Descartes, 1596-1650

I. Founder of "modern" philosophy

 Difference between medieval (start with what we know) and modern (start with how we know).

  Anti-sceptical project - put knowledge on a firm footing...Distinguish between the Justified belief, and the mere belief.

II. Foundationalism: There are basic beliefs that do not require further justification. Every justified belief is or can be traced back to a basic belief of this sort.

III. Rationalism: turn within, knowledge arises from the reason, not senses or experience which are changing and different to different people. (The wax experiment)

IV. Knowledge -- truly justified beliefs to which it is legitimate to commit ourselves -- is certainty. Indubitability. If a proposition is doubtful, if we can possibly doubt it then we can't know it, and we shouldn't commit ourselves to believing it, at least as philosophers. (A divide between one's life as a philosopher and one's life per se.)

V. Quest for Knowledge following example of mathematics

 A. Two reasons for accepting propositions

  1. intuition (just see something indubitably)

  2. deduction (move from indubitable premises through indubitable principles to indubitable conclusions).

 V. So...  What can we know indubitably?

 A. History?

 B. Memory?

 C. Other minds?

 D. This room?  Your body?
  1. dream
  2. mad scientist
  3. evil genius

E. 2+2=4, laws of logic?

So how can we get things back?

I. I think -------> I am.

  1. Can I doubt it?
  2. No, I still am if I doubt?

The Foundation!

(We haven't gotten far!)

II. God!

 A. My mind is full of ideas
  -most of them I could have generated on my own, but....

 B. not God - I have in my mind the clear conception of a perfect, an unlimited being.  Such an idea could only have come from God.

 C. Couldn't we just negate our limitations?

 D. No.  Without the idea we couldn't recognize ourselves as limited.  Idea of perfect must precede our recognition of ourselves as limited

    God exists!

V. A good God would not allow us to be systematically deceived.

 A. Occasional mistake through our own fault.

 B. No systematic deception.  We can trust in those things that seem so sure - 2+2=4, external world, body - because we've ruled out the hypothesis of the evil genius.

VI. Problems - He's set himself a very difficult task. Certain foundation > certain arguments to certain conclusions

 A. God?

 B. God might allow evil.

 C. Deception might be good.

 D. At outset we doubted laws of logic!  But we assumed logic to get to conclusion.

VII. Dualism

 A. What are we really?  Thinking things

 B.   we are mind and body (mind is the essential)
  Two fundamentally different kinds of things which somehow interact.

 C. Why should we believe we're really composed of 2 elements? (vs. materialism)

  1. We have to think of them as separate.  We intuit mind, we must deduce body

  2.  The thinking part has different characteristics from the physical part.

    a. (p. 859) body is divisible, mind is not
    b. private vs. public  -   pain
    c. others

D. The big problem -

  1. interaction?

  2.  pineal gland (doesn't solve it)
 

Locke 1632-1704

EPISTEMOLOGY
(What we know are ideas)
I. empiricism - tabula rasa - must have experience

 A. Ideas come from sensation and reflection (Sense data and mind's thinking about its   own operations -- mind works in a certain way --
  we're going to be able to go beyond mere raw sense data.)
 B. No innate ideas (vs. Descartes - God)
  Even basic truths of logic come from sensation and reflection

II. simple and complex ideas
 A. simple = single, unified eg. sense data -- pink,
   cold, or reflection (the latter come from mind, not senses)
   --fear. Received passively.
 B. complex = compound, put together by the mind, actively
  1. join -- hand (pink, cold, this shaped etc. ...)
  2.  compares -- this thumb is bigger than that
  3.  abstract -- (man) hand

III. Primary and secondary qualities
 Quality = power in the thing to produce idea in us.

 A. primary qualities produce ideas which
  1. correspond to the way things are in themselves.
   really exist in things themselves
  2. described in mathematical terms
  3. objectivity, we can all agree

 B. secondary qualities produce ideas which
  1. don't reflect how things really are
  2.  sense data caused by this, but not like thing because it's how thing interacts    with perceiver -
   eg. cold, red exist only in the mind of the knower
  3.  no objectivity

 C. Distinguish between appearance and reality
   --mathematical
   --what science can give us

Practical import: careful observer vs. Scientist...the guy with the measuring instruments.

