Deck 3: Truth Knowledge

Question 1

Berkeley argues that an idea cannot resemble anything but an idea, so if there is an "original" object, it is itself and idea.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

In Hume's view, causation was an example of knowledge as "a matter of fact."

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Leibniz argued that the senses, although necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything except examples, that is to say particular or individual truths.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

John Locke held the view that we know everything from experience.

Question 5

Descartes believed that beliefs could be justified by experience alone.

Question 6

Kant argued that we experience events in a cause and effect relationship because we make our experience conform to causal rules.

Question 7

Kant influenced German Romantic philosophers who replaced his notion of "constitution" with the notion of "creation".

Question 8

Russell said that sensations were the direct means of ascertaining the properties of objects.

Question 9

The correspondence theory of truth can account for all cases of necessary truth (such as mathematical truths).

Question 10

Hermeneutics is a term used in philosophy to refer to the discipline of interpreting and understanding the world.

Question 11

According to Hume, the predicted outcome of your intention to hit one billiard ball with another is based on pure reason.

Question 12

Noam Chomsky attributed the similarities in human thinking to an innate capacity for language.

Question 13

Hume arguments against the principle of universal causation and the principle of induction are also arguments against skepticism.

Question 14

Kant intended for his philosophical revolution to prove that there are many truths for all of us.

Question 15

In Locke, primary properties ("qualities") are caused in us by objects but do not inhere in the objects themselves (e.g., color).

Question 16

A necessary and sufficient condition is defined as follows: A is necessary and sufficient for B when A is both logically required and enough to guarantee B ("A if and only if B").

Question 17

"Hume's fork" is Hume's insistence that every belief be justified either as a "relation of ideas" or as a "matter of fact."

Question 18

The causal theory of perception is the view that our experiences (our sensations and ideas) are the effects of physical objects acting on our sense organs (which are thereby the causes).

Question 19

A priori (knowledge) is knowledge "with experience" or after experience.

Question 20

Gadamer's hermeneutics rejects the influence of tradition in the notion of truth.

Question 21

Hume was a __________.

A) strict rationalist
B) strong idealist
C) innate idealist
D) skeptic
E) feminist

Question 22

Descartes declares in his first meditation that a good God would not deceive him and since God is good, it must be a __________ deceiving him.

A) bad God
B) aneurysm
C) devil
D) evil genius
E) hypnotist

Question 23

Descartes applied a philosophical technique of __________.

A) methodological doubt
B) empiricism
C) foundationalism
D) boring, silly writing
E) clear and distinct ideas

Question 24

Before he introduced the evil deceiver, Descartes's dream argument had shown that __________.

A) I can doubt all of the information of my senses
B) I can doubt mathematical truths and extension
C) I think, therefore I am
D) the mind is a thinking thing
E) substance can be better known than quality

Question 25

__________ suggested that life is like a text, and the purpose of our lives is to understand that text.

A) Hume
B) Aristotle
C) Kant
D) Heidegger
E) Dilthey

Question 26

"I think, therefore I am" served Descartes as __________.

A) a truth he cannot doubt
B) a merely grammatical remark
C) an aeschylean point from which to attack the sciences
D) a logical but not epistemological truth
E) the foundation of all skepticism

Question 27

According to Quine, epistemology is a subset of what scientific study?

A) biology
B) chemistry
C) psychology
D) physics
E) quantum physics

Question 28

Descartes used the wax argument to prove that __________.

A) we know mental things with greater clarity and distinctness than material things
B) we know bodily things with greater clarity and distinctness than mental things
C) universals are predicated of particulars
D) identity may change over time
E) objects are vague

Question 29

__________ was a continental rationalist.

A) Hume
B) Aristotle
C) Descartes
D) Russell
E) Peirce

Question 30

Prior to the wax argument, Descartes used his "dream argument" to show that __________.

A) mathematical truths cannot be doubted
B) God existed
C) esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived)
D) almost anything could be doubted
E) God is no deceiver

Question 31

__________ proposes eliminating the idea "analytic truth" and recognizing community-wide acceptance as a more useful criterion of truth with respect to such statements?

A) Loke
B) Berkeley
C) Hume
D) Quine

Question 32

Kant believed that we __________ our experience in the sense that we provide rules and structures according to which we experience objects.

A) discover
B) transcend
C) constitute or "set up"
D) imagine

Question 33

According to __________, the things of the world are nothing other than ideas in the mind of God.

A) Locke
B) Berkeley
C) Hume
D) Kant

Question 34

Which two disciplines did Kant weave together into a single cohesive philosophy?

A) Rationalism and logic
B) Empiricism and aesthetics
C) Rationalism and empiricism
D) Aesthetics and logic

Question 35

According to Kant what does not exist "out there", independent of our experience?

A) objects
B) God
C) Time and Space
D) color

Question 36

An inference from one statement to another according to a set of rules of inference is called __________.

A) an induction
B) a deduction
C) a syllogism
D) a categorical imperative

Question 37

What type of reasoning did Locke advocate as the best method for making generalizations from experience?

A) Abductive
B) Deductive
C) Inductive
D) Intuitive

Question 38

Which is not one of Kant's critiques?

