MA EXAMINATION IN EPISTEMOLOGY: STUDY QUESTIONS
Spring (MAY) 2009
1. There is considerable disagreement over whether it is important to solve the Gettier problem, and attention has shifted to the question of what the existence of the Gettier problem means for epistemology. What does the existence of the Gettier problem mean for epistemology, and what direction should epistemology take in the future as a consequence?
2.One of the central questions in modern epistemology is whether there are any incorrigible beliefs. Why has this question been so important? Should it continue to be? Explain your answer.
3.Does science show that we never directly perceive physical objects? What difference does it make whether it does or not?
4.“No naturalistic criterion for justified belief is possible, for given any naturalistic criterion, one could still ask whether we are justified in accepting beliefs that satisfy the criterion, and that question would not be trifling.” Discuss this argument as a sweeping reply to naturalized epistemology.
5.Philosophers from Arnauld and Locke on, if not before, have introduced the analytic-synthetic distinction to handle certain problems in epistemology. In recent times, however, Quine and others have argued that the distinction is not tenable and must be abandoned. What is at stake in abandoning the distinction?
6.Virtually everyone grants that any knowledge achieved in the sciences is provisional, always subject to revision by 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.
7.Some recent philosophers, most notably John McDowell, have argued that what we—competent speakers—experience is, even that it must be, always already ‘conceptualized’. Others have argued that it needn’t be, and that in fact it isn’t conceptualized until we judge or otherwise make up our mind about it. What is the most plausible understanding of the idea that what we experience is conceptualized? What is the strongest reason for thinking that experience is conceptualized, or even that it must be? What is the strongest reason for thinking that it isn’t conceptualized, or even that it couldn’t be? What is your view? Argue for it.
8.What is knowledge of logic knowledge of?
9.Words, and what they mean, are human products, and consequently they are sometimes not made as well as they should be. Consider the word ‘know’. Perhaps all that the skeptical scenarios, and other philosophical conundrums that have swirled around the topic of knowledge show is that the word ‘know’ has been designed badly, and that we should replace it with a better word. Discuss.
10.What is the distinction between internalism and externalism as regards justification and as characterized by Chisholm and taken up by such philosophers as Bonjour, Goldman, Fumerton, and Sosa? Is there any way to settling the dispute between internalists and externalists? Is there any way of reconciling these two points of view?
11.Is coherentism ultimately only a sophisticated form of circular reasoning?
12.Harman and Lewis describe knowledge—the ordinary concept of knowledge—as allowing that evidence brought to one’s attention can make one no longer know what one once knew. Is this compatible with how we ordinarily use the word ‘know’?