PHIL 65: Introduction to Philosophy: Knowledge copy9

Both are false. The top one is false because "Red" is a word, not a color. The second one is false because the color red is referenced, not the word, and colors don't have letters.

"Red" is a color. Red has three letters. Are the statements above true or false? Why?

What is a called strike? • Objective view: a pitch that goes through strike zone. • Subjective view: whatever a good/virtuous umpire says (with traits like good vision, reaction time, level-headed, experienced, etc). What is right? • Socratic/Objective view: acts that are in line with objective moral rules. • Euthyphronic/Subjective view: whatever God/virtuous person says is right What is knowledge? • Old view: knowledge is TB+warrant • New view: whatever an intellectually virtuous person counts as knowledge. In all these cases: • Old view: words & concepts defined objectively by reality (or the facts) • New view: words & concepts defined subjectively by judgments (by a person or subject, e.g., God, umpire, knower)

(Clarification of last card)

Contingent beings are things that exist in the actual world, but we could imagine (without contradiction) them not existing. That is we could imagine a possible world where they don't exist. You and I are contingent beings because while we happen to exist, we (alas) could have not existed (say if our parents never had met). A necessary being is a being that exists in all logically possible worlds, including this one. We can imagine necessary beings, but does that mean there are any? Many have purported that God is a necessary being. But merely imaging God a necessary being surely isn't enough to make it so.

An undated version of Descartes' argument is the *modal* version, which appeals to the concept of possible worlds and necessary beings.

How to establish causation and not just correlation? Very difficult: you need to do and repeat a good experiment, with a control group that is exactly like experimental group except isn't exposed to cause in question and measure difference. Do parents know their children more? Depends on domain. Parents know everyday personality and nuances of child's behavior, but when it comes to the physiological goings on of the child's biology, they don't. What does this have to do with knowledge?

Antivaxx video on Jubilee: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQptarOLSBU) Correlation or causation between vaccines and problems? Do parents know their children more than doctors?

It would seem so. Watch: Crash Course 6:02-6:52: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-sVnmmw6WY Jubilee: Flat-Earthers vs Scientists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7yvvq-9ytE&t=19s for more. One issue is that the flat-Earthers seem to have an inconsistent amount of skepticism in one domain (i.e., when it comes to NASA, the goverment, the Moon Landing, and shape of the Earth) but not in other domains, e.g., the mechanic, the dentist, etc.

Are flat-Earther's guilty of pseudo-science, and confirmation bias?

Is the theory that everything happens for a reason falsifiable? Is it a good theory? Are those who believe it guilty of confirmation bias?

Class activity: split class into those who believe everything happens for a reason and those who don't. (Or God doesn't give us more that we can handle)

No. For Descartes, it's possible one lives in a colorless, shapeless, timeless world and the demon is deceiving us. Descartes imagines we could be deceived about math and logic, too. How could this be? We mess up complicated arithmetic all the time, perhaps the demon is deceiving us into thinking we've got basic arithmetic right and we don't.

Do basic principles in math and logic and basic ideas about colors, shapes, and time pass the Evil Demon test?

No. He argues against this position just like Descartes argues agains the evil genius hypothesis.

Does Putnam ultimately argue that we are brains in vats?

Joe looks at a clock that tells him that it is 11:45am and forms the belief that it is 11:45am. Joe's belief is true; it really is 11:45am. Joe's belief is justified because the clock in question is very reliable. Joe possesses, then, a justified, true belief, which by Plato's definition means Joe has knowledge: he know's it's 11:45am. Here's the catch: the clock is broken and Joe just happens to glance at it at one of the two times during the day when it is correct. Does Joes really know that it's 11:45am? When most are asked they say no but according to our theory he does. That's a problem.

Explain Bertrand Russell's Clock Gettier case.

For Clark, knowledge is justified, true belief that is formed solely on true grounds (i.e., isn't based on any false beliefs). This gets us around the Gettier cases mentioned thus far because all of them involve false beliefs, namely that the clock is working, that I will get the job, that Jones owns a Ford, that there is smoke. The intuition is that there ISN'T knowledge in these Gettier cases, and Clark's account is consistent with this view.

Explain Clark's JTB+ (no false beliefs) account of knowledge.

Dharmottara was an 8th century Indian philosopher who imagined a hiker who believes they see smoke and forms the belief "there is fire nearby". The belief is true, there is a fire nearby, but there is no smoke. The hiker mistakes a cloud of insects that are flying around meat that has just been put on a fire (*before* the meat begins to smoke). In this case, we have a JTB, a justified true belief. The hiker's belief is true: there is a fire nearby. Also, the belief is justified because the belief is based on the hiker's reliable vision (supposed 9 times out of 10 when the hiker believes they see smoke there is smoke, which is good evidence for fire). The problem is that most do not want to say that the hiker *knew* there was a fire nearby.

Explain Dharmottara's Fire Case

This time your friend Jones tells you he has recently purchased a brand new Ford Mustang, and you have ample justification to believe him. He pulls up in the car, has the pink slip, shows you a social media video of him buying the car, there are lot of eye-witnesses who corroborate the story, and Jones is a very honest & reliable person. You form the belief: "Jones owns a Ford." Further, since you know the logic of OR statements you deduce that "Jones owns a Ford or (your other friend) Brown is in Barcelona." Who is Brown? Brown is a homebody who never has traveled outside his hometown and who has never expressed a desire to. Now here's the twist. Both Jones and Brown decide to make some changes in life: they both want to shed their previous identities and become more unpredictable. As such, Jones decides to not be reliable and honest and pulls an elaborate prank on you by making you believe that he's bought a Ford (he hasn't) and Brown decides to get over being a homebody and heads to Spain (unbeknownst to you). So your OR belief ends up being true but not for the reason you think; it's true because of Brown, not Jones. Also, your believe is justified, but again, not for the reason you think; it's justified because Brown is in Barcelona and this logically implies the OR statement in your head (again, that Jones owns a Ford OR that Brown is in Barcelona). Hence, you have a JTB, a justified true belief, which means you have knowledge, according to the JTB theory of knowledge. The problem is that most people would say that you do NOT have knowledge, that is, that you do NOT know Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona.

Explain Gettier's Ford/Barcelona case

Goldman's Causal account: TB + caused by a fact (in the right way). This avoids the circularity problem with Lerher/Paxson's account because it doesn't define knowledge in terms of justification. Problems: is it really okay to define knowledge without justification? Many epistemologists do not find this acceptable. Problem 2: Henry & Barn Facades. Henry is in barn facade country (but doesn't know it), there are hundreds of barn facades and Henry thinks they are all barns. As it happens, Henry comes across the one barn in fake barn country that is real. This real barn causes Henry to form a true belief that there is a barn. Thus on the causal account, Henry has knowledge; however, intuitively he does not! (because of the all the fake barns around him that he is unaware of).

Explain Goldman's causal account of knowledge. How does it avoid the problem of JTB+(no undefeated defeaters)? What problems does it face?

