Knowledge and Reality A

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Knowledge and Reality A

• Lecture One Introduction

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Todays Lecture

• General Course Information
• Coursepack
• What is a conceptual analysis?
• What is a counterexample?
• What is knowledge?

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Course Information

• Module convenor Nikk Effingham
• Office number 114
• Email N.Effingham_at_bham.ac.uk
• Office hours Monday 2-3 Thursdays 2-3.
• Web Resource www.nikkeffingham.com/teaching.html
  plus WebCT
• Your TA is either
• Naomi Thompson or
• Kirk Surgener
• Assessment is 50 by essay and 50 by exam.
• You must read the course document.

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Reading

• Youll need Pritchards What is This Thing Called
  Knowledge.
• Plus the coursepack.
• Plus other (downloadable) articles.

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Learning Methods

• You are committed to 100 hours on this module.
• 15 hours of lectures/seminars.
• 15 hours writing up notes for lectures/seminars.
• 6 hours per seminar preparing for them.
• Essay/Exam prep is 20 hours each.

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Seminar Preparation

• ALL students MUST prepare for their seminars.
• ALL students must come to the seminar with
  answers to the seminar questions.
• WRITTEN answers.
• One side of typed A4, or equivalent.
• You WILL be kicked out if you fail to do this, or
  bring some miserable excuse of yes and nos
  written next to the questions.
• You MUST bring the reading with you.

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Learning Skills

• This module is an introduction to epistemology
  the study of knowledge.
• However, what is less important is the
  information you will learn.
• Rather, it is the skills that an undergraduate
  arts student must acquire which are important.

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Learning Skills

• Well concentrate on skills by introducing a
  topic today and next week (Gettier on knowledge),
  and using that topic as an example throughout the
  first half of the course.
• So youll have a chance to see an example of how
  to research that topic, how to write an essay on
  it etc.
• Whilst the topic youll need to be researching
  and writing on comes in week 3.

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Learning Skills

• What kind of skills must you acquire?
• During this year you must
• Learn how to research undergraduate essays and
  exam answers.
• Learn how to discuss material critically, and
  debate the issues raised.
• Learn how to present your arguments (not your
  opinions!) clearly in the form of an essay/exam
  answer.
• If you learn these things, you have succeeded on
  this module.
• If you do not learn these things, you must if you
  want to progress through your degree successfully.

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Learning Skills

• Notice the emphasis on arguments not opinions.
• You do not earn marks for reciting what people
  have said.
• You do not earn marks for agreeing with them.
• You do not earn marks for stating your opinion on
  issues.
• We do not care about your opinion.
• A philosopher doesnt care about anyones opinion

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Learning Skills

• What a philosopher cares about are the reasons to
  accept that opinion, and whether they are good
  reasons or not.
• They care about the arguments that you one can
  give for a particular point.
• No position we study is obvious (if it were, why
  would we study it?) so every position is open to
  criticism.
• So philosophers also care about the
  counterarguments against such criticism.
• If you are to succeed, you must get used to
  offering arguments, acknowledging criticisms and
  giving counterarguments against such criticism.

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What is Epistemology?

• Epistemology is the study of knowledge.
• What do you know?
• How do you know it?
• What should you know?
• What cant you know?

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What is Epistemology?

• This course concentrates on how we know things.
• We start by looking at general problems with
  knowledge.
• What is knowledge? What is justification?
• The former will be used for example purposes.
• We will also spend some time looking,
  specifically, at writing and researching
  philosophy.
• The second half of the course then looks at
  specific areas of knowledge.
• How rational thinking can lead to paradox the
  problems of inductive knowledge whether we can
  we have a priori knowledge whether we can know
  anything at all.

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Conceptual Analysis

• For the next two weeks we will be looking to give
  a conceptual analysis of knowledge.
• What is conceptual analysis?
• It is, funnily enough, the analysing of concepts
  and what they involve.

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Conceptual Analysis

• For instance, we could analyse what it is to be a
  chair.
• Is it something you sit on?
• Well, thats not all there is to being a chair.
• Counterexample A horse.
• Perhaps it has to have been designed by someone?
• Counterexample The top of the Empire State
  Building.
• Perhaps it has to have been designed by someone
  with the intention for people to sit on it.
• Counterexample The bad carpenters table.

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Conceptual Analysis

• This could go on.
• At each point we are giving the conditions under
  which something would be a chair.
• We are asking what is necessary for it to be a
  chair, and what is sufficient for being a chair.
• Thus we end up with the necessary and sufficient
  conditions for an object satisfying a certain
  concept.
• Thats what a conceptual analysis is.

