Testimony

 

If you want a testimony, you are going to have a test.

The philosophy of testimony considers the nature of language and knowledge's confluence, which occurs when beliefs are transferred between speakers and hearers through testimony. Testimony constitutes words, gestures, or utterances that convey beliefs. By this article I would like to present about brief introduction of testimony, what is testimony, and I would like to talk about the caption I use for this article and at the last I discuss about what are the philosophical issues concerning testimony. 😏😏😏

What is testimony? 🤔🤔🤔 

In the field of philosophy, testimony is defined as the intentional transfer of a belief from one person to another. The transfer can be verbal, written, or signaled in some way. Issues concerning the epistemology of testimony have become increasingly discussed in contemporary philosophy, with the debate widening out from epistemology to other fields such as philosophy of mind, action theory, and philosophy of language.

Testimony

The expression 'testimony' in everyday usage in English is confined to reports by witnesses or by experts given in a courtroom, or other formal setting. But in analytic philosophy the expression is used as a label for the process by which knowledge or belief is gained from understanding and believing the spoken or written reports of others generally, regardless of setting. In a modern society testimony thus broadly understood is one of the main sources of belief. Very many of an individual's beliefs are gained second-hand: from personal communication, from all sorts of purportedly factual books, from written records of many kinds, and from newspapers, television and the internet. Testimony enables the diffusion of current news, information (or misinformation), opinion and gossip throughout a community with a shared language. It also enables the preservation and passing on of our accumulated heritage of knowledge and belief: in history, geography, the sciences, technology, etc. We would be almost unimaginably epistemically impoverished, without the resources provided by testimony in its various forms. 

Philosophy of Testimony 🤔🤔🤔

IF YOU WANT A TESTIMONY, YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A TEST.

This statement was made by Joyce Meyer. As I see it, this statement is largely true. But sometimes we can find testimony from previous tests. As Joyce Meyer points out here, I do not see the need to examine yourself if you need testimony. You can get another person to check and get testimony.

What are the philosophical issues concerning testimony?

When testimony is trustingly accepted by an individual, she acquires beliefs through it. In a modern society, very many of an individual's beliefs are derived directly from testimony, or depend for their grounding on other beliefs so derived. Are these beliefs derived from testimony ever justified, and apt to be knowledge? The primary concern of philosophy regarding testimony is epistemological: to explain the status as potentially justified and knowledgeable.

Beliefs dependent on testimony. - Or, if the upshot is skeptical, to show why such beliefs are not apt to be justified and knowledgeable.

Descriptive psychology will tell us what human belief acquisition through testimony is actually like, and what extent of dependence on testimony our belief systems actually exhibit. Given this distinction, we can divide our central issue about testimony along two dimensions, yielding four distinct questions to investigate.

• Descriptive Local Question

How do human hearers typically form belief in response to testimony? In particular, do they just trust their informant unthinkingly, blindly; or do they somehow (consciously, or sub-consciously) evaluate the informant for trustworthiness, and believe what they are told only if the evaluation is positive? (The process of testimony).

• Normative Local Question

In what conditions, and with what controls, should a mature adult hearer believe what she is told, on some particular occasion? (Fresh instances of testimony, for an adult hearer.).

• Descriptive Global Question

What is the actual place of testimony-beliefs overall, in a person's structure of empirical belief? What is the extent of dependence on testimony for grounding (epistemic dependence) of our beliefs? And what is the relation between testimony and our other sources of empirical belief: perception, memory, and deductive and inductive inference from empirical premises?

•     Normative Global Question

How, if ever, can a system of beliefs with uneliminated epistemic dependence on testimony be justified?

Testimony is an invaluable source of knowledge. ... This leads to the development of a theory that gives proper credence to testimony's epistemologically dual nature: both the speaker and the hearer must make a positive epistemic contribution to testimonial knowledge.

Dinesh Shiwantha Wanigathunga

dineshshiwantha@gmail.com

Learning

 Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching

What is Learning?

Learning is a complicated practice. Several thousand years ago, the primary obligation of the human brain was to figure out how to find food, avoid getting eaten by a predator (including finding a safe place to sleep), and find a mate. Now, in addition to those basic human functions, our brains are inundated with other facts and tasks that need to be learned.