Nozick/Dretske's Tracking Theory: TB + if b weren't true, you wouldn't believe it (sensitivity requirement) and if b were true, you would belief it (adherence requirement). To solve the barn case (and the fake zebra zoo case and lotto case), we need our account of knowledge to tell us that we don't have knowledge in any of these cases. Why? Because, intuitively, there isn't knowledge in these cases and we want our theory to match intuition. The tracking theory tells us that we DON'T have knowledge in any of these cases. Why because the 'sensitivity' requirement for knowledge is not met. Take the zoo & barn cases. You're looking at the one real zebra/barn and you form a true belief. However, that's only half the battle. It also needs to be the case that if there wasn't a real barn/zebra in front of you that you wouldn't believe that there was a real barn/zebra in front of you. However, if there weren't a real barn/zebra in front of you, you WOULD still believe there was one. Why? Because of all the fake barns/zebras that would be left! In the lotto case yes, you have a true belief that the ticket is a loser. However, if the ticket weren't a loser (i.e., if it were a winner), you WOULD still believe that it was a loser. Why? Because the odds are so low that it's a winner. (To be clear, even though we are imagining that the ticket turns out to be a winner, we are assuming that still don't know it will be a winner).

Explain Nozick/Dretske's Tracking Theory of knowledge. How does it avoid the problem of Goldman's reliabilism?

Zagzebski's All-purpose Gettier case: TB + X, call it warrant. It has to be possible for the belief be false and warranted, but then coincidentally the belief is actually true. So any theory or 'reductive' analysis of knowledge will fail, so let's stop trying! Maybe it's because knowledge is basic like prime number. Maybe knowing is a mental state like believing (Williamson). Knowing still entails believing. Water is more basic than Kool-aid. Traditional view: Belief is more basic than knowledge. Analogy: if there's not water, they're be no Kool-aid:: if there's no belief, then there's no knowledge. However, maybe knowledge is different than concepts like water. Maybe knowledge is like concept of 'circle', and we can draw an analogy between circle and being rounded to knowledge and belief. Being a circle entails being a round thing, just like knowledge entails belief. However, roundness is not an ingredient of circleness. This view suggest we reject the ingredient view of knowledge in favor of an approximation view of knowledge. Roundness is an approximation of circleness. Similarly belief is an approximation of or attempt at knowledge. So knowledge is more basic than belief, it's the target that beliefs aim at. The traditional view has it that belief is more basic than knowledge, but maybe that's wrong.

Explain more about the knowledge first theory of knowledge.

Comparison the normative & descriptive distinction in ethics. Descriptive claim: 31% of people cheat on their romantic partners. Normative: People ought not cheat on their partners. Trump offer missiles to the Ukrainian president on the condition that we would look into dirt on Hunter Biden (descriptive). Trump shouldn't have done that (normative). Similarly, there's descriptive/normative divide in epistemology. If you were to describe how humans form beliefs, justify them, and come to know what we know, that's is a description of reality (this is what psychologists do when they study knowledge). To say epistemology is a normative discipline means that it is concerned with questions about how one ought to form beliefs, assess evidence, evaluate testimony, etc. Ethics is about how we ought to act in our practical lives. Epistemology (on this view) is how ought to think in our intellectual lives. And just as there are ethical virtues (see virtue ethics), there are intellectual virtues. Some moral philosophers have moved away from questions about right and wrong actions, toward what kind of moral character traits should be developed. Similarly, virtue epistemologist would have us move away from focusing on right and wrong (justified & unjustified) beliefs, and focus on what kind of epistemological virtues should be cultivated. Virtue ethics, be honest, courageous, empathic, generous, etc. Epistemological virtues: curiosity, cautiously skeptical, fair-minded, humility, free-thinking, reliable neutralizing your own bias

Explain what virtue epistemology is.

If you can play the "actually I can explain that" game no matter what, then your theory is no different than the tree flipping theory. It is also neutralized by the opposite game, actually I can explain why that's wrong game. On the exam, I may ask you to come up with your own non-falsifiably theory or to play the 'actually I can explain that' game or to come up with the opposite non-falsifiably theory is on equal footing.

Falsifiability & the 'actually I can explain that game'

They can say the devil mixed up the fossils to trick us. Normally, dinosaur fossils being deeper than human ones would disconfirm a theory like creationist (which includes the idea that humans lived with dinosaurs or at least were created before them). However, creationists often put the theory first over the data (instead of letting the data & evidence drive the theory), which motivates them to cook up creative ways to explain counter-evidence and data that doesn't fit their theory.

How can a creationist 'science' explain why dinosaur fossils are so much deeper than human fossils?

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1lqFXHvqI Can we create new senses for humans? | David Eagleman

How can psychology help us understand whether or not our experience captures the objective world? Naive realism, vs Locke's indirect realism, subjective objective, secondary, primary qualities.

Imagine a class field trip to a restaurant that is notorious for serving spicy food. The server brings a plate to the person across from you and they say, "Careful, hot plate" as they set down the person's meal. The person takes a bite and shouts, "Ooh, that's hot." What do they mean? It's unclear, they could mean that the food is spicy. After all, you are at a restaurant known for spicy food. They also might mean that the food is hot in terms of temperature; after all, the server did say "Careful, hot plate." Hence, the word "hot" is ambiguous, it has multiple meanings and sometimes it is unclear which is meant.

How did we explain ambiguity with the word, "hot"?

Consider the following corny joke: "My girlfriend is so hot, I want to pour her all over my burrito." The humor of the joke is rooted in 'hot' having two meanings ('hot' attractive and 'hot' spicy) and the joke teller is using them as if they are interchangeable when they are not.

How did we explain equivocation with the word, "hot"?

Conceptually, God is perfect, and existence falls out of or is built into the concept of perfection just like having 4 sides is built into the concept of being a square or having 3 interior angles is built into the concept of being a triangle.

How does Descartes' analogy from God to squares and triangles go?

Leaving the darkness of the cave is a metaphor for doing philosophy. Doing philosophy is to take steps toward the light and the truth. Those with authority and power at the time of Socrates feared 'radical' ideas and charged him with corrupting the youth and blasphemy. During the trial, the prosecution offered a deal to Socrates. They said they would set him free if he admitted that he was guilty. Socrates refused and took his sentence of death by hemlock (poison) (just like the cave-society executed the person who saw the sun and returned).

How does Plato's Cave mirror the fate of his mentor, Socrates?

If we found a lamp in our classroom and a genie popped out and said, "First person to say something true gets 3 wishes," and Ryan says, "My name is Ryan or Mars is made of fudge" and a second later you say "Monday is the day before Tuesday," who deserves the 3 wishes? Ryan does because, although his statement is strange sounded, it most certainly is true.

How does the Genie case make this point?

TE: It's knowledge iff it's TB+warrant VE (Zagzebski): It's knowledge iff TB+ arises out of the acts of intellectual virtue OR TB that is virtuously formed (Sosa). So don't start by analyzing knowledge. Start with the intellectual virtues of the knowers. This can help with Gettier case because those aren't cases based on intellectual virtue but dumb luck.

How does traditional epistemology get things backwards according to virtue epistemology?

And just as there are ethical virtues (see virtue ethics), there are intellectual virtues. Some moral philosophers have moved away from questions about right and wrong actions, toward what kind of moral character traits should be developed. Similarly, virtue epistemologist would have us move away from focusing on right and wrong (justified & unjustified) beliefs, and focus on what kind of epistemological virtues should be cultivated. Virtue ethics, be honest, courageous, empathic, generous, etc. Epistemological virtues: curiosity, cautiously skeptical, fair-minded, humility, free-thinking, reliable neutralizing your own bias

How have epistemologists and moral philosophers both moved toward virtues as a central feature of their theories?

