philosophy midterm Flashcards

Question

Human Understanding- Locke, Mode

Answer 1

- Formed by abstract simple ideas - Results in objects that have no independent existence but always exist in association with substances - Ex. Murder, Cube (concept), Gratitude

Answer 2

- Kant begins by distinguishing Pure and Empirical Knowledge - All our knowledge comes from experience, but that just means it **begins** with experience. That doesn't mean it all **arises** out of experience

Answer 3

- Made up of what we recieve through impressions and what our already there knowledge supplies from itself (inferences) - Also comes from experiences and then inferences based off of those experiences

Answer 4

A Priori: - Pure (because there is nothing that comes from experience) - Knowledge that comes to us independent from experience - Stuff we just /know/ - Anything that's thought of as necessary - Known and justified through reasoning

Answer 5

A Posteriori - **Empirical** - Its source is experience - Not found through reasoning

Answer 6

Subject: What is being discussed (Cats, triangles, etc) Predicate: What is being said about the subject (Ex. all cats are **carnivores** carnivoures being the predictate)

Answer 7

- Are true by definition - Not claims about the world, claims about the relations of ideas - Make no claims beyond the meaning of the subject - Are about the relationship between the subject and the predicate - Ex. All triangles have three sides - they **are** a priori, as they are true without needing experience to prove it - **EXPLICATIVE**

Answer 8

- Things that are true because of experience - Predictate is not inherent in the subject (triangles having three sides), but connected to it - Claims about the world - Ex. Walmart closing at 11 PM - We attach one concept to another - **AMPLIATIVE** - Can also be A priori, just not when they come from experience. - Ex. Every effect has a cause. This is universal and known, but doesn't come from experience, while also being synthetic because the concept of a cause isn't contained in the concept of an effect. they are mutually exclusive but synthetically attached - Theoretical sciences are synthetic judgements

Answer 9

- The problem is "how are a priori synthetic judgments possible" - Hume thought the idea of cause and effect was entierly a posteriori (it had to come from experience) - To Hume, judgments were either a priori and analytic, or a posteriori and synthetic - Kant disagreed and argued for the existence of a priori synthetic judgments.

Answer 10

- Doubts about the truth of something - Philosophical skepticism relates to doubts about knowledge, primarily: What can we know? and will we ever know completely?

Answer 11

- Our experiences of the external world only comes through our senses. Doubting the external world means doubting our senses - Descartes was a massive skeptic, doubting everthing exept that he existed. He doubted his senses primarily

Answer 12

Universal Idealism: **Everything** that exists is either a mind or something whos existence is dependent upon a mind Limited Idealism: **Some** (but **not all**) things are minds or depend on minds for their exsistence

Answer 13

- He asks if there's evidence to prove existence other than what our senses can directly perceive - Distingueshes between Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas

Answer 14

- Matters of Fact: Also known as claims from experience, aren't as certain as relations of ideas despite supporting evidence (the fact that it's INDUCTIVE negates all evidence and inferences from experience) - Problem of induction has two parts: The **Justification** of induction as a reliable method of inference, and the **evaluation** of inductive inference

Answer 15

- He points out that all inferences that come from experience assume that the future will be the same as the past - This is an inductive inference based on observing the conjunction of certain events - This is a circularity problem found in the foundational justification of induction - But it's the from the basis of such reasoning that we assume that the sun will rise tomorrow

Answer 16

- She aims to show that implicit bias introduces another form of scepticism into knowledge systems - Implicit bias is another reason we should be skeptical of out knowledge - This bias means that we have good reasons to believe that we're mistaken about a lot, but not necessarily everything - Bias related doubt is stronger than traditional skepticism because this is doubt that demands action and can actually be changed/fixed

Answer 17

- We take mental shortcuts when we make desicions and these are biases. - They don't have to be good or bad, but can have harmful connotations (duh) - Biases affect the way we make desicions and act

Answer 18

- Implicit bias comes from attitudes and stereotypes towards people that we don't consciously notice - Can cause us to judge members of stigmatized groups in negative ways

