34:45 I'm so happy that a 40-minute introductory documentary on epistemology recognized the significance of Quine's naturalized epistemology and included it in its tight time window along with the big key figures in the history of epistemology.
For the first time I actually understand a bit of epistemology. Thanks. Personally, I agree with Richard Feynman. "The question of whether or not when you see something you see only the light or you see the thing you are looking at is one of those dopy philosophical things that an ordinary person has no difficulty with. Even the most profound philosopher, when sitting eating his dinner, hasn't any difficulty figuring out that what he is looking at perhaps might be only the light from the steak, but it still implies the existence of the steak, which he is able to lift by the fork into his mouth. The philosophers that were unable to make that analysis of that idea have fallen by the wayside through hunger. " 39:38. He is describing a Potemkin village. Queen Catherine the Great actually thought these were real houses and barns, but if she were to look behind them, she would discover they were only facades.
Yeah but... Ok, this implies that existence of a thing is verified if the eye sees it since it has to exist from which the light reflected it. This rests on the antecedent that existence rests on whether or not it can reflect light. Suppose there is a hypothetical thing that does not reflect light, does this mean it does not exist? Since the observer can not see it, since the light has not reflected back in his eye, the observer concludes that 'that thing' does not exist since it has not reflected light. Not every thing reflects light to show its existence. Certain germs are transparent and need certain dyes, or coatings, that make it reflect light. Otherwise they are transparent or very close to it. Suppose food is served to a man, on which there are germs. There are harmful germs on there some of which are very small (and therefore undetectable to stimulate the eye sensory organ), some which are nearly transparent and small. For this man, living in a technology deficient area, he does not have access to a well designed electron microscope and with special dyes and light technologies, to check it. Therefore, he would erroneously assume the food is safe to eat and get sick. But how could it be, the man asks, when the food looked liked it was food and nothing else on it. Turns out, there were things on it, in addition to the food, but his assumption that existence is what he perceives, what gets reflected into his sensory organ such that it is perceivable, did not hold. I suppose you can even imagine an even more interesting scenario. Imagine you are surrounded by transparent mirrors all around you. They don't have any function, they just move all around you and away. Since they are not reflecting light, the man states that the only things around him are everyday objects. But in this hypothetical world, there are ultra transparent mirrors, that move around him. Regardless of the uselessness of knowing the existence of ultra transparent mirrors or not, it still does not justify the non existence of those hypothetical mirrors.
@@winexhd9373 , I am sorry, but your language is confusing and erroneous. There is a paint created only recently, that does not reflect any light. It's the blackest black imaginable, and very easy to notice, as it contrasts even against very dark objects. A mirror that does not reflect is not a mirror. Unless it is all in total darkness. Come to think of it, perhaps what you are trying to present is total darkness. And, people in total darkness have a general "I don't know" attitude about everything that surrounds them. Unless they can touch things or hear sounds or echoes of their voice as they try to "sound" the place. Perception of reality is certainly not limited to sight. There is also sound, smell, touch, taste, plus the data that can be given by various instruments and devices. If there is none of that, the "I don't know" attitude is the safest and the most certain, though not always practical. In the example you give of poisonous invisible (and also not touchable and tasteless) jewels, the person eating them rushes to judgement that they are not there. Which is understandable, but in this theoretical situation is wrong.
George Berkeley was Irish, born: March 12, 1685, Dysart Castle, Kilkenny. One could argue that he was culturally British (not English as stated in the video @ 19:48) due to his Anglo-Irish background.
"The 3 major empiricists were all English - John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume". - David Hume. Scottish. - George Berkeley. Irish. - John Locke. English. A justified true belief undermined. (19:45)
Starts with the Greeks, then devotes all the time to Anglo-American philosophers, with 60 seconds in total for Kant and Wittgenstein, who of course, studied at Cambridge :)
It’s possible that the Greeks (and Heraclitus in particular) went as far as human thought and insight can penetrate. William Hazlitt (“our Shakespeare prose writer” as Keats called him) intimates this in his brilliant essay “Why The Arts Are Not Progressive”.
From this discussion, it is obvious that all religious beliefs lack epistemological rigor, and that systems based on revelation are inherently flawed. The pursuit of truth must necessarily, always employ the scientific method, that tried and true approach that has brought us from the darkness of prehistory into the present.
@@juliusclarke110 There is no discussion here. Only comments. Your “pursuit of truth” assumes we are getting closer to the prey. Society may have refined manners, and evolved “scientifically”. But as often is said “all philosophy is but footnotes to Plato”. Also David John Barrow one of the most rigorous mathematical minds of the last generation famously said: “A universe simple enough to be understood, could not have created a mind capable of understanding it”.
@@juliusclarke110 One doesn't have to subscribe to any specific religious beliefs to be sceptical about epistemological rigour. Science hasn't come up with an explanation for consciousness, nor is there any risk that it will anytime soon, despite all the dogmatic protestations.
Unthinkable that karl popper not mentioned. Strongly recommend that definitive answers given in ‘Logic of Scientific Dicovery ‘ as well as “Conjectures and Refutations’ by Popper be seriously considered by anyone claiming to have some elementary knowledge of epistemology !
Nice video. To me, epistemology and metaphysics should be investigated jointly. It seems that something is missing when you do not explicitly consider the fundamental aspects of reality that are assumed (although it is always implicit).
Epistemology is a very complex rigmarole and we need to be able to understand the underlying causes of this problem and the causes of the problem’s consequences…
The title should be "A Brief History of Epistemology IN THE WEST". Nothing wrong with limited scope, but let's please be more self-aware than this. The ability to think is NOT the monopoly of Europeans and their descendants. Epistemology has a very rich and deep tradition in Indian and Chinese philosophy. What counts as a valid basis of "knowing" something (pramāna) was what in fact caused heated disputes and splinters among the 16 major schools of Indian philosophy.
@@Himanshu-vz5xe a significant part of Chinese philosophy comes from the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra traditions (and so inherit much of the epistemology from there). Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed in the epistemological contributions of Kongfuzi, Laozi, Mengzi, Mozi etc. but I am told by colleagues it is rather refreshing to study.
