Epistemology Midterm

Front 1

knowledge closed on entailment

Back 1

if you know p and you know that p entails q, then you know q

Front 2

knowledge closed on a relation R

Back 2

a relation R is closed on a set S iff when x is in the set S and x bears R to y, then y is also in the set S.
if principles concerning closure are taken as steadfast, then there can be no concept of knowledge (since you wouldn’t know whether or not you are dreaming/perceiving properly). But if principles concerning closure are not accepted, then you can have knowledge of something without knowing whether or not you are a brain in a vat (Nozick O then ~BIV

Front 3

Stroud’s principle

Back 3

f you are to know p, and you realize q is incompatible with your knowing p, then you must know q is false
** know how Stroud uses this to tighten up the dreaming argument**

Front 4

a priori knowledge

Back 4

independent of experience

Front 5

a posteriori knowledge

Back 5

ependent on experience or empirical evidence

Front 6

dogmatism

Back 6

it’s appearing to one that P provides prima facie justification to believe P, whether or not one has independent justification to reject the skeptical hypothesis. If you have a sense-experience that P, you’re justified in believing P
**know how dogmatism bears on Moore’s proof and on the question of skepticism*

Front 7

probability-increase account of confirmation

Back 7

Evidence confirms Hypothesis iff E raises the probability of H. That is: the probability of H given E is higher than the probability of H alone.
White’s argument in relation to dogmatism: “this looks like a hand, this is a hand, this is not a fake hand” if you’re justified in believing it’s a hand (by perceiving it), then you are also justified in believing it’s not a fake hand by closure. If the probability raising model is true, then “this looks like a hand” must raise the probability of “this is not a fake hand”. But, it doesn’t. A fake hand also looks like a hand.

Front 8

the thermometer model of knowledge

Back 8

knowledge of fact is grounded in foundational knowledge of particular fact, which is in turn grounded solely in something that is not knowledge and not cognitive at all. All it takes to know is to get it right reliably in good circumstances

Front 9

foundationalism

Back 9

there are justified beliefs which aren’t justified by any further beliefs. There are foundational beliefs which all other beliefs are derived from
coherentism: the ultimate sources of justification for any belief lie in relations among that belief and other beliefs of the subject

Front 10

formal foundationalism

Back 10

epistemic justification has a certain sort of structure, namely one in which justification arises from the non or pre-justificatory.
If a belief has feature X, it is justified. If a belief is related in such and such ways to a justified belief, it is justified, too. All justification arises in this way.
how coherentism relates: just a type of formal foundationalism. If a belief coheres with one’s set of beliefs, it is justified.

Front 11

substantive foundationalism

Back 11

there are ultimate sources of justification, other than relations among beliefs. Traditionally, these additional sources pertain to the special content of the belief or its special relations to the subjective experience of the believer.
how coherentism relates: vulnerable to these examples (headache example)

Front 12

supervenience

Back 12

one sort of property supervenes on another when it occurs in addition to that property
**the supervenience of the epistemic on the non-epistemic is important (according to Sosa) because it implies that people identical in their non-epistemic features would also have to be identical in their epistemic features

Front 13

S-evidence

Back 13

according to Haack): mental (experiential and belief) state of A’s which are causally connected to A’s S-belief that p

Front 14

C-evidence

Back 14

(according to Haack): a set of propositions, claims, for each piece of S-evidence, you have a corresponding piece of C-evidence
~ if you have a belief based on S-evidence, then it takes you to some C-evidence. The belief is justified if C-evidence supports what you believe well enough
why experiential C-evidence is special: in cases of experience, C-evidence is always true. In cases of beliefs, it won’t always be true

Front 15

traditional definition of knowledge

Back 15

Justified True Belief

Front 16

what a Gettier case is

Back 16

you need to have justification, but a false belief (the justification doesn’t entail the truth). You then need to make the justification strong enough for knowledge and the false belief must be due to some element of bad luck. Next you add another separate element of luck, which makes the case true so you can have a JTB but not knowledge
**be able to identify one**

Front 17

probabilistic theory

Back 17

inductive inference amounts to inferring a conclusion when it is made probable by one’s evidence

Front 18

causal theory

Back 18

inductive inference amounts to concluding something about causal connections and then, on that basis, drawing further conclusions.

