Preview

PHIL201 Study Guide Lesson 10

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
731 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
PHIL201 Study Guide Lesson 10
Study Guide: Lesson 10
What is Epistemology? & What is Knowledge?

Lesson Overview

With this lesson, we begin a new unit on epistemology, which is the philosophical study of knowledge claims. In this first lesson on epistemology, Dew and Foreman discuss some of the basic issues raised in the study of epistemology and then discuss the nature of knowledge itself. They consider questions such as, “What do we mean when we say we know something?” “What exactly is knowledge?

Tasks

View and take notes of the presentation, “What is Knowledge?”
Describe the 3 different ways we use the term know.
1. Knowledge by acquaintance
2. Knowledge as competency (skills)
3. Propositional knowledge
(pg. 20)

Explain the traditional definition of knowledge from Plato.

Plato's understanding of knowledge is justified true belief. After rejecting 2 accounts of knowledge (knowledge as perception & knowledge as true belief) , defined as KNOWLEDGE IS SOMETHING SIMILAR TO JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF. (PG. 20)

Know what each aspect of the traditional definition means.
1. Belief (pg. 22)
2. Justification (pg. 22-24)
3. Truth (pg. 24)

Read Chapters One, “What is Epistemology?” and Two, “What is Knowledge?” of How Do we Know?” As you do, make sure you understand the following points and questions:

What are the kinds of questions arise in the study of epistemology?
1. What does it mean to say that we know something?
2. How do we come to know various things?
3. What is truth and how do we find it?
4. What does it mean to have epistemic justification, and is this necessary?
5. What are epistemological virtues, and are they help for us?
6. How reliable are out perceptions?
7. Can we have certainty. (pg. 10)

Know the kinds of questions that preoccupy epistemologists.
Pg. 10

Know the basic reasons why the study of epistemology is important.
1. It is unnatural and unfruitful to avoid epistemological questions. Cuts off natural and needed intellectual growth. It's natural. Some jobs require
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Phil 1600 Ch 3 Questions
    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Phil 1600 Ch 3 Questions

    This describes people’s thinking before they are able to understand conformity to rules or standards.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Study Guide Week 3
    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Study Guide Week 3

    How can man evolve to be the apex of living beings if the fact suggest the process of evolution goes the other way…

    • 1464 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Phil 201 Study Guide Lesson 10
    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Phil 201 Study Guide Lesson 10

    Read the preface and chapter 1 of Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous, “The Nature of Epistemology.” As you do, make sure you understand the following points and questions:…

    • 876 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Phil 201 Study Guide
    • 2451 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Phil 201 Study Guide

    ~To adopt a phil mindset is to recognize that phil is not just an academic activity within a college course. May be starting point, but really thinking philosophically entails a specific approach to the whole life.…

    • 2451 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary of Edmund Gettier
    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary of Edmund Gettier

    According to Plato’s theory that knowledge is justified true belief, in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. In his paper, Edmund Gettier argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. He presented two examples to show that it is possible for a person to be justified in believing something that is thought to be true, but is not true because of the reasons they thought. Gettier claimed that it was possible to have "justified true belief" about something and yet it would not be considered knowledge. In other words, justified true belief might be necessary for knowledge, but it is not sufficient for claiming that one really has knowledge on a certain subject. By providing counterexamples Gettier is able to illustrate where a person can have a justified true belief that is not knowledge.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary of the Dialogue of Theaetetus
    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Summary of the Dialogue of Theaetetus

    In 187a10-e4, Theaetetus proposes a second definition of knowledge: (D2) "Knowledge is true belief." D2 provokes Socrates to ask: how can there be any such thing as false belief? There follows a five-phase discussion which attempts to come up with an…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    “What Is Knowledge?” from the Meno
    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “What Is Knowledge?” from the Meno

    Plato argues that knowledge is superior to true opinion. He says that true opinions are not willing to remain long, and they are not worth much, until one ties them down by giving an account of the reason why they are correct (Gendler, Siegel & Cahn, 2008, P344). We can see that mere true opinion is not stable, and it can be fleeting. For example, we see the moon, and may first think that the moon shines by itself if we do not have any knowledge about this. The next day, if we do not see any moonlight, we may think that the moon does not shine by itself. Although the latter idea is correct, and could serve as well as knowledge for a time, our opinion can change unpredictably. On the other hand, if we have knowledge that the moon reflects sunlight, we understand that the moon does not shine by itself. Knowledge gives more consistency and predictablily than true opinion.…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Plato's Beliefs on Knowledge
    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Plato's Beliefs on Knowledge

    Plato defined knowledge as, "justified true belief," which states that in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have justification for doing so. This means that when we are presented a fact, that in order for it to become knowledge, we have to accept that it is fact and be able to explain why. Justification in itself is defined as the reason why someone believes something. Plato believed that you could not have knowledge without that justification. On the contrary, Aristotle, one of Plato's students, believed that knowledge was gained by experience and that we must think deeply to understand why things happen the way that they do.…

    • 445 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Tok Can a Machine Know
    • 1311 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Tok Can a Machine Know

    Bibliography: Woolman, Michael. Ways of Knowing-An Introduction to Theory of Knowledge. Melton, Australia: IBID. Press, 2000.…