Again, equivocation is when the multiple meanings for a word or phrase are inappropriately used interchangeably. The first premise of the argument is: "Conceptually, God is perfect and God possess every perfection." Does Descartes here mean (a) God, the word, (b) God, the concept, or (c) God, the idea? He can't mean God, the word, because words aren't perfect. If Descartes means God, the concept, then perhaps he's talking about something that is perfect in some conceptual or theoretical way, but not in any practical way. Compare a *conceptual* pile of case with *real* pile of cash. just like one can't spend the *concept* or idea of a big pile of cash, God, the concept can't be omniscient or omnipotent. To put it another way, only *beings* can be omniscient, omnipotent, etc; concepts are not beings; hence, God, the concept can't be omni-____________. If Descartes means God as in God, the reality, then now we're talking about something with the potential to actually be perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. However, this is only the case *if* God, the reality exists. That is, if God exists, then God, the reality would be perfect. If God doesn't exist, then God the reality wouldn't be perfect because non-existent things can't be omnipotent, omniscient, etc. So regardless of Descartes meaning of 'God', his argument fails either because words and concepts can't be all-powerful, all-knowing etc OR because God, the reality is only omni-fill-in-the-blank, *if* God exists, which Descartes can't assume without begging the question (i.e., using circular reasoning).

How precisely does Descartes equivocate?

Solipsism

If Descartes' Meditations concluded with the Cogito argument, he would have successfully disproved global skepticism, but he would be stuck with which view that asserts that one only know's about their own existence and the content of one's own mind and nothing about the external world and or that other minds exist.

Yes, because I'm saying that my name is at least one of the following: Ryan or Richard.

If I say "My name is Ryan OR Richard" is that true? Why?

Yes, again if you're saying 'a or b', you're saying at least one of the following (and maybe both) are true, and while 'Mars is made of fudge is non-sense', 'My name is Ryan' is true.

If I say, "My name is Ryan OR Mars is made of fudge" is that true? Why?

There needs to be an empirical way -- at least in theory -- to disprove the theory. Ryan's theory that all the trees on campus do backflips when no one is looking isn't falsifiable because there's no way to disprove it. If you try to say, no one has every seen it happen, I can say they don't do it when people are looking. When you try to record a tree for years, I can say, the tree doesn't do it because it knows it's being recorded. When you say that there's no trace in the soil that a tree uprooted itself, I can say the tree is careful not to leave a trace. Perhaps this theory is true, but there's no way to disprove it it, so it doesn't count as a scientific theory.

In general then, what is Popper's falsifiability criterion? Why isn't Ryan's backflipping tree's theory falsifiable?

No. Descartes utilizes radical doubt in his quest for certainty and to defend foundationalism.

Is Descartes' ultimate goal to defend global skepticism?

Often human, political, sociological, military, and war interests drive science, which means it's direction is often not just the pursuit of any and all truths, it much more focused to those who have power (and this hasn't been many women -- esp. in the past). Science could be thought about taming mother nature which makes more about domination than exploring.

Is science as neutral and objective as it is believed to be? Why might it be messier and more biased than previously thought?

Some feminist theorists argue there is no neutral, god's/birds eye view and that science is always done by humans whose biases and perspectives are going to taint and seep into the results. Perhaps this is a problem not so much with the scientific method but this its application. And what about double-blind studies?

Is there a neutral objective perspective that science uses?

See chart: https://imgur.com/JIE43zR

Knowledge and Science seem to be after the 'truth'. What 3 theories of truth did we cover?

If something is factual is the case. If something is counterfactual it runs counter to the factual. A counterfactual is a 'what if things were different' scenario. E.g., in The Man in the High Tower, we imagine the counterfactual, what if the Nazis had won WWII. In Apple+ new show, we imagine what if the Soviets had won the space race.

Nozick/Dretske's tracking theory involves understanding 'counterfactuals'. What are counterfactuals?

This may be a hasty generalization. You would be generalizing from one case to thousands (if not millions and billions). Just like it would not be good reasoning to infer that because it rained today, it will rain everyday (or that I made my first basket, I will make them all), in general, we can't generalize from a sample of one to a target population in the millions. (In rare cases this is okay, if the sample is very much representative of the target population, but we don't know this either.)

Okay, so I can't *prove* that you have a mind, but isn't it likely based on the fact that so many people's language and behavior seems to indicate that they have what I have?

Descartes provides several arguments for the existence of God. They are actually ingeniously simply. Here's one: Humans are imperfect beings. Perfect ideas (like that of God) can't originate from imperfect beings; they can only come from perfect beings. Thus, the idea of God (which we possess) must have come from a perfect being (God) and not ourselves. Thus God exists.

Okay, so all Descartes needs to do is prove God exists! How does he attempt to do that?

It's not easy to say. The scientific method of observation, hypothesis, test, confirm/disconfirm comes to mind. Here are some criteria for scientific theories: Relies on inductive method of observation, generalization, and repeated confirmation. Scientific theories are: Testable Falsifiable Continually looking for disconfirmation Widely accepted by community of scientist in field Consistent with other established theories Ockham's razor Have maturity, stood the test of time, well-established Not cooked up/ad hoc - (Not made to fit data) Have predictive power

One of the best ways humanity has acquired knowledge is through science. Scientists do science, of course, but answering, "What is science?" is a philosophical question. What is science?

Well we already discussed that we are guilty a lot of fallacious thinking and suseptible to all sorts of rhetorical ploys and cognitive biases (like confirmation bias). But even in simple test of rationality we fail, like with the "is a married person looking at an unmarried person test", the bat and ball = $1.10 test, and 2.99 (repeating) = 3.0 GPA tests, that we value based on price and not intrinsic value, and loss aversion bias

One of the reasons why we think we are good at acquiring knowledge is that humans are as Aristotle put it: 'rational animals'. Why aren't we as rational as we might think?

1. Abduction, i.e., inference to the best explanation. Related to Ockham's Razor (one version: among competing hypotheses the simplest tends to be right). For Russell, the common-sense view is the much simpler of the two, just like the explanation that there is a maintenance worker in the ceiling is a simpler explanation than it being the ghost of my grandmother haunting me for not visiting her enough when she was alive. Reply: Isn't the evil genius hypothesis more simple than the common-sense hypothesis? In the evil genius story there's just a mind and evil genius feeding it experiences. In the common-sense story, we have all the details about our very complex universe. Response to reply: the evil genius story is only simple until you are pushed to explain the backstory behind the genius' grand deception. The evil genius hypothesis represents what Daniel Dennett calls a 'skyhook', which is an ad-hoc mysterious explanation that still calls for explanation. The common-sense hypothesis represents a 'crane', which for Dennett fits elegantly into our background knowledge. 2. The common-sense hypothesis is an instinctual belief, which are innocent until proven guilty.

Russell argues that between the common sense view that there is an external world and the skeptic's view that we're being deceived by an evil genius that the common sense view wins out for two reason. What are they?

Ryan knows that Washington... is an example of what philosopher's call 'knowing that'. This propositional sort of knowledge is what epistemologists (and our class) are primarily concerned with. Ryan knows how to play guitar is and example of 'knowing-how'. This sort of knowledge is procedural and doesn't have any propositional content, i.e., one can demonstrate this knowledge without thinking -- like riding a bike. Some non-human animals may have this sort of knowledge. Ryan knows Angela is knowledge by acquaintance. It's when one is familiar with a person, place, or thing. In other languages (like romance languages) there is another verb used in this case (e.g., conocer instead of saber in Spanish).

