Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology, Plato, Descartes, and Locke

Flashcards reviewing key concepts, proper terms, and philosophical arguments regarding epistemology from Plato, René Descartes, and John Locke as covered in the lecture transcript.

According to the lecture, what main languages are typically required when studying philosophy to read original texts?

German, Latin, French, and Greek.

In Plato's Allegory of the Cave, what does the sun represent?

The sun represents the ultimate form of the Good, truth, and the highest level of knowledge.

What is Plato's view on how true knowledge is acquired?

True knowledge requires effort, sacrifice, discomfort, and abstract reasoning to ascend away from senses and appearances.

Why is René Descartes referred to as a 'radical doubter'?

Because he set out to doubt everything he knew—including his senses, body, mind, and external world—in order to find a solid foundational belief that cannot be doubted.

What is the single certainty Descartes arrives at in his First Meditation that cannot be doubted?

That he exists as a thinking thing.

What is Cartesian dualism?

The view held by Descartes and his followers (Cartesians) that the mind and the body are completely distinct and separate entities.

How does Descartes prove the existence of God in his Third Meditation according to the lecture?

He argues that God has higher formal reality as an infinite being, and finite human beings could not have created the idea of an infinite God on their own; therefore, God placed the idea there.

According to John Locke, how does the human mind begin at birth?

The mind begins as a blank slate, with every idea originating entirely from sense experience.

What are John Locke's primary qualities of an object?

Characteristics that exist independently within the object itself, such as solidity, extension, figure (shape), size, number, and motion or rest.

What are John Locke's secondary qualities of an object?

Powers of an object to produce subjective sensations in us through our senses, such as color, sound, taste, smell, heat, and cold.

What physiological phenomenon does Descartes use to demonstrate that our physical senses can deceive us about pain location?

Phantom pain, where a signal stimulated anywhere along a nerve pathway causes the brain/mind to feel pain in a foot or limb that may not actually be injured or present.

In Plato's Divided Line model, what is located below the dividing line?

The world of appearances, visible things, images, shadows, belief, imagination, and ignorance.

What is the definition of epistemology?

The branch of philosophy concerned with the theory and study of knowledge.

What is the key difference between descriptive claims and prescriptive claims?

Descriptive claims explain how things actually are, whereas prescriptive claims describe how things ought to be.

What grading assessments compose the class syllabus outlined by the professor at the end of the lecture?

Two non-comprehensive exams (midterm and final), two in-class reading response papers, and one presentation.