Philosophy Flashcards
Who was Cartesian Skepticism named for, and what is it?
René Descartes, a process of analyzing one’s beliefs
What are empirical beliefs?
Beliefs formed through senses
What are Local doubts?
Doubts about sensual experiences
What is Global doubt?
The thought that everything is a deception
Explain the 5-minute hypothesis
Created by Bertrand Russel - what if the universe was created five minutes ago, and everything marking time - memories, fossils, etc. - were fabricated by the creator?
What is the Evil Genius?
Created by Descartes, it is a concept not unlike the devil - a creature who’s sole purpose is to deceive us. Descartes created this after encountering his own version of the 5-minute hypothesis. As a devout Catholic, he could not believe God would deceive us.
Three branches of philosophy
Metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory (ethics and aesthetics)
Fallacy
A failure in reasoning rendering one’s argument invalid
Principle of charity
Understanding an argument in its truest form
Philosophia
Greek, love of wisdom
Interlocutors
People participating in conversation or debate
Socratic method
Learning through ideas rather than information
Premises
Propositions used to justify a conclusion
What is the Tripartite soul?
Created by Plato - consists of rational thinking, emotional thinking, and physical thinking
Species of arguments
Deductive, inductive, abductive, argument by analogy, and reduction ad absurdum
Deductive argument
All premises are true, and therefore the conclusion
Inductive argument
Past experience to make future predictions - probability
Abductive argument
Conclusion based on best explanation rather than evidence (eliminate impossible, save whatever’s left)
Validity vs. truth
Arguments can be invalid if all premises and conclusions are true, and vice versa
Recall Plato’s prisoner story and the book it is from
The Republic, three prisoners in a cave…
Recall example of argument phrasing that led to the absence of a thing becoming present
The no cat example
Cogito ergo sum (where did it come from)
Latin, I think therefore I am - Descartes could doubt everything except that he was doubting, so he must have a mind in some form
Responses to skepticism
Rationalism and empiricism
Tabula rasa
John Locke, as in we are all born tabula rasa (as blank slates)
Primary and secondary qualities
Created by John Locke - Quantitative (mass, weight, height, shape) and qualitative (color, smell, texture)
Rebuttal to primary and secondary qualities
George Berkeley, primary qualities cannot exist without secondary ones
Esse est percepi (recall who wrote this and what he meant)
To be is to be perceived - George Berkeley
Problem and Berkeley’s solution to esse est percepi
One is not observed while they sleep, meaning you would not exist. Berkeley says God is the ultimate perceiver, holding everything in existence
Assertion
A linguistic act with truth value
Truth value
True, false, or indeterminate
Proposition
The underlying meaning of what you’re saying
Knowledge
A justified true belief
Testimony
A statement taken as justification for beliefs
Propositional attitudes
Belief and disbelief (convincing and believing)
Gettier cases and example used
Named for Edmund Gettier - Instances where one has a justified true belief but not knowledge (Jones and Smith example)
