Philosophy Exam; Descartes, Locke, and Hume

Empiricism

Locke and Hume: the philosophical belief that all human knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience

Rationalism

Descartes: the philosophical view that regards reason as the primary source and test of knowledge, holding that truth can be discovered independently of sensory experience

Fideist

a person who relies on faith rather than reason or scientific evidence to find religious and philosophical truths; none of the thinkers were this

Humanism

Descartes: stance that centers around human potential; reframing of what it means to be human; humans from helpless subjects of all powerful God to educated and rational citizens of the world

Epistemological turn

a major shift in Western philosophy where the primary focus moved away from metaphysics—the study of reality and existence—and toward human knowledge/ humanism (most credit Descartes for this)

Scholastic tradition/ Medieval synthesis

carefully merging the works of Aristoltilean philosphy and its use of logic with Christian theology

Metaphysics

Descartes: using philosophy to try to prove God’s existence, understand the nature of reality, and clearly define the purpose of mankind

Apologetics

the defense of faith using reason

Epistemology

the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, origin, scope, and limits of human knowledge

senses/ sense experience

Descartes suggests that we cannot rely on this or trust it due to fallicies

Dream Hypothesis

Descartes: creates conditions for being skeptical of anything we experience because we don’t know whether or not we are awake or asleep; even in dreams were able to conjure up abstractions and ideas; logic holds up

systemic doubt

Descartes: method of questioning all your pre existing beliefs to find absolute, undeniable truth

Evil deceiver hypothesis

Descartes: There may be an evil deceiver who implants false knowledge/ ideas in his mind; only is able to disprove this idea by proving God

Corporeal world

phsyical, material realm of existence (external world)

cartesian dualism

separation of two worlds: relam of mind (non corporeal) and body (corporeal); we can only be certain of the existence of our mind

intellect

mind’s innate ability to use cognition

Res Extensa

all corporeal objects are: extended, flexible, mutable

extended: occupies space

flexible: able tobe bent into infinite different configurations

mutable: capacity to be modified or changed

proves that unlike the mind, things of the corporeal or objective world can be divided

Objective vs Formal reality

Descartes: formal: extended world ; most reality/ perfect: God

middle reality: finate substance (ex. apple or our mind)

lowest reality: modes (ex. redness)

Objective: the realm of the mind/ ideas

most perfect: idea of God

middle: apple idea

lowest: idea of redness

(all ideas in objective reality have low formal reality because mind is finite)

Cosmological Argument/ Descartes argument for God

1) I have idea of God
2) This idea has most/max objective reality/perfection meaning there must be a cause to this idea with max/ infinite formal reality

3) I don’t have infinite formal reality because the mind is finite so therefore, I did not cause my idea of God

4) Therefore, God exists

Descartes 3 categories of origins of ideas

innate, adventitious, inventive

Innate ideas

Descartes: those we have intuitively

adventitious ideas

descartes: ones we get from objects

inventive ideas

descartes: complete fictions (ex. unicorns)

two faculities of humans

descartes: humans have faculty of intellect (knowledge) and faculty of will (choice); argues that God gives us both perfect intellect and then the free will to chose whether or not to access said intellect which is where we get “user (human) error”

Divisibility argument

descartes: body can be chopped up but the mind can’t; however there is interaction between the two; not quite sure how

According to the rationalist:

1) reason is the primary or most superior source of knowledge about reality

2) sense experience is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge

3) fundamental truths about the world are known a priori (innate to our minds)

A priori

knowledge that comes from deduction and logic rather than sense experience

Descartes legacy

renews confidence in intellect or reason as a primary source of knowledge; inspired many later rationalist thinkers; begins epistemological turn

Cartesian circle

I can only prove God’s existence through clear and distinct perceptions; I can only have these clear and distinct perceptions if God exists

Locke

Father of Liberalism; sought to restore confidence in sense experience as a legitimate and reliable source of knowledge

Anti Innate Ideas

Locke: they could lead to corruption via authority

Speculative innate ideas

Locke: rules of logic; law of non-contradiction (ex. 2+2 cannot equal 4 and equal 3)

Practical innate ideas

Locke: moral ideas or behavioral rules (ex. the golden rule)

Locke’s Universal Assent Argument (against innate ideas)

1) if ideas are imprinted on the mind, people at any stage should be able to grasp these ideas

2) If there are no speculative ideas, there are no practical ones

Tabula Rasa

Locke the mind is a “blank slate” that is only filled via sense experience

Ideas (Locke)

ideas are “the immediate object of perception, thoughts, or understanding; broken up into sensations (from external sense experience)or reflections (a thought or feeling)

Simple ideas

Locke: most basic componants (color, texture, shape)

Complex ideas

Locke: combination of simple ideas (ex. most objects)

Compounding, relating, abstracting

Locke: compounding: substance (complex idea) made of simple ideas

relating: relationships of things to other things

Abstracting: I witness murder and therefore abstract concept of justice or immorality

How can we prove things that are subjective?

Locke: primary and secondary qualities

Primary Qualties

Locke: measurable (ex. temp of a room)

Secondary Qualities

Locke: affect of primary qualities on the mind through the senses (ex. “I am cold”)

Nominal essence vs real essense

Locke: nominal: constructed by the human mind; can we certain

real: knowledge of the external world that we can never be certain of

David Hume

Radical empiricist turned skeptic; knowledge is not from reason; atheist

Descartes

Father of Modern Philosphy and the epitsemological turn

Ideas (Hume)

ideas are grounded in impressions; varying degrees of force and vivacity (impressions are more vivid and strong because they are in the moment)

Ideas (Descartes)

ideas are a mental representation of something else (ideas exist only in our mind/objective reality as effects of causes in formal (external world) reality

Copy principal

Hume: entirety of human knowledge comes from sense experience or ideas coped from impressions

Patterns of associations for ideas:

Hume: resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect

Patterns of associations: the way we explain how we get ideas through percvied relationships of variables)

resemblance: similiairites (I see a picture of my dog so I think of my dog)

contiguity: like things (I see a pic of my friend’s dog so I think of my dog)

Cause and effect: repeatedly seeing things go together so I assume causation (ex. when I open treat bag it causes dogs to come running)

Hume’s Fork/ Relations of Ideas

intuitive/demonstrative certainty vs matters of fact (limitations of reason)

Intuitive certainty and demonstrative (disconnected from outside world but certain) certainty: relationships between ideas in the mind that tells us nothing about the external world

Matters of fact: NOT relations of ideas; observation of the external world but has less certainty because it is based on pattern recognition (ex. the sun rose yesterday and the day before so it will raise tomorrow)