Epistemology Full Review

Question 1

What is epistemology?

Answer 1

Deals with the knowledge of truth, nature of truth, and if knowledge is valid or not.

Question 2

1. Knowledge rises from reason, without aid of the senses

2. Knowledge only comes from the senses

Answer 2

1. Rationalism

2. Empiricism.

Question 3

1. Memory of abilities, remembering to ride a bike for example
2. Bring past experiences into present conversations
3. Memory that is based on memory that makes up all knowledge ever known.

Answer 3

1. Habit memory
2. Personal Memory
3. Factual Memory

Question 4

Why is memory not an ideal source of knowledge?

Answer 4

We can not make up new knowledge based on memory because every memory we ever had must have come from the senses or through reason of past experiences.

Question 5

Why do rationalist believe in reason?

Answer 5

We do not rely on sensual experience for knowledge, and often point to mathematics or knowledge for reasoning.

Question 6

Difference between a priori and a posteriori

Answer 6

A posteriori= knowledge obtained through experience.
A priori= knowledge obtained by analyzing concepts rather than experiencing them. Analyzing things from a distance. Based on reasoning.

Question 7

What is sublation? (Shankara- rationalist that knowledge is gained through reasoning and meditation to reach Brahman)

Answer 7

Processes of correcting and questioning an error in reality that is to be true and always try to find a more correct version of reality.
Everything in the world around us with our senses can be sublated, and we can question our senses to the world around us.

Question 8

What does Descartes (Rationalist) say about skepticism?

Answer 8

Doubting and questioning everything. Skepticism is useful without senses. Skepticism allows for what can or can not be doubted which forms a system of beliefs.
A priori truths is the bases of all knowledge.

Question 9

What did Descartes say that was the one thing that was for sure certain?

Answer 9

If we are all dreaming, an illusion, and everything can be doubted, the one thing that was for certain was that he was thinking, and since he was thinking he must exist.
I am, I exist.

Question 10

Clarity and Distinctness according to Descartes

Answer 10

Marks of certitude and must be true.

Question 11

How to Descartes use rationalism to prove the existence of God?

Answer 11

Uses the version of the ontological argument. Since he claims that he has an idea of God being a perfect being, only God must have put that in his head. This was without aid of the senses, so God must exist.

Question 12

What are innate ideas?

Answer 12

Ideas and concepts that we are born with (no experience needed)
Examples- Socretes reminds slave boy of his geometrical features he had in his head but could not explain yet, or breastfeeding/nature.

Question 13

Dispositional Innate Ideas (Leibniz)- how did his theory of innate ideas differ from Descartes?

Answer 13

Agreed that most truths are innate and not acquired through experience.
His ideas differ when he states ideas are not fully formed in the mind but instead dispositions or tendencies.

Question 14

How to Janisim explain innate ideas?

Answer 14

Every human is born with all the knowledge in the universe. When we see an object, it unlocks a key to our inner subconsciousness and knowledge of that object that was already in us.

Question 15

Who were the most noteworthy Western empiricists?

Answer 15

Locke, Berkley, Hume

Indian philosophers Charvanka and Nyaya

Question 16

What was the problem with innate ideas and what did he say about the mind?

Answer 16

Locke was the first person to attack rationalist belief, and said that none of our ideas are innate and we are born as blank slates.

Question 17

How did Locke respond with if our ideas no not come from either sense perception or mental operations?

Answer 17

1. Reality is the same as our ideas, or 2. reality and our ideas of reality are separate.

Locke takes the idea that reality and ideas of reality are separate, and that physical objects exist outside of us, and attempts to prove this using primary and secondary qualities.

Question 18

Primary vs. Secondary Qualities

Answer 18

Primary= what the world consists of

Secondary=Subjective aspects of things objects such as colours and tastes.

Question 19

How did Berkley approach Locke’s version of empiricism? Which two of Locke’s claim does he believe in.

Answer 19

Berkeley takes Lockes first option, that reality and our ideas of reality are one in the same, and that primary qualities do not exist, but agrees that secondary qualities do in fact exist.
Takes a more radical approach.

Question 20

What is Solipsism?

Answer 20

Only our minds exists and nothing around it does.

Question 21

How does Berkley justify his claim that our ideas and reality are the same, external objects do not exist, and primary qualities only exist in the mind?

Answer 21

Berkley disagrees with primary qualities and that external objects do not exist. Since ideas only exist in the mind, then primary qualities exist in the mind as well, in which primary qualities are not external objects since they are only ideas in the mind.

Question 22

What was Berkley’s final blow to Lockes philosophy?

Answer 22

Final blow= external world must exist as a cause of our internal sensations, which proves Locke first point ideas and reality are the same, and primary qualities are not real.

Question 23

How does Berkley tie in God’s existence?

Answer 23

God continues to make things exist around us when we are not looking at specific things.

Question 24

Impressions vs. Ideas (David Hume= pushes empiricism to absolute skepticism)

Answer 24

Impressions= perceived as colours, subjective feelings to objects.
Ideas= abstract notion and thought.

Question 25

According to Hume, how do we come up with ideas that we never perceived?

Answer 25

This refers to Hume’s ideas of perception. We combine impressions obtained through our senses, where senses are our only source of true knowledge. (Ie. pink elephant/golden mountain)
We combine impressions from earlier sense experiences).

Question 26

Hume and Causality

Answer 26

Refers to a cause and effect chain, and knowledge is gained through habit that keeps us in constant motion.
When we see a ball hit another ball, we never see any true connection or power.
The formation of cause is built on habit, prediction, expectation, and overall past experiences.

Question 27

Two ways to establish the future according to Hume are?

Answer 27

Demonstrative reasoning= things can change in the future.

Inductive reasoning=relies on assumption that the future will probably be like the past.

Question 28

What are the problems with induction? What is induction?

Answer 28

Induction= if we are justified in believing that the future will be like the past. Inductive generalization must be true.
Hume states that how do we know if there is an external world beyond our senses impressions?

Question 29

Compare the three empiricists.

Answer 29

Locke= perceptions were distinct from the outside world 
Berkley= universe must consist of perceptions in our minds; no external world.
Hume= sense perception is our only knowledge of the world.

Question 30

What is transcendental idealism? What was the main key to Kant’s theory of knowledge?

Answer 30

The world we see perceive and know through science is constructed only in the mind. The mind governs everything we perceive. It is responsible for organizing our sensations to make sense of the world, so everything is constructed in the mind.

Kant’s key point was that the mind structures sensations from the outside world in space and time.

Question 31

How did Hume almost destroy science?

Answer 31

Hume objected scientific knowledge. He said that universal laws of science go beyond aid of the senses, but only through cause and effect laws.

Question 32

1. Statements that give us general knowledge of the world around us.
2. They do not give a define definition of the world around us, as these premises can be either true or false.

Answer 32

1. Synthetic statements

2. Analytic statements

Question 33

Why does Hume say that synthetic a priori statements are unjustified?

Answer 33

Kant says that synthetic a priori statements are statements that describe the real world but these statements go beyond the visible senses. Hume says that these are unjustified because all knowledge of the world goes through our senses.
Kant’s response is that we do not see visible sensations but we only see objects that we experience.

Question 34

According to Kant, what is space and time?

Answer 34

Space is need for experiences to exist.

Time is a mental structure of the mind that is used to organize many sensations.

Question 35

According to Kant how does casual laws of science apply to objects we perceive outside ourselves?

Answer 35

Laws of mathematics arise from reasoning about structures in space and time that we carry around in our minds.
Geometry gives us laws of space
Arithmetic gives us laws of time

Question 36

What is Kant’s theory on casual relationships?

Answer 36

Mind has the ability to keep each sensation in memory, and then join them together into a single object.

Question 37

What is transcendental principle of unity?

Answer 37

Single unified awareness that remains the same unified awareness as time passes.
The unified mind makes connections between changing objects it puts together from its sensations, which causes a cause and effect chain.

Question 38

How do we tell the difference between what we produce and what is outside?

Answer 38

Objects we see outside appear to change, independent of what we do.

Question 39

Is Hume or Kant correct on casual relationships? How was Kant’s theory revolutionary?

