PHIL 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Factual Relativism, Simulated Reality, Mad Scientist

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CHAPTER 6- KNOWLEDGE AND SKEPTICISM
The traditional analysis of knowledge
Knowledge requires:
o Belief (you can't know p, unless you know p)
Skepticism. The simulation argument
We cannot attain knowledge; many or all of our beliefs are false or unfound
Skepticism as a philosophical doctrine = knowledge is unattainable; many or all
of our beliefs are either false or unfounded.
Skepticism as a philosophical method = a method of obtaining knowledge
through systematic doubt (Descartes)
Cognitive relativism
= truth about something depends on what person (or cultures) believe
“Everyone has their own truth”
Rationalism
= main tool for acquire knowledge of reality is reason
Sense experience is not reliable source of knowledge (it varies too much from
person to person)
o The only way to avoid skepticism is to appeal to reason as a source of
knowledge
The brain in a vat argument
Experience in which a mad scientist removes your brain and puts it in a vat, and
then he properly connects it to a computer that feeds you the appropriate
electrical impulses that you interpret as reality
o You believe ur walking outside in the sun, when you are a brain in a vat,
having the experience/ hallucination that you're walking outside the sun
o If you were a brain in a vat wired to a computer would you be having the
exact same experiences as now.
Argument: if a brain thinks “i'm standing in front of a tree” then its false since its
not standing and its not in front of a tree, (brain stimulation fed by computer =
tree)
Rationalism. Plato’s cave. Plato’s theory of knowledge
Rationalism = main tool for acquire knowledge of reality is reason
Rationalism. Descartes
I think therefore I am I doubt and think therefore I exist
Empiricism. Locke, Berkeley, Hume
Berkeley: believes we can acquire knowledge, and that the only path to it is
through EXPERIENCE
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