@@spitfirerulz If you don't know about Chinese philosophy and epistemology, then don't comment. Chinese "philosophy" can't be put on the same level as Indian philosophy because mysticism is not philosophy.
@@Himanshu-vz5xe from your suspicious account name and the needless negativity, I suspect you are part of a bot-farm or have some ulterior political agenda. This is against the dharma of my teachers, I am sorry. I don't have any agenda and am very happy to spread the positivity of discussing Indian philosophy and its beauty. If there is value in philosophy from other cultures, I support that also, as dharma is universal. The Dao De Jing is one of the most beautiful works of literature I have read (and I have translated a part of from Classical Chinese into Tamil and English). The principle of "wei wu wei" of Laozi is quite akin to the Buddha's teaching of "effortless effort". I am also extensively familiar with Mozi's ethical philosophy, which has a huge relevance to current issues of what obligations we have to future generations (a part of my research involves this). The world has so much negativity in it, I would rather spend my one life trying to promote the good and prevent suffering. Good wishes to you.
My comment above was specific to epistemology. My familiarity with Chinese philosophy is limited to axiology (and a little bit of ontology), I am not as familiar with the epistemological contributions of these philosophers. However, I am familiar with the offshoots of Madhyamaka and Vijnāptimātra in Chinese Buddhism. E..g in Vietnamese Zen, the Cittamātra decomposition of mind objects derives from mediaeval Chinese philosophers and has a huge relevance to the field of Artificial Intelligence, as we seek to define what an intelligent agent is.
How does a theory of reality such as that of Donald Hoffman fit in with this approach to epistemology? That our mind's assumptions of time, spatial dimensions and sensory perceptions have necessarily been constructed to be incapable of allowing us the ability to apprehend true knowledge of reality?
Unforrunately, for the west everything begins - science, math, philosophy, knowledge theory - with greeks. But before them in India they had huge amount of works, especially in epistemology and linguistics (which is needed to express knowledge correctly) and it is ignored even to me mentioned.
@@SeanAnthony-j7f It is not self- contradictory when there are no contradictions. What flows from a no-assumptions metaphysics is inherently non-contradictory. All assumptions lead to contradictions - eventually.
@@kafiruddinmulhiddeen2386 don't be angry. Yes, I just finished "An Introduction To Mathematics" by Alfred North Whitehead which introduced me to basic non-so-technical preliminaries of mathematics- variables ~ quantifiers of "some" and "any" substitutions to definite particular things like natural numbers so rather than 2+3=3+2 we will generalize by x and y, so, if x and y will stand for any numbers, which are commonly used in Algebra and also to philosophy (like logic and meta-ethics). He also presents me a synopsis of his process philosophy that every event has a priori for cause and effect, likewise if the cloud is dark it is probably going to rain- it was kinda fuzzy for me so I'm not quite sure. Nevertheless, he surprised me a bit since he already got into methods of applications by immediately pushing my boundaries to application of algebra and geometry to dynamics such as introducing me Boyle's law--- I thought it was pure mathematics but it is not. He subsequently introduces me to other symbols of mathematics such as the Greek symbols which are commonly applied in physics, to generalizations of numbers, imaginary numbers, co-ordinate geometry, conic sections, functions etc. He was indeed a great mathematician and co-contributor to the infamous "Principia Mathematica" by Bertrand Russell. He was also a talented metaphysician. I was willing to study mathematics first and then study philosophy of science, logic and mathematics... Maybe also physics. I was just listening to this video while reading another book of mathematics but this time it is Algebra by Serge Lang.
If one is interested consider this from John G Bennett on page 105 of "The Dramatic Universe" vol.1: "The quality of knowledge depends primarily upon the quality of the knower; this is, the level of his being and the form of his will." One can read the four volumes of The Dramatic Universe to explore this more fully. Or one can read the shorter and more practical version in his work "Deeper Man" 1973 ed. What 'being' is and what 'will' is requires a great deal of transformation of the "knowing substance" for us to understand what he means by the words being and will. Thanks.
In my opinion, it's not very effective quoting Bennett on UA-cam. Instead, one needs to translate what he says into conventional discourse. So, for example, one could start by asking: "How is epistemology different for a child than for an adult (?)" It's not merely that an adult has more "quantity" of experience. Instead, the adult's "qualitative" capacity is different -- in regards to sexuality, for example. In this way, you'd be making the same point as Bennett . . . but people might actually listen to you.
Good comment. A R Orage another pupil of Gurdjieff said: “A man can only think as deeply as he can feel”. Thinking divorced from feeling produces only “the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.” (As Shakespeare characterised it).
@@QED_ That IS a good point. One made most brilliantly by Michel de Montaigne when he says that wisdom is mostly a borrowed commodity. But……..there are two sides to every coin. One of the great modernist literary critics of the last century came up with the phrase “the heresy of paraphrase”, meaning that profoundly clear thoughts (expressed either in prose or poetry) have their most significant impact in a particular form, mostly in that of the form used by the inventor. I love to read the vast variety of original and insightful comments on any subject on UA-cam. (Yours for example). But I also love to read direct incisive quotes, as I can discover a new thinker and admire incisive critical thinking felicitously expressed. Here is an example. The great American poet and lawyer Wallace Stevens said: "Every image is a restatement of the subject of the image in terms of an attitude". Like body and soul the meaning and the drift are inextricably interwoven, and cannot be parted.
@@garymelnyk7910 Thanks for your added material to consider and communicate this matter, helping make it clearer. It is encouraging to hear. What do you make of the ongoing ignorance and ignoring of even the simple consideration that man knows through three centers and unless they are balanced and enriched by a fine form of distilled energy, we remain at a low level of functioning and understanding of what we are. It is a severe lack of knowledge of what has been presented by Gurdjieff and his leading pupils. I guess we are still too limited in being receptive and living in the ongoing even burning question of what is this life and man. Just to mention one, Jacob Needleman who passed on last month did what he could as a philosopher and as a man to bring this view to light. But it is almost as if it fell and still falls on ears that either think they knew what he was pointing to and didn't really form a burning question or were of those who just dismissed his talks and books as not of essential significance. It is not easy to remember that we can be here and learn to anchor "something on earth as it is in heaven" for ourselves, our family and friends and ultimately for all mankind. Thanks be.
@@fineasfrog I´m glad to hear some thoughts like yours that seek to share about spiritual-religious phenomena. While I still haven´t read into Gurdjieff, I came across references to him occasionally as I pursued my spiritual path. I would refer to a range of people depending on the issues in question, but got started in personal growth work with work from the likes of Jack Kornfield´s Buddhist psychology and as I got oriented to dealing with anti-theists, drew on my Fritjof Capra and more. Capra´s System Theory of Life lays out a powerful component of a full epistemology.
A man was schoolboy back in the good old days when schoolboys were beaten. His teacher would get him to recite his times table, and if he got it wrong the teacher would beat him. Now if anyone says "8 times 12" to the man he will immediately shout "96", but because of his trauma he will not, and can not believe he knows his times table, and will vehemently deny any such knowledge. So does he KNOW his times table?
Thanks for this very special and beautiful knowledge. I will be used in my creative research work like " The Judiciary from another Constitutionally Scientific point of view" A perfect combination of philosophy and scientific concept to find the original truth in courts. Thanks once again
Epistemology: can we know anything with certainty, and if so, how? These interlocking questions mark the genesis of human wisdom. East and West traveled divergent routes in search of answers to these questions, but both began the journey approximately 25 centuries ago. Prior to this, all the most basic questions were answered by two authorities: religion and tribe. The gods made it so. Or, it's true because people like me - the authentic, true people - believe it to be true. The book banners of our current moment would like to erase the intervening 25 centuries.
@@die_schlechtere_Milch Unfortunately, Google only brings up another documentary series with exactly the same name. Was trying to find the date. The uploader didn't know or had some other reason for not including this information.
I've long thought that knowledge cannot be analyzed into a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, mainly because the concept of knowledge evolved for its practical application in language use (to emphasize, for example, the difference between believing something versus knowing something), rather than as a precise epistemological concept.
How are practical applications of the concept of knowledge effective for language use if it does not possess somewhat precise theoretical value in itself (as a concept)?
@@hakmagui9842 I didn't say it wasn't "somewhat precise," I said it wasn't precise enough to be analyzed into necessary and sufficient conditions. One way we often use the word "knowledge," for example, is to emphasize our degree of confidence in a belief, as when I say something like "I don't just believe that P, I know that P." That type of meaning is a far cry from being analyzable into a set of necessary and sufficient conditions.
@@9Ballr Just like when someone says "I dont like the person", it is seen as they are bothered by them, but it literally means "I dont have an appreciation for the person". The negation of a compliment doesnt necessarily mean an insult.
I´m grateful I got my education in empirically grounded subject matter, first biological anthropology, then eco-social international relations, along with real world experience. I found, then that epistemology hadn´t even been applied to help advance the confusion in science-religion discussions and conflicts. The need to recognize "knowledge domains" in the powerful subject matter disciplines of Western University-based culture has been a screaming necessity as I began addressing the confused range of ideological attitudes ignorant of empiricism and the need to build knowledge in discussion. Denialism, on the other hand, frequently based on scientific materialism, prevails. Epistemology, then, seems to me the term to use to represent knowledge domains in strongly concrete terms. Biology, for example, and psychology, for another. The distinctions, no less, between the physical and life sciences themselves and their subdisciplines, and in distinction from the social sciences, and in turn, the humanities, for starters.
Have you explored Buddhism to any degree. It "transcends" the kind of question you're asking by asking what kind of questions are actually necessary ; rather than finding it necessary to answer all questions for the sake of doing so. In other words "what questions do we REALLY want/seek the answer to?" I believe Heidegger also had this kind of approach though he wasn't Buddhist.
honestly, i've tried to be impressed by Plato & the gang -- and now I've decided to quit struggling with it -- because KNOWING is NOT the most important thing - it's really a side issue - we need not use any brain power at all on "how do we know what we know" in our daily lives. We remember the do's & dont's of most operations & we ASSUME many other aspects -- "is the money in my pocket legal tender or counterfeit?" I assume it's legal; if it's not, big deal, I'll cross that bridge when i come to it --
A lot of people, eg. scientists, find it necessary to wrestle with the ideas in epistemology in order to stay on track. Because the 'scientific method' is really about eliminating personal biases and skewed perceptions, taking long, hard looks at "how one really knows what one knows" is quite important.
Most people think philosophy and subcategories like epistemology are unnecessary and irrelevant to their needs. Pragmatism works for most people - until it doesn't and a more rigorous basis is necessary.
I think the understanding of philosophy must be approached from a multi faceted view. Not being imposed or superimposed on the fact that epistemology can only be western. Epistemology has no necessity if the word meaning is identified correctly. This is sufficiently cited in Vedic thought by giving nirukta the pedestal it deserves. Nirukta deals with meaning. From the deeper understanding of nirukta comes pramana. Pramana has authority to discuss the word meaning with examples to prove the meaning. Epistemology is not something that only the romans or the greeks came to know about it is the development of any culture that has sufficiently advanced understanding of language that aims to understand and perfect the basis of it.
Nice summary: 15:00 Agrippa's Trilemma 21:00 Locke"s version of the atistotelian Tabula Rasa, so.often misquoted 23:00 Berkeley 's issue Is more ontology than epistemology 26:20 Hume Is still right just ask Popper; again that goes well beyond pure epistemology 32:00 Descartes had no more problem than Moore for the perception of his hands he simply looked for a divine justification 37:00 Gettier was questioning the (unmentioned) platonic definition of knowledge from the Theaererus 40:00 I must disagree as any degree of false knowledge Is still knowledge Otherwise you would have to face the irreductible problem of Truth and fallibalism.
I would probably avoid flirting with ideas like "is science just fabricating everything" and "in totalitarian states, the public information is controlled by a dictator" out loud. Not because they aren't valid questions but because the crazies will start down their comfortable rabbithole and be completely unreachable by anything else you have to say.
15:42 Here the narrator says skepticism failed to hold hold up to foundationalism which is "still the most commonly held view". Has "the most commonly held view" got anything to do with truth?
