Patrick

Syquiatco July 9, 2012 CLE Best Lights 2013 Mr. Agtarap Synthesis Question #2 on Authority, Opinion, Evidence As each area of knowledge varies greatly from each other, the way we would know things in these areas would also vary just like how the Physical Sciences would usually require a lot of hard evidence and facts while Art usually just relies on emotions, preferences and the opinions of the person. Each area of knowledge has its own needs and so people, more often than not, have the same way of interpreting knowledge in a certain area while differing in each area. First, in the Physical Sciences, Absolutism would be the dominant philosophy of knowledge because knowledge in this area relies heavily on evidence. There is usually only one general explanation to every phenomenon discovered by the Physical Sciences. Sometimes, there is more than one explanation to the same thing but they generally come from the same general idea because of the facts and evidence that have been proven. Next, in the Human/Social Sciences, Rationalism would be the philosophy of knowledge because in this area, it sometimes relies on Evidence but also relies on Authority. This is because, in the Human/Social Sciences, it is usually the study of human beings or the behavior of humans and since basically, humans behave differently from each other, we cant really base everything on evidence since in experiments, the sample would never be the same size as the entire human population, it will always be just a group but this cannot really represent the entire human population. It relies on experts feeding the knowledge and it would depend on how good they are in their field of expertise and therefore, usually one view is more correct than the other or more accepted in society even if there is at least some truth to the other views. In Art, the philosophy of knowledge present would be Relativism as well because it relies on Opinion and also on Authority. Since Art is an expression of emotion, the preferences of each person could change the emotion that surges from viewing a certain piece of art and also this could change if an art expert would be the one to examine and provide an explanation and this could lead to many views being correct. Finally, for Morality and Religion, Relativism is also the philosophy of knowledge present for both these areas because it is usually up to the opinion of each person on what religion to believe in or what action would be morally correct. It also depends on who is telling us what is correct because it could change the way we see things in these areas of knowledge just like if a priest or the Pope were to talk to atheists about Christianity, they could possibly become Christians or maybe if Muslims were to talk about Islam, then maybe more people would become Muslims. This presents an idea of coexistence and thus shows that there can be many views,

which are equally correct due to the different ways of interpreting the knowledge presented in these areas. Knowing this, I would say that in each of the areas, I would base it on the previous statements wherein Evidence is used in the Physical Sciences, Evidence and Authority for the Human/Social Sciences, Opinion and Authority for Art, and Opinion and Authority for Morality and Religion. I truly agree with these views because it depends on how exact each area is just like how Physical Sciences are meant to be exact but the others arent as much. Also, the philosophy of knowledge seems very much related on how exact each area is just like how Opinions, Evidence or Authority affect it based on that as well. In conclusion, using these specific ways in certain areas of knowledge would give a better and clearer understanding of the things in the five areas of knowledge.