Epistemology

Epistemology

1. Objective

   • Rationalism
     • Descartes
       • Descartes asked “what can I know for certain?”
         • Nothing, he trusted neither of his senses nor reason
       • And he only thing he could knew for certain…
         • “I think therefore I am”
           • His arguments
             • Dream argument
               • You can't trust your senses
               • Your senses can be easily tricked
               • If I’m touching this item, I can feel it but am I dream then?
                 • His support to the argument
                   • In one of his experiences, he had a dream where he sat by the fire and he could feel the warmth of the fire
                   • Even though, there isn't an actual fire, his senses sensed the heat of the fire when he was not near it
                   • This led him to conclude that he couldn't trust his perception whether if the fire exists or not
             • Evil demon
               • Suggested that his body may be under the control of an all powerful being bent on deceiving him
               • He didn't mean it literally but he said he didn't have a body at all instead a brain fed on information and illusions by the all powerful being
                 • By this argument, he meant to explain that the senses can be deceived
                 • We can’t trust our senses to convey true information about the world around us
               • We also can’t trust deductions we’ve made on the grounds of sense perception
     • Plato
       • Justified True Belief
         • Justiification
           • Evidence, or other support, for your belief
         • True
           • The state of either true or false or undetermined
         • Belief
           • Proposited attitude of truth
           • To believe something if you think it’s true
             • Example: "This is a cat"
               • You do hold the belief that whatever you see is a cat
                 • This belief is justified because you have some sort of evidence to support it
                   • This statement therefore becomes true
           • Belief corresponds to reality so therefore, its true
     • What rationalists believe in
       • We enter the world with innate knowledge
         • An example
           • Rene Descartes belived that the mind is innate ideas about God
       • We draw on this knowledge to make sense of our experiences and to create further knowledge
       • Rationalists believe that we acquire additional or higher knowledge through reason

2. Subjective

   • Empiricism
     • The view that knowledge is the product of sense perception, experience, and experimentation
       • Aristole
         • Aristotle, a student of Plato, researched, observed, and performed many experiments
         • He found that it was through this type of work, that we acquire knowledge
       • John Locke
         • Rejected the idea of innate knowledge
         • Tabula Rasa (Blank slate)
           • Mind starts off as a blank slate
           • Mind gains from experience (through the senses) which it builds upon
           • Mind (thinking) is diminished by disease, injury or lack of stimulation
           • John Locke believed that our minds were a blank pieces of paper at birth
         • To figure out the difference of the senses reflect the world, he created a distinction betwen primary and secondary senses
           • Primary
             • Qualities physical objects themselves have
               • shape, figure, motion, number, etc
                 • For example: An apple
                   • It's round
                   • It's red and smells sweet
             • These we would all agree on
           • secondry
             • Comes from the act of perception and may vary
               • colour, temperature, smell, aste, sound
             • Dependent on the viewer
       • George Berkeley
         • Moved by Locke’s Empiricism
         • Looked at primary and secondary qualities
           • You can’t detect primary colours without identifying the secondary qualities (an apple)
             • Therefore, primary qualities are subjective as well
               • No such thing as matter, just perceptions! So… things exist because we perceive them…
               • Does this mean that objects cease to exist when no one is there to perceive them? No! He believed things are being perceived constantly by God
             • For example: an apple
               • You have to see the shape of the apple before seeing the colour
   • Skepticism
     • The practice of questioning the reliability of our knowledge
       • Why Skeptisim is important?
         • You won’t fall for things easily
         • You create stronger arguments by questioning your own arguments and finding rebuttals
         • Sorting out fake information and having your own perceptions
     • The belief that nothing can be found for certain

3. Feminism

   • Mary Wollstonecraft formed her own girls’ school and argued that Kant’s Rousseau’s observation of women and opinion were not accurate
     • but were biased and outdated descriptions inherited through the ages
   • She argued that girls playing dolls with frilly dresses and are delicate was not by nature but because they were nurtured that way

4. Pragmatism

   • Charles Peirce, John Dewey and William James
     • Sided with neither rationalism, empiricism, idealism or materialism
     • Focused on how we should use knowledge in our personal and social experiences
     • They believe that that we conduct our lives as though we have instrumental forms of knowledge.
     • A pragmatist theory of truth, then, focuses on what works for us and what is useful to us.
     • They concluded that we use knowledge and formulate our beliefs depending on what is useful to us

5. Episteme = “knowledge” Logos = “Rational study”

6. The study and theory of knowledge

7. This study Considers how...

   • We obtain knowledge
   • What we can know
   • How certain we can be in our knowledge

8. Immanuel Kant

   • Senses and reason both play a role in what we know
   • The mind has innate knowledge of certain concepts
     • Space
     • Time
     • Motion
   • While we take in information, we coordinate these experiences with our knowledge that we already have