Much seems to have been made of Gettiers 'insight', however he seems to be adding virtually nothing to what has gone before. It should be obvious from what has been previously said that we cannot be absoloutely sure about the truth of any statement or conceptualisation of states of affairs in any external relaity that is itself cojeceptualised to exist. All that remains is to argue rather pettily about the extent to which the term 'justifird belief' can be held to be synonymous with 'infallible knowledge'. WHAT A FUSS OVER NOTHING! This kind of things gives Philosophy a bad name!
Couldn't agree more. When I first encountered Getteir problems my initial thought was ‘ so what? ‘ It struck me as interesting but trivial. Then, assuming that I must be wrong, that all these hundreds of papers and references just had to be right, I pretended for year's that it wasn't trivial and it was a deep insight. Then, after a few years, I came round to my original thought: it isn't a particularly deep or profound example, it doesn't actually move anything forward other than posing a neat puzzle or thought experiment. People made entire careers out of emperors new clothes; which I can't blame them for, they finagled decades of funding for researching a dead end. But to this day I don't think Gettiers ‘insight’ deserved so much attention. To me it showed how epistemology had tied itself in knots in academic games.
Gettier showed that one can have a true justified belief and still not have knowledge if knowledge can't be lucky (e.g., guessing winning lottery numbers isn't knowledge). That doesn't seem like nothing "to what has gone before," because before, that was sufficient for knowledge... Also, a justified belief can still be false. Are you suggesting that if a belief were justified and false, it would still count as knowledge, i.e., that we can "know" falsely? How then would you characterize not knowing? And what does certainty have to do with Gettier examples? .
Even if all you can know is that your soul does not exist in the world outside your body, because you've looked around and you can't find it there, you still know something. You know enough to give you hope that your soul still remains within you, and until you actually die, you can cling to this hope and strive for the best opsec so that this knowledge won't be in vain.
Wonderful documentary but unfortunately focused solely on Western history of epistemology. These guys would be gobsmacked if they ever investigated Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Dharmakirti, Chandrakirti, etc.
@@rafaelnunesduarte For a layman, I would suggest first giving a shot at Vasubandhu's "Twenty Verses on Consciousness" and "Thirty Verses on Manifestation Only", as these are the shorter works, although at the end of the day a considerable grasp on Buddhist philosophy is advised to avoid misinterpretations. The great more extensive works are Dignaga's Pramāṇa-samuccaya, Dharmakirti's Pramāṇavārttika, Ratnakirti's Pramāṇāntarbhāvaprakaraṇa, whilst Chandrakirti's Prasannapadā and Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā offer alternate and more sceptical views on epistemology, and all of these latter ones can be quite heavy and opaque reading without commentary.
@@zarathustra8789 very interesting! I've read some on Sunyata doctrine, of Nagarjuna. Very introductory, by Yongey Mingiur Rinpoche. But i could tell it need more study for a more profound understanding. Thanks for the indications! 🙏👍
Soulorientation might be a desire of the blind person in us. Allegoria of something embryonatical inner being, made of getting born = Came to life = Fullfillment ??!! Or lustfull thougts ??!! Who knows ??!! Omnia gratia.
Hume's ideas around causality are total nonsense. Do cars work? Computers? Plows? Can you raise chickens for food? Can you read? Asserting that causes are not real is completely contrary to what is real. Because causes can be interrupted or misunderstood does not negate them. Causes exist, and we use them every day to survive.
"God is real" is not a fact. Just because humans conjure up images of omnipotent beings doesn't make any of them real. I have a soft spot for Ganesha, but there's no way an elephant can ride around on a mouse (or a rat -- they're unclear as to which is more likely) while dispensing its particular beneficence.
You don't say, "I don't have any reason for that" 12:49 You say, "I have every reason to believe it, because It's obvious. I can't even conceive of it not being true. I can give you a million examples of where holds, and you can't give me a single example where it doesn't. If that's not sufficient for you, then you're not a serious person, and you have nothing intelligible to say." There's really no need to concede any ground to the skeptic on his own terms. The skeptic can provide no reasons for doubting that aren't entirely dubious.
I quite enjoyed it. Do I understand correctly that you became uninterested because the question as to the justification of religious beliefs presents a challenge to your particular world-view? Well, welcome to epistemology, friend!
@@kdot78 I replied as I did, because the statement in the intro to the video spoke of God's existence as a fact. Believing in something does make the object of that belief a fact. It's the belief that's a fact.
34:45
I'm so happy that a 40-minute introductory documentary on epistemology recognized the significance of Quine's naturalized epistemology and included it in its tight time window along with the big key figures in the history of epistemology.
Good that you're still with us Gottfried!
yes, thank god!
Appreciate the consistent uploads
For the first time I actually understand a bit of epistemology. Thanks.
Personally, I agree with Richard Feynman.
"The question of whether or not when you see something you see only the light or you see the thing you are looking at is one of those dopy philosophical things that an ordinary person has no difficulty with. Even the most profound philosopher, when sitting eating his dinner, hasn't any difficulty figuring out that what he is looking at perhaps might be only the light from the steak, but it still implies the existence of the steak, which he is able to lift by the fork into his mouth. The philosophers that were unable to make that analysis of that idea have fallen by the wayside through hunger. "
39:38. He is describing a Potemkin village. Queen Catherine the Great actually thought these were real houses and barns, but if she were to look behind them, she would discover they were only facades.
That's a hilarious bit from Feynman. Had never heard that before.
Yeah but...
Ok, this implies that existence of a thing is verified if the eye sees it since it has to exist from which the light reflected it. This rests on the antecedent that existence rests on whether or not it can reflect light. Suppose there is a hypothetical thing that does not reflect light, does this mean it does not exist? Since the observer can not see it, since the light has not reflected back in his eye, the observer concludes that 'that thing' does not exist since it has not reflected light.
Not every thing reflects light to show its existence. Certain germs are transparent and need certain dyes, or coatings, that make it reflect light. Otherwise they are transparent or very close to it. Suppose food is served to a man, on which there are germs. There are harmful germs on there some of which are very small (and therefore undetectable to stimulate the eye sensory organ), some which are nearly transparent and small. For this man, living in a technology deficient area, he does not have access to a well designed electron microscope and with special dyes and light technologies, to check it. Therefore, he would erroneously assume the food is safe to eat and get sick. But how could it be, the man asks, when the food looked liked it was food and nothing else on it. Turns out, there were things on it, in addition to the food, but his assumption that existence is what he perceives, what gets reflected into his sensory organ such that it is perceivable, did not hold.
