Introduction

Question 1

Philosophy- Philo and Sophia: Love of wisdom.

Answer 1

Love of wisdom.

Question 2

Metaphysics.- studies the nature of nature, world and reality.

Answer 2

Metaphysics

Question 3

Epistemology- studies the nature and scope of knowledge. Knowing about knowing.

Answer 3

Epistemology

Question 4

Aesthetics- study of beauty and art. But for philosophers, the pursuit of aesthetics involves considering what beauty is, and whether it even exists.

Answer 4

Aesthetics

Question 5

Logic is about reasoning, giving strong arguments that don’t fall victim to fallacies, which are, as you’ll learn, the mortal enemies of philosophical precision.

Answer 5

Logic

Question 6

Principle of Charity- always try to understand the strongest and most persuasive version of arguement

Answer 6

Principle of Charity

Question 7

Plato believed that we all have what he called a tripartite soul

Answer 7

tripartite soul

Question 8

Deductive argument- if all premises are true, then the conclusion must be true.

Answer 8

Deductive argument

Question 9

Validity- an argument is valid if the truth of the premises guarantees (entails) the truth of the conclusion.

Answer 9

Validity

Question 10

Deductive Soundness- free from formal flaws of defects. Validity + all true premises.

Answer 10

Deductive Soundness

Question 11

Induction- using past experiences to make future prediction. Having an argument from the past as basis or something that you know. BLANK arguments don’t provide you with certainty. Instead, they work in terms of probabilities.

Answer 11

Induction

Question 12

Abduction- Drawing a conclusion based on the explanation that best explains a state of events, rather than from evidence provided by the premises. Instead, it reasons by ruling out possible explanations until you’re left with the most plausible one, given the evidence.

Answer 12

Abduction

Question 13

Interlocutors- people participating in the dialogue, debate or conversation.

Answer 13

Interlocutors

Question 14

Counter argument- an argument made to oppose or refute the existing argument.

Answer 14

Counter argument

Question 15

Socratic Method- learning through a dialectic exchange of ideas, rather than a passive transmission of information.

Answer 15

Socratic Method

Question 16

Skeptic- a skeptic is someone who questions whether it’s possible to know anything with certainty.

Answer 16

Skeptic

Question 17

Local Doubt- Those are doubts about a particular sense experience, or some other occurrence at a particular point in time.

Answer 17

Local Doubt

Question 18

This type of doubt, the kind you can’t step out of, and thus can’t check, is called global doubt.

Answer 18

global doubt

Question 19

RADICAL SKEPTICISM- In his book, Meditations on First Philosophy, he declared: Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore, I am.” It’s one of the most famous realizations in philosophy – I cannot doubt my own existence.

Answer 19

RADICAL SKEPTICISM

Question 20

Empiricism is based on the principle that the most reliable source of knowledge isn’t our ideas, or our reasoning, but our senses.

Answer 20

Empiricism

Question 21

Locke believed that we’re all born as a tabula rasa, or a blank slate. He argued that all knowledge is obtained through experience.

Answer 21

Locke

Question 22

Primary qualities (Locke) are qualities that physical objects themselves have. They’re not in our minds, Locke argued – they’re actually in the stuff. These primary qualities include things like solidity – the density, weight, and mass of an object. And also extension the height, depth, and width that a certain thing has.

Answer 22

Primary qualities

Question 23

Second qualities. They’re just in our minds. But they get there through the primary qualities. I’m talking about things like its color, taste, texture, smell, and sound.

Answer 23

Second qualities

Question 24

George Berkeley used Locke’s qualities against him.

Answer 24

George Berkeley

Question 25

Berkeley’s famous assertion – his version of cogito ergo sum – was

Answer 25

esse est percepi: “to be is to be perceived.”

Question 26

Berkerley- In his opinion, there are no objects, only perceivers – and even then, the perceivers themselves don’t really have any physical form.

Answer 26

Berkerley

Question 27

So in the end, Berkeley believed there was only one thing that kept us – and everything else – from disappearing into oblivion. God. Berkeley believed that God was the Ultimate Perceiver.

Answer 27

Ultimate Perceiver

Question 28

An assertion is a linguistic act – either spoken or written – that has a truth value.

Answer 28

assertion

Question 29

Truth Value- It’s just the state of being either true, or false, or indeterminate. All declarative sentences have truth values. Answered by true or false. “This is a cat.”

Answer 29

Truth Value

Question 30

For example, I’m gonna assert that “This cat will pee on my desk before the end of the show.” That assertion has a truth value, but it’s indeterminate, because the show’s not over yet.

Answer 30

YEAH

Question 31

Proposition- The content of your assertion is your proposition. It’s the underlying meaning of what you’re saying.

Answer 31

Proposition

Question 32

If I say, like, “This is a cat,” but I actually believe it to be a rat and I’m trying to fool you, then philosophers would say that I have a propositional attitude of disbelief.

Answer 32

propositional attitude of disbelief

Question 33

Belief is just when you take a propositional attitude of truth.

Answer 33

Belief

Question 34

Knowledge - is a justified true belief.

Answer 34

Knowledge

Question 35

Justification is simply evidence, or other support, for your belief.

Answer 35

Justification

Question 36

Popper observed that Freud was able to make just about any data point work in service of his theory. Freud could explain a person’s intimacy issues both in terms of not being hugged enough as a child, or in terms of having been hugged too much.

Answer 36

Popper

Question 37

This is the key point, for Popper – science disconfirms, while pseudoscience confirms.

Answer 37

science disconfirms, while pseudoscience confirms.

Question 38

So, if you were to test for Santa’s reality, your method would require you to try to prove that he doesn’t exist, rather than proving that he does. So, you stay up all night, waiting to catch him delivering his presents. If it can’t be tested, then your theory doesn’t have much value.

Answer 38

YEAH

Question 39

Pseudoscience- is a belief or process which masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy which it would not otherwise be able to achieve on its own terms; it is often known as fringe- or alternative science. The most important of its defects is usually the lack of the carefully controlled and thoughtfully interpreted experiments which provide the foundation of the natural sciences and which contribute to their advancement.

Answer 39

Pseudoscience