IV. Substance
 A. Qualities must be in something, holds them together
 B. But the something has no qualities - it can't be
  perceived, described or thought.  It is just a something I know not what.
 
 
 

Berkeley 1685-1753

I. Locke
 A.  What we know are ideas
 B.  Ideas caused by qualities in the thing
 C. Primary and secondary qualities
 D. Substance

---------------------Berkeley's goal is to save our world of experience-------------------------

II. Idealism: As empiricists we ought to say that what we can know and what there is is what we can experience -- unless reason proves that we should believe in something more.

 A. What can we know of this physical object?  What we perceive.  To be is to be perceived.  Esse est percipi. What is this, but a combination of ideas?  No gulf between material and mental...everything is mental.  If no one perceives it it ceases to be.

 B. Proofs:
   1. You can't even conceive of anything as existing unperceived by any knower.
   2. (Locke) ideas related to secondary qualities exist only in the knower (cold, red, etc.) but it is impossible to conceive of a thing with primary qualities without the secondary qualities.
   3. ideas are copies of things.  Absurd.  To know that something is a copy of something you have to know the original.
   4. Substance: That which underlies qualities, from which we receive ideas.  What is it?  Not only can we not perceive it, we can't even conceive of it.  It's a meaningless term.  "The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal substance.  And in doing of this, there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it."

III.  Is reality subjective?   Solipsism?

 A. No, because ideas ...
  1. seem to come from without
   (I know I'm not causing them.)
  2. relate to one another in an orderly way which I know I'm not imposing on them.

  3. especially telling -- I don't have to be perceiving things for them to continue to exist -- behave in orderly way without my perceiving them, hand in the snow.

 B. (To explain -- ) God

 C. What there is in God's mind and His Ideas and our minds and our ideas.  It's all mind stuff from top to bottom.
  1. Gets rid of "substance"
  2. Saves world of appearance

IV.  Solves problem with Cartesian dualism
 

Locke's Political Theory

Q: Where does government get its authority?

I. Hobbes' State of Nature

 A.  We desire power and stuff
  We have Equality and freedom

 B. War of all against all

 C. No power to enforce moral or legal rules   there are no rules, chaos

 D. Anybody can do anything to you   no natural rights to life, liberty or possessions (no morality outside of society)

 E. People make a contract, mutual consent, give up equality and freedom.  Turn over all their power to a sovereign in exchange for order.  Sovereign (to do the job) must have absolute power.

II.  Lock's State of Nature

 A. Reason can tell us that there is a God who orders human existence -- there is a natural law which we can recognize, which shows us proper rules for behavior with or without/state.

 B. Reason teaches that equals must be treated equally.  I do not want to be harmed, enslaved, or killed   I see that I must not kill or harm others i.e.  we all (even without state) have natural rights.  Life, liberty, property.

 C. Right to property is not a function of having a government.  God gives world to all, but I make something my own by mixing my labor with it.

 D. Everybody's on his own with respect to recognizing the moral law, judging  and punishing. Natural law includes right of each individual to punish anyone who transgresses
 

III.  Locke's state of nature is inconvenient
  It lacks:

 A. Known laws (specific)

 B. Known and objective judges

 C. Recognized agents with power to enforce law

IV.    We form a state {consent to have laws framed and enforced  by society

 A. We give up individual power to determine, judge, and enforce laws to government. [Difference from Aquinas - state chosen vs. just sort of grows naturally as an intrinsic element of human society] N.b. Assuming we divide up these three jobs, how many branches of government should we have?

 B. We don't give up our natural rights -- we can't, they're inalienable.

Proper authority of government is limited

V. (Against Hobbes! If the state of nature is as Locke envisioned it, you'd be stupid to trade it for an absolute sovereign who could just do anything to you.)  If sovereign doesn't have to obey law then you're in a state of nature with respect to sovereign.  Only he's got all the power.