Answer 39

Kant is correct. The mind is a unified awareness and creates many sensations. As a result, it creates a cause and effect chains.

Kant originally developed his theory to counter Hume’s skepticism. There are still concerns about Kant’s knowledge, such as how social science makes us wonder about mental categories, or we never make contact of a world independent of us.

Question 40

Phenomenal vs. nominal world.

Answer 40

Phenomenal= a world that our mind constructs, and appears to be outside of us. 
Numenal= world might exist outsde our minds.

Question 41

Kant’s view

Answer 41

Structures of reality is through reason(rationalist) , but we are relient on sense experience (empiricist)

Question 42

What is inductionism?

Answer 42

An influential theory of how scientific theories relate to sensory observations.

Question 43

Why is Francis Bacon the father of empiricism?

Answer 43

Science is based on inductive reasoning where scientific advances are caused by sense experiences, which moves away from general laws of what we can observe. We should study facts and look for common patterns until we can understand those general laws.

Question 44

What is simplicity?

Answer 44

Based on the idea that the world must follow simpler ideas rather than complex ideas.

Question 45

What is the hypothetical method? Who was it created by?

Answer 45

William Whewell. The hypothetical method states unlike bacon, advances in scientific knowledge is based on observations numerous times, and not on just one generalization.
The greatest scientific advances occur in hypothesis and educated guesses.

Question 46

What is popper’s theory of falsification?

Answer 46

Popper was the most influential philosopher for the hypothetical method in the 20th century.
What distinguishes scientific claims and hypothesis, they must be falsified by empirical observations.
Falsification means that a scientific claim is only a scientific theory if it can be falsified by observable events. A scientific claim is only worth value if it can be deducted and falsified.

Question 47

Thomas Khun and Indoctrination

Answer 47

This American philosopher Thomas Khun argued that scientific knowledge the product of communities that believe that certain knowledge is true.
Believed in scientific revolutions.

Question 48

Khun and five criteria

Answer 48

Khun provides the five criteria for what makes a specific theory good. 
Accuracy
Consistency of other beliefs 
Broadness
Simplicity
Fruitfulness

Question 49

1. This theory says that truth is an agreement or correspondence between a proposition and some fact in the real world. Our statements but correspond with facts from the real world.
2. This theory says a belief is true if it coheres with other system of beliefs
3. This theory says that a belief is true only if it has practical applications and/or useful.

Answer 49

1. Correspondence Theory
2. Coherence Theory
3. Pragmatic Theory

Question 50

What are truth-bearers? What is a justified true belief?

Answer 50

Truth bearers= something can be either true or false and nothing in between,
Justified true belief= personal belief in something must be true (“P” is sitting next to meet). Is a criteria for knowledge.

Question 51

What is Winkin’s version of truth?

Answer 51

Truth is relative.

Question 52

Russell’s correspondence theory

Answer 52

Truth or falsify of a belief does not depend on the nature of the belief but on the external world. Truth is a correspondence between a preposition and a fact.

Question 53

What is John Searle’s response to the correspondence theory?

Answer 53

There is no way to say what fact a proposition expression other than using the proposition itself and then claiming that this does not mean the correspondence theory is false.

Question 54

Blanchard’s theory on coherence

Answer 54

Even someone using the correspondence theory must correspond with past system of beliefs, which makes a statement for coherence theory.

Question 55

Criticisms to the coherence theory

Answer 55

Fails to distinguish between consistent truth and consistent error.
Seems in the end to rely on correspondence theory.

Question 56

William James’ pragmatic truth

Answer 56

We do not base truth on comparison of a statement with some objective, external reality. We should act on how judgements affect reality and what differences they make.

Question 57

Rorty’s pragmatic theory of truth

Answer 57

All that can be said about the notion of truth is that truth is whatever gets through the
procedures of justification
When something is true, they are condemning and accepting in their minds that belief is true, so it is passing through the procedures of justification.

Question 58

Criticisms to pragmatism

Answer 58

Pragmatism seems unable to account for how beliefs that we through to be true, turn out to be false.
Truth is always changing through time, and pragmatis say that there is only one ideal truth.