SOCB05H3 Chapter : SOCB05; chapternotes.docx
Document Summary
Not everything we know is because of what we experienced: based on what other people say and we believe it. Sometimes we decide that what we experienced was not accurate and go along with what others say. Eating worms: some people think its gross, some think it s a delicacy. Looking for reality there must be logical and empirical support. What we know may not be true. Ordinary human inquiry can predict future circumstances are caused or conditioned somehow by present. Probabilistic in nature the effects occur more often when the causes occur than when causes are absent. Must distinguish between prediction and understanding: we can make predictions without understanding for people, the attempt to predict is often placed in a context of knowledge and understanding, aims at answering both what and why questions. Everybody knows clear advantages to human inquiry: accepting what everybody knows, we don t have to search for understanding and regularities.
