Tagged: knowledge

Foucault, thinking during a lecture, disocurse theory

Philosophy

Foucault’s discourse analysis

Almost every subject in humanities at university level currently devotes a module on discourse analysis – which invariably will feature Foucault. There is a good reason for this, because Foucault’s discourse not only predates most other theorists, such as Laclau and Mouffe, and is therefore a better starting point; but also because in many ways it is more versatile and broadly applicable. Discourse – discours – is not merely a subject of study. For Foucault,...

Sextus Empiricus, Agrippa's trilemma

Philosophy

Agrippa’s paradox (Sextus Empiricus’ modi), and Nietzsche’s insight

There is almost nothing we know about the person attributed with today’s paradox. In fact, Wikipedia even denies him this attribution (or rather, it denies to call the paradox after him). One of the reasons is perhaps that we actually know very little about Agrippa, except from the writing of Sextus Empiricus [sidenote: now that’s an interesting name]. In fact, we don’t even know his (or her?) name for sure. Another could be that many have come up...

Rene Descartes

Philosophy

Descartes’ dream paradox

Descartes, viewed in history of philosophy as the founder of modern philosophy, starts his Meditations with a paradox that has beguiled philosophers since. In very simplistic terms, Descartes points towards the doubts we should have from occurrences we have perceived through our sense. Because our senses can deceive us, we should try to find something else that may substitute for our understanding (knowledge): All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of...