PHIL 2420 - Class 6: Hobbes' "state of nature," Rousseau's "noble savage" and Kant's "Copernican turn"

What is Rousseau’s human nature text?

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men

What does Rousseau believe about the divine?

exists

What are some examples of Rousseau texts?

• Emile

• The Social Contract

What is Rousseau’s belief about humans in state of nature?

• peaceful

• moral

• identify & empathize

→

• see / hear > taste & touch

• skill transmission hardly happens

• simple & uniform

• no foresight

What is Rousseau’s belief about humans out of state of nature?

• property

• money

• power

• law

• work

→

• weak

• fearful

• mean-spirited

• varied

What is Rousseau’s belief in philosophical attempts?

morality & society origin

• contemporary human = first human model → populate state of nature

What is Henrich’s mixed human model critique text?

The WEIRDest People in the World

What does Rousseau want to do?

give state of nature account

What explains what Rousseau wants to do?

• reverse engineer history

  • ← condition to get far

What ways does Darwin’s evolution theory differ from Rousseau’s evolution theory?

• evolving human

• archaeology

• paleoanthropology

• earth & human life

What does Rousseau introduce in Discourse on the Basis and Inequality Among Men?

• paleoanthropology

• evolutionary anthropology

What does Rousseau believe are the man types?

• natural

v.s.

• civilized

… man

What are noble savages prone (to)?

• old age

• attack injurity

What does Rousseau believe about animal & human?

• animal = human BUT instinct < agency

• faculty of … improvement / creativity: animal < human

  • discovery / mistake source

• technological & migratory inventiveness

• intrepidness

• neophobia: animal > human

• death-aware

What does Rousseau believe slowly stopped the state of nature?

• faculty for improvement

• tech innovation

• 1st person who said “mine”

  • ownership claim

What explains Rousseau’s belief in the state of nature?

• very few wants

• Earth supplied everything

What does Rousseau believe about the state of nature?

• no work

• leisure

• core virtue

• other-identify identity

What is Rousseau’s response to Hobbes’ human nature?

always meet people complaining about life

• humans in state of nature have good concept

What are some core virtue examples?

• pity

• compassion

• tenderness

What are some virtue examples?

• generosity

• clemency

• forgiveness

• benevolence

• commiseration

What does Rousseau believe about virtues?

naturally come

What are some examples of Rousseau’s cognitive changes?

• tool & cooking invention

• fire mastery

• population increase

What does Rousseau believe are born from new relations?

• envy

• pride

• admiration

• jealousy

• ambition

• competition

• caution

• prudence

What might Rousseau believe started foresight?

hunter-gatherer

What does Rousseau believe changed in humans?

• tech

• language

• labour

• organization

What does Rousseau believe is the sociopolitical & economic unit process?

• family

→

• clan

→

• tribe

→

• group

→

• city-state

→

• nation

What does Rousseau believe about men & women in state of nature?

equal

What does Rousseau believe happened after the first epoch?

women became sedentary

What does Rousseau believe about tech & human relation?

• individually made → no competition / status cycle

• dependent on convenience

  • soften body / mind

• → new need

  • intolerability of not possessing tool > pleasure of possessing tool

  • ‘the more one owns, the more one wants, the less pleasure one feels’ / ‘the more one owns, the more one relies, the more one’s anxious’

anti-tech

What does Rousseau believe about human demography?

• nomad

→

• settler

What does Rousseau believe caused settlers?

agriculture

• farmer

What does Rousseau believe caused armies?

defend agriculture

What does Rousseau believe caused communities?

families defend agriculture

What does Rousseau believe happens when social networks increase?

• wildness shakes off

• intimate & extensive connection

• social status > personal health

→ deception

What does Rousseau believe is the best epoch?

state of nature

What does Rousseau believe savages are?

world youth

What does Rousseau believe about rich / powerful people?

swindle poor

What does Rousseau believe city-states do to create armies?

duty story → impressionable men

What does Rousseau believe are the first effects of society division?

• murder

• disorder

• war

What is the most famous cynic?

