The first theme
is done and I must admit that it was difficult for me. I have never had a
lecture in philosophy before and I am not used to read this kind of texts, hence
it was a bit of a struggle. It was really hard for me to get a grasp of all the
thoughts and concepts in these two texts. Once I finally thought I knew what
they meant, the next sentence confused me again.
Kant’s text
was by far the most difficult to understand, therefore Kant was focused of both
at the lecture and the seminar. This helped me to get a better understanding of
what Kant and Plato means. But still, I can’t say that I fully understand them.
One
interesting discussion we had at the seminar was why examples of knowledge are
not enough to explain what knowledge really is. If you know an example of
knowledge, you sure know what knowledge is otherwise you shouldn’t been able to
associate the example with knowledge. But it is still difficult to pinpoint
what knowledge really is. This discussion led to the discussion why we need to
understand what knowledge is. Isn’t it just an unnecessary mind wrestling for a
layperson? For me it is to complex and I don’t see the point of it. The level
of philosophy is too high for me and I gladly assign the task of determine what
knowledge is to people who are more enlightened in philosophy.
Another
interesting subject we discussed at the seminar was empiricism and the way an empiricist
sees things. For example at the very start of everything how did the first
people name things? It requires so much insight and knowledge to even grasp the
concept of naming things. It is really hard to explain that in an empiricist’s
point of view; if all people are born as a blank sheet how is it even possible
to get the very first knowledge without any previous experiences to compare
with? We didn’t get an answer but still it was an interesting discussion.
I also
learned about Kant’s categories of understanding and how he argues about
synthetic a priori judgment.
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SvaraRaderaHi Daniel,
SvaraRaderaI agree that the first theme was difficult to understand, in a way i feel like we engineers are kind of locked in our own way of thinking and therefore it is hard to grasp philosophical concepts. Personally i feel like you would need to study some basic courses in philosophy to fully understand what Kant and Socrates are trying to say. However, i don't think that it is unnecessary mind wrestling to understand what knowledge is because of the fact that understanding what constitutes knowledge, our forms of intuition and categories of understanding, can contribute to a new way of looking at objects and approaching different problems.