Descriptive Knowledge - Issues

Issues

What constitutes knowledge, certainty and truth are controversial issues. These issues are debated by philosophers, social scientists, and historians. Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote "On Certainty" - aphorisms on these concepts - exploring relationships between knowledge and certainty. A thread of his concern has become an entire field, the philosophy of action.

A number of problems exist, that arise when defining knowledge or truth, including issues with objectivity, adequacy and limits to justification. Beliefs are also very problematic not least because they are either true or false, and therefore cannot be adequately described by conventional logic. An action likewise can be taken or not, but there is the troubling idea of an "event" is, an action taken by nobody, or nobody who you can blame.

Read more about this topic:  Descriptive Knowledge

Famous quotes containing the word issues:

    How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.
    Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)

    The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.
    Susan Sontag (b. 1933)

    Cynicism formulates issues clearly, but only to dismiss them.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)