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N5 Philosophy > Knowledge & Doubt > Flashcards

Knowledge & Doubt Flashcards

1
Q

What does knowing how mean?

A

Knowing how to do something - skill / ability knowledge

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2
Q

What does knowing that mean?

A

Knowledge of facts - also known as propositional knowledge

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3
Q

What are the three conditions that must be met for something to be knowledge according to the Triparte Theory of Knowledge?

A
  • Justification
  • Belief
  • Truth
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4
Q

Triparte Theory of Knowledge:

Describe the justification condition

A

In order for something to be knowledge, we must have evidence or good reasoning to back it up

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5
Q

Triparte Theory of Knowledge:

Describe the belief condition

A

In order for something to be knowledge, we must actually believe in it

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6
Q

Triparte Theory of Knowledge:

Describe the truth condition

A

In order for something to be knowledge, it must actually be true

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7
Q

What does innate mean?

A

An idea that is inborn - already in the mind at birth.

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8
Q

What is a priori knowledge?

A

Knowledge that is gained through logic and reason

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9
Q

What is a posteriori knowledge?

A

Knowledge that is gained through senses and experience

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10
Q

What is empiricism?

A

The belief that knowledge is gained through the senses and experience. Rejects innate ideas.

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11
Q

What is rationalism?

A

The belief that knowledge is gained through logic and reason. Supports innate ideas.

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12
Q

What is scepticism?

5

A

The view that knowledge is impossible to attain because it is not possible for any knowledge claim to be properly justifed.
* The sceptic doubts our ability to gain knowledge at all
* Scepticism challenges the triparte theory justification criteria
* Believes that you cannot justify knowledge
* Nothing can be true knowledge as everything we doubt could be false.

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13
Q

Empiricism:

Describe Locke’s blank sheet of paper analogy

4

A
  • Locke rejects innate ideas - that we are born with knowledge
  • He uses a blank slate as a metaphor to represent the human mind at birth
  • Locke says that as we gain knowledge, this is the equivalent of a pen writing on the blank sheet of paper
  • He says that we gain knowledge gradually through experience (a posteriori)
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14
Q

Rationalism:

Describe Leibniz’ block of veined marble analogy

4

A
  • Leibniz supports the innate idea that we are born with some knowledge
  • He uses a block of veined marble to represent the mind before experience
  • Leibniz says that the knowledge we are born with shapes the new knowledge we gain
  • He likens this to the veins of marble being incorporated into sculptures
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15
Q

What were Descartes’ aims for meditation 1?

5

A
  • To find certainty
  • To find a foundation of knowledge that cannot be doubted
  • To defeat the sceptics
  • To establish something ‘firm and lasting’ in the sciences
  • To show supremacy of rationalism
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16
Q

Describe Descartes’ method of doubt & apple cart analogy

4

A
  • To overcome scepticism, Descartes must become the ultimate sceptic
  • Descartes takes all of his knowledge, and rejects everything that can be doubted
  • He likens this to tipping all of the apples out of a cart, and throwing away all of the rotten ones
  • What is left will provide certain foundations to build knowledge on
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17
Q

What are the arguments Descartes uses in meditation 1?

4

A
  • Senses argument
  • Dreaming argument
  • Deceiving God argument
  • Evil Demon argument
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18
Q

What are the weaknesses of Descartes’ Method of doubt?

2

A
  • The method is too extreme: we cannot progress if we doubt all of our beliefs
  • Descartes does not fully apply it in meditation 1: he never doubts the existence of god, and he never doubts logic and memory
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19
Q

Describe the senses/illusion argument

5

A
  • Descartes says that the senses can sometimes deceive us
  • An example of this would be a stick looking bent in water
  • You cannot trust the knowledge gained from the senses, so it must be rejected
  • However, Descartes admits that the senses don’t always deceive us
  • The aim of this argument is to reject a posteriori knowledge, of which some survives this argument
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20
Q

What are the weaknesses of the senses argument?

