Philosophy Intro Test 2

Front 1

A priori

Back 1

Without use of sense, not dependent on senses

A priori knowledge is independent of experience.

Front 2

A posteriori

Back 2

reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from observations or experiences

Front 3

Recollection

Back 3

Plato's term to explain that knowledge is remembering that which we gained before we were born and lost at birth.

Front 4

Rationalism

Back 4

Knowledge is acquired by reason without resort to experience

Front 5

Empiricism

Back 5

the doctrine that knowledge derives from experience

Front 6

Tabula Rasa

Back 6

"Blank Slate" used by John Locke

the theory that the (human) mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules for processing data, and that data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one's sensory experiences.

Front 7

Innate knowledge

Back 7

Knowledge present in the brain, innate is a form of immediate knowledge

Front 8

Immediate knowledge

Back 8

Any knowledge that is not mediated by your senses

Front 9

Mediate knowledge

Back 9

Knowledge brought about through an intervening sense

Front 10

Epistemology

Back 10

The theory of knowledge; how do we know what we think we know?

Front 11

Inductive logic/reasoning

Back 11

Making a generalization from information about specific situations, focused on concluding probability based on observation or experience.

moving from the specific to the general.

Front 12

Deductive logic/reasoning

Back 12

Logical reasoning within a philosophical system.
Its medium is the syllogism.
begins with the general and ends with the specific.

Front 13

Primary qualities (Locke)

Back 13

Those that force themselves upon us.

Primary qualities are properties objects have that are independent of any observer, such as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. These characteristics convey facts.

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Secondary qualities (Locke)

Back 14

Those which we influence.

Secondary qualities properties subject to sensations in observers
Knowledge that comes from secondary qualities does not provide objective facts about things.

Front 15

Egocentric Predicament

Back 15

We are locked within our own senses. We can't directly confront reality.

Front 16

What is the problem of certainty? Why is it only a problem for empiricists?

Back 16

No problem for rationalists because they have a closed system. It's a problem for empiricists because they can't conclusively come to a universal because knowledge is limited by mediation. (our senses).

Front 17

Positivists

Back 17

The only meaningful philosophical problems are those that can be solved by logical analysis. You can't make a sentence that has meaning unless you're referencing that which exists.

Positivism is the view that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method.

The term "positive" used in the epistemological sense means literally "value free" -- that is, positivism seeks objective truth not subject to interpretation.

Front 18

Allegory of the cave

Back 18

Plato's way of explaining what knowledge is, where it comes from:

We are in a cave
We can't turn our head around
Outside the opening of the cave are forms
What we see is the shadows of the forms
We experience forms

Front 19

Receptivity

Back 19

A source of religious knowledge.

the power to receive the Divine Force and to feel its presence and allow it to work, guiding one's sight and will and action; the capacity of admitting and retaining the divine workings

Front 20

Authority

Back 20

A source of religious knowledge.

An individual or group of individuals who provide their adherents with spiritual and moral models, and who believe can bring highly positive influences both to adherents and society in general.

Front 21

Direct communication

Back 21

A source of religious knowledge.

Divine communication with no one or nothing in between

Front 22

What are the three religious sources?

Back 22

RAD

Receptivity, Authority, Direction Communication

Front 23

Cogito Ergo Sum

Back 23

I think, therefore I am

descartes, his philosophical starting point.

Front 24

The problem of certainty?

Back 24

The problem of reconciling your philosophical conception of the world with how it relates to what we know, and how it is that we know it. Certainty is the apex of epistemology.

Front 25

Plato is ____ because he thinks we have ___ ____.

Back 25

rationalist

innate knowledge

Front 26

How do we gain knowledge through Plato's philosophy?

Back 26

Platonic epistemology holds that knowledge is innateso when something is learned, according to Plato it is actually recalled.

The information we get by relying on sense experience is constantly changing and is often unreliable. It can be corrected and evaluated for dependability only be appealing to principles that themselves do not change. These unchanging principles (or "Forms") are the bases of what it means to think or reason in the first place.

Front 27

How does Plato solve the problem of certainty?

Back 27

Certainty of knowledge derives from the world of timeless forms. Certainy is thus what can be concluded from principles that cannot be any other way. We gain knowledge through recollection, and we test that knowledge through principles that do not change.

Front 28

How do we gain knowledge through Descartes?

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Descartes concluded: "Cogito ergo sum," I think, therefore I exist. From this starting point I can begin to note other truths that I know clearly and distinctly, such as the principle of identity (A is A) and the notion that things in the world are "substances." Since identity and substance are ideas that are not based on sensation, they must be innate (that is, they must be implicit in the very act of thinking itself). Even sensible things (e.g., a block of wax) are knowable not based on sense experience but intellectually, insofar as we know them to be the same things even though their sensible appearances might change dramatically.

In order to prove that certainy is possible, Descartes claims that it is possible because God would not permit us to be fooled by malevolent being (and God can't be malevolent according to Descartes, because God is perfect, which coincidentally is exactly the evidence Descartes depends on for God's existence in the first place.)

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How does Descartes answer the problem of certainty?

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In order to determine whether there is anything we can know with certainty, Descartes says that we first have to doubt everything we know. In order to see if there is some belief that cannot be doubted, we should temporarily suspend everything, so that everything we know is questionable. From here we can build reality back up, starting from our very inability to doubt our own existence, as the action of doubting itself proves we exist. Cogito ergo sum!

Descartes goes on to produce a criterion for truths which we can know for absolute certainty. He does this by reflecting on those truths which he has already discovered using the method of doubt, and determines that what they all have in common is that the ideas in them are all clear and distinct. Thus any truth composed of clear and distinct ideas can be known for certain.

Front 30

How does John Locke solve the problem of certainty?

Back 30

In Locke's work, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" he says explicitly in his thesis,0

"The aim thus is not to achieve certainty, but to understand how much weight we can assign to different types of knowledge."

"experience: in that, all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself."

Front 31

How do we gain knowledge through John Locke?

Back 31

We gain knowledge through "experience: in that, all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself."

His understanding of the human mind is that of the blank slate that starts empty, and is occupied by experience.

Front 32

John Locke is an ______.

Back 32

Empiricist

Front 33

Positivism

Back 33

the form of empiricism that bases all knowledge on perceptual experience (not on intuition or revelation)

All meaningful statements can be proven through science or a a mathematical proof, otherwise it's nonsense.

emphasizes observable facts and excludes metaphysical speculation about origins or ultimate causes