Can you know something which isn’t true, or which is only accidentally, coincidentally or fortuitously true? What are the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for an epistemic subject to really know something? The second module illustrates the role that thought experiments play in Socratic dialogues and conceptual analysis, by putting examples of and counterexamples to competing analyses of knowledge under close scrutiny. The focus is on the Gettier problem, i.e., the problem that justified true belief doesn’t seem sufficient of knowledge, and four attempts to tackle that problem.

What is real? Although most of our abductive thought experiments end up interpreting our sensory experiences in terms of an external, material world, there is a persistent tendency among radical empiricists to refuse to make any speculations about what could lie beyond experience and is explanatory of it. In this module, we’ll distinguish between different sceptical worries, suggesting that a motive for such scepticism about the external world, may be to avoid skepticism about knowledge. Moreover, we’ll consider some more recent attempts to solve sceptical paradoxes by appealing to “contexts”.

According to Descartes, mind and body are not like love and marriage, because you can have one without the other, However, whoever distinguishes between mind and body, has to explain why they seem to interact. After putting some early modern dualist solutions to the interaction problem under scrutiny, this module discusses four contemporary materialist solutions to the mind-body problem. One of the recurring problems for materialism are the qualitative aspects of our experiences, or qualia for short. A radical solution to that problem, is to simply eliminate qualia altogether.

We tend to explain events in terms of prior, external causes. However, if our actions are completely determined by prior, external causes as well, we face the problem that our actions do not seem up to us, so that we cannot be morally responsible for them. Firstly, this module analyzes the consequence argument for the view that causal determinism is incompatible with both free will and moral responsibility. Subsequently, some compatibilist alternatives are considered that aim to somehow reconcile causal determinism with either or both free will and moral responsibility.

Persons cannot be morally responsible for actions of other persons. So diachronic personal identity is a prerequisite of moral responsibility: there should be a fact of the matter whether a person is identical to the person who has performed some praiseworthy or blameworthy action in the past. To solve the problem that invoking personal memories as a criterion of personal identity seems circular, some philosophers have developed and defended psychological continuity theories, which require the possibility of quasi-memories: memories that are either personal or real memories of another person.

What makes an action right? Is it one’s good intention prior to the action? Or rather the good consequence that follows from the action? Or still, the fact that one has simply fulfilled one’s duty? Firstly, this module considers several competing views in normative ethics and finds that they are all easily susceptible to imaginary counterexamples. Subsequently, the open question argument is interpreted as explaining or predicting this predicament: conceptually competent persons will always be able to conceive of imaginary cases that function as counterexamples to purported analyses of good.

What is the ideal state? According to Popper, it’s impossible and dangerous to try to answer that question, because it results in closed societies and revolutions. However, in line with the tradition of social contract theories, this module rephrases the question of the ideal state in terms of the question of the ideal social contract. What kind of leadership or government is best suited to enforce the social contract? And should the state aim for distributive justice, or should the minimal state rather be restricted to protecting life and property?