A) The Critique of Pure Reason
B) The Critique of Practical Reason
C) The Critique of Judgment
D) The Critique of Pure Intuition

Question 39

Hume refuses to accept the existence of __________.

A) God
B) rational thought
C) matter
D) emotion

Question 40

__________is the belief that there are different rules for different people and therefore different truths.

A) relativism
B) skepticism
C) absolutism
D) atheism

Question 41

__________ argues that the necessity of allowing for falsehood makes it impossible to regard belief as a relation of the mind to a single object.

A) Kant
B) Russell
C) Berkeley
D) Hume

Question 42

__________ concluded that the idea of cause and effect must be derived from our experience of the constant conjunction of two events.

A) Russell
B) Gettier
C) Berkeley
D) Hume

Question 43

__________ central thesis is that "to be is to be perceived."

A) Russell's
B) Gettier's
C) Berkeley's
D) Hume's

Question 44

Kant was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by__________.

A) Russell
B) Aristotle
C) Berkeley
D) Hume

Question 45

The tabula rasa or "blank tablet" view of the mind is __________ epistemological concept.

A) Locke's
B) Berkeley's
C) Hume's
D) Kant's

Question 46

__________ is the study of knowledge.

A) Metaphysics
B) Epistemology
C) Logic
D) Ethics

Question 47

Uma Narayan extends the focus of feminist epistemology by pointing to the importance of recognizing __________.

A) cultural diversity
B) women as free agents
C) gender roles
D) the intentions of women

Question 48

__________ is an example of a conceptual truth.

A) There is a grapefruit in the refrigerator.
B) Blue is a color.
C) It is raining outside.
D) I own two dogs.

Question 49

__________ is a type of knowledge, sense experience.

A) A priori knowledge
B) Perception
C) Intuition
D) Primary qualities

Question 50

__________ theory of truth says that a statement or a belief is true if and only if "it works," if it allows us to predict certain result, if it allows us to function effectively in everyday life, and if it encourages further inquiry or helps us lead a better life.

A) coherence
B) pragmatic
C) correspondence
D) semantic

Question 51

In your own words, what does it mean to be a relativist and what does it mean to be an absolutist? Furthermore, discuss how these two positions have shaped great debates in modern western philosophy. In your explanation be sure to cite specific philosophers on opposing sides.

Question 52

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 know only ideas?

Question 53

Descartes reestablished his system of beliefs because of his famous statement "I am a thing that thinks." What is the function for the thing that thinks in Locke's system? Explain the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning and how it applies to the systems of Descartes and Locke.

Question 54

Explain why Berkeley thinks his arguments are a response to the skepticism threatened by Locke's epistemology. Then argue that Berkeley's position creates a further skeptical problem. How might Berkeley respond?

Question 55

Kant claims that after reading Hume, he "awakened from his dogmatic slumbers." Explain what Kant means in this famous philosophical statement. How does Kant believe he has solved the epistemic problems of Hume's skepticism? Is Hume's skepticism actually capable of being solved.

Question 56

Why is it necessary for a feminist anaylsis of epistomplgy? Consider the work of Grosz and Narayan, what makes epistemology particularly suited to being sensitive to sexual orientation?

Question 57

When Chuang-tzu wrote about his dream of being a butterfly almost 2,400 years ago, he penned one of the most profound epistemological conundrums ever written. He said that when he woke up, he did not know whether he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly or whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man. How could he know? Discuss Chuang-tzu's dream and the issues it raised.

Question 58

Discuss Russell's appearance/reality distinction. What things seem to be and what they really are may be radically different because our senses can reveal the truth only about the appearance of an object, not what its properties actually are. How does Russell argue that sensations are mere signs of properties? How accurate are the signs at revealing the world the way it really is? Is there any way to check?

Question 59

Debate the issue of whether we all begin life as a blank slate, knowing nothing until we have experiences, or whether we come "hardwired" with some principles, rules, doctrines, expectations, and so forth, independent of learning (this is the philosophical version of psychology's nurture/nature debate). If all our learning comes from a combination of some percentage of these two sources, then where does creativity fit in? Is it possible to learn something that was never perceived by the senses or captured by our innate cognitive faculties?

Question 60

Bertrand Russell is concerned about what we actually mean by truth and falsehood. Briefly explain his concern and what inspired this approach to epistemology. What are the roles of coherence and correspondence in this argument?

Question 61

Hume's argues that simple ideas are derived from __________.

Question 62

Grosz denies that the __________ of an author necessarily corresponds to the sexual orientation of a text.

Question 63

__________ is a common name for Descartes circular argument, in which he argues that the proof of God's existence is in God himself.

Question 64

Empiricism is the philosophy that demands that all knowledge, except for logical truths and principles of mathematics, comes from __________.

Question 65

Knowledge can be defined as __________.

Question 66

Descartes's "cogito ergo sum" can be translated as __________.

Question 67

Locke turned to the data of __________ as the ultimate source of all knowledge.

Question 68

The Americans, Charles Peirce, William James and __________ are the three philosophers most easily identified with pragmatism.

Question 69

Kant refers to knowledge of our own rules with which we constitute reality as, __________ knowledge.

Question 70

For Russell, belief is true when there is a __________ fact.