Foundations of Communication - Term Paper Example

Epistemology aims to answer the following questions: How is the concept of justification to be understood? What makes justified beliefs justifiable? Is justification, in relation to one’s own mind, internal or external? From the Copernican Revolution (1600) to the Revolution in Germany (1848), there have been pockets of historical periods in our history that have addressed various issues regarding to the aspects related to epistemology that have been discussed by some of the most renowned scholars.

They include: Copernicus and Gallileo, Descartes and Bacon, Spinoza and Hobbies – Locke, Hume, Kent and Hege. Copernicus main task was to carry out investigations on how improvements in methods of constructing the calendar, and Galileo never rejecting knowledge from his predecessors, used this as backing for his further arguments. Galileo’s epistemology aimed to separate ethics from knowledge (e.g. of nature) i.e. Separation of science from the legitimate domain of the church. The main issues about knowledge and communication involved the right of people to investigate questions which were capable of falsification in reasoning, while the religious leaders could confine themselves to determining what was necessary to go to heaven and avoid destructions of hell (Burke 77).

Descartes and Bacon vehemently proposed the total discard legacy of the supposed knowledge from the past. They argued or suggested that knowledge should start from the beginning in order to build an adequate knowledge of the world. The epistemological issues that scholars struggled with here were rationalism and empiricism. The main issues about communication and knowledge addressed were separation of subject and object i.e. this also necessitated the aspect of priority to be given to the subject or the object which can be classified as an act of knowledge (Burke 33).

During Spinoza and Hobbies – Locke’s period, Spinoza (Descartes admirer in Europe) and Hobbes-Locke (Bacons pupil in England), addressed with the separation and differentiating of a subject and object which did not have any relation i.e. did not know each other. (Period referred to as being concerned with the dichotomy of dualism and monism). The main issues about communication and knowledge included the connection between nature and consciousness. The objective existence of the material world is not questioned neither is the validity of the impressions made by nature upon the senses deemed in any way problematic (Burke 45).

In the Hume and the enlightenment period, the main aspects of conflict were between dogmatism and skepticism. According to Hume, his skepticism is in some measure a reaction against the dogmatism of the mechanistic followers of Newton and in part an attempt to reconcile Berkely’s clerical and reactionary subjective idealism with the requirements of everyday life with science. Hume is the founder of Utilitarianism in ethics. He further declares that the satisfaction of human needs is the sole criterion of morality.

The main issues about communication and knowledge is the fact that how can it be proved that the industrialist who produces the most is the most moral person of all. During this historical period, Kant tended towards empiricism (Was greatly influenced by scepticism of David Hume). In his philosophy, he attempts to establish a system of concepts and categories in order for the resolving of struggles