New insights into how the human brain learns make it clear that many of the learning practices that faculty used in the past, and that students continue to use, are highly inefficient, ineffective, or just plain wrong. Better learning does not always require more effort or more time; rather one need only effectively align how the brain naturally learns with the demands of the college classroom.

A NEW LOOK AT LEARNING

We all learn throughout our lives. We learn how to tie our shoes, the best route to get to the mall, which friends we can trust, how to find the area of a circle, and how to write a research paper. Surprisingly, very few people are taught how to learn. Even college professors, who spend 20 years in the educational system and obtain a PhD, learn by doing what seems best, but rarely by consulting the vast literature on how people learn. If you are in college, or will be heading off to college shortly, you certainly are good at learning, but knowing (a) how your brain learns, (b) which strategies bring about the most learning, and (c) under which circumstances optimal learning occurs is something that can benefit anyone. Helping you to understand and then apply to your own life the research on these three crucial aspects of learning is the purpose of this blog.

A new look at Learning - John Crace

Definition of Learning

What does it mean to say you have learned something?

Someone says that taking a new ideas by making the effort to understand what you read and hear. And other one says that working on new ideas by fitting them in alongside what you already know, drawing connections with what you already know and expressing new ideas by using them to say things in your own.

Neuroscience researchers have shown that when you learn something new, there is a physical change in your brain. You have approximately 86 billion brain cells (Randerson, 2012), and when you learn something new, some of your brain cells establish connections with other brain cells to form new networks of cells, which represent the new learning that has taken place. When frequently activated, these new networks have the potential to become long-term memories. In fact, every time you use or practice the newly learned information or skill, the connections between the brain cells get stronger and recalling the information becomes easier.

Establishing connections is like blazing a trail, which is a great deal of work. But every time the trail is used, it becomes more established and easier to follow.

10 Definitions of Learning

Preparing to Learn

Nutrition

One of the most important new insights into how the human brain learns is that it needs to be prepped for learning if it is to work at its best. Showing up to class without proper sleep and exercise and without eating or hydrating your brain will cause your brain to operate inefficiently and make learning much more difficult.

Hydration

In addition to food, your brain needs a great deal of water. Neurons (brain cells) store water in tiny balloon-like structures called vacuoles. Water is essential for optimal brain health and function. Water is needed for the brain’s production of hormones and neurotransmitters. These are the key players in the brain’s communication system, which is at the heart of learning. 

Sleep

Brain research has produced overwhelming evidence of the important role exercise and sleep play in the brain’s ability to learn and remember.  “Sleep, Naps, and Breaks,” covers a wide range of vital information about the relationship of a good night’s rest to effective learning and the making of long-term memories, which are the key to college success.

Exercise

Preparing the brain to learn is a new idea for most students, but it is crucial to your ability to learn. A tired, hungry, and thirsty brain deprived of the essential benefits exercise brings to it is a brain not ready to learn.

Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. ... Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event, but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences.

Dinesh Shiwantha Wanigathunga

dineshshiwantha@gmail.com

The Arguments

 

SILENCE IS ONE OF THE HARDEST ARGUMENTS TO REFUTE

What are arguments? 

An argument is a series of statements, called the premises or premises (both spellings are acceptable), and intended to determine the degree of truth of another statement, the conclusion.

An argument is a rationale in which the reason presents evidence in support of a claim made in the conclusion.  An explanation is a rationale in which the reason presents a cause of some fact represented by the conclusion. Its purpose is to help us understand how or why that fact occurs.

uses of arguments

Making and assessing arguments can help us get closer to understanding the truth. At the very least, the process helps make us aware of our reasons for believing what we believe, and it enables us to use reason when we discuss our beliefs with other people.

The purpose of argument is to change people's points of view or to persuade people to a particular action or behavior.

Argument is not in itself an end or a purpose of communication.   It is rather a means of discourse, a way of developing what we have to say.   We can identify four primary aims or purposes that argument helps us accomplish:

• Inquiry

The ancient Greeks used the word dialectic to identify an argument as inquiry; a more common term might be dialogue or conversation.   Arguing to inquire helps us accomplish the following:

1. to form opinions
2. to question opinions
3. to reason our way through conflicts or contradictions

It requires an attitude of patient questioning under non-threatening circumstances, usually done alone or among trusted friends and associates.  The primary purpose is a search for the truth.   The primary audience is often the writer and fellow inquirers concerned with the same issues.

