Which of Our Faculties Do You Think Is More Reliable - Reason or Perception? Give Reasons.

Which of our faculties do you think is more reliable - reason or perception? Give reasons. There are four ways of knowing. Reason is the way we obtain knowledge by means of our justifications and perception is the way we obtain knowledge by means of our experiences. People take different views on which one of our faculties is more reliable between reason and perception. As far as I am concerned, I would like to prefer reason tend to be more trustworthy. Two thirds of what we see is behind our eyes but perceptual illusions always exist in our life. And reason seems to give us certainty of judgment. The way we see something depends partly on the context in which we see it while sometimes the truth is hid by the visual illusion which may effects our sense of judgment. When we look at something, we tend to highlight certain aspects of what we see (‘figure’) and treat other parts of it as background (‘ground’). For example when you look at a page of writing, the black parts stand out and you pay no attention to the white background. Sometimes we can make different aspects of what we see stand out as the figure. There are many examples of ambiguous figures which rely on the figure-ground phenomenon. If you try slightly blurring your vision, you should be able to find two different interpretations. Nevertheless, one of the great attractions of reason as a source of knowledge is that it seems to give us certainty. To take a well-known example, given that all human beings are mortal, and given that Edward is a human being, it necessarily follows that Edward is mortal. As you can see that there are no ‘if’s’ or ‘but’s’ about it and it is not a matter of personal opinion or the culture in which you were brought up. There’s only one result when we looking at something by reasons instead of using our sense organs and our minds. Apart from visual illusions, another reason for being cautious about what our senses tell us is that perception is selective. So

Bibliography: 1. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100930011039AAh3KrY 2. http://wiki.aislusaka.org/groups/grade12theoryofknowledge/wiki/6b513/Which_of_your_faculties_is_more_reliable__reason_or_perception_.html 3. http://www.studymode.com/essays/Should-We-Trust-Reason-Rather-Than-776199.html