MA Examination in Epistemology – May 2008
Study Questions
1.
"The skeptic repudiates science because it is vulnerable to illusion on its own
showing; and my only criticism of the skeptic is that he is overreacting." What
objection to skepticism is Quine lodging when he criticizes skeptics for
overreacting? Explain whether this objection is, or is not, an adequate response to
skeptical challenges.
2.
We must depend on memory for much of our knowledge, yet memory is notoriously
sometimes unreliable. How do we know when memory is reliable? If your answer
is that we never know, then what is one to say about our knowledge, including our
knowledge of times in the past when our senses have deceived us?
3.
"We know some things non-inferentially or directly or immediately because it is
impossible that all our knowledge be based on inference." What support can be
given for this claim? Is it, in final analysis, tenable?
4.
C. D. Broad called the unsatisfactory state of Hume's problem of induction "the
scandal of western philosophy." What is Hume's problem? Why is (or isn't) its state
unsatisfactory?
5.
Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorems together entail that we have no effective
means of indicating which sentences in the first-order language of arithmetic, or any
extension of that language, are true. What does this say about our knowledge of
arithmetic and number theory? In particular, do we know what we are referring to
when we even so much as speak of “the sentences in the first-order language of
arithmetic that are true”?
6.
There is considerable disagreement over whether it is important to solve the Gettier
problem, and attention has shifted to the question what the existence of the Gettier
problem means for epistemology. What does the Gettier problem mean for
epistemology, and what direction should epistemology take in the future as a
consequence?
7.
Could our knowledge of our own mental states be a matter of inner perception or
inner scanning understood by analogy with external perception? Could such a view
possibly do justice to the kind of first-person authority we think we enjoy? If not, is
there any alternative?
8.
"We know that it must be possible to define material things in terms of
sense-contents, because it is only by the occurrence of certain sense-contents that the
existence of any material thing can ever be in the least degree verified." (Ayer,
Language, Truth and Logic) Explain and criticize.
9.
It seems, for any standard skeptical hypothesis (e.g. bain-in-a-vat, dreaming, virtual
reality) that we can imagine evidence that would count in favor of the truth of the
hypothesis. Could the lack of any actual evidence to this effect give us good reason
to suppose that the hypothesis is false? What, if any, response to Humean
skepticism about the external world can the line of thought indicated by this question
give us?
10.
Virtually everyone grants that any knowledge achieved in the sciences is
provisional, always subject to revision in future research. Nevertheless, some would
say that 'provisional knowledge' is a contradiction in terms, that a claim can be
knowledge only if the possibility of future information refuting it has been ruled out.
Is 'provisional knowledge' a contradiction in terms? If you think yes, explain not
only why, but where that leaves the supposed knowledge achieved in the sciences.
If you think not, explain not only why not, but also what criterion a claim has to
meet to be knowledge in place of the criterion of ruling out all possibility of future
refutation.
11.
Why has the argument from analogy drawn so much criticism as a response to other
minds? Is there a better alternative?
12.
Causal theories of knowledge are supposed to differentiate between those beliefs
that are knowledge and those that are not. Can such theories do so for mathematical
knowledge? Explore the ramifications of your answer.