Part I: Our Knowledge of the External World
Chapter 5: Knowledge
1. Describe the main features of Plato’s distinction between knowledge
and opinion. Can his account of this distinction be upheld?
2. What are the essential differences between causal and purposive
explanations? Do they both just reduce the unfamiliar to the familiar?
3. Is Roger Scruton right when he argues, ‘if it is ever true that someone
knows anything, it does not follow that he also knows that he knows.’?
4. Why is it odd to say that you know something, but you don’t believe it?
5. What does it mean to say that truth is a necessary, but not a sufficient,
condition of knowledge?
6. ‘A belief is true when it depicts things as they are; when its account of
the world is accurate.’ Discuss the implications of this and the problem of
how we are to know when we have portrayed the world accurately.
7. Explain the claim that for a true belief to be knowledge we must justify
it by giving reasons that convince others. What particular problems are
raised in deciding what are or are not convincing reasons?
Chapter 6: Truth
1. Is there a satisfactory theory of truth?
2. Does a priori knowledge have to be trivial?
3. ‘Propositions are either certain and uninformative or informative and
not certain. Metaphysical knowledge which claims to be both certain and
informative is therefore in principle not possible.’ (Berlin). Explain and
discuss the significance of Berlin’s statement.
4. Is truth merely a reflection of the strength of our convictions?
5. To what extent can I argue that if a belief is useful we are more likely
to believe that it is true?
6. Can we usefully dispense with the notion of truth as Rorty insists?
7. Explain how Kant sets the boundaries to valid thought? Why is it that
any attempt to go beyond these results in antinomies or paradoxes?
8. Distinguish between ontological and epistemic theories of truth. What
are the strengths and weaknesses of both?
9. Explain what Tarski meant by a ‘metalanguage’ and how this helps to
solve the self-referential problem of the correspondence theory.
Chapter 7: Scepticism
1. How can you tell that you are not at this moment dreaming?
2. Is it sensible to suppose that we might be mistaken about absolutely
everything?
3. Is it true that if our dreams were as continuous and coherent as our
experiences of waking life the distinction between dreaming and waking
life would disappear?
4. How would you set about convincing a sceptic that there are such
things as cows?
5. Does our experience of illusions throw doubt upon our knowledge of
the external world?
6. How can you be sure that you are not dreaming you are reading this
question?
7. Explain Descartes’ use of God in his search for certainty. What
objections do you think can be raised against Descartes’ use of God in this
way?
8. Explain Donald Davidson’s argument that we must have a lot of true
beliefs about things before we can have false ones. Do you believe this is
true?
9. ‘I do not observe that any other thing belongs necessarily to my nature
or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my
essence consists in this alone, that I am a thinking thing, or a substance
whose whole essence or nature consists in thinking.’ (Meditation VI).
Give an account of Descartes’ reasons for arguing that he is nothing more
than a thinking thing. How convincing is this argument?
10. Descartes concludes from his ‘cogito’ argument that he has
indubitable knowledge of his own existence. Describe the argument and
critically examine the conclusions he draws from this.
Chapter 8: Perception: Rationalism and Empiricism
1. Outline the arguments for and against the thesis that some of our
knowledge is innate.
2. Do you agree with the empiricists that mathematical truths are no
different from other truths in that they are just very well confirmed
empirical generalizations?
3. Describe Plato’s story of the prisoners in the cave and assess the
significance of it as an answer to how we are to distinguish between
appearance and reality.
4. Explain and discuss the three central tenets if Descartes’ rationalism.
5. Outline Descartes’ discussion of the reliability of sense experience and
mathematical reasoning. How successfully does he reconcile his
conclusion with the conception of God?
6. In what ways do you think Locke’s ideas have influenced the
development of science?
Chapter 9: Perception: Idealism and Phenomenalism
1. Most people would say that tables continue to exist when not perceived
but that toothaches and feelings of envy don’t. Discuss why this should be
so and do you agree?
2. ‘Since we cannot prove that there is a material world, we do not know
that there is one.’ Discuss.
3. ‘Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry
and illusion.’
a) According to Hume what is it that should be committed to the flames?
b) Why should it contain only ‘sophistry and illusion’?
c) Do you agree with him?