2

A
  • Sense deception can be corrected with the use of other senses. We do not need to mistrust all of our senses because one is incorrect.
  • Sense deception can be positive as it gives us information and subjective experience. Therefore, we can learn from sense deception. Descartes rules it out too quickly.
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21
Q

Describe the dreaming argument

4

A
  • Descartes may think he is sitting by the fire when he is actually in bed, asleep, dreaming.
  • We cannot definitively tell if we are awake or dreaming, and he suggests that all of our experiences of the external world are a product of our mind
  • The aim of this argument is to reject the remaining a posteriori knowledge
  • A prior knowledge (maths and geometry) survive this argument
22
Q

What are the weaknesses of the dreaming argument?

3

A
  • When dreaming we can’t tell the difference between awake and asleep, but awake people can. Dreams have absurdity in them that cannot be experienced in the real world.
  • When we reflect on dreams, they feel less real even if they felt real at the time.
  • Evidence that we are dreaming can come from senses such as pain. Dream pain is not as intense as physical pain, so we can tell a difference.
23
Q

Describe the deceiving god argument

5

A
  • Descartes considers God as all-powerful, so is a potential source of deception
  • For example, God could deceive him when it comes to mathematical sums
  • However, Descartes dismisses this as he sees God as all-loving and therefore believes he would not intentionally deceive him
  • The aim of this argument is to reject a priori knowledge
  • A priori knowledge survives this argument
24
Q

What are the weaknesses of the deceiving god argument?

3

A
  • Descartes gives god the characteristic of all-loving, but this can be challenged due to human suffering, sickness and disease
  • Descartes does not follow the method of doubr, doubting anything uncertain, as he never doubts God’s nature or existence
  • Due to Descartes not applying his sceptical method to this argument, we cannot necessarily accept the conclusion that God is not a deceiver
25
Q

Describe the evil demon argument

5

A
  • Descartes considers the possibility of an all-powerful demon who is deceiving him
  • For example, the demon can deceive him on mathematical sums
  • This leads Descartes to hyperbolic doubt
  • The aim of this argument is to reject a priori knowledge
  • Nothing survives this argument
26
Q

What are the weaknesses of the evil demon argument?

2

A
  • Descartes does not actually believe in the existence of the demon, and creates it as a tool for his rejection of knowledge
  • The evil demon is created to move past the deceiving God argument, which weakens his argument
27
Q

What state was Descartes in by the end of meditation 1?

A

Descartes was in a state of hyperbolic doubt, he does not know anything including if he exists or not.

28
Q

What were the aims for meditation 2?

3

A
  • To find certainty
  • To find a foundation of knowledge that cannot be doubted
  • To establish something ‘firm and lasting’ in the sciences
29
Q

What is the cogito?

4

A
  • Descartes realises that there is one thing he could never doubt - the fact that he is doubting
  • He states that doubting is a form of thinking, so he can say ‘I am doubting (thinking), therefore I exist’
  • Descartes argued that ‘I exist’ must be true whenever it is thought, as even though the evil demon can deceive him, Descartes must be able to think in order to be deceived
  • Descartes establishes the cogito ‘I am, I exist’ / ‘I think, therefore I am’ as his certain truth.
30
Q

Why does Descartes think the cogito is a certain truth?

4

A
  • Defeats the dreaming argument - even as we are dreaming we must exist
  • Defeats the evil demon argument - even if we are being deceived, we must exist to be deceived
  • It is true everytime it is thought - it is a self authenticating statement
  • It is self-contradictory to say ‘I don’t exist’.
31
Q

How did Descartes reach the cogito?

2

A
  • By the end of meditation 1, Descartes is in hyperbolic doubt. He does not know anything, not even his own existence
  • However, Descartes then begins to establish the cogito.
32
Q

What are the strengths of the cogito?

3

A
  • It is contradictory to deny the cogito. ‘I do not exist’ is a contradiction.
  • It feels certain to say ‘I exist’ - as I write this, I am sure that I am in existence to do so
  • It satisfies the Cartesian method of doubt - Descartes cannot reject it
33
Q

What are the weaknesses of the cogito?

3

A
  • Only proves momentary existence, which is not enough to prove the existence of a self. If someone is not able to continuously think, does this mean that they do not exist?
  • The cogito only guarantees non continuous experience, not the continuous experience needed to prove ones existence. The only evidence we have for continuous experience is memory, which can be interfered by the evil demon.
  • There is an unjustified jump from ‘I think’ to ‘I am’, there should be a hidden premise (‘thinking things exist’) to allow the conclusion.
34
Q

What are impressions?