Front 19

explanatory theory

Back 19

inductive inference amounts to concluding something about explanatory connections and then, on that basis, drawing further conclusions
** be able to take theses different accounts, plus principle P, and apply them to examples

Front 20

principle P

Back 20

reasoning that essentially involves false conclusions, intermediate or final, cannot give one knowledge

Front 21

subjunctive (counterfactual) conditional

Back 21

had A been true, B would be true

Front 22

Nozick’s “first go” theory of knowledge

Back 22

1. p is true
2. S believes that p
3. if p weren’t true, S wouldn’t believe that p (~p ~(S believes p))
4. if p were true, S would believe that p (p S believes that p)
**be able to apply this to cases to determine its results (Gettier cases)**

Front 23

goldfinch

Back 23

Suppose looking out the window, you say you see a goldfinch in the garden. If you are asked how you know that, and you say it is a yellow bird, it is clear that this is not a case of knowledge. It could be a canary. If you don’t know that the bird is not a canary, then you don’t know that it is a goldfinch.

Front 24

Witnesses

Back 24

as a member of a jury you have been ruling out a suspect because he was a thousand miles away in Cleveland when the crime occurred. When you ask yourself how you know this, you would question your source of the belief. When scrutinizing your belief, you need not doubt everything you know about the case, just the man’s alibi, and the witness’s credentials.
Used to support his principle (listed above @ 2)

Front 25

3 misprints on a page

Back 25

A says there are three misprints, B is inclined to doubt it. How can A prove he is right? He could point to the three separate misprints. But A would not have proved that there were at least 3 misprints unless it was certain that what he pointed to were misprints. If this case is possibly certain, then it was certain there were hands in the places Moore indicated.

Front 26

headache

Back 26

I’m justified in believing I have a headache. But suppose that, while having the headache, I believe I didn’t have it, and that I “corrected” all of my other beliefs accordingly. Wouldn’t this set be just as coherent as my actual set, which includes the belief that I have a headache? Surely I’m not justified in believing I don’t have a headache.
~problem for coherentism

Front 27

alien belief-forming processes

Back 27

suppose some alien being had some other non-experiential mechanism for forming beliefs, and were frequently right. Wouldn’t they be justified? Yes, but not because of having experiences
~problem for versions of foundationalism that take the core of foundationalism to be a thesis about experiences

Front 28

Smith & Jones Job

Back 28

Suppose Smith and Jones have both applied for a job. Smith has strong evidence that D: “Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.” Smith was told by the president of the company that Jones would be selected, and Smith just counted the coins in Jones’ pockets. Preposition D entails E: that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith actually gets the job, but he too has ten coins in his pocket (unknown to him)

Front 29

Smith & Jones & Brown Car

Back 29

Smith has strong evidence that F: Jones owns a Ford. He remembers Jones always driving a Ford, and Jones just offered him a ride while driving a Ford. Smith has another friend, Brown. Smith decides to formulate three sentences at random. G: Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston. H: Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona. I: Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk. G, H, and I are all entailed by F. Smith has no idea where Brown is. H happens to be true, and Smith is justified in believing that because of his support for Jones’ Ford. However, this is not knowledge because his intermediate conclusion was false.

Front 30

Omar and the mad fiend

Back 30

Omar dies of a heart attack when lying down drunk in the street. Later a mad fiend comes by and decapitates him. You come along afterward (knowing nothing of the previous events). You conclude that Omar is dead.