Ryan knows that Washington was the first president. Ryan knows how to play guitar. Ryan knows Angela. 'Ryan knows' appears in all three statements. What's the difference?

Goldman's reliabilism: knowledge is TB + reliable process (i.e., a true belief formed from a reliable process like from sense-perception, a credible source expert, media, etc.). This avoids the barn facade problem because while the belief is caused by a real barn, it is NOT formed from a reliable process. In barn country, you are not going to reliably pick out real barns. Generality (or zooming) problem: if you zoom in enough (i.e., just to your reliable eyes looking at the real barn), you process of picking out real barns IS reliably. Also, if you zoom out enough (i.e., your eyes reliably giving you a sense of what's really in the world), then you're forming beliefs on a reliable process. The problem is how much do we zoom? It seems any degree of zooming that we pick will be arbitrary. Even if the generality (or zooming) problem were resolved, there would still be the lottery problem. Suppose there are a million lottery tickets and only one of them is a winner. Your friend has one of the tickets and you say, "I know that ticket is a loser." Do you know this? Yes, you know it will probably* be a loser, but do you know that it really is a loser? Intuitively not. However, on Goldman's reliabilism account, you DO know that it a loser because you would reliably pick loser tickets if you were to guess because the odds of winning are so low. But if that's right, then you not only do you know that your friends ticket is a lose (call it ticket 1), you know that ticket 2 is a loser. You know that ticket 3 is a loser, ticket 4, ticket 5, 6, 7, and so on. This would entail that you know that all the tickets are losers, which of course is impossible.

Since Goldman's causal account faced a major problem, he concocted a different theory of knowledge: the reliabilism account of knowledge. How does this account avoid the pitfalls of the causal account? What problems does it face?

A society has been imprisoned since birth in a cave. They have spent their whole lives shackled in the cave staring at shadows, mistaking them for reality. (The shadows are produced by puppeteers holding cardboard cutout-like figures of objects (tables, chairs, cats, etc.) in front of a fire.) One day a prisoner escapes from the cave. The transition from the darkness of the cave to the sunlit world outside the entrance is physically and psychologically painful for the unshackled person. A strong instinct in them is pulling them back to the darkness of the cave -- a familiar, comforting place which is all they have ever known. The outside world is strange, scary, and unfamiliar. The person adjusts and sees the sunlit world outside the cave in all it's glory. They no longer see shadows; they see the world as it truly is. The sun for Plato is a metaphor for truth. The free person returns to the cave to share the truth about the world with the remaining prisoners. They reject the story and think this person mad. The 'ranting' person threatens the status quo. The fear grows enough that they eventually execute the once-free person and maintain their ignorance.

Summarize Plato's Allegory/Myth of the Cave

1. Plato's JTB. Problem: Gettier cases 2. Clark's JTB+ (no false beliefs) . Problem: Ryan's backflip & Millican's Bigger Room. 3. Lehrer/Paxson JTB+ (no defeaters). Problem: Tom Grabbit case & general problem of defining knowledge in terms of justification and justification in term of knowledge (circular) 4. Goldman's Causal account: TB + caused by a fact (in the right way) Problems: a. Really take justification out? b. Henry & Barn Facades 5. Goldman's Reliabilism: TB + reliable process (sense-perception, credible source expert, media). Problems: a. Generality (or arbitrary zooming) problem b. Lotto case 6. Nozick/Dretske's Tracking Theory: TB + if b weren't true, you wouldn't believe it (sensitivity) and if b were true, you would belief it (adherence). This get's around Barn & Zebra cases and Lotto case. Problems: a. Grandma case b. Incompatible with closure principle (epistemological version of MP) 7. Knowledge first Epistemology: B+ X? So far it's been TB + X? But 6 rounds (above) have led to failure. Zagzebski's All-purpose gettier case: TB + X, call it warrant. It has to be possible for the belief be false and warranted, but then coincidentally the belief is actually true. For the knowledge first epistemologist, belief is not an ingredient or condition of knowledge, instead belief is an approximation of knowledge, like roundness is an approximation of circleness. So knowledge is more basic than belief, it's the target that beliefs aim at.

Summarize all the theories of knowledge we have covered, mentioning the problems each faces. Also note how the more recent theories are improvements over their predecessors.

Image here: https://imgur.com/a/q4iM9b5

The ambiguity of 'God' dovetailed into a conversation about the triangle of language, mind, and reality. In the bottom-left 'language' part of the triangle, we have God, the word (usually indicated with "" marks), at the top 'mind' part of the triangle, we have God, the concept (we've sometimes used 'God(i)' to keep things clear), and in the bottom-right, 'reality', part of the triangle, we have God, the reality (we've sometimes used 'God(R)'). Draw this triangle out.

To answer this we looked at the battle between the Williams: Clifford vs James. Clifford is an evidentialist. He argues that it is wrong -- always and everywhere -- to believe something on insufficient evidence. James argues that it's okay to have faith -- which is a case of believing something on insufficient evidence -- in some cases. These are cases in which one is presented with a genuine option, which is 'live' (i.e., it's feasible to imagine doing it), momentous (i.e., it's a big-life changing choice), and forced (i.e., there's no way to avoid it). Getting a tattoo is live and momentous, but not forced. Getting married is the same. Whether or not to go to Vietnam upon being drafted is live, momentous, and forced. James thinks for some believing in God is genuine option.

To acquire knowledge is ever okay to use aspects of our psychology that are nonrational, arational, or irrational? E.g., on faith.

In Putnam's story, there is a base reality or the true, external real world. That's the world we know and love (presumably). Then there is the brain in the vat world, which is simulated. There are also fictional worlds, like the Harry Potter universe, the Marvel and DC universes, the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. None of these universes are actual real, but it still seems that we can say true things about them, e.g., take the proposition, Harry Potter attended Hogwarts. Is that true? Well, it doesn't seem true in the actual world because there is no actual Hogwarts (Universal Studios aside). But if we grant that we are not talking about the real world and instead are talking about the HP universe, then yes, Harry did go to Hogwarts. All those aforementioned fictional universes exist at a different level from ours. Since many of them are mutually exclusive (i.e., there are no wookies or light sabers in the Star Trek universe), we could say they exist vertically away from us but horizontally from each other. We can imagine fictional worlds that 'reside' at levels deeper than the ones mentioned. For instance Harry Potter might have read comics about fictional wizards, and truths about those characters wouldn't be true in our world or even in the HP universe, they would only be true in that deeper universe. The movie Inception depicts this concept well by it's characters not just exploring the dream world that is one level down from reality; they explore dreams within dreams, which are two levels down. And further, dreams within dreams within dreams, which are 3 levels down! And so on.

To help us understand Putnam's hypothesis, we discussed levels of reality that were both vertical and horizontal. How did we appeal to Harry Potter and other fictional worlds to explain?

Descartes arguments may be guilty of the fallacy of equivocation. Equivocation occurs when an a word or phrase that is ambiguous, i.e., that has two or more meanings (like spicy, warm temperature, and attractive for "hot") is used inconsistently. "God" is ambiguous -- There's God, the concept or idea; God, the reality, and the word, "God." When you clear up the ambiguity the argument fails.

Were Descartes' arguments successfully in proving God's existence? If not, where did they go wrong?

