Epistemology

Acquiantance knowledge

Direct knowledge of something through experience or familiarity.

Ability knowledge

Knowledge of how to perform a skill or activity. It cannot be simply explained through propositions but must be learned through practice.

Propositional knowledge

Knowledge that a particular proposition or statement about the world is true.

The nature of definition (including Zagzebski) and how propositional knowledge may be analysed/defined

Zagzebski's concept of knowledge highlights the issue that building on the truth condition to JTB will never arrive at a formally effective condition for knowledge.

The third condition is always added on to the truth condition, not inherently linked.

Different views of knowledge arise from different aims, used to serve different purposes.

all definition or conditions of knowledge are eventually susceptible to gettier cases

Zagzebski separates definitions of knowledge into three categories: practical, real and theoretical.

What is the tripartite theory of knowledge?

Plato, in Theaetetus

-knowledge is a justified true belief

in order to know P (proposition) P must be:

-true

-you must believe in P

- you must have a justified belief in P

ALL THREE CONDITIONS ARE NECESSARY

Necessary and Sufficient conditions

'unmarried man'= both necessary and sufficient to be a bachelor.

Justified true belief- individually necessary

But are they jointly sufficient?

Problem to JTB- conditions not individually necessary

Justification not necessary: Children and animals possess knowledge, even though they can't justify it

Truth not necessary:

Zagzebski's definition of knowledge: acts of intellectual virtue rather than truth

Aristotle's correspondence theory of truth: corresponds with the way the world is, and the not how it isn't (e.g the earth if flat is not true)-- intellectually virtuous

Catherine Trotter-Cockburn's coherence theory of truth:

web of beliefs held by society at the time (the earth is flat was true at the time

Belief not necessary:

Knowing something without believing it (guessing, or muscle memory)

(in an exam or directions to San Jose)

problem to directions: ability knowledge, not propositional knowledge

Problem to JTB: conditions are not sufficient: lucky true beliefs

Edmund Gettier: are all the conditions jointly sufficient?

gives two counter examples

First case:

-smith and jones interview for same job

-smith hears interviewer say Jones will get job

-smith sees Jones count ten coins in his pocket

-smith forms belief that man who will get the job has ten coins in pocket

-Smith gets the job and has ten coins

--This was a justified true belief, but it was just luck

Second case:

relies on disjunction introduction:

true statement + 'or...' = true full statement

-smith has justified belief that Jones owns a Ford.

-smith says 'either jones owns a ford or brown is in barcelona'

-Jones does not own a ford, but brown is in Barcelona

-it's JTB

= tripartite definition is not sufficient

JTB & no false lemmas

Aims to strengthen the Justification condition of tripartite knowledge.

- P is true

- belief in P

- justified in believing in P

- did not infer P from anything false

If false lemma, then not knowledge

Problem for no false lemmas: Fake Barn County

-In fake barn county, locals create fake barns that look identical to real barns.

-Henry drives through fake barn county, without knowledge of the locals fake barns, and often thinks "there is a barn"

-His belief is not knowledge as it is not true

-However, Henry looks at a real barn and thinks "there is a barn"

this time, his belief is true, it is justified by his visual perception of the real barn, and is not inferred by anything false.

-According to "no false lemmas" Henrys belief is knowledge, but his belief is clearly not knowledge, and is just luck

Infallibilism

For belief to count as knowledge, it must be true and justified to absoloute certainty.

Certainty- Descartes: impossibility of doubt

Problem:

Too strict

Every belief can be doubted, as Descartes demonstrates in his three waves of doubt.

Bar for knowledge: tripartite definition too low- infallibilism too high.

Certainty not necessary

Reliabilism

Ernest Sosa's reliabilism states that P is known if

- P is true

- belief in P

-belief in P is caused by a reliable method

reliable method: eyesight, memory, a website that only produces unbiased, true sources etc- produces high percentage of true beliefs

Allows children and animals to have knowledge, eg a seagull knows where to find food

Problem:

Fake barn county, Henrys belief drawn by a reliable process, his vision.

