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127-639: Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron . In 2003, his The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . His film The Thin Blue Line placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of

254-508: A relation between a knower and a known proposition , in the case above between the person Ravi and the proposition "kangaroos hop". It is use-independent since it is not tied to one specific purpose. It is a mental representation that relies on concepts and ideas to depict reality. Because of its theoretical nature, it is often held that only relatively sophisticated creatures, such as humans, possess propositional knowledge. Propositional knowledge contrasts with non-propositional knowledge in

381-412: A series of thought experiments that aimed to show that some justified true beliefs do not amount to knowledge. In one of them, a person is unaware of all the fake barns in their area. By coincidence, they stop in front of the only real barn and form a justified true belief that it is a real barn. Many epistemologists agree that this is not knowledge because the justification is not directly relevant to

508-442: A belief is information that favors or supports it. Epistemologists understand evidence primarily in terms of mental states, for example, as sensory impressions or as other propositions that a person knows. But in a wider sense, it can also include physical objects, like bloodstains examined by forensic analysts or financial records studied by investigative journalists. Evidence is often understood in terms of probability : evidence for

635-473: A belief is justified if the individual's evidence supports the belief and they hold the belief on the basis of this evidence. Reliabilism is an externalist theory asserting that a reliable connection between belief and truth is required for justification. Some reliabilists explain this in terms of reliable processes. According to this view, a belief is justified if it is produced by a reliable belief-formation process, like perception. A belief-formation process

762-612: A belief makes it more likely that the belief is true. A defeater is evidence against a belief or evidence that undermines another piece of evidence. For instance, witness testimony connecting a suspect to a crime is evidence for their guilt while an alibi is a defeater. Evidentialists analyze justification in terms of evidence by saying that to be justified, a belief needs to rest on adequate evidence. The presence of evidence usually affects doubt and certainty , which are subjective attitudes toward propositions that differ regarding their level of confidence. Doubt involves questioning

889-592: A belief, known as propositional justification , but also in whether the person holds the belief because or based on this reason, known as doxastic justification . For example, if a person has sufficient reason to believe that a neighborhood is dangerous but forms this belief based on superstition then they have propositional justification but lack doxastic justification. Sources of justification are ways or cognitive capacities through which people acquire justification. Often-discussed sources include perception , introspection , memory , reason , and testimony , but there

1016-414: A common view, this means that the person has sufficient reasons for holding this belief because they have information that supports it. Another view states that a belief is justified if it is formed by a reliable belief formation process, such as perception. The terms reasonable , warranted , and supported are closely related to the idea of justification and are sometimes used as synonyms. Justification

1143-573: A disease helps a doctor cure their patient, and knowledge of when a job interview starts helps a candidate arrive on time. The usefulness of a known fact depends on the circumstances. Knowledge of some facts may have little to no uses, like memorizing random phone numbers from an outdated phone book. Being able to assess the value of knowledge matters in choosing what information to acquire and transmit to others. It affects decisions like which subjects to teach at school and how to allocate funds to research projects. Of particular interest to epistemologists

1270-467: A documentary adaptation of it, having studied the philosophy of science at Princeton. Morris's film A Brief History of Time is less an adaptation of Hawking's book than a portrait of the scientist. It combines interviews with Hawking, his colleagues and his family with computer animations and clips from movies like Disney's The Black Hole . Morris said he was "very moved by Hawking as a man", calling him "immensely likable, perverse, funny...and yes, he's

1397-898: A documentary filmmaker, he is also an accomplished director of television commercials . In 2002, Morris directed a series of television ads for Apple Computer as part of a popular "Switch" campaign. The commercials featured ex- Windows users discussing their various bad experiences that motivated their own personal switches to Macintosh. One commercial in the series, starring Ellen Feiss, a high-schooler friend of his son Hamilton Morris , became an Internet meme. Morris has directed hundreds of commercials for various companies and products, including Adidas , AIG , Cisco Systems , Citibank , Kimberly-Clark 's Depend brand , Levi's , Miller High Life , Nike , PBS , The Quaker Oats Company , Southern Comfort , EA Sports , Toyota and Volkswagen . Many of these commercials are available on his website. In July 2004, Morris directed another series of commercials in

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1524-414: A genius." Morris's Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves interviews with a wild animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist and a naked mole rat specialist with stock footage, cartoons and clips from film serials. Roger Ebert said of it, "If I had to describe it, I'd say it's about people who are trying to control things - to take upon themselves the mantle of God." Morris agreed there

1651-483: A happy camper." He now states that he does not believe that Macdonald is guilty, but thinks it possible that Macdonald is guilty. To conduct interviews, Morris invented a machine, called the Interrotron, which allows the interviewer and his subject to make eye-contact with each other while both staring through the camera lens itself. He explains the device as follows: Teleprompters are used to project an image on

1778-419: A house in town and conducting interviews with the town's citizens. Vernon, Florida premiered at the 1981 New York Film Festival . Newsweek called it, "a film as odd and mysterious as its subjects, and quite unforgettable." The film, like Gates of Heaven , suffered from poor distribution. It was released on video in 1987, and DVD in 2005. After finishing Vernon, Florida , Morris tried to get funding for

1905-452: A letter, a newspaper, and a blog. Rationality is closely related to justification and the terms rational belief and justified belief are sometimes used as synonyms. However, rationality has a wider scope that encompasses both a theoretical side, covering beliefs, and a practical side, covering decisions , intentions , and actions . There are different conceptions about what it means for something to be rational. According to one view,

