Epistemology: Modern Skepticism to Postmodern Holism

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Epistemology Modern Skepticism to Postmodern
Holism

• James A. Van Slyke
• Azusa Pacific University

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Medieval Worldview

• Theology and Philosophy connected
• Most important areas of study
• Earth is the center of the universe
• Hierarchical ordering of Nature
• Society reflects hierarchy
• Political affiliations feudal system
• Church leadership system

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Rise of Modernity

• Galileos Challenge
• Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
  (1632)
• Promoted the Sun-centered view of the Cosmos
  (Heliocentric)
• Copernican Revolution (Copernicus published 1543)
  
• Repercussions
• Disrupted Medieval Theology
• Humans were no longer at the center of the
  universe

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Rise of Modernity

• Systems of Authority Questioned
• 30 years war
• Religious traditions could not provide a basis
  for rationality or morality
• Must find a universal foundation that is not
  dependent upon any tradition

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Rise of Modernity

• Repercussions
• World picture changes Everything
• Changes
• No explanation for motion New physics
• No explanation for social structure New
  politics
• Humans are no longer in the middle New
  Theology/ Ethics
• Dispute over competing world views

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The Legacy of Descartes
Modern Philosophy starts with Descartes -
1596-1650

• System of Global Skepticism
• Doubts everything until he gets to that which he
  cannot doubt
• Sensations and Perception
• Mathematics

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Descartes System of Global Skepticism

• Must find a new foundation
• Knowledge must be constructed from the the bottom
  up
• Nothing can be established until we have found an
  indubitable foundation

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Descartes and Modernism

• New Foundation
• Cogito Ergo Sum
• I think therefore I am
• Descartes could not doubt that he was thinking
• I can trust my perceptions
• God by definition cannot willingly deceive his
  creation
• God could not have created faculties of
  perception that were not trustworthy

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Descartes and Modernism

• God Exists
• Idea of God Infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful
• An Idea so grand could not have come from any
  human mind
• There must be a God to correspond to this reality
  in my mind

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Problems with Foundationalism

• Leads to an extreme Skepticism
• Anything doubtable is not true
• Religion, ethics, etc. is not knowledge
• Unable to find any foundation without criticism

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Postmodern Philosophy

• Types of Postmodernity
• Anglo-American Postmodernity
• Continental Postmodernity
• Reaction against Modernity
• Gave up on the search for foundations
• Attempt to find a different epistemology not
  defined by foundations

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Philosophy of Science

• Thomas Kuhn
• Changes in Science occur through paradigm
  shifts
• Science actually occurs in communities with many
  theories and concepts
• Whole paradigms are accepted or rejected

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Anglo-American Postmodernism

• Web of Belief - Quine
• Our knowledge is a web of interconnecting
  theories and concepts that inform each other and
  the data
• The data or experiences must have some sort of
  verifiable connection with the rest of our
  knowledge
• Theories justified by explanation of the data
• Moves are often made within the web to account
  for both data and theories

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Anglo-American Postmodernism

• Instead, coherence of the entire belief system
  gives us truth
• Both within the web of theories and support by
  the data at the edges
• Experience, Historical events, etc.
• Web may change over time
• If part of the web is deficient, whole web does
  not have to be thrown out