The Problem of Knowledge and Skepticism:
 
 

Skeptic -- claim	Epistemist -- reply
Relativity of perception - we may be mistaken	Perceptual appearance is itself reflective of truth
Experiences can be dpulicated by deception, therefore it is logically possible that perceptual beliefs are false.	The fact that it is POSSIBLE does not mean that it is ACTUAL.
What about hallucinations?  How can you know you're not having one?	Even if there are actual hallucinations, it does not imply that all experiences are hallucinatory.
But you still can't know that they are NOT hallucinatory.	The testimony of others or experiential coherence shows that we are not hallucinating.  Even though everyone may be hallucinating, an individual can tell that his hallucinations don't cohere with other peceptions.
This is curcular - to ask for verification from others is to assume that there are others, and if you are hallucinating, you can't know that.  And who is to say that hallucinations can't cohere with each other?	This is arguing from possibility to actuality, which is a fallacy.
If an evil "braino" is possible, hallucinations may be hard or impossible to detect, and if we are only LUCKY if there is no evil operator, then what we believe is the result of luck, and it is not knowledge.	The notion that there is a perfect hallucination is senseless.  A person suffering from one wouldn't know i and couldn't know it, so what is the point?
It is not meaningless because it does assert something - if it does, it is either true or false and therefore is not meaningless.	But it is not probable - to believe something is the case because it is possible is absurd when we have evidence that reduces the probability dramatically.
The believer must know that perceptual beliefs based on the usual evidence are more likely true than false - and you can't do that - you have to know which ones are true, and that's the point in question.  p. 64 - "Either we know that certain perceptual beliefs are true beforew we know any are true, or we don't know any of them."	Externalism solves the problem - the real thing causes the perception.  I don't have to know this just so long as I get the true beliefs from the process.
This is question - begging -- you assume that there are reliable belief forming processes, which is exactly what is at issue.	The principle of charity supports externalism - it makes sense to say that externalism is true.
To say I ought to believe X when it corresponds to my beliefs is to say nothing new at all.	Well, then what about Internalism? - Like a cohernece theory - the connection between beliefs and evidence supports knowledge
The simple fact that a person is justified on internal standards does not mean he is justified for attaining knowledge.  The internal standard may itself be completely defective..	Our beliefs are innocent until proven guilty - they are justified until proven otherwise.
Now the epistemist is doing away with argumentation completely....	The argument to the best explanation should be used - there's a book (or whatever) in front of me - it is caused by some evil genius - that it is really there is the best explanation.
The best explanation is the one that is TRUE.  If Dr. O is causing the beliefs, then that IS the best explanation.  A true explanation is better than a false one.
We cannot require complete justification - the lottery paradox

A revised view:  Knowledge as undefeated justification.  All justification runs some risk of error.  Fallible justification is the basis for knowledge.  This is fallibilism and internalism combined with externalism - "undefeated fallible justification." (83)  We seek truth but realize that we may fail in that objective.
 

The Gettier Problem:

Conditions for knowledge:
    P is true.
    The knower believes that P is true.
    The knower is justified in believing that P is true.

Are these conditions enough to constitute knowledge?

    Gettier examples
 

Argumentation:
    Deductive - truth of the premises, combined with correct form of argumentation, guarantees the truth of the conclusion.
        Valid - form
            Sound - truth and validity
                Some forms of valid deductive argument:  MT, MP, DS, HS, Contraposition

    Inductive - truth of the premises does not guarantee truth of the conclusion - reaches, at best, high probability

Some Fallacious forms of reasoning:
    Petitio Principii
        Argumentum ad Hominem
                            ad Baculum
                            ad Vericundiam
                            ad Populum
                            ad Misericordiam
        Appeal to tradition
 

Possibility, Analyticity, and consistency
 
 

Hobbes on Ratiocination
    A mechanistic materialist - all bodies are either at rest or in motion.  Immutable physical laws.
        Resolutive-Compositive Method:
        Ratiocination consists of composition and resolution.
            Application to experience:  effects are presented directly to us in experience - they are more known because they come first in the order of our knowledge.  Causes are first in the order of things and are more known to nature.  If we are to know anything perfectly, we are to set up a system in which we control the causes, and thereby control the effects.  This is why we will never have complete knowledge of nature, but we can have complete and accurate knowledge of politics and ethics.
        Ratiocination is not the same as prudence - prudence is foresight provided by past experience.  But the future itself has no being - it is only a fiction of the mind.
            The sovereign is not only the sovereign of a political state, but also rightly the sovereign of language.  Our knowledge is given through words, and words "are wise men's counters, but  they are the money of fools."

        Reason is acquired, not inborn.  It is achieved by good method.  Without appropriate method, we fail to attain knowledge.
            Do not think, as the medievals did, that there is some development toward some overriding and fulfilling goal.  We are not to reason based on final causes of things.
 
 

Cartesian Method in the Discourse on the Method

    Resolutive-Compositive.  But even an exact science of nature is possible with the proper application of method.  The method, he says, is not applicable to the realm of ordinary life.  Live according to the laws and customs of one's time.  When it comes to knowledge of the self, God, and the world - it is there that the method comes into play, and it is there that we can have scientific knowledge.
    Method of Doubt - grounds for doubt in sense experience, dream argument, lunacy argument, evil genius.
            The first certainty - "I think, therefore I am."  What is the significance of this claim?
                The existence of God
                        Proof of the existence of a material, external world.'
 

Peirce on the Fixation of Belief:  On-line notes in syllabus.

James on Truth:
        The focus is on practicality, not some conception of truth as something existing independently.
            Peirce:  a clear concept must have practicla bearings on conduct.  This applies to the practice of an experimenter in achieving generalities.
                James modified this view:
                a.  Practical - distincly concrete, individual, particular and effective as opposed to the abstract, general, and inert.
                b.  Interpretation of practical consequences from a human perspective.  Practical = the particular import that a beliefhas in the life of the individual.
"The true is only the expedient in our way of thinking just as the right is only the expedient in our way of behaving."

    The notion of "truth" here is unclear.  Does it mean a) having predictions fulfilled or b) contributing to the energy, efficiency and survival of those who hold a belief?
    Is James' conception of truth adequate?  Consider this:  "It is true that other people exist."  Consider this:  "It is useful to think that other people exist."  Are these equivalent claims in James' way of thinking?
 

Karl Popper on "Utopia and Violence"
    Makes a distinction between ways of being a rationalist.  Utopian rationalism is critiqued.
            Utopian rationalism is self-defeating.  It is actually irrational.
                What are the limits to the "attitude of reasonableness"?  Why are these limitations?
                        Is Popper's own view utopian in its own right?  Is it just as inapplicable and self-defeating as the rationalism of the utopianist?