Lecture 2

Question 1

Epistemology

Answer 1

A branch of philosophy that concerns mostly the nature of knowing knowledge

Question 2

Rationalism

Answer 2

It is a view that states that we cannot trust our senses at all. What matters is the real of ideal forms (pure/abstract forms).

Question 3

Allegory

Answer 3

Complex metaphor that helps understand abstract concepts into more concrete terms.

Question 4

Allegory of the cave

Answer 4

What we perceive is only the shadow of ideal forms. When one man goes out of the cave, he realizes that our perceptions are just shadows of ideal forms

Question 5

Nativism/Inativism

Answer 5

We are born already knowing the world.

Question 6

Anamnesis (3 points)

Answer 6

Our immortal souls are made of left-overs of a greater cosmos soul that has universal knowledge.
We lost that knowledge when our soul incarnated our imperfect bodies.
We must recover that knowledge by trying to”remember” what we forgot.

Question 7

Empiricism

Answer 7

Knowledge is obtained by means of perceptual experience.

Question 8

Simple ideas

Answer 8

Cannot be reduced to, or defined by anything else (The “blueness” of the colour blue). Have to get into the mind by experience

Question 9

Complex ideas

Answer 9

They are made from simpler ideas

Question 10

Idealism

Answer 10

Human knowledge is a construction of the mind, and does not necessarily corresponds to the external world.

Question 11

Realism

Answer 11

Human knowledge tries to reveal the properties of the external world.

Question 12

Critique of pure reason

Answer 12

attempts to reconcile idealism with realism.

Question 13

JND (just noticeable difference) or difference threshold.

Answer 13

What is the smallest weight difference someone can perceive?