Deck 11: What Can We Know

Question 1

The word "epistemology" means "the science of knowing."

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Knowing how to use a computer would be an example of knowledge by acquaintance.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

According to the text, having a true belief is sufficient for having knowledge.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Plato believed that we acquired knowledge in a previous life.

Question 5

A posteriori knowledge is knowledge acquired independently of sense experience.

Question 6

Immanuel Kant thought it was possible to imagine a world without time, but impossible to imagine a world where fire was not hot.

Question 7

Kant claimed that we could not have knowledge of the world as it really is, for we could only know how it appears.

Question 8

According to empiricism, the mind arranges and stores materials that are first given to it in experience.

Question 9

The view that the mind is like a blank sheet of paper at birth is associated with the position of empiricism.

Question 10

John Locke defended the notion that the mind contains innate ideas.

Question 11

According to David Hume, if one has never had the experience of redness, he cannot have the idea of red.

Question 12

Hume said that since we have never experienced a gold mountain, we cannot have the thought of one.

Question 13

The claim that "I know that the sun will rise tomorrow" is an example of

A) knowledge by acquaintance.
B) competence knowledge.
C) propositional knowledge.
D) existential knowledge.

Question 14

Your knowledge of the town in which you grew up is

A) knowledge by acquaintance.
B) competence knowledge.
C) propositional knowledge.
D) existential knowledge.

Question 15

Which three philosophers are all rationalists?

A) Plato, John Locke, David Hume
B) Immanuel Kant, A. J. Ayer, Plato
C) Plato, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant
D) Gottfried Leibniz, John Locke, Immanuel Kant

Question 16

Another name for a posteriori knowledge is

A) innate ideas.
B) synthetic a priori knowledge.
C) truths of reason.
D) empirical knowledge.

Question 17

According to the text, 5 + 7 = 12 is an example of

A) a priori knowledge.
B) a posteriori knowledge.
C) knowledge by acquaintance.
D) an empirical belief.

Question 18

"Mary is now a mother" is an example of

A) an analytic statement.
B) a synthetic statement.
C) synthetic a priori knowledge.
D) an innate idea.

Question 19

According to Immanuel Kant, knowledge that begins with experience but does not completely arise from experience is called

A) analytic a priori knowledge.
B) synthetic a posteriori knowledge.
C) synthetic a priori knowledge.
D) analytic a posteriori knowledge.

Question 20

According to Kant's analysis, an example of analytic a priori knowledge would be

A) "nothing red is green."
B) "all copper conducts electricity."
C) "all bachelors are unmarried."
D) a and b

Question 21

According to Kant's analysis, an example of synthetic a priori knowledge would be

A) "nothing red is green."
B) "all copper conducts electricity."
C) God's existence.
D) a and c.

Question 22

According to the rationalist, the principle of noncontradiction is a synthetic a priori truth because

A) it is necessary for the very possibility of thought.
B) it is based on extensive experience.
C) the majority of people believe it.
D) it is true by definition.

Question 23

According to John Locke, our ideas of pain, pleasure, love, hate, thinking, and desiring fall under the category of

A) ideas of sensation.
B) ideas of reflection.
C) impressions.
D) brain states.

Question 24

David Hume would call experiencing the redness of an apple _______, while the memory of its color would be _______.

A) an optical event/a brain event
B) an impression/an idea
C) an idea of sensation/ an idea of reflection
D) reality/an appearance

Question 25

Locke and Hume would say the idea of a unicorn is

A) an impression.
B) a simple idea.
C) a complex idea.
D) an unthinkable idea.

Question 26

Locke and Hume would say that the idea of God is

A) impossible apart from divine revelation.
B) a simple idea.
C) constructed from ideas derived from experience.
D) unthinkable.

Question 27

Provide two examples each of knowledge by acquaintance, competence knowledge, and propositional knowledge. Discuss the differences between the three kinds of knowledge.

Question 28

Using examples, discuss the difference between analytic statements and synthetic statements.

Question 29

Using the notions of a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge, discuss the difference between rationalism and empiricism.

Question 30

What did John Locke mean when he said our minds at birth are like an empty slate? How does this reveal he was an empiricist?

Question 31

What did Immanuel Kant mean when he said "knowledge begins with experience, but it does not completely arise from experience"? How does this relate to his notion of synthetic a priori knowledge? Give some examples of what Kant thought were synthetic a priori truths.

Question 32

Discuss how a rationalist and an empiricist would differ in answering the following two questions: (1) How do we acquire ideas? (2) How is knowledge organized in the mind?