| Front | Back | | --- | --- | | What is the primary source of knowledge according to the empiricist tradition, and what is John Locke's classic metaphor for the mind at birth? | Sensory perception is the primary source. Locke's metaphor is the tabula rasa (blank slate), meaning the mind starts empty and all knowledge originates in experience. | | How does Immanuel Kant's view of perception differ from the traditional empiricist view? | Empiricism views perception as passive data reception. Kant argues the mind actively structures sensory input using innate cognitive categories (like space, time, and causation). | | How do David Hume and Immanuel Kant differ on how we acquire the concept of causation? |

Hume: We never perceive causation itself, only a regular sequence of events.
Kant: The mind supplies causation as an innate category to organize raw sensory experiences into an orderly world.

| | State René Descartes' primary objection to relying on perception as a source of knowledge. | The senses sometimes deceive us (such as through illusions or dreams), meaning perception lacks the certainty required to be a reliable foundation for knowledge. | | What is Edmund Husserl's concept of 'intentionality' in consciousness? | All consciousness is intentional, meaning every act of awareness is always directed towards an object (it is always 'consciousness of' something). | | What is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's view of perception, and how does it challenge traditional empiricism? | Perception is embodied (involving the whole body in a lived relationship with the environment), which challenges the empiricist view of perception as passive, fixed sensory channels. | | How does Merleau-Ponty's analogy of the blind person's cane illustrate embodied perception? | The cane becomes an extension of the body; the person does not perceive the cane pressing against their hand, but rather perceives the ground through the cane. | | How does Ernst Gombrich use the concept of 'schemata' to argue that perception is culturally conditioned? | What we perceive is shaped by mental frameworks (schemata) from our culture and training, meaning two people looking at the same scene can see different things. | | Give two examples from cognitive science that demonstrate perception is a constructive process rather than a transparent window onto reality. |

Change blindness: failing to notice major changes in a visual scene.
Inattentional blindness: failing to see visible objects when attention is directed elsewhere.

| | What is deductive reasoning, and what is its primary strength? | An inference where the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. Its strength is certainty: if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. | | What is the primary epistemic weakness of deductive reasoning? | It is non-ampliative, meaning the conclusion only unpacks what is already in the premises and cannot discover new empirical information. | | What is inductive reasoning, and why are its conclusions never certain? | Generalizing from particular observations to broader claims. It is ampliative (adds new information), making its conclusions probabilistic rather than certain. | | What is David Hume's 'problem of induction'? | Induction assumes the future will resemble the past, but this assumption cannot be justified without circularity (using induction to justify induction). | | How does Karl Popper's falsificationism resolve Hume's problem of induction? | Popper argues science does not use induction; it progresses deductively by making bold conjectures and attempting to falsify (refute) them with single counter-observations. | | What is David Hume's view on the relationship between reason and emotion? | 'Reason is the slave of the passions'; reason is merely an instrumental tool to achieve goals set by emotional desires. | | Compare the reductionist and anti-reductionist views on the justification of testimony. |

Reductionists (Hume): testimony is only justified if we have independent empirical evidence of the speaker's reliability.
Anti-reductionists (Reid): testimony is a basic source of knowledge; we are entitled to believe it unless we have reason to doubt.

| | What is Thomas Reid's 'principle of credulity'? | An innate human disposition to believe testimony by default, which Reid argues is a basic part of our cognitive makeup. | | What is 'shabda' in Nyaya philosophy, and how does it challenge Western epistemology? | It is testimony from a reliable source, recognized as a primary, valid pramana (means of knowledge). This challenges the Western tendency to treat testimony as secondary or derivative. | | What is Miranda Fricker's concept of 'testimonial injustice'? | Occurs when a speaker's credibility is unjustly deflated due to prejudice (such as bias based on gender, race, or class). | | In Nyaya philosophy, testimony from a reliable source is known as shabda (or aptavakya), which is classified as a valid pramana (means of knowledge). | In Nyaya philosophy, testimony from a reliable source is known as shabda (or aptavakya), which is classified as a valid pramana (means of knowledge). | | Thomas Reid defended anti-reductionism about testimony by proposing an innate principle of credulity, which makes us naturally disposed to believe others. | Thomas Reid defended anti-reductionism about testimony by proposing an innate principle of credulity, which makes us naturally disposed to believe others. | | To bypass the problem of induction, Karl Popper proposed falsificationism, arguing that scientific knowledge progresses through deductive refutation rather than inductive confirmation. | To bypass the problem of induction, Karl Popper proposed falsificationism, arguing that scientific knowledge progresses through deductive refutation rather than inductive confirmation. |

1. Being human6 subtopics

2. Aesthetics3 subtopics

3. Epistemology3 subtopics

4. Ethics3 subtopics

5. Philosophy of religion3 subtopics

6. Philosophy of science3 subtopics

7. Political philosophy3 subtopics

8. Social philosophy3 subtopics

9. HL extension: Philosophy and contemporary issues3 subtopics

10. Prescribed philosophical texts12 subtopics

IB Philosophy 3.1.3 Sources of Knowledge Flashcards