Epistemology

What is Epistemology? What does it study?

epistemology is study of theory and knowledge

• Episteme ‘knowledge’

• Logos ‘rational study’ or ‘theoretical inquiry’

A Posteriori knowledge

Knowledge is based on experience

• sense perception is the only valid source of knowledge

• the human mind has nothing except what experiences are put there

A Priori knowledge

• you are born with some knowledge

• we get info from senses but doesnt give deep knowledge or distinct ideas

• you dont have to observe the world to gain knowledge

Empericism

• all knowledge is from experience- content or derived

• All true knowledge is:

• A POSTERIORI— it depends on experience

Who were empiricists?

Aristotle

Thomas Aquinas

Francis Bacon

Thomas Hobbes

John: Locke, Stuart Mill

Karl Popper

George Berkeley

David Hume

Charvaka  (“Sweet Speaking" ) Indian Philosophers

Rationalism

theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge (w/o help from senses)

• thinking/ration is the source of knowledge

• we can reason stuff abt the world

Who were rationalists?

• Plato

• St. Augustine

• B. Spinoza

• Anne Conway

• Gottfried Leibniz

• Georg Hegel

• Rene Descartes 

Shankara- Indian philosopher

Most were mathematicians first

What are Innate ideas?

ideas present from birth, we are born w them

• descartes use this to answer "how do clear and distinct ideas come to the mind if not senses?"

• we are born w these ideas fully formed but are hidden in mind

• as you grow the ideas emerge into a persons awareness

• ie. logic and math

Kuhn - Opposition to Popper**

•  thought we should “think of scientific knowledge as the product of communities of scientists who accept and work with that knowledge”.

• Popper: scientists are always trying to disprove theories but it doesn’t happen often (they cling to smt for decades without results that match)

  • Kuhn says: he ignores that scientists work in communities + in uni are trained to accept certain theories & research method

Kuhn - Indoctrination**

• Scientists get “long indoctrination” into accepted theories / research methods.

  • form a “paradigm” of what science is for that community.

  • You are taught the paradigm of the community you want to join.

• Scientists working in the field accepted the theory and use it to guide their research.

  • so science doesn’t grow gradually as per inductionsit / falsificationists.

• Science leaps forward through major revolutions.

Scientists tend to hold on to some theories even if some observations show up that do not fit into the theory - called anomalies.

Kuhn Cycle

• happens when there are too many anomalies, crisis happens

• new theory developed bc scientists rethink what they know

  • revolution occurs

• newer scientists believe it firmly, becomes paradigm

Descartes

• Stated we could not use our senses—they could be deceiving.

• indubitability- wanted to prove philosophical truths in the same way of proving a math theory

• Genuine knowledge comes from clear and distinct ideas in our minds.

Cogito Ergo Sum

I think therefore I am

• descartes goofy ahh said this

John Locke

• Primary Qualities – exist even if no one was observing

  • size, position, shape – can be measured. 

• Secondary– wont exist if no perceiver present

  • colour, sound, texture, movement.

Every entity has primary and secondary qualities

George Berkeley

• All qualities are mind dependent, rejected Locke

• Primary qualities could be subjective, physical things are just collections of ideas, not solid matter

  • e.g.  A coin looks round from one angle, flat from other.   

• Reality is made of minds (like yours, mine, and God’s) and the ideas they perceive.

• If nobody (not even God) perceived something, it wouldn’t exist.

• subjectivist

Esse est percipi

To be is to be perceived

• Berkeley

Humes skepticism

Hume pushed Locke and Berkeley's empiricism → skepticism

• skepticism is denial of the possibility that we know for certain abt anything

• Hume is credited w/skepticism

Kant Transcendental Idealism*

• our knowledge of reality is from reason, but content is from senses

• Think of knowledge as a rope, you need strands woven together to create a strong rope.

• believed reason can also contribute to our knowledge. 

• accepted that experience is the only basis of knowledge of reality

Kant- Phenomenal world

agrees with hume, knowledge comes from senses but the mind arranges it to make sense

• mind organizes into phenomenal and noumenal world

  • Phenomenal: the world made by our mind is the only world we will know

  • sensations are organized by mind

  • objects are in causal relationship

Kant- Noumenal World

• might be the acc world that our mind doesnt know

• we will never know what this world is acc like

• it might not have objects since we dk how its like

• we may never know if things happen by change (no cause and effect)

Inductionism- Bacon

relationship between scientific theories and our observations of the world

• primary tool of scientific method: Using many individual experiences or observations to come up with broad, likely patterns or laws

• go from specific examples → general assumptions

• “by far the best proof is experience”

Bacon-Empericism

• Father of empiricism

• Don’t just accept views of others (e.g. Greek philosophers)

• Investigate nature by:

  • Careful sense observation & experimentation, collect as many facts as possible, analyze, derive laws.

John Stuart Mill- 3 features of scientific method

1. Collect as many facts as possible abt topic

2. Make general rules from specific facts.

3. Continue to accumulate more particular facts to see if generalizations hold true.  More instances = more confirmation.

Karl Popper - falsification

• true science can survive being claimed false

  • if it survives being called false=true science

  • the more attempts to disprove=the more reliable theory is

• pseudoscience: when scientists make theories and always try to prove it right bc it gives credibility to all kinds of “science”

• all scientific theories are probable, open to revision

Descartes wax meditation **

• put a cold plate of wax near fire (it is cold, hard, see-thru, etc) and come back in 10 mins now it is (yellow, liquid, sticky, etc)

• Sensory perception cannot be the source of true knowledge about the wax

• argues we understand the wax’s essence through reasoning

• senses deceive us

Leibniz’s theory of innate ideas

agreed we dont acquire our knowledge of the most basic truths by observing the world

• those truths have to be somewhat innate (born with)

• claimed innate ideas are "tendencies" or "dispositions"

  • experiences shape T&D -> fully formed idea

Locke’s blank slate

“Tabula Rasa” → “Blank Slate”

• experience affects our mind

• the fact that kids dont have certain ideas is proof innate ideas dont exist

• physical objects exist outside of us, they are independent of our perception

• our knowledge of stuff is acc our knowledge of our ideas of things

Kant - Categories

• mind organizes according to 12 relationships

  • causality (1), Plurality, Space, Time, Unity,etc…

  • we cant see causality bc its between objects

• causality exists in the mind, connects earlier sensations to later ones

  • the world we see : mind constructed

  • mind organizes the senses and objects we see