—楍档-QuestioningandUnderstandingtheWorldCan.ppt

Questioning and Understanding the World:Can we know our world? Liberal Studies 1: Human Dilemmas Fall 2004 Professor Michael Steven Marx Charles Sanders Peirce There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are. (14) Plato, “The Simile of the Cave” . . . the final thing to be perceived in the intelligible region, and perceived only with difficulty, is the form of the good; once seen, it is inferred to be responsible for whatever is right and valuable in anything, producing in the visible region light and the source of light, and being in the intelligible region itself controlling source of truth and intelligence. And anyone who is going to act rationally either in public or private life must have sight of it. (24-25) Perception The process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. That experience, or percept, is the joint product of the stimulation and of the process itself. Thus, perception is complex mediated active Language Language is a mode of communication A Symbolic Mode of Communication Language Symbolic Arbitrary Systematic Powerful Productive Language symbolizes knowledge. Language Cassirer holds that reality can only be experienced through the symbolism of language. Is reality, then, not defined and redefined by the ever-varied symbolism of the innumerable languages of mankind? (Herskovits 33) [From Prof. Youndt’s presentation: Benjamin Whorf Edward Sapir: Culture and language shape each other and structure the way we perceive the world; thus there isn’t a single reali