Answer 19

- CV study - Stereotypically Black names vs. Stereotypically white names on CVs. - "White" names were more likely to be interviewed, hired, offered more money, and just generally more advantages - The person making these judgments isn't making them consiously - It can cause women to be sexist against other women

Answer 20

- Institutional affiliatoin has a dramatic effect on the judgments made by reviewers (either positive or negative, or both) - Published papers were resubmitted to the same journals that published them, but with different names and non-presigious affiliation - 89% were rejected

Answer 21

- The same ambiguous object is more likely to be perceived as a gun when held by a Black man but more likely to be perceived as something innocent when held by a white man - The same can be seen with men who appear Muslim vs. men who don't

Answer 22

- Some students receive lower marks and less encouragement - Some philosophers aren't getting the jobs they deserve - There's excellent work not being published

Answer 23

- We frequently make inaccurate judgments in matters involving identity - We shouldn't trust ourselves as inquiers - Things that we would consider every day truths probably shouldn't be because of our biases

Answer 24

- Before Saul, with armchair philosophy, skepticism was very theoretical and the same as any other thought problem. - After Saul, the issues (biases) regarding actual tangible things that can be explicitly proven and affect the physical world have been shown and therefore should be adressed

Answer 25

- Truths that lack a spiritual, social, or political dimension. - They're responsible because they don't have the potential for the bias mentioned. They're consiously removed from those biases. - Defined as "correctly true" "what's good for you and the community" and "rings true for everybody's wellbeing"

Answer 26

- The worlds/stories within which we live and the worlds/myths that have the power to orient us in life - An actively constructed portait of the world intended to be responsibly true, something that rings true for everyone's well-being - Only truly exist in Indigenous cultures

Answer 27

- Cerimonial worlds of the West are diminished in the sense that they're not intended to be responsibly true worlds or ones that encompas everyone's well-being - They tend to be built in accordance with epistemologies of domination and control - Western science lacks spiritual, social, and political dimensions - Anomalies in nature are only there as a result of premature conclusions drawn by Western scientific analysis - Natural regularities are often called Laws of Nature. They're universal in nature, generally discovered through inductive reasoning

Answer 28

- Formal legal theories that view law as consisting of a body of rules that are definite and coherent. The rules are applied logically and impartially by judges - They disagree that common law legal rules are neutral and objective - They disagree that they have definite interpretations - Judges have the descretion to choose from multiple interpretations of any law - Judges don't mechanically apply a rule to facts, their judgments reflect their soci-political preferences - **Legal realism questions the autonomy of law from the broader socio-political considerations ** - Legal realists hold the view that laws consist largely of myths - They oppose the claims that laws could be viewed as science - So judges would be affected by implicit biases

Answer 29

- Understanding the role ideas and beliefs play in guiding human interactions with the environment - According to pragmatists, truth is the name we give to the ideas, beliefs, and theories that work for us, or enable us to effectively satisfy our needs and achiveve our goals - When we point out the falsity of a claim, we're pointing out one respect in which the claim fails to satisfy our practical needs

Answer 30

- It's ethically informed - Any truths that emerge in Indigenous worlds are responsible truths

Answer 31

- What does it require for S to know that P is true? - Justified true belief: S knows that P is true if S believes that P is true, S is justified in believing P, and P is true - Knowledge doesn't equal a justified true belief although they're similar. - Gettier suggests that the definition of knowledge is inadequate.

Answer 32

- Smith and Jones - Scenario is that Jones will get a job, and he also has 10 coins in his pocket. - Therefore, the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket - Gettier claims that through the traditional definition of knowledge, Smith believes that it's true, he's justified in believing that, and therefore it's true, but he **doesn't** know that it's true - Gettier claims that this is luck based

Answer 33

- It's possible for a person to be justified in believing something false - For any proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q

Answer 34

- Hume says that matters of fact aren't as certain as relations of ideas - The opposite of every matter of fact is still possible because it can never imply a contradiction. Because of this it's difficult to prove the contrary of a matter of fact to be false. Ex. You can't prove that "there will be no tomorrow" is false - He asks if there's any evidence to prove other existence other than what our senses directly perceive - **Inductive**