I suppose you can even imagine an even more interesting scenario. Imagine you are surrounded by transparent mirrors all around you. They don't have any function, they just move all around you and away. Since they are not reflecting light, the man states that the only things around him are everyday objects. But in this hypothetical world, there are ultra transparent mirrors, that move around him. Regardless of the uselessness of knowing the existence of ultra transparent mirrors or not, it still does not justify the non existence of those hypothetical mirrors.
@@winexhd9373 , I am sorry, but your language is confusing and erroneous.
There is a paint created only recently, that does not reflect any light. It's the blackest black imaginable, and very easy to notice, as it contrasts even against very dark objects.
A mirror that does not reflect is not a mirror. Unless it is all in total darkness.
Come to think of it, perhaps what you are trying to present is total darkness. And, people in total darkness have a general "I don't know" attitude about everything that surrounds them. Unless they can touch things or hear sounds or echoes of their voice as they try to "sound" the place.
Perception of reality is certainly not limited to sight. There is also sound, smell, touch, taste, plus the data that can be given by various instruments and devices. If there is none of that, the "I don't know" attitude is the safest and the most certain, though not always practical. In the example you give of poisonous invisible (and also not touchable and tasteless) jewels, the person eating them rushes to judgement that they are not there. Which is understandable, but in this theoretical situation is wrong.
I increasingly become a follower of Philosophy Overdose.
George Berkeley was Irish, born: March 12, 1685, Dysart Castle, Kilkenny. One could argue that he was culturally British (not English as stated in the video @ 19:48) due to his Anglo-Irish background.
22:03 really exemplifies the “Europe is my favourite country” idea
"The 3 major empiricists were all English - John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume".
- David Hume. Scottish.
- George Berkeley. Irish.
- John Locke. English.
A justified true belief undermined. (19:45)
The claim was "all British". Also, Hume was reintroduced as Scottish
Starts with the Greeks, then devotes all the time to Anglo-American philosophers, with 60 seconds in total for Kant and Wittgenstein, who of course, studied at Cambridge :)
It’s possible that the Greeks (and Heraclitus in particular) went as far as human thought and insight can penetrate. William Hazlitt (“our Shakespeare prose writer” as Keats called him) intimates this in his brilliant essay “Why The Arts Are Not Progressive”.
From this discussion, it is obvious that all religious beliefs lack epistemological rigor, and that systems based on revelation are inherently flawed. The pursuit of truth must necessarily, always employ the scientific method, that tried and true approach that has brought us from the darkness of prehistory into the present.
@@juliusclarke110 There is no discussion here. Only comments. Your “pursuit of truth” assumes we are getting closer to the prey. Society may have refined manners, and evolved “scientifically”. But as often is said “all philosophy is but footnotes to Plato”.
Also David John Barrow one of the most rigorous mathematical minds of the last generation famously said: “A universe simple enough to be understood, could not have created a mind capable of understanding it”.
@@juliusclarke110 One doesn't have to subscribe to any specific religious beliefs to be sceptical about epistemological rigour. Science hasn't come up with an explanation for consciousness, nor is there any risk that it will anytime soon, despite all the dogmatic protestations.
Well the title does give us a warning that it will be brief.
Unthinkable that karl popper not mentioned. Strongly recommend that definitive answers given in ‘Logic of Scientific Dicovery ‘ as well as “Conjectures and Refutations’ by Popper be seriously considered by anyone claiming to have some elementary knowledge of epistemology !
Knowledge is always incomplete.
and it’s beautiful and motivation like this.
Nice video. To me, epistemology and metaphysics should be investigated jointly. It seems that something is missing when you do not explicitly consider the fundamental aspects of reality that are assumed (although it is always implicit).
Epistemology is a very complex rigmarole and we need to be able to understand the underlying causes of this problem and the causes of the problem’s consequences…
😊wazoo
You just introduced your own rigmarole there 👏
Thanks very much for this. Any change of posting the other episodes of the series?
The title should be "A Brief History of Epistemology IN THE WEST". Nothing wrong with limited scope, but let's please be more self-aware than this. The ability to think is NOT the monopoly of Europeans and their descendants.
Epistemology has a very rich and deep tradition in Indian and Chinese philosophy. What counts as a valid basis of "knowing" something (pramāna) was what in fact caused heated disputes and splinters among the 16 major schools of Indian philosophy.
What knowledge do you have of Chinese epistemology?
@@Himanshu-vz5xe a significant part of Chinese philosophy comes from the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra traditions (and so inherit much of the epistemology from there). Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed in the epistemological contributions of Kongfuzi, Laozi, Mengzi, Mozi etc. but I am told by colleagues it is rather refreshing to study.
@@spitfirerulz If you don't know about Chinese philosophy and epistemology, then don't comment. Chinese "philosophy" can't be put on the same level as Indian philosophy because mysticism is not philosophy.
@@Himanshu-vz5xe from your suspicious account name and the needless negativity, I suspect you are part of a bot-farm or have some ulterior political agenda. This is against the dharma of my teachers, I am sorry.
I don't have any agenda and am very happy to spread the positivity of discussing Indian philosophy and its beauty.
If there is value in philosophy from other cultures, I support that also, as dharma is universal. The Dao De Jing is one of the most beautiful works of literature I have read (and I have translated a part of from Classical Chinese into Tamil and English). The principle of "wei wu wei" of Laozi is quite akin to the Buddha's teaching of "effortless effort". I am also extensively familiar with Mozi's ethical philosophy, which has a huge relevance to current issues of what obligations we have to future generations (a part of my research involves this).
The world has so much negativity in it, I would rather spend my one life trying to promote the good and prevent suffering. Good wishes to you.
My comment above was specific to epistemology. My familiarity with Chinese philosophy is limited to axiology (and a little bit of ontology), I am not as familiar with the epistemological contributions of these philosophers.
However, I am familiar with the offshoots of Madhyamaka and Vijnāptimātra in Chinese Buddhism. E..g in Vietnamese Zen, the Cittamātra decomposition of mind objects derives from mediaeval Chinese philosophers and has a huge relevance to the field of Artificial Intelligence, as we seek to define what an intelligent agent is.
