epistemology- reason as a source of knowledge

Question 1

25 mark plan: do we have innate knowledge?
(innatism vs empiricism)

Answer 1

Intro:we have innate knowledge of necessary truths but experience is nessecary to articulate this knowledge.
define: innatism, empiricism.

para1: platos argument (menos slave)

response: locke (children + idiots)

response to response: knowledge of nessecary truths (lebinz)

Lockes response to Lebinz: newborn baby knowledge comes from womb

Lebinz response to Locke: can’t verbally articulate but always in the mind.

conclusion: same as intro.

Question 2

empiricism

Answer 2

-appeal to sense experience to find truth
-a posteriori/deduction
-we have no knowledge other than what we’ve experienced
in order for us to know truth we must experience it. e.g. the sun exists, i have seen it, felt its heat and scienctists have observed it.

Question 3

innatism

Answer 3

-we are born knowing certain things
examples: when babies cry when we are hungry and suckle
-wild animals can walk when they are born but not been taught
-associated with rationalism and moral senses.

Question 4

Plato Intro

Answer 4

Platos epistemology is a theory of knowledge developed by the greek philosopher plato + his followers. Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge of platonic ideas is innate, so that learning is development of ideas buried deep in the soul, often under the midwife like guidance of an interrogator.

Question 5

socrates relation to slave boy argument

Answer 5

In relation to slave boy argument: S goes on to argue that mind must exist from before birth, to have gained this knowledge in previous from existence. Socrates questions triggered knowledge he had from before birth, but had forgotten- just as memories can be triggered by some event or question.

However we don’t have to draw from this conclusion about pre-existence of the mind. other explanations of innate knowledge are possible.

Question 6

Plato - Slave boy argument
MENO

Answer 6

P slave boy argument attempts to prove that innatism must be true.
Socrates asks the slave boy, who hasn’t been educated + has no prior knowledge of mathematics and number of different questions about basic geometry + arithmetic.
The slave boy answers these correctly.
Because he could not have gained this knowledge from experience, it must be innate: part of his mind from birth. Therefore, innate ideas exist.

Question 7

empiricism (experience as a source of knowledged) meaning

Answer 7

empiricism= view that knowledge is gained from experience alone + that there are no predetermined factors. Our five senses are fully responsible for everything we know + learning is acquired through smell, sight, touch, taste, sound

Question 8

innatism- what is summary of platos slave boy argument

Answer 8

memos slave has never been taught geometry yet had knowledge of the proof that a square with an area of IA will have sides that are equal to the diagonal of a square with an area of IA- meaning this knowledge can’t come from experience

Question 9

John locke (17th century empiricist)

Answer 9

put forward the theory of tabula rasa =we are all born as blank slate + that all our mental processes are built up through experiences of the world.

Question 10

Innatism- what is leibniz argument from the necessity of truth

Answer 10

knowledge of necessary truths can’t come from experience. experience can only tell us how things are contingent truths not how they must be (NT). But we know e.g that “1+1=2” is a necessary truth +this knowledge can’t come from experience

Question 11

innatism v e- Leibniz’s response to locke (2)

Answer 11

obviously a new born baby can’t verbally articulate “1+1=2”, but this doesn’t mean the concept isn’t there. we innately know these concepts and over time we learn to recognise them and make them explicit but they were always there in mind

Question 12

what’s lockes argument against innatism

Answer 12

if we had innate knowledge it would be universal but children and idiots don’t know the theorems of geometry= so it can’t be innate

Question 13

Innatism- Rene Descartes (1)

Answer 13

argued we are all born with certain pieces of knowledge. He suggested there are some facts that go beyond reason such as morality. One most famous examples is that religious truths + the existence of a perfect God.

To support this idea descartes put forward the trademark argument in which we have a concept of God that has been stamped upon our minds much like a craftperson would sign his creations.

Question 14

innatism- descartes demon thought experiment

Answer 14

Cogito, ergo sum = I THINK THEREFORE I AM
- attainability of certain knowledge.
- Only statement to survive test of his methodic doubt. The statement is indubitable as descartes argued in the 2nd of his 6 mediations on first philosophy.
Because even if an all-powerful demon were to try deceive him into thinking that he exists when he does not, he would have to exist in order for the demon to deceive him. Therefore, whenever he thinks, he exists. Furthermore as he argued in his replies to critics in the 2nd edition of mediations. The statement “I am” (sum) expresses an immediate intuition, not the conclusion of a piece of reasoning and thus is indubitable.
However in later work the principles of philosophy descartes suggested that cogito is indeed the conclusion of a syllogism whose premises include the propositions that he is thinking + whatever thinks must exist.

Question 15

descartes - scepticism

Answer 15

in addition D usually thought of as considering scepticism the view that we lack knowledge or justified true belief.
Here scepticism is considered because we lack certainty: what we believe might be false, so our beliefs aren’t knowledge. D argues that the cogito enables him to defeat scepticism + show that we have knowledge with certainty.

Question 16

conclusion of innatism vs empricism

Answer 16

we are born with innate concepts and knowledge of necessary truths however it may require experience to articulate this knowledge

Question 17

25 mark plan: rationalism vs empiricism
“can intuition + deduction establish synthetic truths as a priori?”

