Chapter 1 Exercises: What Is Truth? Epistemological Foundations

Instructions: Work through these exercises in order. Exercises are rated by difficulty: - ⭐ Conceptual (foundational understanding) - ⭐⭐ Analytical (applying concepts) - ⭐⭐⭐ Applied / Research (synthesis and independent inquiry) - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Extended (original argument and deep research)

Part A: Conceptual Exercises ⭐–⭐⭐

Exercise 1.1 ⭐ Theories of Truth — Identification

Match each statement below with the theory of truth (correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, deflationary) it best exemplifies. Briefly explain your reasoning for each.

a) "The statement 'gold has atomic number 79' is true because it accurately describes a physical fact about the element gold."

b) "The belief that the sun rises in the east is true because it has guided sailors, farmers, and architects successfully for millennia."

c) "Calling a mathematical theorem 'true' just means accepting it; there's no further metaphysical fact about it 'corresponding' to anything."

d) "The claim 'Napoleon was exiled to Elba' is true because it fits consistently with everything else we know about Napoleonic history — the subsequent Hundred Days, Waterloo, St. Helena."

For each, identify any limitations of applying that theory to the statement given.

Exercise 1.2 ⭐ JTB Analysis

For each of the following scenarios, determine whether the person has a belief, a justified belief, a true belief, or knowledge (JTB). Explain which conditions are met and which are not.

a) Maya reads a reliable news report that the president of Brazil is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and forms the belief that he is the current president.

b) Carlos believes it is raining outside because he heard what he thought was rain on the roof. In fact, it was his neighbor running a sprinkler. But it is raining — just very lightly and inaudibly.

c) Priya believes she will pass her exam because "she has a good feeling about it." She passes.

d) A doctor believes a patient has appendicitis based on symptoms that are 90% predictive of appendicitis. The patient does have appendicitis.

Exercise 1.3 ⭐ Key Concept Definitions

Define the following terms in your own words (without looking them up), then compare your definitions to those in the Key Terms Glossary. Note any important differences.

a) Epistemology b) Epistemic humility c) Motivated reasoning d) Social epistemology e) Deflationary theory of truth

Exercise 1.4 ⭐⭐ Gettier Cases — Construction

Edmund Gettier showed that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge by constructing cases where truth and justification are connected only by luck.

Construct your own original Gettier case in a contemporary setting (e.g., involving social media, smartphones, digital news). Your case must satisfy all three conditions: 1. The belief is true. 2. The person is justified in holding the belief. 3. The belief falls short of knowledge because the justification is "disconnected" from what makes it true.

Explain precisely why your case is a Gettier case and not just an ordinary case of belief.

Exercise 1.5 ⭐ True/False with Explanation

For each claim, state whether it is true, false, or "it depends" (with conditions). Provide a 3–5 sentence explanation.

a) Epistemic humility means you should always doubt everything you believe.

b) The fact that scientists sometimes disagree means that science cannot give us reliable knowledge.

c) A belief can be false and still be epistemically rational to hold.

d) If a statement is internally consistent (coherent), that is strong evidence it is true.

e) Social epistemology holds that knowledge is purely a social construction with no objective basis.

Exercise 1.6 ⭐⭐ Relativism — Argument Analysis

A classmate argues: "Who's to say what's really true? Different cultures have different beliefs, and no culture's beliefs are more valid than another's. Science is just a Western way of knowing — Indigenous knowledge systems are equally valid."

a) What is strongest version of this argument? Steelman it: give it the most charitable interpretation possible.

b) What are the most serious philosophical problems with the argument?

c) How would you respond in a way that takes cultural diversity seriously while avoiding the self-defeating consequences of strong epistemic relativism?

Part B: Analytical Exercises ⭐⭐

Exercise 1.7 ⭐⭐ Analyzing a News Claim Through Epistemological Frameworks

Find a news article from the past week making a factual claim about a contested empirical topic (e.g., an economic trend, a public health finding, a political development).

