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Midterm Exam

1. When you believe something and hold it to be true, how many of the traditional necessary conditions for

knowledge have been met?

2. According to Descartes, the evil-demon standard of justification entails Global Skepticism.—T or F?

3. One popular misconception about philosophy is that it does not make real progress like the hard sciences.

What would you say to someone who voiced such a misconception?

4. Another popular misconception about philosophy is that it is all just opinion. Why might someone think this

and what would you say in response?

5. Global Skeptics claim that no one knows anything. Some have said that this is self-refuting. But what is the

obvious response of a committed Global Skeptic going to be?

(a) Refutation is possible, but not self-refutation (since there is no self).

(b) Claiming that x is the case is obviously not the same as claiming that one knows that x is the case.

(c) Well, then there is just one thing I cannot know.

(d) Most epistemologists agree that Gettier cases undermine the JTB analysis of knowledge anyway.

(e) None of the above.

6. The defeasibility theory of knowledge holds that knowledge is undefeated justified true belief. The case of

the demented Mrs. Grabit purports to show, however,

(a) that the defeasibility account of knowledge is too narrow.

(b) that there are cases where defeated true belief counts as knowledge.

(c) that the defeasibility account of knowledge is too broad.

(d) a and b

(e) b and c

7. Imagine that your mother claims that your father has cancer on the basis of the fact that she heard 3 knocks

on the door and no one was there. If you think that the reason for her claim fails to support her claim, then that

is enough to be a local skeptic.—T or F?

8. Does the Gettier problem claim that the traditional account of knowledge is too broad (in the way that the

definition of “bachelor” as “unmarried person” is too broad)? Or does the Gettier problem claim that the

traditional account of knowledge is too narrow?

9. Perform a Moorean Shift on the following argument from ignorance.

1. I do not know that I am not a BIV.

2. If I do not know that I am not a BIV, then I do not know that I have hands.

Therefore, I do not know that I have hands.