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12 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Describe Descartes' Rationalism...
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The idea that it is possible to attain by reason alone knowledge of the nature of what exists.
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What is a priori ideas?
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-Truths that are not derived from observation of experience.
-Characterized as being certain, deductive, universally true, and independent of all experience. Example: Mathematical truths |
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What is the Coherence Theory of Truth?
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A truth test in which new or unclear ideas are evaluated in terms of rational coherence or logical consistency and in relation to already established truths.
-Empirisism rejects a priori ideas! |
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What is the criterion problem?
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Basing all our truths on subsiquent truths.
problem #1: circling reasoning problem #2: infiinite regression "At what point did you start your first truth?" |
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What is skepticism?
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Absolute knowledge of "how things are" CANNOT be found.
-finds that truth beyond religion threatens scientific based truths. |
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What is the Method of Doubt?
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The cartesian strategy of deliberately doubting everything it is possible to doubt in the least degree so that what remains will be known with absolute certainty.
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Define Indubital.
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Not able to be doubted.
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What are the 3 different Arguments for "Method of Doubt"?
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1) Testimony of the senses
2) Dreaming argument 3) "Evil Genius" |
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Describe the "Testimony of the Senses"
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-My senses sometimes decieve me.
-It is a mark of prudence never to trust wholy in those things which have once devieved us. Example: Her shirt is green. (to some, the shirt could look brown... our eye could have been decieving us our entire lifetime, therefor allowing the ability for each person's perception of "green" to be different.) |
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Describe the "Dreaming Argument"
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-I have been decieved when sleeping and thought I was awake.
-There are no deffinite signs to distinguish being asleep from being awake. "How do you really know the life you think your living is really a dream?" |
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Describe the "Evil Genius"
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-I will suppose not a supremely good god, the source of the truth but rather an evil genuis who has directed his entire effort to misleading me.
-I have persuaded myself that there is nothing at all in the world: no heaven, no earth, no minds, no bodies... - "Is it then true that I do not exist?" |
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Describe the Cogito
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-There is no doubt I exist if an evil genius decieves me. He can never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I shall THINK that I am something.
-One must come to the conclusion that the statement "I am, I exist" is true every time it is uttered by me or concieved in my mind. |