Nietzsche admits that Descartes has proven that there is thinking, but he argues that attaching the thinking to the 'I' is premature. At best we can say something like "it's thinking", which grammatically similar to "it's raining." Lichtenberg agrees and asserts that at best the argument shows that "thinking is occurring."

What are Georg Lichtenberg's and Nietzsche's criticisms about the cogito argument?

Suppose someone is biased against a certain race and believes people in that race are bad drivers. When they see a bad driver and it's not someone from that race, they tend to forget it. When they see a bad driver that fits their stereotype, they will say, "See I knew it! I knew they would be of that race!" Freud might have been guilty of confirmation bias, given his concept of 'penis envy'. Once you think of it, you might tend to see it everywhere: Hillary Clinton (a woman) trying to be president? Penis envy! Sonny & Cher's daughter saying she's a man? Penis envy! Oprah trying to be rich and powerful. Penis envy! The problem is you seek out confirmation and ignore or don't look for disconfirmation. For more: Big Think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZvDaPBqAyg. And: Big Bang Theory: to 51s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Xm6RdLakA

What are examples of confirmation bias?

Beliefs about math and logic: 2+2=4, If p, then p, not both p and not p. Basic sense perception: I'm experiencing hands. I have a toothache. Well established scientific claims: The Sun is larger than the Earth. Hydrogen has one proton. F=ma. Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Established historical claims: WWII came after WWI. Essential claims: Dogs are animals, Persons have free will Moral claims: slavery is wrong. Self-knowledge: My name is Ryan, I like chocolate ice cream, hate tuna noodle casserole.

What are examples of knowledge? That is, what do you know for sure? Are any of one's beliefs indubitable?

When most of the scientists in the field are male, you might get different scientific 'truths' than if it this weren't the case. Here are old 'good' scientific theories: Female primates are passive sexually. (Well the male researchers who 'discovered' this grew up at a time where this was taught: that men were the sexual aggressors and women weren't. Today this isn't the case.)

What are examples of male bias in science & scientific theories?

Examples include major paradigm shifts, like the following transitions in thought: Geocentrism --> the Earth not being the center of the universe. Flat Earth --> Round Earth Climate change denial --> Climate change acceptance Father's staring point in "Boy Erased" --> Thinking outside the box when it comes to his son.

What are examples of transitioning from cave or matrix-thinking toward truth and enlightenment?

Sense experience tells us the Earth is stationary and that the Sun is moving through the sky. We know this isn't the case. You might tap on the shoulder of someone that you think you know, only to find that your sense experience has fooled you. And what are we to say about the 3 buckets of water case, one hot, one icy, one room temperature. If we soak one hand in the hot and the other in the cold and then place both in the room temperature bucket, our senses will report something paradoxical, i.e., that the water is simultaneously warm and cool

What are examples where sense experience leading one astray?

The credibility of the women depicted in Hidden Figures was questioned just because of their gender and race, e.g., when officers pull them over and questions where they are going and when the white NASA scientist hands the trashcan to his new 'colleague'. In Ryan's Ph.D. program all philosophy professors were men. (Though right after he finished 3 women were hired.)

What are other cases of epistemic injustice?

Scientific 'fact' of the past: Men hunt, women gather. If men are doing the research, yes, When women do it, not totally right. Embryology fallacy: the sperm penetrates the egg. When women started doing research this was disconfirmed. Old economic social science assumption: labor must be paid & domestic work ('women's work) should be discounted.

What are other examples of male bias in science & scientific theories?

Many having positive self talk is okay. Like I'm going to win this race or this game, even if you're the underdog and you know rationally it's more likely that you will lose.

What are other examples where it might be okay to believe something despite a lack of evidence or evidence to contrary.

Epistemology: philosophical study of knowledge. Metaphysics: philosophical study of reality. Ethics: philosophical study of right and wrong (more generally ethics or moral philosophy falls under the umbrella of axiology, which is the study of value. Aesthetics and much of political philosophy fall under this umbrella along with ethics). Logic: study of good and bad reasoning.

What are the four major branches or boxes of philosophy?

*What IS knowledge? Is knowledge merely true, justified belief? *What DO I know? I.e., what is the extent of knowledge? Further which of my beliefs count as knowledge? *Can global skepticism be avoided? *How is knowledge acquired? Which is better equipped to provide one with knowledge: reason or sense experience? *Does science provide us with knowledge? What is the difference between science and 'psuedo-science'? *What get's in the way of knowledge? Do emotions and faith lead us astray from knowledge? *What do cutting-edge theories of knowledge, including those of feminist epistemologists, say about knowledge? Is knowledge as valuable as it is presumed to be?

What are the major questions that epistemologists seek to answer?

Critics of Putnam argue that even if we accept his (semantic externalism) view on the language, then if we imagine that Brian spent an earlier part of his life in the real, external world before his brain being kidnapped by the evil scientist, then it seems that Brian's word's "I'm a brain in a vat" could be meaningful (even after being put into the vat) because Brian had been exposed to real brains and real vats earlier in his life.

What do critics say about Putnam's argument?

Descartes is doubtful about sense experience as a source of knowledge because it so often leads us astray.

What does Descartes think about sense experience as a source of knowledge?

Moore admits that he can't prove that he has real hands. If you can't prove something, does it follow that you can't know it? Moore thinks the answer to this question is no.

What does Moore say in response?

Moore say, "How absurd it would be to suggest I did not know it but only believed it [that I have real hands]... you might as well suggest that I do know that I am now standing up and talking."

What does Moore say to the skeptic who might say, "Moore, yes you believe that you have two real hands, but you can't know it because it possible there's a demon deceiving you."

I think, therefore I am. Descartes' cogito argument is significant because it disproves global skepticism. The beliefs that I think, I exist are irrefutable, certain, and indubitable.

What does does "Cogito ergo sum" mean? Why is the argument so significant?

Someone like Kant probably would take this position. It's the view that while we are stuck behind our human lens, that doesn't mean there isn't a mind-independent world 'out there'.

What does it mean to deny epistemological objectivity but accept metaphysical realism?

A belief passes these test if it would can have confidence in it regardless of whether one is dreaming or being deceived by the demon.

What does it mean to pass the Dream or Evil Genius rest?

Regardless of whether there is a demon deceiving me or not, it must be the case that I exist. The fact that I'm doubting my own existing thereby verifies it, for non-existing things can't doubt their own existence.

What does past the Evil Demon test?

Infants seem to know the difference between faces and non-faces. Chomsky argues that we come built with universal innate grammar abilities. Some researchers believe that there are counterexamples to this, like the isolated tribe in the Amazon that don't have the concepts of number or counting.

What empirical evidence is there for innate knowledge?

Astrology, flat-Eartherism, Anti-vaxxerism, ESP, creationist 'science'

What examples of pseudo science?

It is closely related to philosophical adage that "One person's modus ponens is another person's modus tollens." Both the skeptic and Moore accept the following conditional: "If I do not know that I'm a brain in a vat (or being deceived by an evil demon), then I don't know that I have real, external hands." The skeptic turns this argument into modus ponens by asserting that, "I do not know that I'm a brain in a vat," and concluding that "I don't know that I have real, external hands." Moore flips the argument on its head by turning it into modus tollens by replacing the skeptic's premise with "I *do* know that I have two external hands", and then concluding that "I know that I'm not a brain in a vat."