4. Explain the difference between Hume’s ‘relations of ideas’ and ‘matters
of fact’. How important is this to Hume’s account?
5. Explain the key assumptions of empiricism? What are the
consequences for the nature of knowledge and the role of the individual
as the knower?
Chapter 10: Explanations: Purposive and Casual Explanations
1. What reasons do we have for believing that the future will resemble the
past?
2. ‘We can observe a constant conjunction between events of particular
kinds, but we can never observe a cause; hence there are no real causes.’
Discuss.
3. ‘Induction cannot be justified, but this does not matter since we have
no alternative to using inductive argument.’ Discuss.
4. What is the relation between explanation and prediction?
5. What does it mean to say of a certain kind of event that it causes
another kind of event to take place?
6. Is it reasonable to assume the sun will rise tomorrow?
7. How would you respond to someone who argues that as all inductive
arguments have worked so far the next will as well?
8. How would you distinguish between causal sequences and
coincidences?
9. Critically examine Hume’s analysis of the notion of causation.
Chapter 11: Explanations: Confirming and Falsifying Theories
1. Is it fruitless to attempt to confirm scientific explanations?
2. In some cultures people believe in magic and rituals, while we believe
in science. Is there no neutral standard by which we can show that our
belief is more reasonable than theirs?
3. Is it rational to prefer a simple explanation of a phenomenon to a more
complex one?
4. Analyse and discuss the claim that science is based on observation and
experiment.
5. Are we right in arguing that scientific knowledge can never be certain
knowledge?
6. If scientific theories cannot be observed to be true, what purpose do
they have?
7. If a theory is falsifiable does it follow that it is scientific?
Chapter 12: Religion
1. Is it rational to believe in events that appear to contravene the laws of
nature?
2. Some people argue that mystical experience gives us knowledge of an
objective reality not detectable by ordinary experience. How reasonable is
this claim?
3. Could God make a cup of coffee too large for Him to drink?
4. Could there have been nothing?
5. Does it make sense to believe that anything can exist which is not in
space and time?
6. ‘The concept of God is the concept of the most perfect being. But the
concept of the most perfect being must include existence; otherwise it
would not be the most perfect being, just as something could not be a
triangle without having three angles. Therefore as we have the concept of
God as the most perfect being, God must exist.’ Critically examine this
argument.
7. If all motion and change ceased, would time continue to pass?
8. Does religious experience provide adequate grounds for a belief in
God?
9. Have Kant and Russell successfully disposed of the ontological
argument?
10. What problems do we face in trying to prove that a given event was
miraculous?
11. Examine the argument that since every event has a cause, no event
could be the first cause, so the universe must always have existed.
Chapter 13: Reason and Faith
1. Does the progress of the natural sciences render belief in God
redundant?
2. ‘If there is a God, and I believe in him, I am rewarded, whereas if I
don’t I will be punished. If there is no God, then it doesn’t much matter
what I believe. So I can win and can’t lose if I believe in him, which
makes it reasonable to do so.’ Discuss.
3. ‘If God does not exist everything is permissible.’ (Dostoevsky). What
are the implications of this argument for the relationship between God
and morality? Do you think the question of whether God exists should
make any difference to morality?
4. Is it possible to believe in the existence of God, yet still not have
religious faith?
5. ‘An atheist may actually be moral, but she could have no reason to be.’
Is this right?
6. Explain the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity in
Kierkegaard’s account. Why does he believe this distinction is so
important?
7. Explain Tillich’s argument that faith is ‘the state of being ultimately
concerned’. How convincing is this definition?
8. What is the ‘Euthyphro problem’? Discuss the problems this raises with
the relationship between God and morality.
9. Explain what Marx meant when he argued that ‘Religion is the sigh of
the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of
soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.’ Do you think he was
right?
10. Describe and discuss Nietzsche’s view that the moral values bound up
with religion are the values of slave morality. Is he right to argue that
these values are life-denying, condemning the strong and turning
weakness into a virtue?
11. Explain Freud’s account of religion. How much does this account have
in common with Marx’s?