Wish you Happy New Year.

Dear sajucmi.epistemologyconcepts@blogger.com, Jobish (jomadathikuzhiyil@gmail.com) has sent you a New Year eCard. To view your New Year Greeting "Please Click Here" OR Copy the following link & paste in your internet browser's address box. http://www.taamjhaam.com Regards, Jobish

greetings from raju II M.A Phi

Epistemology questions!

Light a candle for 26/11 and Show you remember

Hi sajucmi.epistemologyconcepts@blogger.com ,

I just light a candle for 26/11.
It is time to show that we have neither forgiven nor forgotten 26/11.
It is time to remember those who paid with their lives for the fanaticism of
a few, to salute those who gave up their lives trying to shield others, and
to honor those who survived the ordeal of terror.
It is time to light a candle, to show that as we move on, we cherish their
memories, we value their sacrifice and we hail their courage.

Please Light a Candle Now at: http://www.indiajaiho.com/LightACandle.htm

Warm Regards,
Tintu Joseph

Who lives in a house like this? See it and send o all you know so that, Soon the world will know.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: shijin pulimoottil <pulimoottilshijincmi8@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 9:45 AM
Subject: Fwd: Who lives in a house like this? Soon the world will know.
To:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jossy Vattothu <jovatton@gmail.com>
Date: 24 November 2010 06:31
Subject: Who lives in a house like this? Soon the world will know.
To:

Who lives in a house like this? Soon the world will know.  Imagine, who would have such taste and live in such opulence?  American Billionaire? Saudi Prince - Louis XIVof France  Have a good look at these pictures, then scroll to the bottom of the page to see who owns this work of Art.    >   >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >         This Mansion is in Harare and belongs  to:        The  President of Zimbabwe  - Robert  Mugabe -  While his people starve, they do not have food, and die because of no medical  help....  And we are asked to help his people over and over  again...  He and his family live like this....... his GREED  kills his people.....   If you send this to everyone you know, they can send it to everyone they know; soon the whole world will know, what this man is doing to his people.             The citizens he supposedly serves?                           "For evil to flourish, all that is needed is for good people to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

-- 

-------------------------------------------------------

In the Unity of Christ Jesus,

-- 

--
Fr. Jossy Vattothu cmi
Director VISAMO, Fuljar
Amreli, Gujarat - 364 410
Phone - 02791276640
Mobile - 09429946157

--




































































 
 
(¨`·.·´¨)"I may be busy,

  `·.¸(¨`·.·´¨) but I assure you,
(¨`·.·´¨)¸.·´ you are always in my heart...."
  `·.¸.·´ •´ ¸.•*´¨)   ¸.•*¨)
          (¸.•´      (¸.•*   ♥♥♥...♪♪♪sHiJiN...,

                                                 

                                            With All My Love…..!!!

                                  SHIJIN...,

--

 

With Love and Prayerful Wishes......

 

BRO. BRISTO THOMAS VERUNKAL CMI

DHARMARAM COLLEGE

DHARMARAM COLLEGE PO

BANGALORE - 560 029

PH. 080 - 4111 6191

PERCEPTION by Mena Tresa Joseph (Sr.Maria Tresa FCC) Reg No:D 10225

BRAHMAN AS SAT-CIT-ANANDA MARY GRACY B09023

BRAHMAN AS SAT-CIT-ANANDA

The Upanishads give supreme importance to the knowledge of Brahman. The goal of a man in life is get rid of the Avidya which is the cause of bondage. Avidya is destroyed only through Brahmavidya or Atmavidya. There for Upanishad present knowledge as the sure means for liberation "He who knows Brahman attains Brahman." The positive indications or Svarupa-Lakshnas give us some enlightenment about the proper nature of Brahman. According to the Taittriya, Upanishad the only way in which Brahman described is Brahman is reality, knowledge, infinite Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma. As the real of the real Brahman simply is and hence sat or being is the most suitable designation for it. If Brahman is the ultimate Being it is the sole knower and includes all knowledge and thus the very essence of its being is understanding. It is wholly a mass of wisdom. It is consciousness itself (sit) then can be no limitation for such a being. It is then for infinite (anantam). If the absolute (Brahman) is pure existence (sat) pure thought (cit) and infinity (anantam).

