“Theories of Knowledge”
PHL. 202 Notes: 5/17/02
Prof. Borrowdale

*Announcments:
-2nd Exam,
Start: Mon. May 20- After 2pm
End: Tues. May 28-By 5 pm
(NOT Monday the 27th, Memorial Day)

*For Monday, Read chapter 8

I. Coherentism-(Continued from 5/15/02)

1. Benefits
-Shortcut
-Use of other (hopefully), justified beliefs to analyze future ones.
-You can’t start at square one with each new belief- you have to relay on some prior beliefs.

2. Problems
-Dogmatism
-Fixity of beliefs
Stereotypical thinking
-Prejudice
-Not rational-driven by emotional needs
*Instructor: Gets to the heart of Episimology; Are our beliefs due to reality, or what we perceive reality to be, based on the way we were raised to be.
-May allow non-rational associations-bad experiences, emotional scars to color judgment
-Consistency is a necessary, but Not sufficient condition for truth.

II. Review

1. Perception (theories of)

-Direct/Naive Realism- common sense idea
-We perceive the world pretty much as it is.
-Pre philosophical view
2. Objection
-Physics-
-We really just see an idea of a table, not whats actually there.
-Light takes time to reach eyes, so not seeing things as they are(now)
-Conflicts with physics
-Only perceive narrow range of data
-Doesn’t really work-

3. Representationalism- Locke view: Idea caused by object, but is represented through our perception of data of what object is (brain).

4. Phenominalism

-We only have access to sense data- Words in ordinary language refer to sense data, Not an external world.
-“Objects”/ Things are perminate possibilities of sensation.