The Meditator realizes that while he is asleep and dreaming, he perceives objects with the same sense of reality as if he were awake. Even though he is dreaming, his senses and perceptions appear to be completely real and convincing. ... After presenting this argument, he goes on to claim that his perceptions in his dreams appear to be so real because while sleeping, he draws on perceptions and beliefs that he has come to know in his waking life. ... By the end of the First Meditation in Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy, The Mediator comes to doubt most everything he has prev...

• Word Count: 1233
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Empiricism is the belief in sense perception, induction, and that there are no innate ideas. ... Unlike rationalists, empiricists believe that sense perception is the main source of knowledge. ... Along with sense perception, empiricists believe that our ideas are also acquired through experience. ... Hume stated that people learn through perceptions. ... However, Hume recognizes that not all perceptions are true. ...

• Word Count: 1498
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Descartes" statement "I think therefore I exist" raises questions about the meaning of thought, the meaning of existence but most fundamentally, in what sense he can be certain. ... However, if Descartes" definition of thought was really this broad it would need to be possible to assert that having sensory perceptions was indubitable as the ability to think. However, as he asserts in the first meditation, it is not the case to believe that "I have sensory perceptions" necessarily makes it a true belief. Despite this difficulty, Descartes" inclusion of, among others, imagination in the above de...

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I believe that Descartes argument for the existence of God makes logical sense and satisfies the need for his other argument that we need to know if anything is certain anymore because of the Evil Genius. ... The steps of reasoning Descartes goes through to contradict the idea of an Evil Genius logically makes sense and is convincing that there is a God. ... Hume's idea of self is that we are a collection of perceptions and impressions. Perceptions and impressions are visuals that strike the mind with most force or violence. Perceptions and impressions create memories that resemble ob...

• Word Count: 1300
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• Grade Level: High School

Descartes described the sky, the clouds, the earth itself as subject to perception of the senses. ... Common wisdom to the contrary, Descartes wanted to prove that a sense of knowledge would lead one to understand that a hand or leg is a thing but not the entire you. ... Each of these senses is subject to an individual's perception therefore very unreliable. ... The shape of someone is merely my perception of him or her, a perception that may be shared by nobody else. Does this make my perception false or as Descartes suggest make my perception irrelevant. ...

• Word Count: 1154
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• Grade Level: High School

According to Descartes, thought includes doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, refusing, and also imagining and sensing. ... The thought that is most related to his argument is sensory perceptions. ... This intellect includes out sensory perceptions. ...

• Word Count: 314
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• Grade Level: High School

He considers how much we can really know about the objects we perceive and this analysis leads him to distinguish two types of quality present in the external world which our perception recognises in different ways. ... Primary qualities are those which are inseparable from the object of our perception in that the object would cease to be as it is if these qualities were not present in it. ... However it is clear to Locke that colour, temperature etc are merely a result of the interaction of particles (and their primary qualities) with our sense organs. ... We could only conclude that thing...

• Word Count: 2597
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Locke defined knowledge as "the perception of the connection and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of our ideas". ... The senses as our receptors to the outside world were however split into two categories depending on their quality of perception. ... As the materialist believes, primary qualities of an object are those things that are abstract (not sense oriented). ... Secondary qualities are those things that are concrete (sense oriented), such as color, smell, sound, and taste. ... The world as we know it exists; it is just a world of mental images and perceptions. ...

• Word Count: 2949
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Descartes" statement "I think therefore I exist" raises questions about the meaning of thought, the meaning of existence but most fundamentally, in what sense he can be certain. ... However, if Descartes" definition of thought was really this broad it would need to be possible to assert that having sensory perceptions was indubitable as the ability to think. However, as he asserts in the first meditation, it is not the case to believe that "I have sensory perceptions" necessarily makes it a true belief. ... Thus the assertion that "I am aware that I have sensory perceptions" is as indubitable ...

• Word Count: 1657
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Rene Descartes' avowal, "I think therefore I am- elicits questions about the meaning of thought, the effect of existence and most fundamentally, in what sense he can be certain; what can Descartes leave un-doubted? ... Nevertheless, if Descartes' definition of thought was this broad it would need to be possible to assert that having sensory perceptions was as unquestionable as the ability to think. However, as Descartes stresses in the first meditation, it is not the case that believing, "I have sensory perceptions- automatically makes it a true belief. ... Thus, the statement that...

• Word Count: 1519
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Rationalism is acquired independently or prior to sense experience. ... Empiricism is also known as a posteriori, it depends entirely on the sense perception. ... Sense experience is the basis for knowledge which we can prove that we exist. ... Primary qualities exist independent of being observed such as mass and shape whereas colour is a secondary property, the mind is creating the sense experience (Locke p.208). ... An additional empiricist, David Hume, holds that all our knowledge comes from sense perceptions. ...