How does a theory of reality such as that of Donald Hoffman fit in with this approach to epistemology? That our mind's assumptions of time, spatial dimensions and sensory perceptions have necessarily been constructed to be incapable of allowing us the ability to apprehend true knowledge of reality?
God I love this channel! Almost 2 much good content
Unforrunately, for the west everything begins - science, math, philosophy, knowledge theory - with greeks. But before them in India they had huge amount of works, especially in epistemology and linguistics (which is needed to express knowledge correctly) and it is ignored even to me mentioned.
I have cracked the foundation. My one assumption is that there is no assumption. Everything flows from that
You make assumptions on not making any assumptions at all... That's self-contradictory
@@SeanAnthony-j7f It is not self- contradictory when there are no contradictions. What flows from a no-assumptions metaphysics is inherently non-contradictory. All assumptions lead to contradictions - eventually.
@@kafiruddinmulhiddeen2386 geez ur still on UA-cam
@@SeanAnthony-j7f Yes, and apparently so are you. Did you learn something new today, boy?
@@kafiruddinmulhiddeen2386 don't be angry. Yes, I just finished "An Introduction To Mathematics" by Alfred North Whitehead which introduced me to basic non-so-technical preliminaries of mathematics- variables ~ quantifiers of "some" and "any" substitutions to definite particular things like natural numbers so rather than 2+3=3+2 we will generalize by x and y, so, if x and y will stand for any numbers, which are commonly used in Algebra and also to philosophy (like logic and meta-ethics). He also presents me a synopsis of his process philosophy that every event has a priori for cause and effect, likewise if the cloud is dark it is probably going to rain- it was kinda fuzzy for me so I'm not quite sure. Nevertheless, he surprised me a bit since he already got into methods of applications by immediately pushing my boundaries to application of algebra and geometry to dynamics such as introducing me Boyle's law--- I thought it was pure mathematics but it is not. He subsequently introduces me to other symbols of mathematics such as the Greek symbols which are commonly applied in physics, to generalizations of numbers, imaginary numbers, co-ordinate geometry, conic sections, functions etc. He was indeed a great mathematician and co-contributor to the infamous "Principia Mathematica" by Bertrand Russell. He was also a talented metaphysician. I was willing to study mathematics first and then study philosophy of science, logic and mathematics... Maybe also physics. I was just listening to this video while reading another book of mathematics but this time it is Algebra by Serge Lang.
Absolutely fantastic ❤
The Indian rishi’s already followed this line of thought (where he started out talking about the vase).
Heck, let’s start with ‘what does it mean to know something?”
If one is interested consider this from John G Bennett on page 105 of "The Dramatic Universe" vol.1: "The quality of knowledge depends primarily upon the quality of the knower; this is, the level of his being and the form of his will." One can read the four volumes of The Dramatic Universe to explore this more fully. Or one can read the shorter and more practical version in his work "Deeper Man" 1973 ed. What 'being' is and what 'will' is requires a great deal of transformation of the "knowing substance" for us to understand what he means by the words being and will. Thanks.
In my opinion, it's not very effective quoting Bennett on UA-cam. Instead, one needs to translate what he says into conventional discourse. So, for example, one could start by asking: "How is epistemology different for a child than for an adult (?)" It's not merely that an adult has more "quantity" of experience. Instead, the adult's "qualitative" capacity is different -- in regards to sexuality, for example. In this way, you'd be making the same point as Bennett . . . but people might actually listen to you.
Good comment. A R Orage another pupil of Gurdjieff said: “A man can only think as deeply as he can feel”. Thinking divorced from feeling produces only “the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.” (As Shakespeare characterised it).
@@QED_ That IS a good point. One made most brilliantly by Michel de Montaigne when he says that wisdom is mostly a borrowed commodity. But……..there are two sides to every coin. One of the great modernist literary critics of the last century came up with the phrase “the heresy of paraphrase”, meaning that profoundly clear thoughts (expressed either in prose or poetry) have their most significant impact in a particular form, mostly in that of the form used by the inventor. I love to read the vast variety of original and insightful comments on any subject on UA-cam. (Yours for example). But I also love to read direct incisive quotes, as I can discover a new thinker and admire incisive critical thinking felicitously expressed.
Here is an example. The great American poet and lawyer Wallace Stevens said: "Every image is a restatement of the subject of the image in terms of an attitude". Like body and soul the meaning and the drift are inextricably interwoven, and cannot be parted.
@@garymelnyk7910 Thanks for your added material to consider and communicate this matter, helping make it clearer. It is encouraging to hear. What do you make of the ongoing ignorance and ignoring of even the simple consideration that man knows through three centers and unless they are balanced and enriched by a fine form of distilled energy, we remain at a low level of functioning and understanding of what we are. It is a severe lack of knowledge of what has been presented by Gurdjieff and his leading pupils. I guess we are still too limited in being receptive and living in the ongoing even burning question of what is this life and man. Just to mention one, Jacob Needleman who passed on last month did what he could as a philosopher and as a man to bring this view to light. But it is almost as if it fell and still falls on ears that either think they knew what he was pointing to and didn't really form a burning question or were of those who just dismissed his talks and books as not of essential significance. It is not easy to remember that we can be here and learn to anchor "something on earth as it is in heaven" for ourselves, our family and friends and ultimately for all mankind. Thanks be.
@@fineasfrog I´m glad to hear some thoughts like yours that seek to share about spiritual-religious phenomena. While I still haven´t read into Gurdjieff, I came across references to him occasionally as I pursued my spiritual path. I would refer to a range of people depending on the issues in question, but got started in personal growth work with work from the likes of Jack Kornfield´s Buddhist psychology and as I got oriented to dealing with anti-theists, drew on my Fritjof Capra and more.
Capra´s System Theory of Life lays out a powerful component of a full epistemology.
Thank you for this video
A man was schoolboy back in the good old days when schoolboys were beaten. His teacher would get him to recite his times table, and if he got it wrong the teacher would beat him. Now if anyone says "8 times 12" to the man he will immediately shout "96", but because of his trauma he will not, and can not believe he knows his times table, and will vehemently deny any such knowledge. So does he KNOW his times table?
