| The purpose of this lab is to have
you take an alternative look at subjective certainty or
confidence and it's potential role in epistemology. Many epistemologists, like Descartes, rely upon subjective
certainty or confidence in their conceptions of justification and/or knowledge. This lab asks
you to look at empirical studies on the relationship between one's
subjective sense of confidence in a belief and the objective likelihood of it
being true. The hope is that you can gain some empirical perspective
of the practice of defining knowledge in light of subjective certainty or
confidence.
You
will start by FIRST taking taking the "certainty quiz 1"
and "certainty quiz 2" on Beachboard. The
quizzes consist of your answering questions about
current and historical facts. You must complete each quiz
once you begin it, and you are limited to 25 and 10 minutes.
The instructions differ for each quiz, so please read them
carefully BEFORE you begin the quizzes.
After you have completed the quizzes, Beachboard
gives you the correct
answers. You will have to manually score the first certainty quiz using the answers provided by
Beachboard after
the quiz. Anytime the answer given falls outside the range
defined by your low and high guesses, the answer counts as a
surprise. You will need to enter the number of surprises
out of twenty when you complete the certainty lab later on
beachboard. For the second certainty quiz you need only
take your correct score out of 15. You will need both
numbers to complete the lab.
Once you have completed and graded your
certainty quizzes, the next step is to read the article in the
left-hand menu. Finally, you return to Beachboard and and
answer the lab questions. Have fun!!
|