Epistomology Test Review

Question 1

What is perception?

Answer 1

• impressions of the world
• how we see the world / an object /a person

Question 2

What is skepticism?

Answer 2

• David Hume.
• denies the possibility of certain knowledge.
• our assumption of reality of the world is based on custom and habit.

Question 3

What are innate ideas?

Answer 3

Ideas/knowledge gained from experience.

Question 4

What is rationalism?

Answer 4

• View that knowledge can arise from reason without aid from the senses.
• I.e. We can learn things without experiencing them through our senses.

Question 5

What is Descarte’s perspective on knowledge?

Answer 5

-a-priori truths serve as a basis for all knowledge
- geometry + reasoning
- everything could possibly be a dream / an illusion
- mind being perceived by an evil genius or god (if this is true we cannot trust any of our knowledge)

Question 6

Who was shankura?

Answer 6

• An Indian philosopher
• rationalist
  -Believed our knowledge of ultimate reality is not acquired through our senses but through reasoning and meditation.

Question 7

What is sublation?

Answer 7

The process of correcting an error about reality when contradicted by a different but more correct understanding of knowledge.

Question 8

Examples of sublation?

Answer 8

• Hallucinations
  -Dreams
• mirages
• other illusions

Question 9

What is Jainism and innate ideas?

Answer 9

-An Indian philosophy originating several centuries before Christianity.
- even before our senses perceive an object we already have knowledge of that object in our minds
- our perception of an object serves to uncover the innate knowledge we already have of the object.
-we all carry a knowledge of everything in the universe.

Question 10

What is empiricism?

Answer 10

• Contrasts rationalism in holding that knowledge arises only from the senses
• we only know what we experience through our senses.

Question 11

What are primary qualities?

Answer 11

In things we perceive. Ex. Size shape and weight.

Question 12

What are secondary qualities?

Answer 12

• The subjective aspects of things
• ex. Colours, tastes, smells, sounds, ext.

Question 13

What is locke’s opinion on knowledge?

Answer 13

• people everywhere have certain ideas in their minds. These ideas must be innate
• the mind is a blank slate on which experience makes its mark.

Question 14

What is Berkeley’s opinion on knowledge?

Answer 14

• Our ideas originate in sensory experience and that secondary qualities are also ideas within us not external objects.
• primary qualities are also within us they are similar to secondary qualities which are mind dependent and can only exist in the mind.

Question 15

What is Hume’s opinion on knowledge?

Answer 15

• Knowledge and understanding of the world comes from perceptions that take two forms impressions and ideas
• No true knowledge without corresponding sense impressions
• an idea is something that comes from an impression.

Question 16

What is Kant’s opinion on knowledge?

Answer 16

• The mind holds research of the world
• when we experience things our minds compile the experiences and turn them into objects that change ex eggs.

Question 17

What is aprostori?

Answer 17

• truth based on experience

Question 18

What is a priori?

Answer 18

Knowledge based on reason

Question 19

Francis bacon on science.

Answer 19

Thought scientists should investigate nature by careful sense observation and experimentation.
- thus we can develop general laws about the investigations.

Question 20

John Stewart mill on science.

Answer 20

• Trying to improve on bacon by using something he called cannons or methods of induction.
  
  1. The accumulation of particular observations
  2. Generalizations from particular observations
  3. Repeated confirmation

Question 21

Karl popper on science.

Answer 21

• Science progresses by formulating hypothesis that can explain many different phenomena and guide later research

Question 22

Thomas Kuhn on science.

Answer 22

• Science does not evolve slowly forward toward the truth
  Theories shift and new theories are created when people cannot explain phenomenon.

Question 23

What is the correspondence theory?

Answer 23

Truth is an agreement or correspondence between a proposition and some fact in the real world.

Question 24

What is the pragmatic theory?

Answer 24

Ex. Freud said many people avoid despair by believing in God. Pragmatism says this is not true for everyone in the world to believe that same thing.

Question 25

What is relativism in truth?

Answer 25

What is true for one person may not be true for another and any effort to agree with the two is futile.