Early Modern Philosophy

Early Modern Philosophy Descartes (1637) – Kant (1787) From Simple Studies – simplestudies.org Overview • Rationalist: concepts are innate and triggered by experience o Knowledge comes from operation of pure reason (?) o Descartes, Spinoza, Liebniz (Europe content but not English) • Empiricist: concepts come from experience, and all ideas are derived from impressions o Knowledge needs to be based on experience o Locke, Barkley, and Hume – all English-speaking Descartes • Descartes questions certainty—most things he thought were certain were not o Ex: reality might be a dream or an improper representation of how things are o The only thing that he can be sure of is that he has a mind • You don’t need real blue in the world to experience a sensation of blue in the mind • Physics and its use for medicine? • Conditions for progress: o Money o Peace + quiet o Observations • “I think, therefore I am” o Premise: I am thinking o Premise: There is an “I” o Conclusion: I exist • “Real distinction” between mind and body – they are radically different kinds of things o “real” comes from the Latin word for “a thing” • “Good sense is the best distributed thing in the world” – everyone is pleased with the reason that they have • Sources of doubt: o Senses can be deceptive o Dreams o More radical doubt: the evil demon doubt (the building blocks have been beamed into my mind by an evil demon) ▪ • Brains in vats are the modern version Thinking implies that there is something that is thinking and thus, we exist o Even if there is an evil demon controlling us, there is still an “us” that exists • “Descartes asserts that his clear and distinct understanding of mind and body as separate entities allows him to be certain they are distinct, because what can be clearly and distinctly conceived can exist separately, at least by God's power.” • Humans have clear and distinct ideas and we are able to draw logical influences from them o Seems to believe that this is a gift from God • Founder of modern philosophy and defender of reason o He also is a man who takes extremely seriously the idea and presence of God – he sees God as the figure that makes us who we are Discourse on the Method • Can doubt the body, but cannot doubt the mind o → mind =/= body o Structure of this argument: A is F, B is not F, so A is not B o Similarly: the clay and the statue are not the same ▪ The statue just existed a day, the clay has existed a very long time ▪ Statue is composed of clay Four-maxim moral code: • 1) be faithful to the laws of the country + religion • 2) be firm and decisive with actions • 3) be a master of yourself and your desires (you cannot control anything else) • 4) be in the best occupation Meditation 2 • “the nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body” • The mind is a “thing that thinks” o The mind can understand and imagine and experiences senses • We might just be dreaming or controlled by an evil demon o → can still seem to imagine and hear and see o → but the senses cannot be trusted • → we cannot trust the senses or imagination o The imagination makes up all kinds of stuff • What/who is the “I” that thinks? • Thought experiment: how do we know wax was taken from a honeycomb? o We know it’s wax by the senses o If it melts, its sensible properties change o If you still know it’s wax, then it can’t just be by the senses o → It’s imagination that helps us define it as wax • Mental perceptions are sometimes clear and sometimes confused o Mental perceptions are easily deceived • Another ex: our eyes see hats and coats, our intellect sees people • → the mind knows better than the body • + we know our mind better than we know anything else o And we can conclude at least that we exist Meditation 6 “The existence of material things, and the real distinction between mind and body” • Consider: material things exist and we can prove that through math o Pure math is something Descartes just believes to be true • Two arguments for the existence of material things: o 1) the imagination ▪ Distinction: imagination and understanding • Ex: you can perceive and understand a triangle (you see and know that it is three-sided) and you can imagine this, but it’s easier to perceive a thousand-sided figure than to imagine one • IOW: There are limits to imagination • Imagination must rely on something other than the mind and perhaps is connected to the body o 2) the senses ▪ We perceive we have a body that experiences pleasure and pain and other physical sensations ▪ We can perceive that other people have a body through vision, heat, smell, movement, etc • These perceptions come involuntarily and are more vivid than what we imagine – proof that they are not imagined • ▪ → these perceptions come from the senses ▪ → the sense experiences most likely resemble their source Why does it feel like our mind is attached to our body in specific? o Ex: physical sensation of tugging in the stomach → mental suggestion that one should eat o Nature makes us inclined to act this way o Plenty of doubt about material things but not enough to discount