Philosphy Midterm

Anselm

1. God is the greatest thing we can think of

2. Things can exist only in our imaginations or they can also exist in reality

3. Things that exist in reality are always better than things that exist in our imaginations

4. If God existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn’t be the greatest thing that we can think of because God in reality would be better

5. Therefore, God exists in reality

Ontological Argument

Logical argument; relies solely on reason

Gaunilo’s problem with Anselm’s argument

Can be used to prove anything exists. Gave the example of Oceania

• Anselm said this argument is only applied to necessary beings

Kant’s problem with Anselm’s argument

Existence is not a predicate (description) so you can not assume that God exists, because then you are assuming what you arguing for

Aquinas

1. Argument from Motion

   1. We currently live in a world in which things are moving. Movement is caused by movers. Everything that’s moving must have been set into motion by something else that was moving. Something must have started the motion in the first place.

   2.  Infinity is impossible and illogical,  so there is must a first mover; God

2. Argument from Causation

   1. Some things are caused. Anything that is caused has to be caused by something else (since nothing causes itself). There can’t be an infinite regress of causes.

   2.  Infinity is impossible and illogical,  so there is must a first casuser; God

3. Argument from Contingency

   1. Necessary Beings (a being that has always existed, will always exist and can’t not exist) and Contingent Beings (any being that could have not existed)

   2. We can’t have a world where everything is contingent because then it all could easily have never existed

   3. Contingent things can cause other contingent things but there can not only be contingent things because then there would be an infinite loop, which is impossible. So there must be a necessary being and that is God

4. Argument from Degrees

   1. There needs to be a form or scale of measurement. 

   2. Properties come in degrees, In order for there to be degrees of perfection, there must be something perfect against which everything else is measured. 

   3. God is the pinnacle of perfection

5. Argument from Design

   1. Everything in the universe seems to have a purpose/goal

   2. Natural things (plants & animals) lack knowledge to work towards an end, something must be guiding them

   3. That something is God

Cosmological Argument

Existence of God through understanding of science

Problems with Aquinas’s argument

1. Doesn’t establish a particular God, just unmoved movers or unmoved causers.

2. Doesn’t rule out the existence of multiple Gods

3. Aquinas takes it as a given that there had to be a starting point, and that infinity is impossible. 

4. His own arguments prove themself wrong. If there had to be a causer or mover, wouldn’t God need his own mover/causer. If God is exempt from this, why can’t others be too.

Pascal’s Wager

Treats belief in God as a bet where you get higher reward if you believe in God

1. There are two choices with 4 different outcomes. 

2. If you believe in God and he exists, you gain eternal happiness or heaven. If you believe in God and he doesn’t exist you don’t lose much.

3.  If you don’t believe in God and he doesn’t exist, you get infinite punishment or hell. If you don’t believe in God and he does exist, you don’t gain much.

4. So it is better to bet that he exists because you get more benefit.

Problems with Pascal’s argument

1. By following his wager you miss out on a lot of earthly benefits.

   1. Aquinas says those pleasures are finite and tainted pleasures. And the afterlife (heaven) is an eternal pleasure

2. Would God really want you to believe in him in such a self-interested way?

   1. Pascal says God doesn’t really care how you believe, just that you do. 

   2. Fake it til you make it

Leibniz & the problem of evil

1. God is good, powerful etc

2. But there is a lot of bad in the world and God could have made the world a better place

3. God does not exist

   1. There are infinite possibilities and if God chose this world then it is the best of all possible worlds

4. Types of evil

   1. Metaphysical evil: imperfection in world

      1. People are imperfect because they are not God and are limited

      2. This is necessary as a result of the nature of the world

      3. God doesn’t cause this because he’s perfect so he doesn’t lack but he does not interfere with it

   2. Physical evil: all suffering

      1. God doesn’t cause not will it absolutely but as means to a greater god

      2. Evil / error corrects people

      3. Makes good more valuable

   3. Moral evil: sin

      1. God doesn’t will it at all but allows it

      2. Not possible for it to bring good

      3. Allows it because its a consequence of allowing everything else and free will (necessary evil)

William James

Pragmatism

1. More to the world than simple observed facts

2. Most things are created like friendship, promotion and social organizations rather than just exist

We choose to believe, belief creates truth and the belief creates God

Plato’s allegory of the cave

1. People chained up in cave that have never seen the outside world

2. Fire behind them

3. Things held up on sticks that they see the shadow of because of the fire

Knowledge is similar to sight

1. Sight needs light/sun in order to see things

2. Knowledge needs truth in order to understand it

2 worlds:

1. Intellectual world is where the perfect forms exist

2. Visible world is where we see the images of shadows of what’s in the intellectual world

John Locke

Primary qualities

1. Fixed characteristics that exist in the object/being and does not change when its subdivided

2. Ex: shape, number, motion

Secondary qualities

1. Produced in us by primary qualities, not in the object.

2. Ex: color, scent, taste

Berkeley

Disagrees with Locke’s idea of primary qualities, agrees with secondary qualities