What has been come to be known as a 'Moorean Shift'?

Essentially, they either don't buy his premise that he knows that he has mind-independent real hands or they find him guilty of circular reasoning. Pryor says, "Of course, Moore can't offer a deductive proof that he has a hand, from premises of whose truth he is more certain, and which the skeptic will accept... This is why Moore's "proof" strikes us as so unsatisfactory: he hasn't offered any non-question-begging reasons to believe his premises." Stroud says, "Once we are familiar with the philosophical problem of our knowledge of the external world, I think we immediately feel that Moore's proof is inadequate" Coliva says, "'Moore's proof strikes (almost all of) us as an obviously annoying failure, and does so immediately, on first encounter'"

What have contemporary critics of Moore said about his argument?

To prove that an all good, all knowing, all powerful God exists, and that such a being wouldn't allow life to be one long dream or a deception from a demon. If God exists, then our beliefs about math, logic, basis sense perception, etc. must be on good footing.

What is Descartes' strategy to avoid solipsism?

He said, "Here is one hand and here is another," which is proof of two objects external to the mind. It follows that solipsism is false, i.e., that there is an external world.

What is G.E. Moore's Two Hands argument? What is it supposed to prove?

David Hume, an 18th century Scottish philosopher arguments that the second premise of this argument is false. Imperfect beings *can* come up with perfect ideas just like we as finite beings can understand infinity. (If you say that we don't fully understand infinity, then you could also argue that we don't fully understand or God's perfection.) Further, I can conceive of omnipotence and omniscience by thinking about my own power and knowledge and comparing it to someone else who is smarter and stronger than myself and extrapolating. I keep imagining someone stronger and smarter until those traits are maximized.

What is Hume's objection to this argument?

Lehrer/Paxson view knowledge as JTB+ (no defeaters). A defeater is a fact invalidates or defeats some belief. For instance, facts revealed by recent climate science would invalidate or defeat a belief that climate change isn't real. Lehrer/Paxson's theory get's around the backflip case because the 1 person lying about seeing the backflip isn't a defeater. A defeater in the backflip case would be a fact that invalidates the backflip. The false testimony doesn't invalidate the backflip because false testimony doesn't reveal or entail a fact that would defeat my doing a backflip.

What is Lehrer/Paxson's JTB+(no defeater) view of knowledge and how does it get around the Backflip case?

Think about the exponential increase of technology: 40 years ago we had Pong, 30 years after that we got the Sims, today we have photorealistic online gaming. Where are going with this videogame simulation technology? Well Bostrom believes one we have three potential paths. 1. Humans will go extinct before running computer programs with nearly countless simulations of the history of the world (that contain 'sims' that believe they are real). 2. Humans won't go extinct and may have the ability to run said simulations, but aren't interested in running them. 3. We are living in a simulation. For more, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KHiiTtt4w

What is Nick Bostrom's simulation argument/hypothesis that tech moguls like Elon Musk accept? Why does Bostrom think there is a good chance we are not real people but only mere simulations?

Ockham was a 14th Century English thinker. The simplest explanation tends to be right Do not multiple entities beyond necessity. Among competing hypotheses with equal explanatory power, the simplest one tends to be right. All else being equal, we should prefer a simpler explanation over a more complex one. Principle of Parsimony.

What is Ockham's (Occam's) Razor?

To help explain this, consider a theory that is *not* falsifiable: Ryan's theory that all the trees on Chabot's campus -- when no one is looking and no device is recording -- uproot themselves and do backflips. And the second before some turns their head to look, the trees re-root themselves back into the ground without leaving a trace. There is no way to prove that theory is wrong. That means it is *not* falsifiable

What is an example of a theory that is not falsifiable?

Confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on data that fits with one's biases and ignore other evidence. In general a good scientist and critical thinker will 'go where the evidence' leads them and not the other way around, i.e., they won't put the theory first before the data.

What is confirmation bias?

Implicit bias are attitudes of discriminatory and prejudiced thinking that people are often unaware of. We took an online Harvard test for implicit bias of the associate of women with domestic roles and men with career roles.

What is implicit bias?

It's the following valid argument form: If P, then Q P Therefore, Q

What is modus ponens?

It's the following valid argument form: If P, then Q not Q Therefore, not P

What is modus tollens?

The difficulty in telling bona fide science from pseudo science, i.e., good science from bad 'science'.

What is the 'demarcation' problem'?

You see Tom Grabit steal a book from a library but Tom's mom says that Tom is in a different state and that you might be thinking of Tom's identical twin, John. So you're belief has been defeated by the fact that Tom's mom reported about the twin. The twist: Tom's mom is a pathological liar: Tom has no identical twin and Tom really did steal the book. Your defeater has now been defeated. So technically, we can't say knowledge is JTB+no defeaters, we need to say knowledge is JTB+no *undefeated* defeaters.

What is the Tom Grabit case, and how is it problematic for JTB+(no defeaters)?

Moore's first premise is based on sense experience, which Descartes showed isn't proof of anything external to the mind. To put another way, the experience of real hand is indistinguishable from an experience of hands fed to me by an evil demon; hence, experience of hands isn't definitive proof of the external world.

What is the major criticism of Moore's argument?

Both hypotheses are supposed to serve as litmus tests for certainty. If a belief passes the test, then it counts as knowledge.

What is the point of Descartes' Dream and Evil Demon hypotheses? In other words, what function do these hypotheses serve in Descartes overall philosophical project?

An ontological argument. St. Anselm is also famous for a similar ontological argument for God. Ontology is the study of being.

What kind of argument is this?

Moore is employing a logically tactic called 'reductio ad absurdum', which attempts to show that a premise is false because it entails something absurd. In this case, Moore believes the premise, "I do not know that I have two real hands" entails something absurd, namely that I don't know much of anything.

What kind of logical move is Moore making in the previous flashcard answer?

The 'hard sciences': physics & chemistry, math. Think about the Hidden Figures story, where it was a big deal that women of color helped with the space race.

What scientific fields have many more men than women?

Plato's Republic, Book VII

What text contains the allegory/myth of the cave?

Compare: Ryan lives in California. Therefore, Ryan lives in the US. and Maria lives in Florida. Maria has seen a Florida license plate. The top argument is deductive because it would be impossible for the premise to be true and the conclusion false. The bottom argument is inductive between it is possible for the premise to be true and the conclusion false (maybe the person in Florida is blind). Deductive arguments if good, logically 100% guarantee their conclusions. Inductive arguments if good, have conclusions that are established with a high degree of probability.

What the difference between Induction and Deduction?

The Matrix: The hero, Neo, has spent his entire life living in a false reality -- The Matrix -- a computer simulated world. Neo eventually escapes to see the world as it truly is (war stricken and desolate). His task is to return to the Matrix and destroy it, which entails convincing all the trapped minds inside to see the truth. This isn't easy because people are creatures of habit and familiarity who fear the new and unknown. Ignorance, as it is said, is bliss.

What well-know Hollywood movie is a modern-day version of Plato's Cave?

Discounting, ignoring, downplaying, etc. someone's testimony or credibility because of discriminatory e.g. sexist, racist, etc grounds.

What's Fricker's testimonial injustice?

