A Philosophical Analysis: Epistemology, Virtual Teams, and Ontology

This assignment delves into several key philosophical concepts. It begins with an exploration of epistemology, examining the nature of knowledge, justified belief, and truth, including discussions on how knowledge is acquired through empirical and a priori means, and various theories like empiricism and rationalism. The assignment then shifts to a case study on virtual teams managing complex projects, analyzing challenges related to communication, trust, and leadership. Furthermore, it explores ontology through topics such as atomic structure, altruism, gravity, and intelligence, discussing their evolution and implications within philosophical frameworks. The assignment highlights diverse perspectives on these concepts, providing a comprehensive overview of philosophical inquiries.

Question 1. (a.)
Epistemology is the study of scope and nature of the justified belief and knowledge.
The nature of knowledge is analyzed and then related to the notions of belief, truth and
justification. The production of knowledge along with skepticism related to these
knowledge claims have been related to epistemology. Therefore it deals with the
creation as well as dissemination of knowledge in the inquiry areas. It consist of a vast
array of concepts, notions and views regarding the propositional knowledge, however
the fact that knowledge is the true belief is one virtually universal presupposition
however not merely a true belief. For instance, true beliefs or luck guesses cannot be
addressed as knowledge as they result from some wishful thinking. Epistemology
discusses propositional knowledge i.e. Where the “knowledge-that” instead of
“knowledge-how”. This can be discussed by stating the example of 3+3= 6 instead of
the knowledge of addition of numbers.
What is knowledge?
The understanding and awareness of the aspects related to reality is known as
knowledge. In clear terms, the data and information gained using the process of
applying reasons to the reality is knowledge. Traditionally, three sufficient and
necessary conditions are required for knowledge so as to define knowledge in the terms
of “justified true belief”.
Truth: in case the propositions are to be counted as knowledge, they have to be true
and factual.
Belief: this is important as it is not possible for one to not know something the other one
doesn’t believe it.
Justification: in contrast to have a belief on thing which is just a matter of luck.
In term of evidentialism, a belief is justified with the help of possession of evidences.
The various theories of Reliabilism can be suggested by the fact that either knowledge
does not require any justification if it is reliably-produced true belief or the fact that any
reliable cognitive process like touch or vision are enough for the justification.
Another theory of Infallibilism states that a certain belief does not have to be justified or
true but this justification must be able to necessitate the true meaning of it therefore any
justification for that certain belied has to be infallible in nature.
How is knowledge acquired?
On the basis of the source, the propositional knowledge is sorted out into two parts,
a. A non-empirical or priori: The knowledge is present irrespective of any
experience and only maintains the reason and its usage. For example, the logical
truths, abstract claims etc. and the knowledge behind it.
b. Empirical or posteriori: The knowledge is related to any sense experience, or
posterior along with the reason and its usage. For example, the shape and colour
of the object, geographical locations and their knowledge.