It must be free from change decay and suffering. It must  be pure bliss (Anandam) Brahman as real intelligence, infinite a pure knowledge and bliss, those who know Brahman as reality, knowledge and infinity share in the bliss of Brahman, knowledge and infinity, hidden in the depth of the heart and in the highest there or farthest space, he enjoys all blessings at one with the omniscient Brahman.

As a conclusion, when we say that Brahman as Sat Cit Ananda, Sat means existence. Brahman is pure existence and satyam truth, is that which corresponds to existence. Cit is knowledge, tha Sat cit Ananda concept could be conceived this way the reality in one, but we may distinguish in this one reality the three ontological manifestations as sat cit and Ananda.

NOMINALISM - Raju Lahare (II - MA Philosophy, Reg. No. 0924606)

Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universals—things that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things (e.g. strength, humanity etc.). The other version specifically denies the existence of abstract objects—objects that do not exist in space and time (e.g. space, time etc.).

However, these two versions of nominalism basically collapse into one, if one believes that all universals are abstract objects. Most nominalists have held that only physical particulars in space and time are real, and that universals exist only post res, that is, subsequent to particular things. However, some versions of nominalism hold that some particulars are abstract entities (e.g. numbers), while others are concrete entities—entities that do exist in space and time (e.g. tables, chairs).

Nominalism is primarily a position on the problem of universals, which dates back at least to Plato, and is opposed to realism—the view that universals do exist over and above particulars. However, the name "nominalism" emerged out of debates in medieval philosophy with Roscellinus. As John Stuart Mill once wrote, the early versions of nominalism were that "there is nothing general except names", hence the prefix "nomin-". This, however, is a more dated use of the term that is now considered to be a specific version of what is now called "nominalism".

History of nominalism

Plato was perhaps the first writer in Western philosophy to clearly distinguish the Nominalist position from a non-Nominalist one, the latter of which he plainly endorsed: "We customarily hypothesize a single form in connection with each of the many things to which we apply the same name. ... For example, there are many beds and tables. ... But there are only two forms of such furniture, one of the bed and one of the table." (Republic 596a-b, trans. Grube)

What about someone who believes in beautiful things, but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself…? Don't you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? (Republic 476c) The Platonic universals corresponding to the names "bed" and "beautiful" were the Form of the Bed and the Form of the Beautiful, or the Bed Itself and the Beautiful Itself. Platonic Forms were the first universals posited as such in philosophy. Our term "universal" is due to the English translation of Aristotle's technical term katholou which he coined specially for the purpose of discussing the problem of universals. Katholou is a contraction of the phrase kata holou, meaning "on the whole".

Aristotle famously rejected Plato's Theory of Forms, but he clearly rejected Nominalism as well: "'Man', and indeed every general predicate, signifies not an individual, but some quality, or quantity or relation, or something of that sort." (Sophistical Refutations xxii, 178b37, trans. Pickard-Cambridge)

The problem of universals

Nominalism arose in reaction to the problem of universals, specifically accounting for the fact that some things are of the same type. For example, Fluffy and Kitzler are both cats on the fact that certain properties are repeatable, such as: the grass, the shirt, and Kermit the Frog are green. One wants to know in virtue of what are Fluffy and Kitzler both cats and what makes the grass, the shirt, and Kermit green. The realist answer is that all the green things are green in virtue of the existence of a universal; a single abstract thing, in this case, that is a part of all the green things. With respect to the color of the grass, the shirt and Kermit, one of their parts is identical. In this respect, the three parts are literally one. Greenness is repeatable because there is one thing that manifests itself wherever there are green things.

Nominalism denies the existence of universals. The motivation for this, flows from several concerns, the first one being where they might exist. Plato famously held that there is a realm of abstract forms or universals apart from the physical world, which he called as the "world of ideas." Particular physical objects merely exemplify or instantiate the universal. But this raises the question: Where is this universal realm? One possibility is that it is outside of space and time. However, naturalists assert that nothing is outside of space and time. Some Neoplatonists, such as the pagan philosopher Plotinus and the Christian philosopher St. Augustine, imply (anticipating conceptualism) that universals are contained within the mind of God. To complicate things, what is the nature of the instantiation or exemplification relation? Conceptualists hold a position intermediate between nominalism and realism, saying that universals exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality.

