Philosophy Test 3

What are the obstacles of Metaphysics

“Kant's Epistemology... his division of knowledge into the noumenal and the phenomenal lead to skepticism about whether we can have genuine knowledge of the world, which would hinder our grasp of the world as it is (metaphysics). 

Logical Positivism limits knowledge to thing that can be empirically verified or true by definition which removes the possibility of knowledge  of metaphysical propositions like the existence and character of God, human mind, free will, etc.”

The epistemology of Immanuel Kant and the semantics of Logical Positivism

Who woke Kant from his “dogmatic slumber”

David Hume’s skepticism

What was Kant’s Copernican revolution?

Implies that the world, as it appears to us (the phenomenal world) and the “real” world outside of our minds (the noumenal world) are distinct. We can’t know the real world, the noumental world. All we can know is the world of appearances, the world as it has been organized by the categories of the mind (Book) we cannot know the noumental the world as it is, we can only know the phenomenon the world as it appears to us through our senses this excludes knowledge of self, God, metaphysical things, things in themselves, etc.

What are the 12 Kant categories of mind

Quantity; Unity (one) Plurality (some) Totality (all)

Quality; Reality (real) Negation (not real) Limitation (partially real)

Relation; Substance and Accident (is/has) Cause and Effect: Community (connects)

Modality; Possibility: Existence (actual): Necessity

Describe the noumenal world and the phenomenal world. Which world is not knowable in Kant’s view.

Noumenal world - the real world outside of our minds and beyond our senses

Phenomenal world - the world, as it appears to our senses

We cannot know the noumena

What was the authors of our textbook response to Kant’s skepticism?

While Kant says that we can't know anything about the noumenal world, he seems to know a lot about the noumenal world himself.  There is a serious inconsistency in his claim. 

Define logical positivism.

In early 20th century philosophical movement, that sought to elevate science as a privileged way of knowing, and to eradicate speculative metaphysics. To accomplish this goal, the Positivists develop the verification principle meaning

Define the verification principle.

A proposition is meaningful, if and only if it is either true by definition, or empirically verifiable in principle

What is the implication of the verification principle for the knowledge of God?

If the verification principle is true, metaphysical knowledge is impossible (book) According to logical positivists, metaphysical propositions (God exists, Humans have free will) are meaningless. (Notes)

What are the challenges to the verification principle?

The verification principle is self refuting and the principle itself is not empirically verifiable

What is the main problem/question that the Pre-Socratics were trying to address?

Were trying to describe the nature of reality by addressing the problem of the one and the many.

Define dualism.

There are two fundamental types of things, substance, or realms. The physical or material realm of reality, populated by the familiar objects of our center, experience, dogs, cats, tables, chairs, and such. There is an immaterial, spiritual realm where exist God, angels, human souls, and other non-physical things we do not experience through our senses, but perhaps we can know and experience by other means. (Book) there are two fundamental types of reality. The physical realm (familiar objects that are apparent to the senses,) the immaterial realm, (God soul, angels, mind, etc..) (Notes)

What are the reasons for believing dualism?

1. Descriptive-factual and explanatory reasons; dualism is said to capture the most accurate description of and is the best exclamation for the full range of human experiences and knowledge

2. Answers the one-and-the-many problem; Offers the best solution to the problem of the one and the many, because the physical world is full of diversity and constant change, and there seems to be no basis in the realm for affirming the unity of classes of things like dogs, chairs, humans beings, and such

3. God (Gods’ existence); evidence of Gods’ existence is evidence for dualism. If God exists, and is not a physical being, then it cannot be the case of the material universe, exhaust the nature of reality, meaning that Gods’ existence would seem that reality is at least minimally dualistic that there would be two kinds of substances, material and immaterial, even if God was the only immaterial thing.

4. afterlife; dualism offers a possible explanation for the general intuition that there is an afterlife

5. Biblical reasons; the doctrine of creation found in Genesis 1 and 2. Since God is not a physical object but an immaterial being this text supports the existence of the immaterial realm. That God created the heavens and presumably angels to embrace a spiritual dimension of reality. But also God also created the earth and the plants animals and human bodies that populate it, this being the physical or material realm. So this text can be used to support the belief that God created a material universe, in addition to an immaterial realm

What are the arguments against dualism?

1. Interaction problem; if there are two fundamentally different kinds of substances, physical and spiritual, how do they interact with each other? Dualist seem to think there's a casual relationship between the realms, and the immaterial causes which creates the material

2. Ockham’s Razor; otherwise known as the “principle of parsimony”, it says, that out of the set of possible explanations that are otherwise equal in explanatory power, the simplest explanation is to be preferred. Since most of the positive arguments for dualism are explanatory arguments- arguments, that claim that dualism is the best explanation for certain phenomenons- their plausibility becomes dependent upon the inaccuracy of simpler, non-dualistic explanations

Define materialism.

Is the view that all that exist is matter in the physical laws that govern its behavior. No immaterial substances exist. (such as God angels souls)

What are the reasons for believing materialism?

1. Ockham’s Razor; a simpler count of reality, than dualism. Everything that we experience can be explained in terms of material substance. There is no need to postulate existence of immaterial substances, that we cannot directly experience.

2. Human mind; the materialist believes that they can account for a consciousness without appeal to ephemeral “spirits”. They take notice of the fact that there is a strong correlation between mental events and what is going on in the human brain. “mental events are nothing but physical events in the brain, and thus the “mind” is nothing but the brain-a purely physical thing.”

3. Human Nature; materialist believe that they can account for the nature of human beings, in terms of matter alone. They believe that there is no need to believe in God.

4. Origin of the Universe; Believes that there is a materialistic account of the universe, as a whole is available, and that the physical world is eternal. In an attempt to explain they say it did not come in existence at some-time in the past, but always existed and came into existence through natural means.

5. Progress of science; A materialistic asserts that science will likely one day at a theory of everything that gives a completely naturalistic account of the world of reality, without recourse to any supernatural/non-material entities. Science has increasingly been able to explain the nature and operation of the physical universe. That phenomenons once explained by appeal to supernatural forces can now be explained by purely natural phenomenon, such as epilepsy was once thought to be possessed by demons.

What are the arguments against materialism?

1. It is contrary to a Christian Worldview; From a Christian perspective, materialism as a complete worldview is wholly unacceptable. The Christians commitment to theism and entails a rejection of materialism, because theism by definition requires the existence of at least one immaterial entity, namely God, so a Christian must reject materialism.

2. Does not meet the challenge of Ockham’s Razor; it does not offer a full explanation of the facts, sensation, desire, beliefs, thoughts, etc., even though it is simpler. The universe that has no beginning is logically impossible. Since the principal requires us to accept a simpler theory over a more complex one, all things being equal. When one adequately describes sensation, desire, believes, and thoughts one does not use physical language at all. Materialism fails to comport with these facts. Additionally it applies only on the contention that a simpler theory actually provides an adequate exclamation for the phenomenon that both theories aim to explain. Even though materialism is simpler than dualism, it is questionable whether it provides plausible explanation for what it claims to explain.

3. Correlation/Causation; Even a strong casual connection between mental events in brain. Events does not prove that the mind and brain are identical, or that the mind is ultimately material. (Book) correlation or even causation between mental events in brain events does not equal identity (Notes)

4. Implies no Free Will; Materialism implies no free will and thus no moral responsibility than materialism is problematic in lights of fact that most people believe in morality. If materials implies that human beings do not have freedom requisite for moral responsibility then we have reason to reject materialism. The reason is that most of us are strongly inclined to think that we are moral responsible for what we do.

5. Does not adequately offer a solution to the problem of the one and the many; materialist are left with the money and little explanation for the unity of various categories of things

6. The evolutionary argument against naturalism;

Define idealism.

One of the three broad approaches to the nature of the world, is the view that reality is mental or ideal, and denies the existence of mine independent matter Denies the existence of matter, and believes that all reality is mental

What are the reasons for believing idealism?

1. Ockham’s Razor; idealism is simpler than dualism and has more explanatory power than materialism. Offers a more satisfactory nondualist account. That there's nothing in idealism, that is obviously inconsistent with the Christian worldview. Just like the dualist, idealist believe that God's existence is required to explain the existence of the world and the other finite minds.

2. Mind/body problem; avoids it because the physical bodies are not a distinct substance with properties different from the mind, reducing physical to the mental.

3. Morality; does not create any significant problems for human moral responsibility. Morality is not a problem for idealism since it avoids hard determination.

4. Afterlife; there is no problem with accounting for life after death, because it is perfectly consistent with idealism that human minds go on living when their bodies die. It is not problematic like it is for materialism.

5. Addresses the problem of the one and the many; It addresses this by locating the universals in the mind of God. Because it doesn’t need to embrace nominalism. (Notes) affirms the real existence of properties in universals, like dogness and humanity, though they may understand them to exist as ideas in Gods’ mind (Book)

6. The argument from allusion, the problem with representationalism, (which is the idea that we only see our perception of objects and not the object itself) disappears because the idea in the mind is all that exist.

7. Addresses the problem of matter, being a placeholder for properties; it addresses the problem of matter being a placeholder for properties, and does not have properties of its own by limiting matter all together. Matter is not necessary to explain our ideas or our experiences and keeping the idea of matter threatens to lead into skepticism. Also the concept of matter is its self problematic because if matter is simply the substratum for properties then it would appear that matter has no properties.

What are the arguments against idealism?

1. Argument from illusion; argument from illusion that idealism reports to address is not really a problem. One can perceive an object differently from different angles and different distances, but that does not entail the object in itself change, or us being misled by our varied perceptions.

2. Dualism seems to comport with most peoples intuition about reality a.k.a. aligns with Bible stuff

3. Direct realism, this is the view that we directly experience external material objects. External objects are not contrary to representationalism mediated to our minds by ideas, rather in perception, material objects are immediately present to us this then shows idealism to be false.

Describe Platonic dualism.

the whole concept that there is a realm of forms and then the physical world that we see which instantiations of those forms.  It was illustrated by the analogy of the cave. This also includes universals (forms), properties, relations, and propositions are all types of these universals or forms. Particulars are lesser instantiations or examples of the forms in real life. Two worlds or levels of reality. There is a imperfect, changing, temporal world of particular things. This world could not be ultimately real, nor could it provide any bias for the unity of things. All we see in the physical world is diversity and change this lead plato to conclude that there must be another realm, a non-physical or spiritual reality that grounded the unity of things in the material world. Things in the spiritual realm, are perfect and eternal. (Book)

Describe Plato’s concept of Universals. Include a description of properties, relations, propositions.

Plato propose the realm forms to provide the unity for all of the diverse things. Plato believed in some thing called forms that provided the unity for all diverse things in the physical realm. Today, forms have been replaced with more refined notion called universals. Universals are abstract entities that don't exist in time and space, they are not concrete or physical and can be had by more than one thing. Universals are also eternal and necessary to exist. They can't not exist. Properties are a type of universal properties is a characteristic or quality of a thing and the way something can be color size etc. Relations is also a type of universal, unlike properties, which apply to individual things, relations or universals link multiple things together in various ways more specifically relations, mark how one thing stands relative to another. Propositions are another type of universal these are statements of fact about something example “My dog saved my life”

Describe Nominalism.

The view that there are no universals (properties, propositions, and relations). The nominalist only admits the existence of particulars and claims that universal terms are simply names that we adopt by convention for things that appear similar to us. (Book) there are no universals only particular, and the reference the universal does the name only (Notes)

What implications does nominalism have on ethics?

