Epistemology Day 1: Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge

Content: Method:
1. Reflection on beliefs about knowledge. 1. Think/Pair/Share exercise (35 mins)
2. Introduction to Descartes 2. Lecture on Descartes (15 mins)

Instructor’s Introduction: Today’s objective is to get students to reflect on their thoughts about
belief and knowledge and give a brief introduction to the reading for next time.

We’re purposely putting off an overview of the section until day 2. Taking the time to reflect on
what they believe first will help students engage more actively in the material. They also need
some background on Descartes to help them understand why he’s pursuing what he is.

Goals and Key Concepts:

1. Students should be able to express what they believe knowledge is.
2. Students should understand who Descartes was and his motivation for writing the
Meditations.
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1. Activity: What is Your Theory of Truth?

THINK/PAIR/SHARE:

THINK: (10 mins) Individual writing

1. Write down something you would say you believe to be true, but that you wouldn’t say you
know. Why aren’t you sure that it’s true?

2. Write down something you would say that you know to be true. Why do you feel comfortable
saying that it’s true?

3. What is the difference? What is it about (2) that makes it different from (1)?

PAIR: (10 mins) Discuss in pairs

1. Compare your answers to (3) above. Can you derive a rule that could be used as a ‘test’ of
truth?

SHARE: (15 mins) Pairs report back to the class.

Have each pair put their rule on the board. Note similarities and differences. Have someone
record the full list—it would be interesting to return to it later during this section of the course.

If possible (if you have time), categorize the rules according to the topics you’ll be exploring in
this section. For example, mark the ones that seem to be relativist, rationalist, empiricist, or
transcendentalist (if that actually happens). Don’t do this as declarations, but suggestions. Have
students report back when you get to that section as to whether they agree that that’s what they
meant. If you don’t have time, keep track of their responses and bring them back up when you
talk about that position. (It might be worth having them write their responses on newsprint or
flipcharts to help with this).

2. Introducing Descartes (15 mins)

Descartes (1596-1650). He was a contemporary of Galileo, and “the Galileo affair” had an effect
on him.

ASK THE STUDENTS: Who knows what happened to Galileo? (Someone usually does,
particularly if they’ve had physics.)

Galileo argued that Copernicus’ view that the Earth circled the sun was correct. At the time the
Church took the Bible literally when it said that God had placed the Earth at the center of the
universe and that its foundations could not be moved.1 Galileo was put on trial for heresy and
given the choice of death or recanting his beliefs. He recanted.
1
Cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/galileo/
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Now, it’s easy to want to dismiss the Church as putting its power and beliefs ahead of scientific
knowledge, but things are more complicated than that. Remember, the Church had two very
powerful things on its side aside from religious concerns. First, Ptolemy had worked out an
astronomy that explained astronomical evidence in support of the idea that the Earth was the
center of the universe. Second, common sense tells one that the Earth is not moving. Think
about it—when did you first hear that the Earth moves around the Sun? All of your experience
tells you otherwise. When you are outside, your eyes tell you that the Sun moves. Shadows
follow it. It doesn’t feel like you are moving.

Descartes was a scientist and mathematician (Cartesian plane in geometry? That was him!). He
was a prodigy, minor nobility, and educated by the Jesuit priests—the finest in education at the
time! In his late teens/early 20s, he started to believe his teachers weren’t really giving him
knowledge, but mere opinions. When he became aware of the Galileo affair, he became truly
concerned. He was familiar with Galileo’s arguments and agreed with them. His teachers were
telling him things, but now that he was pursuing knowledge on his own, he found that some of
what they taught him was false. He started to fear for all of his knowledge—how could he trust
any of what he was taught? How could he distinguish the true from the false?

This is what’s in his mind at the beginning of “Meditation One.” He is concerned about whether
he can know anything. So, what he does is to take the skeptical position seriously. What is the
strongest reason he can think of to support the idea that we can’t know anything. He’s invoking
the principle of charity here.2 He’s willing to grant the skeptical position all sorts of leeway.
He’s going to try to refute it in “Meditation Two,” but he wants to make sure that he’s not being
unfair. Think of a football game—the glory in victory is greatest when you beat your opponent
on a day when all of their best players are in the game. Similarly, a philosopher does best when
he can show that the opposing view is wrong, even when he’s granted it every break possible.

THE READING:
This is hard reading. Some students find that reading it out loud (or reading it as if you were
reading it out loud) helps them to understand it. We seem to automatically stress the words
correctly when we do this. Refer back to the “how to read philosophy” discussion from the
Methods section of the course. This is very likely going to be a piece that you have to read more
than once.

2
Recall the principle of charity from the Methods section—to interpret your opponents’ position in the strongest
manner possible.