Answer 35

- In all reasoning conserning matters of fact, it's constantly supposed that there's a connection between the fact itself and what's inferred from it - All reasoning that comes from matters of fact are founded on cause and effect - Hume says that matters of fact aren't derived from a priori or through logical means - They're based solely on experience by observing the **constant conjunction** of certain events - If we are shown an object that we've never seen before, we won't be able to tell what causes and effects are just by looking at it - We can't discover by senses alone what causes produced an object and what effects will arise from it - Our reason, unassisted by experience, also can't draw inference to do with actual real existence or matter of fact

Answer 36

- We assume that we just know that one pool ball would hit another and cause motion, but this is due to habit - If we had just been put on Earth with no knowledge, we could imagine 100 different outcomes - Both balls could remain at rest - The first ball could bounce back in a straight line - The first ball could bounce off of the second in any direction - These are all consistent and conceivable

Answer 37

- Why is one pool ball scenario more conceivable than the rest? - All our A priori reasonings won't be able to show us the foundation for our thinking. Every effect would be a distinct event from its cause. It couldn't be discovered through the cause - We shouldn't assume we've determined anything or infered cause or effect without the assistance of observation and experience

Answer 38

- All our reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect. - The foundation of all our reasonings and conclusions concerning that relation is **experience** - What is the foundation of all conclusions from experience? "Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and texture of bread, but neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body"

Answer 39

- The bread we eat nourishes us, but that doesn't mean that other bread will always nourish us at another time. - We often use inferences from past experiences to inform future events

Answer 40

- Inductive - Deductive

Answer 41

- **Inference from experience/observation/evidence** - To Hume, there's no logical justification for drawing casual inferences on the basis of induction, we only do it out of custom and habit - Hume sees causation as a phenomenon of the mind instead of one of cause and events - You shouldn't dispute or reject the authority of experience, but other sources hold more authority over it - Reason is incapable of the inference Custom has - Matters of Fact are induction

Answer 42

- The logical relationship between ideas - Relations of ideas are deductive

Answer 43

- If a child feels the sensation of pain from touching a candle, they won't touch it again. - It's not necessarily led to the conclusion by reasoning or arguments. - It's not reasoning that makes us assume that the past resembles the future - In all reasoning that comes from experience, there's a step taken in the mind which isn't supported by argument or understanding

Answer 44

- If a person was dropped into the world with well developed faculties of reason and reflection, they would immediately observe a continual succession of objects and events, but they wouldn't be able to discover anything farther - At first through reasoning, he wouldn't be able to reach the idea of cause and effect, since the powers that by which all natural operations are performed never appear to the senses. They also wouldn't conclude that just because one event occured before another that that is cause and effect - In order to recognize cause and effect, they would have to have repeated experiences of the constant conjunction of certain events/objects to start inferring one just from seeing the other, but they still wouldn't know **why** one event follows another - They would be convinced that their understanding has no part in the operation, but would continue in the same course of thinking - This principle is **Custom**/habit (natural instinct) - Therefore, after the constant coexistence of two objects (ie. heat and flame) we are taught by custom alone to expect one from the other - **Reason is incapable of this inference** - **Only custom has the power to infer something new from observing something over and over** - This is what makes our experiences useful to us

Answer 45

- All belief of matter of fact or real existence comes from an object that is present to the memory or senses, and a connection between that and another object - Ex. love and hate as a reaction to things. Those operations come from natural instincs, which no reasoning or process of the thought or understanding can produce

Answer 46

- We can imagine a human head on the body of a horse but we don't have the power to believe that it's existed - That's imagination - Belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain - Belief is something felt by the mind

Answer 47

- Humes explination of how we draw casual inferences - We don't draw them using reason - Custom is how we draw casual inferences - It's a skeptical solution because it's compatible with saying that we don't have any reason for drawing these inferences

Answer 48

- Popper wasn't satisfied with the view that "science is distinguished from pseudo-science by its empirical method (which is inductive), proceeding from observation or experiment" - He thought that the distinction should be between genuinely empirical methods and non-empirical methods because there are methods that appeal to observation and experiment, but don't reach scientific standards

