BIG_Q_2-21-2025 Flash Cards

Overview of Class Session

• Review of discussion questions from previous class.

• Reminder about mid-semester feedback forms (MSEQs).

• Brief unit review to provide an outline for the upcoming study guide.

Discussion Questions

• Potential Problems with Starting Knowledge Projects from Marginalized Perspectives

  • Importance of recognizing potential bias when starting projects from marginalized viewpoints

  • Risk of privileging one perspective over another

  • Concerns over understanding the complexities of lived experiences across different marginalized groups.

• Standpoint Theory and Essentialism/Relativism

  • Standpoint theory's implications and whether it leads to essentialism (all members have the same viewpoint) or relativism (no universal standard exists)

  • Need to acknowledge the limits of self-reflexivity and the importance of incorporating diverse perspectives in knowledge projects.

• Harding's Strong Objectivity

  • Discussion of whether self-reflexivity and acknowledgment of biases are sufficient for achieving more objective knowledge.

  • Recognition of the limits of perspective due to situated knowledge, leading to the idea that collaboration could enhance objectivity.

• Narayan's Critique of Harding

  • Some agreement on the critique regarding the limitations of Western feminist perspectives in understanding global feminism.

  • Discord on whether Narayan’s critique fully addresses the problems within Harding's framework.

Unit Review Outline - Epistemology

• Plato's Allegory of the Cave

  • People chained in a cave perceive only shadows, representing an incomplete understanding of reality.

  • The journey out of the cave symbolizes the process of education and discovering truth through reason.

  • Plato as a rationalist - knowledge comes from rational processes.

• Descartes and Method of Doubt

  • Focus on Descartes' attempt to establish knowledge on unshakable grounds through global skepticism.

  • Dream Hypothesis: Everything may be a dream, which complicates establishing knowledge.

  • Evil Genius Hypothesis: An imagined deceiver that could undermine all knowledge, including a priori knowledge.

• A Priori vs. A Posteriori Knowledge

  • A Priori Knowledge: Knowledge independent of experience (e.g., mathematical truths).

  • A Posteriori Knowledge: Knowledge dependent on experience (e.g., it is cold outside is only affirmed through empirical observation).

• Hume's Empiricism

  • Knowledge arises primarily from sensory experience.

  • Coherence and constancy supply belief in the existence of external objects.

  • Indirect Realism: Awareness that we don't directly perceive an external world, only perceptions.

• Origin and Association of Ideas

  • Ideas are derived from impressions, which are immediate, lively experiences.

  • Facilitates the creation of complex ideas from simpler ones through combinations.

  • Recognition of the limitations of inductive reasoning and the problem of causality - the assumption of knowledge based on habitual experience.

Recommendations to Students

• Students are encouraged to write down insights and questions prior to the midterm for clarification.

• Be prepared for discussions on Descartes' mind-body dualism in the next class.