The knowledge regarding the physical world and its empirical facts are usually seen
to include the use of senses or perception. But some reasoning is required along
with data analysis and inferences. The transfer of knowledge is seen to be
transmitted using the testimony. The knowledge acquisition can be explained by the
following primary theories.
a. Empiricism emphasizing on the experience and its role on the basis of
experience of perceptual observation using the five sense whereas the notion of
innate concepts and ideas has to be discounted. This basic principles with some
refinement has led to development of Positivism, Phenomenalism, Logical
positivism and Scientism.
b. Rationalism expressing that knowledge is acquired using the innate, priori or
intuitive process not are not derived from the experience.
c. Representationalism: holds the fact that the universe and world around is not real
but it is actually a replica version of the miniature virtual-reality of the internal
representation of that world.
d. Constructionism: is based on presupposition that knowledge is basically
constructed where the knowledge is contingent on the human perception,
convention and social experience.
The knowledge and its justification depends on the some other beliefs as the
justification process is seen leading to an infinite regress. The apparent impossibility for
completion of the infinite reasoning chain begins from skepticism further arguing that the
beliefs are not justified and people do not have much information. The absolute
certainty regarding the knowledge, according to Fallibilism, is highly impossible and
further seen that the claims associated with knowledge are mistaken. But fallbilism is
different from skepticiosm as it does not imply the necessity to abandon the knowledge
as the further observation can be helpful in revising the empirical knowledge and the
knowledge might turn out to be false.
This regress issues have the following concerning thoughts:
 Foundationalism claiming that the beliefs which are seen to support another
beliefs are foundational in nature and do not require any justification using other
beliefs.
 Instrumentalism where the theories and concepts are used as useful instruments
whose worth is evaluated by determining how predicting and explaining things.
Therefore the truth-evaluable theories are denied by instrumentalism.
 Pragmatism holds true only when they are working and are seen to have
practical consequences.
 The infinite series when are potential are defined by Infinitism and the person
should have the ability to present it in times of need. Therefore, this theory
considers the infinite regress to have an effective and valid justification.
 When an individual belief is justified circularly in a manner to cohere as per the
belief system it is a part of, so that the regress is not processing as per the linear
justification pattern.
 Foundherentism reflects the unison of coherentism and foundationalism.

Question 1. (b.)
While conducting a study on effectiveness of the virtual teams so as to manage
complex projects, various challenges can be encountered. While presenting the case
study of virtual team for managing the complex project, four concepts i.e. the task, time,
transition and teams are considered.
The challenges and issues have been mentioned below:
a. Communication issues: communication being the key factor in complex projects
and require communication efforts. The complexity of the project defines its
communicative efforts. Therefore, the complex the projects, the more
communicative efforts are required. Communication difficulties are seen to
increase when the teams are changed and foundation for communication is
established again (e.g. Kayworth and Leidner 2000). In case the teams are seen
to change constantly, it is imperative for the organization to set up proper
communication standards. The main role of the virtual teams in order to attain
specific goal is to have task orientated communication. Lots of communication
efforts in the project will justify to the fact that work is being performed in the
organization.
b. Trust issues: The project provides a justification to the project and its existence
(Lundin and Söderholm, 1995). Motivation towards project team will become
challenging if the project task is not trusted. The task and its importance is not
important but the task must be meaningful and it must be about the project team
behind it. Therefore along with a proper communication channel, the organization
must also support trust in the task. In order to success, the trust must be present
at high level in the project teams. Team participation and active communication
lead to acquiring of confidential and important knowledge which further
strengthens the trust. The parent organizations must trust in the project team for
effecting the project in a right manner. Whereas the implementation phase of the
project is considered to be highly important for non-trusting parent organization.
c. Leadership issues: The main finding regarding the leadership challenge are
related to the task and transition elements of temporality. Due to the task
orientation of temporary projects, transactional leadership style was favored in
the case company. Communication and coordination were seen the main
leadership activities. Project managers and project sponsor was seen as the
responsible persons for the success of the project in the transition. Without
successful implementation of the project to the organization in stake, the project
should be considered as a failure. The complex projects have the tendency to
bring out a radical change in the organization and therefore a right leadership will
strive to provide a justification to the parent organization (Lundin and Söderholm,
1995) and might cause rifts among the project group and parent organization.

Question 2
a. Atomic Structure:
Leucippus proposed the materialist atomism and was indeterminist in nature and was
further developed by Democritus in a deterministic manner. Epicurus again took the
original atomism as the indeterministic and confirmed that in reality it is composed of
infinite unchangeable and indivisible atoms or corpuscles and later on gave weight for
characterizing the atoms which were initially characterized by an order, a figure and a
position in the cosmos. These are responsible for creating the whole with various
strange intrinsic actions and movements in the vacuum leading to production of diverse
flux of being. Parenklisis is seen to influence their movements and actions and are
highly determined by the chance. All these present a tremendous challenge until 20th
century when the nature of atoms were actually discovered.
b. Altruism:
If one argues that all the human beings are altruistic in nature then we have to figure out
various methods of living in harmony with each other irrespective of all the factors or
else our well-being along with the civilization’s progress will be stymied. Furthermore, if
considered in an optimistic manner various contemporary practices are used by various
authors for drawing out valid reasons and relations. Some of the practices have been
implemented by the society and institutions promoting the altruistic behavior for
proposing practices in order to solve the controversial and ethical issues like war,
genocide, corruption etc. This presents a complete scientific theoretical argument have
been presented for describing human ontology. (Okasha, S., 2003).

c. Gravity
The issues of ontology and quantum spacetime is closely related to the issue of time.
Usually it is seen that the quantum theory resists the straightforward ontological reading
and thereby doubles the quantum gravity. In quantum field theory one possess particles
but these are secondary to fields albeit the varying properties. The only difference in
quantum gravity is that the quantum field becomes quantum field stressing on the fact
that the spacetime and its properties become indefinite. The time and space are seen to
play central part in the individuating objects along with their properties and therefore the
quantization poses a real issue for ontology.
The investigation of the relational observables which are estimated to be necessitated
by the diffeomorphism invariance is seen to benefit the philosophers. The gauge
symmetries related with the constraints are seen to have metaphysical baggage
associated with them therefore these moves usually include philosophically weighty
assumptions. The presence of symmetries, for example, usually is seen to allow more
than more possibilities therefore eradication of such symmetries by reducing them to
physical phase space by solving these constraints would mean that eradication of states
which are thought to be physically equivalent in spite of formal differences associated
with representation. The constraints are therefore seen to involve critical modal
assumptions. As the traditional positions of the ontology of substantivalism and
relationalism (spacetime) involves a commitment for counting possibilities, very serious
implications can be seen on ontology if the decision to eliminate the symmetries is taken
place. If, elimination or retaining of symmetries were to depict success in quantizing
gravity, one would always be seen to have valid scientific reasons for supporting
relationalism or substantivalism (Weinstein, S. & Rickles, D., 2005).

d. Intelligence
With the emergence of artificial intelligence and computers, the literature has modified
the definitions of ontology and most of them contradict with one another. Therefore
ontology has been considered to be a formal explicit description of concepts where the
concepts and its properties are used for describing the attributes and features of all the
concepts. A knowledge base is seen to be constituted from the ontology along with the
individual stances and their sets. In the recent years, explicit formal specification in the
relations and domains have been seen to move from the Artificial-Intelligence and their
laboratories to the domain experts desktops. The ontologies are common on the World
Wide Web and range from the categorization of various sale products and large
taxonomies etc. This has raised issues and problems of other minds and is posing
problem of consciousness. John Searle has therefore segregated the term of strong AI
and weak AI depicting the arguments that the computer program cannot act like a
human mind and raises various philosophical questions. A direct answer to the question
“can a machine display general intelligence?” has been a valid issue. Various
researchers also believe that consciousness is one of the critical element in the terms of
intelligence.
Anything that can be simulated by the artificial computer brings out the point leading to
the fact that all the processes that can take place technically are a part of computation
and just a mere mimicking of brain and its functioning is a direct admission of ignorance
towards nature of mind and its intelligence (Searle, J. R., 1980).

References
Three sources:
Epistemology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2016). Iep.utm.edu. Retrieved 6
October 2016, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#H1
Epistemology - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy. (2016).
Philosophybasics.com. Retrieved 6 October 2016, from
http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_epistemology.html
Steup, M. (2005). Epistemology. Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2016, from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#WIK
Kayworth, T., Leidner D. (2000) “The Global Virtual Manager: A Prescription for
Success” European Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 183-194
Lundin, R., Söderholm, A. (1994) “A Theory of the Temporary Organization”
Scandinavian Journal of Management, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 437-455
Okasha, S. (2003). Biological Altruism. Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 6 October 2016,
from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#AltCoOpeMut
Searle, J. R. (1980). Minds, brains, and programs. Behavioral and brain sciences, 3(03),
417-424.
Weinstein, S. & Rickles, D. (2005). Quantum Gravity. Plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 6
October 2016, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-gravity/#5.2