Appearance and Reality intro
Week Two Assignment
Anne Yohn
SNHU
Intro to Philosophy
PHL 210
S. Barnett
7/07/13
In his essay “Appearance and Reality”, Bertrand Russell asks the question: “Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain no reasonable man could doubt it?
Write a short paper in which you compare the contrast the way Descartes and Hume would have responded to Russell’s question. Note, that you will first need to explain both philosophy theories and then analyze their possible responses to Russell’s question. Finally, explain why you agree or disagree with them. Descartes decided to believe in nothing that he could not discern as clearly and distinctly true. Descartes imagined the possibility of a mischievous demon, who disordered reality in order to deceive humans that anything was possible if he could not prove that it wasn’t the case. Russell uses radical doubt to separate reality from illusory appearance, a distinction not motivated by a demon, but by the suggestion that reality is simply ordered in a way that is not immediately present to our senses. Russell believes that it is clear that no two people could share one identical point of view. What one person perceives may not be exactly what another person perceives as the same. Everyone has different senses in which to identify different situations. One may be more sensitive to touch and sound and another may be more sensitive to sight. For this reason we all have a different assumption of the same situation. Hume’s rationale was that we cannot come to a conclusion that something is justified just because something is observed as so. As in the fact of observing certain characteristics in two groups of individuals; one could assume both groups have the same characteristics because we observe them in both groups but Hume felt that there may be no good reason to assume that this is justified. Hume believes that the majority of scientific research is based on inductive reasoning
Anne Yohn
SNHU
Intro to Philosophy
PHL 210
S. Barnett
7/07/13
In his essay “Appearance and Reality”, Bertrand Russell asks the question: “Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain no reasonable man could doubt it?
Write a short paper in which you compare the contrast the way Descartes and Hume would have responded to Russell’s question. Note, that you will first need to explain both philosophy theories and then analyze their possible responses to Russell’s question. Finally, explain why you agree or disagree with them. Descartes decided to believe in nothing that he could not discern as clearly and distinctly true. Descartes imagined the possibility of a mischievous demon, who disordered reality in order to deceive humans that anything was possible if he could not prove that it wasn’t the case. Russell uses radical doubt to separate reality from illusory appearance, a distinction not motivated by a demon, but by the suggestion that reality is simply ordered in a way that is not immediately present to our senses. Russell believes that it is clear that no two people could share one identical point of view. What one person perceives may not be exactly what another person perceives as the same. Everyone has different senses in which to identify different situations. One may be more sensitive to touch and sound and another may be more sensitive to sight. For this reason we all have a different assumption of the same situation. Hume’s rationale was that we cannot come to a conclusion that something is justified just because something is observed as so. As in the fact of observing certain characteristics in two groups of individuals; one could assume both groups have the same characteristics because we observe them in both groups but Hume felt that there may be no good reason to assume that this is justified. Hume believes that the majority of scientific research is based on inductive reasoning