BSc: Philosophy II

Philosophy 2: Knowledge and Perception

• Course name: Philosophy 2: Knowledge and Perception
• Course number: n/a
• Subject area: n/a

Course characteristics

This course is an introduction to philosophy. It presents an historical overview of the main philosophical traditions that have informed and characterized the development of human thought.

Key concepts of the class

• Rationalism
• Empiricism
• Deductive Reasoning
• Inductive Reasoning
• Empirical Science
• Applications of the Rationalism vs Empiricism debate in Modern Science
• Scientific Methodology

What is the purpose of this course?

The main goal of the course is to give students a historical overview of the two main philosophical traditions (rationalism based on deductivism and empiricism based on inductivism) that fought one against the other in the history of human thought. A secondary goal of the course is to provide students with an informed understanding of the principles underlying the scientific method as well as a grasp of the concept of empirical science. A third goal of the course is to offer students a general awareness of how the battle between rationalism and empiricism has unfolded in our century beyond philosophy, in psychology and neuroscience.

What should a student remember at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to remember:

• the basics of Plato’s epistemology
• the basics of Aristotle’s epistemology
• the basic tenets of rationalism
• the basic tenets of empiricism
• the Kantian synthesis
• the difference between deduction and induction
• the idea of empirical science
• the principles of the scientific method

What should a student be able to understand at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to understand:

• what is epistemology and why it is important
• the difference between internalist and externalist accounts of cognition
• how science progresses
• how philosophy influences science

What should a student be able to apply at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to apply the content of this course in all areas of their academic study but also in their working and daily life, with special reference to the following disciplines:

• computer science
• engineering
• robotics

Course evaluation

Course grade breakdown

		Proposed points
Final Exam (Oral)	30 or 15	30 or 15
Video Presentations	30	30
Participation/Attendance	40	40

If necessary, please indicate freely your course’s features in terms of students’ performance assessment.

Final Exam (Oral 15% of final grade; or 30%, see below):

Up to 15 credits will be awarded for the final if students take half of the course. This final will cover the first 7 weeks of the course only [empiricism included] (6 weeks effectively as there is nothing to study on week 1). It will consist of a standard 10/20 minutes online interrogation with 2,3,4 questions maximum, which will take place after week 15 (exact date of examination to be decided centrally by the University, you will be informed about this as soon as we know it).

OPTIONAL: -up to 30 credits and an official letter praising your work will be awarded by us (provided sound performance at the interrogation) if you decide to take the final on the whole course, which is optional. A form for registering for the final on the whole course, which to repeat it again is optional, will be send out in due time by the instructors.

Note: Sitting the final exam, in accordance to university regulations, is a requirement to pass the course, regardless of your previous marks.

Video Presentations (30 % percent of the final grade):

Video Presentations are to be done in self organized groups, with a max duration of 5 minutes (300 seconds). Groups should be proposed to the instructor by week 5 of the course; the instructor will then review them and finalize them by week 7. Notice, that even this is a group work, the contribution of each member of the group should be crystal clear and any attempt of skipping this component of the exam will trigger a D in the course. Video presentations can be done on any topics of the course. Video presentations will be assessed jointly by the two professors involved in this course as follows and based on: a. Technical Competency (15 marks): how nice the video looks and how well is done from a technical side (audio, sound, pictures, script etc); Philosophical Soundness (15 marks): how well the students answered the question they choose from a philosophical perspective, how much dialectics the video contains etc

Participation/Attendance: (40% percent of the Final Mark)

Up to 40 marks for participation, attendance, and weekly reports. Note: out of these 40 credits, there will be 20 credits (specifically allocated for participation and interaction during seminars and lectures). This will be determined subjectively by the instructors based on their impression of students' individual performance. The rest of these marks (20 credits left) will be assigned by the instructors based on the overall quality of the reports submitted at the end of each class. Reports though are not marked, they only serve to inform the instructor about students understanding of the topics discussed.

Overall score: 100 points (100%).

Grades range

Course grading range

		Proposed range
A. Excellent	85-100	85-100
B. Good	75-84	75-84
C. Satisfactory	60-75	60-75
D. Poor	0-59	0-59

Resources and reference material

Textbook:

• Nagel, J. (2014). Knowledge: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
• Pritchard, D. (2018). What is this thing called knowledge?. London, UK: Routledge.
• Ladyman, James. Understanding philosophy of science. Psychology Press, 2002
• Barnes, J. (2000). Aristotle: A very short introduction (Vol. 32). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Electronic copies of these books are available on Moodle for download. There will also be weekly readings (optional), which the students may choose to read before or after the weekly lecture in order to better understand the course’s contents and be better prepared for the labs. Note: sometimes the lecturer will organize kahoots to rehearse some of the course’s contents in class, before or after the lecture.