Virtue Epistemology

Intellectual virtues are about epistemic good. Intellectually virtuous traits: rationality, integrity, honesty

Lina Zagzebski: what is knowledge?

There is a formula for Gettier-style cases that will always defeat (true belief=condition) definitions.

Because truth and third condition are simply added together, not linked (belief is not apt). This leaves gap for luck. term-15

Her definition:

-believes P

-belief that P arises from an act of intellectual virtue

'truth' is implied by act of intellectual virtue- you must both have correct motivation and succeed as a result.

Virtues motivate us to pursue what is good- good knowledge is true. Virtues help us achieve ergon- reliably forming true beliefs.

Sosa's Virtue Epistemology

Three properties: accuracy, adriotness, aptness.

Archery: hits target, archer is skilled, hits target because of skill.

Knowledge: belief is true, believer is intellectually virtuous, belief is true because of intellectual virtues

(third condition linked to truth)

Levels of Knowledge: Sosa distinguishes between two levels of knowledge: animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. Animal knowledge is basic and does not require the knower to have any reflective awareness of the reliability of their cognitive processes. Reflective knowledge, on the other hand, involves a higher level of awareness and understanding of the reliability of one's cognitive processes.

Direct Realism

The common sense intuitive view that the immediate objects of perception are physical objects which exist independently of our own minds.

Argument from Illusion

There is an obvious difference between perception and reality- for example, an oar bending in water.

Since illusions occur, we never directly perceive physical objects themselves, but only have access to sense-data representations of them in our minds.

This poses a challenge to direct realist theories of perception.

Response to argument from illusion

We misinterpret what we perceive- the problem is with our processing, not our perception

Argument from perceptual variation

Berkeley-:clouds look different colours- therefore the colour is not real, but an appearance.

Locke: hot and cold hand in water- not properties but effects

Russell: reflection on table- difference between perception and reality

Response to argument from perceptual variation

Relational properties: they are still mind independent, but they vary in relation to something else.

The object doesn't change, but how it is perceived does (lighting, angles)

Argument from hallucinations

It's impossible to distinguish mind-made from veridical- thus we can never trust properties.

Example: Descartes' dreams.

1. Can seem completely real and indistinguishable from waking experiences while they occur.

2. Are there any reliable markers to distinguish dreaming from reality at any given moment.

3. If our senses can be fully deceived during dreams, then they are also potentially deceiving us about the external world when we think we are awake.

Response to argument from hallucinations

We can distinguish with other senses, otherwise we wouldn't know hallucinations exist.

Indistinguishable doesn't mean no difference.

Argument from time-lag

The sun is not perceived directly (historical realism). Everything is perceived by the sun, therefore everything is historical.

We are never perceiving the present, so we are never perceiving anything directly. Therefore we can never trust what we perceive. Example: The sun could explode and it would take us 9 minutes to know.

Response to argument from time-lag

It only takes moments for light to bounce off near us. Also, it's still mind-independent- historical realism is still direct realism.

Indirect realism

External world exists independently of our minds, but we perceive the external world indirectly through sense data

Sense Data

Content of perceptual experience- caused by and represents mind independent physical objects.

Primary and secondary qualities

Locke:

Primary: inherent in the object itself.

Secondary: sensations caused in humans

-Distinction between reality and perception

Scepticism and the veil of perception

If we only perceive sense data, and not the object itself, then we can't know anything certain about the external world. There is no way of telling if it is an accurate representation of the external world- or if there is an external world at all.

We can't get behind the veil of perception to access the external world behind it.

Possibility of Cartesian demon, or brain in vat cannot be disproven.

There is no justification of a mind-independent external world that causes sense data, if we can never actually perceive the mind-independent external world itself.

External world is the best hypothesis

Russell:

Leave an apple in a drawer, when you come back the apple is rotten.

A: The apple exists independently of my mind, and while you were away it rotted.

B: The apple stopped existing while you were away, and sprung back into existence in a different temporal state.

A is the best hypothesis, because it connects the two perceptions and explains the degradation of the apple. B provides no explanation.

The coherence of different senses

Locke:

Different senses confirm the existence of one another.