 A. Power of government limited NOT ARBITRARY! public good i.e. supplying what was lacking in state of nature in order to effectively enforce edicts down from natural law.

 B. Government may not take your property without your consent
  1. taxation?  You consented
  2. American revolution!

VII. Problem with Consent?

 A. Did you give consent?

 B. tacit consent?  Just by living here and enjoying goods of ordered society?

  Hume's analogy of the ship.
 
 

Hume 1711-1776

I. Review point about pragmatism

 A. Start with what we know and ask how

 B. Point of Philosophy is to lead the good life - If conclusions can't be lived with reject them.

II. Radical empiricism vs. you can know things about world not given by senses

 A. Locke - start with senses - can go well beyond what senses give.  e.g. material substance, God

  Berkeley -       God

 B. 1. All ideas are copies of impressions i.e. experience - either sense experience or  experiences of my own mental state.

 [Knowledge on a firm, scientific footing? No!   Scepticism!]

 C. So, two sorts of judgments...

  1.  About the world

  2. Relation of ideas (ways ideas group themselves or ways we've chosen to talk) e.g. All bachelors are unmarried.

III. Causality? (We look at whole world as a system of causal relationships - if we cannot have knowledge of causality, then we can't know much!)

 A. Define "cause."  Not just constant conjunction, but necessary connection.

 B. Conceptual connection? Can we establish that there must be a causal connection, a power in the thing, conceptually by just thinking of the things?  No.  We can think fire without thinking it burns cotton.  We can imagine that the cotton will turn into a parrot.

 C. Experience?  No!
  1. Contigruity, priority in time, constant conjunction
  2. We don't experience anything else...a necessary connection.

D. (Another way of putting the problem.) Future may not resemble past.

  1. Claiming a necessary causal connection between A & B involves making an assumption which is not justifiable.

  2. B will follow A, i.e. the future will be like the past

   a. can't be sensed

   b. "It always has!"  ..."in the past!"
 

E. How do we come to believe in necessary causal connections?

  1. It's an idea.  Must be the copy of an impression.

  2. After enough experiences of conjunction mind just moves inevitably from what we called "cause" to what we call "effect."  [movement=determination of mind]

   a. I have an impression of this determination of mind [necessary movement from A to idea of B]

   b. idea is a copy of this impression

   c. connection is not in things - it's in my mind

 F. Conclusion:  When we go about our lives we do make all these unjustified assumptions.  We have to.  But as philosophers - when we're by reasonable - must be sceptical.  [Gulf between philosophy and normal life.]

IV. Problems with this view of causality.

 A. (Practical) Science? Science talks in universal terms which, according to Hume, is not justified.

 B. Self-refuting:  As philosophers we must maintain a sceptical attitude towards causal claims but Hume's basic epistemology which led him to these conclusions, depends on causal claims, e.g. impression ----> ideas
 
 

Hume continued.

The conclusion of Hume's radical empiricism

 I. No substance, underlying unity
 1. binds qualities together
 2. means thing exists objectively over time (i.e., it's not just qualities as perceived by us.

 II. No external objects

III. logic and math.

 A. ~(A + ~A), 2+2=4  true always and everywhere.  We don't learn them through our senses.

 B. Yes, they'll be true tomorrow, but they are not truth about the world.

 C. They're truths about relations of ideas, i.e. they're descriptions of how human being happen to think, but we have no reason to suppose that our thinking reflects reality.

 D. Cratylus!

 IV. Self

 A. Descartes said "I think, therefore I am"

 B. Hume.  We don't experience any "I".  All we experience is a series of impressions.  We are just bundles of impressions.  No spiritual substance.

  V. God:  A design argument by analogy :We see a house, we conclude there must be an architect.

A. Hume doesn't have to give us causation at all, but, for the sake of argument, suppose we do allow arguments moving from effect back to cause.

B. We belived in architect because we've observed a constant conjunction   architect ---> house
  Have we observed a number of universes coming into being? Even one?