Moderate realists hold that there is no realm in which universals exist, but rather universals are located in space and time wherever they are manifest. Now, recall that a universal, like greenness, is supposed to be a single thing. Nominalists consider it unusual that there could be a single thing that exists in multiple places simultaneously. The realist maintains that all the instances of greenness are held together by the exemplification relation, but this relation cannot be explained. One philosopher who tries to base himself in the workings of the human brain, Daniel Dennett, rejects the idea that there is some "greenness" in the real world, only circumstances that cause the brain to react with the judgment "green."

Finally, many philosophers prefer simpler ontologies populated with only the bare minimum of types of entities, or as W. V. Quine said "They have a taste for 'desert landscapes.'" They attempt to express everything that they want to explain without using universals such as "catness" or "chairness."

Varieties of nominalism

There are various forms of nominalism ranging from extreme to almost-realist. One extreme is predicate nominalism, which states that Fluffy and Kitzler, for example, are both cats simply because the predicate 'is a cat' applies to both of them. And this is the case for all similarity of attribute among objects. The main criticism of this view is that it does not provide a sufficient solution to the problem of universals. It seems to fail to provide a metaphysical account of what makes it the case that a group of things are similar or agree in attribute.

Resemblance nominalists believe that 'cat' applies to both cats because Fluffy and Kitzler resemble an exemplar cat closely enough to be classed together with it as members of its kind, or that they differ from each other (and other cats) quite less than they differ from other things, and this warrants classing them together. Some resemblance nominalists will concede that the resemblance relation is itself a universal, but is the only universal necessary. This betrays the spirit of nominalism. Others argue that each resemblance relation is a particular, and is a resemblance relation simply in virtue of its resemblance to other resemblance relations. This generates an infinite regress, but many agree that it is not vicious.

Another form of nominalism is trope theory. A trope is a particular instance of a property, like the specific greenness of a shirt. One might argue that there is a primitive, objective resemblance relation that holds among like tropes. Another route is to argue that all apparent tropes are constructed out of more primitive tropes and that the most primitive tropes are the entities of complete physics. Primitive trope resemblance may thus be accounted for in terms of causal indiscernibility. Two tropes, exactly, resemble if substituting one for the other would make no difference to the events in which they are taking part. Varying degrees of resemblance at the macro level can be explained by varying degrees of resemblance at the micro level, and micro-level resemblance is explained in terms of something no less robustly physical than causal power. David Armstrong, perhaps the most prominent contemporary realist, argues that such a trope-based variant of nominalism has promise, but holds that it is unable to account for the laws of nature in the way his theory of universals can.

Ian Hacking has also argued that much of what is called social constructionism of science in contemporary times is actually motivated by an unstated nominalist metaphysical view. For this reason, he claims, scientists and constructionists tend to "shout past each other".

 

RELIABILISM by Gijo Mathew (09008)

Reliabilism is a general approach to epistemology that emphasizes the truth conduciveness of a belief forming process, method, or other epistemologically relevant factor. The reliability theme appears both in theories of knowledge and theories of justification. Reliabilism is sometimes used broadly to refer to any theory of knowledge or justification that emphasizes truth-getting or truth-indicating properties. These include theories originally proposed under different labels, such as 'tracking' theories.

Reliabilism encompasses a broad range of epistemological theories that try to explain knowledge or justification in terms of the truth-conduciveness of the process by which an agent forms a true belief.   It has been advanced both as a theory of knowledge and of justified belief as well as other varieties as such as positive epistemic status. Process reliabilism is the most common type of reliabilism. It has been used as an argument against philosophical skepticism.  Process reliabilism is also a form of epistemic externalism.

The nature of the knowledge-constituting link between truth and belief is a principal issue in epistemology.  Nearly all philosophers accept that a person, S, knows that p (where p is a proposition), only if S believes that p and p is true.  But true belief alone is insufficient for knowledge because S may believe that p without adequate or perhaps any grounds or evidence.  If, for example, S believes that p merely because he or she guesses that p, then the connection between S's belief that p and the truth that p is too flimsy to count as knowledge.  S might just as easily have guessed that not-p and thus have been wrong.

