Chapter 21 Quiz: How Do I Know What's True?

Part A: Multiple Choice (10 questions)

Instructions: Choose the best answer for each question.

1. According to the classical "justified true belief" (JTB) account, which of the following is NOT required for knowledge?

a) The belief must be true
b) The belief must be consciously reflected upon
c) You must actually believe it
d) You must have justification for it

2. The Gettier problem demonstrates that:

a) Knowledge is impossible
b) Justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge
c) Beliefs can be true without being justified
d) The correspondence theory of truth is false

3. Descartes' "evil demon" thought experiment is designed to show:

a) That God does not exist
b) That sensory experience is the most reliable source of knowledge
c) That even our most confident beliefs could in principle be false
d) That mathematical knowledge is impossible

4. "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) is significant because it:

a) Proves the existence of God through pure reason
b) Identifies the one belief that cannot be doubted even by the most radical skepticism
c) Demonstrates that all knowledge requires sensory experience
d) Shows that consciousness is a reliable guide to external reality

5. Which of the following best describes David Hume's "fork"?

a) The distinction between primary and secondary qualities
b) The distinction between knowledge and belief
c) The division of all meaningful claims into relations of ideas and matters of fact
d) The division of all knowledge into empirical and rational components

6. John Locke's concept of "secondary qualities" refers to:

a) Properties that exist objectively in physical objects regardless of perception
b) Properties that exist only in the mind of the perceiver, not in objects themselves
c) Qualities that are less important than primary qualities for scientific study
d) Properties that can be known through reason rather than experience

7. William James's pragmatic theory of truth holds that:

a) Truth is determined by the majority opinion of a community
b) A belief is true if it corresponds to a mind-independent reality
c) Truth is whatever is useful or workable — what successfully guides action
d) Truth can only be established through scientific experiment

8. Sandra Harding's "strong objectivity" thesis claims that:

a) Science is already fully objective and needs no reform
b) Knowledge from marginalized standpoints can actually be more objective because it must account for multiple perspectives
c) Objectivity is impossible because all knowledge is socially constructed
d) The natural sciences are more objective than the social sciences

9. Miranda Fricker's concept of "testimonial injustice" refers to:

a) Legal systems that fail to give fair hearing to minority witnesses
b) The failure of a knower to take seriously their own experience
c) Someone receiving less epistemic credibility than they deserve because of their social identity
d) The inability to communicate one's experience due to lack of concepts

10. "Epistemic cowardice" as an epistemic vice refers to:

a) Being too willing to change one's mind under social pressure
b) Avoiding difficult epistemic questions in order to preserve comfort or avoid conflict
c) Refusing to trust any expert testimony
d) Over-estimating the reliability of one's own perceptions

Part B: Short Answer (5 questions)

Instructions: Answer each question in 3–5 complete sentences. Aim for accuracy and clarity, not length.

11. What is the "Gettier problem," and why is it philosophically significant? Construct your own brief Gettier case (a situation where someone has justified true belief but not knowledge) different from any examples in the textbook.

12. Explain Hume's skepticism about causation. Why does Hume think we cannot be rationally certain that causes produce effects? What does this skepticism mean for the practice of science?

13. Compare empiricism and rationalism as answers to the question "Where does knowledge come from?" Use one specific philosopher to represent each position, and identify one genuine insight and one genuine limitation of each approach.

14. What is "hermeneutical injustice" according to Miranda Fricker? Explain the concept using a concrete historical or contemporary example (you may use one from the chapter or develop your own). Why does Fricker regard this as a genuine epistemic harm, not just a social harm?

15. Choose ONE epistemic virtue from the following list and explain: (a) what it means, (b) how it differs from the corresponding epistemic vice, and (c) a concrete situation from everyday life where exercising this virtue would matter.

Choose one: intellectual humility, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, epistemic justice

Answer Key

Part A:

1. b — Being consciously reflected upon is not a condition of the JTB account; the three conditions are truth, belief, and justification.
2. b — Gettier showed that having all three JTB conditions is not sufficient for knowledge; there are cases of JTB that fail to constitute knowledge.
3. c — The evil demon is designed to challenge all our confident beliefs by positing a scenario in which they could all be systematically false.
4. b — The cogito identifies the one belief (that one exists as a thinking thing) that cannot be doubted even if everything else is doubted.
5. c — Hume's fork divides meaningful claims into relations of ideas (established by reason alone) and matters of fact (established by experience).
6. b — Secondary qualities like color and taste exist only in the perceiver's experience, not as objective properties of objects themselves.
7. c — James's pragmatism holds that true beliefs are those that work — that guide successful action and have practical cash value.
8. b — Strong objectivity claims that marginalized standpoints can yield more thorough objectivity because they must account for both dominant and non-dominant perspectives.
9. c — Testimonial injustice is specifically about receiving insufficient credibility because of one's social identity triggering biased responses from listeners.
10. b — Epistemic cowardice is the vice of deliberately avoiding hard questions or remaining deliberately vague to avoid discomfort or conflict.

Part B: Answers will vary. Evaluate based on: accuracy to the chapter's concepts, quality of reasoning, and (for Questions 11 and 15) the quality of the original example or application.