A

A lively and vivid perception which is either inward or outward.

35
Q

What are ideas?

A

A perception which is the faded remains of an earlier impression - a memory. Ideas are less lively and vivid.

36
Q

What are inward impressions?

A

Feelings that arise inside of us (e.g: happiness, love)

37
Q

What are outward impressions?

A

Experiences from the senses (e.g: smells, tastes)

38
Q

What are simple ideas?

A

Ideas that cannot be broken down into separate parts (e.g: remembering a smell)

39
Q

What are complex ideas?

A

Ideas which can be broken down into separate parts - explains imagination

40
Q

What is Hume’s copy principle?

2

A
  • All ideas can be traced back to earlier impressions, no matter how complex
  • If I don’t have the impression, I don’t have the idea
41
Q

What examples does Hume give to support his copy principle?

3

A
  • Malfunctioning Senses
  • Absence of Relevant Experience
  • Absence Due to Species Limitation
42
Q

Copy Principle Examples:

Malfunctioning Senses

A

A man who has been blind from birth will never have the idea of the colour blue because he has never had the impression of it

43
Q

Copy Principle Examples:

Absence of Relevant Experience

A

You can never understand the sensation of something without having experienced it (e.g: a laplander doesn’t know what wine tastes like, a selfish person doesn’t know how to be selfless)

44
Q

Copy Principle Examples:

Absence Due to Species Limitation

A

Non-humans have senses we don’t understand as we have never experienced them (e.g: bats use echolocation, which humans don’t have)

45
Q

How does Hume define God?

5

A
  • Hume completely rejects the belief that there are innate ideas
  • Descartes viewed God as an innate idea
  • Our idea of God is a complex one
  • We form an idea of God using simple ideas which are based on impressions
  • We augment the qualities of goodness and wisdom to form the idea of God
46
Q

What can the imagination do?

4

A
  • Compound (combine)
  • Transpose (change positioning)
  • Augment (enlarge)
  • Diminish (shrink)
47
Q

What is the Golden Mountain?

A

We have an impression in our mind of a mountain and of gold. We compound these simple ideas to create a golden mountain.

48
Q

What is the Virtuous Horse?

A

We have an impression in our mind of a horse and virtuous quality. We compound these simple ideas to create a virtuous horse.

49
Q

What is the missing shade of blue?

5

A
  • Imagine a person who has never experienced a shade of blue before
  • They are presented with a scale of shades of blue from lightest to darkest, with the gap for the missing shade
  • Hume says that this person would be able to imagine the missing shade of blue
  • This means that the person has an idea of the missing shade of blue without ever having an impression of it
  • Hume does not see the need to change his theory based on this scenario since it is a singular example
50
Q

How is the missing shade of blue a problem for Hume’s theory?

4

A
  • Some people may regard Hume’s rejection of the counter-example as unreasonable. A counter-example disproves a universal claim
  • Hume says the missing shade of blue is a singular example, but the same principle can be applied to other scales with a missing value (e.g: other missing colours, a missing hotness of chilli)
  • This opens the door to innate ideas, which undermines his theory of knowledge
  • Contradicts his copy principle - without the impression, we cannot have the idea
51
Q

Strengths of Hume’s Theory of Knowledge

3

A
  • Hume’s theory ties in with the modern scientific understanding of the world
  • Hume wasn’t trying to be overly ambitious as a philosopher - he showed the limits of his theory with the missing shade of blue, so it’s a strength to show counter examples to your own theory
  • By Hume showing counter examples, it encourages us to look critically at our own theories and reflect on current knowledge - this is how we learn and develop
52
Q

Weaknesses of Hume’s Theory of Knowledge

3

A
  • Impressions are not always more lively than ideas (e.g: lively dreams, hallucinations. However, Hume says that his theory only applies to people with a healthy mind (e.g: someone with PTSD can have vivid flashbacks)
  • Some people argue we cannot have the idea of an infinite God from experience, so it has to be an innate idea
  • You could argue that a selfless person can still form the idea of being selfish by reading books, which shows you don’t actually need the immediate impression to form the idea

N5 Philosophy (3 decks)

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