Final Exam--Theory of Knowledge

Final Exam Review Sheet

Theory of Knowledge

Professor McCormick

The final will be closed book and closed notes. It will have three parts. It will be held in our regular classroom, Tuesday, Dec. 13 from 8-10 am.

Part I. Terms: you will be given 5-8 of these terms. You should a) give a brief (one sentence) definition, b) give an example where possible, and c) name the relevant philosopher. (15 points)

coherentism

foundationalism

basic beliefs

inferential justification

non-inferential justification

fallibilism

pragmatism

doxastic states

non-doxastic states

reliabilism

neo-foundationalism

externalism

internalism

cognitive transparency

defeasibility

eliminative materialism

maladaptive misbelief

adaptive misbelief

naturalism

Part II. You will be given 4-8 quotes from authors we have read and asked to identify the authors. (10 points)

Audi

Bonjour

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Entry on Coherentist Theories of Justification

Bishop and Trout, handout from Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment

Bishop and Trout, "The Pathologies of Standard Analytic Epistemology."

Weinberg: Review of Bishop and Trout

Goldman

Lehrer, 273-286

Dennett and McKay

Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson

Boudry and Braeckman

Part III: Essay Questions. In this section you will be given 4 of these questions and asked to answer 3 of them. Make your answers and clear, legible, and thorough as possible. (75 points)

1. How does Goldman address Gettier style counterexamples?

2. What is naturalized epistemology? How does it differ in its approach to the question of knowledge? How does this approach differ from classical approaches to epistemology like Descartes?

3. Present and explain the major features of a coherent system of beliefs according to BonJour. What are the problems associated with this theory of justification?

4. Audi gives an argument for a particular kind of foundationalism. What is that argument, and what makes his version different from classical foundationalism? What are the problems for this view?

5. What is there to recommend Bishop and Trout’s approach to analyzing justification over “Standard Analytic Epistemology”? What does their approach offer that SAE does not? What does SAE offer that their approach does not?

6. What is Ameliorative Psychology and how do Bishop and Trout propose to incorporate epistemology into it?

7. What’s chauvinistic about SAE according to Bishop and Trout?

8. The orthodox view that Dennett and McKay reject is that all misbeliefs are maladaptive. According to them, the evidence does not support the conclusion that religious beliefs are examples of genuinely adaptive misbeliefs. Summarize and explain this argument.

9. The orthodox view that Dennett and McKay reject is that all misbeliefs are maladaptive. They argue that the evidence appears to show that some instances of positive illusions show that this orthodox view is mistaken. Summarize and explain this argument.

10. Nisbett and DeCamp Wilson argue that the evidence shows that “Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. . . .when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes. . . they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection.”

Briefly, what is some of the research that supports these conclusions. And most importantly, what are the implications for theories of knowledge in philosophy?

11. Mercier and Sperber argue that our capacity to reason and argue are better understood as something different than has been conventionally thought. What is the conventional view? How is the conventional view thought to be related to evolution?

12. What is Mercier and Sperber's thesis regarding the human capacity to generate and critique arguments? What is the evidence that they think supports their view better than the conventional view? Why is their account of the evidence better than the conventional view?

13. What is Boudry and Braeckman's thesis? What is the analysis they give to support it?

14. For a reliabilist like Goldman, how should we understand classic descriptions of fallacious reasoning? What is the account of justification that the reliabilist (Goldman) endorses?

15. How is Lehrer’s Mr. Truetemp example supposed to show a problem with reliabilism?