A Social History Of Truth Essay Research

A Social History Of Truth Essay, Research Paper

Review of The Social History Of Truth by Steven Shapin Chapter 1 When someone says that something is true,they are usually stating that it corresponds to the facts of how things really are. Academic philosopher s distiningish what is true and what is taken to be true by a process of sorting.No single being can constitute knowledge. All one can do is offer claims, with evidence, arguments and inducements to the community for its assessment.Knowledge is the result of the communities for its evaluations and action. Trust and the order of society went hand in hand.Richard Rorty believed that if epistemological differenting motion of the truth occurred. Then an inforced agreement should be reached. Popper pointed that most of what we know about the world is based on the observations and communications of others. Trust is a great force in science. It is an unending means for the extension and modification of knowledge. Communication of the world around us through reports is very important in our understanding. Reports may vary because individuals are differently situated in time and space. What one man sees may not be what the others see because they have different points of view or perception of the same scene. Trust is the power of the social world. Trusted persons make some set of their future actions predictable when they make promises and they agree to forgot a certain amount of free action. It is this recognition of free action is at the center of the culture that justifies trust and allows trust to b accomplished and social order to be built and sustained.Chapter 2 Gentlemen were the only ones that possessed the quality of truthfulness. This quality was grounded in his placement in social, biological and economic circumstances. According to Sir Thomas Smith England was made up of four estates: king, major and minor nobility, gentlemen and yeomen. All were considered gentlemen except the yeomen. Gentlemen made up one to five percent of the English population. This small percent held all of the wealth and political power and spoke on behalf of the rest.Gentlemen were characterized according to their wealth. Much of their income came in the form of rents and agricultural land tilled by the unfree. The gentleman was under no obligation to work and was free of want. Aristotle characterized gentlemen to have ancient riches and virtue. The gentleman could also be characterized by their idleness.According to 17th century Tudor and Stuart heralds it toke three generations of gentry s blood to make a gentleman, making lineage important in identifying gentlemen.According to Gouge, God ordained gentlemen. When it came to deciding what was most important in defining a gentleman many writings of the time tented to believe that one s virtue was more important than one s lineage. One could become a gentleman by marriage, money, education, professional standing, court and military service and in rare cases through displays of virtue not connected with the aforementioned. It is believed that one who inherits gentry by means of ones heredity, must work very hard to obtain virtue in order to keep the title of gentleman. Virtue was considered the greatest symbol of gentry. Christianized culture of such virtue was also a quality of a true gentleman. Chapter 3 A gentleman s word was his bond. Whatever he said was the cause or to secure his obligations to do what he promised was guaranteed. To require more surety was to imply that he was not a gentleman. To trust a man s word was to establish the man as being honorable. Honor was translated into power by way of knowledge. This honor culture molded truth to the contour of power.Montigue believed that truth was the first part of virtue. The giving of one s word bound an individuals honor to a course of action. Failure to perform or live up to one s word resulted in one s honor being cancelled. It 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.