Thanks for uploading this
Predivno.
Thank you!
Thanks for this very special and beautiful knowledge. I will be used in my creative research work like " The Judiciary from another Constitutionally Scientific point of view" A perfect combination of philosophy and scientific concept to find the original truth in courts.
Thanks once again
Epistemology: can we know anything with certainty, and if so, how? These interlocking questions mark the genesis of human wisdom. East and West traveled divergent routes in search of answers to these questions, but both began the journey approximately 25 centuries ago.
Prior to this, all the most basic questions were answered by two authorities: religion and tribe. The gods made it so. Or, it's true because people like me - the authentic, true people - believe it to be true.
The book banners of our current moment would like to erase the intervening 25 centuries.
is hegel not in this other than a picture of his book at the start
Thank you
Could someone please provide the name of this documentary?
In the intro it says "Great Ideas of Philosophy" it seems to have been a series of documentaries
@@die_schlechtere_Milch Unfortunately, Google only brings up another documentary series with exactly the same name. Was trying to find the date. The uploader didn't know or had some other reason for not including this information.
@@robertalenrichter The date is 2004.
@@Philosophy_Overdose Thank you.
I've long thought that knowledge cannot be analyzed into a set of necessary and sufficient conditions, mainly because the concept of knowledge evolved for its practical application in language use (to emphasize, for example, the difference between believing something versus knowing something), rather than as a precise epistemological concept.
How are practical applications of the concept of knowledge effective for language use if it does not possess somewhat precise theoretical value in itself (as a concept)?
@@hakmagui9842 I didn't say it wasn't "somewhat precise," I said it wasn't precise enough to be analyzed into necessary and sufficient conditions. One way we often use the word "knowledge," for example, is to emphasize our degree of confidence in a belief, as when I say something like "I don't just believe that P, I know that P." That type of meaning is a far cry from being analyzable into a set of necessary and sufficient conditions.
@@9Ballr Just like when someone says "I dont like the person", it is seen as they are bothered by them, but it literally means "I dont have an appreciation for the person". The negation of a compliment doesnt necessarily mean an insult.
I´m grateful I got my education in empirically grounded subject matter, first biological anthropology, then eco-social international relations, along with real world experience. I found, then that epistemology hadn´t even been applied to help advance the confusion in science-religion discussions and conflicts.
The need to recognize "knowledge domains" in the powerful subject matter disciplines of Western University-based culture has been a screaming necessity as I began addressing the confused range of ideological attitudes ignorant of empiricism and the need to build knowledge in discussion. Denialism, on the other hand, frequently based on scientific materialism, prevails.
Epistemology, then, seems to me the term to use to represent knowledge domains in strongly concrete terms. Biology, for example, and psychology, for another. The distinctions, no less, between the physical and life sciences themselves and their subdisciplines, and in distinction from the social sciences, and in turn, the humanities, for starters.
Have you explored Buddhism to any degree. It "transcends" the kind of question you're asking by asking what kind of questions are actually necessary ; rather than finding it necessary to answer all questions for the sake of doing so.
In other words "what questions do we REALLY want/seek the answer to?"
I believe Heidegger also had this kind of approach though he wasn't Buddhist.
honestly, i've tried to be impressed by Plato & the gang -- and now I've decided to quit struggling with it -- because KNOWING is NOT the most important thing - it's really a side issue - we need not use any brain power at all on "how do we know what we know" in our daily lives. We remember the do's & dont's of most operations & we ASSUME many other aspects -- "is the money in my pocket legal tender or counterfeit?" I assume it's legal; if it's not, big deal, I'll cross that bridge when i come to it --
A lot of people, eg. scientists, find it necessary to wrestle with the ideas in epistemology in order to stay on track. Because the 'scientific method' is really about eliminating personal biases and skewed perceptions, taking long, hard looks at "how one really knows what one knows" is quite important.
Most people think philosophy and subcategories like epistemology are unnecessary and irrelevant to their needs. Pragmatism works for most people - until it doesn't and a more rigorous basis is necessary.
@@GeorgeSmiley77 scientists and also footballers
of course there is help in the truth.
Is there any place to get the transcript?
I think the understanding of philosophy must be approached from a multi faceted view. Not being imposed or superimposed on the fact that epistemology can only be western. Epistemology has no necessity if the word meaning is identified correctly. This is sufficiently cited in Vedic thought by giving nirukta the pedestal it deserves. Nirukta deals with meaning. From the deeper understanding of nirukta comes pramana. Pramana has authority to discuss the word meaning with examples to prove the meaning. Epistemology is not something that only the romans or the greeks came to know about it is the development of any culture that has sufficiently advanced understanding of language that aims to understand and perfect the basis of it.
Nice 👍
Thanks bro
Nice summary:
15:00 Agrippa's Trilemma
21:00 Locke"s version of the atistotelian Tabula Rasa, so.often misquoted
23:00 Berkeley 's issue Is more ontology than epistemology
26:20 Hume Is still right just ask Popper; again that goes well beyond pure epistemology
32:00 Descartes had no more problem than Moore for the perception of his hands he simply looked for a divine justification
37:00 Gettier was questioning the (unmentioned) platonic definition of knowledge from the Theaererus
40:00 I must disagree as any degree of false knowledge Is still knowledge Otherwise you would have to face the irreductible problem of Truth and fallibalism.
I would probably avoid flirting with ideas like "is science just fabricating everything" and "in totalitarian states, the public information is controlled by a dictator" out loud.
Not because they aren't valid questions but because the crazies will start down their comfortable rabbithole and be completely unreachable by anything else you have to say.
I’ve read a lot of philosophy but I don’t know these latter philosophers or their ideas.
🕶️
15:42 Here the narrator says skepticism failed to hold hold up to foundationalism which is "still the most commonly held view".
Has "the most commonly held view" got anything to do with truth?
3:41 we rely on Sean Hannity now...? Who else.
What A.I. text to voice program is is?
It's not A.I.
Great video, but George Berkeley was Irish , not English!
And Hume a Scot...