them o Body as an extension of the mind – so we are distinct from our bodies and could conceivably exist without it • Modes of thought - Imagination and sensory perception are modes of thought o Could perceive a version of yourself without them, making them not essential o Thought could not exist without the mind • Some modes require a body/external stuff o Sensory perception requires something outside of oneself o Sensory perceptions are likely accurate because they come from what they represent o “God is no deceiver” • → We must have a body (because nature says so) and the mind and body are connected o There are other bodies too and they can be the source of sensory perceptions • What material claims are not justified? o Cannot claim that an object is a color just because it appears that way ▪ Same with heat, taste, texture o Nature does not tell us to draw conclusions based on our perception alone ▪ (Unlike the way it tells us to seek pleasure, avoid pain) o Correct judgement is more about intellect than senses ▪ Sensing the heat of a flame does not mean that the pain is in the flame – senses inform us and we judge from there o We make bad judgements though, too • ▪ The mind is indivisible, though it does contain different faculties ▪ When we imagine, our whole mind is imagining Proof for dualism: the mind is totally indivisible and bodies are divisible o Descartes says only the pineal gland can send messages from body to the mind (old science) ▪ • Body sometimes cannot accurately communicate Any experience can be connected through memory + God not being a deceiver → proof that the Dream Argument does not have any real doubt Objections and Replies • One objection comes from a Mr. Arnauld: he says that he can have “a clear understanding of a triangle inscribed in a semi-circle without knowing that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the squares on the other side” (Descartes 137). This is part of his argument that the mind and body are connected: you can know one thing without knowing the other. Sometimes—usually—knowledge isn’t complete, and perhaps that body is one of those things that we don’t understand enough. o Descartes says simply that Arnauld’s objection is not analogous: a triangle exists, but the Pythagorean theorem exists to explain the triangle. The Pythagorean theorem is a tool of understanding: one that wouldn’t exist without its subject (the triangle). Neither the mind nor the body is tool to understand the other. Descartes concedes that they are unaware of parts of ourselves, and that the mind is “better known than the body,” but that our lack of complete information about the body does not mean that it is essential. (Descartes 139) He reminds the reader that we can imagine ourselves existing without the body meaning they are separate. Descartes writes that “it is a conceptual contradiction to propose that two things we clearly perceive as difficult should become one and the same.” (Descartes 139) Further, he has “never seen or perceived that human bodies think” only “that there are human beings who possess both thought and a body.” (Descartes 139) • A second of the counterarguments to Descartes and to dualism in general is that we cannot be sure we are not being deceived. “How can you establish with certainty that you are not deceived, or capable of being deceived, in what you know clearly and distinctly?” (Descartes 132) The “evil demon” argument is a form of this counterargument, in that it suggests that maybe there are actually inaccurate thoughts being beamed into our brains, or other forms of thought manipulation occurring that we aren’t aware of. The counterargument goes that we cannot be sure we are not being deceived, because we cannot be sure we would be aware if we were. o To this, Descartes essentially argues that we should use our intellect: without intellect, we might be easily deceived, but with it, we are not easy targets of deception. He also says that “if such judgements were false they could not be corrected by any clearer judgements or by means of any other natural faculty.” (Descartes 132) While I think this is a weaker reply, I think the counterargument isn’t a strong one and thus does not need a perfectly strong reply. One could argue that we cannot be sure, but one cannot argue that we are most definitely incorrect in our assumptions. Practically speaking, it serves us to believe our “clearest and most careful judgements” are things we can believe in. • There are 7 objections o 1st: Caterus o 2nd Mersenne o 3rd Hobbes o 4th Arnauld o 5th Gassendi Arguments for God • The Ontological Argument: We have an idea of God as a perfect being, and existence is a necessary attribute of perfection → God must exist, because a perfect being without existence would be contradictory. • Causal argument: the idea of God came from somewhere o We have an idea of an infinitely perfect being (God). o This idea cannot originate from ourselves, because we are finite and imperfect. o Only an actually existing infinite and perfect being could be the cause of this idea. o Therefore, God must