Since nominalism rejected existence of universal essences, (essence being the set of properties without which a thing would not exist) if there are no essence that objectively defines what it means to be a human, who do we attribute human rights. This allows a redefinition of personhood (abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, genetic engineering, cloning), marriage, (same-sex marriage), gender, (transgender issues) which leads to moral relativism. The nominalist leaves it open for us to decide what who does or does not count as human beings based on our personal or collective interests, if it is not in our interest to count a minority group as human then we may exclude them from the definition of accounts as human and still maintain that we believe in human rights

Describe Conceptualism.

The view that properties and other universals are mental concepts. Universals are located in the mind and not external realities as platonic forms

What are the problems with conceptualism?

Implies that if there were no mental concepts, there would be no properties Does this then imply that some thing does not have properties if someone is not thinking about it?

Define numerical identity?

It’s the same thing meaning all properties are the same; two things are exactly the same single entity

Define qualitative identity?

Very similar things (serval but not all properties are the same) Two or more objects that have similar properties but not all properties are the same; the relationship that holds between two or more distinct objects that are the same with respect to some important qualities.

What is the Bundle Theory?

The view, the particulars are collections of properties, and that there is nothing more or less to them than some of the properties they exemplify

What are the problems with bundle theory?

1. Mereological essentialism; the bundle theory entails that every attribute of a particular is essential to it.

2. Cannot distinct between essential and accidental properties; essential properties or properties that have to be particular and accidental properties that the properties it possesses could change and still be the same thing

3. Essential nature of relational properties (impure vs pure properties); if the bundle theory makes all properties of a particular thing are essential, that means that relational properties would also be essential. This would mean that any items that the thing you are considering is in relation to you must also be essential. This would lead to a world in which any change of property would entail a change of identity everything would be changing all the time. This means that any change that happens to an item makes it a different item

What is the Substratum View?

This view is that particulars are not simply bundles of properties. Particulars possess properties. Instead of being merely a bundle of properties, they are possessed by a bear substratum, which itself has no properties. Substratum is distinct from the properties and services support or bear the properties (Notes) The view that, in addition to its properties, a particular has a distinct component, called the substratum that underlines, and is the bearer of the particulars properties, but considered in itself is there or property less. (Book)

What are the problems with substratum view?

The Bare and bearing properties; on the one hand, the substratum does not have properties, It is bare on the other hand the substratum possesses the properties of the particular, which is contradictory. It doesn't have properties by definition, but it has the properties of holding things together.The substratum view has great difficulty providing us with an ultimate subject for properties.

What is the Substance View?

The view that particulars themselves should be taken as the most fundamental entities, and that they cannot be reduced to more basic entities. Particulars, so understood, are called substances. (Book) the view that concrete particulars themselves should be taken as the most fundamental entities. They cannot be reduced to constituent entities that are more basic than they.

What are the problems with substance view?

While the substance view does avoid the problems associated with the other views, it needs to be noted that the view clearly presupposes realism of the properties. Proposes the view called essentialism, which holds that concrete things have essential properties, properties that they cannot lack and continue to exist. Both realism and essentialism are controversial and often form the biased for objections to the substance view. (The substance view is a middle ground between the bundle theory and the substratum view. Like the substratum view it is the substance that possesses the properties but unlike the substrate in view the substance has properties and is not a bear stratum. Like the bundle theory the particulars has made of all of the properties that are particularly possessive unlike the bundle theory, not all properties are essential.)(Notes)

What is the difference between essential properties and accidental properties?

The difference between essential properties and accidental properties is that essential properties must possess their particulars in order to be what it is while accidental properties do not have to possess their particulars in order to maintain its identity. (Me) *essential properties properties, a particular must possess to be what it is. Accidental properties properties that are particular possesses, but does not have to possess them to maintain its identity.* (Notes)