Modern Philosophy
Logic is the science dealing with the principles of valid reasoning and argument. The study of logic is the effort to determine the conditions under which one is justified in passing from given statements, called premises, to a conclusion that is claimed to follow from them. Logical validity is a relationship between the premises and the conclusion such that if the premises are true then the conclusion is true.
The validity of an argument should be distinguished from the truth of the conclusion. If one or more of the premises is false, the conclusion of a valid argument may be false. For example, “All mammals are four-footed animals; all people are mammals; therefore, all people are ...
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be affected. By substituting “four-footed” for “two-footed,” it can be seen that the premises could both be true and the conclusion false. Thus the argument is invalid, even though it has a true conclusion.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that addresses the philosophical problems surrounding the theory of knowledge. Epistemology is concerned with the definition of knowledge and related concepts, the sources and criteria of knowledge, the kinds of knowledge possible and the degree to which each is certain, and the exact relation between the one who knows and the object known.
In the 5th century BC, the Greek Sophists questioned the possibility of reliable and objective knowledge. Thus, a leading Sophist, Gorgias, argued that nothing really exists, that if anything did exist it could not be known, and that if knowledge were possible, it could not be communicated. Another prominent Sophist, Protagoras, maintained that no person's opinions can be said to be more correct than ...
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own mental states. The critical realists took a middle position, holding that although one perceives only sensory data such as colors and sounds, these stand for physical objects and provide knowledge thereof. A method for dealing with the problem of clarifying the relation between the act of knowing and the object known was developed by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl. He outlined an elaborate procedure that he called phenomenology, by which one is said to be able to distinguish the way things appear to be from the way one thinks they really are, thus gaining a more precise understanding of the conceptual foundations of knowledge. During the second quarter of the 20th century, two ...
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Modern Philosophy. (2007, May 22). Retrieved November 12, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Modern-Philosophy/65262
"Modern Philosophy." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 22 May. 2007. Web. 12 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Modern-Philosophy/65262>
"Modern Philosophy." Essayworld.com. May 22, 2007. Accessed November 12, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Modern-Philosophy/65262.
"Modern Philosophy." Essayworld.com. May 22, 2007. Accessed November 12, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Modern-Philosophy/65262.
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