that the moon was completely uninhabitable because of its inability to possess water. The desire to know and doubting what was already known, led to the Indian unnerve space expedition to the moon. The Indian space craft Chandrayaan discovered traces of tripe on the moons surface. So, can man really live on the moon? Science generally relies on a set of deductive logic to eject their hypothesis. Euclids 2 dimensional geometry is a classic case of using modus ponens or deductive logic to prove conjectures or hypothesis. exhalation by this, one could easily argue as follows Man needs atomic number 8 and water to live. Water contains oxygen. Ice is formed from water. Ice has been found on the moon therefore, man can live on the moon.www.plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/ modus ponens xenodochy.org/ term/popper.htmlwww.rep.routeledge.com/article/DA026SECT4www.space.com/8193-caused-apoll-13-accient.htmlPopper doubted this process of deductive truism and said it cannot prove a theory true every sentence. In his theory of refutal he argued that modus po nens is purely truth preserving and therefore a better alternative is modus tollens which uses the conditions of denying to falsify the assumption e.g. if P implies Q and Q is false, then P must also be false. Poppers falsification theory pointed out no scientific theory is ever conclusively verified, no matter how many tests it has survived4For example, Schizophrenia has all along been seen as a chronic relapsing psychotic disorder that primarily affects position and behaviour.5 A recent study by the University College of London has established by means of an experiment that in some cases, the perceptions of schizophrenic people is much accurate than those without schizophrenia. at that placefore a doubt is reachd whether schizophrenia is really a psychotic condition or atomic number 18 there other dimensions to it.Going by the argument that deductive knowledge doesnt always hold good, I can safely surmise that we do not have fit information to conclude that man can live on the moon and therefore to a greater extent questions need to be asked.On the other hand doubting every scientific fact leading to unnecessary research and information overload could lead to a situation of complete paralysis in our normal day to day life. For example, if we were to doubt that oxygen is a life giving substance, then it could lead to critical situations in health check emergencies.Similarly while dealing with society at large and friends and relatives in particular, if we were to doubt everything to seek more knowledge, we are most likely to get hold ourselves with very little knowledge and even fewer friends Peoples emotions, intentions and their behavioural traits like honesty, integrity, sincerity etcetera should not be doubted. There will be rare cases where people may want to deceive, but that by itself cannot lead to a doubt about people in general._____________________science.martinsewell.com/falsification.htmlpriory.com/schizo.htm.Shakespeare said If pract ice of medicine be the food of love, play on6.Wonderful as it sounds and probably not argued overly much, yet people have researched the effect that practice of medicine has on plants. There is one school of thought that believes and claims to have empirical data to prove that plants respond well to sedentary classical and akin(predicate) genre of music but they wilt under the influence of hard rock and similar music. Drawing a parallel with human life they argue that hard rock, metal etc is actually detrimental for human growth and therefore should be banned.Traditional botanists however argue that the so called empirical data found on research is purely coincidental and there is no correlation coefficient between music and growth of plants. They resort to another set of enjoin which shows that growth of plants is think to a number of factors that are not related to music such as condition of soil, temp, moisture content etc.On a third dimension, music itself has incompatibl e genres enjoyed by different people. Therefore is music also subject to perception or is it absolute? Does it really impact plant detrimentally or otherwise? If we doubt the basis of the claims and counterclaims and pursue with investigation from all angles, then, knowledge will work out and facts can be established.Science notwithstanding, art is abstract enough to create its own set of debates which normally focuses on the likes and dislikes of the perceiver. This leads me to wonder, if art and artistics are synonymous then to what extent is beauty a necessary share for something to be considered art? Platos theory of forms claimed that It is by beauty that beautiful things are beautiful. Immanuel Kant, an 18th century German philosopher on the other hand claimed that aesthetic experience is not a matter of understanding or reason, (and consequently not true knowledge), but is a matter of judgment Critique of Judgment.7 victorious this argument further, the flick by Eduord M anet8, Luncheon on the Grass, was hotly debated when it was commencement exercise exhibited in 1863. Most of all it was not viewed as an art, but as an affront to society. The painting, depicting a naked woman sitting amidst two fully clad men, all of whose images were contemporary and almost identifiable as one among the viewers, earned the painter the wrath of the critiques and masses. Yet an earlier painting by Thomas Coutre in 18479, Romans in The Decadence of the Empire picture a scene with Romans lying about with many naked women in various poses of sensuality. It appears to me, that a nude in classical settings such as the ancient Greek or Roman empires was considered acceptable but a nude in contemporary setting was not. Either way, the painting, known for its arguing today hangs as a masterpiece in the Musee D Oray in Paris.6. www.enotes.com/shaespeare-quotes/music-food-love-play7 www.creatorix.com.au/philosophy/t03/g010.html8 http//blog.photos2view.com/2008/05/27/art-an d-controversy.htm9 http//www.essentialart.com/acatalog/Edouard_Manet_prints_Luncheon_on_the_Grass.htmlAs a student of visual arts in IB, I was told that there are three staple colours red, lily-livered and blue. While using the electronic computer, trangely I found that the primary colours were red, green and blue, otherwise called the RGB format. So, what are the basic colours?The answer lay in the different mediums where they are used. Red, yellow and blue are primary colours which are used in while mergeing dyes to achieve other sunglasses and colours on a painting canvas.Red, green and blue are used where there are overlapping shades to be used while project on screens such as in LCD panels or monitors for computer screen. My doubt about the basic colours led me to seek excess information.The key to knowledge in this area of art was learning how to mix primary dyes in painting and this learning has been both experimental and experiential. winning the Platonist view that kno wledge is justified true belief, I can now reasonably claim to have knowledge that red and yellow if heterogeneous in equal ratios would give the colour orange or shades of orange.Whether the area of knowledge is science or arts, doubts and questions remain. Some answered with a sound amount of justification which points to a probable definitive answer base on information available at that point in time and others remain unresolved leading to further doubts.Therefore the question is knowledge absolute or is it infinite? We can never know unless we doubt all knowledge leading us to seek more and more information.The downside do we doubt everything in life or should we accept some events as empirical realities. The answer? It is situational.At the end, as a knower, when I look at the word doubt I can safely say that the Persian saying Doubt is the Key to Knowledge is not just an epistemological rhetoric it is indeed a means to gain more knowledge. In the words of H L Mencken an influential source and critic of the 20th century, Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.9___________________________www.leopoldsegedin.com/essay_detail_mona_lisas_smile.cfmwww.notable-quotes.com/d/doubt_quotes.html