Epistemology

Epistemology

Sceptcism:
Why Philosophers have raised doubts about the success of
both R + E in Understanding the World:
Ratonalism:
Descartes (illustrated under following heading)
Strengths Weaknesses
 Certainty – we can ‘k’ the Cogito  Limits how much we can ‘k’ as we cannot ‘k’
anything from xp
 Hume
 Problem of Language

Success of ratooaalss ls alslted because of the alslted koowaedge we cao have uoder Descartes
ratooaalss whlch seess locosaatbae wlth the worad

Empiricism:
Strengths Weaknesses
 More liberal account of ‘k’ (we can ‘k’ more  Sceptcism (Descartes)
bc empirical ‘k’ is ‘k’)
 Rejecton of innateness  Kant: empiricism alone cannot create
structure (need the mind)
 Simpler theory than innateism (Aristotle  Problem of Inducton (due to Maters of
critque of Plato) Fact)
 Hume’s colour-blue counter-example (from
his Copy Principle)
The success of esalrlclss ls alslted because of the weakoesses that derlve fros Huse’s esalrlclss

Hume:
 Copy Principle  all ‘k’ has to have a corresponding impression  so we doubt the self, the
external world and the concept of cause+efect
 Colour Blue Counterexample  undermines noton that ‘k’ comes from xp  undermines the
Copy Principle
 Fork  MoF + RoI
 MoF  founded on C + E  Problem of inducton  to defend it you argue inductvely so MoF
not a reliable source of ‘k’

The Role of Philosophical Doubt:
Descartes:
3 Sceptcal Arguments: