The Importance of Psychology

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There are 7 billion people on this planet. All of which have a mind to rely on in any given situation. Yet there are only a few million searches taking place at google.com each month. This leaves me to believe the importance of psychology is under rated. 

The core of Psychology is the study of ones mind.

Every instance your mind and many other minds are operating.

Consuming energy by communicating rapidly on a quantum level that is learned through neuroscience.  

This transferable energy follows cognitive paths clearly defining how our minds operate.  

Understanding how your mind operates is important because each and every person makes a solid effort to develop throughout life. 

As we make our way through life, the mind experiences different situations which causes each mind to develop different from one another. For example, each mind goes through similar stages of development, but each person develops according to their accidents, successes, and obstacles. 

Which lead to a various array of thought processes, or mindsets if you will; ultimately changing ones behavior making each person individually unique. 

I believe psychologist truly realize this when they learn about social psychology as we are social animals and dependent nonetheless. With this said, you and I are always thinking about people, places, things, ideas, events and our behaviors.   

Psychologist have known and argued about this dilemma called "Nature vs. Nurture". However I argue, that ones mind is similar to another mind, and is affected by nature and nurture. With this said, I also believe that nature is important, because without proper environment a mind cannot get the proper nourishment needed to enhance their body, mind and spirit.  

Proper nature and nurture will allow ones mind to develop and experience a unique personality that becomes their own. For example I am an ENFJ, but I tend to experience other variations as life is cyclical and my behaviors change based on my mood. 

With this said, all of this is important to us, because evolutionary psychology suggests our thoughts are manifested into reality; this is known as the law of attraction.  

So if this doesn't show you why psychology is important, maybe this can help, psychology helps individuals, teams and nations. By overcoming stressful, and anxious situations, because they understand individuals. 

A lot of people do not manage their mind wisely turning to psychologist to respond with an answer. Psychology is extremely useful and applicable as we all use our mind more than any other tool every single day. Become aware of this script and you will realize the importance of psychology. 

Knowledge as Justified True Belief

Hello World, My name is Jeremy Reddig and the purpose of this blog roll is to satisfy two things (1) our understanding of epistemology and (2) a means to improve my writing. Go ahead and leave comments below to help me, help you. Note: I will use examples from the book and from my own experience.

To be clear, I am taking notes from a book titled An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology by Matthias Steup; if you need a copy to follow along click on the the title in this sentence and a link will direct you.

The entire book is centered around propositional knowledge: What is it for S to know P?

This is to say: What is it for (S) Jeremy Reddig to know (P) Philopsychonomics is a field of study? or What is it for (S) Jeremy Reddig to know (P) he is living a healthy life?

Well, before we can decide whether or not the above statements are satisfied we have to know what conditions are necessary for S to know P.

The book starts off a little shaky, but for good reasons. There are three conditions that are necessary for S to know P, however as we observe the conditions a problem arises. We will get into the Gettier problem in our next blog post, for now let us reveal the three conditions.

In order for S to know P, S must satisfy the following conditions:

1. Truth Condition: P be true

2. Belief Condition: S believes P

3. Justification Condition: A true belief amounts to knowledge only if it is justified. 

This is to say that in order for knowledge to be a true belief it must be justified. This justification goes further than the individual being able to truly believe in the justified knowledge. A justified true belief is knowledge and known by a collective and society alike. The knowledge has to be supported with reasoning showing proof of the justified true belief. 

An unjustified true belief is merely a lucky guess, for it lacks sufficient reason. For example, the belief was justified that our earth was not round, and if one were to set sail they would simply fall off the face of earth. There was reason for their beliefs, and it wasn't until a brave sailor set sea to test this belief that they discovered sufficient reasoning for earth to be round as the team returned to shore. If, the ship of sailors didn't return the people would have believed earth to not be round; forming a lucky guess. However earth not being round was a lucky guess, because the belief was unjustified that the earth was not round until it was justified with a true belief and sufficient reasoning that the earth was in fact round. 

This error in reasoning presented a problem that was brought to light by Mr. Edmund Gettier when he realized that these three conditions are not sufficient for a justified true belief to sufficiently become knowledge.  

Have you experienced a true belief that may not be sufficiently justified and is similar to the earth not being round? share your thoughts below. 

Epistemology: The Study of Knowledge and Justified Belief

Hello World, My name is Jeremy Reddig and the purpose of this blog roll is to satisfy two things (1) our understanding of epistemology and (2) a means to improve my writing. Go ahead and leave comments below to help me, help you. Note: I will use examples from the book and from my own experience.

To be clear, I am taking notes from a book titled An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology by Matthias Steup; if you need a copy to follow along click on the the title in this sentence and a link will direct you. The blog roll will consist of various post that are related to the book and will be in chronological order. Philosophy professors won't typically teach the book in order so this may or may not help students for this semester. However, next semester this will be a viable source for Epistemology students as it will aide in their studies.

Seeking answers to these two types of questions are engaging in the study of Epistemology.

Theoretical Questions:
Q1: What is knowledge?
A1: Concept of knowledge must be defined.

Q2: What do we know?
A2: Extent of knowledge must be determined.

Q3: What is it for a belief to be justified?
A3: Concept of justification must be analyzed.

Q4: Which of our beliefs are justified?
A4: We must determine the extent of what we are justified in believing.

Practical Question:
Q5: What should we believe?
A5: And I will leave you with this note to act as a future reference upon completion:

In order to answer this question, epistemologists must develop appropriate methodologies --- methodologies that, if followed, help their practitionaers to acquire justified beliefs, or even knowledge, and to avoid unjustified beliefs and error. Our focus in this book will be mostly theoretical. We shall discuss issues of practical epistemology only insofar as they bear on theoretical questions.
Many philosophers think there is a close conceptual connection between knowledge and justification. they hold that a belief cannot amount to knowledge unless it is justified. On that view, we cannot answer the two questions about knowledge without answering the two questions about justification. However, since the nature and extent of justified belief is an independently interesting issue, questions 3 and 4 would still remain central questions of epistemology even if these philosophers were wrong.
In this chapter, we will focus on the definition of knowledge and the role justification plays in that definition. In Chapter 2, we will consider precisely what we wish to accomplish when we attempt to analyze concepts such as knowledge and justification. In Chapters 3 through 8, we will consider various theories about the nature of justification. In Chapter 9, we will be concerned with issues of methodology, with how epistemology ought to be done. Finally, in Chapter 10, we will examine the extent of justified belief and knowledge and discuss skeptical and nonskeptical responses to questions 2 and 4. Steup, Matthias. An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1996. 2. Print.