WEEK 3
Empiricism
What do you make of empiricism's claim that all of our knowledge is based on the use of our senses? What areas of knowledge do you think support this theory? Are there any types of knowledge (mathematical knowledge, for example?) that you think are a problem for this theory?

For it makes sense the claim that all of our knowledge is based on the use of our sense. Let’s take Hume for example. He states that we have two kinds of impressionism. The first one is the data sense such as sounds, odor, taste and tactile. The second one is the internal world that has our psychological experiences. I think this is a great theory because the second one is related to the first. How many times that you passed by a bakery and the smell of the bread reminded you of the bakery near your house when you were a kid? How about that ocean sound that brought you memories of when you spend some vacations at your friend’s beach house?
Hume also uses the term “idea” where he describes, “ for an idea to have any meaning or legitimacy, it must be traced back to our original, impressions or combinations of impressions”. Therefore I think that all of these ideas are connected in a way that one depends upon the other to have some meaning.

WEEK 2
What do you think about methodological skepticism? Do we ever follow this procedure in our daily lives, or do we do the opposite. In other words, do we tend to believe things until it becomes impossible to believe them, rather than doubting everything we can? If so, does this suggest that methological skepticism is not a good strategy?

I really enjoyed Descartes. Some of the things that he said I never really thought about. ¨I am, I exist¨ this is great. That means that we can doubt anything, but once I think and doubt things I can’t doubt that ¨I think, therefore I am¨.

Descartes tries to put solid bases for the true knowledge. ¨ I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely an start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.¨ What I understand from that is if you have simple but solid bases for your knowledge you will be able to reconstruct a more complex knowledge.

I don’t think that we doubt everything we can in our daily life but it doesn’t mean that methodological skepticism is not a good strategy. Lots of things that we see in our daily life we just can´t doubt. Simple things like a chair is a chair or a car is a car and so on but in the other hand some of our believes we are a little skeptical even though we don’t want to admit. Lets talk God for example. We believe that there is a God, but what are the SOLID BASES for this kind of thinking? Another example that I would take is evil. Is the evil really exist or is just our imagination? For this we have to argue that if evil did not exist how would we know what good is? Some things about skepticism I think we just accept based in our own life experience.

Week 1

I don’t know if I can completely agree with the Socrates suggestion that with out philosophical education we are all like the prisoners in the cave. However I have to agree with him that every one have the right to know the truth, and that’s what philosophy is all about. The problem that I see with this is if you are the only one that sees the truth, how can you convince everyone else, that’s really the truth? Do you impose that truth? How can you convince them that the world of shadow that they were living in is not the real world? May be that’s why Socrates seem so pessimistic about life with out philosophy. Philosopher, at the time, were very special people, with a lot of knowledge, they knew about physics, biology, chemistry and so on, and because of that they were people that could bring the truth from the shadow, they could bring the truth that the average people would not know and for me this is a type of liberating. For me this passage is very complex, we can discuss different points indefinitely, but the one thing that I have to defend is that the truth has to be revealed and it is up to the individual to embrace it or not.