# A bit of philosophy..

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 25, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000 "2011-03-25T19:53:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![MatthewGerlach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@MatthewGerlach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MatthewGerlach)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000/1 "2011-03-25T19:53:53Z")

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So I was basking in the sun this afternoon with a friend, and we started wondering;

to what extent d’you think we need evidence to support our beliefs in different areas of ‘knowledge’… (e.g. reason, perception, language and emotion)?  
Reason and perception are both relatively straight forward, but what about the other two? What d’you guys think?

M.

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**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000/2 "2011-03-25T20:02:38Z")

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Language is a social activity, where people have to agree on what is the correct vocabulary and grammar in order to communicate. Of course, there can be variation within limits – you can write “color” while I write “colour” – but too much divergence makes it impossible to communicate. And there can be evidence on these matters: you can do research, and find that x% write “color”, y% write “colour” and 0% write “coluor” – from that you might say that there are 2 common spellings, and that “coluor”, while comprehensible in context, is not one of them.

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**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000/3 "2011-03-25T21:34:22Z")

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Since the OP is looking for opinions, let’s move this from GQ to IMHO.

**samclem** MOderator

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**Author:** ![MatthewGerlach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@MatthewGerlach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MatthewGerlach)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bit-of-philosophy/576000/4 "2011-03-26T00:34:00Z")

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Thanks for the interest…