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Epistemology

3 dot points, in syllabus order. Each dot point has a focused answer, with exam-style questions and worked answers where available.

Is the foundation of knowledge sensory experience or pure reason?

Sources of knowledge: empiricism and rationalism

The two great theories of the source of knowledge in TASC Unit 1, contrasting the empiricism of Locke and Hume with the rationalism of Descartes and Plato, covering innate ideas, the senses and a priori reason.

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What is knowledge, and does the justified true belief account survive the Gettier problem?

Defining knowledge: Plato's justified true belief and the Gettier counterexamples

The tripartite analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, where it comes from in Plato, why Edmund Gettier's counterexamples threaten it, and how philosophers have tried to repair the account.

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Can we be certain of anything, or do Cartesian and Humean scepticism show the limits of knowledge?

The limits of knowledge: Cartesian doubt and Humean scepticism about induction

How Descartes uses radical doubt and the cogito to seek certainty, how Hume's problem of induction undermines our confidence in the future, and how philosophers respond to both forms of scepticism.

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