I think, therefore I eat.

LOOKING FOR REALITY     Ordinary Human Inquiry     Tradition     Authority     Errors in Inquiry and Some Solutions     What’s Really Real?

The chapter begins with an examination of reality and how we go about looking for it.  We'll start with some of the common sense ideas we have about what's real, and then we'll see things may not be as they seem.     Much of what we "know," we know because "everyone has always known that."  Unfortunately, what "everyone knows" keeps changing.  Everyone used to know the world was flat, now we all know it's round.     We "know" other things because people in authority said they were so.  Unfortunately, the experts keep changing their minds, also.

Both tradition and authority are examples of our "knowing" things by agreement rather than by  experience.  If you are honest with yourself, you will see that little of what you know is a result of your own personal experience.  This book is about how you can "know" things on your own.     We'll see some of the common errors people make in everyday inquiry, and we'll see how social scientific inquiry helps us avoid those errors.     You should leave this section with a better sense of how to pursue what's really real.