Reason

'Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of reason as a way of knowing'

Reason is the explanation or justification for our beliefs. We use reason to explain the things that we know. However using reason as a way of knowing can sometimes have its strengths and weaknesses.
Our reasons can often be because things seem logical to us. I think if our reason for knowing something is because things seem logical then I believe that this is strength of using reason as a way of knowing. If our premises were true and our logic was valid, then most people will believe the conclusion we found from our premises. For example, if our premises were ‘Socrates is a man’ and ‘all men are mortal’; both of these premises are true and the valid conclusion that can be drawn out of these two premises is that ‘Socrates is mortal’. Most people will be happy to believe this conclusion because to start with our premises are true and are conclusion is valid; however, also, there is no possible alternative conclusion that can be valid. We know that Socrates is a man, and if ALL men are mortal then there is no doubt that Socrates is a man. However sometimes this deductive logic can have alternative conclusions were the premises. For example, if our premises were ‘no emperors are dentists’ and ‘all children fear dentist’, if we say that these premises are true are valid conclusion will be that ‘no children fear emperors’, however this conclusion ignored the possibility that there can be some children who fear emperors. Even though are conclusion is valid and are premises are true there is an alternative conclusion which can be a limitation of using logic as a reason for knowing things. I agree with this weakness, if we face this situation then are logic is not very reliable, however if we do not face this conclusion then logic is a strength of reason.
However there are some weaknesses of reason. One weakness of reason as a way of knowing is when we know things based on our personal experiences and senses. To us, for example, we might think that tomatoes taste, however to other people they might taste good. Relaying on our senses and personal experiences can as a reason for knowing this can be very reliable, different people have different opinions, different likes and because of that this is a weak reason. Some people say, however, that sometimes our experiences can be similar to other people. For example if we put our hand in boiling water then for sure we will pain, and most other people will also feel pain. Because of this experience other people will not try to put their hands in boiling water because some else got burned when they do that. Therefore sometimes our experiences and our senses can be a strong reason for knowing something. However I think we should not depend on other people’s experiences all the time because we might be different than that person.

Language

"Man is the animal that speaks. Understanding language is thus the key to understanding man" Thomas Szasz.

Based upon the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it was concluded that "linguistically speaking, no human being is born free; his mind was made up for him from the day he was born by the language of his speech". To prove this theory some experiments have been conducted including one on a bilingual Japanese woman who spoke both Japanese and English. This experiment included asking the woman the same questions in both Japanese and English and comparing the results to see if they have any differences, which should be based upon the theory that the woman will answer differently to the questions because the language that she will be speaking makes up her mind about the answer. An example was giving her the same sentence in both language and allowing her to complete the sentence. One sentence was "When my wishes conflict with my family's...", in Japanese she answered "it is a time of great unhappiness" and in English she answered "I do what I want". From this we can see the differences between her answer and therefore we can say that if we understand the language of a man, based upon Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, then we can understand the man.

Perception

"We see and understand things not as they are but as we are"

Perception is an active process. We as humans observe our surroundings, we indentify, make connections and reasons for our surroundings; we do not only look at what is surrounding us. Each human has a different way of observing the things that are around them. Some people have different values of the objects that are around them; as humans we tend to only remember the things that we consider are important to us and that can differ from one person to another. Also the character of that person can affect how he observes his surroundings. For example, a poet looks at his surroundings differently than a doctor or undertaker. Therefore we can say that people tend to see things not as how the objects are, but as whom they are.

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