Philosophy

There is a certain purity to the way we see the world as young children practically devoid of any social standards and norms, and with no understanding of mores and taboo. But as we grow older, as we  become exposed to different situations and begin to interact with things we havent experienced before, we begin to have an understanding of the world the way it is imposed to us by social constructs. And everything becomes fuzzy and muddled. The purity is gone, and is replaced by a gray area. So, when someone asks how you see the world, it becomes unclear because, for the most part, we are not aware of how our understanding of the world is formed. But, in the following readings that we will discuss we will be able to perceive the processes by which weve come to understand the world, at the same time integrating the ideas found in these readings and forming our own analysis of the question.

Popular philosopher Karl Popper wrote in 1963 an analysis of the our processes of garnering knowledge called Conjectures and Refutations The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, published by Routledge. Popper, one of the leading philosophers of his time, wanted to understand how weve come to recognize scientific knowledge though, for the most part, it is backed by theories and methods unproven. In this discourse on the philosophy of science (a rather contradicting assessment as far as I can say), he published a collection of his lectures and papers that revolved around this interesting topic. As the title implies, he finds that all scientific knowledge are actually conjectures, ideas that started as speculation and a rebellion against previous theories.  He believes that we should refute old theories in order to create new and better ones. But, should these old theories last, like Pythagoras mathematical equations and the Golden Ratio, it would seem like it is of a higher truth.

He begins by giving us an idea of how people begin to understand. He says that as humans we have a instinctive need to observe. It is how, as human beings and mammals, we have come to survive and fight off anything that goes against us. In the case of science, observation results to early prediction. Under the merits of observations, he emphasizes how observation is utilized in the scientific sphere. As we observe we create conjectures, and these conjectures are in need of confirmation for them to be able to be real. As he mentions, Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theoryan even which would have refuted the theory (Popper 36). Essentially, confirmations are not as effective should they be used on ideas that already have a sturdy backing. Risky ideas that have been confirmed, henceforth, become more important.

Popper puts great emphasis on the concept of trial and error. Because everything we know are conjectures, judgements, and wild guesses, we should always put these thoughts on trial. We should always subject these ideas to critical tests in order to know that it is effective. But at the end of the day, no matter how many tests you put these conjectures into, they can never be established as true. Despite this, though, Popper maintains a positive outlook into the process of science. With the context of trial and error, Popper puts great emphasis on the human notion of failure, but at the same time puts stress on the importance of our ability to learn from our mistakes.

Writers then use the idea of observation and creating conjectures to have a grasp of the unlimited possibilities and complexities of science. In Sara E. Shea, Kevin Gordon, Ann Hawkins, Janet Kawchuk and Donna Smiths analysis of the Winnie the Pooh characters in Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood a neurodevelopmental perspective on A.A. Milnei, we get an example of how Poppers proposed reasons for observations is being used. Using a psychological analysis and an knowledge of the characters personalities and backgrounds, they created a thesis that gave each character a psychological dysfunction.

At one point, we see how observant the researchers were in creating these neurological case studies. At the same time, we get a scientific understanding of the personalities of Pooh and his many, meadow friends. They presumed these characteristics of the personas in Winnie-the- Pooh, conjectures that are up for trial.

We will, for this paper, also discuss Aron Gurwitschs On Contemporary Nihilism. In this reading, we get a view of how observation and our understanding of the world are put into the context of politics, religion, and society. And instead of just focusing on the processes of understanding and observation, he also delves into how these are applied in creating rational understanding. But, he first asks us what rationalism is and how it is important in this world powered by scientific knowledge and technology. Then he points out how we have come to forget our being persons of reason, how we have lost our understanding of the basics of existence and social relations in order to fulfil our quest of endless knowledge. And he, finally, concludes his treatise by saying this rationalization is achieved when man faces the reality surrounding himnatural, political, social, etc., realityand while facing and analyzing it, manifests his freedom and his spontaneity in respect to his reality (Gurwitsch 195).

We also delve into Alex Rosenbergs article published in 2000, under Routledge, in the Philosophy of Science A Contemporary Introduction. The article entitled The Structure and Metaphysics of Scientific Theories, Overview, it can sometimes seem intimidating. His book, firstly, is a discussion of the philosophical problems that arise from scientific exploration, and one that questions the nature, methods, and justification of the process. One again, we go back to the concept of observations When a number of generalizations are uncovered about the phenomena in a domain of inquiry, a theory may emerge which enables us to understand the diversity of generalizations as all reflecting the operation  of a single or small number of processes ( Rosenbug, May na).

All these texts give us an understanding of how we view the world through observations. There were negating themes like that of Popper and Shea, but over-all these texts cover the same aspect of conjectures. In this sense, we must now understand how their perceptions of the world have come to change how we would understand this place where we live in.