Study Questions for Chapter 5, "The Sources of Knowledge,"

Manuel Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text with Readings, 8th ed.

Instructor: Dr. Jan Garrett

This page was revised for the 8th edition on April 9, 2002.

Section 5.2

1. What is rationalism? (366) a priori knowledge? (366) Do all rationalists think that all knowledge is gained by reason alone? (367)

2. What was Rene Descartes vitally concerned with discovering? (370)

3. What did Descartes decide he could not doubt? (371)

4. How does Descartes think he comes to grasp the essence of the wax? (371-72) Does Descartes appeal to sense information in "proving" the existence of God? (372)

5. How does Plato think we know mathematical truths? (374-76)

Section 5.3

1. What is empiricism? A posteriori knowledge? (378)

2. To what does John Locke compare the mind (at birth)? Is Locke an empiricist? (379)

3. What was Locke asserting about physical objects in relation to our sense perceptions? (382)

4. What are primary qualities? (382) Secondary qualities? How do our ideas of these qualities relate to the things that produce these ideas? (382-83) The answer is not the same in both cases.

5. What is the main point of the "copy theory" held by Locke? What problems for the copy theory does Velasquez note? (370)

6. What predicament does Barry Stroud argue we are in? Why is this a difficulty for strict empiricism? (390-91)

Section 5.4

1. What is transcendental idealism? (393)

2. What did David Hume say about our sensations? (Hume was an empiricist who became a skeptic more or less like Barry Stroud.) (395)

3. What is Immanuel Kant's "remarkable insight"? (395)

4. What is the most important of the "twelve relationships"? (396)

5. What three things can we say "if Kant is right"? (396-97)

6. Explain the distinction between the noumenal world and the phenomenal world in Kant's philosophy? (397)

7. For Kant, is space a reality independent of mind? Is time? (397)

8. What fundamental assumption of (most) earlier philosophers does Kant reject? What does he hold instead? (398)

Section 5.5

1. What is inductionism? Inductive reasoning? (403) What three methods of induction does J. S. Mill cite? (403-404)

2. What is a major problem for inductionism? (404-405)

3. Why does simplicity get introduced? Is this an empirical criterion? (405-406)

4. Explain the hypothetical method. (406-407)

5. What contribution to scientific method does Velasquez say that reason makes? (407)

6. What, according to Karl Popper, really distinguishes science from pseudo-science? What is the "mark of science" in his view? (408)

7. What are the criteria of a good scientific theory, according to Thomas S. Kuhn? (412)