Summary Limits of knowledge (PHILOSOPHY AQA A* ALEVEL NOTES)

LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE
- SCEPTICISM

, Notes:




NORMAL INCREDUILITY VS PHILOSOPHICAL SCEPTICISM
Normal incredulity = doubts about everyday truth claims within the framework of an
assumption about the reality of the external world, based on reasons drawn from the
external world e.g I am not sure that there really is God
- Context based
- Practical consequences
- Founded on good reasons and is specific

Philosophical scepticism = doubts about the existence of the external world
- Do not make sense in every day circumstances e.g. if you have just broken your arm
you wouldn’t think ‘do I really have an arm’
- Raising doubts about our normal justification for knowledge
o CLAIMS THAT THESE NROMAL JUSTIFICATIONS = INADEQUATE
 Not context based
 Not practical
 Not based on good reasons
 General and broad about how we know

Summary:
Philosophical scepticism is view that our usual justifications for claiming our beliefs
amount fo knowledge are inadequate = so we do not have in fact knowledge e.g. whether
there is a teapot floating between here and moon

Normal incredulity is our normal everyday doubts about whether some claim is true or not
e.g. no evidence of a teapot floating between here and the moon so it is not there

BRAIN IN A VAT ARGUMENT =
- Not walking talking human, just simply a brain in a vat
- Connected to my brain is a supercomputer and generates illusion of reality as I
experience it now
- Sensory experienced produced in brain by electrical signals from the supercomputer
o Living in a virtual reality
 Since I think that the reality, I experience = real one, I AM BEING
DECIEVED