-You can see and feel a fire

-The fact that warmth always accompanies visual perceptions of fire suggests the same mind-independent object causes both perceptions.

-You can write on paper and see what you wrote, and then get someone to read it aloud and hear what you wrote

-This suggests that the same mind-independent object can cause various perceptions.

Response:

Your senses can misrepresent that external world

Involuntary nature of perception

Locke:

We are unable to avoid having certain sense data produced in our mind (e.g. smell). Conversely, memory and imagination allows us to choose our experiences. Therefore whatever causes our perceptions must be external to our mind as we are unable to control them.

Response:

Just because there is something external doesn't mean that sense data is an accurate depicition.

Problems for Indirect Realism: mind-independent objects are different to sense data

Berkeley:

-Sense data constantly changes, but mind-independent objects don't. (as demonstrated by the perceptual variation argument). So how can these two thing resemble each other? How can our ideas, so fleeting and variable, imitate something fixed and constant?

Also, how can properties of sense data be like properties of mind-independent objects? How can the squareness of a table be like the squareness of sense data? They are two different kinds of things.

Idealism

The immediate objects of perception are mind dependent- everything is simply a collection of qualities, and are dependent on mind perceiving them to exist.

Attack on primary/secondary qualities

Berkeley:

-agree that secondary qualities and mind-dependent

-However, he ALSO says primary qualities are mind-dependent, because they too are subject to perceptual variation (e.g. size and speed).

Berkeley's use of primary and secondary qualities to prove that everything we perceive is mind-dependent

-When we perceive an object, we don't perceive anything in addition to primary and secondary qualities

-So, everything we perceive is made up of primary or secondary qualities

-Both primary and secondary qualities and mind-dependent

-Everything we perceive is mind-dependent

The Master Argument

Philonous: You can't think of an object that exists independently of being perceived.

Hylas: I am thinking of a tree that is not being perceived by anyone.

Philonous: You can think of the idea of a tree, but not one that exists independently of the mind. It is reliant on your mind to think of it.

We cannot conceive of mind-independent objects because as soon as we conceive of one, it becomes mind-dependent. Thus, mind-independent objects are impossible.

Response to master argument

The conclusion does not necessarily follow the premise; just because it is impossible to have the idea of a mind-independent object, that doesn't mean that mind-independent objects themselves are impossible.

Solipsism as a criticism of Idealism

The view that one's mind is the only thing that exists. Berkeley's arguments that everything is mind-independent suggests there is no reason to believe that anything exists beyond one's own experience.

If 'to be is to be perceived', then what happens to other people and objects when I don't perceive them?

Response:

God exists, and He perceives everything even when I don't

God as the cause of perceptions

-Everything we perceive is mind independent.

-There are three possible causes of these perceptions:

1. Ideas

2. My own mind

3. Another mind

-It can't be ideas, because ideas themselves don't cause anything

-It can't be my own mind, because if I was the cause of my own perception that I'd be bale to control what I perceive

-therefore, the cause of my perception must be another mind

-God is the only other mind capable of creating such complexity, variety, order and manner of my perceptions

-All 'physical objects' constantly exist in the mind of God

Problems with the nature of God

We can feel and perceive pain. So, if perception of pain is an idea in God's mind, surely God must feel pain too? But Berkeley says God doesn't feel pain- he's perfect.

Berkely's response to the nature of God

Ideas like pain exist in God's understanding. He doesn't feel it Himself, but he understands what it is like to feel pain.

Illusion as a criticism of idealism

Idealism makes no distinction between perception and reality. So why do our perceptions deceive us?

Berkeley's response to illusion

The pencil is crooked. We only think it is an illusion because it misguides us about future perceptions. It looks crooked, but that does not mean it would feel crooked, or look crooked once out of the water.

Hallucination as a criticism of Idealism

If to be is to be perceived, does that mean hallucinations are just as real as ordinary perception? Also, why would God cause such perceptions?

Reason as a source of knowledge: Innate knowledge thesis

We are born with some knowledge already

Plato's slave-boy

Meno: all learning is recalling knowledge from past life.

P1: The slave boy has no prior knowledge of geometry or squares.

