Test 3

Question 1

rationalism

Answer 1

an epistemological position in which reason is said to be the primary source of all knowledge, superior to sense evidence. rationalists argue that only reason can distinguish reality from illusion and give meaning to experience.

Question 2

a piori ideas

Answer 2

(innate ideas) truths that are not derived from observation or experiment, characterized as being certain, deductive, universally true, and independent of all experience.

Question 3

coherence theory of truth

Answer 3

truth test in which new or unclear ideas are evaluated in terms of rational or logical consistency and in relation to already established truths.

Question 4

methodic doubt

Answer 4

Cartesian strategy of deliberately doubting everything it is possible to doubt in the least degree so that what remains will be known with absolute certainty.

Question 5

a piori knowledge

Answer 5

Derived from reason without reference to sense experience. Examples include “all triangles contain 180 degrees” and “every event has a cause”

Question 6

a posteriori knowledge

Answer 6

empirical knowledge derived from sense experience and not regarded as universal because the conditions under which it is acquired change, perceivers very, and factual relationships change

Question 7

Cogito, ergo sum

Answer 7

I think, therefore I am.

Question 8

ontological argument

Answer 8

An attempt to prove the existence of God by referring to the meaning of the word God when it is understood a certain way or by referring to the purportedly unique quality of the concept of God

Question 9

materialism

Answer 9

AKA behaviorism, mechanism, reductionism
belief that everything is composed of matter (and energy) and can be explained by physical laws, that all human activity can be understood as the natural behaviour of matter according to mechanical laws, and that thinking is merely a complex form of behaving: the body is a fleshy machine

Question 10

dualism

Answer 10

Any philosophical position that divides existence into two completely distinct, independent, unique substances.

Question 11

monism

Answer 11

general name for the beliefthat everything consists of only one, ultimate, unique substance such as matter or spirit.

Question 12

pluralism

Answer 12

the belief that more than one reality or substance exists

Question 13

skeptic

Answer 13

“to consider or examine”; a person who demands clear, observable, undoubtable evidence before accepting any knowledge claim as true.

Question 14

epistemology

Answer 14

branch of philosophy that studies the nature and possibility of knowledge

Question 15

empiricism

Answer 15

belief that all knowledge is ultimately derived from the senses (experience) and that all ideas can be traced back to sense data.

Question 16

correspondence (copy or representation) theory of truth

Answer 16

truth test that holds that an idea (or belief or thought) is true if whatever it refers to actually exists (corresponds to a fact)

Question 17

innate ideas

Answer 17

(a priori ideas) truths that are not derived from observation or experiment; characterized as being certain, deductive, universally true, and independent of all experience

Question 18

tabula rosa

Answer 18

“clean slate”. used by John Locke to challenge the possibility of innate ideas by characterizing the mind at birth as a blank tablet or clean slate

Question 19

primary qualities

Answer 19

objective sensible qualities that exist independently of any perceiver; shape, size, location, and motion

Question 20

secondary qualities

Answer 20

According to Locke, subjective qualities whose existence depends on a perceiver; color, sound, taste, and texture

Question 21

epistemological dualism

Answer 21

the view that knowledge consists of two distinct aspects: the knower and the known

Question 22

egocentric predicament

Answer 22

problem generated by epistemologcal dualism: if all knowledge comes in the form of my own ideas, how can I verify the existence of anything external to them?

Question 23

idealism

Answer 23

belief that only ideas (mental states) exist; the material world is a fiction- it does not exist

Question 24

esse est percipi

Answer 24

Berkeley’s belief that “to be is to be perceived”

Question 25

empirical criterion of meaninig

Answer 25

meaningful ideas are those that can be traced back to sense experience (impressions); beliefs that cannot be reduced to sense experence are not “ideas” at all, but meaningless utterances

Question 26

bundle theory of self

Answer 26

Humean theory that there is no fixed self, but that the self is merely a bundle of perceptions. a self is merely a habitual way of discussing certain concepts.

Question 27

inductive reasoning

Answer 27

reasoning pattern that proceeds from the particular to the general or from “some” to “all” and results in generalized rules or principles established with degrees of probability.

Question 28

moral

Answer 28

“custom”, “manner”, or “conduct”; refers to what people consider good or bad, right or wrong; used descriptively as a contrast to amoral or nonmoral and prescriptively as a contrast to immoral

Question 29

nonmoral

Answer 29

(amoral) not pertaining to moral; a value-neutral descriptive claim or classification

Question 30

immoral

Answer 30

morally wrong, bad, or not right; a moral value judgement or prescriptive claim

Question 31

Kantian formalism

Answer 31

theory that knowledge is the result of the interaction between the mind and sensation and is structured by regulative ideas called categories,; also known as Kantian idealism and transcendental idealism

Question 32

critical philosophy

Answer 32

Kant’s term for his effort to assess the nature and limits of “pure reason,” unadulterated by experience, in order to identify the actual relationship of the mind to knowledge.

Question 33

phenomenal reality

Answer 33

Kan’t term for the world as we experience it

Question 34

noumenal reality

Answer 34

Kant’s term for reality as it is, independent of our perceptions; what is commonly called “objective reality”