Dating back to Plato's Theaetetus, philosophical tradition held that knowledge is justified true belief.   Although the nature of justification is a matter of considerable debate, a central idea is that when a belief is justified it is far likelier to be true than when it is not justified.

  Reliabilists put this notion of truth-conduciveness front-and-center in their accounts of justification and knowledge. Reliability theories of knowledge of varying stripes continue to appeal to many epistemologists, and permutations abound.

IDEALISM

Name: Yesuraj F.

Reg: no: B09050.
Idealism
Idealism is based on the false assumption that "knowledge alone is
knowable." This is a false assumption, since every man has clear and
stable consciousness that his judgments, in order to be true, should
he affirmed objectively. That is to say, in every true judgment, the
subject should attain the transcendence of the object. The fact that
subject is incapable of identifying itself with the object indicates
the normative reality of the object. Otherwise, the experienced facts
of human knowledge would remain inexplicable.
Its inconsistency consists in the fact that it wants to teach that
there are many individual knower; since everything known is the
projection of the individual knower, it follows that even the
assertion that there are other persons is itself a projection of the
knower. Hence not only are material objects made to be by thought, but
the same is true of other knowers. The result is that the only
existent is myself thinking, all else is but a radical denial rather
than a coherent explanation of human knowledge.
In regard objective experience idealism holds that our knowledge is
creative of its object, that is, only that of which I am conscious
actually exists. Now the fact of my creation of the object is
something of which I was in no way conscious and until the Idealists
appeared; hence, according to their system, this creation by mind was
objectively true, independent of my knowledge by idealism itself.
Moreover, the notion of truth loses all meaning in this system, since
the only reality at any given moment is what is grasped at that
moment; hence all previous, "truths," are submerged or ejected by one
now in possession. This process, however, is a continuous,
never-ending one so that at no moment can I ever say that what I know
is definitely true. There is thus no objective truth at all, despite
hat verbal rejection of skepticism and relativism. Knowledge itself
ceases, in the last analysis, to be a relational act whereby a subject
knows something about an object.
Source from class notes

BELIEF

BELIEF Name: RAMESH L.

Reg .No.09034
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a
proposition to be true .the terms belief is differently in philosophy
.epistemology is the philosophical study and of knowledge and belief
.the primary problem in epistemology is to understand exactly what is
needed in order to have true knowledge .the relationship between
belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is
true ,and if the believer has the justification for accepting it is
true .as a false belief is not considered as a true knowledge ,even if
is so serous also.
The concept of belief presumes a subject and an object of belief so,
like other propositional attitudes, belief implies the existence of
mental states and intentionality ,both which are debated topics
.beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs and dispositional
beliefs .a belief is a mental state has been seen as contentious
.while some philosophers have argued that beliefs are represented in
the mind as sentence – like constructs others have gone as so for as
arguing that there is no consistent or coherent so us of the conceit
belief ha s to be rejected .
The philosopher Lynne rudder baker has outlined four main contemporary
approaches to belief in her book saving belief: Our common sense
understanding of belief is correct sometime called mental sentence
theory ,in this belief exists as coherent entities and the way for
scientific endeavor .our common understanding of belief may not be
wholly correct but is close enough to make some useful predictions
.our common sense understanding of belief is entirely wrong and will
be completely suppressed by a radically different theory that will
have no use for the concept of belief .our common sense understanding
of belief ids entirely wrong ;however ,treating people animals and
even a computers as if they had beliefs is often a strategy.
People may adopt the beliefs of a charismatic leader ,even I those
beliefs fly in the face of all previous and produce actions that are
clearly not in their own self interest .the primary thirst of the
advertising industry Is that repetition forms of beliefs as do
associations of beliefs with image of sex ,love ,other strong positive
emotions. however even educated people ,well aware of this process by
which the belief forms, still strongly cling to their beliefs ,and act
on those beliefs even against their own self interest .This means that
people should evolve as they gain new experiences .