exist. Formal reality (what exists) vs objective reality (the reality of ideas) Descartes – Knowledge + Reality • original skeptic and “father of modern philosophy” o break from old “medieval” philosophy which was dominated by the church o started the focus on reason and scientific developments • French mathematician + scientist • Rationalism: the important truths about the world are obtained by reason without relying on the senses o → Descartes argues that many of our beliefs about the external world can be cast into doubt ▪ → Which (if any) of our beliefs can not be doubted? • Math, internal awareness?? • Descartes wants to find “the Archimedean point” to rest all other beliefs on • Skepticism: the idea that knowledge is impossible o Descartes uses a method of skepticism to figure out what knowledge is certain. He uses reason and doubts all beliefs he is not certain of. o Criterion for certainty: a belief is certain when it’s impossible to doubt • Candidates for certain beliefs o 1) Beliefs acquired by the senses ▪ Ex: “the table is brown” → Descartes says he could be dreaming and deceived that the table is brown o 2) Mathematical beliefs ▪ Ex: 2+2=4 → Descartes says he cannot be certain that I am not being deceived by a demon that 2+2=4 ▪ Counting requires senses and language ▪ There is a difference because with math, you can say that you can’t prove it wrong, but with fake math (like 2+2=5), you can’t prove it right o 3) I exist. I am conscious. I am thinking. ▪ • “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes wanted a foundation for all knowledge and chose the idea that we exist and are conscious. How do we get from that to other knowledge about the world? His answer is God o Descartes ultimately thinks that because God exists and God is not deceptive, that our knowledge of the world is generally reliable. • Hallucinations + dreams o If someone were to say “the table is brown” but is hallucinating, is that true? ▪ It’s false, but if you were to say “the table I see is brown” or “I’m seeing a brown table” o We can perceive something that doesn’t exist ▪ ex: hallucination, phantom limb pain o It depends on how we define exist → physical existence? o Can we be sure that we aren’t dreaming? ▪ Argument for yes: we have all 5 senses ▪ Argument for no: dreams mimic reality and we have no way to prove that we are not currently in one • Descartes and Unger o Both argue that knowledge requires certainty ▪ Ex: “To know that P I have to be certain that P.” ▪ Certain: impossible to doubt o IMO: Can we not just account for subjectivity? ▪ Ex: “The table is white.” → “The table looks white to me.” o Descartes says that he is certain he exists whereas Unger says he is not absolutely certain he exists ▪ Descartes: “I exist!” ▪ Unger: “I don’t exist” o Case: “I know that it is snowing outside, but I am not certain of it.” ▪ Unger and Descartes say no way ▪ IMO: We use “know” to mean having a belief in something being true with high confidence. It’s a semantic thing. Brains in Vats – K + R • Story summary o Margot says: “He’s not really dead, you know. These gentleman are the premier neuroscientists in the world today. They have developed a surgical procedure whereby they remove the brain from the body but keep it alive in a vat of nutrients.” o Harry’s brain is connected to a computer that “produces a fictious mental life that merges perfectly into his past life so he is unaware that anything has happened to him” o The surgeons want to do the procedure on the narrator o “I am racked by the suspicion that I am really a brain in a vat and all this I see around me is just a figment of the computer” • Modern version of Descartes’s evil demon • Skeptical hypothesis: a possibility that casts doubts on my beliefs and undercuts their claim to knowledge • “Envatted” scenario: you have an isolated cognitive system which receives its inputs from and sends its outputs to an artificially-designed computer simulation of the world • Arguments for the possibility are that the brain could allegedly possible to have the same experiences and beliefs • → If you are a brain in a vat, then you have many false beliefs • Modern skepticism argument: o 1) I don’t know that I am not a brain in a vat. o 2) If I am a brain in a vat, then I don’t know anything about the state of my experience. o 3) I don’t know anything about my experiences. o → I don’t know much at all o Example: • ▪ 1) I don’t know that I am not a brain in a vat. ▪ 2) If I am a brain in a vat, then I don’t know that I am walking. ▪ 3) I don’t know that I am walking. Responses to the brain in a vat thought experiment o Putnam: A brain in a vat cannot actually have the same beliefs and thoughts ▪ A brain in a vat could not think “I am a brain in a vat.” o Chalmers: Even if you are a brain in a vat you have mostly true beliefs. If I am envatted for long enough then the thoughts become true because the words will take on different meanings. • Case 1: you were kidnapped and envatted o The technology that it would take is extremely advanced. Even if it existed, there would have had to have