Term
| (2) Which part of the standard propositional account of knowledge is normative? Explain the distinction between explanation and justification. |
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Definition
Descriptive statements (explanations) are falsifiable statements that attempt to describe reality. Normative statements, on the other hand, affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong.
Justifiability is the normative component, because people believed that knowledge should come with understanding, and not just an arbitrary pick. |
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Term
| What is the distinction between knowing how and knowing that? Compare and contrast the roles played by each type of knowledge in our actions. |
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Definition
Knowing how to do something means that one is able to complete some task, but does not necessarily know the exact process by which it happened.
Knowing that is essentially verbal knowledge, to know that something is the case.
One can know how to bike, without really
knowing the physics behind it.
Knowledge how essentially is what guides our survival. Knowledge that something is true is verbal knowledge, knowledge that can be verbalized. |
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Term
| (1) What is the standard account of propositional knowledge? How old is this account of knowledge? How does this account explain the distinction between opinion and knowledge? Explain each of the three parts and why each is taken to be necessary. |
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Definition
The traditional view of human propositional knowledge originates from Plato's Meno and Theaetetus (427-327 B.C.) and states that knowledge consists of true, justified belief. A proposition is true if it corresponds to reality. A proposition is justified if there is evidence for that proposition. A belief, according to the state-object view that Plato ascribes to, is that belief consists of the special relation between a person and an object of belief.
Knowledge must first be believed, because it seems impossible that one can know something to be true and have evidence that it is true, but still not believe it.
Knowledge must be true, because if it were allowed to be false, it would not convey what we want it to convey.
Knowledge must be justified, otherwise the knowledge could be chance and not real understanding. |
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Term
| (4) What is meant by propositional knowledge? What is a proposition? |
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Definition
Propositional knowledge is knowledge that something is the case, that something is true.
A proposition is a statement that can either be true or false. |
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Term
| (5) What is an occurrent belief? A standing belief? An explicit belief? An implicit belief? |
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Definition
An occurrent belief is a belief that requires a person's current assent to the proposition. It is a more momentary kind of belief- like the belief that something about to fall on his head.
A standing belief is a belief that does not require a person's current assent to the proposition. This is the set of beliefs we have acquired and keep with us at all times.
An explicit belief is an overt, conscious belief. An implicit belief is an covert, unconscious belief. |
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Term
| (6) What are the characteristics of a dispositional account of belief? |
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Definition
| This account of belief states that a belief is only the tendency to act a certain way. If I have the belief that something is dangerous, it is just the disposition that I should get away from it. |
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Term
| (7) What are the characteristics of a state-object account of propositional belief? What are two possible “objects” that might serve in a state-object account of propositional belief? |
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Definition
This account of belief states that a belief is the special relationship between an person and an object of belief. An object of belief can either be a abstract proposition or a sentence.
To believe a proposition is to have some confidence that a certain abstract proposition is true.
Abstract propositions are nonphysical entities that exist independently of anyone's thinking of them.
On the other hand, an object of belief could be a sentence. A sentence token is the physical representation of a sentence from someone's speech or writing. A sentence type is the abstract class of all sentence utterances that roughly have the same form. |
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Term
| (8) Describe at least one potential objection to a dispositional account of belief and at least one potential objection with a state-object account of belief |
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Definition
One problem with the dispositional account is that we generally use beliefs to explain the way we act. We generally don't believe that our beliefs are dispositions. It fails to address the propositional content in behavior- the reason why we do things.
Problems with the state-object account:
1.There is very little understanding of what an abstract proposition really is.
2. Sentences that have different grammatical structures, but same meaning. Different languages. Such problems require the critierion of expressing the same proposition, which sentential theory tries to avoid, in order to make the state-object theory more concrete. |
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Term
| (9) What characterizes a correspondence account of truth? |
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Definition
| A correspondence account of truth states that a proposition is true if it corresponds with reality. Truth consists in a relation between sentencelike truth-bearers and features of the actual world. The problem is forming an account of the kind of correspondence that is definitive of truth. |
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Term
| (10) What are the characteristics of a coherence theory of truth? |
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Definition
The coherence theory of truth states that a proposition is true if it is consistent with a specific comprehensive system of propositions. Problem: Which system? There can be two consistent systems that believe opposite propositions to be true.
Why must coherence within some system relate at all to the truth? |
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Term
| (11) What are the characteristics of a pragmatic theory of truth? |
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Definition
A pragmatic theory of truth states that a proposition is true if it holds cognitive usefulness in unifying our experience of the world.
However, a proposition is not true just because it "makes sense" and fits with our beliefs. Pragmatists must explain why there can be false propositions that are "useful" and hold cognitive value.
Also, what is cognitively useful to one set of explanatory assumptions may be useless in another. |
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Term
| (12) What does it mean to be a foundationalist with respect to rational justification? Describe at least two alternative possible foundations for rational justification and how each might serve as a foundation. What properties should a foundation of rati |
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Definition
Epistemic foundationalism suggests that there are some propositions that are noninferential, or foundations, from which all other knowledge can be based. Descartes' Meditations supports an extreme kind of foundationalism, desiring the foundation to be CERTAIN. The foundation, according to who you speak to, can either be
1)self-justifying
2)justified by nonbelief,
nonpropositional experiences--)justified by sensory or perceptual experiences
3)by a reliable nonbelief origin of a belief---)perception, memory, introspection
Two alternative possible foundations for RJ are ____ and ____.