P2: Socrates only asks questions, he does not teach the boy.

P3: After the questioning, the slave boy can grasp an eternal truth about geometry

P4: This eternal truth was not from prior experience or Socrates.

C: This eternal truth must have existed in the boy to begin with, innately.

Problem:

-leading questions

-prior knowledge of similar concepts

-trial and error

Contingent and necessary truths

contingent: is the case, but could have been false

necessary: must be the case, true in every possibility

Leibniz: necessary truths

P1: The senses can only reveal particular instances (the here and now);

P2: The mind grasps some truths as universal (meaning all times and all places);

P3: we cannot experience all times and all places

C1: The truth of these claims cannot be derived from the senses;

C2: These concepts must be contained within us to begin with (they are innate).

Problem with innatism: Innate knowledge would be universal

Locke:

If we did have innate knowledge, every human would have it.

But children and 'idiots' cannot grasp geometry.

Problem with innatism: Argument against innate concepts

Locke:

Propositional knowledge relies on concepts. (You can't know 1+2 without having a concept of 1 and 2). But you can't have innate concepts.

-Babies do not have any concepts beyond those experienced in the womb.

-God is often used as an example of an innate concept, but babies and atheist societies don't have concept of God.

Response:

Leibniz: you can have innate concepts and not know. (e.g, a=a and impossibility). We know these even if we can't articulate them, and they are essential to thought.

Just because societies lack the word 'God', doesn't mean they lack the concept of infinity.

Also, people can have different innate ideas. They don't need to be universal

Against innatism: Tabula Rasa

Locke- the mind is a blank slate at birth. Knowledge comes from sensation (sense perceptions) and reflection (experience of our own minds)

Simple and complex ideas

Locke- account of how humans form knowledge.

Simple concept- sensation of cold gives me the concept of cold

Complex concept- made up of simple concepts. These can then form abstact ideas. E.g simple ideas: brown, wooden = complex idea: chair = abstract idea = chairs in general.

All knowledge, from simple to complex, can come from experience.

Reason as a source of knowledge: intuition and deduction thesis

Rationalists: we can acquire some knowledge purely through intuition and deduction (purely by thinking rather than through perceptual experience)

Empiricists believe you cannot acquire knowledge of synthetic truths through intuition and deduction (a priori)

Descartes wants to prove that there is at least one synthetic truth that can be known a priori through intuition and deduction

Rational intuition

The ability to know something is true just by thinking about it (i.e cogito)

Deduction

A method of deriving true propositions from other true propositions. e.g

1.If A is true then B is true

2.A is true

3..Therefore, B is true

(All men are immortal, Socrates is a man, Socrates is immortal)

Analytic and Synthetic truths

Analytic: true by virtue of the meaning of the words, a priori

Synthetic: true by virtue of how the world is, a posterioi

Clear and distinct ideas

An idea that is so self-evidently true that it cannot logically be doubted

Cogito as an example of a priori intuition

dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum

Problem with cogito

A priori deduction: Trademark argument

1. I have the concept of God

2. My concept of God is the concept of something infinite and perfect

3. But I am a finite and imperfect being

4. According to causal adequacy theory, the cause of an effect must have at least as much reality as the effect

5. So the cause of my concept of God must have as much reality as an infinite and perfect being

7. God exists

Problem for trademark argument: Hume's fork

Divides knowledge into matters of fact (synthetic and a posteriori) and relations of ideas (analytic and a priori)

Causal adequacy principle is a matter of fact.

We can coherently conceive of (a cause with less reality than the effect- e.g, developing a physical bruise after getting punched non-physical ghost) without logical contradiction.

So that premise can be known a posteriori and therefore the argument is not a priori.

Problem with Trademark argument: The concept of God is not innate

Locke: simple and complex ideas. All concepts and knowledge come from experience. Complex idea of God developed from simple ideas.

God is not a clear and distinct idea.