2032-401: A life sentence that had been commuted from a death sentence on a legal technicality for the 1976 murder of Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. Adams told Morris that he had been framed, and that David Harris, who was present at the time of the murder and was the principal witness for the prosecution, had in fact killed Wood. Morris began researching the case because it related to Dr. Grigson. He

2159-416: A mental state is rational if it is based on or responsive to good reasons. Another view emphasizes the role of coherence, stating that rationality requires that the different mental states of a person are consistent and support each other. A slightly different approach holds that rationality is about achieving certain goals. Two goals of theoretical rationality are accuracy and comprehensiveness, meaning that

2286-437: A movie about Ed Gein." In the fall of 1976, Herzog visited Plainfield again, this time to shoot part of his film Stroszek . Morris accepted $ 2,000 from Herzog and used it to take a trip to Vernon, Florida . Vernon was nicknamed "Nub City" because its residents participated in a particularly gruesome form of insurance fraud in which they deliberately amputated a limb to collect the insurance money. Morris's second documentary

2413-730: A new Morris documentary was submitted to several film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival , Cannes Film Festival , and Telluride Film Festival . The film, Tabloid , features interviews with Joyce McKinney , a former Miss Wyoming , who was convicted in absentia for the kidnap and indecent assault of a Mormon missionary in England during 1977. Subsequently, Morris has made documentaries such as The Unknown Known (2013), American Dharma (2018), and The Pigeon Tunnel (2023), revolving around interviews conducted with Donald Rumsfeld , Steve Bannon , and John le Carré , respectively. Although Morris has achieved fame as

2540-463: A pair of ill-fated Stephen King adaptations. In 1984, Morris married Julia Sheehan, whom he had met in Wisconsin while researching Ed Gein and other serial killers. He would later recall an early conversation with Julia: "I was talking to a mass murderer but I was thinking of you," he said, and instantly regretted it, afraid that it might not have sounded as affectionate as he had wished. But Julia

2667-410: A person already has, asserting that a person should only change their beliefs if they have a good reason to. One motivation for adopting epistemic conservatism is that the cognitive resources of humans are limited, meaning that it is not feasible to constantly reexamine every belief. Pragmatist epistemology is a form of fallibilism that emphasizes the close relation between knowing and acting. It sees

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2794-744: A person has as few false beliefs and as many true beliefs as possible. Epistemic norms are criteria to assess the cognitive quality of beliefs, like their justification and rationality. Epistemologists distinguish between deontic norms, which are prescriptions about what people should believe or which beliefs are correct, and axiological norms, which identify the goals and values of beliefs. Epistemic norms are closely related to intellectual or epistemic virtues , which are character traits like open-mindedness and conscientiousness . Epistemic virtues help individuals form true beliefs and acquire knowledge. They contrast with epistemic vices and act as foundational concepts of virtue epistemology . Evidence for

2921-419: A person knows depends on the subjective criteria or social conventions used to assess epistemic status. The debate between empiricism and rationalism centers on the origins of human knowledge. Empiricism emphasizes that sense experience is the primary source of all knowledge. Some empiricists express this view by stating that the mind is a blank slate that only develops ideas about the external world through

3048-530: A piano teacher. He had one older brother, Noel, who was a computer programmer. After being treated for strabismus in childhood, Morris refused to wear an eye patch. As a consequence, he has limited sight in one eye and lacks normal stereoscopic vision. In the 10th grade, Morris attended The Putney School , a boarding school in Vermont. He began playing the cello , spending a summer in France studying music under

3175-507: A posteriori knowledge. A priori knowledge is knowledge of non-empirical facts and does not depend on evidence from sensory experience. It belongs to fields such as mathematics and logic , like knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 {\displaystyle 2+2=4} . The contrast between a posteriori and a priori knowledge plays a central role in the debate between empiricists and rationalists on whether all knowledge depends on sensory experience. A closely related contrast

3302-620: A regular at the Pacific Film Archive . As Tom Luddy , the director of the archive at the time, later remembered: "He was a film noir nut. He claimed we weren't showing the real film noir. So I challenged him to write the program notes. Then, there was his habit of sneaking into the films and denying that he was sneaking in. I told him if he was sneaking in he should at least admit he was doing it." Inspired by Hitchcock 's Psycho , Morris visited Plainfield, Wisconsin in 1975, where he conducted multiple interviews with Ed Gein ,

3429-575: A survey by The Washington Post , the film made dozens of critics' top ten lists for 1988, more than any other film that year. It won the documentary of the year award from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics . Despite its widespread acclaim, it was not nominated for an Oscar , which created a small scandal regarding the nomination practices of the academy. The academy cited

3556-513: A time when something is going wrong in the country. Bonnie and Clyde were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without the Depression as a backdrop. The Pardue brothers were apolitical, but it's impossible to imagine them without Vietnam." Morris wanted Tom Waits and Mickey Rourke to play the brothers, and he wrote the script, but the project eventually failed. Morris worked on writing scripts for various other projects, including

3683-412: A true or a false proposition. According to the correspondence theory of truth , to be true means to stand in the right relation to the world by accurately describing what it is like. This means that truth is objective: a belief is true if it corresponds to a fact . The coherence theory of truth says that a belief is true if it belongs to a coherent system of beliefs. A result of this view is that truth

3810-460: A two-way mirror. Politicians and newscasters use them so that they can read text and look into the lens of the camera at the same time. What interests me is that nobody thought of using them for anything other than to display text: read a speech or read the news and look into the lens of the camera. I changed that. I put my face on the Teleprompter or, strictly speaking, my live video image. For

3937-654: A variety of projects. The Road story was about an interstate highway in Minnesota; one project was about Robert Golka, the creator of laser-induced fireballs in Utah; and another story was about Centralia, Pennsylvania , the coal town in which an inextinguishable subterranean fire ignited in 1962. He eventually got funding in 1983 to write a script about John and Jim Pardue, Missouri bank robbers who had killed their father and grandmother and robbed five banks. Morris's pitch went, "The great bank-robbery sprees always take place at

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4064-485: A work of fiction that he called Nub City. After a few unproductive months, he happened upon a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle that read, "450 Dead Pets Going to Napa Valley." Morris left for Napa Valley and began working on the film that would become his first feature, Gates of Heaven , which premiered in 1978. Herzog had said he would eat his shoe if Morris completed the documentary. After

4191-402: Is and what types of knowledge there are. It further investigates the sources of knowledge, like perception , inference , and testimony , to determine how knowledge is created. Another topic is the extent and limits of knowledge, confronting questions about what people can and cannot know. Other central concepts include belief , truth , justification , evidence , and reason . Epistemology

4318-587: Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography, was published by Penguin Press on September 1, 2011. In November 2011, Morris premiered a documentary short titled "The Umbrella Man"—featuring Josiah "Tink" Thompson —about the Kennedy assassination on The New York Times website. In 2012, Morris published his second book, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald , about Jeffrey MacDonald ,

4445-408: Is a closely related process focused not on external physical objects but on internal mental states . For example, seeing a bus at a bus station belongs to perception while feeling tired belongs to introspection. Rationalists understand reason as a source of justification for non-empirical facts. It is often used to explain how people can know about mathematical, logical, and conceptual truths. Reason

4572-409: Is a comparative term, meaning that to know something involves distinguishing it from relevant alternatives. For example, if a person spots a bird in the garden, they may know that it is a sparrow rather than an eagle but they may not know that it is a sparrow rather than an indistinguishable sparrow hologram. Epistemic conservatism is a view about belief revision . It gives preference to the beliefs

4699-521: Is a special epistemic good that, unlike knowledge, is always intrinsically valuable. Wisdom is similar in this regard and is sometimes considered the highest epistemic good. It encompasses a reflective understanding with practical applications. It helps people grasp and evaluate complex situations and lead a good life. Philosophical skepticism questions the human ability to arrive at knowledge. Some skeptics limit their criticism to certain domains of knowledge. For example, religious skeptics say that it

4826-439: Is also responsible for inferential knowledge, in which one or several beliefs are used as premises to support another belief. Memory depends on information provided by other sources, which it retains and recalls, like remembering a phone number perceived earlier. Justification by testimony relies on information one person communicates to another person. This can happen by talking to each other but can also occur in other forms, like

4953-458: Is an oversimplification of much more complex psychological processes. Beliefs play a central role in various epistemological debates, which cover their status as a component of propositional knowledge, the question of whether people have control over and are responsible for their beliefs , and the issue of whether there are degrees of beliefs, called credences . As propositional attitudes, beliefs are true or false depending on whether they affirm

5080-424: Is better because it is more stable. Another suggestion focuses on practical reasoning . It proposes that people put more trust in knowledge than in mere true beliefs when drawing conclusions and deciding what to do. A different response says that knowledge has intrinsic value, meaning that it is good in itself independent of its usefulness. Beliefs are mental states about what is the case, like believing that snow

5207-403: Is between analytic and synthetic truths . A sentence is analytically true if its truth depends only on the meaning of the words it uses. For instance, the sentence "all bachelors are unmarried" is analytically true because the word "bachelor" already includes the meaning "unmarried". A sentence is synthetically true if its truth depends on additional facts. For example, the sentence "snow is white"

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5334-413: Is closely related to psychology , which describes the beliefs people hold, while epistemology studies the norms governing the evaluation of beliefs. It also intersects with fields such as decision theory , education , and anthropology . Early reflections on the nature, sources, and scope of knowledge are found in ancient Greek , Indian , and Chinese philosophy . The relation between reason and faith

5461-439: Is correct. Some philosophers, such as Timothy Williamson , reject the basic assumption underlying the analysis of knowledge by arguing that propositional knowledge is a unique state that cannot be dissected into simpler components. The value of knowledge is the worth it holds by expanding understanding and guiding action. Knowledge can have instrumental value by helping a person achieve their goals. For example, knowledge of

5588-507: Is determined solely by mental states or also by external circumstances. Separate branches of epistemology are dedicated to knowledge found in specific fields, like scientific, mathematical, moral, and religious knowledge. Naturalized epistemology relies on empirical methods and discoveries, whereas formal epistemology uses formal tools from logic . Social epistemology investigates the communal aspect of knowledge and historical epistemology examines its historical conditions. Epistemology

5715-416: Is important for explaining the nature of illusions. Constructivism in epistemology is the theory that how people view the world is not a simple reflection of external reality but an invention or a social construction. This view emphasizes the creative role of interpretation while undermining objectivity since social constructions may differ from society to society. According to contrastivism , knowledge

5842-460: Is impossible to have certain knowledge about the existence of deities or other religious doctrines. Similarly, moral skeptics challenge the existence of moral knowledge and metaphysical skeptics say that humans cannot know ultimate reality. Global skepticism is the widest form of skepticism, asserting that there is no knowledge in any domain. In ancient philosophy , this view was accepted by academic skeptics while Pyrrhonian skeptics recommended

5969-514: Is interesting about Elizabeth [Holmes] ... did she really see herself as a fraud? Was it calculation? I have a hard time squaring that with my own experience. Could I have been self-deceived, delusional? You betcha. I'm no different than the next guy. I'd like to think I'm a little different. But I'm still fascinated by her." Morris has also written long-form journalism, exploring different areas of interest and published on The New York Times website. A collection of these essays, titled Believing

6096-443: Is itself a knowledge claim. Another objection says that the abstract reasoning leading to skepticism is not convincing enough to overrule common sense. Fallibilism is another response to skepticism. Fallibilists agree with skeptics that absolute certainty is impossible. Most fallibilists disagree with skeptics about the existence of knowledge, saying that there is knowledge since it does not require absolute certainty. They emphasize

6223-469: Is no universal agreement to what extent they all provide valid justification. Perception relies on sensory organs to gain empirical information. There are various forms of perception corresponding to different physical stimuli, such as visual , auditory , haptic , olfactory , and gustatory perception. Perception is not merely the reception of sense impressions but an active process that selects, organizes, and interprets sensory signals . Introspection

6350-497: Is one of the main branches of philosophy besides fields like ethics , logic , and metaphysics . The term is also used in a slightly different sense to refer not to the branch of philosophy but to a particular position within that branch, as in Plato 's epistemology and Immanuel Kant 's epistemology. As a normative field of inquiry, epistemology explores how people should acquire beliefs. This way, it determines which beliefs fulfill

6477-408: Is relative since it depends on other beliefs. Further theories of truth include pragmatist , semantic , pluralist , and deflationary theories . Truth plays a central role in epistemology as a goal of cognitive processes and a component of propositional knowledge. In epistemology, justification is a property of beliefs that fulfill certain norms about what a person should believe. According to

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6604-407: Is relevant to many descriptive and normative disciplines, such as the other branches of philosophy and the sciences, by exploring the principles of how they may arrive at knowledge. The word epistemology comes from the ancient Greek terms ἐπιστήμη (episteme, meaning knowledge or understanding ) and λόγος (logos, meaning study of or reason ), literally, the study of knowledge. The word

6731-412: Is reliable if most of the beliefs it causes are true. A slightly different view focuses on beliefs rather than belief-formation processes, saying that a belief is justified if it is a reliable indicator of the fact it presents. This means that the belief tracks the fact: the person believes it because it is a fact but would not believe it otherwise. Virtue epistemology is another type of externalism and

6858-420: Is sometimes understood as a form of reliabilism. It says that a belief is justified if it manifests intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtues are capacities or traits that perform cognitive functions and help people form true beliefs. Suggested examples include faculties like vision, memory, and introspection. In the epistemology of perception, direct and indirect realists disagree about the connection between

6985-405: Is synthetically true because its truth depends on the color of snow in addition to the meanings of the words snow and white . A priori knowledge is primarily associated with analytic sentences while a posteriori knowledge is primarily associated with synthetic sentences. However, it is controversial whether this is true for all cases. Some philosophers, such as Willard Van Orman Quine , reject

7112-462: Is taken by radical skeptics , who argue that there is no knowledge at all. Epistemologists distinguish between different types of knowledge. Their primary interest is in knowledge of facts, called propositional knowledge . It is a theoretical knowledge that can be expressed in declarative sentences using a that-clause, like "Ravi knows that kangaroos hop". For this reason, it is also called knowledge-that . Epistemologists often understand it as

7239-416: Is the dream argument . It starts from the observation that, while people are dreaming, they are usually unaware of this. This inability to distinguish between dream and regular experience is used to argue that there is no certain knowledge since a person can never be sure that they are not dreaming. Some critics assert that global skepticism is a self-refuting idea because denying the existence of knowledge

7366-414: Is the case if the beliefs are consistent and support each other. According to coherentism, justification is a holistic aspect determined by the whole system of beliefs, which resembles an interconnected web. The view of foundherentism is an intermediary position combining elements of both foundationalism and coherentism. It accepts the distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs while asserting that

7493-405: Is the question of whether knowledge is more valuable than a mere opinion that is true. Knowledge and true opinion often have a similar usefulness since both are accurate representations of reality. For example, if a person wants to go to Larissa , a true opinion about how to get there may help them in the same way as knowledge does. Plato already considered this problem and suggested that knowledge

7620-439: Is the question, Did he do it, or didn't he? And on another level, The Thin Blue Line , properly considered, is an essay on false history. A whole group of people, literally everyone, believed a version of the world that was entirely wrong, and my accidental investigation of the story provided a different version of what happened." The Thin Blue Line ranks among the most critically acclaimed documentaries ever made. According to

7747-427: Is wet. According to foundationalism, basic beliefs are the foundation on which all other knowledge is built while non-basic beliefs constitute the superstructure resting on this foundation. Coherentists reject the distinction between basic and non-basic beliefs, saying that the justification of any belief depends on other beliefs. They assert that a belief must be in tune with other beliefs to amount to knowledge. This

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7874-407: Is what distinguishes justified beliefs from superstition and lucky guesses. However, justification does not guarantee truth. For example, if a person has strong but misleading evidence, they may form a justified belief that is false. Epistemologists often identify justification as one component of knowledge. Usually, they are not only interested in whether a person has a sufficient reason to hold

8001-601: Is white or that God exists . In epistemology, they are often understood as subjective attitudes that affirm or deny a proposition , which can be expressed in a declarative sentence . For instance, to believe that snow is white is to affirm the proposition "snow is white". According to this view, beliefs are representations of what the world is like. They are kept in memory and can be retrieved when actively thinking about reality or when deciding how to act. A different view understands beliefs as behavioral patterns or dispositions to act rather than as representational items stored in

8128-436: The 75th Academy Awards . He was hired based on his advertising resume, not his career as a director of feature-length documentaries. Those interviewed ranged from Laura Bush to Iggy Pop to Kenneth Arrow to Morris's 15-year-old son Hamilton. Morris was nominated for an Emmy for this short film. He considered editing this footage into a feature-length film, focusing on Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane (this segment

8255-504: The Green Beret physician convicted of killing his wife and two daughters on February 17, 1970. Morris first became interested in the case in the early 1990s and believes that MacDonald is not guilty after undertaking extensive research. Morris explained in a July 2013 interview, prior to the reopening of the case: "What happened here is wrong. It's wrong to convict a man under these circumstances. And if I can help correct that, I will be

8382-486: The United States Census Bureau , the village has a total area of 1.61 square miles (4.17 km ), all of it land. At the 2010 census , there were 862 people, 315 households, and 223 families living in the village. The population density was 535.4 inhabitants per square mile (206.7/km ). There were 371 housing units at an average density of 230.4 per square mile (89.0/km ). The racial makeup of

8509-549: The University of Oxford and Harvard University , Morris was able to talk his way into Princeton University , where he began studying the history of science, a topic in which he had "absolutely no background." His concentration was in the history of physics, and he was bored and unsuccessful in the prerequisite physics classes he had to take. This, together with his antagonistic relationship with his advisor Thomas Kuhn ('You won't even look through my telescope.' And his response

8636-448: The habeas corpus hearing officially stated that, "much could be said about those videotape interviews, but nothing that would have any bearing on the matter before this court." Regardless, The Thin Blue Line , as Morris's film would be called, was popularly accepted as the main force behind getting its subject, Randall Adams, out of prison. As Morris said of the film, " The Thin Blue Line is two movies grafted together. On one simple level

8763-543: The knowledge base of an expert system . Knowledge contrasts with ignorance , which is often simply defined as the absence of knowledge. Knowledge is usually accompanied by ignorance since people rarely have complete knowledge of a field, forcing them to rely on incomplete or uncertain information when making decisions. Even though many forms of ignorance can be mitigated through education and research, there are certain limits to human understanding that are responsible for inevitable ignorance. Some limitations are inherent in

8890-436: The suspension of belief to achieve a state of tranquility . Overall, not many epistemologists have explicitly defended global skepticism. The influence of this position derives mainly from attempts by other philosophers to show that their theory overcomes the challenge of skepticism. For example, René Descartes used methodological doubt to find facts that cannot be doubted. One consideration in favor of global skepticism

9017-403: The 342 households 34.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.3% were married couples living together, 12.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.5% were non-families. About 28.7% of households were one person and 14.6% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.19. The age distribution was 28.9% under

9144-575: The Black Lagoon —horror movies that, viewed again 30 years later, still seem scary to him." Morris attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison , graduating in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. For a brief time, Morris held small jobs, first as a cable-television salesman, and then as a term-paper writer. His unorthodox approach to applying for graduate school included "trying to get accepted at different graduate schools just by showing up on their doorstep." Having unsuccessfully approached both

9271-460: The acclaimed Nadia Boulanger , who also taught Morris's future collaborator Philip Glass . Describing Morris as a teenager, Mark Singer wrote that he "read with a passion the 14-odd Oz books , watched a lot of television, and on a regular basis went with a doting but not quite right maiden aunt ('I guess you'd have to say that Aunt Roz was somewhat demented') to Saturday matinées, where he saw such films as This Island Earth and Creature from

9398-411: The age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 28.4% from 25 to 44, 18.7% from 45 to 64, and 15.0% 65 or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 97.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.6 males. The median household income was $ 36,328 and the median family income was $ 43,977. Males had a median income of $ 29,688 versus $ 19,750 for females. The per capita income for

9525-447: The area was called Norwich. Elijah C. Waterman laid out the village in 1849, building mills and attracting new settlers by offering free lots. Waterman later became the village's first postmaster and changed the name to honor his hometown of Plainfield, Vermont . Plainfield is located at 44°12′42″N 89°29′34″W  /  44.21167°N 89.49278°W  / 44.21167; -89.49278 (44.211943, -89.492803). According to

9652-419: The belief following it and is supported by the belief preceding it. The disagreement between internalism and externalism is about the sources of justification. Internalists say that justification depends only on factors within the individual. Examples of such factors include perceptual experience, memories, and the possession of other beliefs. This view emphasizes the importance of the cognitive perspective of

9779-430: The belief in the right way. Another theory states that the belief is the product of a reliable belief formation process. Further approaches require that the person would not have the belief if it was false, that the belief is not inferred from a falsehood, that the justification cannot be undermined , or that the belief is infallible. There is no consensus on which of the proposed modifications and reconceptualizations

9906-462: The case in earnest. Unedited interviews in which the prosecution's witnesses systematically contradicted themselves were used as testimony in Adams's 1986 habeas corpus hearing to determine if he would receive a new trial. David Harris famously confessed, in a roundabout manner, to killing Wood. Although Adams was finally found innocent after years of being processed by the legal system, the judge in

10033-522: The circumstances under which they observed the cup. Evidentialism is an influential internalist view. It says that justification depends on the possession of evidence . In this context, evidence for a belief is any information in the individual's mind that supports the belief. For example, the perceptual experience of rain is evidence for the belief that it is raining. Evidentialists have suggested various other forms of evidence, including memories, intuitions, and other beliefs. According to evidentialism,

10160-411: The commercials and Kerry's losing campaign. In late 2004, Morris directed a series of noteworthy commercials for Sharp Electronics . The commercials enigmatically depicted various scenes from what appeared to be a short narrative that climaxed with a car crashing into a swimming pool. Each commercial showed a slightly different perspective on the events, and each ended with a cryptic weblink. The weblink

10287-405: The distinction, saying that there are no analytic truths. The analysis of knowledge is the attempt to identify the essential components or conditions of all and only propositional knowledge states. According to the so-called traditional analysis , knowledge has three components: it is a belief that is justified and true. In the second half of the 20th century, this view was put into doubt by

10414-424: The field, including a 2019 campaign for Chipotle. In 2015, Morris made commercials for medical technology firm Theranos , and interviewed its founder, Elizabeth Holmes . After the company fell in disgrace, Morris was criticized by The Telegraph for seeming "captivated" by Holmes, and for contributing to Holmes' mythical persona as a visionary. In a 2019 New Yorker interview, Morris reflected, "To me, what really

10541-432: The film premiered, Herzog publicly followed through on the bet by cooking and eating his shoe, which was documented in the short film Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe by Les Blank . Gates of Heaven was given a limited release in the spring of 1981. Roger Ebert was a champion of the film, including it on his ballot in the 1992 Sight & Sound critics' poll. Morris returned to Vernon in 1979 and again in 1980, renting

10668-529: The film's genre of "non-fiction", arguing that it was not actually a documentary. It was the first of Morris's films to be scored by Philip Glass . Morris wanted to make a film about Albert Einstein's brain and approached Amblin Entertainment about it. Gordon Freeman had acquired the rights to Stephen Hawking 's bestseller A Brief History of Time and Steven Spielberg suggested Morris direct it. After reading Hawking's book, Morris agreed to direct

10795-554: The first time, I could be talking to someone, and they could be talking to me and at the same time looking directly into the lens of the camera. Now, there was no looking off slightly to the side. No more faux first person. This was the true first person. Author Marsha McCreadie, in her book Documentary Superstars: How Today's Filmmakers Are Reinventing the Form , had paired Morris with Werner Herzog as practitioners and visionaries in their approach in documentary filmmaking. Morris employs

10922-411: The form of knowledge-how and knowledge by acquaintance . Knowledge-how is a practical ability or skill, like knowing how to read or how to prepare lasagna . It is usually tied to a specific goal and not mastered in the abstract without concrete practice. To know something by acquaintance means to be familiar with it as a result of experiental contact. Examples are knowing the city of Perth , knowing

11049-402: The future if he is not put to death. Grigson had spent 15 years testifying for such cases, and he almost invariably gave the same damning testimony, often saying that it is "one hundred per cent certain" that the defendant would kill again. This led to Grigson being nicknamed "Dr. Death." Through Grigson, Morris met the subject of his next film, 36-year-old Randall Dale Adams . Adams was serving

11176-464: The goal is to learn something that you don't know, that's not the way to go about doing it. In fact, it's the way to destroy the possibility of ever hearing anything interesting or new. .... the most interesting and most revealing comments have come not as a result of a question at all, but having set up a situation where people actually want to talk to you, and want to reveal something to you. Epistemology The school of skepticism questions

11303-485: The grave. Morris later returned to Plainfield, this time staying for almost a year, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. Despite this, his plans to either write a book or make a film (which he would call Digging up the Past ) were left unfinished at the time. In an October 2023 interview with Letterboxd , Morris mentioned that he has since returned to the project, saying "I started rewatching Psycho , because I’m making

11430-460: The greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of an animal trainer , a topiary gardener, a robot scientist, and a naked mole-rat specialist. Morris was born on February 5, 1948, into a Jewish family in Hewlett , New York . His father died when he was two and he was raised by his mother,

11557-604: The haunting opening about McNamara's relationship with U.S. General Curtis LeMay during World War II, Morris brings out complexities in the character of McNamara, which shaped McNamara's positions in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. Like his earlier documentary, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War included extensive use of re-enactments, a technique which many had believed was inappropriate for documentaries prior to his Oscar win. In early 2010,

11684-427: The human cognitive faculties themselves, such as the inability to know facts too complex for the human mind to conceive. Others depend on external circumstances when no access to the relevant information exists. Epistemologists disagree on how much people know, for example, whether fallible beliefs about everyday affairs can amount to knowledge or whether absolute certainty is required. The most stringent position

11811-501: The human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists , by contrast, maintain that the justification of basic beliefs does not depend on other beliefs. Internalism and externalism disagree about whether justification

11938-417: The individual in the form of their mental states. It is commonly associated with the idea that the relevant factors are accessible, meaning that the individual can become aware of their reasons for holding a justified belief through introspection and reflection. Externalism rejects this view, saying that at least some relevant factors are external to the individual. This means that the cognitive perspective of

