Work for Monday May 2nd.

KI's
1. To what extent can History provide a larger perspective on certain issues.
2.To what extent does emotion play an important role on historical interpretation
3. to what extent does language shape or view on historical events
Essay Re-write:
In modern times, reason has been the way of knowing to attain truth. We have been conditioned to accept this fact. We assume that anything reasonable, by nature can be proved in some way and therefore it is valid. It is in some way true and relevant to our lives. This of course has undermined some of the other ways of knowing. One cannot say “it is true because I feel it” and expect it to be accepted by the most part of society. We have recurred to reason because in a way it is an easy way out. We do not have to live through the process of reason as we do with emotion or sense perception. But how can this way of reason possibly work in isolation? Furthermore, to what extent can reason alone attain a truth and later on communicate it?
I could never communicate my personal truth in a reasonable way. In Spanish class we are taught to try to find the central theme of a work, a poem for example, but our teacher had told us that we might never exactly know what it is, we may work our way around it but never exactly “get it”. Of course this is because in analysis, we are trying to figure this theme by undergoing a process of reason. We see words and because we know the feelings that are related to this words, we make connections and assume this feelings. If we were to use emotion instead, we would feel the poem, live in it, experience its depth, but at least in my personal experience never communicate this feeling in a reasonable way useful for a literary analysis. So the truth that we have attained from the poem through reason is not exactly “it”, it is only a version.
What I am trying to convey at the moment is of course said in a reasonable way. It was to be or else it would not be an essay. If this is said in such a way, it is not fully true. We try to find a reason for reason by using reason, and we may never reach this point of truth. We may find this reason using other ways of knowing but not be able to express it in a reasonable way. In this sense reason fails when isolated.
When using this specific way of knowing we have to first find some solid ground. Then from this build up our argument. Everything we say must come from somewhere and cannot suddenly pop out from empty space, this would not be logical, now would it? But to find this basis we have to have gotten it from somewhere. If we were to state that all apple trees produce apples we got this from sense perception and experience, and not from the mere logic of the name. To know what something is and then later on reason with it we have to have gotten it from somewhere outside of logic. So if logic only exists within itself, it will never move forward. It will never attain the truth, let alone communicate it.