Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: PHIL 3410H Epistemology: Unit 3: Foundations of Knowledge

Foundations of Knowledge & God

What is the ultimate justifying source of knowledge? Is the ultimate source of justification sensory experience, memory, reasoning, introspection, intuition?

Unit 3: Readings

Assignment

Descartes’ Meditation II (pp. 149-157)
Descartes’ Meditation III (pp. 157-171)
Descartes’ Meditation VI (pp. 185-191)

Descartes Meditations 1,2,3, 6
Descartes, René, Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane, and G. R. T. (George Robert Thomson) Ross. “Meditations: Excerpts.” In The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Cambridge : University Press, 1911; 1973. http://archive.org/details/isbn_052109416x.

Should we trust our senses or our intellects?

Impossible objects
In finding out what is true about the world, what should we trust? Should we trust what our senses tell us or what our intellects tell us? Look at this figure. It's called the Penrose triangle. Is what you're seeing possible? Could it really exist? Does your intellect tell you something different from what your senses tell you about this figure? Which one is right? Your senses or your intellect? Which answer would Descartes say is correct?

Unit 3: Slides

Foundations of Knowledge

PHIL 3410H Epistemology: Unit 3: Foundations of Knowledge

Foundations of Knowledge & God

Unit 3: Readings

Should we trust our senses or our intellects?

Unit 3: Slides

Unit 3: Online Lecture

Unit 3: Cogito Ergo Sum