Analyze the claim using three frameworks:

Correspondence theory: What facts would need to obtain in the world for this claim to be true? Is there evidence that those facts do obtain?
JTB analysis: If you came to believe this claim by reading the article, would your belief count as knowledge? Evaluate the justification: Is the source reliable? Are there multiple independent sources? Is the evidence provided adequate?
Social epistemology: Whose testimony is the article reporting? What is the epistemic standing of those testifiers? What institutions are involved in generating and transmitting this knowledge?

Exercise 1.8 ⭐⭐ Mapping Cognitive Biases to Epistemological Failures

For each cognitive bias listed below, explain: (i) What epistemological norm it violates (ii) How it contributes to the formation or maintenance of false beliefs (iii) One concrete example of the bias operating in a real-world misinformation context

Biases to analyze: a) Confirmation bias b) Availability heuristic c) Authority bias d) Illusory truth effect (repeated exposure to a claim increases its perceived truth) e) In-group favoritism in belief attribution

Exercise 1.9 ⭐⭐ Epistemic Humility in Practice — Self-Assessment

This exercise involves honest self-reflection about your own epistemic practices.

a) List five beliefs you hold with high confidence about a political, social, or scientific topic. For each, rate your actual confidence (0–100%) and the quality of your epistemic basis (how did you come to hold this belief? What evidence have you directly evaluated?).

b) For each belief, identify: What would it take to change your mind? Is this condition realistic?

c) Reflect: Are there beliefs where the "evidence needed to change your mind" is so extreme it would never occur in practice? What does this reveal about the epistemic basis of those beliefs?

d) How does this exercise relate to the concept of intellectual humility as a virtue?

Exercise 1.10 ⭐⭐ Testimony Evaluation Framework

Develop a systematic framework for evaluating testimonial claims. Your framework should include at least six criteria and should explain how each criterion contributes to epistemically justified trust in testimony.

Apply your framework to the following testimonial situations: a) A friend tells you a new restaurant is excellent. b) A pharmaceutical company reports that its new drug has no significant side effects. c) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its assessment of global warming. d) An anonymous social media account claims to have insider information about a government cover-up.

Exercise 1.11 ⭐⭐ Post-Truth Discourse Analysis

Research the concept of "manufactured doubt" as documented by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in Merchants of Doubt. Then find a contemporary example of manufactured doubt in public discourse (it need not be from the tobacco industry — candidates include climate policy, vaccine policy, dietary science).

a) Describe the manufactured doubt campaign, including who is behind it, what techniques are used, and what genuine scientific evidence it is working against.

b) Explain how this campaign exploits legitimate epistemic concepts (uncertainty, the value of debate, the limits of scientific knowledge) while violating epistemic norms.

c) What would epistemically responsible communication about genuine scientific uncertainty look like, in contrast to manufactured doubt?

Exercise 1.12 ⭐⭐ Virtue Epistemology — Character Assessment

Virtue epistemology identifies intellectual virtues (open-mindedness, intellectual courage, epistemic humility, thoroughness) and intellectual vices (closed-mindedness, epistemic cowardice, intellectual arrogance, intellectual sloth).

For a person you know (or a public figure you follow closely — a politician, journalist, podcaster), conduct an epistemic character assessment:

a) Identify two intellectual virtues this person demonstrates, with specific examples. b) Identify two intellectual vices, with specific examples. c) How do this person's intellectual character traits affect the reliability of the beliefs they arrive at and communicate? d) What would it look like for this person to improve their epistemic character?

Part C: Applied and Research Exercises ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

Exercise 1.13 ⭐⭐⭐ Misinformation Case Epistemological Analysis

Select a specific piece of misinformation that spread widely (historical or recent). Research it thoroughly using reliable sources. Then write a 600–900 word epistemological analysis covering:

a) What false belief was being propagated? What would correspondence to reality look like? b) Why did people find the false claim epistemically compelling? Which cognitive biases and epistemic failures contributed? c) What was the quality of justification people had for believing the false claim? d) How was trust in testimony exploited or corrupted? e) What would epistemically responsible behavior have looked like for someone encountering this misinformation?