• Word Count: 1055
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• Grade Level: High School

Kant sets out an elaborate theory of our forms of perception, thought, and judgment and offers an account of how we can have some knowledge that is a priori and yet "synthetic" in that it is not just a matter of definition or analysis of concepts. ... Knowledge depends on the interaction of two factors, one is what is given in perception, and the other is they way the mind actively organizes these data under concepts and makes judgments or assertions. Kant saw that there must be some sort of mental processing that leads from the raw data in our sense organ to our conceptual recognition...

• Word Count: 868
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• Grade Level: High School

Since experiences that come through the sense do not allow us to interact or come into contact with the object itself. ... He is aware that he thinks, makes decisions, and is conscious of what he does, but he still rejects his body and sense. ... He identifies the antecedent form of skepticism with doubt of Descartes that questions all former opinions and the sense. ... Hume concludes about the senses that they deceive us entirely and that experience can not take us beyond the perception we call into doubt. ... Moore's Defence of Common Sense appears to me to be most critical of ...

• Word Count: 2135
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• Grade Level: High School

Rene Descartes, in his first meditation, tells us that everything in this world is dubious and that we cannot rely on our senses/perceptions. ... He has perceptions and therefore, exists. ... (Descartes 131) Corporeal things exist because God has given us no reason to doubt him and therefor our perceptions of these things must come from the things themselves. ... He perceives all things, even those which we do not perceive and he creates the order of our perceptions. ... This is Russell's principle of simplicity, "Thus every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view...

• Word Count: 1374
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• Grade Level: High School

His method of doubt leads him to rely only on his mind, at least for the duration of the Meditations, and in this sense shows how the mind and body are distinct. ... In this sense Descartes is a foundationalist as he seeks to question even his most basic opinions and start again from the beginning. ... Here it is clear that one sense, sight, will fool you. ... This suggests that not even he believes in the paradox which he set out when he said that sense perception cannot give us any knowledge of the world we live in. ...

• Word Count: 1447
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

To start off, Kant's theory of knowledge goes as follows: there is the rationalist component of our perception that organizes and structures the sense-data we receive pre-consciously according to time, space, number, and causality. ... Moving on to Kant's perception of knowledge, where he states that since the mind has innate knowledge of certain concepts, the most reliable sources of ideas would be the ones that had proof. ...

• Word Count: 994
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

This is all they know; these shadows are the prisoners" reality. ( Halsted notes October 6, 2003) Plato's calls this common sense. ... (Halsted notes October 6, 2003) The fourth level is Observation, this is when the prisoners are continuing to realize that knowledge outside the cave is "far superior to the perceptions inside the cave" (Halsted notes October 6, 2003) The fifth level, Knowledge, now the prisoners are "acquiring, organizing, and categorizing the physical world in a scientific matter" (Halsted notes October 6, 2003). ...

• Word Count: 868
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"The Ikhwan drew from Hellenistic metaphysical concepts of actuality and potentiality to describe how the human soul acquires knowledge, and they were inspired by Democritus' worldview" [Dia1]6 (Democritus Theory of Cognition: "He said that it is difficult to ascertain the truth of something because our perception itself is subjective–no more than sense data processed by our intellect which is still only atoms and void. ... Authority: The method of acquiring knowledge that agrees best with the esoteric doctrine of the Ikhwan al Safa is the method of initiation and aut...

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"Truth was, in this sense, achievable" (Gillott, J & Kumar, M. 1995, p.18). ... The blurb on the back of the DVD cover reads: Perception: The everyday world is real Reality: The world is a hoax, an elaborate deception spun of by all-powerful machines of artificial intelligence that control us This is merely science fiction but if the above was in fact reality, would we know? ... It is common sense that decides whether or not one perceives something as true. ...

• Word Count: 1691
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• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Throughout his deliberations, he goes through all sorts of feelings as to whether God exists and if this "god" is a omnipotent and good god or whether this god would deceive the human race and skew their sensory perception. ... All of these thoughts are certainly rational, because one cannot attain a higher sense of knowledge without first doubting what one knows to be true in his/her own life. ...

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• Grade Level: High School

Pierce writes that the scientific method presumes that "realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and any man will be led to the one true conclusion." ... In the metaphysical sense, possibly, one day when you drop a ball it's going to go up rather than down. ...

• Word Count: 1058
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• Grade Level: Graduate

Our reality is shaped by our interpretations on our perceptions of the world around us. ... Philosophy expands intellect, sense of self and problem solving skills which any career field can benefit from. ...

• Word Count: 1540
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography