gre作文话题

　　Issue 1

　　“We can usually learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose views contradict our own。“ disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning。“

　　Do we learn more from people whose ideas we share in common than from those whose ideas contradict ours? The speaker claims so， for the reason that disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning。 I concede that undue discord can impede learning。 Otherwise， in my view we learn far more from discourse and debate with those whose ideas we oppose than from people whose ideas are in accord with our own。

　　在第一段，作者开门见山地表达自己的观点——conditionally disagree。这一点值得大家借鉴。但由于写的仓促，依然有措辞的失误。

　　Admittedly， under some circumstances disagreement with others can be counterproductive to learning。 For supporting examples one need look no further than a television set。 On today‘s typical television or radio talk show， disagreement usually manifests itself in meaningless rhetorical bouts and shouting matches， during which opponents vie to have their own message heard， but have little interest either in finding common ground with or in acknowledging the merits of the opponent‘s viewpoint。 Understandably， neither the combatants nor the viewers learn anything meaningful。 In fact， these battles only serve to reinforce the predispositions and biases of all concerned。 The end result is that learning is impeded。

　　在这第二段，作者作出某种程度的让步，注意Admittedly，……的用法，既省事有明了，是...

　　Skepticism

　　Skepticism refers to the philosophic position holding that the possibility of knowledge is limited either because of the limitations of the mind or because of the inaccessibility of its object. It is more loosely used to denote any questioning attitude. Extreme skepticism holds that no knowledge is possible, but this is logically untenable since the statement contradicts itself. During the Renaissance the influence of ancient skepticism was reflected preeminently in the writings of the 16th-century French philosophical essayist Michel de Montaigne. The greatest exponent of modern skepticism was the 18th-century Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume questions the possibility of demonstrating the truth of beliefs about the external world, causal connections, future events, or such metaphysical entities as the soul and God.

　　The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, while attempting to overcome Hume's skepticism, denied the possibility of knowing things in themselves or of achieving metaphysical knowledge. In the 19th century, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche denied the possibility of complete objectivity, and thus of objective knowledge, in any field. The 20th-century American philosopher George Santayana, claiming to have taken Hume's skepticism a step further, maintained, in his work Scepticism and ...