SSH 105 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Eminem, Agnosticism, Corporatism

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: David Hunter

Document Summary

We have learned that good reasons are both sufficient and acceptable. Chapter 4 is also about what it means to be acceptable. Sometimes our reasons to believe something come directly from a source of evidence: observation, measurement, and testimony are sources focused on in this chapter. We need to find if the source of evidence is acceptable, and most importantly reliable: a source of evidence is reliable when it provides accurate or truthful evidence more often than not. For example, flipping a coin to guess the weather is not as reliable as looking out the window. There are 3 main points to keep in mind when thinking about the reliability of evidence: the matter of degree. Some sources of evidence are more reliable than others. It is hard to imagine that a source is 100% reliable because there could always be a malfunction but there is a minimum level of reliability needed: another is optimal conditions.