October 24, 2008 – 8:07 pm
Due to a company initiative, probably to make the financials look a littttle better, no employee can carry over personal time off into the new year. Well, this would be OK, but I will have accrued over 180 hours of PTO (4.5 weeks) by the end of the year (this year and carried over from years past). I like my job and I already have used my PTO to see my relatives so… I’m taking some days, and weeks, off here and there. When the weather cooperates, I am on the bike having a blast, but when it doesn’t I am stuck at home.
What’s a wierdo like me to do during this down time? Philosophy! Ok, I have never touched the subject of philosophy without a teacher shoving it down my throat, but I have this weird desire to learn a little more (… and stir up the brain cells). So, I found a couple of books - ya’know those things without eye blurring backlit pixels? - and I have begun to dive in. So far it has been interesting to see the human thought process torn apart.
The title of this blog entry is a quote from a book called, “Philosophy”, by Stephen Law. It is in a chapter describing the theory of knowledge. The sentence just caught me by surprise. Knowledge is said to be beliefs with reliable supporting evidence. So, what we know is what we have good reason to believe is true. You cannot know of something without it being true. The book goes on to discuss the various ways, and theories, of questioning this. I’m only 60 pages in, so there is much more.
Trust me, its a mind freak in itself to me but, so far, its been interesting.
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