Front 31

The library case (Harmon)

Back 31

you see Tom steal the book from the library. You know Tom well and know what he looks like. It turns out that later that day Tom’s mother testifies that Tom has an identical twin that was in the library. [compare to a case in which it is well known that Tom’s mother is a liar and there is no twin]

Front 32

Donald in Italy (Harmon)

Back 32

Donald tells you, sincerely, that he’ll be in Italy for the summer. For some reason, Donald changes his mind once he’s in Italy. He wants you to think he’s in San Francisco instead. He sends a friend in SF postcards in which he talks about SF, and then has that person mail the postcards to you. You’re about to open the letter. You believe he’s in Italy, and he is. [compare with a case in which the letter was written but never sent]

Front 33

The assassination case (Harmon)

Back 33

a political leader is assassinated. Those pulling off the coup announce on TV that the assassination attempt failed but that the leader was killed by a secret service agent by mistake. However, a journalist, before the announcement it made, publishes the true story in the paper. Jill reads only the story in the paper. (Other people also read the newspaper, but also see TV announcement, unlike Jill). [compare to a case in which the saboteur cuts the wires leading to the TV transmitter and the announcement is never made]

Front 34

What drives the library, italy, and assassination cases (Harmon)

Back 34

they all are missing evidence which would undermine your justification, while also showing that you can’t solve the Gettier problem by applying just inference to the best explanation and principle P. You also need to apply principle Q.

Front 35

tank example

Back 35

if someone is floating in a tank oblivious to everything around him is given beliefs (by direct electrical and chemical stimulation of the brain) that he is floating in a tank with his brain being stimulated, then even though that fact is part of the cause of his belief, he still doesn’t know that it is true.
The person does not have knowledge because his beliefs are not sensitive the the truth

Front 36

Grandmother example

Back 36

a grandmother sees her grandson is well when he comes to visit; but if he were sick or dead, others would tell her he was well to spare her grief. Yet this does not mean she doesn’t know he is well when she sees him.
We must explicitly consider methods of reaching a belief

Front 37

Descartes’ Dreaming Argument

Back 37

you don’t know you’re not dreaming, but you have to know this in order to have knowledge of the world through your sensory experiences, and so you don’t have knowledge of the world through your sensory experiences

Front 38

Stroud’s Dreaming Argument

Back 38

I remember waking up and haven’t gone to sleep since. We are automatically entitled to believing we are not asleep when we have reason to think otherwise.

Front 39

Moore’s Hand Argument

Back 39

there are two hands. If there are hands, there are external objects. There are external objects

Front 40

White’s argument against dogmatism based on probability-increase theory of confirmation

Back 40

dogmatism implies that one could gain justification to reject skeptical alternatives based on evidence that does not confirm that those alternatives are false. See #5 of “Concepts and Principles to Know”

Front 41

White’s argument against dogmatism based on bootstrapping

Back 41

f dogmatism is true, bootstrapping can be a way of learning that an instrument or faculty is reliable. Example of bootstrapping: “that one is red and it appears red”. This is silly because a test of this sort provides no evidence at all for the reliability of one’s color-vision.
Example: [A this looks red & B it is & C this looks blue & D it is] track record
B is verified by A alone and D is verifed by C alone
[my visual perception made no errors] no errors
[my visual perception is reliable] reliability
if dogmatism is true, you are justified in each of the components above, however this seems crazy so it must be wrong

Front 42

Chisholm’s argument for foundationalism

Back 42

there are beliefs that are justified, but they are not justified based on further beliefs. He thinks that when questioning what justifies a series of beliefs (Socratic method), there will arise an end point that is suitable. A problem may arise if the chain goes on infinitely (infinite regress), but Chisholm thinks there will always be a suitable stopping point, which will just be the original preposition repeated

Front 43

ellar’s argument against the view that some of our knowledge fails to presuppose any other knowledge

Back 43

to know something, your belief must have authority (other beliefs that stand behind it) and you must know that your belief has authority. This entails that any piece of knowledge presupposes other pieces of knowledge

Front 44

Sosa’s Doxastic Ascent

Back 44

if you are going to be justified in believing something, you must also have other justified beliefs which support it. These supplementary justified beliefs are a higher order argument which would be provided.