Essay Question 7

“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.

THESIS: Due to PERCEPTION, EMOTION, LANGUAGE, and REASON we as an individual view the world in our own distinct way. As humans we connect ourselves with certain groups, or as an outsider. How we are raised, the people we are around, and the environment surrounding us directly effects our views on the world whether or not we are conscious of it. We perceive everything that we see or hear or induce, because of this perception we are unable to see things directly as they are, but an automatically biased view based on past experience that formulates in our minds.

PERCERPTION/EMOTION:

Perception- Interpret sensations, reconstructive process

· Our senses grow less responsive to unchanging stimuli

· We are very sensitive to change

o What is the function of sensitivity to change?

· Deprivation (in an all white building)

o Many subjects felt edgy & grumpy

o Many left

o Is deprivation always bad?

· Selective attention

o Ability to focus on some environmental factors and block out others

Inattention blindness

‘Seeing As’

· Past experiences

· Knowledge by authority

· Innocent eye- doesn’t exist

· Past experiences

· You cant see or know it unless you’ve seen it before

· You perceive things as you have seen before.

Empiricism- Six senses, induction.

LANGUAGE/REASON:

Idea of tourists- ‘us’ and ‘the other’

· Someone we don’t know, they have to have something different than what you have seen or heard from ‘us’

o ‘us’=similarities

· Systems we create to keep ‘the other’ out. Neighboorhoods? Oppertunities?

· What would the system be revised?

Law over Irish Language-

o For:

§ Limits the language

§ Isolates it

§ Language is culture= no language no culture

§ We were here first, nationalistic implications

§ Lose the EMOTION connected to it

§ Tradition lost

o Against:

§ Descrimination, human rights implications

§ Melting pot

§ Preserving culture shouldn’t be forced by government, parents responcibility?

§ Language not equal to culture

Able- “through meanings requires words, they are not identical to words.” (pg. 68)

o To make meaning you need words, but not all words have meaning?

o Words are ambiguous but meaning doesn’t change

o Meaning is the interpretation not just letters

o Words use denotation, reference. But meaning deals with connotation (sense), emotions, and feelings.

o You need words to organize reality, although words are random

COUNTER CLAIM:

o The world understands everything as it is but makes the conscious decision if they may or may not agree with it.

§ Perception

§ People are not effected by outside influences if they do not want to be.

§ Blank slate idea?

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