Jones is interviewing for a job and does an excellent job in the interview, he also is 10 times more qualified than anyone yet who has interviewed. The boss winks at Jones and says, "you know I shouldn't tell you this but see all those people left in the hall waiting to interview? They should all just go home because YOU are getting the job." Naturally Jones believes he is getting the job. He is also justified in his belief because of his experience, his stellar interview, that he out-qualifies previous interviewees by miles, AND the boss told him he's getting the job. Jones happens to put his hand in his pocket and pulls out 10 coins. He says to himself, "I believe that the man who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket." Is this true? Yes, but here's the catch: while the man who gets the job does have 10 coins in his pocket that man is Smith and not Jones. Who is Smith? Smith interviewed right after Jones and defying all odds was a 10 times better candidate for the job than even Jones, and even though the boss promised Jones the job, he had to give it to Smith because Smith was so much more qualified. The epistemological puzzle: Jones has justified true belief, but common sense tells us that Jones doesn't have knowledge. This suggests there is something wrong with the traditional theory of knowledge.

What's Gettier's 10 Coins Case?

All induction is based on the assumption that nature is uniform (future will be like past). So if this assumption isn't justified, then all of induction (including much of science) isn't justified. To justify this assumption we can't use induction because that would be circular. Deduction fails too because we can't use deduction to tell us about the future (because deduction tells you nothing non-trivial about the future) so you can't deduce that nature will be uniform in the future.

What's Hume's problem of induction?

Kant argues that we can't see on the other side of the wall between our minds and the objective world, so let's make 'science' and 'objective' about agreement and corroboration between our best thinkers and activities.

What's Kant's transcental idealism & how does this connect with the lack of pure objectivity in science?

Kuhn: normal science, crisis, revolution, paradigm shift, Past science is often wrong, so is Papineau's science wrong? Maybe some theories like paleoanthropology, but not 1800+

What's Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and paradigms? Does David Papineau agree?

It's the view that we come into this world as 'blank slates' and that there's no innate knowledge.

What's Locke's *Tabula Rasa*?

Discounting/downplaying people's knowledge unfairly (on discriminatory e.g. sexist, racist, etc grounds). E.g., a woman in a predominantly male boardroom, Dwayne Books (an African American eye-witness who was thought to be 'part of the trouble' not an innocent bystander, Jose Zamora, who changed his name on his resume to 'Joe' and then all of a sudden got job offers.

What's Miranda Fricker's epistemic injustice?

The brain in the vat hypothesis is a logically possible scenario in which one is merely a brain in a vat and your who life has been one long lie. You have been fed your experiences through electrodes attached to your brain that are hooked up to some supercomputer run by an evil scientist. It is pretty much a modern day version of Descartes' evil demon hypothesis and of course has similarities to the Matrix.

What's Putnam's brain in a vat hypothesis?

Suppose I do a backflip off of a desk in lecture and that 100 of my students witness it. You weren't in the class that day but were told by all 100 people that I did in fact do the backflip. Here's the twist: 99 of the eyewitness really did see me do the flip; however suppose 1 person in the class had their head turned and didn't actually see me do it. However, they decided to lie and say that they did see me do it. On Clark's account, this one lie would be enough to defeat my knowledge because we only have knowledge if our belief was formed solely on true grounds. Even though, intuitively you know I did a backflip, on Clark's account you don't. There is disagreement between the theory and intuition, and that's a problem.

What's Ryan's backflip, and why is it problematic for Clark's JTB+(no false beliefs)?

How you would react to Jurassic Park and Independence Day attacks tells you little to knowing about one's actual courage. Similarly, Dream, Evil Genius, or Brain-in-vat scenarios are irrelevant to one's intellectual virtues.

What's Sosa's analogy to virtue ethics?

Contextualism is a form of relativism. Too much relativism is arguably a bad thing (that means anything goes), as it is in the case of ethics. Extreme relativism in ethics (often called 'subjectivism') makes morality out to be like taste preferences and pain. While you can't be wrong about, say, disliking avocados or being in pain at the dentist, you can get morality wrong, like Hitler or Nassar. It seems you can get epistemology wrong too, like if you are a part of a cult who believes in child sacrifice and say, "I know it's good to sacrifice baby Joe." Intuition: they don't know that! But contextualism guarantees they do!

What's a problem for contextualism?

Epistemology. From the Greek root, 'Episteme', meaning knowledge.

What's another name for theory of knowledge?

Conceptually, God is perfect and God possess every perfection. Omnipotence and omniscience are examples of perfections, so too is existence, says Descartes! So God exists.

What's another of Descartes' arguments for God?

It may define justification in terms of knowledge which is circular.

What's another problem for JTB+(no defeaters)?

Consider the following statement: "It's 2019 now" & "It's NOT 2019 now" Whether or not they are true depends on the context, i.e., *when* they are said. "I'm hungry" "That's red"

What's interesting about the word "now"? "I'm" and "That's"

17th century French philosopher. Called the father of modern philosophy. Major text on knowledge: Meditations on First Philosophy. Big idea: "Cogito ergo sum," which translates to, "I think therefore I am."

What's some background on Descartes?

Since Plato, knowledge had thought to be properly analyzed as justified true belief. Then in 1963 Edmund Gettier from Wayne State University published a three page paper that rocked the epistemology world.

What's some historical background on Gettier cases?

"Cohen claims that examples such as the following "strongly [suggest] that ascriptions of knowledge are context-sensitive" (1999, 59):[12] Mary and John are at the L.A. airport contemplating taking a certain flight to New York. They want to know whether the flight has a layover in Chicago. They overhear someone ask a passenger Smith if he knows whether the flight stops in Chicago. Smith looks at the flight itinerary he got from the travel agent and respond, 'Yes I know—it does stop in Chicago.' It turns out that Mary and John have a very important business contact they have to make at the Chicago airport. Mary says, 'How reliable is that itinerary? It could contain a misprint. They could have changed the schedule at the last minute.' Mary and John agree that Smith doesn't really know that the plane will stop in Chicago. They decide to check with the airline agent. (Ibid., 58)"

What's the Chicago layover case?

The closure principle is based on modus ponens (which we discussed earlier). Modus ponens is P. If P, then Q. There for Q. The closure principle is knowledge that P + knowledge that If P, then Q entails knowledge that Q. This principle is very intuitive. However, if we go with Nozick/Dretske's tracking we may have to give it up. Why? Take the zoo/barn case. I know I'm looking a zebra. I know that looking a zebra means I'm not looking a cleverly disguised mule. This means I'm not looking at a cleverly disguised mule (at least according to the closure principle). However on the tracking theory, while I know I'm looking at zebra, I weirdly don't know I'm not looking at a cleverly disguised mule because the sensitivity requirement is not met, i.e., had the zebra I were looking at not been their I wouldn't know that I'm not looking at a cleverly disguised mule. Why? Because of all the other fake mules around!

What's the Closure Principle problem for the tracking theory?

The tracking theory faces the Grandma & Closure principle problems. What's the Grandma case? Grandma wants to know if you are well, so she goes to your house and talks to you see that you are. Grandma knows you're healthy. However, counterfactually, if you were sick, grandma wouldn't know about it because when she goes to see you, your parents hide you and lie and tell Grandma that you are okay for fear that such bad news would lower her spirits enough to expedite her death. (Suppose grandma is very ill.) Does grandma know you are well? Intuitively, she does. (Remember in actuality you are and Grandma witnessed this.) However on the tracking theory she doesn't because although she has a true belief that you are well, *had* you not been well, she wouldn't have belief it (because your parents would cover it up). This means the sensitivity condition of the tracking theory isn't met, and grandma doesn't have knowledge, which goes against intuition. Nozick says he can get around this by stipulating that the way the belief is formed in the actually world must be the same in the counterfactual. In the actual world grandma formed the belief by seeing that you are well in person; in the counterfactual, her belief isn't formed by a visual checkup, it's on the report of the parents. If she had seen you in person, the she would have believed you were sick.