    • 1311 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Epistomology
    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Epistomology

    What is epistemology? Using my own “common sense”, I would say it's the study of how we know. It is the ways of knowing. We use it to understand our reality. To get an even better understanding, we can reference the definition from Dictionary.com, which states: “EPISTEMOLOGY: A branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.” The World English Dictionary words it like so: “The theory of knowledge, the critical study of its validity, methods, and scope.”…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Theories of knowledge
    • 2653 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Theories of knowledge

    “The concern with understanding human knowledge has been a central philosophical one.”1“Like Rene Descartes, we have all ask ourselves at one time or another couldn't everything I seem to see, hear, etc. Be illusory? Might I’ll in fact be dreaming all this? If so what do I really know of the outside world?"2 Knowledge is a vague concept according to Bertrand Russell. This is issue of what is knowledge, how do we know and how to classify what we think we know as knowledge. In order to help solve this problem knowledge have been classified into groups by philosophers. These are procedural knowledge, personal knowledge, and propositional knowledge. Procedural knowledge is seen as ability or knowledge how, while personal is knowledge by acquaintance and prepositional is factual knowledge. Traditional epistemologists concentrate entirely on propositional knowledge, this is knowledge fact, and several of these traditional theories of knowledge are split in two groups, empiricist and rationalist. These philosophers believed their source of knowledge for the former is through experience and the latter through reason. These theories cannot be seen as absolute for there can be found definite flaws in their projection. For this cannot be the only way of knowing if one is to consider the existence of intuition knowledge. However, aim of this essay is not to examine the right or wrong of these epistemological theories, but to evaluate how epistemological theories justify why philosophers’ beliefs and statements are to be classified as knowledge. This essay will be concentrating on the method of how we know that we know and justification of this for it to be truth and knowledge. The theories of justification are the direction of this essay in order to understand to some extent the theories that are used to justify statements and…

    • 2653 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    What Type of Methodology Is Generally Used for Financial Research and Why?
    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages

    What Type of Methodology Is Generally Used for Financial Research and Why?

    The theoretical background is mainly formed by the concept of epistemology, which is the philosophy of knowledge. It expresses the different types of relationships between the known and the person who knows, as well as what counts as knowledge and how we know what we know. It states that the differences are rather philosophical than methodological, therefore a theoretical paradigm about the phenomena under investigation is required to understand the perspective from which the study is carried out. Epistemology distinguishes between the positivistic (also considered the quantitative, or even deductive) approach and the naturalistic/constructivistic (also considered the qualitative, or inductive) approach.…

    • 576 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    ToK Ways of Knowing
    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages

    ToK Ways of Knowing

    In order to distinguish between something that is true, and something that is believed to be true, it’s important to examine the truth-in-question with the four ways of knowing, as well as it’s justifications, and through Plato’s three truth requirements. If something that is believed to be true cannot be properly explained and justified through the ways of knowing and the justifications of at least empiricism and/or authority, than it is probably not true.…

    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    what is knowledge
    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    what is knowledge

    First in discussion of “Plato’s answer” he thought that the knowledge is justified true belief. We can definition by three parts “true”, “belief” and “justified”. For beliefs are things people have being an internal thought or memory which exists in mind. They’re in your head and generally are viewed as just the way you hold the world to be. Belief what coming in your head that you thought that true. But for some reason you think could be wrong. For example most people are believe in some form of Gods, but these beliefs have not been proved; they may even be unprovable. It is possible that they are false, but people certainly have this beliefs within their minds, and even know them as knowledge. “truth” is negative with belief because it is not in your head. It is the way that world exists, the way of life, the fact. When you believe something, you hold that or accept that a statement or proposition is true. It could be false that’s why you belief may not match up with the way the world really is. In fact, there is no such thing as a fact because a fact can only a fact when it is reported and it is no doubt that when a fact is reported, it is being distorted. You can change you belief but not the fact. For example the fact of history it was the happen in past and how you can change it, you couldn’t came back to that time. And for the “justified” meant that to prove that what you said is right. It means that the…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    The Challenge to Academics
    • 3238 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The Challenge to Academics

    The study of knowledge is known as Epistemology, and it is one of the oldest branches of philosophy. Plato spent much of his life trying to establish not only what knowledge is, but also how it can be achieved. Our society is increasingly presenting information as knowledge, especially in educational institutions. Individuals can only gain genuine knowledge from the practice of Plato’s method of dialectic. Plato’s method involves making the distinction between information and knowledge. By examining Plato’s dialectic in The Republic we can begin to define what constitutes ‘real knowing’ and how that differs from the knowledge professed by instructors at educational institutions. Individuals who attend educational institutions where knowledge is viewed as merely applied information cannot gain genuine knowledge because they are too far removed from the dialectic procedures. They cannot act wisely or make knowledgeable decisions because they have become slaves to the information. They do not examine or analyze the information they have been given. They accept the information and just apply it as they are taught, thus preventing them from being a ‘knower’. Plato’s insights into epistemology are of great importance, because understanding the properties and dynamics of knowledge is essential to society seeing the benefits and value of having true knowledge rather than being trained to apply information.…

    • 3238 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics