How Have Western Views of Knowledge Changed over Time Essay

Throughout history, cultures have held disparate takes on the nature of enjoyledge. Epistemology, the split up of ism that focuses on rudimentary questions such as What is knowledge? How do we know what we know? , lies at the heart of these views. In Western culture, the answers to these basic questions have changed markedly over time. Throughout history, this phylogeny in philosophy has been inextricably linked to acquisition and religion. Much of Western thought has been heavy influenced by the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks. In particular, the epistemological views of the Ancient Greeks prevail Western thought for centuries.Of all the Greek philosophers, Plato was superstar of the nearly influential. In his most famous work The Republic, Plato used the Allegory of the Cave to line the role of sensory perception in knowledge acquisition. In his analogy, Plato depict a cave in which people were chained d avow in such a way that prevented them from looking anywhere but forward. fanny them was a fire and in front of them was a wall that reflected shadows from that fire. The prisoners captors manipulated these shadows to create forms and stories. The forms and stories that the prisoners saw were the only reality that they knew.Eventually the prisoners odd the cave and prime true reality outside. It was only then that the prisoners tacit that what they had perceived until this moment was a false perception. The Allegory of the Cave served to expatiate Platos epistemological views. Today, we describe Platos philosophical views as rationalist. He argued against reliance on sensory experience because he believed that it failed to provide us with any guarantee that what we experience was, in fact, true. He believed that the information we pick up by relying on sensory experience is constantly changing and oftentimes unreliable.It can be evaluated only by appealing to higher principles that do non change. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato was com paring our sensory perception to the shadows on the wall of the cave. Plato saw us as the chained prisoners unable to know anything but this false reality. completely by leaving the cave and cost increase to higher orders of thought are we able to know true reality. unspoken in this view was the belief that true knowledge cannot be found with existential investigation. According to Plato, falsifiable knowledge was merely opinion. Only thought and abstract reasoning could produce true knowledge.The rationalist view of epistemology dominated much of Western thought for centuries. Eventually, progress in intelligence during the Renaissance changed this. One of the first to change these governing views was Andreas Vesalius. In 1543, Vesalius create De Humanis Corporis Fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body), an elaborately illustrated atlas of human beings anatomy. duration Vesalius print work had significant historical importance in the field of medicine, his most endur ing legacy was his r developingary challenge of the medical conventions of his day.For centuries, physicians had relied on practice session texts from Galen for medical knowledge rather than participating in the direct dissection of human corpses. Vesalius promoted the practice of dissection and hands on experience. By overthrowing the Galenic tradition and relying on his own observations, Vesalius was advocating an empirical understanding of the human body. This shift from rationalism to empiricism became one of the defining characteristics of the Scientific Revolution. In direct contrast to rationalism, empiricism emphasised the acquisition of knowledge through direct observation and experiment.Empiricism not only encouraged but required reliance on our senses. This was in direct opposition to Platos epistemological view that had dominated for a millennium. This shift from Platos rationalism to scientific empiricism had significant ramifications for philosophy. while before thi s time there had always been collaboration between acquirement and philosophy and religion, there had been no real distinction between them. Now, empirical knowledge served as a way of testing philosophical knowledge. This would lastly lead to their incompatibility and their eventual separation.This separation is largely attributed to Galileo, one of the major figures during the Scientific Revolution. Even in his time, Galileo was a renown scientist and a philosopher. While he relied heavily on empirical methods in his studies of physics and astronomy, he also depended on rational thinking in his use of mathematics. It was through his combined use of empirical observations and rational thought that he sustain the Copernican view that the sun was the center of the universe. However, the Copernican heliocentric worldview conflicted with the dominant geocentric view espoused by philosophers from the time of Aristotle.Making issuings even more(prenominal) complicated was the fact t hat philosophers couched this dispute as a ghostly matter arguing that a heliocentric worldview went against the teachings of the Bible. As the geocentric view had been pick out by the church, the heliocentric worldview was branded as heresy. Galileo, certain of the animal(prenominal) verity of his heliocentric paradigm and at the same time devout in his religious beliefs, worked to reconcile this conflict by divorcing the church from purely physical matters, where faith is not involved.By working to separate science, philosophy, and religion, Galileo was attempting to reestablish the compatibility of science and religion. Despite Galileos attempts, the conflict between scientific and religious worldviews is shut up evident today. The epistemological tradition of today has created a dominant worldview found on evidence. As during the time of Galileo, this worldview has at times conflicted with widely held religious beliefs. This divide, empiricism vs. faith, has draw an incr easingly prominent conflict in American politics.A recent announcement by GOP presidential candidate, heap Perry highlights this divide. Rick Perry recently publicly declared his disbelief in the theory of evolution in favor of intelligent design. The theory of evolution is an explanation of the first of life widely supported across numerous scientific disciplines. though science and empiricism overwhelming supports the theory of evolution, it does not largely current by the populace. The controversial nature of evolution has emerged because, once again, a purely physical matter has been politicized as a religious matter.Rick Perrys views on evolution illustrate a larger phenomenon in U. S. politics. That is, views regarding the evolution/intelligent design conflict tend to be politically divided. well-grounded design or faith based arguments are generally forwarded by conservative Republicans such as Rick Perry. Evidence based empirical arguments, such as evolution, are champio ned by liberal Democrats. Science has become political as conservatives are aligned with religion.