Exam 5: The Search for Truth

According to Quine,if Bill points to a rabbit,Bill's gesture has an "inscrutable" reference.This means that

The statement "The cat is on the mat" is true no matter what conventions guide our use and interpretation of the words "cat," "is," "on" and "mat."

Today,the term science tends to be limited to those questions that can and must be answered by reference to experience and extrapolations from experience.

By tying rationality to the coherence of our knowledge and lives too closely,we run the risk of

Leibniz agrees with Locke that the senses are a sufficient source for all knowledge.

The idea that truth is what fits into the overall network of our experience and beliefs is

While statements such as "There is a coffee cup here on the table" and "There is gravity between any two masses" seem both to be based on experience; the second statement differs from the first because

Were Descartes to have accepted the coherence theory of truth he would have to have given up his quest for certain knowledge.

When Nietzsche said that "There is no truth," he was really arguing

Define relativism.

Rationalists and empiricists can both agree that

According to William James,the fact that theory was more useful or promising was irrelevant to its truth.

Epistemology means the theory of knowledge.

Necessary truths,such as "2 + 2 = 4," are

If the ontological argument is successful,then the statement "God exists" is contingently true.

What are the two main categories of true statements? Give one example of each.

If Foucault is correct,then any form of knowledge is biased because it represents the interests of those in power.

One problem with the correspondence theory of truth is that it assumes

Kant overcomes skepticism,rejecting the two world hypothesis,when he claims that

Descartes tried to doubt everything in order to