Philosophy: Epistemology

Epistemology

  • study on knowledge; ideals with the nature of human world/consciousness -> gain knowledge about the truth
  • 3 Questions   * What is knowledge/wisdom/certainty? [facts, reality, opinions, and knowledge]   * What is the nature of knowledge? [criteria, defining points of knowledge]   * How can one know reality? [how a human mind logically gain/understand reality]
  • 3 Philosophical Systems of Epistemology: rationalism, empiricism, critical philosophy

Rationalism

  • human intelligence is universal in all human minds   * Regardless of differences   * Optimistic
  • Human reason is a defining element of a human person
  • Human reason is the only means to certainty in knowledge   * Human reason is not unruly   * Logical way of thinking
  • Reason is the only way to determine what is morally right and good and what constitutes a good society   * Reason is the gateway to reality   * Makes us distinguish good from bad — can promote just and orderly society

Rene Descartes

  • supports reason as the only viable reason for the truth about life
  • Paris, France (1596-1650)
  • Elite society Father of Modern Philosophy

Modern Philosophy

  • based on the spectrum of science
  • Empowers the existence of men; prove God through human reason
  • Europe (17th-19th century) -> origin [France and Germany]
  • Epistemology and Metaphysics -> center
  • Direct reason to the “Medieval Period” (theocentric)   * Medieval Period: man is finite-> cannot gain access to the truth; everyone glorified God as absolute truth; God-centered
  • Descartes wants to restore faith in humanity (make humans progress)
  • Rise of science -> step by step discipline
  • Galileo exterminated from Christian society: “Can the physical world be understood mathematically without reference to God?”

Rene Descartes (cont’d)

  • studied at “La Fleche” University (Jesuit order)
  • One of the founders of Analytic Geometry
  • Mathematics (i.e. Geometry)   * Intuition and Deduction   * Clear and Distinct

Theology is wrong

  • based on faith which is blind
  • Glorifies fiction instead of facts
  • Serves as blockage/limitation to human reasoning   * Prevents men about learning new things in life

Intuition

  • ability of the mind/human reason to arrive at something that is really true/certain
  • Mind cannot help but accept it as true

Deduction

  • the capacity of the mind that complements intuition
  • To arrange certain truths in a logical sequence/hierarchy/ chronological   * Comprehensive wisdom about life   * 1–2–3
  • Mathematics is ^^clear and distinct^^->test for the truth   * Which is inevitably true

DESCARTES’ EPISTEMOLOGY: The Meditation

  • Main Objective: Total demolition and Reconstruction of human knowledge

FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLE: starting point/basis for certainty

  • clear and distinct -> free of error
  • Independent   * Autonomous; not dependent on anything; free from other truths to be certain     * The principle is a certain thing whose existence does not (…)
  • Existence   * About something which is real/reality

Epistemology

  • rework knowledge of the past [inadequate]
  • Restructure based on own foundations and principles
  • System-builders
  • Mind-based

Best Philosophy - rigidly structured/uniformed at arriving at the truth

  • Philosophy-Mathematics -> complementary at arriving at the truth

METHOD OF DOUBT: SKEPTICISM

  • Doubt   * unsure about life   * Uncertainty   * Descartes reworked concept of skepticism
  • Sophists - early skeptics

Descartes [“Skepticism”]

  • attitude that questions the reliability of the knowledge

Methodological Skepticism

  • methodical
  • Doubt as prerequisite at arriving at the truth
  • Doubting is the beginning of wisdom
  1. Senses/Sense Perception - deceiving; can be misleading “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave”; Father->God — chauvinistic society
  2. Material Bodies -> physical things; based on sense perception
  3. Natural Sciences - scientific disciplines study of nature/world; Chemistry, Physics; based upon sense perception    * related/unified with each other

Objective - Descartes wants to doubt personal sentiments

  1. Tries to falsify Mathematics [true and certain for Descartes]    * truths of human reasons -> should be falsified      * Appears to be true    * Should not be based on finite minds    * Hypothetical malevolent Demon Argument -> constantly deceiving us      * Falsify existence of God [all powerful and can deceive us]      * Substitutes God as Demon (nullify truths) ^^HYPOTHETICAL^^ = uncertainty

“Even if I am deceived in all my beliefs, I must exist in order to be deceived.”

I think, therefore, I am/Cogito ergo sum

  • act of doubting/thinking confirms self to be real

DESCARTES’ MAIN OBJECTIVE IN HIS EPISTEMOLOGY (THE MEDITATIONS)

“Total Demolition and Reconstruction of Human Knowledge”
  1. Traditional knowledge is inadequate. It should be falsified.    * destroy knowledge inadequate of the past
  2. Once falsified, knowledge must be reconstructed according to principles known by “Reason”.    * recreate knowledge based on REASON-> best way to arrive at certain knowledge in life
  3. Descartes was a “system builder of knowledge”

*abandon old knowledge and reconstruct based on a better foundations (Reason) *Thinking = affirming and negating Doubting=thinking

COGITO ERGO SUM

  • Latin
  • Act of thinking = I/self = mind/mental entity
  • Cannot be body = sense perception
  • Foundational principle
  • What truly exists is the mind/self
  • Existence of self/real

*Clear and distinct - the more you doubt, the more you affirm it

*Independent - universally true in all human minds

*Existence - must pertain to the existence of self/mind

“I” (mind/cogito) - thinking, ideas, free will, (choice/decision), soul (spiritual soul that can exist independently in the body)

