I feel a
bit uncertain about what this reflection should contain, since the seminar was
cancelled. So I figure I just reflect what struck my mind while reading “The
problems of Philosophy”. First off I think this book/text was quite advanced,
and I haven’t had much experience since before of philosophy analytics, or
philosophy at all.
Russell is
challenging many accepted theories and disenchanting statements that I would
assume is true and accept without questioning them. For example in chapter 13
where Russell point out weaknesses in the question (discussed in previous
chapters) as to what
is meant by truth and falsehood. He points out that knowledge through erroneous
beliefs still can be true for example. He puts a finger on a flaw of the discussed
question. And suggest that the question as to how we can know what is true and
what is false is of more interest. As one example from the text, Russell
describes that a man have the belief that the Prime ministers last name starts
with a B. The Prime ministers last name is Bannerman but the man believes that
Mr. Balfour is the name of Prime minister. This shows an erroneous belief that
turns up true with the first letter “B” in the last name. This knowledge based
on a “true belief” but deduced by a false belief enhances Russells opinion that
it’s more important to know how we can know what is true and what is false. After
reading this reflection in the text about criticizing truth and falsehood. Made
me think that you should criticize more and question things more in general
then we (maybe most myself). That’s something I got out of the text, even
though it’s not a revelation to me it’s still something that caught my mind. You
should question everything.
Hey Gustav!
SvaraRaderaI agree with you on the point that we should question things more than we do. But I don't think that it applies more to you than others, I think that almost everybody (including myself) should spend more time questioning things in our everyday life. It's pretty clear when reading the commentator's field or forum posts that most of them only have one reference supporting their claim, for example referring to an article on Aftonbladet when questioned by another commentator. And since mass media usually has their own agenda and choose a specific point-of-view on a topic - whether deliberately or not - I think it's important to form our opinions using more than one source if possible, and try to stick to unbiased media. And stretching it a bit more, maybe it would be a good thing for us to not just question our "truths" but also ourselves and our actions.
I totally agree, references would come from unbiased media, of course there could be reliable articles from media thats not unbiased as long as their references have accurate information. I believe it also depends a lot about the topic it concerned.
SvaraRadera