C. We could just say the universe as a whole is not the sort of thing that requires a cause. It has always existed and been going on the way it's going on. The things that exist today were caused by the things that existed yesterday which were caused by the things that existed the day before, ad infinitum, so there is no cause.

D. We observe only a tiny part of the universe, so can't draw any conclusions about what the whole is like, and so can't move back to a cause.
 

E. And even if we say there's a cause... Certainty not the sort of cause we identify with God

a. an infinite cause?

b. the problem of evil!

c. many creators? trial and error?

 VI. Morality.  "It's wrong to torture small children for fun."

 A. do we have any impressions of "right" or "wrong" in the thing? No, therefore right and wrong do not exist in the actions.

 B. Yet "right" and "wrong" seem to be important ideas which come from some kind of impressions...our impressions of our sentiments (feelings) as observers.

  1.  Our feelings won't just be about self-love, nor will they be arbitrary.
  2. We naturally like what's useful to society (i.e. what promotes general happiness)

   a. What if sentiments should differ?  From society to society?  From person  to person? Jeffrey Daumer?  No objective right is wrong.  Relativism!

    b. And if we do all happen to agree, it's still just a matter of taste.
 
 

Kant 1724-1804

I. The problem:  Neither rationalism nor empiricism does the job.

 A. Rationalism:  spinning airy webs, internally consistent but mutually exclusive, no way to test which is closer to reality [science marches on]

 B. Empiricism:  crucial ideas for human living just drop out morality, God, Freedom, Self, Science!

 II. "There can be no doubt that all our Knowledge begins with experience...but...it does not follow that it all arises out of experience." (p. 632)

III. Divisions of Knowledge

 A. A priori vs. A posteriori
  prior or posterior to experience

 B. Analytic (is about concepts, language) vs. Synthetic (is about the world)

 C. All analytic truths are known a priori.
  Most synthetic truths are known a posteriori. (Hume would have said all.)

 D. Kant:  No, there are synthetic a priori truths...e.g. "Every alteration must have a cause."

 IV. The Copernican Revolution -- Change the position of the perceiver

 A. Previous thinkers say mind conforms to objects.

 B. No!  Human mind actively structures information coming in.  Objects conform to mind.
  (Noumenal vs. Phenomenal Worlds)
  (Dark glasses in Oz)

 C. Categories
  1. Causation
  2. Space and time
  3. Mathematics

 V. Freedom, morality, self, God - these are not given by experience, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there in the noumenal world.

 We are moral beings, we have to act morality requires freedom, self, God, as final arbiter of justice.

VI. Problems? Fichte (1762-1814)  Sets up German Idealism

A. Why suppose there is a noumenal world at all?  

B. Kantian answer -- there must be something which causes our experience of the phenomena.

C. Fichte's response -- But your claims about causation are inherently contradictory; the claim that data comes in and is structured is a causal explanation, but you have said that causality is only on phenomenal level.

Kant: Ethics

 I. The only intrinsically good thing is a good will.

 Happiness?  Intelligence?  etc.

------------------WHAT'S IMPORTANT IS MOTIVE (not consequences)---------------------------

 II. Good will acts from duty

 A. Not self-interest (merchant)

 B. Not natural inclinations (philanthropist)

III. Duty = correct principle:  Reasonable, universal

IV. Categorical Imperative

 A. First form:  Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
  1. promising
  2. cheating
  3. helping

 B. Second form:  Treat people as ends in themselves, never only as means to an end. (Lady at the McDonald's)

 V. Problems with CI

 A. First form
 

  1.  We can generate contradictions by universalizing apparently innocuous or virtuous behavior.

  2. Notoriously difficult to formulate rule

   a. What, exactly, am I doing?

   b. How general or specific should it be?
    1.general?  absurd consequences
    2.specific?  applies only to me

  3. Fanatic can universalize any crazy rule

 B. Second form

  1. Hard to see how to resolve a conflict of claims.

  2. Absurd consequences?