A Social History Of Truth Essay Research — страница 2

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is widely believed that the word of a gentleman should be received and credited more than the word of a commoner. Just as the word of thee Bible is considered a source of truth, for there is no motive for God to deceive or lie. Lying, according to Aristotle and Cicero was vile and mean. One who lied was considered fearful and weak. To lie was a sin in itself. Gentlemen were considered competent sensory agents. All normal gentlemen were considered to be perceptually competent. Gentlemen were reputated as being reliable agents of truths because they were independent and in no way were obligated to the will of another. Women on the other hand, were considered to be unreliable sources of truth because they were dependent on their husbands or fathers and would take a social standing

in their favor. Servants were also unreliable because they were dependent and subject to the will of their master. The mercantile and trading class couldn t be held as reliable agents of truth because they told untruths for advantage purposes. Dueling was the final defense of gentlemanly honor. This violent action is considered to be sinful and an insult to God. It was used as a means to manifest the truth. A duel usually came into play when an insult or mentita occurred.The Royal Society avoided insult to one another on the truths of matters and instead engaged in civil conversation.Chapter 4 Robert Bolye was the most influential of experimental philosophy.He provided much of the factual information the 17th century experimentalists operated on. Boyle was considered the founder

of experimental philosophy.Robert Boyle was the youngest son of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork. Richard Boyle was the founder of his family s honor; it is believed that his parents were yeomen. He made his money through the rents of various Irish lands and married into more fortune when he married Robert s mother. Richard Boyle was a Protestant hero as well as a gentleman. He died when Robert was a youngster.Robert Boyle was heavily influenced by his tutor Isaac Marcombes and by the idea that his father wanted his sons to be idea Christian gentlemen.Possessing gentry through his birth opened many doors for Boyle, who believed that it was good to be richer than one s condition. The Christian gentleman who attained moral control of himself was believed to have great integrity,

courage, faithfulness and magnanimity. Boyle believed that God had superintendence over his welfare. The devil was the father of lies. Boyle believed that if one was true to theirself, then they could not be false to any man. This was achieved through self-contemplation; one was to avoid idleness in order to achieve virtue.In all that Boyle published, he toke a disengaged presentation of his authorial self to remind his readers that he was not professionally committed to the claims in his texts. This procedure allowed him to be a valuable resource, for he would have no reason to misrepresent how things were in nature. Burnet described Boyle as a man who had successfully attained and valued all of the respected and valuable characteristics of the gentleman, the Christian and the

scholar. Chapter 5 Travelers from the New Worlds brought back various objects and told of the ways in the New World. Just as observers using telescopes and microscopes claimed to reveal more marvels of the world. These new things and marvels were fundamental to the emergence of new knowledge and intellectual practices.A new process of verifying the empirical truth had to be proposed and put into place. Even if implausible claims can not be established as true, they can not be completely dismissed as being false. Francis Bacon suggested that there should be a tendency to distrust novel claims. While,William Gilbert instructed doubting readers not to distrust experimental relations because they went against traditional experience and authorities.There was a proper and valuable role

for testimony and trust within empirical practices.There were three reasons for such recognition of pragmatic considerations,formal epistemological justifications, and moral arguments had to do with the cultural value placed upon knowledge founded upon testimony. First,it was acknowledged that experience also consisted of the reliable testimony of other s sensory perceptions of the world. Second, reliance of true testimony condoned in the context of formal discussions of the natures of different kinds of knowledge. Third, moral justification for testimony went into pragmatic and formal epistemological apologies. Testimony was a valuable source for making knowledge and the order of society. It was also believed that uncontrolled testimony would destroy knowledge and the social