1. Primary qualities also exist in the mind, connected with secondary exist and can’t be separated

2. Esse est percipi “To be is to be perceived”

Objects of knowledge

1. Ideas imprinted on senses

2. From passions (emotions) and operations of mind

3. Ideas from memory and imagination

Things are active because they exist in God’s mind

Descartes

Introduce doubt in everything

1. Senses are uncertain because you might be dreaming and have the same experience as when you’re awake

2. General, simple, universal things like numbers or shapes are uncertain because we may go wrong with arithmetic

3. Introduces a malicious demon that is made to decieve him, only thing certain is himself

   1. Cogito ergo sum

Criticisms of Descartes

1. Proves only that he exists and everything else is in doubt

2. Assumes “I” and therefore proves nothing

   1. Example of your friend in the cat costume

Maddy

Numbers are abstract objects or properties

But do properties exist?

1. Yes: they are abstract things or exist in the being

2. No: they are just ways of speaking that have meaning but don’t exist

   1. Products of human language, from our intuitive or picture of the world

Epistemology

Study of knowledge

Socrates and Meno

1. Meno says you can’t ask questions about what you already know, or ask questions about what you don’t know. So you can’t learn

   1. Socrates: No learning, just recollection because your soul already knows

   2. Ex: the boy drawing the square

Knowledge vs Opinion

1. Knowledge is knowing the truth

   1. Supported by reason and opinion is not

2. Opinion is believing without knowing the truth

3. True-opinion is doesn’t know the truth but belief turns out to be correct

   1. Doesn’t stay in mind, you write it out then becomes knowledge & permeant

No difference between usefulness from truth and opinion (both just as valuable)

Plato’s The Republic

Knowledge is infallible, only one knowledge and needs reason and highest faculty

Opinion is easy to come by and doesn’t need effort

Hume

Objects of human inquiry and reason are:

1. Relation of Ideas

   1. Certain

   2. Operation of thought

   3. A priori

   4. Ex: Geometry, Algebra

2. Matters of Fact

   1. Uncertain

   2. Know about them through experience

   3. Ex: will the sun rise tmr yes or no

3. Based on cause & effect

   1. If you hear a voice in the dark, it’s reasonable to assume its someone and not something supernatural

   2. In constant conjunction: must have experienced it multiple times.

      1. Cause not found in reasoning

4. Ultimate workings of the body (springs and principles) are hidden from humans

5. Only two ways of knowing knowledge:

   1. Abstract reasoning: quantity and number

   2. Experimental

      1. Anything else is sophistry (no basis for argument)

Kant

Agrees with Hume

Objects awaken faculty of knowledge

• Reason and experience are both necessary: You cannot have knowledge without both parts working together.

  • Experience is the source of content: Without sensory information from the world, our minds have nothing to "think" about.

  • Reason structures the experience: Our minds have innate organizing principles (concepts) that allow us to make sense of sensory data.

• "Transcendental idealism": Kant argued that we experience the world as it appears to us, not as it is in itself. Our knowledge is of the "phenomenal" world (the world of appearances), not the "noumenal" world (reality in itself).

A pasteriori

From or after experience

Sellars

Linguistic turn

Disagrees with traditional view:

• Traditional philosophy assumed that senses provide a direct, uninterpreted foundation for knowledge. Sellars argued this is a myth. Sensory experience isn't a "cognitive freebie" but is already shaped by our concepts and theories.

Expressing observational knowledge:

• We have two ways of understanding the world: the "manifest image" (how things appear to us in everyday life, including our language of beliefs and desires) and the "scientific image" (how science describes the world in terms of its underlying physical reality). Both are important, but the scientific image provides a more fundamental and accurate ontology.

Sellars calls traditional view the myth of the given

1. Facts can be known not intelled

2. These facts are the ultimate Supreme Court/judge

To know “this is red”, a person must know:

1. What red is

2. How to say this is red

3. What they are seeing is a symptom of the color in standard decision

   1. To know something, people must know general facts

• Mental states as theoretical entities: Sellars viewed mental states, like thoughts and sensations, as theoretical entities—concepts we use to explain behavior, much like scientists use theoretical concepts to explain physical phenomena. Our knowledge of our own thoughts is possible, but it is informed by the public, logical structure of language, which is itself based on observable linguistic activity. 

Bacon

2 ways of discovering the truth

1. General axioms (principles) to middle axions

   1. From broad principles and few instances, imagination and easy to believe

   2. Axioms from senses and particulars

      1. Small to big

      2. Interpretation of nature

      3. Nature isn’t easy to understand, takes time, mistakes and humility to recognize this

Types of idols: (why we go wrong)

1. Idols of the tribe: human nattire assuming something based on little or broad things

2. Idols of the cave: distortion from individual nature, beliefs, upbringing

3. Idols of the marketplace: associations of people and words (society)

4. Idols of the theatre: philosophy

Confirmation bias