What's the Grandma Case problem that the tracking theory faces? What does Nozick have to say about this?

Foundationalism, we hit a foundation, Coherentism we go in circles or have a web of belief that all fit together or Infinitism, justification chain goes forever.

What's the Regress Argument & Justification Trilemma?

We want to know what ultimately grounds what is right, what is a called strike, and what is knowledge. On the Socratic/Objective view, what grounds these things are objective facts or reality. On the Euthyphronic view, what grounds these things is whatever God, the Umpire, or the virtuous thinker says. (See next card for more clarification)

What's the analogy from God and morality to called strikes and knowledge?

Empiricists: experience (& observation) is best way to acquire knowledge (A posteriori knowledge: knowledge requires experience.) Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume are proponents. Rationalists: reason is the best tool to acquire knowledge. A priori knowledge: knowledge through reason alone: e.g., all Wednesdays are weekdays, 2+2=4. More rock-solid than experience. Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, & Leibniz are proponents. For empiricists there is no innate knowledge, for rationalists this is possible.

What's the big debate between rationalism & empiricism?

The contexual view of knowledge treats "know" like "now," that is the meaning of "know" depends on the context. In the context of everyday life, we know all sorts of things. In the context of a philosophical exchange with a skeptic, we might not know as much as we thing, including that one is awake. In general in different contexts we have different levels of standards for knowledge. Sometimes they are very strict and sometimes not.

What's the contextual view of knowledge?

What is a law of nature? A generalization that is universally true, right? Well "All gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter" is true everywhere in the universe, but the problem is that this is just accidental. Compare: All uranium spheres are less than a mile in diameter. That's a universal generalization and it's not just accidentally true: Uranium's critical mass is such as to guarantee that such a large sphere will never exist

What's the difference between accidental generalizations and laws of nature?

Descriptive claim: 31% of people cheat on their romantic partners. Normative: People ought not cheat on their partners. Trump offer missiles to the Ukrainian president on the condition that we would look into dirt on Hunter Biden (descriptive). Trump shouldn't have done that (normative). Similarly, there's descriptive/normative divide in epistemology. If you were to describe how humans form beliefs, justify them, and come to know what we know, that's is a description of reality (this is what psychologists do when they study knowledge). To say epistemology is a normative discipline means that it is concerned with questions about how one ought to form beliefs, assess evidence, evaluate testimony, etc. Ethics is about how we ought to act in our practical lives. Epistemology (on this view) is how ought to think in our intellectual lives

What's the difference between descriptive and normative and ethics and epistemology?

Local skepticism is healthy. It's being skeptical about a particular belief or domain of knowledge. For instance, I'm skeptical about fairies, the tooth fairy, astrology, and most conspiracies. Global skepticism is the view that none of one's beliefs count as knowledge.

What's the difference between global and local skepticism?

Socratic view: Moral is objective (independent from the gods) and the gods merely provide a report on the moral facts. Euthyphronic view: Loosely, "Whatever God says goes," God (or the gods) are not merely reporting right and wrong; the God *make* something right just by commanding it.

What's the difference between the two positions put forth in Socrates' question?

OR statements, of the form 'a or b', are true when one or both of the parts are true.

What's the logic behind OR statements?

In Euthyphro, Socrates asks "Are actions right because the gods command them, or do the gods command them because they are right?"

What's the major question/dilemma in Plato's Euthyphro?

I know I have a mind because I have a special, intimate, introspective access inward into my own mind. I have no direct access to your mind. All I see is what is external to your mind, namely your behavior. It is possible that that there is outward behavior but no mind behind it, akin to the saying, The lights are on but nobody's home.

What's the problem with inferring from someone else's behavior that they have a mind? As Thomas Nagel puts it, perhaps "your neighbors, your cat and your dog have no inner experiences whatsoever. If they don't there is no way you could ever find it out."

I have a friend who is notorious for falling asleep during movies. I look over and they are kinda slumped over and I think their eyes or open, but I can't really tell. So I say, "Hey Joe, you awake?!" And Joe says, "Yes!" According to contextualism, in that case I DO know that Joe is awake. However when Descartes asked "Do I know that I'm awake and that this isn't one long dream," he did NOT know he was awake. That's because in that context the bar for knowledge is much higher.

What's the sleepy friend case?

I, Ryan, believe that: My parents are Jon and Wendy. My siblings and Tom and Krista. It's the 21st century. I am a human being. I teach philosophy classes, etc. Suppose, I learn that my whole life till this point has been a dream? Can I be confident, e.g. that I have parents, that it's the 21st century, etc.? No, it might have just been part of the dream. Thus these beliefs don't pass the dream test. If whole life until this point has been a dream, is there anything left that I know?

Which beliefs do NOT pass the dream test?

Even if my whole life until this point as been a dream, Descartes thinks there are still some things that I know. For instance, even if my whole life till now has been a dream, I still know 2+2=4 (and other basic principles and applications of math and logic). I also know that colors (and at least shades of grey), shapes, and time exist. Why? Because those things exist regardless of whether one is dreaming, says Descartes. Hence, the belief that 2+2=4, that shapes and time exist, etc. PASS the dream test.

Which beliefs pass the Dream test?

Socrates

Who was Plato's mentor and teacher?

Putnam's argument hinges on this view on language. He believes that one can only refer to objects that one has be exposed to. For instance, I can say the word, "dog' which refers to real dogs because I have be exposed to dogs. If I'm a brain in a vat, then I've never really be exposed or come into contact with real brains in vats, I've only experienced *virtual* brains and *virtual* vats because my whole like is a virtual simulation fed to me by the evil scientist. If I live in the real world (outside the vat), then my words, "brain in vat" can refer to real world brains in vats. For Putnam, the only way I could be a brain in a vat is if I'm in the real world because that's the only place where my words, "I am a brain in a vat" have meaning (i.e., it's the only place where those words can refer to real brains in vats). If a brain-in-vat person (call them Brian) while in the simulation says "I'm Brain, a brain in a vat, Brian can't be referring to an external, real-world brain in a vat because Brian has never seen anything real, never had the right kind of epistemic access to real brains and real vats.

Why can't we be brains in vats, says Putnam?

Because of the way the Meditations were written, we bear witness to Descartes' journal-like process. As readers we get to watch his thought process unfold in almost real-time. At first Descartes thinks that passing the Dream test is sufficient for knowledge, but upon reflection, he realizes the test isn't stringent enough and posits the Evil Demon rest in its place. The evil demon version, then, is a better and more rock-solid test for certainty & indubitability.

Why does Descartes appeal to two tests for indubitability? Why not just one?

Squares, the concept have 4 conceptual sides and squares, the abstract object have 4 sides. So yes, having four conceptual sides is built into concept of square. However, is perfection built into god the concept? Again, maybe conceptual perfection, but not real perfection. Real perfection and existence would only be apart of God, the reality, if such a being exists, but nothing about God, the concept guarantees God, the reality's existence.

Why does this analogy fail?