UQx: META101x Philosophy and Critical Thinking

Epistemology:

the theory or study of knowledge, what constitutes knowledge, what distinguishes knowledge from belief or opinion, whether it is possible to have knowledge, and how knowledge can be understood through the methods of logic and argumentation (formal epistemology).

Propositions:

Propositions are the bearers of truth-values – truth and falsity. Premises express propositions. The kind of knowledge that is involved in assessing an argument for soundness is, therefore, propositional knowledge.

A priori versus A posteriori Knowledge:

If a proposition can be known to be true independently of experience, experiment or observation, it is known a priori (prior to or independently of experience or observation). For example, ‘2+2=4’, ‘No cat is not a cat,’ and ‘It is either raining or it is not raining’ are propositions which can be known to be true without observation. If instead, a proposition can only be known on the basis of experience, experiment or observation, we say that it is known a posteriori (posterior to or after experience or observation). Whether, for example, we can know ‘My tea is currently 53 degrees Celsius,’ or ‘the Sun is 149.6 million kilometres from the Earth’ depends on observational evidence.

Scepticism (or Skepticism):

From the Greek term 'skepsis' meaning investigation. The sceptic investigates the grounds for believing propositions and finding them doubtful, abstains from judging or believing altogether. That is, the sceptic neither believes nor disbelieves any proposition that cannot be established beyond doubt. Scepticism is to be distinguished from the ordinary incredulity we experience in regard to propositions which are doubtful but where the grounds for doubt can be removed. In its more radical forms, scepticism equates to universal doubt where assent is withheld from every proposition.

Certainty:

Certainty is attributed both to beliefs and to epistemic agents. We can say either that Harry is certain that 2+3=5 or that Harry’s belief is certain. Certainty thus marks a belief as meeting the highest epistemic standard. A belief is thus epistemically certain when it is not possible to doubt it. While a belief is psychologically certain when it is incorrigible (when someone can’t but believe it), a belief is said to be indubitable — beyond doubt or epistemically certain — even if no one is aware of its indubitability.

Ontology:

The fundamental categories of being or existence. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics. Metaphysicians are engaged in the task of working out what categories are needed for us to make sense of the world. For example, some metaphysicians include in their ontology categories like ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’ or ‘objects and properties’; some deny that the substance/attribute distinction is coherent. Some include ‘events’ as basic, irreducible entities; others attempt to reduce the category of events to those of objects and properties. Some ontologies include universals or common natures as real entities; others deny the existence of universals.

Empiricism:

The view that all knowledge originates from the operation of our sensory or perceptual faculties. Empiricists deny that ideas are innate. At most that the capacity or faculty for acquiring ideas is part of the innate structure of the mind.

Rationalism:

The view that all knowledge originates from the operations of reason or the intellect. Rationalists often endorse the idea that at least some of our ideas and the logical apparatus that we use to reason with are innate to the mind. Perception plays a secondary epistemic role: either that of triggering reason to produce knowledge or providing objects for belief and investigation by reason.

Infallibilism:

The view that knowledge attributions (e.g., ‘S knows that p’) exclude the possibility that p could be false.

In other words, if S knows that p, it is not possible for S to rationally doubt p. Knowledge entails epistemic certainty.

Fallibilism:

The view that knowledge attributions (e.g., ‘S knows that p’, where ‘S’ stands for the subject or person who knows and ‘p’ for the proposition known) do not exclude the possibility that p could be false. Fallible knowledge claims are sometimes referred to as ‘concessive knowledge attributions’ (CKA’s) – i.e., ‘S knows that p, but it is possible that q (where q entails not-p)’.

In other words, if S knows that p, it does not follow that S is epistemically certain that p.

Behaviorism:

The view that all talk of mental states and processes can be analysed in terms of human behaviour or dispositions to behave in certain predictable and observable ways.

Conceivability

Able to be thought about or conceived without incoherence, contradiction or absurdity.

Consciousness:

A term that encompasses a range of subjective phenomena including sentience, experience, wakefulness, self-awareness, phenomenal experience where there is something that it is like to experience the world from the point of view of a subject.

Creature consciousness denotes the consciousness of whole organisms, in contrast with state consciousness, which is said of mental states. A state is intransitively conscious when the subject in that mental state is aware, and transitively conscious when the subject is aware or conscious of something, e.g., the approaching train.

