philo exam 1

Subdivisions of Philosophy:

• Epistemology: Study of knowledge (what we can know and how).

• Metaphysics: Study of reality (existence, time, space).

• Axiology: Study of values (ethics and aesthetics).

Fallacies:

• Equivocation: Using a word with multiple meanings in an argument.

• Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning): Argument assumes what it tries to prove.

• Causal Fallacy: Incorrectly attributing a cause-and-effect relationship.

Key Philosophical Concepts:

• Rationalism: Knowledge comes from reason (e.g., Descartes).

• Empiricism: Knowledge comes from sensory experience (e.g., Locke, Hume).

• A priori: Knowledge independent of experience (e.g., math truths).

• A posteriori: Knowledge based on experience or empirical evidence.

• Skepticism: Doubt about reliable knowledge.

Argument Components:

• Premises: Support the conclusion.

• Conclusion: The statement being proven.

• Induction: General conclusions from specific observations.

• Deduction: Specific conclusions from general premises.

• Validity: Whether the conclusion logically follows.

• Soundness: Validity + truth of premises.

Imagibility vs Conceivability:

• Imagibility: What can be vividly visualized.

• Conceivability: What can be mentally thought about.

Philosophical Methodology:

• Systematic Deception: Our senses and reasoning could mislead us.

• Methodological Skepticism: Doubt everything to find certain knowledge (e.g., Descartes).

Important Epistemic Issues:

• Foundationalism: Knowledge is built on self-evident beliefs.

• The Cartesian Circle: Descartes' circular reasoning with clear and distinct perceptions and the existence of God.

Key Philosophers & Concepts:

Brain in a Vat (Descartes)

• Questions the certainty of knowledge if we're just brains in vats, deceived by an external force.

Hume and Later Essays

• Hume questions inductive reasoning and cause-and-effect, casting doubt on our knowledge beyond immediate sensory experience.

Meno (Plato):

• Virtue as Knowledge: Socrates questions if virtue can be taught, proposing it’s knowledge and can be taught if understood.

• Meno’s Paradox: How can we search for something we don't know, or already know?

• Recollection: Knowledge is innate and discovered through questioning, as seen in the slave boy example.

Plato's Divided Line:

• Imagining: Lowest level, perception of shadows.

• Belief: Belief in physical objects.

• Thinking: Abstract reasoning (math and forms).

• Understanding: Direct understanding of the Forms.

• Allegory of the Sun: The Form of the Good enables understanding, like the sun enables sight.

First Meditation (Descartes):

• Goal: Find a foundation for knowledge through radical doubt.

• Methodical Skepticism: Doubting everything (body, world, even math) to find certainty.

• Evil Demon Hypothesis: Imagines a deceiver manipulating perception.

• Dream Argument: Doubts waking reality, comparing it to dreams.

• Conclusion: Radical doubt removes all uncertainty, preparing for certainty in later meditations.

Key Themes in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke):

• Empiricism: All knowledge comes from sensory experience.

• Rejection of Innate Ideas: All knowledge comes from experience, not inborn.

• Personal Identity: Identity is based on continuous consciousness, not the body or soul.

Appearance vs. Reality (Bertrand Russell):

• Distinction: Our perceptions of the world differ from the world as it truly is.

• Phenomenalism: Reality is made up of sensory experiences.

• Realism: Reality exists independently of our perceptions.

• Perception Process: We don’t perceive objects directly but through sense data.

• The Table Example: A table seems solid, but at a microscopic level, it's made up of atoms. Perception is an appearance, reality is the atomic structure.

The Existence of Matter (Russell):

• Materialism: Matter is the fundamental substance.

• Argument for Matter's Existence: Regularity of experiences supports the existence of an external world. Our perceptions (sense-data) imply an objective reality.

• Sensory Data: We infer matter from consistent sensory experiences, though we can’t directly perceive it.

Hume's Theory of Ideas:

• Goal: Understand the origins of human knowledge.

• Impressions vs. Ideas: Impressions are vivid sensory experiences; ideas are faint copies of those impressions.

• The Copy Principle: All ideas stem from impressions; no idea can exist without prior sensory experience.

• Simple vs. Complex Ideas: Simple ideas are direct copies of impressions; complex ideas are combinations of simple ideas.

• Empiricism: Knowledge comes only from experience, rejecting the notion of innate ideas.

• Limits of Knowledge: We cannot know beyond our impressions; abstract ideas without direct experience are meaningless.

• Conclusion: Knowledge is grounded in sensory experience, and our understanding is limited by it.

Popper's Philosophy of Science:

• Goal: Define the scientific method and distinguish science from pseudoscience.

• Conjectures and Refutations: Science progresses through bold hypotheses (conjectures) and testing them (refutations).

• Falsifiability: A theory is scientific if it can be tested and potentially proven false.

• The Problem of Induction: Popper rejects induction as unreliable for proving theories; theories can only be tested, not confirmed.

• Growth of Knowledge: Science advances by discarding falsified theories and adopting new ones that better explain the data.

• Conclusion: Scientific theories must be falsifiable and subject to rigorous testing to drive knowledge forward.

Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

• Goal: Explain how scientific knowledge progresses and how paradigms shift.

• Paradigms: Scientific fields operate within overarching frameworks (paradigms) that guide research and interpretation.

• Normal Science: Most science is done within an established paradigm, solving smaller problems without questioning the framework.

• Anomalies: Problems that arise within the paradigm but can't be explained within it, causing doubts.

• Crisis and Revolution: As anomalies accumulate, the paradigm may collapse, leading to a scientific revolution and the adoption of a new paradigm.

• Paradigm Shift: A radical change in the way the scientific community understands the world, like the shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican model.

• Conclusion: Science doesn’t evolve linearly but through periodic, revolutionary shifts in paradigms.

Bertrand Russell’s Appearance vs. Reality:

• Goal: Explore the relationship between perception and the external world.

• Phenomenalism: Reality is made up of sensory experiences; our perception of the world is shaped by our senses.

• Realism: Reality exists independently of our perception of it.

• Perception Process: We do not directly perceive objects; instead, we perceive sense data, which are representations of the real world.

• The Table Example: A table appears solid, but at a microscopic level, it’s made of atoms, highlighting the gap between appearance and reality.

• Conclusion: Our perception is an appearance of reality, not an exact mirror of it; reality exists independently of perception.

Russell's The Existence of Matter:

• Goal: Investigate whether matter exists independently of perception.

• Materialism: Matter is the fundamental substance of the universe.

• Argument for Matter's Existence: The regularity of sensory experiences suggests the existence of an objective, external world.

• Sensory Data: While we can’t directly perceive matter itself, our consistent sensory experiences imply its existence.

• Conclusion: The existence of matter is inferred from the regularity of our sensory experiences, even if it cannot be directly observed.