L10: Knowledge

Question 1

What are sources of knowledge?

Answer 1

1. Perception
2. Reasoning
3. Testimony
   ^ All of these are unreliable in one way or another

Question 2

What did Parmenides of Elea suggest about knowledge?

Answer 2

Things that exist are what they are, and can not be otherwise. One can not know what something that does not exist, if it can be spoken or thought of, it must be knowable. Reality is simply then one thing, for if it were two there would be nothing in between - however, nothing can not exist in reality (experience). The source of knowledge is pure reasoning.

Question 3

What did Plato suggest about knowledge?

Answer 3

There is a distinction between knowledge and opinion. He then suggests his metaphysical theory of forms. What in reality makes a proposition true is central, as it is not distinct. Knowledge is characterised as recollection. There is knowledge of ideas that are exclusionary to reality/experience. He came up with the definition: Knowledge is justified true belief.

Question 4

What is belief?

Answer 4

It is a propositional attitude which you act upon certain propositions. Belief does not imply truth, it is intentional, it can change, there can be beliefs about beliefs and we can share beliefs

Question 5

When are propositions the same?

Answer 5

As long as what it essentially states is the same, despite language and form, there are two same propositions

Question 6

What are propositional attitudes?

Answer 6

A standpoint or view on a certain proposition. They involve a subject, mental state and a proposition itself.

Question 7

What is truth?

Answer 7

Propositions are the bearers of truth. However there are different ideas of truth, such as the correspondence theory of truth, coherentism and pragmatism

Question 8

What is the correspondence theory of truth?

Answer 8

There is a correspondence between language and reality, if the object contains the predicate, it is true. However, what in reality makes mathematical truths true?

Question 9

What is coherentism?

Answer 9

A belief is true if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs. However, that means that truth can not be eternal and can not be singular (multiple coherent systems of beliefs clash)

Question 10

What is pragmatism?

Answer 10

True beliefs will remain settled at the end of enquiry.

Question 11

What are the questions of philosophy of language?

Answer 11

1. What is meaning?
2. Is the meaning of a sentence its truth value?

Question 12

What does Wittgenstein’s ideas of truth?

Answer 12

To understand the sentence, means to know what the case is and when it is true

Question 13

What is justification?

Answer 13

Justification can take many forms:
1. Perception
2. Reasoning (deduction, induction and abduction)
3. Testimony

Question 14

What is abductive reasoning?

Answer 14

A form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely explanation for a set of observations

Question 15

What are the three distinctions of judgements?

Answer 15

1. Analytic (a bachelor is an unmarried man) vs. synthetic (it is raining)
2. A priori vs. a posteriori (true before and after observation respectively)
3. Necessary vs. contingent (a truth that does not depend on another vs. one that does)

Question 16

What does Hume say about empiricism?

Question 17

What is the problem with propositions and justification?

Answer 17

If every proposition we know is justified by something else we know, it can lead to infinite regress.

Question 18

What are the types of knowledge?

Answer 18

1. Knowing that
2. Knowing what
3. Knowing who
4. Knowing how
5. Knowing why

Question 19

What is the contrast between belief and knowledge?

Answer 19

When someone believes something, it presumes that it is not certain (a part of knowledge) that they know it.

Question 20

What is higher-order knowledge?

Answer 20

Where if we know something, then we know that we know it and if I know something that you know, then we know it and if I dont know something, then I know that I dont know.

Question 21

What is group knowledge?

Answer 21

1. Distributed knowledge: together the players know how the cards are dealt
2. Mutual knowledge: everyone knows that
3. Common knowledge: it is common knowledge that you ought to drive on the right hand side of the road. (you have to know that everyone knows this)

Question 22

What is social epistemology?

Answer 22

About how knowledge can be distributed in institutions, networks, trust, echo chambers etc. It also considers epistemic injustice (not everyone in society has access and available information).