Summary and Conclusion Chapter Review Questions Key Terms
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250 | CHAPTER 3 • KNOWLEDGE SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Epistemology is the study of human knowledge—what we can know, how we can know it, and what we cannot know. In this sense, epistemology and metaphysics are complementary disciplines. Epistemology becomes the method of approach to the knowledge of the way the world really is. For some philosophers, for example, Descartes, this approach places its primary trust in reason; accordingly, they are called rationalists. For other philosophers, for example, Locke, the preferred approach is to trust the senses and experience; they are called empiricists. The problem for both the rationalists and the empiricists is to get beyond the mere appearance of things to the reality behind them. The rationalist tries to do this by appealing to intuition and certain principles from which he or she can deduce the way the world really is. The empiricist, on the other hand, appeals to his or her experiences, trying to find evidence for the nature of reality. For both views, however, the danger is that their meth- ods do not always seem to achieve as much as they would like. Rationalists disagree about which principles to start with and which intuitions to trust. Empiricists find that their own method of experience makes it impossible to say anything about what lies beyond experi- ence. Thus Berkeley argues that only our ideas (including God) and the minds that have these ideas exist, and Hume concludes that we can never know anything about reality, but only about our own associations of ideas. Epistemologists are still working on more satis- factory answers to the questions of knowledge, and still trying to defeat or defend once and for all the skeptical conclusions so brilliantly argued by Hume. Finally, we considered a prev- alent view of knowledge as justified true belief and used that to reexamine the very idea of analysis in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. CHAPTER REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Can you think of any way for Locke to defend his claim that substances exist, but we do not know what they are? How would Locke respond to Berkeley’s conclusion that we can only know ideas? 2. Descartes reestablishes his system of beliefs because of his famous statement “I am a thing that thinks.” Where is the place of the thing that thinks in Locke’s system? 3. Explain the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning and how it applies to the systems of Descartes and Locke. 4. How would you characterize skepticism? In what way have the various thinkers consid- ered in this chapter responded to the skeptics’ challenge? How might the skeptic reply in each case? 5. Explain the difficulties associated with rationalism and empiricism. KEY TERMS absolutism association of ideas empirical (knowledge) absolutists causal theory of perception empiricism analytic (of a sentence or causation or causality epistemology truth) cause explanation analytic philosophy cogito, ergo sum generalization from appearance conceptual truth experience (or induction) a priori (knowledge) datum Hume’s fork DESIGN SERVICES OF # 158273 Cust: OUP Au: Solomon Pg. No. 250 PMS 632C / K S4CARLISLE Title: Introducing Philosophy, 11e Short / Normal Publishing Services BIBG LIO RAPHY AND FURTHER READING | 251 idea perception secondary qualities impression primary qualities sensation induction; inductive principle of induction sense-data reasoning; inductive principle of universal skepticism generalization causation subjective idealism innate ideas probable substance intuition quality tabula rasa justification rational truth of reason matter of fact (in Hume) rationalism necessary (truth) reason necessary and sufficient relations of ideas conditions rules of inference BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING Several studies of the various issues related to René Descartes’s epistemology can be found in Janet Broughton and John Carriero, eds., A Companion to Descartes (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell, 2011). Gottfried W. von Leibniz’s reply to John Locke is spelled out at length in Leibniz’s “New Essays on Human Understanding,” trans. and ed. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding is published by Oxford University Press (1975). Bishop Berkeley’s Treatise is printed in full in T. E. Jessop, ed., Berkeley, Philosophical Writ- ings (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1953). Of special interest is Berkeley’s “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous” (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1935), in which the arguments of his Treatise are worked out in entertaining dialogue form. David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature is available, edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1888; 2nd ed., revised by P. H. Nidditch, 1975), but most begin- ners will find Hume’sEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by L. A. Selby- Bigge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1902; 3rd ed., revised by P. H. Nidditch, 1975) much easier reading. Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy (London: Williams and Norgate, 1912) is an excel- lent introduction to the problems of epistemology and some of the problems of metaphysics. Some more modern epistemological studies are Ralph Baergen, Contemporary Epistemol- ogy (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995); Jonathan Dancy, Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985); John Greco and Ernest Sosa, The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Alfred Mele and Piers Rawling, The Oxford Handbook of Rationality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Robert Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowl- edge (New York: Routledge, 2003). A modern defense of skepticism is Peter Unger, Ignorance (London: Oxford University Press, 1975). DESIGN SERVICES OF # 158273 Cust: OUP Au: Solomon Pg. No. 251 PMS 632C / K S4CARLISLE Title: Introducing Philosophy, 11e Short / Normal Publishing Services.