Charting the Terrain of Knowledge-1

1. Charting the Terrain of Knowledge-1 • Epistemology– • the area of philosophy that deals with questions concerning knowledge and that considers various theories of knowledge

2. Charting the Terrain of Knowledge-2 • Types of knowledge • Knowledge by acquaintance • Competence knowledge • Propositional knowledge • Knowledge as true justified belief

3. The Issue of Reason and Experience • Analytic statements • Synthetic statements • A priori knowledge • A posteriori knowledge

4. Three Epistemological Questions • Is it possible to have knowledge at all? • Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience? • Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is?

5. Perspectives on Knowledge • Skepticism • Rationalism • Empiricism • Constructivism • Relativism

6. Early Greek Skeptics • Cratylus • Pyrrho • Carneades

7. René Descartes • The quest for certainty • Methodological skepticism • Meditations on First Philosophy

8. Meditations on First Philosophy • Meditation I • Doubting of senses • The possibility of a "malicious demon" • Radical doubt (methodological skepticism) • Meditation II • One point of certainty • "I am, I exist” or cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore, I am)

9. David Hume • Empiricism • Principle of induction • Uniformity of nature

10. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding-1 • Cause and effect questioned • constantly conjoined events • Uniformity of nature questioned • Appealing to past experience to justify the principle of induction is circular

11. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding-2 • We cannot know that there is an external world • impressions are always internal to our experience • Hume does not deny that the external world exists • Fundamental beliefs rest on psychological habits, beyond the proof of logic and experience

12. Three Anchor Points of Rationalism • Reason is the primary or most superior source of knowledge about reality • Sense experience is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge • The fundamental truths about the world can be known a priori: They are either innate or self-evident to our minds

13. The Rationalist Perspective on Epistemology • Knowledge is possible • Only through reason can knowledge be obtained • Beliefs based on reason represent reality

14. Socrates on Epistemology • We can distinguish true from false • Standards for distinguishing true from false are based on the soul • Rational knowledge gives us an adequate picture of the world

15. Plato on Epistemology • Difference between knowledge and opinion must be rationally justified • Agrees with Socrates that reason is able to provide knowledge

16. Phaedo • Discusses perfect Justice, Beauty, Goodness, and Equality • We have never seen these things, yet we know they exist • Knowledge of perfect things must be innate • Doctrine of recollection

17. Plato on Universals • Universals or Forms • Universals are unchanging; experiential reality is in flux • Phaedo

18. René Descartes • Methodological doubt • One point of certainty: "I am, I exist" or cogito ergo sum • Something cannot arise from nothing, and there must be at least as much reality in the cause as in the effect

19. Descartes’ Meditation III • Innate ideas • Idea of a perfect God • Because Descartes is not perfect, the source of the idea of God must be God

20. Three Anchor Points of Empiricism • The only source of genuine knowledge is sense experience • Reason is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge unless it is grounded in sense experience • There is no evidence of innate ideas within the mind that are known apart from experience

21. John Locke’s Perspective on Epistemology • Knowledge is possible • Simple ideas (ideas of sensation, ideas of reflection) • Complex ideas • Reason not sufficient for knowledge of the world • Knowledge represents reality • primary qualities (objective) • secondary qualities (subjective)

22. George Berkeley on the Representation of Reality • Berkeley thought Locke's representative realism was dangerous • Berkeley thought that even Locke's primary qualities were subjective

23. David Hume • Radical empiricist • An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • Huge gulf between reason and the world • Reason can only tell us about the relationship between our own ideas