Epistemology †Sense Essay

The issue of knowledge is definitely an essential part in philosophy. It forces us to question whether we are certain of the things we think we know, and whether we can justify the things we know are actually true. This theory or study of knowledge can be referred to as epistemology. All these views on knowledge can vary depending on how we view the world itself. We are able to perceive the world through the application of our senses, however, our senses alone can be very deceiving. We can never really be definite of what we know just by looking at the world the way it is. We are able to make opinions and assumptions about what we see, smell, taste, and hear, but can never really be absolute. In order to claim knowledge, it requires certainty that something is true. If we were to claim knowledge without certainty, we would be disregarding Descartes’ conception of knowledge and certainty. Descartes clarifies doubt as the contrast to certainty. As certainty increases, doubt decreases; conversely, as doubt increases certainty decreases. The world would not be as challenging as it is if we could just accept anything as knowledge. We would be able to simply opinionate, assume, and estimate whatever we would like and claim that all is true. However, as good as it sounds, it is not practical. It is as what it sounds to be like a make believe world. Basically, if we based knowledge off of ideas we are not certain of and just accepted them as true, we would never be able to continue on to the next levels of knowledge. Somewhere along the lines of this uncertain knowledge, we would find that things do not correlate, or make sense. We would find ourselves questioning the reason for things and only finding out that our knowledge is inaccurate. All in all, fictitious knowledge is not beneficial in the long run without certainty.