Download Epistemology: Theory of Knowledge

Epistemology:
Theory of Knowledge
Question to consider:
What is the most reliable method of
knowing?
Epistemolgical Questions
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What is knowledge?
Do I learn, or do I already know?
What is the process I use to acquire
reliable knowledge?
What are the limitations of
knowledge?
What knowledge is valid?
What is “justified true belief?”
Epistemological Criteria Establish
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Precise standards of judgment
Basis for comparison and evaluation
of judgments
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Accuracy of knowledge
Extent of knowledge
An alternative to trial and error
An Epistemological Continuum
Scientific Method
Empiricism
Rationalism
Empiricism: a Posteriori Knowledge
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Knowledge comes after experience.
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Show it to me.
Let me experientially and publicly verify
your claim.
Let my bodily senses come in contact
with it.
The mind is a tabula rasa. (John Locke)
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See Lost Episode, “Tabula Rasa,” 10/6/04
The Tabula Rasa in Lost
Rationalism: a priori Knowledge
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Ideas exist prior to knowledge
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There are self-evident axioms.
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Self-evident truths
They are clear and distinct in the
mind.
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Plato’s Forms, and Kant’s a priori
“I think, therefore I am.” (Descartes)
But aren’t ideas experiences?
Trees falling: a priori forms?
Scientific Method: Rational/Empirical
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Most accurate and orderly:
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Precisely stated problem.
Collecting precise information.
Organizing classes of information.
Formulating hypotheses.
Deductions from hypotheses.
Testing and verification of hypotheses.
Does not explain why things are.
Most Reliable Knowledge?
Observation
Conclusion
Hypothesis
Scientific
Method
Experiment
Analytic Philosophy I
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Logical Positivism
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All problems are problems of language.
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Empirical Propositions
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Analytic Propositions
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Verifiable by experience
True if definitions of words are true.
 Logic and math
All other problems are nonsense
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Metaphysics and Axiology are irrelevant
Analytic Philosophy II: its Method
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Philosophy of Science
Ordinary-Language
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Both clarify concepts (ideas)
Both clarify statements (propositions)
But does the method forget our need to
know the real and the valuable?
Authoritarianism: My Way or…
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Culture or tradition
Majority opinion
Prestige or expertise
Charisma
Sometimes unreliable
Sometimes all we have
Always efficient
Intuition: “Just knowing”
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Mysticism—knowledge without the
use of reason or experience.
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Spiritual
Ineffable
Insight
“Peak” experience
Enlightenment
Revelation: Sudden Awakening
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A store of unrecognized knowledge
is suddenly revealed.
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Epiphany
Sudden enlightenment
But it is not consistent.
How do we challenge the authority?
How do we compare revelations?
Existentialism: Objectivity Denied
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Knowledge claims are unreliable.
Truth is subjective.
No certainty is possible.
All final conviction must be a “leap
of faith.”
Zen: Knowledge Denied
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There is nothing to know.
So are we then to descend to
nonaction in the world?
Skepticism: Ignorance Admitted
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Knowledge is
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Beyond reasonable proof
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Highly uncertain
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We can only experience phenomena
Impossible
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Suspended judgment
We can know nothing.
What is healthy skepticism?
What is unhealthy skepticism?
Feminism: “We’re different, guys!”
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How do we get the knowledge we
have?
How do females acquire knowledge
differently from men? (Summers)
Cognitive authority is linked to
gender, race, class, sexuality,
culture, and age. (Frere)
But how do we get a norm?
Postmodernism & Deconstruction
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There can be no final agreement on
epistemic norms.
There is no one way to judge
anything.
Truths are social constructions
Language is unstable.
We use language to get what we
want.
Two Kinds of Knowing
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Subjectivism
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The perceiver determines some degree
of what is known.
Objectivism
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Things in themselves exist outside of
the perceiver.