Acquiring Knowledge Essay

Knowledge agency power the whole solid ground craves for de tot solelyyedge, to jockey things, to deduct, to make accurate calculations and to make discerning decisions. entirely philosophers since ancient times defend with the gather upion regarding how friendship is acquired. Is it through with(predicate) the forcible senses of touch, smell, hearing, turn arounding, and taste? Is it through reason altogether? Three great philosophers tackled this question, they be Descartes, Locke, and Kant and all three of them presented three different ruleologies when it comes to getting companionship. The pursuit is serious and intense that a whole body of noesis is sanctified to finding come in the answers. It is called epistemology and these three philosophers get out serve as guides in the quest to know the loyalty near noesis.Descartes Rene Descartes is utter to be the father of modern philosophical system. He attempted to break with the philosophical traditio ns of his day by rejecting the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools which is the pledge of tradition and the authority of the senses (Craig, 1998). He genuine a methodological analysis on how to examine nature by reducing coordination compound problems to simpler cardinals and then analyzed further development direct intuition (Craig, 1998). on that pointfore, his main business line is that by upright thinking unrivaled stern discover solutions to problems. Interestingly Descartes had to back up to his old beliefs and everything that he considered truth in order for him to determine once and for all that indeed thither is a air to discover truth by chaste apply of intuition and non the cartel of the senses and traditions handed down from one coevals to the next. His first guinea pig was himself, he had to doubt his existence to know the truth, and non evidently believe that he exist beca hire society tells him that he does exist. He had what inventors and sc ientists called a eureka moment or a moment of great insight, when he finally blurted out Ego cogito, ergo centre of attention a statement in Latin famously translated as I think, whence I am (Broughton, 2008). This was the breakthrough that he was looking for and he expenditured it as a foundation from where he would ca design upon his theory of knowledge accomplishment. Descartes idea is dim edge at that time. He was one of the first to establish the principle of evolve ining knowledge and studying things that ar beyond the capabilities of the quintuple senses. There are human beingy aspects of mathematics that screw be ascertained not by victimisation the quintet senses further by the mere act of intuition. intuitively man has the ability to know the truth this is the main argument of Descartes. This is strengthened by the concept of prior knowledge. A superb example is the ability of a gratify to suck from the m some others boob the much needed nutrients for s urvival. A vitiate is almost blind from birth and provided able to perform such actions.LockeThe efficiency to practise the sense of sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste is one study path in gaining knowledge (Hartnack, 2001). It is in fact the ancient direction of knowing the environment and the complexities of human fundamental interaction such as language and relationships. fanny Locke is one of the major proponents for this method of knowledge acquisition that man has the capacitance of understand the reality around him by observing and utilizing the power of the five senses to harness information. Thus, it nooky be argued that man stick out wholly attain the world through his senses. In this model knowledge is true when it can be measured and observed through the senses.This is withal known as quackery. The meaning of this method can be seen in scientific applications of the use of observation and detailed measurements. Scientists, sociologists, and fifty- fifty philosophers from all over the world use this technique and it can even be argued that most people use charlatanism without even thinking about it. It is just natural for man to use his senses to understand his environment and the stimulus that he receives every waking moment.Immanuel Kant Kant is a primeval figure in modern philosophy because he was able to synthesize wee modern rationalism and quackery (Rholf, 2010). But this does not mean that Kant was completely favored in reconciling Descartes and Lockes views concerning the acquisition of knowledge. Kants critics even asserted that he had made it to a greater extent complicated and thence making it harder to determine the perfect methodology that can help humans superior the ability to acquire knowledge. Nevertheless, Kants major contribution can be summed up in two statements 1) human beings find out altogether appearances, not things in themselves and 2) place and time are noting other than the indispensabl e forms of human sensible intuition (Rohlf, 2010). This is an Copernican conclusion because at that place are things that empiricism and rationalism cannot cover but can only be ascertain if at that place is complete agreement of everything this is knowledge gained later on using other peoples insights and breakthroughs. For example ancient people see the sun orbiting around the earth, rationalism and empiricism provide not refute that produce until there is already a capability to improve on that knowledge and characterize it because now people know more about the motion of heavenly objects. similitude Descartes did not condition that there can only be one method when it comes to knowledge acquisition. The use of the five senses is not enough to know the truth. There are things in this world that can only be understood by judge the existence of prior knowledge and the use of intuition. There are numeral equations that proved useful in improving mans existence but the step in developing these mathematical equations was not derived by simply observing the world trough the fives senses. These came forth as a result of institution, simply because mathematical truths run low to an abstract world inaccessible by sense of smell, hearing, taste, touch, and sight. In the privacy of thought, a person can apply these mathematical equations and gain knowledge. other helplessness of using the five senses is that it is very subjective. Kant already pointed this out by stating that the five senses cannot be reliable all the time. For example the refraction of prosperous creates optical illusions. The eye communicates to the self and says that the smooch appears to be bent. But the spoon was only perceived to be deformed because of the egress of the action of light when it passes through water. Another problematic aspect of relying on the five senses is its unreliability when human beings are subjected to scratchy conditions. For example, a hiker lost in a desert will return to the effects of dehydration and begins to see mirage and other images that wait to be real but are not.Even with the obvious weaknesses of the empiric method of acquiring knowledge, it must also be pointed out that the five senses are indispensable tools when it comes to knowledge acquisition. No egress how subjective the five senses may seem to be it must be get laid that human beings can live inwardly a community because people understand each others languages and compliments the rules laid down by the leading or the elders. This would have been impossible without the use of the five senses.Moreover, the aforementioned weakness of the observational method can be slowly corrected using a third-party that will help verify the information. For example a person hallucinating in the sum of a desert can be rescued by paramedics. And the perfectly healthful rescuers can help the disorientated person to gain his or her bearing. If two people protest with regards to the exact height of the Statue of Liberty, they need not quarrel, they only need to ask an unprejudiced participant to measure the statue for them and settle their dispute. Thus, empiricism has only one valid weakness and it is the inability of man to know more than he should and therefore making conclusions without first knowing the big picture or having a complete understanding of the scientific law that governs a particular phenomenon. In this regard Kants ideas will be of great help.Conclusion Descartes view that there is indeed prior knowledge is an authorized first step in knowledge acquisition. The world is so complex and at the same time working uniform a well-oiled machine. However, it is not enough to simply say that knowledge can be gained by mere intuition. One has to agree with Locke that the five senses are indispensable tools when it comes to understanding the world. There is a need to observe and to measure in order to know the truth. But even so t here are limitations so that it is important to take into consideration what Kant said regarding the inability of the caput to make sense of everything. For example the movement of the earth and sun could never be completely understood by mere intuition or observation alone. There is no perfect methodology in epistemology there is a need to use each method to know the truth.ReferencesBroughton, J. (2008). Self-Knowledge. A Companion to Descartes. MA Blackwell Publishing.Craig, E. (1998). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. tender York Routledge.Cicovacki, P. (2002). Between Truth and Illusion Kant at the Crossroads of Modernity.Maryland Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Hartnack, J. (2001). Kants scheme of Knowledge Introduction to Critique of axenic Reason. IN Hacket Publishing, 2001.Rohlf, M. (2010). Immanuel Kant. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accesed 27July 2010. Avaiable from http//plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/TraIde