Name: Srikanth Shapur Sridhar Murthy

TECH 57010 Ethics, Technology, and the Environment

Homework Assignment #3
Compare and Contrast Paper
Select two of the remaining topics in the Philosophy Made Simple book, Chapters 2 - 7,
and compare and contrast two of the principles presented in those chapters. For
example, you can select The Philosophy of Religion and The Theory of Knowledge, and
compare and contrast their positions and beliefs.
You are only to select two ideas of the remaining chapters and provide a clear, concise
and thorough comparison. There is no required paper length and it must be submitted in
APA format

The topics selected for comparing are the philosophy of Religion and The theory of
Knowledge.
Before trying to compare and contrast the chapters, let us have a brief discussion on
both the chapters which will lead us to better understand the comparison.
The philosophy of Religion speaks about different concepts and theories on religion.
Trying to magnify the religion through a scientific lens has been going on for centuries.
Historians and people with scientific approach have been trying to verify the facts mentioned
in the religious scriptures. How the events and the teachings in the scriptures are taken,
depends on the person. Whether he is from a scientific background trying to analyse
everything or he is ready to take the topic without analysing it. The Argument from Design
tries to reach God through his design. This means reaching creator through creation. There
are critiques arguing that the theory does not provide attributes about the creator. But have we
understood everything about the creation that we are eligible to understand the creator?
The cause and effect theory has been questioned by a lot of philosophers and
scientists. God as a self existing entity is one of the strong point supporting the theory. Many
scientific theories have been developed and also proven by observing nature. Does this mean
we are exploring the secrets of nature, thus trying to understand the mechanics of the ultimate
system? Possible, Philosophy and Science are based on different foundations. Trying to fit in
one in another might not be a good idea for both. Atheism and Pantheism are contradictory to
each other but have strong views in their approach to understand the concept of God.
To understand different philosophical views, it is important to understand the theory
of knowledge. Rene Descartess theory gives a support to the scientific community by asking
an evidence to prove any theory. The views of many philosophers have been unproven and
thus are not worth considering for anyone who demands the evidence. Descartes goes ahead
to say that many of the theories and views he believed were not true. He continues to argue

whether the existence and our experience is a dream of part of a dream. If this is true, the
studies we assume to explore the secrets of the world are baseless too. This theory could be
concluded saying that everything we assume is true could be false.
Descartes questions the nature of knowledge. Let us try to analyse the problem of
knowledge. The question is whether what we know is our opinion or true. This has always
been a question with the philosophers about the authenticity of what we know. Socrates, on
the other hand, argues against the views of Sophists that their knowledge is not true and they
are behind material success. He concludes his theory by saying that we know everything and
we remember it. What we know cannot be learnt and hence we do not learn anything. We
know it, we just discover it, and thus we are born with everything known. We find several
other philosophers with their views on the knowledge in this chapter.
To summarize this chapter, philosophers have tried to find the basis and the roots of
our knowledge. Some of them found that such knowledge which is true cannot be sensed or
perceived but only exists in the mental level. On the other hand some theories suggest that the
only way to get knowledge is through senses.
Having a fair amount of understanding on both the chapters we can try to compare the
views in them. The theory of religion has been analysed in the first chapter which leads us to
the question what about the knowledge of religion we have? Is it true? The understanding of
the religion is based on some theories and methods but it is still the knowledge we have got
from external sources. We will have to question the authenticity of the knowledge since the
very foundation of knowledge is based on senses or what we know. If we have the knowledge
of religion, we are just trying to unwrap it or if we get the knowledge of religion from our
senses, it is formulated and can fail to answer all the questions. What we know about religion
could be true or just be an opinion. This analysis leads us to a hierarchical chain of questions.
Religion says something, to follow or not to follow it we need to analyse its authenticity. This
leads us to analysing the knowledge we have on religions; however we can question the very
basis of knowledge. Whether it is flawed or true. If we understand the true basis of
knowledge in every sense, we can try to analyse the products of knowledge-religion. These
two chapters have great depth of understanding about the basis and roots of everything upon
which philosophy is based on. These chapters try to question yet answer each other. We try to
get the depth and beauty of philosophy when studying such profound theories.