Answer 17

intro: synthetic a priori knowledge so rationalism is true and empiricism is false.
define: anaylitic, synthetic, priori, poster, empiricism, rationalism.

para1: for R descartes trademark argument (“god exists” synthetic truth)

E response: concept of god not priori

para3: for R. cognate ergo sum (priori)

E response: Hume (existence isn’t priori)

Response to Hume: change argument slightly still synthetic priori truth.

conclusion: empiricism says no synthetic truths known as priori. “this thought exists” synthetic truth known thru priori. TF empiricism false.

Question 18

rationalism

Answer 18

-reason is the source of all knowledge
-priori/induction
-relies on deduction and intuition
- cannot trust our senses
-for something to be true it must be logically true e.g. a bachelor is an unmarried man

Question 19

Rationalism meaning

Answer 19

rationalism = says that we can acquire some knowledge purely through intuition + deduction (i.e. we can acquire knowledge purely by thinking rather than through perceptual experience)

Question 20

synthetic truth

Answer 20

true in virtue of how the world is
(grass is green)
(water boils at 100c)

Question 21

Socrates intro of his work

Answer 21

He believed that goodness + truth, positive essences + pure ethical + moral instincts are placed there divinely in the soul.

Question 22

priori knowledge

Answer 22

knowledge that can be acquired without experience of the external world, through thought alone.
(working out what 20 divided by 5 is.)

Question 23

posteriori knowledge

Answer 23

knowledge that can only be acquired from experience of the external world
(doing an experiment to discover the temp at which water boils at)

Question 24

analytic truth

Answer 24

true in virtue of the meaning if the words
(Bachelor is an unmarried man)

Question 25

David hume (1711-1776)

Answer 25

another influential + most radical of primary empiricists who believed that knowledge is based on ideas from sense data or sensory experience.
Denied the existence of. any ideas which didn’t come from experience, including those of God, the self, causation + inductive knowledge. suggested- we cannot deduct a God from the world as we see it + proof we would need for a god would be miracles.

“The gazing populace received greedily, without examination, whatever sooths superstition + promotes wonder” David Hume

Question 26

Rationalism (intuition + deduction)

Answer 26

intuition + deduction are a priori methods of gaining knowledge.

(rational) intuition: the ability to know something is true just by thinking about it e.g Descartes cogito argument which we have alr covered

Deduction: method of deriving true propositions from other true propositions (using reason)
e.g. you can use deduction to deduce statement 3 from 1+2 below
1. If A is true then B is true
2. A is true
3. Therefore B is true

Question 27

Rationalism (intuition + deduction)
final conclusions

Answer 27

we defined rationalism: view we can acquire some knowledge purely through intuition + deduction.
this is slightly inaccurate because even an empiricist would admit there is some knowledge that can be known purely through intuition + deduction.
- example: clearly don’t need empirical experience to work out that “2x20=40” because it is an analytical truth.
So actually what empiricists say: you can’t acquire knowledge of synthetic truths using intuition + deduction.

Question 28

rationalism (intuition deduction)
final conclusions (2)

Answer 28

to summaries + tie this together
-empiricism
-rationalism
most the time empiricism holds true. if you take synthetic truth, such as “ water boils at 100•c” it seems impossible that we could learn it without some a posteriori experience of the world (e.g an experiment).
So most synthetic truths are known a posteriori. But the question is whether this relationship holds true all the time or just some of the time.

Question 29

how many kinds of knowledge did Humes for suggest there was?
and what were they?

Answer 29

only 2 kinds of knowledge
-relations of ideas
-matter of fact

Question 30

what is relation of ideas
(humes fork)

Answer 30

it cannot be denied without a contradiction
known thru priori
“either intuitively or demonstratively certain”

Question 31

what is matter of fact (Humes fork)

Answer 31

there is no logical contradiction in it being false.
known thru posteriori
=can’t be established purely by thought + thus require empirical observation to establish truth.

Question 32

what’s the key difference between matter of fact and relation of ideas in Humes fork

Answer 32

denial of matter of fact is possible but denial of relation of ideas is impossible.

Question 33

what’s an example of matter of fact

Answer 33

grass is green

bc its logically possible for this to be false. we can coherently imagine brown grass, red grass, purple grass etc.

Question 34

what’s an example of relation of ideas

Answer 34

triangle has 3 sides

idea of 4 sided triangle is inconceivable.

Question 35

who create Humes fork

Answer 35

HUME duh

Question 36

how do we know the truth of relation of ideas?

Answer 36

just by thinking abt them.
thought alone reveals its impossible for a triangle to have 4 sides. or a triangle has 3 sides is true

Question 37

how do we know the truth of matter of fact

Answer 37

empirical evidence to verify.
we cant know grass is green without empirical verification bc its logically possible that grass is red or purple.

Question 38

humes fork applied to descartes

Answer 38

we can argue that they rely on MATTER OF FACT.
matter of fact = postoriri.
thus if Humes fork is correct than it shows descartes argument r not entirely a priori + thus fail to establish rationalism.

Question 39

what argument is Humes fork from

Answer 39

EMPIRICST