Essay plans

Question 1

‘How can we best define propositional knowledge?’

Answer 1

Intent - VE is the best way to define prop knowledge

1. J+T+B
   issue - Gettier cases
   judgement - crucial arg, Gettier proves JTB does not work
2. No false lemmas
   strength - copes well w/ Gettier
   issue - fake barns
   judgement - more effective than JTB but FBC is a damning issue
3. Sosa’s virtue epistemology
   strengths - copes well w/ Gettier and fake barns (animal vs reflective knowledge)
   judgement - effective, holds up well against both issues

Question 2

‘Is direct realism convincing?’

Answer 2

Intent - unconvincing

1. Time lag
   Response - direct perception does not mean instantaneous perception, just that the object is present at the time of perception
   Counter-response - doesn’t work for objects like stars which likely won’t exist anymore
   Judgement - time lag makes direct realism less conv
2. Percep var
   Response - Galen Strawson ‘real’ properties under ‘optimal conditions’
   Counter-response - DR fails to offer any way to say what these ‘real’ properties are
   Judgement - this issue makes DR less conv
3. Hallucination
   Response - hallucinations are not perceptions but imaginations
   Counter-response - DR offers no way to distinguish between perceptions and hallucinations
   Judgement - crucial arg against DR

Question 3

‘Is indirect realism convincing?’

Answer 3

Intent - not conv

1. Exp IDR
2. Issue of scepticism
3. Russell’s best hypothesis (w/ response that it is not conv to say it is the best hypothesis)
4. Involuntary nature of exp (hasn’t proven an external world as there may be some other reason why our senses correspond - cd use best hypothesis - but then back to issue that it may not be best hypothesis)

J - not conv as it cannot successfully defeat scepticism

Question 4

‘Is idealism convincing?’

Answer 4

Intent- unconvincing

1. Explain idealism
2. Master argument (and Russell’s response)
3. Issue with illusion and hallucination (+response and counter-response)
4. Issue with solipsism (+ response and counter-response)

Question 5

‘Does innate knowledge exist?’

Answer 5

Intent - yes, there is at least some innate knowledge

1. Plato’s slave boy argument (reason, not innatism response)
2. Leibniz’ argument from the necessity of truth
3. Locke’s argument (Leibniz’s response that ideas don’t need to be articulated to be there)

Question 6

‘Is Descartes’ intuition and deduction thesis successful in proving that some synthetic truths can be established a priori?’

Answer 6

Intent - no!

1. Explain what is meant by intuition and deduction
2. Explain cogito as an a priori intuition
3. Explain trademark argument (+ response that it is not an a priori argument)
4. Explain Descartes’ argument for the external world (+response that it is not an a priori argument)