12065-405: The individual is less central while other factors, specifically the relation to truth, become more important. For instance, when considering the belief that a cup of coffee stands on the table, externalists are not only interested in the perceptual experience that led to this belief but also consider the quality of the person's eyesight, their ability to differentiate coffee from other beverages, and

12192-476: The infamous body snatcher who resided at Mendota State Hospital in Madison. He later made plans with German film director Werner Herzog , whom Tom Luddy had introduced to Morris, to return in the summer of 1975 to secretly open the grave of Gein's mother to test their theory that Gein himself had already dug her up. Herzog arrived on schedule, but Morris had second thoughts and was not there. Herzog did not open

12319-405: The justification of non-basic beliefs depends on coherence with other beliefs. Infinitism presents another approach to the structure of knowledge. It agrees with coherentism that there are no basic beliefs while rejecting the view that beliefs can support each other in a circular manner . Instead, it argues that beliefs form infinite justification chains, in which each link of the chain supports

12446-440: The main topic in epistemology, some theorists focus on understanding rather than knowledge. Understanding is a more holistic notion that involves a wider grasp of a subject. To understand something, a person requires awareness of how different things are connected and why they are the way they are. For example, knowledge of isolated facts memorized from a textbook does not amount to understanding. According to one view, understanding

12573-457: The mind possesses inborn ideas which it can access without the help of the senses. Others hold that there is an additional cognitive faculty, sometimes called rational intuition , through which people acquire nonempirical knowledge. Some rationalists limit their discussion to the origin of concepts, saying that the mind relies on inborn categories to understand the world and organize experience. Foundationalists and coherentists disagree about

12700-409: The mind. This view says that to believe that there is mineral water in the fridge is nothing more than a group of dispositions related to mineral water and the fridge. Examples are the dispositions to answer questions about the presence of mineral water affirmatively and to go to the fridge when thirsty. Some theorists deny the existence of beliefs, saying that this concept borrowed from folk psychology

12827-417: The need to keep an open and inquisitive mind since doubt can never be fully excluded, even for well-established knowledge claims like thoroughly tested scientific theories. Epistemic relativism is a related view. It does not question the existence of knowledge in general but rejects the idea that there are universal epistemic standards or absolute principles that apply equally to everyone. This means that what

12954-542: The older-era filmmakers, his style has been embraced by the younger generations of filmmakers, as the use of re-enactment is present in many contemporary documentary films. Morris advocates the reflexive style of documentary filmmaking. In Bill Nichols 's book Introduction to Documentary he states that reflexive documentary "[speaks] not only about the historical world but about the problems and issues of representing it as well." Morris uses his films not only to portray social issues and non-fiction events but also to comment on

13081-453: The perceiver and the perceived object. Direct realists say that this connection is direct, meaning that there is no difference between the object present in perceptual experience and the physical object causing this experience. According to indirect realism, the connection is indirect since there are mental entities, like ideas or sense data, that mediate between the perceiver and the external world. The contrast between direct and indirect realism

13208-596: The pursuit of knowledge as an ongoing process guided by common sense and experience while always open to revision. Plainfield, Wisconsin Plainfield is a village in Waushara County , Wisconsin , United States. The village is located almost entirely within the Town of Plainfield . A tiny portion extends into adjacent Town of Oasis . The population was 897 at the 2010 census . When first settled in 1848,

13335-472: The rain. You know that this garden is not going to last much longer than the gardener's lifetime." The film was scored by Caleb Sampson of the Alloy Orchestra and photographed by Robert Richardson . Morris dedicated the film to his mother and stepfather, who had recently died. It was named by several critics as one of the best films of 1997. In 2002, Morris was commissioned to make a short film for

13462-414: The reliability of documentary making itself. His style has been spoofed in the mockumentary series Documentary Now . Even when interviewing controversial figures, Morris does not generally believe in adversarial interviews: I don't really believe in adversarial interviews. I don't think you learn very much. You create a theater, a gladiatorial theater, which may be satisfying to an audience, but if

13589-644: The sense data it receives from the sensory organs. According to them, the mind can arrive at various additional insights by comparing impressions, combining them, generalizing to arrive at more abstract ideas, and deducing new conclusions from them. Empiricists say that all these mental operations depend on material from the senses and do not function on their own. Even though rationalists usually accept sense experience as one source of knowledge, they also say that important forms of knowledge come directly from reason without sense experience, like knowledge of mathematical and logical truths. According to some rationalists,

13716-411: The standards or epistemic goals of knowledge and which ones fail, thereby providing an evaluation of beliefs. Descriptive fields of inquiry, like psychology and cognitive sociology , are also interested in beliefs and related cognitive processes. Unlike epistemology, they study the beliefs people have and how people acquire them instead of examining the evaluative norms of these processes. Epistemology

13843-407: The structure of knowledge. Foundationalism distinguishes between basic and non-basic beliefs. A belief is basic if it is justified directly, meaning that its validity does not depend on the support of other beliefs. A belief is non-basic if it is justified by another belief. For example, the belief that it rained last night is a non-basic belief if it is inferred from the observation that the street

13970-423: The style of the "Switch" ads. This campaign featured Republicans who voted for Bush in the 2000 election giving their personal reasons for voting for Kerry in 2004. Upon completing more than 50 commercials, Morris had difficulty getting them on the air. Eventually, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn PAC paid to air a few of the commercials. Morris also wrote an editorial for The New York Times discussing

14097-421: The taste of tsampa , and knowing Marta Vieira da Silva personally. Another influential distinction is between a posteriori and a priori knowledge. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge of empirical facts based on sensory experience, like seeing that the sun is shining and smelling that a piece of meat has gone bad. Knowledge belonging to the empirical science and knowledge of everyday affairs belongs to

14224-409: The truth. More specifically, this and similar counterexamples involve some form of epistemic luck, that is, a cognitive success that results from fortuitous circumstances rather than competence. Following these thought experiments , philosophers proposed various alternative definitions of knowledge by modifying or expanding the traditional analysis. According to one view, the known fact has to cause

14351-404: The use of narrative elements within his films. These include but are not limited to: stylized lighting, musical score, and re-enactment. The use of these elements is rejected by many documentary filmmakers who followed the cinema vérité style of the previous generations. Cinema vérité is characterized by its rejection of artistic additions to documentary film. While Morris faced backlash from many of

14478-400: The validity or truth of a proposition. Certainty, by contrast, is a strong affirmative conviction, meaning that the person is free of doubt that the proposition is true. In epistemology, doubt and certainty play central roles in attempts to find a secure foundation of all knowledge and in skeptical projects aiming to establish that no belief is immune to doubt. While propositional knowledge is

14605-551: The village was 90.5% White, 0.3% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.5% Asian, 7.3% from other races, and 1.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.0%. Of the 315 households 39.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.2% were married couples living together, 9.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 6.0% had a male householder with no wife present, and 29.2% were non-families. 26.7% of households were one person and 12.1% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size

14732-402: The village. The population density was 692.9 people per square mile (267.0/km ). There were 373 housing units at an average density of 287.5 per square mile (110.8/km ). The racial makup of the village was 92.21% White, 0.11% Black or African American, 1.11% Asian, 6.23% from other races, and 0.33% from two or more races. Some 17.91% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Of

14859-405: The world. While this core sense is of particular interest to epistemologists, the term also has other meanings. Understood on a social level, knowledge is a characteristic of a group of people that share ideas, understanding, or culture in general. The term can also refer to information stored in documents, such as "knowledge housed in the library" or knowledge stored in computers in the form of

14986-484: Was 'Errol, it's not a telescope, it's a kaleidoscope.') ensured that his stay at Princeton would be short. Morris left Princeton in 1972, enrolling at Berkeley as a doctoral student in philosophy. At Berkeley, he once again found that he was not well-suited to his subject. "Berkeley was just a world of pedants. It was truly shocking. I spent two or three years in the philosophy program. I have very bad feelings about it", he later said. After leaving UC Berkeley, he became

15113-416: Was 2.74 and the average family size was 3.35. The median age in the village was 34.4 years. 29.4% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.2% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 25.2% were from 25 to 44; 24.2% were from 45 to 64; and 12.1% were 65 or older. The gender makeup of the village was 49.0% male and 51.0% female. At the 2000 census , there were 899 people, 342 households, and 230 families living in

15240-408: Was a "Frankenstein element", adding "They're all involved in some very odd inquiry about life. It sounds horribly pretentious laid out that way, but there's something mysterious in each of the stories, something melancholy as well as funny. And there's an edge of mortality. For the end of the movie I showed the gardener clipping the top of his camel, clipping in a heavenly light, and then walking away in

15367-434: Was a central topic in the medieval period . The modern era was characterized by the contrasting perspectives of empiricism and rationalism. Epistemologists in the 20th century examined the components, structure, and value of knowledge while integrating insights from the natural sciences and linguistics . Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge . Also called theory of knowledge , it examines what knowledge

15494-464: Was about the town and bore its name, although it made no mention of Vernon as "Nub City", but instead explored other idiosyncrasies of the town's residents. Morris made this omission because he received death threats while doing research; the town's residents were afraid that Morris would reveal their secret. After spending two weeks in Vernon, Morris returned to Berkeley and began working on a script for

15621-504: Was actually flattered: "I thought, really, that was one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me. It was hard to go out with other guys after that." In 1985, Morris became interested in Dr. James Grigson , a psychiatrist in Dallas . Under Texas law, the death penalty can only be issued if the jury is convinced that the defendant is not only guilty, but will commit further violent crimes in

15748-513: Was at first unconvinced of Adams's innocence. After reading the transcripts of the trial and meeting David Harris at a bar, however, Morris was no longer so sure. At the time, Morris had been making a living as a private investigator for a well-known private detective agency that specialized in Wall Street cases. Bringing together his talents as an investigator and his obsessions with murder, narration, and epistemology, Morris went to work on

15875-633: Was later released on the second issue of Wholphin ). Morris went on to make a second short for the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, this time interviewing the various nominees and asking them about their Oscar experiences. In 2003, Morris won the Oscar for Best Documentary for The Fog of War , a film about the career of Robert S. McNamara , the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson . In

16002-454: Was only coined in the 19th century to label this field and conceive it as a distinct branch of philosophy. Knowledge is an awareness, familiarity, understanding, or skill. Its various forms all involve a cognitive success through which a person establishes epistemic contact with reality. Knowledge is typically understood as an aspect of individuals, generally as a cognitive mental state that helps them understand, interpret, and interact with

16129-536: Was to a fake webpage advertising a prize offered to anyone who could discover the secret location of some valuable urns. It was in fact an alternate reality game . The original commercials can be found on Morris's website. Morris directed a series of commercials for Reebok that featured six prominent National Football League (NFL) players. The 30-second promotional videos were aired during the 2006 NFL season. In 2013, Morris stated that he has made around 1,000 commercials during his career. Since then he has continued in

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