A foundation of RJ should ____
The foundation leads to the rest of knowledge. |
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Term
| (13) What does it meant to be a coherentist with respect to rational justification? |
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Definition
A coherentist in respect to RJ should not be confused with a coherentist in respect to truth. A RJ Coherentist believes that justification is inferential and systematic in virtue of "coherence relations" among beliefs. Inferential justification terminates not in a single belief, but in a system of beliefs with which the justified belief coheres.
Problems: What kind of coherence is necessary? What kind of belief system must a justified belief cohere with?
The "isolation objection" says that a system of beliefs might constitute knowledge by the coherentist's principles, but be completely out of touch with one's nonpropositional, sensory awareness. |
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Term
| (14) What does it mean to be a contextualist? |
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Definition
Wittgenstein set forth a crucial tenet of contextualism when he said that "at the foundation of well-founded belief is a belief that is not founded."
Basically, any person with a belief system must simply pick beliefs to act as a foundation even though they are unjustified.
Problem: Any unjustified belief, however
implausible, may, by this theory, act as a foundation. |
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Term
| (15) What does it mean to be an infinitist with respect to rational justification? |
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Definition
An infinitist believes that the regresses of inferential justification are infinite, but this doesn't mean there isn't real justification.
Problem: They're only conditionally justified. Sorry. |
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Term
| (16) What would the persistent skeptic say to the foundationalist? To the coherentist? To the infinitist? What is the infinite regress problem? |
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Definition
The persistent skeptic would say to the foundationalist: Your foundations aren't as foundational as you believe. Instead, your foundational beliefs are regarded to be true because of some feature F which makes them more likely to be true. But that means the Foundation depends on F.
The skeptic would say to the coherentist: How do you know that a system of coherent beliefs leads to knowledge?
The skeptic would say to the infinitist that there is no true justification in that case. There is only conditional justification.
The infinite regress problem of rational justification states that since every justifying condition requires a justifying condition, it will go on forever, and thus nothing is justified. |
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Term
| (17) What is deductive justification? Inductive justification? What does it mean to say that a rational justification is defeasible? |
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Definition
Deductive justification is where justifying support does logically entail what it justifies. The supporting propositions guarantee that the supported proposition is true.
Inductive justification does not logically entail what it justifies. If the justifying condition is true, then the justified condition is probably true.
A rational justification is defeasible if a justifying support can cease to be justifying, given new and better evidence. |
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Term
| (18) What is the difference between internal and external justification? |
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Definition
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Term
| (19) Explain what is meant by rational justification or “good reasons” for holding a belief. |
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Definition
| To be able to rationally justify a proposition is to be able to present supporting evidence that affirms the truth-value of the proposition. |
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Term
| (20) Explain the relationships that one might expect to hold between (a) truth and justification, (b) belief and truth, (c) belief and action, (d) truth and successful action, (e) justification and belief, and (f) meaning and truth. |
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Definition
Truth and Justification have the relation that if a proposition is used to justify another proposition, then it should be true.
Belief and Truth has the relation that it is a higher form of belief if it is true.
Belief and Action has the relation that Belief is often what causes action. Given the dispositional view of belief, belief is just the disposition to act in a certain way.
D. Truth is related to Successful Action because an action based on a false proposition is likely to fail. This is related to the Pragmatic view of truth, in which truth is determined by a proposition's cognitive usefulness.
E. Justification is related to Belief, in that a belief that is justified is a stronger form of belief...
F. Meaning is related to truth, in that
meaning is the information conveyed and can have the further quality of being true in relation to reality... |
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Term
| (21) Why do these relationships make it difficult to construct an account of knowledge as true justified belief? |
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Definition
| These relations make it difficult to form an account of knowledge because true justified belief is not just the sum of their components but a cohesive mesh of all three components. This means that the topic cannot be taken as three separate components. |
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Term
| (22) What is the difference between methodism and particularism with respect to constructing a theory of knowledge? Which do approach do you think is the right one? Explain. |
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Definition
Methodism does not start with any set proposition as true, but instead has a method of determining what is knowledge and what isn't.
Particularism starts with a few propositions that are true and see what other knowledge is necessarily true given those propositions.
I think that particularism is better if one can start with a few basic propositions, although there is still the possibility of being wrong.
Methodism is also good, because it maintains a strict criteria of what is true. |
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Term
| (23) Would it be a problem for the standard account of propositional knowledge to suppose that belief, justification, and/or truth come in degrees? Explain what degrees might mean in each case and why it might be a problem. |
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Definition
The standard account of knowledge is that knowledge is true, justified belief.
According to the correspondence theory of truth, a proposition is true if it corresponds with an actual situation. It would be even harder to determine what knowledge is if a proposition could correspond only partially to reality. An example of a partial truth would be our developments in science, in which our "knowledge" is probably only part of the truth, but not completely wrong.
If one only partially believes in the truth of a proposition, one is ambivalent about a situation. Therefore, due to the uncertainty, it should not be called knowledge.
Justification in degrees.... if a proposition is partially justified by another proposition, it is also partially disproven... |
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Term
| (24) What does it mean to be a relativist with respect to truth? With respect to rational justification? What do you take philosophers to be doing when they construct a theory of knowledge? Explain. |
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Definition
A relativist in respect to truth believes that whether a proposition is true depends on personal subjective experience. Coherentists are essentially relativists, because a person's system of beliefs determines the truth value of an a belief.
A relativist in respect to justification is a contextualist. There are a few beliefs that one must accept and then use as justification for other beliefs.
Philosophers, by constructing a theory of knowledge, are trying to answer the question of "What is knowledge"?....They are also ______________________- |
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