Soup's Philosophy

Epistemology is the philosophical study of absolute, finite, and provable truths. There are three separate groups to which I’ll chose to organize our ‘truths’: Scientific truths, Empirical (or A Posteriori) truths, and Rationalist (or A Priori) truths. All of humanities truths are based upon the truth of experience, and the soundness of human logic.

Categories of Truth

Empirical truths are the simplest to define. They consist of all the truths accepted through experience. The sky is blue, dogs bark, and you have an aunt Susan are all examples of Empirical truth, truth accepted because you personally have experienced it. At it’s core Empirical truth only requires an absolute trust in your experience, and therefore your senses and memory.

Scientific truths are also fairly easy to define. These truths are the truths we accept because they have been proven by the scientific method. The shape of the earth, the structure of an atom, and the periodic table of the elements are examples of current scientific truths. While what is scientifically true has changed slightly over the ages humanity generally accepts it on the true-until-disproven method. To accept scientific truths requires not only an absolute trust in your experience, but also in human reason, as it is the reason that validities the experience making it accepted and scientifically provable. Both reason and experience are necessary in the acceptance of these truths.

Rationalist truths are very tricky. These are the truths established without a single regard to experience, using logic alone. The idea of these Rationalist truths and really Rationalism altogether was brought about by Rene Descartes, although other philosophers like Benedict de Spinoza, Gottfried von Leibniz, Bertrand Russel and myself have made contributions to it. One example of Rationalist truth includes the truth of definition, pioneered by the Linguistic philosophers, namely stating that a sentence can represent truth so long as the definition of a word matches the claim made by the sentence (I.e., to say “A bachelor is single.” must inherently be true, simply because that is the very definition of the word. The Rationalist truth of Nonsingularity is a development on the idea of causation, which states that every effect must have a cause. Nonsingularity itself develops that idea and states that there must exist other, whatever that other may be simply because there must be something to cause you to exist. Lastly, and most crucial is the truth of self, Descartes’ famous “Cogito Ergo Sum”, I think, therefore I am. Descartes’ rationalized that for him to exist that he must exist to do the thinking. Rationalist truth only requires an absolute belief in the soundness of human logic and reason.

Skepticisms

Methodological Skepticism is the distrust of experience, and was created by the great philosopher Rene Descartes. What it states is that you cannot trust wholly that which has been wrong, in this case experience. Our experience is wrong all the time: when you remember things incorrectly, when you dream, when you hallucinate or see things which aren’t, etc. Descartes states that we shouldn’t wholly trust experience, and certainly can’t use it as a basis for epistological truth. There really is no way to determine what is real and what isn’t using just our senses and experience, since they are both fallible. Methodological Skepticism tears down Empirical and Scientific truth entirely. How can you really know the sky is blue, or that dogs bark, or that you have an aunt named Susan, or even an aunt at all? How can you know that the earth is round, or the structure of an atom, or what elements really are without trust of your senses?

The Anti-Rational Proof. “It is prudent to not wholly trust that which has deceived” was Descartes’ foundation for his doubt of senses in his Methodological Skepticism, however, the same skepticism holds true in regards to logic, the remaining source for human knowledge. Logic is unreliable, as proven when debate ends in understanding, or in learning, when what was thought to be true has become disproven. As sound as our logic may seem it can be wrong. As much as we can verify our logic through others or repetitive self examination it doesn’t mean that a flaw can not exist. We can not claim there to be pure, finite, and provable truth based on experience or logic, and for the same reason.
Now, this Anti-Rational Proof shouldn’t be accepted with ought skepticism either, and even the same skepticism proven by it can be reapplied. So let’s say you do just that, you say that in being true it disproves itself, what then are you left with? You have two sides, those who accept the proof and those who accept it to the extent of rejecting it. Both sides can be justified and are logically sound, so what determines them? Faith. There is no reason to choose either side over the other, so you are left with a stalemate. However, what does that prove then? If the ‘belief’ of the Anti-Rational Proof is just that, a belief, then the soundness of logic must also be a belief, taken by faith. Therefore, logic must be taken by faith, just as in the case of experience, and just the same as all the rest of humanities ‘knowledge’. Anything which must be taken by faith, such as experience or logic, can not be used as a basis for infallible, undeniable, and absolute truth.