Examples: Classroom discussions; journal writing; exploratory essays; letters; late-night bull sessions in a dorm.

• Conviction

While some inquiry may be never-ending, the goal of most inquiry is to reach a conclusion, a conviction.   We seek an earned opinion, achieved through careful thought, research, and discussion.   And then we usually want others to share this conviction, to secure the assent of an audience by means of reason rather than by force.

1. Arguing to inquire centers on asking questions: we want to expose and examine what we think.
2. Arguing to convince requires us to make a case, to get others to agree with what we think. While inquiry is a cooperative use of argument, convincing is competitive.   We put our case against the case of others in an effort to win the assent of readers.

Examples: a lawyer’s brief; newspaper editorials; case studies; most academic writin

• Persuasion

While arguing to convince seeks to earn the assent of readers or listeners, arguing to persuade attempts to influence their behavior, to move them to act upon the conviction. Persuasion aims to close the gap between assent and action.  To convince focuses on the logic of an argument; to persuade will often rely on the personal appeal of the writer (what Aristotle called ethos) and involve an appeal to an audience’s emotions (pathos).   In addition to these personal and emotional appeals, persuasion exploits the resources of language more fully than convincing does.

1. In general, the more academic the audience or the more purely intellectual the issue, the more likely that the writing task involves an argument to convince rather than to persuade.  In most philosophy or science assignments, for example, the writer would usually focus on conviction rather than persuasion, confining the argument primarily to thesis, reasons, and evidence. But when you are working with public issues, with matters of policy or questions of right and wrong, persuasion’s fuller range of appeal is usually appropriate.
2. Persuasion begins with difference and, when it works, ends with identity.   We expect that before reading our argument, readers will differ from us in beliefs, attitudes, and/or desires.   A successful persuasive argument brings readers and writer together, creating a sense of connection between parties.

Examples: Political speeches, sermons, advertising

• Negotiation

If efforts to convince and/or persuade the audience have failed, the participants must often turn to negotiation, resolving the conflict in order to maintain a satisfactory working relationship.

1. Each side must listen closely to understand the other side’s case and the emotional commitments and values that support that case.   The aim of negotiation is to build consensus, usually by making and asking for concessions.   Dialogue plays a key role, bringing us full circle back to argument as inquiry.   Negotiation often depends on collaborative problem-solving.

Examples: Diplomatic negotiations, labor relations, documents in organizational decision-making; essays seeking resolution of conflict between competing parties; also frequent in private life when dealing with disagreements among friends and family members.

Link to powerpoint version

The uses of argument by Stephen e. toulmin

Types of Arguments

There are three basic structures or types of argument you are likely to encounter in college: the Toulmin argument, the Rogerian argument, and the Classical or Aristotelian argument. Although the Toulmin method was originally developed to analyze arguments, some professors will ask you to model its components. Each of these serves a different purpose, and deciding which type to use depends upon the rhetorical situation: In other words, you have to think about what is going to work best for your audience given your topic and the situation in which you are writing.

There are several kinds of arguments in logic, the best-known of which are "deductive" and "inductive." An argument has one or more premises but only one conclusion.

Deductive arguments and Inductive arguments

If the argumenter believes that the truth of the premises definitely establishes the truth of the conclusion, then the argument is deductive. If the arguer believes that the truth of the premises provides only good reasons to believe the conclusion is probably true, then the argument is inductive.

Inductive argument is the act of making generalizeed conclution based off of specific scenarios.

Deductive argument is the act of backing up a generalized statement with specific scenarios.

Justification

Justification is something that proves, explains or supports.

An example of justification is an employer bringing evidence to support why they fired an employee. A reason, explanation, or excuse which provides convincing, morally acceptable support for behavior or for a belief or occurrence. 

What are Arguments Used For? Justification

Explanation

Philosophy, like several different studies, targets by and large at understanding.

An argument is a rationale in which the reason presents evidence in support of a claim made in the conclusion. ... An explanation is a rationale in which the reason presents a cause of some fact represented by the conclusion. Its purpose is to help us understand how or why that fact occurs.

Explanation, in philosophy, set of statements that makes intelligible the existence or occurrence of an object, event, or state of affairs.

