Mills explains what social epistemology is defined as and what is included in it. Social epistemology concerns a group and how they collectively come up with their beliefs as a whole. Individual epistemology is where one person goes through a change that affects their own beliefs.

When looking at an argument it can be viewed as if the reader is writing their own argument. To make their readers believe the premise they must provide logical support and accurate sources to make it believable.

For the case of conservatism, common sense and background knowledge is needed to make the proper judgement on whether something is a realistic possibility or not.

Although Vaughn lists the indicator words that will help signal a conclusion or premise, they will not work for all arguments. Sometimes they are not clearly written in the text or insinuated. The premise may also be false and not make sense which would not support the conclusion.

Lewis Vaughn is trying to teach the reader that the first part of reading an argument is to find the premise and the conclusion. Once this is done the argument being portrayed will be much easier for the reader to understand.

This would be the only thing they would have to do is listen to the men passing by and watch for shadows if they are restricted from moving. The only information they would have to rely on their surroundings or learn about items they carried is what is heard or the shadow they could see.

The shadows he saw before looking into the light was all he could possibly know since they are unable to turn their heads. Even when he did look at the light whatever he saw would not be easy to comprehend because it's unlike anything they would have seen before.

In the first text we read by Descartes I had read the text only once which led me to believe that Descartes contradicted himself. First he said he could not trust his senses but then through out he said they could be right and to trust the senses. In the end if I had reread the text to get a better understanding I would have realized he was going through his thought process. Next time I will reread the text before deciding whether the author has contradicted themselves.

Philosophy can be hard to understand, especially with the difficult word choice in some cases and the main idea not being clear right away, but it is supposed to be challenging. If the reader puts the effort into understanding the passages it can be beneficial for them to learn more about their own beliefs and possibly change their views on issues.

This is similar to how I experienced the first text we read in class from Descartes. I was so set with the belief that I knew when I was awake or dreaming but after further questioning in class I was angry that I could not necessarily prove that I was right. I was mad at Descartes for making me question myself but I also started to understand his point of view.

Descartes seems to contradict himself from his first paragraph. In the first paragraph humans senses are deceiving and not to be trusted but in the third paragraph he believes the senses are not to be doubted. Overall though he says that everyone has problems trying to decipher whether to trust their senses. if they're a madman or completely sane.