MATSEC AM Philosophy flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Tripartite analysis of knowledge

The claim that knowledge is justified true belief: truth, belief, and justification are individually necessary and jointly sufficient. Gettier cases are the standard counterexample to sufficiency.

Gettier case

A scenario in which a subject has a justified true belief that is true only by luck, so the belief does not count as knowledge. It attacks the sufficiency of the tripartite conditions.

Foundationalism

The epistemological view that justified beliefs ultimately rest on basic beliefs that are justified without deriving support from other beliefs. Coherentism denies such stopping points exist.

Coherentism

The view that a belief is justified by its fitting coherently into a system of beliefs, with mutual support rather than a foundation. The standard objection is the isolation problem: a coherent fiction could qualify.

Reliabilism

A theory holding that a belief is justified when produced by a belief-forming process that reliably yields true beliefs, regardless of whether the subject can cite reasons for it.

Cartesian doubt

Descartes' method of withholding assent from any belief that can be doubted, including sensory beliefs and mathematics under the evil demon hypothesis, to find an indubitable foundation.

Cogito ergo sum

Descartes' claim that 'I think, therefore I am' survives hyperbolic doubt, since even a deceiving demon guarantees a thinking subject who exists while being deceived.

Problem of induction

Hume's argument that no non-circular justification can be given for inferring future regularities from past experience, because that inference itself presupposes the uniformity of nature.

Falsifiability

Popper's criterion that a genuinely scientific hypothesis must forbid some observable occurrence, making it testable and open to refutation. It replaces inductive confirmation as the demarcation line.

Substance dualism

The view that mind and body are two distinct kinds of substance, mental and physical. The interaction problem asks how a non-physical substance can causally affect the body.

Identity theory

The physicalist claim that mental states are identical with brain states, so pain just is a certain neural state. Multiple realisability across species is the standard objection.

Functionalism

The view that mental states are defined by their causal roles, relating inputs, outputs, and other states, so the same mental state can be realised in different physical substrates.

Knowledge argument

Jackson's Mary case: a scientist who knows all physical facts about colour vision but has never seen red learns something new on seeing it, which is argued to refute physicalism.

Philosophical zombie

A hypothetical being physically identical to a person but with no conscious experience. If conceivable, this is argued to show that consciousness is not entailed by the physical facts.

Personal identity

The question of what makes a person at one time the same person at another. Rival criteria include bodily continuity, memory or psychological continuity, and biological life.

Consequentialism

The family of theories evaluating actions solely by their consequences. Utilitarianism is the version that identifies the good consequences to be maximised with overall welfare.

Categorical imperative

Kant's unconditional moral law, formulated as acting only on maxims that could be willed as universal law and never treating humanity merely as a means.

Doctrine of the mean

Aristotle's account of virtue as a stable disposition lying between vices of excess and deficiency, determined relative to the agent and the particular situation rather than by a fixed rule.

Is-ought gap

Hume's point that purely descriptive premises cannot by themselves entail a normative conclusion; an evaluative premise must be supplied somewhere in the argument.

Naturalistic fallacy

Moore's charge that identifying 'good' with any natural property, such as pleasure, commits a mistake, since the open question argument shows the identification is never analytic.

Non-cognitivism

The metaethical view that moral statements do not express beliefs capable of truth or falsity but instead express attitudes, emotions, or prescriptions, as in emotivism and prescriptivism.

Error theory

Mackie's metaethical position that moral statements make truth-apt claims about objective values, but all such claims are false because no objective moral properties exist.

Veil of ignorance

Rawls' device for impartial choice: parties choose principles of justice without knowing their talents, social position, or conception of the good, so risk aversion favours fair principles.

Difference principle

Rawls' principle permitting social and economic inequalities only if they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society, subject to fair equality of opportunity.

Doctrine of double effect

The principle that an action with both good and bad foreseen effects may be permissible if the bad effect is unintended, not a means to the good, and proportionate.

Modus ponens

A valid argument form: if P then Q; P; therefore Q. The antecedent affirms the conditional and the consequent follows as the conclusion.

Modus tollens

A valid argument form: if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P. Denying the consequent yields denial of the antecedent, unlike the invalid fallacy of denying the antecedent.

Affirming the consequent

An invalid form: if P then Q; Q; therefore P. The consequent can be true for independent reasons, so the antecedent is not established.

Straw man fallacy

Misrepresenting an opponent's position in a weaker or distorted form, refuting that version, and concluding the original position is refuted. It attacks a claim nobody made.

Necessary and sufficient conditions

A is necessary for B when B implies A; A is sufficient for B when A implies B. Definitions in philosophy are usually tested for both directions with counterexamples.

Principle of charity

The interpretive rule of reconstructing an opponent's argument in its strongest, most plausible form before criticising it, so the critique targets the best version available.

Valid versus sound

An argument is valid when its conclusion cannot be false while its premises are true; it is sound when it is valid and its premises are in fact true.

Thought experiment method

Testing a philosophical principle by describing an imagined case and checking whether the principle's verdict matches considered judgement, then revising the principle or explaining away the intuition.