http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/keyword/epistemology Inquiries Journal provides undergraduate and graduate students around the world a platform for the wide dissemination of academic work over a range of core disciplines. en-us Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:41:03 -0400 Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:41:03 -0400 http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1900/the-holistic-universe-wisdom-as-attention-to-the-cohesion-of-physicality-and-immateriality By Erin Aslami - We are all witnesses. You see and are seen; you step in and step out. You brush your hair out of your face, out of the face of a friend, a lover. Sometimes, you feel that the lock of hair is something more than the strands that compose it, and that stroking it strokes something not-quite physical. In your power of physical and emotional cohesion, you practice wisdom. You knit together the self and the other, the self and the body, the body and the world, the physical and the spiritual. You sense how the material and immaterial encompass each other. They are not only the most intimate of dance... Tue, 11 May 2021 02:40 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1900/the-holistic-universe-wisdom-as-attention-to-the-cohesion-of-physicality-and-immateriality http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1799/unification-of-mind-matter-and-consciousness-through-an-essence-of-relation By Jacob Bell - In contemporary philosophy, the mind-body problem and the problem of consciousness are often viewed through the lens of physicalism, which claims that all that exists is physical. Physicalism in general, and reductive physicalism specifically, remain inadequate in explaining, describing, or understanding consciousness and the mind because such things diverge in their ontological status and thus cannot be fully accounted for from within a physicalist worldview. Accounting for consciousness, for example, requires the acknowledgment that physical facts cannot describe everything, and that phenomenal... Fri, 18 Sep 2020 09:39 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1799/unification-of-mind-matter-and-consciousness-through-an-essence-of-relation http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1718/debating-space-through-the-gand#246;ttingen-review-why-kants-transcendental-ideality-of-space-exceeds-berkeleys-subjective-idealist-interpretation By Rocco A. Astore - It is not often that one questions the nature of space, in fact, most people understand extension as independent of their mind as well as the objects that appear in their surrounding world. However, in a radical twist, fitting for the revolutionary epoch of the Enlightenment, Königsberg scholar, philosopher Immanuel Kant forwarded a strikingly new hypothesis. To Kant, although the representations of objects rely on space for their subsistence, minds are independent of it, since they alone impose space onto the world of appearance. Despite his view not being readily defendable by all his peers... Tue, 09 Jan 2018 04:25 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1718/debating-space-through-the-gand#246;ttingen-review-why-kants-transcendental-ideality-of-space-exceeds-berkeleys-subjective-idealist-interpretation http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1501/its-a-wise-child-a-levinasian-analysis-of-j-d-salingers-glass-family-stories By Nivetha Nagarajan - J. D. Salinger is a household name in America, but relatively few people know of his Glass family characters. Seven impossibly bright and witty adult siblings and their parents populate his later work, from their first appearance in the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” that appeared in The New Yorker in 1948, to their last in “Hapworth 16, 1924” in the same publication in 1965. The Glass siblings are unique in that they have an eccentric family culture centered around religion and philosophy. All seven of them were precocious geniuses as children and were featured... Wed, 30 Nov 2016 11:55 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1501/its-a-wise-child-a-levinasian-analysis-of-j-d-salingers-glass-family-stories http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1481/intellectual-responsibility-and-the-epistemic-search-comparing-plato-and-augustine By Leah M. Palmer - In the earliest stages of education, children naturally start to interrogate their elders with the question “why?” This is not surprising and it would often even be concerning if a child did not show signs of curiosity early in life. This natural curiosity, the search for knowledge, follows necessarily from man’s rational nature—the pride and joy of humanity—what sets us apart from the animals. The words, “All men desire to know” (Arist. Meta., 1.980a) have become a cornerstone for explaining the nature of humanity. Epistemology takes this desire to its... Mon, 31 Oct 2016 09:25 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1481/intellectual-responsibility-and-the-epistemic-search-comparing-plato-and-augustine http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1354/examining-free-will-through-spinoza-and-descartes By Rocco A. Astore - According to Spinoza, for something to be entirely free it must be uncompelled in all ways and also the cause of itself.[1] Furthermore, because he believes that there is only one substance that causes itself, which is God, or Nature, and since he states it is uncompelled due to its existence being identical to its essence, it follows that due to its essence being of a self-determined nature, it by necessity exists without being dependent on any other being.[2] Also, since God is uncompelled, all things that derive from it are modes of its attributes and are not to be understood as being at the... Sun, 14 Feb 2016 03:53 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1354/examining-free-will-through-spinoza-and-descartes http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1006/the-researcher-at-the-dance-epistemology-ethics-and-the-ethnographer By Christopher T. McMaster - Before the ethnographer can enter the field of research, indeed, before the researcher can interpret data from the field, he or she must first be aware of how knowledge and meaning are made. The epistemological lens the ethnographer uses will have crucial implications on the hows and the whys—not only of the research itself—but on the role of the researcher. This essay will argue (with the assistance of two young parents, one salmon, and a farm yard full of dancers) that the only ethical ethnography is critical, and the responsibility of the ethnographer is to actively participate... Fri, 06 Mar 2015 04:22 EST http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1006/the-researcher-at-the-dance-epistemology-ethics-and-the-ethnographer http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/910/describing-the-world-or-transforming-it-considering-the-roles-of-the-arts-and-the-natural-sciences By Amrita N. Singh - We often acquire knowledge about the world through the detailed process of description. We understand even more by describing and explaining to others—people often report that they only really understand a topic once they have described it to someone else. Further, description is primarily about the way we perceive the world to be. Through this, we can refine our understanding and gradually acquire more knowledge; however, this begs the question as to where fundamentally new paradigms—radical changes isome n core beliefs—come from. According to Robert Gass, “transformation... Sun, 31 Aug 2014 11:01 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/910/describing-the-world-or-transforming-it-considering-the-roles-of-the-arts-and-the-natural-sciences http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/710/how-everything-fits-together-on-knowledge-and-ancient-understanding By Gregory T. Groppoli - That is, all matter that exists is derived from one thing: water. The earth is made mostly of water, everything contains some water in some form, and everything needs water in order to survive. Heraclitus had a similar view for a much different reason. He believed fire to be the physis. He saw the world as ever changing much like a fire transforms fuel into heat, color, and smoke (Hergenhahn, 2009). Since everything was in constant motion, nothing could truly be understood for certain. This is the basis to his famous statement: “It is impossible to step into the same river twice” (... Fri, 26 Oct 2012 11:39 EDT http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/710/how-everything-fits-together-on-knowledge-and-ancient-understanding