Which of the following best illustrates the difference between propositional knowledge and procedural knowledge?
AKnowing that Paris is the capital of France vs. knowing how to ride a bicycle
BBelieving that evolution is true vs. doubting that evolution is true
CKnowing someone personally vs. reading about them in a biography
DKnowing a fact with certainty vs. knowing a fact with only some probability
Propositional knowledge is 'knowing that' — a relationship between a knower and a true proposition. Procedural knowledge is 'knowing how' — a practical skill not reducible to knowing facts. The bicycle example captures this: a paralyzed person could know all the propositional facts about cycling and still be unable to ride.
Question 2 True / False
Epistemology is primarily concerned with describing what people actually believe, rather than evaluating what they should believe.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Epistemology is a normative discipline: it asks what constitutes justified or rational belief, not merely what beliefs people happen to hold. The descriptive study of belief formation belongs to psychology and cognitive science. The distinction matters because 'what people believe' and 'what people are epistemically entitled to believe' often diverge.
Question 3 Short Answer
Why isn't a lucky true belief sufficient for knowledge?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: If a belief is true by coincidence — with no reliable connection between the believer and the fact — we don't credit it as knowledge, because knowledge requires more than accidentally getting things right.
Suppose you guess it is raining without any evidence and happen to be correct. Your belief is true, but it is not knowledge — you could just as easily have been wrong, and nothing about your belief was connected to the actual weather. This intuition motivates requiring not just truth but justification: some account of why the believer is entitled to hold the belief.