Answer 49

- Examples of theories that appeal to observation/experiment but don't reach scientific standards - Astrology, Marx's theory of history, psycho-analysis, Adlers "individual psychology" - People trust those theories because they seemed to explain a lot. There was also supporting evidence for them everywhere - People who didn't see the truth in the theories obviously didn't want to see it (manifest truths) - Even evidence against the theories could be twisted to fit the theories. Popper saw this as a weakness - He also thought these theories were different from things such as Einstines gravitational theory

Answer 50

- Induction: Inference from experience/observation/evidence - Deduction: Inferes based on the logical relationship between ideas

Answer 51

- Hume identified two kinds of human reasoning: Relations of ideas and Matters of fact - Hume says relations of ideas are "intuitively or demosntratively certain" and cites geometry, algebra and math - He says that Matters of fact aren't as certain as relations of ideas even if we have a lot of supporting evidence - Induction comprises ampliative inferences from experience (induction aplifies the inferences we draw from experience) - Inferences assume that the future will resemble the past, but that itself is inductive on the basis of observing the regular function of certain events - We justify induction using induction. This is the circularity problem in the justification of induction, so there's no logical justification for drawing inferences on the basis of induction

Answer 52

1. It's easy to obtain confirmations for nearly every theory if we look for them. Hypothesis rely solely upon deductive consequences so don't even mention induction 2. Confirmations should only count if they're the result of risky predictions. If we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory 3. Every good scientific theory is a prohibition. It forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is 4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrifutability isn't a virtue of a theory, but a vice. 5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it or to refute it. Testability is falsifability, but there are degrees of testibility. Some theories are more testable because they take more risks 6. Confirming evidence shouldn't count except when it's the result of a genuine test of the theory 7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers. They introduce ad hoc hypothesis to prop up the theory - **Overall, the criteria for the scientific status of a theory is its falsafibility/testability**

Answer 53

- He credits Hume for exposing the problem of induction - No logic supports the basis of induction (that the future will resemble the past) - Popper isn't satisfied with Humes "psychological" explanation that our belief that the future will resemble the past comes from customs. - Popper believed that that belief is in itself inductive - He argues that custom is itself a product of repitition, because we call a behaviour a habit if it's repeated

Answer 54

- He decides to replace induction with the following view "without waiting, passively, for repititions to impress or impose regularities upon us, we actively try to impose regularities upon the world." and "We try to discover similarities in it, and to interpret it in terms of laws invented by us." - Without waiting for premises, we jump to conclusions, which we may drop later if given contrary evidence - A theory of trial and error, of conjectures and refutations - Therefore, "our attempts to force interpretations upon the world were logically prior to the observation of similarities."

Answer 55

- Popper thought the same procedure (trial and error) should be applied to science as well - He also thought that scientific theories weren't the digest of observations, but that they were inventions put forth to trial to be tested for errors. - Every organism has inborn reactions or responses (biases) and among them, responses adapted to impending events. These responses could be called expectations without implying that these expectations are consious.

Answer 56

- Because of the close relation of expectation and knowledge, we could discuss a reasonable sense of "inborn knowledge." - This knowledge isn't valid A priori - We're born with expectations (knowledge) which, although not valid A priori, is still prior to all observational experience - One of the most important expectations is the expectation of finding a regularity (Custom)

Answer 57

- The success of science isn't based on the rules of induction, but depends on luck, ingenuity, and the purely deductive rules of critical argument

Answer 58

1. Induction is an inference based on many observations. This is a myth. It's neither a psychological fact, nor a fact of ordinary life, nor one of scientific proceedure 2. The actual procedure of science is to operate with conjectures. To jump to conclusions, often after one single observation 3. Repeated observations and experiments function inscience as tests of our conjecture or hypothesis 4. The mistaken belief in induction is forfited by the need for a criteria of demacation which is traditionally, but incorrectly, believed that only the inductive method can provide. 5. The conception of such an inductive method, like the criteria of verifiability, implies a faulty demarcation 6. None of this is altered in the least if we say that induction makes theories only probably rather than certain

philosophy midterm Flashcards

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