Ideologies Aimed at Understanding the External World and Commercialization of Culture and Emergence of Cults in Popular Culture - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages According to the research the interpretation of the external world hinges on the clear understanding of reality and perception. From a philosophical standpoint, knowledge starts with the experience of the external world through the senses—from the smelling of a fruit or the hearing of a child’s laughter. It is through the sense-data obtained (the scent of the fruit or the laughter of the child) that man is able to know the things around him. Knowledge, in this sense, is formed when man mentally creates judgments about his experiences (the smell of the fruit is sweet or the laughter of the child is loud). The problem between reality and perception stemmed from simple yet essential questions: (1) is the knowledge obtained through sense-experience true? How can man assure himself that what he perceives to be real is aligned with what is actually real? According to a philosopher named Bertrand Russell, reality exists—an objective space where all objective objects are orderly situated. Man is able to obtain knowledge about these objects, firstly, through the experience provided by his senses; and secondly, through the judgment created by his mind on such experience. The mental concept that is constructed is thus called perception. In this light, Russell deemed that man cannot exactly grasp reality since his senses do not possess the facets that would allow for him to capture these objects completely and purely. Essentially, however, man’s inquiry toward the external world reinforces an interesting insight about his nature—the desire to know. ...
Two General Worldviews about the External World As mentioned previously, man’s ultimate goal is to understand the nature of the external world not only by acquiring truths about it, but also by evaluating the mental and physical processes he employs. In this sense, we begin by examining the two contrasting practices of knowledge creation that are geared toward explaining the nature of the external world: objective empiricism and hermeneutic empiricism. Both worldviews provide philosophical and scientific studies about the external world. A. Objective Empiricism Objective empiricism assumes that various phenomena in the external world are naturally configured to be perceptually accessible but autonomous of perceptions of man. Since the objective characteristics of these phenomena are independent of mental judgments, reality is thus delivered completely and purely to the perceiving man. Empiricism of this sort is often regarded to be grounded on materialism—that which advances the appreciation of physical objects as the premier exemplar of the real, as Anderson (1996) states. As posited by objective empiricism, as man moves the focus of his inquiries away from the nature of physical objects and into the cognitive construction of meaning, he loses the ability to empirically validate the judgments he made since the physical objects are absent from his analysis. Aside from being directly linked to materialism, objective empiricism is also associated with reductionism, which further breaks down the nature of physical objects into one single field of knowledge. Through this, Anderson (1996) believes that reductionism becomes the basis for the unity-of-science hypothesis. This hypothesis ...Download file to see next pagesRead More