Dualism:

Where two things are distinct by nature and so are able to be divided, a dualism holds between the two. Substance dualists hold that a person is composed of two distinct kinds of things or natures, mind and body. Property dualists or Epiphenomenalists hold that a person is a single, undivided entity which has, however, distinct kinds of properties: physical and mental.

Functionalism:

The view that mental states should be analysed in terms of their functional roles (cognitive, conceptual and behavioural roles) in explaining the complex capacities of a system.

Identity Theory (Materialism):

The view that the mind is identical with the brain or central nervous system.

Multiple realisability:

A kind of mental state is said to be multiply realisable when it either does or could exist in different physical forms. Chairs, for example, are a multiply realisable kind because there are many different physical forms that chairs take (metal, wooden, plastic, etc). If a mental state like pain is multiply realisable, then different kinds of brain states and non-brain states could be pains.

Necessary and sufficient conditions:

If A is a necessary condition for B, then if A is not true, then B is not true. For example, ‘Steve is on the electoral role’ is necessary for the truth of ‘Steve votes.’ If A is a sufficient condition for B, then if A is true, then B is true. The truth of ‘Sam is a mouse’ is sufficient for the truth of ‘Sam is an animal’.

If A is sufficient for B, then B is necessary for A. Sam’s being an animal is necessary but not sufficient for Sam’s being a mouse. If A is necessary for B, then not-A is sufficient for not-B. Steve’s not being on the electoral role is sufficient for Steve’s not voting.

Non-reductive theories:

Deny the possibility of reducing talk about the mind and consciousness to the language of a more basic science.

Norms:

Rules or standards of correctness that emerge from social interactions among individuals. Errors or mistakes arise when there is a failure to adhere to a norm.

Physicalism:

The view that only physical events can cause other physical events and that the universe is, therefore, closed under a physical description.

Possibility:

Able to be or exist.

Reductionism:

The view that the terms of our “folk psychology” can be exhaustively defined and explained in the terms of our best scientific theory — e.g., cognitive neuroscience.

Semantics/Meaning/intentionality:

The representational content or meaning of symbols or mental states — e.g., what a thought or mental state is about.

Syntax:

The formal or physical properties of symbols.

Sense data:

The direct objects of perception; mental images which by definition have the properties they appear to have. For example, the sense datum we experience from looking at the sun is yellow and round.

Sense data were postulated by theorists in an effort to explain why perspectival perception, visual illusions and hallucinations have the characters they appear to have. A sense datum is what you perceive when there is no corresponding real object that has the properties you experience.

Idealism:

The view that all the objects of thought or experience are mental phenomena or ideas.

Scientific realism:

The view that scientific knowledge is knowledge of real, mind-independent entities, whether observable or unobservable.

Anti-realism:

The view opposed to accepting the realist’s claim to know the existence and character of unobservable entities. Anti-realism encompasses many forms of opposition to realism, including those motivated by empiricist concerns that we cannot claim to know what lies beyond the scope of direct experience, and instrumentalism, the view that postulates concerning unobservable entities have heuristic value but no ultimate claim to represent the structure of reality as it is in itself independently of experience.

Instrumentalism:

The choice of scientific theory is determined by its predictive success and capacity to structure and render intelligible the data of observation irrespective of ultimate claims to be representing the nature of reality.

Induction:

In its most general form, induction is a process of drawing an inference based on observation of like cases, with no guarantee of certainty. Unlike deductive inferences which follow necessarily or are “entailed” by the premises, inductive inferences are “contingent” — they are only true with some or other degree of probability.

Inductive inferences may involve generalization from a sample to a claim about the population as a whole, or may involve deriving a conclusion about a particular case from general truths, or inferring from a statement about one or more particulars a conclusion about another particular.

Counterfactual conditional:

Statements of the form ‘If A were the case, B would be been the case’ or ‘If A had not been the case, B would not have been the case.’ Some philosophers use counterfactuals to analyse the truth-conditions for statements that assert a relationship of causal dependency between two events.

Cause:

We say that one thing or event, A, causes another, B, where A is somehow responsible for the existence of B.

Preemption:

Where one causal process is cut short by another that produces the same effect. For example, where the actions of either of two agents would be sufficient for producing an intended effect, but only one agent is operative and the second would only be initiated were the first to fail.

Underdetermination:

Where the data that constitutes all the available evidence for a scientific theory is consistent with two or more theories, which differ with respect to the unobservable entities they recognise, the choice of theory is underdetermined by the data.

Overdetermination:

Where two causal processes operate simultaneously and produce an effect for which each alone would have been sufficient, we say that the effect is overdetermined.