Descartes argument does not establish synthetic truths priori

Does not establish rationalism

A priori deduction: Proof of the external world

1. I have perceptions of an external world

2. My perceptions cannot be caused by my own mind because they are involuntary

3. My perceptions must be caused by something external to my mind

4. God exists

5. God is a perfect being so would not deceive me like an Evil Demon could

6. I can trust my perceptions

7. The external world exists

Problem with proof of the external world: Hume's fork

Divides knowledge into matters of fact (synthetic, a posteriori) and relations of ideas (analytic, a priori)

Descartes' argument relies on matters of fact- no logical contradiction from denying the claim that 'my perceptions cannot be caused by my own mind because they are involuntary'- e.g dreams.

So not a priori argument.

Problem with proof of the external world: the Cartesian circle

Reasoning is circular

Commits the fallacy of begging the question

Assumes clear and distinct ideas are true in order to prove clear and distinct ideas are true

Reponse:

the trustworthiness of clear and distinct ideas is not because of God, it is because they are self-evident

Problem with proof of the external world: Concept of God is not innate

Relies on the premise that God is a clear and distinct idea.

The limits of knowledge

Considers philosophical scepticism-- is it possible to know anything at all?

Nature of philosophical scepticism

Casts uncertainty over everything we think we know.

E.g- Hilary Putnam's Brain in a vat: if my experience is just electrical signals interpreted by my brain, I could be a disembodied brain in a vat fed these electrical signals artificially

These global sceptical scenarios are situations where everything you believe could be false and there would be know way of knowing.

Undermines are ordinary justifications for belief- nothing can be known for sure.

Role/function of philosophical scepticism within epistemology

Distinction between philosophical scepticism and normal incredulity

Normal incredulity/ordinary doubt= everyday doubt about specific claims based on common sense reasoning. Operates within the boundaries of everyday knowledge and does not try to undermine the fundamental assumptions underlying out ability to know things.

Philosophical scepticism goes beyond ordinary doubt and casts uncertainty over everything we think we know. Undermines are ordinary justifications for belief- nothing can be known for sure.

Distinction between local and global scepticism within epistemology

Local scepticism is a subset of philosophical scepticism that targets specific areas of knowledge- such as sense experience of morality, without extending that doubt to all knowledge.

Global scepticism questions the possibility of all knowledge.

Descartes' sceptical arguments (three waves of doubt)

Before seeking to establish what he can known, Descartes first seeks to doubt everything he thinks he knows.

Illusion- I can doubt the reliability of my sense experience, because it has deceived me in the past.

Dreaming- dreams are often as convincing as reality, in which case how can we know what is reality and what is a dream

Deception- an evil demon may be controlling my entire experience. Even could manipulate propositional knowledge.

The possibility of these casts doubt on everything I know.

Response to scepticism: Descartes

-cogito shows that we can be certain that 'I exist'

-God exists (through trademark argument)

-God would not allow me to be globally deceived, so I can trust my perceptions and trust the external world.

Defeated global scepticism and defended ordinary knowledge.

Response:

relies on premise of God's existence- chain of justification can be broken

Empiricist responses to scepticism: Russel

external world is the best hypothesis.

A- external world causes perceptions

B- evil demon causes my perceptions

can't prove either one indefinitely- must be treated as hypotheses

Ockham's razor

Response:

-Descartes point was that both A and B are hypotheses. The mere possibility of the evil demon undermines ordinary knowledge.

-Also, why would the external world existing be the best hypothesis? the consequence of each is the same

Response response:

-Descartes is assuming an infallibilist definition of knowledge- we have to know we're not being deceived in order to have knowledge.

-Certainty is not necessary

Empiricist responses to scepticism: Locke

-Perception, like imagination, is involuntary- suggests perception is caused by something external

-Coherence of perceptions

Responses:

-Locke proves something external is causing his perceptions, but what?

-Evil demon could create coherent experiences

Empiricist responses to scepticism: Berkeley

-Master argument- mind-independent objects can't exist, so sceptical scenarios about them not existing or being perceived differently aren't possible

-Idealism doesn't make a distinction between perceptions and reality. God causes perceptions. Perceptions are what reality is. To be is to be perceived.

Response:

problems with idealism (illusions/hallucinations)

Response to scepticism: reliabilism

-knowledge is a true belief formed by a reliable method

-perception is a reliable method

-