Flashcards
philosophy paper 1
Cards in this deck (3)
- 1what is a false lemma (3)a lemma is a proposition that forms part of an overall argument and lends support towards a particular conclusion: A false lemma is therefore a claim that is part of an argument but the individual claim is not true even if it does lead to true conclusion.
- 2explain one way in which an indirect realist can respond to the argument from illusion (5)the argument from illusion is used by indirect realists to argue that direct realism is false. it can be presented in standard form:
p1: a pencil looks crooked when in a glass of water.
p2: we perceive something that is crooked.
p3:it is an illusion: the pencil is not actually crooked.
p4: the crooked thing is sense data.
p5: we perceive sense data and not the pencil directly.
p6: we perceive sense data in veridical perception and in illusion.
c: therefore, direct realism is false.
the key premise is p3. although we know that we are subject to an illusion when we see a crooked pencil, we cannot establish this just from what we see. someone who doesn’t know about illusions would genuinely think the pencil is crooked. we learn to test this. nonetheless, indirect realism argues that even when perception is veridical, we are still directly aware of sense data rather than the object itself. therefore, there is an intermediary involved in our perception. from this indirect realists conclude that direct realism is false. - 3explain how reliabilism can be applied as a response to the challenge of scepticism (5)reliabilism is a theory of a knowledge which claims that the reliability of the (cognitive) process involved in generating a belief is the key factor in whether we should call it knowledge or not. the sceptic claims that evidence from these senses is compatible with my brain being in a vat, and so that i cannot know that i am not a brain in a vat. the sceptic concludes that i cannot know that my body or the physical world exists. however, due to reliabilism, i cannot tell simply by inspecting my own sense experience whether or not i am a brain in a vat, this doesnt show i dont have knowledge of the physical world. for if i am a brain in a vat, then my beliefs about the physical world are produced by a reliable process, and so can count as knowledge. according to reliabilism, i do not have to be able to prove im not a brain in vat to know physical world exists.
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- Flashcards on philosophy paper 1, created by Nafiso M on 05/02/2019.
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- Nafiso M
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