The langauge of arguments

Argument helps us learn to clarify our thoughts and articulate them honestly and accurately and to consider the ideas of others in a respectful and critical manner. The purpose of argument is to change people's points of view or to persuade people to a particular action or behavior.

Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves.

Dinesh Shiwantha Wanigathunga

dineshshiwantha@gmail.com

 Introduction TO philosophy

Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy that deals with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The philosophy is known as the "queen of science." Philosophy and science are two disciplines and two domains. The philosophy came first. It became the basis for science. It is also known as "natural philosophy". Both of these studies have many branches or fields of study. Both of these studies use logic, questioning, and analysis. The main difference between science and philosophy is the way they work and the way they treat knowledge.

We will begin with understanding what is philosophy?

In general philosophy means love and wisdom philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other. Philosophy can be explained in a subjective manner, it can different, it can be relative and it can find description.

Skills can we developed in philosophy

By studying philosophy we can improve our critical thinking and problem solving skills, for an example we have a question that “Should we respect nature?” Nature give us everything. Everything from the air we breathe to the food we eat is obtained by nature. The ozone layer has already been damaged by human activity. This is why we must respect nature. When we do not respect nature, we ourselves have to suffer the consequences of the damage it does to nature.

Philosophical Reading

Philosophical texts provide up arguments, which require you to interpret, examine and compare what the writer has written. This can on occasion imply you may want to read, re-read, and perhaps re-read once more earlier than you sense assured to your expertise of the important thing troubles they present.  This will improve your reading ability.

The 10 best Philosophy books for beginners.

Philosophical Writing

Writing is in particular vital in philosophy as it lets in you to make clear your thoughts and arguments. Often instances writing your thoughts down exhibits problems or regions that want improvement. Furthermore, writing is the number one medium for the alternate of philosophical thoughts.

Brief guide to writing philosophy paper

The values of philosophy

Philosophy, like several different studies, targets by and large at understanding. 

Learning Philosophy helps us to improve our communication skills, ability solve problems, ability to apply solution successfully to the problem, ability to improve reasoning, ability to evaluate the reasoning and ability to think efficiency and logically. Also, as mentioned above, the powers of persuasion and improving our writing skills and reading skills.

Bertrand Russell: “The Value of Philosophy”

Phylosophycal method

Philosophical method is studying and describing how to do philosophy. There are four types of philosophical methods. 

• Questioning

Questioning can be used to pursue thought in many directions and for many purposes, including: to explore complex ideas, to get to the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish what we know from what we do not know, to follow out logical consequences of thought or to control discussions.

• Critical Discussion

From a critical discussion we analyze facts from a judgement. It's self directed and monitored thinking. It brings effective communication and problem solving ability.

• Rational argument

Rational argumentation is the capacity to give reasons. A rational argument is the exchange of evidence-based reasons that are designed to influence an audience.

• Systematic philosophy

After making all the questions and problems, we can explain the reality from the systematic presentation. It differ from each other under their senses.

More information about phulosophycal method...

AREAS OF PHILOSOPHY STUDY

Philosophy is the have a look at of the character of existence, knowledge, reality and ethics. It entails attention of the maximum essential questions on who we're. The four areas of philosophy are epistemology, Ethics, Logic and Metaphysics.

• Epistemology 

Epistemology is the study of knowledge production; it tries to present ways of thinking about and assessing what can be known, how human beings can generate knowledge, which methods and tools can be used to create knowledge, and it presents what the nature and status of scientific results are.

• Ethics

Ethics is called as Moral Philosophy . it is concerned with questions of how people ought to act, and the search for a definition of right conduct and the good life.

• Logic

Logic is the study of arguments and their properties and which is the methodological core of all intellectual disciplines.

• Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the most abstract branch of philosophy. It’s the branch that deals with the “first principles” of existence, seeking to define basic concepts like existence, being, causality, substance, time, and space.

Areas of Philosophy

Philosophy and the philosophy of science is a very broad topic. As I see it, learning this subject is a great contribution to the development of our knowledge and ability.

I hope this blog has given you some basic insight into philosophy and the philosophy of science.

I have posed some philosophical questions below. Add your comments about it,

1. Is our universe real? 
2. Do we have free will?
3. Does God exist?
4. Is there life after death?
5. Can you really experience anything objectively?
6. What is the best moral system?
7. What are numbers?

Dinesh Shiwantha

dineshshiwantha@gmail.com