The Expansive Nature of Knowledge Explored through Descartes, Hume, and Merleau-Ponty
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Authors
Melton, Trey
Date of Issue
2025-04-25
Type
Presentation
Language
en_US
Subject Keywords
Other Titles
Abstract
The pursuit of knowledge is a natural human inclination, and the acquisition of knowledge is one of the main facets of education. Besides the satisfaction that comes with quenching this natural curiosity, acquiring knowledge can prove useful in addressing the problems we face in our everyday lives. Inquiring into the nature of this knowledge can challenge several assumptions we make about what we do and can know. Are there different kinds of knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge is most pragmatic? What can we know with certainty? Does knowledge need to be useful or certain to be worth pursuing? René Descartes, David Hume, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty all offer different frameworks from which to approach these questions. Ultimately, when viewing each of these authors’ philosophies as an evolution of the previous one, they point toward the idea that the nature of human knowledge might be best thought of as ever-expansive. The different types of knowledge for which each philosopher advocates can prove worth pursuing in their own rights. We would do ourselves a disservice to limit our pursuit of knowledge to any set method or our idea of knowledge to any set definition.