Course Sections

The main sections of the course and approximate hour distribution between them is as follows:

Course Sections

Section	Section Title	Lecture Hours	Seminars (labs)	Self-study	Knowledge evaluation
1	Basic Concepts and Ideas	2	2	8	2
2	Reasons versus the Senses in the Development of the Scientific Method	5	5	12	1
3	Internalism versus Externalism in Psychology and Neuroscience	5	5	12	2
4	Synthesis	2	2	8	1

Section title:

Basic Concepts and Ideas

Topics covered in this section:

• Plato's Theory of Knowledge
• Doctrine of Recollection
• Allegory of the Cave
• Metaphor of the Divided Line
• Aristotle's Theory of Knowledge
• Difference between Logic and Rhetoric
• Kinds of Knowledge
• Essences and Categories

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

|a|c| & Yes/No
Development of individual parts of software product code & 0
Homework and group projects & 1
Midterm evaluation & 0
Testing (written or computer based) & 0
Reports & 1
Essays & 0
Oral polls & 1
Discussions & 1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. What is the Allegory of the Cave and why is it important?
2. Explain the difference between Innatism and Empiricism
3. What does the doctrine of recollection say?
4. Explain Aristotle’s theory of causation

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. Discuss in groups the major difference between Plato's and Aristotle's systems of knowledge
2. Describe the Metaphor of the Divided Line
3. Explain the differences between episteme, techne, and phronesis

Test questions for final assessment in this section

1. How do we acquire knowledge according to Plato?
2. What are the ways to discover Forms, according to Plato?
3. What is the ultimate source of knowledge in Plato's theory?
4. What are the elements of Plato's theory of knowledge?
5. How do we acquire knowledge according to Aristotle?
6. What is the ultimate source of knowledge for Aristotle?
7. What are the elements of Aristotle's theory of knowledge?

Section title:

Reasons versus the Senses in the Development of the Scientific Method

Topics covered in this section:

• Descartes' Philosophy and the Importance of his Synthesis Distribution
• The Mind/Body Problem
• Cogito Ergo Sum
• The Principles of Rationalism
• Deductive Reasoning
• The principles of Empiricism
• Evidence Based Knowledge
• Inductive Reasoning and the Role of Experience in Knowledge
• The Kantian Synthesis
• The Scientific Method

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

|a|c| & Yes/No
Development of individual parts of software product code & 0
Homework and group projects & 0
Midterm evaluation & 0
Testing (written or computer based) & 0
Reports & 1
Essays & 0
Oral polls & 0
Discussions & 1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. What do rationalism and empiricism have in common (if anything)? And how do they differ?
2. What are the main arguments against rationalism
3. What are the main arguments against empiricism?
4. What are the principles of the Scientific Method?
5. Why is Kantian epistemology so important?

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. Are you a rationalist or an empiricist?
2. Do you agree with Descartes’ cogito argument?
3. Do you believe the senses can get us to real knowledge?

Test questions for final assessment in this section

1. What is Rationalism?
2. What is Empiricism?
3. Why do you think Rationalism and Empiricism are so Important? Reflect on the role they played in the history of human thought
4. What is Deduction and what is Induction?
5. Describe and explain the Kantian synthesis

Section title:

Internalism versus Externalism in Psychology and Neuroscience

Topics covered in this section:

• Nativism
• Antinativism
• Internalism
• Computationalism
• Representationalism
• Externalism
• Embodied Cognition
• The Extended Mind Thesis

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

|a|c| & Yes/No
Development of individual parts of software product code & 1
Homework and group projects & 0
Midterm evaluation & 0
Testing (written or computer based) & 0
Reports & 1
Essays & 0
Oral polls & 1
Discussions & 1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. What is the difference between Internalism and Externalism?
2. Describe the basic principles underlying internalist theories of cognition
3. What are the basic principles underlying externalist theories of cognition?
4. What are the implication for the debate between Internalism and Externalism for modern science?

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. Critically discuss the claim that ‘cognition isn’t all in the head’. Do you agree/disagree with it? Provide a philosophical argument for your answer
2. What is cognition for embodied cognition theorists? Compare that notion with the notion of cognition defended by internalists
3. What are the methodological morals proposed by embodied cognition theorists and what vision of science does it seem to favour?

Test questions for final assessment in this section

1. Do you agree that the concept of embodiment is important for research conducted in science?
2. It has been argued that human cognition can extend across the skin and skull of an organism so as to encompass as proper constitutive parts body-environmental loop
3. How the Extended Mind Thesis relate to other embodied cognition theories?

Section title:

Synthesis

Topics covered in this section:

• Summary of the Topics covered in the course
• Role of Deduction in the history of thought and science
• Role of Induction in the history of thought and science
• Understanding the role of Empiricism and Rationalism in Science
• Problematising around the notion of cognition.
• Applying the concepts learned in the first section of the course to understand the problem of induction and how it affects the justification of scientific findings
• Understanding the concept of empirical science

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

|a|c| & Yes/No
Development of individual parts of software product code & 0
Homework and group projects & 1
Midterm evaluation & 0
Testing (written or computer based) & 0
Reports & 1
Essays & 0
Oral polls & 1
Discussions & 1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. Is cognition wholly internal?
2. What role, if any, do representations play in science?
3. What is computationalism and why has it been for the development of science?

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. What are the principles of the Scientific Method?
2. Internalism/Externalism: which of these positions do you think best account for the development and evolution of our minds and hence for the development of our best epistemic theory?
3. Should we give up computation?
4. Why one can argue that Aristotle is a precursor of Empiricism?

Test questions for final assessment in this section

1. Why one can claim that Plato is a precursor of Rationalism?
2. Explain why we can say that Descartes established modern philosophy
3. What is dualism and why is it important?
4. Why can we say that the Kantian synthesis allowed us to overcome dualism?