If she said British it could’ve worked
I can’t wait to find out more about stuff I will never talk about with anyone…. Say on…
Much seems to have been made of Gettiers 'insight', however he seems to be adding virtually nothing to what has gone before. It should be obvious from what has been previously said that we cannot be absoloutely sure about the truth of any statement or conceptualisation of states of affairs in any external relaity that is itself cojeceptualised to exist.
All that remains is to argue rather pettily about the extent to which the term 'justifird belief' can be held to be synonymous with 'infallible knowledge'.
WHAT A FUSS OVER NOTHING!
This kind of things gives Philosophy a bad name!
Couldn't agree more. When I first encountered Getteir problems my initial thought was ‘ so what? ‘ It struck me as interesting but trivial. Then, assuming that I must be wrong, that all these hundreds of papers and references just had to be right, I pretended for year's that it wasn't trivial and it was a deep insight. Then, after a few years, I came round to my original thought: it isn't a particularly deep or profound example, it doesn't actually move anything forward other than posing a neat puzzle or thought experiment. People made entire careers out of emperors new clothes; which I can't blame them for, they finagled decades of funding for researching a dead end. But to this day I don't think Gettiers ‘insight’ deserved so much attention. To me it showed how epistemology had tied itself in knots in academic games.
Gettier showed that one can have a true justified belief and still not have knowledge if knowledge can't be lucky (e.g., guessing winning lottery numbers isn't knowledge). That doesn't seem like nothing "to what has gone before," because before, that was sufficient for knowledge... Also, a justified belief can still be false. Are you suggesting that if a belief were justified and false, it would still count as knowledge, i.e., that we can "know" falsely? How then would you characterize not knowing? And what does certainty have to do with Gettier examples? .
Even if all you can know is that your soul does not exist in the world outside your body, because you've looked around and you can't find it there, you still know something. You know enough to give you hope that your soul still remains within you, and until you actually die, you can cling to this hope and strive for the best opsec so that this knowledge won't be in vain.
Smith' belief about coins in the pocket is irrelevant to himself being their possessor.
Wonderful documentary but unfortunately focused solely on Western history of epistemology. These guys would be gobsmacked if they ever investigated Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Dharmakirti, Chandrakirti, etc.
From those authors
niztche and tarkovesky hmm I see
@@rafaelnunesduarte For a layman, I would suggest first giving a shot at Vasubandhu's "Twenty Verses on Consciousness" and "Thirty Verses on Manifestation Only", as these are the shorter works, although at the end of the day a considerable grasp on Buddhist philosophy is advised to avoid misinterpretations. The great more extensive works are Dignaga's Pramāṇa-samuccaya, Dharmakirti's Pramāṇavārttika, Ratnakirti's Pramāṇāntarbhāvaprakaraṇa, whilst Chandrakirti's Prasannapadā and Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā offer alternate and more sceptical views on epistemology, and all of these latter ones can be quite heavy and opaque reading without commentary.
@@kdot78 Yes, my friend, two great men.
@@zarathustra8789 very interesting! I've read some on Sunyata doctrine, of Nagarjuna. Very introductory, by Yongey Mingiur Rinpoche. But i could tell it need more study for a more profound understanding. Thanks for the indications! 🙏👍
🍃💐🍃
good work
On what grounds does he assume that "automatic door opener[s]" exist? No answer is given.
Ok lecture.
Soulorientation might be a desire of the blind person in us. Allegoria of something embryonatical inner being, made of getting born = Came to life =
Fullfillment ??!! Or lustfull thougts ??!!
Who knows ??!!
Omnia gratia.
Thanks for this knowledge
17;20
vaze?
I thought this was about Epsteinology. My bad
😳
Ol' boy here only imagines that he understands propaganda. He needs to read some Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti.
Hume's ideas around causality are total nonsense. Do cars work? Computers? Plows? Can you raise chickens for food? Can you read? Asserting that causes are not real is completely contrary to what is real. Because causes can be interrupted or misunderstood does not negate them. Causes exist, and we use them every day to survive.
"state a thing that is certain. [...] god is real." ARE U NUTS. There is no "proof".
🌈🧩🛸🎼💎🪷🙏🦋
That ding-ding noise behind the narrator is really awful.
this intro is so scary wtf
Whateves! (ha!)
"God is real" is not a fact. Just because humans conjure up images of omnipotent beings doesn't make any of them real. I have a soft spot for Ganesha, but there's no way an elephant can ride around on a mouse (or a rat -- they're unclear as to which is more likely) while dispensing its particular beneficence.
Greeks were influenced by Hindu philosophers. At any rate all these philosophical theories were already anticipated by Hindu thinkers
Hologram are representative of another image. Anyhow the universe is a hologram if so hologram do not cast shadows. Like wearing a face mask.
You don't say, "I don't have any reason for that" 12:49 You say, "I have every reason to believe it, because It's obvious. I can't even conceive of it not being true. I can give you a million examples of where holds, and you can't give me a single example where it doesn't. If that's not sufficient for you, then you're not a serious person, and you have nothing intelligible to say." There's really no need to concede any ground to the skeptic on his own terms. The skeptic can provide no reasons for doubting that aren't entirely dubious.
"God is real"? How do you "really know"? I was interested in this video until that clueless god statement. Done here.
I quite enjoyed it. Do I understand correctly that you became uninterested because the question as to the justification of religious beliefs presents a challenge to your particular world-view? Well, welcome to epistemology, friend!
I understand your distress, but you simply cannot gain knowledge with the limiting beliefs you hold
@@kdot78 How do you know what my beliefs are? You call my "beliefs" "limited". Your judgmental attitude shows how limited you are.
@@jopowers5006 well first of all let me ask you this, why did you made that comment?
@@kdot78 I replied as I did, because the statement in the intro to the video spoke of God's existence as a fact. Believing in something does make the object of that belief a fact. It's the belief that's a fact.
I read it as epsteinology 😂
And then you clicked on it? 🤨📸
@@korpen2858 sure, why not.
@@butkiss536 Yes, this one right here officer 😶👆 👮♂️
@@korpen2858 nogaf
Epsteinology--the study of pederasty among the powerful.
Warning. This video is not very good, decidedly American.
I must admit, I first read this title as A brief history of EPSTEIN MEMES" ... was expecting Jeffrey Epstein memes here.
Epstein didn't know himself.
Thank you for this video