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Epistemology: Modern Skepticism to Postmodern Holism

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Title: Epistemology: Modern Skepticism to Postmodern Holism


1
Epistemology Modern Skepticism to Postmodern
Holism
  • James A. Van Slyke
  • Azusa Pacific University

2
Medieval Worldview
  • Theology and Philosophy connected
  • Most important areas of study
  • Earth is the center of the universe
  • Hierarchical ordering of Nature
  • Society reflects hierarchy
  • Political affiliations feudal system
  • Church leadership system

3
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4
Rise of Modernity
  • Galileos Challenge
  • Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
    (1632)
  • Promoted the Sun-centered view of the Cosmos
    (Heliocentric)
  • Copernican Revolution (Copernicus published 1543)
  • Repercussions
  • Disrupted Medieval Theology
  • Humans were no longer at the center of the
    universe

5
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6
Rise of Modernity
  • Systems of Authority Questioned
  • 30 years war
  • Religious traditions could not provide a basis
    for rationality or morality
  • Must find a universal foundation that is not
    dependent upon any tradition

7
Rise of Modernity
  • Repercussions
  • World picture changes Everything
  • Changes
  • No explanation for motion New physics
  • No explanation for social structure New
    politics
  • Humans are no longer in the middle New
    Theology/ Ethics
  • Dispute over competing world views

8
The Legacy of Descartes
Modern Philosophy starts with Descartes -
1596-1650
  • System of Global Skepticism
  • Doubts everything until he gets to that which he
    cannot doubt
  • Sensations and Perception
  • Mathematics

9
Descartes System of Global Skepticism
  • Must find a new foundation
  • Knowledge must be constructed from the the bottom
    up
  • Nothing can be established until we have found an
    indubitable foundation

10
Descartes and Modernism
  • New Foundation
  • Cogito Ergo Sum
  • I think therefore I am
  • Descartes could not doubt that he was thinking
  • I can trust my perceptions
  • God by definition cannot willingly deceive his
    creation
  • God could not have created faculties of
    perception that were not trustworthy

11
Descartes and Modernism
  • God Exists
  • Idea of God Infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful
  • An Idea so grand could not have come from any
    human mind
  • There must be a God to correspond to this reality
    in my mind

12
Problems with Foundationalism
  • Leads to an extreme Skepticism
  • Anything doubtable is not true
  • Religion, ethics, etc. is not knowledge
  • Unable to find any foundation without criticism

13
Postmodern Philosophy
  • Types of Postmodernity
  • Anglo-American Postmodernity
  • Continental Postmodernity
  • Reaction against Modernity
  • Gave up on the search for foundations
  • Attempt to find a different epistemology not
    defined by foundations

14
Philosophy of Science
  • Thomas Kuhn
  • Changes in Science occur through paradigm
    shifts
  • Science actually occurs in communities with many
    theories and concepts
  • Whole paradigms are accepted or rejected

15
Anglo-American Postmodernism
  • Web of Belief - Quine
  • Our knowledge is a web of interconnecting
    theories and concepts that inform each other and
    the data
  • The data or experiences must have some sort of
    verifiable connection with the rest of our
    knowledge
  • Theories justified by explanation of the data
  • Moves are often made within the web to account
    for both data and theories

16
Anglo-American Postmodernism
  • Instead, coherence of the entire belief system
    gives us truth
  • Both within the web of theories and support by
    the data at the edges
  • Experience, Historical events, etc.
  • Web may change over time
  • If part of the web is deficient, whole web does
    not have to be thrown out
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