Knowledge and Truth (Essay Sample)

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Knowledge and Truth
Introduction
Since the time of early thinkers such as Socrates, the study of the origin of the human knowledge has been of interest to philosophers. In their studies, these scholars have put forth several theories attempting to explain the source of knowledge. Empiricism is such a theory. Philosophers subscribing to this school of thinking have attested that the human knowledge possessed could only come from sensory experience and evidence, which are the building blocks of ideas in the human mind. Unlike Plato, who has argued that there are innate ideas in the mind, Aristotle may be described as being an empiricist. However, true empiricism occurs in modernity with the emergence of philosophers such as David Hume. Though subscribing to the same empirical theory, Hume and Aristotle approached issues of knowledge and truth from different perspectives with Hume, a skeptic, critiquing Aristotle's metaphysics theory.
Aristotle vs. Plato
Aristotle introduced to philosophy an epistemological concept of ‘tabula rasa’ that likened people’s minds to a blank tab where experiences leave memories that later become knowledge. Aristotle wrote that "What the mind reflects must be in it in the same sense as letters are on a tablet which bears no actual writing; this is just what happens in the case of the mind" (Madigan 430). This opinion contrasted that of Plato, who argued that the human mind possessed innate ideas. According to Plato, the human mind as a single body organ pre-existed and, hence, in it there were some already prevailing ideas (Madigan 238). Consequently, compared to Plato and other philosophers in his time Aristotle may be considered to be more empirical, and it follows from his ‘tabula rasa’ or blank slate theory that empiricism was born and developed by other philosophers.
Modern Empiricism
It is hard to assert who was the first true empiricist in the philosophical history, but Aristotle surely fits the description. His logic and metaphysics concept influenced what was later known to be modern philosophy. Through his system of deductive logic and science in explaining various issues and arriving at ideas of knowledge and truth, he was able to set a foundation on which modern empiricism is based.
Scottish philosopher David Hume added to Aristotle’s empiricist viewpoint a skeptical argument that contrasted Aristotle’s theory. Hume has kept Aristotle’s view that all awareness is derived from sense experience. Notably, however, he has divided the source the knowledge that people either possess into a relation with an idea or experience that was based on a fact or facts (Hausman 210). Hume has put forth propositions such as the belief of the sun rising everyday as the knowledge that an individual gains from the everyday experience (Rashid 159). He has concluded that all of man’s ideas were derived from impressions or what people may also describe as sensations. Hume has stated that impressions and ideas could not be true or false when looked at independently. Still, when combined to arrive at a judgment, only then can the view be considered true and in this way one may lay claim to truth or knowledge.
Similarity and Difference in Approach to Knowledge and Truth: Aristotle vs. Hume
The correspondence theory of truth is a theory that the truth corresponds to the existence of a fact that supports the idea. The philosophers Russell and Moore advocated this view. The correspondence theory of truth is usually associated with the metaphysics theory developed by Aristotle, who describes the truth as saying, "What is that is not or what is not that is, is false (Hume 178)." From this definition, the philosopher sounds more like a genuine correspondent to the truth. He talks of the underlying things that make a statement true and authentic and implies that these things are logically structured or simply facts. He, therefore, asserts that truth is the truth when it is supported by underlying facts such as in experiments and the testing of hypothesis to arrive at conclusions.
Hume, on the other hand, approaches truth from judgments that people experience over time that in turn help them develop knowledge. These experiences, he asserts, come from the daily experiences and occurrences that people witness and that are stored in the minds as experiences and that they use to come up with conclusions. Hume maintains that as long as one makes decisions about ideas that he or she already has, then one can say that these judgments are correct (Hume 278). He laments that analytic judgments are just grammatical deductions about the usage of words, and hence their truth is in effect the consequence of deductions that are themselves arbitrary or independent.
The principal similarity in approach to the truth by Aristotle and Hume is that both had a belief in God. Aristotle in his theories concluded that God is the final unmoved mover. He described God as a logical necessity who can alone put an end to the search for the final cause of option (Madigan 117). He emphasized that this God should be eternal and the supreme purpose of all things. Similarly, David Hume has agreed that God is not only implied in people’s thoughts as human beings because the thoughts are constantly changing, but he accepted God as an eternal being (Rashid 157). He stated that "God’s existence is implied in the implication of the existence of ideas that are implied in our non-mediate awareness of self" (Rashid 162).
According to Hume, it is in this consciousness of self that ideas of perpetuity, endlessness, and permanence are understood. He further argues that the perception of God is an implication of the belief of finitude and imperfection as characteristics of people’s individuality. Hume thus concludes that if people as human beings are imperfect, then there exists a perfect being who is God and human imperfection leads people to the belief that a perfect being, God, exists.
Aristotle concludes that to possess knowledge of the details, the knowledge of the universal is required. The way to knowledge is through deduction; the way to deduction is through induction, and hence there would be no knowledge without sense perception. Hume, on the other hand, proposes that people only see logical consequences that an observed theory of knowledge causes (Rashid 158). He asserts that humans have no sure knowledge of anything, and hence they are unable to proclaim the being of either objects or spirits. People’s notion of causative...