Things to know

Question 1

empiricism

Answer 1

rejects EWS. Claims that there is knowledge of the external world, and that we come to acquire this knowledge a posteriori (i.e., our justification must ultimately appeal to sensory experience).

Question 2

rationalism

Answer 2

rejects EWS. Claims that there is knowledge of the external world, and that we come to acquire this knowledge a priori (i.e., prior to, or independent of, sensory experience).

Question 3

phenomenalism

Answer 3

a version of EWS which claims that only the facts about ones own sensations (and other “inner” workings of one’s own mind) are knowable.

Question 4

external world skepticism (EWS)

Answer 4

a version of local skepticism which claims that knowledge of the external world is impossible.

Question 5

Skepticism(s)

Answer 5

the theory that knowledge is impossible in either all areas of inquiry (global skepticism) or some areas of inquiry (local skepticism).

Question 6

The nous

Answer 6

Aristotle rejects the assumption that knowledge of a syllogism’s premises must always be demonstrated by a prior syllogism. He suggests that humans are endowed with a “nous:” a special capacity for recognizing “self-evident” truths. What are “self-evident truths?” Some think it’s a capacity for picking out logical and mathematical truths like 2-2=0. And some think it’s a capacity for recognizing incorrigible truths about experience, like the truth that “I’m sensing blueness when I look at that shirt.”

Question 7

Rationalism-as-Science:

Answer 7

scientific knowledge amounts to coming to deduce necessary truths about the world via a priori means.

Question 8

how is an argument sound?

Answer 8

iff (a) all premises are true (b) it is valid

Question 9

what is validity?

Answer 9

no logical possible circumstances where premises is true and conclusion is false. invalid if premise fails to guarantee the conclusion

Question 10

Phenomenology

Answer 10

the task of describing the surface appearance of things: how things seem to you.

Question 11

Phenomenology-as-Science

Answer 11

scientific knowledge amounts to nothing more than tracking the patterns of one’s own sensory experience.

Question 12

Empiricism-as-a-science

Answer 12

scientific knowledge is the tracking of objective truths about the external world using one’s sensations.

Question 14

Epistemic Fallibilism

Answer 14

the view that knowledge does not require certainty, it only requires a high level of justification; so you can have knowledge of something, despite that you admit the possibility of it being false.

Question 15

Verificationism

Answer 15

the theory of language which accounts for the meaning of a scientific claim in terms of it’s verification conditions.

Question 16

Verification Conditions

Answer 16

a third-person description of the sensations that would, upon having them, allow us to ascertain the truth or falsity of that claim.