Exercise 1.14 ⭐⭐⭐ Comparative Theory Application

The same claim can be evaluated differently depending on which theory of truth you apply.

Take the following claim: "The global average temperature has increased by approximately 1.1°C since pre-industrial times, primarily due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions."

Evaluate this claim from the perspective of each theory of truth: a) Correspondence theory: What facts does this claim purport to correspond to? What evidence supports or undermines that correspondence? b) Coherence theory: How does this claim fit with the broader system of scientific knowledge? Are there any coherence tensions? c) Pragmatic theory: In what sense has this claim "worked" as a guide to inquiry and action? What does its predictive success suggest about its truth? d) Deflationary theory: What does it add (or not add) to say this claim is "true" rather than just to assert it?

Write a concluding paragraph explaining which theory you find most useful for evaluating empirical scientific claims and why.

Exercise 1.15 ⭐⭐⭐ Research: Gettier and Post-Gettier Epistemology

Edmund Gettier's 1963 paper is one of the most influential short papers in the history of philosophy. Research the following questions and write a 500–700 word essay:

a) What was the received view of knowledge that Gettier was responding to? b) Summarize two of the major philosophical responses to Gettier (e.g., reliabilism, the "no false lemmas" condition, virtue epistemology). c) Is the Gettier problem merely an academic curiosity, or does it have practical implications for how we should think about knowledge and justification in everyday life? Defend your view with at least two examples.

Exercise 1.16 ⭐⭐⭐ Epistemic Injustice — Application

Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice identifies "testimonial injustice" (systematic credibility deficits based on social identity) and "hermeneutical injustice" (lack of interpretive resources to make sense of experience).

Research one of the following historical or contemporary cases through the lens of epistemic injustice:

Option A: The systematic dismissal of women's pain by medical professionals Option B: The long disregard of Indigenous ecological knowledge in environmental policymaking Option C: The treatment of Black Americans' testimony about police violence before body camera footage became common

For your chosen case: a) Identify the form of epistemic injustice at work (testimonial, hermeneutical, or both). b) Explain who suffers the injustice and how. c) Describe the epistemic and practical harms caused. d) What structural or institutional changes would address the injustice?

Exercise 1.17 ⭐⭐⭐ SIFT Method Field Application

Over the course of one week, apply the SIFT method to every piece of information you consider sharing on social media, forwarding by text, or acting on significantly.

Keep a log with the following for each item: - The claim or story - Your initial reaction (did you want to believe it? Why?) - What the Stop step revealed about your initial response - What Investigating the source revealed - What Finding better coverage revealed - What Tracing claims to origins revealed - Final verdict: share, don't share, or share with caveats?

Write a 400–600 word reflection on what this exercise revealed about your own epistemic habits.

Part D: Extended Research Projects ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Exercise 1.18 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Philosophy of Science and the Limits of Knowledge

Karl Popper argued that scientific knowledge advances through falsification rather than verification — we can never prove a theory true, but a single contrary observation can disprove it. Thomas Kuhn argued that science progresses through paradigm shifts that are partly sociological, not purely rational.

Write a 1,200–1,800 word essay addressing:

a) Explain Popper's falsificationism and its implications for the epistemological status of scientific claims. b) Explain Kuhn's concept of paradigm shifts and how it complicates the picture of science as purely rational inquiry. c) How do the Popper-Kuhn debate and its successors (Lakatos, Feyerabend) inform how we should communicate scientific uncertainty to the public? d) Apply your analysis to a specific contemporary case: the initial uncertainty about SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19 treatment in early 2020. Was the scientific community's evolving position evidence of a healthy epistemic process or an epistemic failure? Defend your view.

Exercise 1.19 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Social Media Epistemology — Original Research

Design and conduct a small-scale original research project (approx. 10–20 subjects) investigating one of the following:

Option A: How do people evaluate the credibility of news sources on social media? Do they apply systematic criteria or rely on heuristics? Do their stated criteria match their actual behavior?

