Epistemological Issues in X-FilesEssay Preview: Epistemological Issues in X-FilesReport this essayIn Field Trip and Bad Blood, a number of epistemological issues come up. The issues of Cartesian skepticism and relativism/perspectivism also arise. However, I believe the writers of these episodes donÐÐŽÐЇt find a way to resolve these classical philosophical difficulties.
Some of the epistemological issues in Field Trip are when Scully and Mulder are hallucinating underground, thinking they have escaped from the ground but they are still underground. The epistemological issues in Bad Blood are that Ronnie, the vampire want-to-be, thinks he is a vampire but is not. Ronnie is the same kind as the town people who all, at the end, have green glowing eyes and have obsessive-compulsive disorder and die when a stick is through their heart. Even though it is not a hallucination, Ronnie has his own realism of being a vampire, like in Bela Lugosi movies. Also perspectivism arises in Bad Blood when Scully and Mulder both tell the same story but in their perspective. They both are stuck in their own versions and are over exaggerated
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Trip to the End
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Cultural Analysis
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Discussion
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Mark R. Smith writes: “It’s clear that a small but growing number of scientists were in denial about why these things happen. For example, one of the chief causes was the failure by the 1950s to get into the scientific fields, that was because the government was still too scared of the “scourge of the atomic age,” to take their ideas seriously that if they were to change science or the world, the country would be destroyed. ” The other was that the government had so many problems that they were afraid to take off to find something they could fix. It was the fear of the destruction of the country that led to so many of our scientists beginning to give up.” I have been interested in this point since the mid-eighties, and it’s been very well-received by some of the folks I met on a trip to the field. But as the Cold War soured, many scientists found no hope that something could be done to address the crisis. But it was a good thing the Government kept doing the same things that were bothering the people, like cutting funds off to those interested in trying to improve their research and by removing their expertise on the problems. Why was there a sudden decline in the number of scientific people who believed that science could save us as a species? And why is it that we were doing absolutely nothing about that when we got into these fields all along? The answer seems to me to be more that the scientific institutions were so afraid of the new thing that they could not go on with their ideas without being threatened with lawsuits. So, if the government was too afraid they would take out the funding or shut them down, not only do they continue to give the same things to everybody but what to do with the money to get them to keep funding. What do you think is their excuse for not getting on board? Why didn’t the United States Department of Labor come up with an early policy that would have saved us from a future where our people had to spend much of their time and their money worrying about the future?”
John N. Stoecker, “Vampire Hunters,” National Science Foundation, page 10:
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References
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John K. Stoecker, “Vampire Hunters Revisited,” National Science Foundation website, http://www.nscf.org/index.html .
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In both episodes Cartesian skepticism arise by showing Scully and Mulder stuck in yellow slime underground but hallucinates that they escaped. Cartesian skepticism is like hallucinations, dreams, deceived by demons, or brains in vats. It is awareness of ones own capability to be deceived. Relativism is identified as the thesis that all points of view are equally valid. It also expresses the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. Humans understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviours only in terms of, for example, their historical or cultural context. Perspectivism is all perception and ideation takes place from a particular perspective in terms of inner drives as elucidated by the ÐÐŽÐowill to powerÐЎб. This was developed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
The writers of these episodes donÐÐŽÐЇt find a way to resolve these classical philosophical difficulties because these all depend on how we look at it and how we want to believe. For example, ÐÐŽÐoSeeing truth as made, not found- seeing reality as socially constructed- doesnÐÐŽÐЇt mean deciding there is nothing ÐЎЮout there.ÐÐŽÐЇ It means understanding that all out stories about whatÐÐŽÐЇs out there- all out scientific facts,