Midterm Exam Phil1201 - Bdbdbdbdb PDF

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St ud en t’s na m e & su rn a m e: Gu lar a Hu se yn ov a Tit le of Mi dt er m Ex po sit or y

April, 2021 Gulara Huseynova 11541 Introduction & Thesis statement Humans are anatomically close to apes but are differed by a more highly developed brain, communicative skill, and abstract reasoning. Besides this, people are quite different from each other genetically and intellectually. Biologically people are distinct because of their genes, but what does being intellectually divergent mean? It means people differ from each other due to their perception, understanding, beliefs, knowledge, and the way of thinking about life. All of those have driven to a single point- mental map. A mental map is a person’s point of view about the reality of the world. Every human being has such a mental map of reality, which includes a person’s limitlessness and restrictions in this world. This essay will explore whether people are limited to their own mental maps and how are epistemological faculties influenced by our mental maps. During the process of socialization, people’s mental maps are built. There are different stages of socialization and the first and very important one is a family; in other words, initial ideas and beliefs come from families- parents and close relatives. Referring to Duschinsky (2012), Locke claimed that interactions with the world changed the mind from a blank slate, or tabula rasa, to polished ideas. As people are growing up, they are becoming aware of positive doubting. According to philosopher Abelard (n.d.), “by doubting we are led to enquire, and by enquiry we perceive the truth”. Doubting is one of the epistemological ways to explore this world. The epistemological approach that has been connected with doubting is known as skepticism. Skepticism is the practice of knowledge propositions made in a variety of fields (Popkin, 2020). The following paragraphs will deeply analyze epistemology, its faculties, and how they are influenced by people’s mental maps.

Epistemology “Epistemology, the part of philosophy, is the philosophical study of certain questions about belief, human knowledge, opinion, and reasoning” (Stroud, 2011, p. 495). Although the main questions of epistemology are quite broad, its faculties are restricted to empiricism, rationalism, and skepticism. Epistemological approaches are theoretical understandings of how people can know something about the world. Since skepticism is already discussed above, the next two approaches that require clarification are empiricism and rationalism. According to Schantz (2014), empiricism is the view of our knowledge that comes from the 1 ADA University | PHIL 1201 | Midterm Expository Essay

April, 2021 Gulara Huseynova 11541 evidence of the senses. In other words, knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. Knowledge is one of the most unique and influential features of human life. “Tradition analysis of knowledge, which was believed by ancient philosophers, stated that knowledge always requires a certain explanation of the truth” (Hetherington, 2014, p. 119). However, according to modern philosopher Gettier (1963), justification and truth were necessary for knowledge, but not sufficient in all cases. Throughout his paper, he illustrated two cases, which were counterclaimed the classical or justified true belief (JTB) analysis. The main goal was to adjust JTB to achieve a “Gettier-proof” concept of knowledge. Despite these diverse and strong approaches toward knowledge and belief, it is obvious that both belief and knowledge play an important role in formulating mental maps. Mental maps are composed of both objective knowledge and subjective perceptions. The role of religion in mental map There are various elements that play an important role in creating personal mental maps. One of the factors that affect our mental map is religion. It is believed that there are two types of religion – the institutional and the personal. Society and public life are affected by institutional religion, on the other hand, personal religion influences inner beliefs and attitudes. Although both sorts of religion have an impact on the mental map, personal religion take a great part in this process. Therefore, personal religion will be explored. Faith is a must in a religious attitude to direct a person’s behavior. Once it becomes part of a person’s behavior, it is hard to change religious beliefs (Andersson & Greenspan, 2002). The role of culture in mental map The next component that plays an active role in forming mental maps is culture. Referring to Brym and Lie (2013, p. 30), “culture is the sum of practices, languages, symbols, beliefs, values, ideologies, and material objects that people create to deal with real-life problems.” Culture has three main functions and allows people to adapt and flourish in their surroundings. The first factor that permits human culture to survive is the capacity for abstraction. People can think abstractly; in other words, they create symbols and ideas that convey special essence. The next function of culture is the ability to cooperate. Cooperation requires generating norms – accepted ways of doing something- and values- ideas about what is right or wrong. 2 ADA University | PHIL 1201 | Midterm Expository Essay

April, 2021 Gulara Huseynova 11541 The last but not the least feature is the production. As stated by Schmutz and Miller (2015), the production of culture arose as a means of comprehending the external factors that affect cultural symbolic components. As expressed in the Sapir-Whorf Thesis, we establish ideas about things that we experience, then evolve language to convey our thoughts. It holds that language itself then affects how we perceive the world. (Hussein, 2012). Kant’s epistemology The next issue to highlight is that whether we do really can know something clearly and surely without our subjective bias. As discussed above, there are two important movements- rationalism and empiricism- that are dealing with ways how we can break limitations of the human mind and become knowable of our thoughts to gain knowledge from the outside of us. However, these concepts vary depending on their approaches: the empiricists attempt to use senses and posteriori to accomplish their goals, contrary to them, the rationalists apply a priori reasoning to build the important connection. These two historical movements have a remarkable effect on Kant. Kant believed that these types of categorizing is not enough to the understanding of knowledge. He dedicated a large part of his work to address the question “What can we know?”. Kant believed that ideas – which are the basis of knowledge- should be because of realities that taking place in human minds; however, things-in-themselves should stay unknown forever. Human knowledge fails to reach them because it can only emerge from the synthesis of sense ideas (“Transcendental idealism”, 2020). Conclusion To sum up, it can be noted that the thesis statement has been successfully explored. Epistemology and its faculties are discussed, also, justified true belief and Gettier cases are used to examine knowledge. Two factors-religion and culture- that influence our mental maps are deeply studied. However, the last part of the essay dedicated to Kant’s approach toward whether what we really can know.

Reference

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April, 2021 Gulara Huseynova 11541 Abelard, P. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved April 09, 2021, from AZQuotes.com Web site: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1258510 Andersson, S., & Greenspan, L. I. (2002). Russell on religion: Selections from the writings of Bertrand Russell. In Russell on religion: Selections from the writings of Bertrand Russell (pp. 70-79). London, UK: Routledge. Brym, R. J., & Lie, J. (2013). Culture. In Sociology: Pop culture to social structure (pp. 28-47). Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Duschinsky, R. (2012). "Tabula Rasa" and Human Nature. Philosophy, 87(342), 509-529. Retrieved April 9, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41682980 Gettier, E. (1963). Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis, 23(6), 121-123. doi:10.2307/3326922

Hetherington, S. (2014). The Gettier Problem. In 1297547911 955384922 S. Bernecker & 1297547912 955384922 D. Pritchard (Authors), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (pp. 119-130). New York, USA: Routledge.

Hussein, B. A. (2012). The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Today. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(3), 642-646. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.3.642-646

Popkin, R. H. (2020, November 18). Skepticism. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/skepticism Schantz, R. (2014). Skepticism and Anti-realism. In 1297547911 955384922 S. Bernecker & 1297547912 955384922 D. Pritchard (Authors), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology (pp. 477-487). New York, USA: Routledge. Schmutz, V., & Miller, C. N. (2015). Production of culture. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 1-14. doi:10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0265 Stroud, B. (2011). Epistemology, the History of Epistemology, Historical Epistemology. Erkenntnis (1975-), 75(3), 495-503. Retrieved April 8, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41476736 4 ADA University | PHIL 1201 | Midterm Expository Essay

April, 2021 Gulara Huseynova 11541 Transcendental idealism. (2020, February 14). Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/transcendental-idealism

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