Option B: How does the perceived source of a claim (scientist, politician, celebrity, anonymous account) affect how people evaluate the same factual claim? Design an experiment with matched claim pairs, varying only the attributed source.

Option C: How do people respond to corrections of factual misinformation? Does the method of correction (factual rebuttal, source information, alternative explanation) affect whether the correction is accepted?

Submit: a brief research design (150 words), your data (anonymized), analysis (300 words), and a reflection connecting your findings to epistemological concepts from this chapter (200 words).

Exercise 1.20 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Constructing an Epistemological Framework for Media Literacy

Drawing on everything you have learned in this chapter, develop a comprehensive epistemological framework for media literacy — a set of principles and practical procedures that a thoughtful citizen should apply when consuming and sharing information.

Your framework should: - Be grounded in at least three distinct epistemological concepts from this chapter - Address at least five specific types of misinformation challenges (e.g., deepfakes, out-of-context quotes, pseudoscientific claims, manufactured doubt, coordinated inauthentic behavior) - Include concrete decision procedures (not just vague advice) - Acknowledge its own limitations and the conditions under which it might fail - Be written accessibly enough that a non-philosopher could understand and apply it

Suggested length: 1,500–2,500 words, plus a one-page visual summary.

Programming Exercises ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐⭐

Exercise P1.1 ⭐⭐ Bayesian Belief Updating

Using the provided example-01-bayesian-belief-update.py as a starting point, modify the BayesianBeliefUpdater class to:

a) Accept a sequence of evidence items with individual likelihood ratios b) Plot the belief trajectory over time c) Add a method that identifies the "tipping point" — the amount of evidence required to move a belief from below 50% to above 50% probability d) Test your implementation with a scenario: Prior belief in climate change = 40% (skeptic starting point). Each IPCC report counts as evidence with likelihood ratio 5:1 in favor. How many reports does it take to reach 90% confidence?

Exercise P1.2 ⭐⭐⭐ Knowledge Graph Extension

Extend example-02-knowledge-graph.py to:

a) Add a second layer of nodes representing "common misconceptions" about each epistemological concept b) Use different edge colors/styles to distinguish "leads to" relationships from "contradicts" relationships c) Add a function that finds the shortest path between any two epistemological concepts in the graph d) Export the graph to a JSON format that could be read by a web-based visualization library

Exercise P1.3 ⭐⭐⭐ Truth Value Classifier — Machine Learning Extension

Extend example-03-truth-value-analysis.py to:

a) Build a simple training dataset of 50 labeled claims (factual, normative, definitional, metaphysical) — create these manually b) Train a logistic regression classifier using TF-IDF features c) Evaluate your classifier's accuracy on a test set d) Reflect: What are the epistemological implications of trying to automate claim classification? What types of claims would be hardest to classify and why?

Exercise P1.4 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Simulation: Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles

Write a Python simulation of a simple belief-propagation network:

a) Create N agents, each with a belief value between 0 and 1 on a contested claim b) Implement two network topologies: a random graph and a clustered "echo chamber" graph c) At each time step, agents update their beliefs based on the average belief of their network neighbors, with some noise d) Compare how quickly beliefs converge (or polarize) in each topology e) Add a "fact-checker" agent whose outputs are highly accurate and see how different network positions for the fact-checker affect the spread of accurate beliefs f) Visualize the belief distribution over time for both topologies g) Write a 300-word discussion connecting your simulation results to concepts of social epistemology and echo chamber theory

Exercise P1.5 ⭐⭐⭐ Confirmation Bias Quantification

Write a Python script that:

a) Generates a hypothetical data set representing a person's information-seeking behavior (list of articles sought out, coded as confirming or disconfirming a prior belief) b) Calculates a "confirmation bias index" — a measure of the ratio of confirming to disconfirming evidence sought c) Uses a chi-square test to determine whether the seeking pattern is statistically significantly different from unbiased search d) Visualizes the results e) Run the analysis on three hypothetical information-seekers with different bias profiles (strong confirmation bias, mild confirmation bias, unbiased) and compare the indices

End of Chapter 1 Exercises