Diogenes “The Dog”

What did ancient cynicism believe?

• weak

• immoral

• enslaved

• degenerate

What did ancient cynicism believe about conventional values?

false idol

• undermine freedom

What was Kant’s stance on rationalism & empiricism?

intermediary

What were Kant’s major texts?

• Critique of Pure Reason

• Critique of Practical Reason

• Critique of Judgment

What were Kant’s major texts’ focus?

• ethics

• epistemology

• metaphysics

• aesthetics

What does Kant believe rationalists are correct about?

• human mind ≠ blank / malleable

What does Kant believe empiricists are correct about?

• knowledge & experience universality

• mind needs experience

  • thought without perception = empty

  • perception without thought = blind

What does Kant believe rationalists are incorrect about?

• reason alone supplies reality / mind / nature truth

What does Kant believe empiricists are incorrect about?

• mind ≠ passive

  • if =, amorphous / cognitive → limited / idiosyncratic input

What does Kant do to break the rationalism & empiricism impasse?

Copernican Revolution

What is Kant’s Copernican Revolution?

human mind conforms to world world conforms to human mind

• knowledge possibility conditions

What does Kant believe about seeing the noumenal world?

unknowable

What does Kant believe about seeing the phenomenal world?

familiar

What does Kant believe are the human mind splits?

• receptivity

• activity

What is a form?

basic receptivity

What does Kant believe are the forms?

• space

• time

What does Kant believe about space & time?

• can’t think without forms

• BUT real to humans

• project on world

What is a category?

basic activity

• otherwise, can’t think / experience

What is a priori?

experience hardware

What are the categories?

• quantity

• unity

• totality

• quality

• reality

• limitation

• relation

• inherence

• community

• modality

• possibility

• necessity

• contingency

What are Kant’s categories’ use?

• thinking

• reasoning

• inferring

• judging

What does Kant believe are the categorical requirements?

• causality

• objecthood

  • ≠ time stage

What does Kant believe about objecthood?

• single

• separate

• bound

• individual

What does Kant believe about the soul / freedom / God?

• grounds: irrational faith > rational knowledge

• God might be in noumenal world

  • can’t describe in phenomenal terms

What does Kant believe about other creatures?

limit: < human

What does Kant’s Copernican Revolution avoid?

grand rationalist theory

What explains Kant’s Copernican Revolution’s avoidance?

antinomy of reason

What is an antinomy of reason?

pseudo-philosophy

• don’t think beyond limit

  • otherwise, paradox

What is Hobbes’ main text?

Leviathan

What are some examples of Hobbes’ most famous quotes?

• “the condition of man is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.”

• “the life of man in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, boorish, and short.”

What does Hobbes believe about humans in state of nature?

• fearful

• warlike

• wicked

• power-hungry

• self-interested

What does Hobbes believe about life in state of nature?

• nasty

• short

• brutish

• mean

What does Hobbes believe about humans out of state of nature?

law of nature

• have reason → benefit < cost

  • alive > dead

  • → golden rule maxim

What does Hobbes believe about the good?

what one wants

What does Hobbes believe about the bad?

what one fears

What does Hobbes believe about human behaviour?

no morals

What is Hobbes’ state of nature?

hypothesis

What is Hobbes’ social contract?

people in state of nature give authority unlimited power

• punishment fear enforces social contract

What does Hobbes believe is the best power?

1 absolute monarch

What does Hobbes believe about state of nature?

historically evidenced yes…

• failed & transnational state

  • civil war

• colonizer met ‘savage’

• early human

  • no language & tech & economy & civilization

What explains Hobbes’ state of nature belief?

always submit to Leviathan

• prevent state collapse

What is Leviathan?

sovereign

What explains Hobbes’ social contract?

act as if voluntary

• even if myth / not much historical evidence / prisoners dilemma

What is the Hobbesian trap?

2 parties fearing each other

• arms race → distrust ⟳

  • → preemptive attack

What enforces the Hobbesian trap?

Leviathan

What is an example of Hobbes criticism?

sovereign → dictatorship

What is a response to Hobbes criticism?

time relativism