ContiNOUS

     I concur with Emily Robertson in asserting that epistemic autonomy aligns with social influences. Knowledge claims, whether personal or social, are not private; knowing occurs personally within the social milieu. For instance, legal doctrines like Pro Reo play a crucial role in the admission of evidence, either furthering or dismissing cases, showcasing the deeply ingrained socio-political nature of humanity.      Social epistemologists propose that, rather than focusing on the properties of justification as in analytic epistemology, one should examine the range of practices in providing justification within society. Justification often involves giving and asking for reasons for one’s assertions. When a person asserts that p , they simultaneously claim that p is true , entitling them to make further claims.      Consider Descartes’ unavoidable dualism based on his claim that the 'Cogito' is the indubitable existential fulcrum. However,...

Whenever I try to amalgamate the concepts “History” & “Truth”, my thoughts invariably gravitate towards the advent of post-modernism and its impact on these notions .   Post-modernism believes that there is no ‘Truth’, only ‘truths’; no sole Grand Narrative, but rather a multitude of narratives. History is a narrative narrated by a narrator. A historian is no less than a storyteller. But whose story? Her or his story. “History is written by the victors”. Before her untimely death in 2016, the late Philippine senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago succinctly expressed this view when she declared on national television, “There is no truth, only interpretation of facts.” In her compelling TEDx talk, American historian Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt contends that truth, nowadays, is under assault with truth-sayers finding themselves on the defensive. Drawing from her experiences in confronting Holocaust deniers, Lipstadt highlights the challenges posed by those who dismiss historical truths....

                       Reaction papers are uncanny things for they are essays, alright, but they have an excuse for their being; that is, one’s reaction on paper! And, for the love of connections or relations, reactions not spontaneous enough would be artificial or, in a more rustic term, ‘plastic’. Its truth lies in its spontaneity, like responding a glib “ Yes ” to your girlfriend’s query about her beauty. (A 2-second pause would make you her ex-boyfriend.) In like manner, a thoroughly planned Reaction Paper is (almost) an oxymoron like a manufactured antique made (in) you know where.  Nostalgia. The earliest account I know when it comes to the defining of the word ‘simple’, is that of Euclid whose geometry is still being studied today. (To Russell's disgust.) Euclid has defined a point as that which has no parts, and that which has no parts is what being simple is. Fast forward to the 19th century, the Brit...