// Intro to Philosophy - Quiz #4 //

Introduction to Philosophy // Summer '25

Rationalism

important/foundational knowledge can be known by reason alone - apart from sense experience.

(this is epistemology founded on reason!) 

Beginnings of Modern Philosophy

1. Its emphasis on methodology (Descartes’ book on method) 

2. The use of mathematics 

3. Linking philosophy with science 

4. Doubts common sense (you can't just take things as a common sense value) 

5. Turn to the human subject (thinking person) 

6. Stress on epistemology - the search for certainty (True of Descartes - begins w/doubt in his epistemology)

Rene Descartes

1. Systematic doubt (he doubts everything - including his own senses)

2. He wants to be autonomous (we are independent and don’t have to rely on anyone else) (he thought he was autonomous) 

3. “I exist” 

4. God exists 

5. The external world exists  

6. Most famous conclusion: “I think, therefore I exist”

7. Cartesian Dualism - immaterial and material 

8. Famous in math (Cartesian)

Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza

1. Benedict (Latinized name)

2. Believed that God is infinite substance (God is the cosmos; God is everything - aka pantheism) 

3. He believed in Determinism - whatever occurs happens by necessity 

4. Passive emotions (ie. getting angry if your car gets hit) are confused ideas (because everything happens for a reason) 

5. Jew 

6. Died in 1677 

7. Grew up as an orthodox jew but was kicked out 

8. His questions and skepticism didn't sit well with the Jewish Orthodox synagogue 

9. Job: Lens Grinder (later on, this caused him lung problems) and on the side worked as a philosopher

Gottfried Leibniz

1. Died in 1716 

2. Invented Calculus 

3. Offered a professorship but turned it down

4. Analytic Truths: truths of reason (truths we can know by rationality alone)

5. Synthetic Truths: truths of fact

6. He thought the world was the best of all possible worlds 

7. Monads:

Analytic Truths

truths of reason (truths we can know by rationality alone)

• You don’t need your senses to rationalize things

• Necessary (opposites are self-contradictions)

  • Truths by necessity

• “A Priori”: Truth known independently (before) sense experience

A Priori

Truth known independently (before) sense experience

Synthetic Truths

truths of fact

• Not true by definition (must compare with facts from the outside world) 

• Not necessary (contingent or dependent) -(on facts from outside world) 

• “A Prosteriori”: Truth or falsity known after sense experience

A Prosteriori

Truth or falsity known after sense experience

Monads

immaterial centers of activity that make up things

What do Monads do?

influence each other to do things like raising your hand (solves the mind-body problem)

Super-monad

God in His system: what causes these monads to work together

Empiricism

knowledge comes from and is based on experience

Where did the first empirists come from?

British Isles - this is why they were called British empirists

John Locke

1. All humans born as a blank slate (Tabula Rasa)

2. Knowledge is based on sense of experience, therefore it is based on probabilities 

3. We should have tolerance of society and be willing to change our mind 

4. Primary quality: Characteristics of an external object (exists out there in the objects) 

5. Secondary: exist in the mind, dependent on the object that we engage with

6. The role of government is to secure our rights (these rights: life, liberty & property) 

7. If the government is being ineffectual, the citizens have a right to overthrow the government (social contract theory)

8. English philosopher 

9. 1704 

10. Concerning Human Understanding (written in 1869)

Tabula Rasa

All humans born as a blank slate

Primary Quality

Characteristics of an external object (exists out there in the objects) 

Secondary Quality

exist in the mind, dependent on the object that we engage with (ie. the greeness of the pencil is an experience in my mind that is caused by this external object)

George Berkeley

1. Irish; Anglican bishop 

2. Died in 1763

3. Takes Locke's ideas of secondary and primary qualities and believes that all these qualities are in our mind 

4. To be is to be perceived (the existence of the object is in our minds) 

5. All of reality is made up of thoughts (idealism)

David Hume

1. Scottish;  died in 1776

2. Believes Analytic truths are meaningless because they don't give us any new knowledge 

3. Tautology: Defining something by itself 

   • Thought all synthetic truths were tautologies  

4. Began to question the idea of cause and effect 

5. Mitigated skepticism: the idea that although you don't know things, you have to live as if you know them (shelve your skepticism to keep on living) 

6. He denies miracles (they are just unusual events)

Tautology

Defining something by itself

Mitigated Skepticism

the idea that although you don't know things, you have to live as if you know them (shelve your skepticism to keep on living)

Epistemology

study of knowledge

Knowledge

it is justified by true belief

Warrant

evidence/foundation for the knowledge we have

Gettier Example

The case where one has true belief but for the wrong reasons (ends up being true but still had the wrong reasons) 

Empiricism

knowledge based upon experience (especially sense experience)

Rationalism

knowledge is based upon human reason 

Skepticism

 belief that actual knowledge is not possible

Source Skepticism

1. Senses - how do you know if your senses interpret true readings/interpretations 

2. Memory - how do you know if your memories are true readings/interpretations

3. Testimony (Authority) - we have all believed something (ie, something a teacher told you) that ended up not being true

Radical Skepticism

1. (past) “Five Minute Hypothesis” - put forward by Burchand Russel; He didn’t believe it; If you cant disprove it how do you know it is true? 

2. (present) “Dream Hypothesis” - the present is really the dream state (a dream is a small portion of time a much bigger portion of time) (ie. 20 year lifetime is actually part of a 20,000 year lifetime) 

3. (future) “Furturistic Nihilism” - the future does not actually exist because it hasn’t happened yet (we know God knows the future, but we as humans do not know) 

4. Philosophers do not necessarily believe these; they are just hypotheses. They claim you can’t disprove these hypotheses though.

Critique (of Skepticism??)

• Knowledge & belief - science is based on knowledge and religion is based on belief. But we are learning that knowledge and belief work together in epistemology (ie, scientists in the lab are relying on their senses and memories) 

• Examples of Justification 

  1. Senses (we could ask questions about our senses, ie, colorblindness - we would know our color might not be true)

     • Incorrigible - not easily changed or given up (trust your senses) 

  2. Memory (people with a head injury should not necessarily trust their memory) 

  3. Testimony (are there biases? Is this authority trustworthy? etc.) 

Epistemology (Biblical Epistemology)

God made us as sensing humans

Rationalism (Biblical Epistemology)

God made us as reasoning humans

• Noetic God made us as reasoning humans

Noetic

God made us as reasoning humans

The other senses (Biblical Epistemology)

(senses, memory, testimony/authority) - God created us to receive sense experience

Revelation (Biblical Epistemology)

a key facet as a source of knowledge (general and special)

Truth Theories

What makes a proposition true

• What MAKES it true, not how I KNOW it’s true 

• What makes a word have meaning is largely through social usage

Correspondence Theory (Truth Theories)

an agreement between a statement and a fact of reality (a statement is true if it agrees with reality)

Coherence Theory (Truth Theories)

truth is a property of a statement that fits into a system of accepted statement (a statement is true if it fits with other statements that we view as true)

Pragmatic Theory (Truth Theories)

a truth is a statement that results in usefulness and practical consequences (a statement is true if it works and gives us practical, concrete consequences) (helps us get through life)

Is scientific knowledge purely objective?

No

- The subject/test object can affect the experiment (ie. taking blood pressures of patients, but some people are anxious when they are at the doctor's, which raises their blood pressure)

Is scientific knowledge empirical?

No

- Science is based on levels of trust (Ie. scientific method: the hypothesis is a moment of imagination that is tested.)

Falsifiability (of scientific knowledge)

scientific knowledge should be this way (able to be proven false through further experimentation - aka open to new evidence)