REVERSAL OF DOUBT

  • replace doubt with certainty
  • Prove other truths->mind and body
  • Must investigate features of the mind
  • Rebuild and reprove everything from the standpoint of Cogito

*Self - abstract/can exist out of body

SUBJECTIVISM (P.99)

  • I can only know with certainty = my own mind and my thoughts [mind + ideas about reality]
  • Viewpoint — truth=> mind and our thinking
  • Everything outside the mind is uncertain
2 MAJOR IMPLICATIONS OF SUBJECTIVISM
  1. Knowledge of things outside the mind — mind and/or self -> basis for reconstruction
  2. If mind is certain, outside the mind is uncertain; mind is detached from social world/human beings/physical nature    * find not your own person - own standpoint    * Break away from social norms

Solipsism

  • only the self exists and the ideas -> tries to prove material bodies
  • Enclosed standpoint
  • To overcome, other things exist along with the existence of the mind
  • My mind with its thoughts it the only thing that exists, the only reality

Test of Truth

  • self-evidently clear and distinct in the mind for it to be true
  • “Mathematics” X God
  • Prove there is a God to prove Mathematics->material world
  • Mathematics - universally true
  • Reconstruct God based on reason and logic

THEORY OF IDEAS:

  • idea: a concept which we are conscious of; definition of things
  • 3 types of ideas:
  • Innate   * Naturally born with     * Mathematics, logic, God (perfect Supreme being)   * Self-evident to human reason   * Descartes agrees, from human reason and clear and distinct
  • Factitious/Fictitious   * Human imagination     * Futuristic world
  • Adventitious   * Caused by sense experience/outside human mind ->sense perception     * Buildings, trees

*factitious and adventitious = illusion and sense perception

  • Ideas have 2 kinds of realities [function/objectives]   * Actual/Formal Reality     * Presence of ideas in the mind/the definition of an object     * Ideas not found outside the mind; all definitions are in the mind but not all are clear and distinct   * Objective Reality     * Ideas refer to objects     * Functions of ideas in reference to outside of mind     * Correspondence of ideas to external objects     * Natural function of ideas (hierarchical)

*”7”- what makes 7 a 7 — actual reality [concept]

  • idea + objects — objective reality

*For something to exist outside the mind, it should be clear and distinct

THEORY OF CAUSES (p.103)

“All ideas are the effects of causes => all thing do not happen out of the blue

3 Self Evident Propositions about Causes
  1. There must be as much reality in the cause as in the effect
  2. Something cannot come from nothing    * must come from certain explanation/thing which is real
  3. What is perfect cannot proceed from the imperfect    * concept of perfection must come from something perfect

Cause and Effect

  • nature of cause should be the same as the nature of effect
  • Not merely a connection

DESCARTES RATIONALISTIC PROOFS FOR GOD

  1. First Proof (p. 105) “Doctrine of Ideas”    * God is the cause and we are the effect    * CRITICISMS:      * Ludwig Feuerbach        * “God is a projection of the human mind”        * Create “perfect being”/ false illusion to escape imperfections of the world        * Perfection is manmade      * Postmodernism        * Criticizes modern structures/idea of humanity        * Concept of perfection => social construct        * Perfection makes us stagnant, limited in our lives      * Assumes that the “innate idea of God is universal” but it is relative
  2. Second Proof (p. 106)    * I cannot be the cause of my own existence    * Infinite regress - other selves cannot be the cause of our existence [no starting point]    * God - first uncaused cause which makes Cogito exist [1st uncaused cause = matter/energy]    * Process of elimination
  3. Third Proof (p. 107)    * ontological argument    * Developed by Saint Anselm    * Definition/idea of God as a perfect being -> prove existence -> investigate God as a perfect being    * Political reasons in personal life (Galileo excommunicated)      * Appease the church      * Extra proof to be politically correct    * If God is complete and perfect, then He must exist Proves God through the definition of God    * God exists because He is conceptualized as a perfect being    * To be perfect is to be complete    * A perfect being must have the attribute of existence

AFTERMATH OF PROVING GOD

  1. God is the ultimate cause of the “self”    * the reason we exist is because of an ultimate creator
  2. On “human error” — misuse of “free will”    * human mistakes is not based on God    * Free will -> arbitrary, can mislead you from the truth
  3. God as the basis for the ideas of Math and logical reasoning

DESCARTES’ PROOF FOR MATERIAL BODIES/PHYSICAL SUBSTANCES (pp.112-113)

“Can the mind be the cause of the idea of a material body?”

Idea of material bodies X mind; X free will

*God cannot be the cause of physical things - God-> all good nature-> idea must come from actual material bodies

“Clear and Distinct” and “Objective”

  • objective: exists independently from the human senses

Primary Qualities

  1. Size and shapes/^^figures^^
  2. Capacity for ^^motion^^/change [motion based on human reason]
  3. Volume and space/^^spatial extension^^

*thorough understanding of math/geometry, you will have a thorough understanding of the world.

DESCARTES’ VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE

  • Theory on Mechanism (pp. 117-118) -> scientific view of the universe

Clockwork Universe

  • infinite extension
  • Constant motion
  • ^^Physical World^^: works like a clock, determined
  • ^^Animals^^: matter in motion; operate on instinct than free will

*Conscience, human reason, and free will sets humans apart from animals