GenPhil Revision

Question 1

Principle of Universalisability

Answer 1

If you recognise that you wrongly claimed to know p, you can never claim to know that p unless there is a relevant difference between the two cases

Question 2

How Dancy rejects Principle of Universalisability

Answer 2

It is not possible to show that we don’t know now by showing that we cannot point to a relevant difference between our present case and one in which we don’t know. So long as we assert that there is a relevant difference, our inability to point it is not proof that we don’t know, nor even that we are wrong (inconsistent) to claim to know

Question 3

Reichenbach

Answer 3

1. Either nature is uniform or it isn’t
2. If nature is uniform, induction is reliable
3. If nature is not uniform, no non-deductive method of inference is reliable
4. So induction is reliable if any non-deductive method of inference is.
5. So we might as well use induction.

Question 4

Armstrong - Necessitist

Answer 4

• Inductive inference is a two-stage process:
  
  • Stage 1: infer from the fact that all observed Fs have been Gs that it is a law of nature that all Fs are Gs on the grounds that this is the best explanation of why all observed Fs have been Gs
  • Stage 2: deduce from the fact that it is a law of nature that all Fs are Gs that all unobserved Fs are Gs.
• Stage 1 involves an inference to the best explanation (IBE)
• Stage 2 is just deductive

Question 5

Beebee - Counter to necessitism

Answer 5

H. Beebee shows that the hypothesis that ‘F and G have been necessarily connected so far’ is just as good an explanation as ‘F and G are timelessly necessarily connected’

Question 6

What the tortoise said to Achilles

Answer 6

it is a fallacy to suppose you’re only justified in using an inference if it is part of your premises.

Question 7

G.E. Moore - argument for Conditional View compatibilism

Answer 7

• (a) He could have done otherwise
  Means no more or less than
• (b) If he had chosen to do otherwise, then he would have done otherwise
• (b) is consistent with determinism
• Therefore, there are futures ‘open’ to the agent
  
  • ‘open’ = a future that would be brought about by a choice, even if the choice is determined not to occur.
• (a) and (b) are equivalent
• Therefore if (b) is coherent with determinism, then (a) is as well.

Question 8

Untouchable Facts

Answer 8

• You can infer an untouchable fact from another if they entail one another:
  
  • E.g. it is an untouchable fact that (p) the last dinosaur died long before I was born, and (p) entails that I have never seen a living dinosaur (q).
  • (q) is therefore also an untouchable fact
• A compatibilist must deny this because otherwise a determinist’s adoption of it would entail that all facts are ‘untouchable facts’.
  
  • (p) Things were thus-and-so 10 million yeras ago
  • (q) I am now writing an essay in the St Peter’s College library
  • Clearly, (p) is an untouchable fact and (q) is not.
  • Yet our previous logic shows that (q) must also be an untouchable fact.
  • If all facts, such as that I am writing an essay in a specific place, are untouchable, then no actions are possibly open to us and there is no free will.

Question 9

3 Types of Compatibilism

Answer 9

Forking Paths: Reject the idea that determinism leads to our inability to have done otherwise that what we actually did.
Conditional view: One acts freely only if one would have acted otherwise if one had chosen so.
Actual-Sequence: Whether an action is free is fully determined by the actual causal history of the action. It is irrelevant if you could have done otherwise.

Question 10

Indiscernability of Identicals

Answer 10

if a is numerically identical to b, then a is qualitatively identical to b

Question 11

Animalism

Answer 11

1. There is a human animal sitting in your chair
2. The human animal sitting in your chair is thinking
3. You are the thinking being sitting in your chair.
   Therefore, you are that animal.

Question 12

Ordinary objects

Answer 12

perceptual experiences are directly of ordinary mind-independent objects

Question 13

presentation

Answer 13

perceptual experiences are direct perceptual presentations of their objects (direct presentation for short)

Question 14

Direct Realist Presentation

Answer 14

perceptual experiences are direct perceptual presentations of ordinary objects

Question 15

Direct Realism

Answer 15

we can directly perceive ordinary objects.

Question 16

Argument from Hallucination

Answer 16

1. In hallucinatory experiences, we are not directly presented with ordinary objects
2. The same account of experience must apply to veridical experiences as applies to hallucinatory experiences
   Therefore
3. We are never directly presented with ordinary objects.

Question 17

Sense-data

Answer 17

mind dependent, non-ordinary objects that give the impression of sensing ordinary objects

Question 18

Intentionalism

Answer 18

We directly perceive ordinary objects through mental representation

Question 19

How is intentionalism compatible with direct realism?

Answer 19

It rejects direct presentation, but instead advocates for it in favour of the causal connection between the experience and the ordinary object (perceptual experience is causally connected to the ordinary object directly).

Question 20

Mental oil

Answer 20

non-representational aspects of experience, such as the feeling of pain or orgasm

Question 21

Mental paint

Answer 21

intrinsic, qualitative features of perceptual experience that shape how objects are represented to the mind