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Conceptual Analysis

• Heres another example.
• What is it for something to be alive?
• Go back to GCSE biology!
• The seven life processes
• Movement, Reproduction, Sensitivity, Nutrition,
  Excretion, Respiration, Growth.

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Conceptual Analysis

• But this is all wrong.
• These things arent necessary for life.
• Counterexample Paralysed individuals.
• Counterexample Vasectomies.

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Conceptual Analysis

• Nor are they sufficient.
• Consider televisions.
• They are sensitive to their surroundings (the
  remote control).
• They respire, excrete and need nutrition.
• They grow (mines grown a freeview box and an
  XBOX 360).
• TVs reproduce (there used to be few, now there
  are many, although they reproduce parasitically).
• They move (again, given the use of a parasitic
  host).

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Conceptual Analysis

• We can do this all day, for all kinds of
  concepts.
• Some are more interesting than others.
• Philosophers care little about analysing the
  concept of chair.
• But they care a lot about analysing concepts like
  what it is to be good, what it is to be just,
  what artworks are, what it is to be free
• And what it is to know something.

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Conceptual Analysis

• Notice how a conceptual analysis takes place.
• We suggest an analysis (something is chair if and
  only if you sit on it)
• Then provide counterexamples (the horse)
• Then we continue in this vein until we hit on
  something better.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So what about knowing things?
• There are different types of knowing.
• You might know how to swim, drive, or play Halo.
• You might know David Beckham, the Queen or Bill
  down the road.
• Or you might know that 224, or that the economy
  is in trouble or that the successor to Ghenghis
  Khan was Ogedei Khan.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• Its this last type that we are concerned with.
• This course does not deal with knowing people, or
  knowing certain skills.
• It deals with knowing that things are the case.
• This is called propositional knowledge.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So here is a list of propositions
• London is the capital of England.
• 224
• 2276
• The square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421
• You can see the Wall of China from space.
• Water goes down the plug hole anti-clockwise in
  one hemisphere and clockwise in the other.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So here is a list of propositions
• London is the capital of England.
• 224
• 2276
• The square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421
• You can see the Wall of China from space.
• Water goes down the plug hole anti-clockwise in
  one hemisphere and clockwise in the other.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So here is a list of propositions
• London is the capital of England.
• 224
• 2276
• The square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421
• You can see the Wall of China from space.
• Water goes down the plug hole anti-clockwise in
  one hemisphere and clockwise in the other.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So here is a list of propositions
• London is the capital of England.
• 224
• 2276
• The square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421
• You can see the Wall of China from space.
• Water goes down the plug hole anti-clockwise in
  one hemisphere and clockwise in the other.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So here is a list of propositions
• London is the capital of England.
• 224
• 2276
• The square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421
• You can see the Wall of China from space.
• Water goes down the plug hole anti-clockwise in
  one hemisphere and clockwise in the other.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• This last two examples are telling.
• To know something, it is not enough that it is
  true. You must believe it to be true.
• To know something, you must not only believe it
  to be true, it must be true.
• Thats the difference between knowing something
  and simply believing it.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• You know something if and only if (i) you believe
  it and (ii) its true.
• Time for some terminology.
• We can abbreviate if and only if as iff.
• This is very common in philosophy.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• You know something if and only if (i) you believe
  it and (ii) its true.
• But this isnt a correct conceptual analysis.
• There are counterexamples.
• Ill leave you for a minute to think of one.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• Imagine John McClane has a gut instinct that the
  suspect committed the crime.
• Imagine the suspect did commit the crime.
• Still, without evidence or proof, even though he
  believes something true John doesnt know it to
  be true.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• What John needs is justification that he knows
  it.
• If he saw a CCTV camera of the suspect committing
  the crime that would be justification.

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Conceptual Analysis of Knowledge

• So its not enough for you just to believe that
  the square root of 1,254,647,241 is 35,421 for
  you to know it.
• You have to be justified in that belief.
• For instance, by using a calculator or possessing
  excellent skills in mental arithmetic.
• Or taking my word

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The Tripartite Theory of Knowledge

• So we end up with the following analysis
• Agent S knows that p iff
• (i) p is true
• (ii) S believes that p is true.
• (iii) S is justified in believing that p is true.

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Next lecture

• Persuasive as this analysis is, it falls foul of
  famous counterexamples.
• Next lecture we will look at these Gettier
  countexamples.