Epistemology
- Created by: amber
- Created on: 21-03-19 17:19
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- Epistemology
- What is knowledge?
- Tripartite View
- Types of Knowledge
- Acquaintance - knowing of
- Ability - knowing how
- Propositional - knowing that
- John Locke said that everything has a natural essence and it's the role of science to find this
- Zagzebski said that definitions constantly change, so even though it may be difficult to find a real definition of knowledge, we should still try
- Propositional knowledge is defined as a justified, true belief
- Issues
- The Conditions are not individually necessary
- We can know things subconsciously without believing we know them
- Correspondance of truth theory
- Coherence of truth theory
- Truth appears to be an external criterion
- Circular reasoning of being justified and being correct
- The conditions are not sufficient
- Gettier's counter examples
- Brown in Barcelona
- Smith and Jones
- Fake Barn Cases
- Gettier's counter examples
- The Conditions are not individually necessary
- Issues
- Reponses
- Infallibilism
- Implies we know little
- No Gettier counter examples count as knowledge
- No false lemmas
- Describes knowledge well
- Copes with Gettier but doesn't cope with Fake Barn
- Reliabilism
- How can we define what a reliable process is
- Copes with nearly all cases
- Virtue Epistemology
- Matches use well
- Copes with Gettier but not Fake barns as intellectual virtue is used
- Infallibilism
- Types of Knowledge
- Tripartite View
- Perception as a source of knowledge
- Direct Realism
- The immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects and their properties
- Issues
- Argument from Illusion
- Response; We are rarely ever fooled by illusions
- Argument from Hallucination
- Response: They aren't perceptions at all
- Argument from Perceptual Variation
- Response: We can describe the conditions that cause perceptual variation
- Time Lag Argument
- Response; We still perceive things directly, just how they were
- Argument from Illusion
- Indirect Realism
- The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects that are caused by mind-independent objects
- Primary/ secondary quality distinction
- Primary qualities are utterly inseparable from the object e.g. extension, size, shape, motion
- Secondary qualities are nothing but the powers to produce various sensations within us
- Issues
- How can we know that mind-independent objects exist
- Responses
- Involuntary nature of our experience
- Coherence of senses
- External world is the best hypothesis
- Responses
- How can we know the nature of mind-independent objects as they cannot be like mind-dependent objects
- How can we know that mind-independent objects exist
- Idealism
- the immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects
- The Master Argument
- Berkley says that Locke's distinction is wrong because we cannot perceive some qualities without perceiving all of them
- Issues
- Argument from illusion/ hallucination
- Solipsism
- Continued existence of things and regularity in the universe
- Problems with the role played by God
- Direct Realism
- Reason as a source of knowledge
- Innatism
- Plato
- Theory Of Forms
- Argument from the Slave Boy
- Universal Concepts
- Leibniz and Necessary Truths
- Empiricist Responses
- Locke
- No ideas are universally held, so none are innate
- Response: Children and idiot exercise logical concepts without being able to communicate them
- Transparency of ideas
- Response; Subconscious
- How can we distinguish innate ideas from other ideas
- Response: Innate ideas are necessarily true
- No ideas are universally held, so none are innate
- The mind as tabula rasa with simple and complex ideas
- Issues
- Do all simple ideas come from impressions?
- Do all complex ideas come from impressions?
- Do some concepts have to exist in the mind before sense impressions can be properly experienced?
- The mind is born with innate structures
- Issues
- Locke
- Plato
- Intuition and Deduction Thesis
- Intuition - an act of intellect
- Cogito is an example of an a prior intuition because it is justified by thought alone
- Responses
- Different thinkers
- Just a bundle of thoughts
- Do thoughts even need a thinker
- Responses
- Cogito is an example of an a prior intuition because it is justified by thought alone
- Deduction - inference from things we know necessarily
- Intuition - an act of intellect
- Cogito is an example of an a prior intuition because it is justified by thought alone
- Responses
- Different thinkers
- Just a bundle of thoughts
- Do thoughts even need a thinker
- Responses
- Cogito is an example of an a prior intuition because it is justified by thought alone
- Intuition - an act of intellect
- Descartes says we can only be certain of something if we have a clear and distinct idea of it.
- Descartes' Argument for the existence of God
- The Trademark Argument
- Responses
- Is the causal principle true?
- Do we have a concept of infinity?
- The idea of God is incoherent
- The idea of God is not universal
- Responses
- The Contingency Argument
- Responses
- Could I not be what creates and preserves me?
- Responses
- Ontological Argument
- Responses
- The Perfect Island
- Existence is not a predicate
- Responses
- The Trademark Argument
- Descartes proof of the external world
- Sensations come from outside me because they are not subject to my will and they are extended
- Responses
- Just because my will is un-extended doesn't mean it could never produce an idea of an extended thing
- Our dreams are also not subject to our will
- Responses
- Sensations origin in material bodies
- Responses
- Why couldn't God be the origin of sensation?
- God is still a deceiver because our senses sometimes deceive us
- Responses
- Sensations come from outside me because they are not subject to my will and they are extended
- Intuition - an act of intellect
- Innatism
- Limits of knowledge
- Philosophical scepticism and Normal Incredulity
- Descartes's three waves of doubt
- General Issues
- Is he sincere?
- Can you really doubt all of your beliefs?
- Do beliefs have to be infalliable?
- First Wave - Senses
- Response: We can tell when our senses deceive us because they are sometimes accurate
- Second Wave - Dreams
- Resonse: We know when we have had a dream so they are distinguishable
- Third Wave - Evil Demon
- Response: If a deman was deceiving us then we wouldn't be able to tell, so it is an empty hypothesis
- General Issues
- What is knowledge?
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