been steps we would have known about. • Case 2: you’ve always been envatted o the words you say have a different but similar meaning without physicality, which could preserve truth ▪ if I say “I am typing” but am a brain in a vat, I mean I am typing in my experience but not in the physical reality outside the vat ▪ “typing” how I define it would be accurate ▪ the vat becomes our reality ▪ this semantic argument doesn’t disapproves that we are or aren’t brains in vats, just that the possibility of us being brains in vats doesn’t inherently undermine our knowledge • Does it matter if we are brains in vats if we only have our lived reality? No matter where that reality comes from? o pragmatic approach—nothing is going to change for us Al Ghazali • Persian mystic who made Sufism accepted by Islam • Relevant groups: o Exteriorists – literalists, they think the words of the Quran are all you need ▪ Not helpful? o Traditionalists – imitators, conformists, etc ▪ Not helpful? o Mutakallimun – students of kalam (the word, religious texts) – supporters of rational theology o Interiorists – batinites, interior meaning to the words of the Quran and that there is a tradition leading to the correct interpretation ▪ Ismails ▪ Shiites (today – Iran and Iraq) o Philosophers -- focused on the Greek traditions, imported by people who spoke both languages ▪ Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – thought of as on the right track o Sufis: the mystics ▪ • This is where Al Ghazali comes in The senses, reason, and prophecy o Prophecy = revelation, connected with the Arabic concept of “taste,” a special experience you have to have had in order to understand it • Echoes of Descartes and Plato • AG argues that reason doesn’t get us all the way—it has limits o Humans successfully go beyond reason so there must be a further faculty in the mind Locke standard thing with Locke is to cite Book, Chapter and Section: e.g. writing 1.2.5 for Book 1 chapter 2 section 5 • No innate principles in the mind o Innate principles: primary notions “stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being” o Locke says no – “by use of their natural faculties [men] may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions” o Universal consent proves nothing innate ▪ Locke says that even if there were principles agreed to by everyone, it wouldn’t prove that they’re innate ▪ Later says (pg 71): “I agree with these defenders of innate principles, that if they are innate, they must needs have universal assent.” • Point of disagreement: no universal assent o Children and idiots don’t have these principles so it cannot be innate ▪ “Tis evident that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them” o Argument: “all men know and assent to them, when they come to the use of reason, and this is enough to prove them innate” ▪ Locke’s CA: well if they need reason then it’s not innate – if you have to use something to get there, you aren’t already there ▪ Locke’s additional CA: we don’t discover them by reason and you don’t have to use reason, for example, to know that contradictions are impossible. It’s more immediate than that, so this argument has yet another flaw. o How do we get ideas? ▪ “The senses at first let in particular ideas…afterwards the mind proceeding further, abstracts them” o “The knowledge of some truths, I confess, is very early in the mind; but in a way, that shows them not to be innate” o “I demand whether ready assent, given to a proposition upon first hearing, and understanding the terms, be a certain mark of an innate principle?” ▪ If so: “they must allow, not only as many innate propositions as men have distinct ideas; but as many as men can make propositions wherein different ideas are denied one of another” o Self evidence =/= innate o “these principles may be made more evident to us by others’ teaching than nature has made them by impression…makes [innate principles] unfit to be the foundations of all our other knowledge” o “he then begins to know a proposition, which he knew not before; and which from thenceforth he never questions; not because it was innate; but because the consideration of the nature of the things contained in those words, would not suffer him to think otherwise” o “if there be any innate truths, they must necessarily be the first of any thought on” (pg 72) • No innate practical principles o “practical principles…come short of a universal reception” (pg 74) o “moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth” (pg 75) ▪ Not as straightforward as “natural characters” o “whether there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any, who have been but moderately conversant in the history of mankind” (page 75) ▪ IOW: Faith and justice are not principles that everyone has o CA: “perhaps…the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice contradicts” ▪ IOW: they have these principles in their mind but don’t practice them ▪ Locke’s response: “it is certain that most men’s practice…have either questioned or denied these principles, it is impossible to establish a universal consent” o If innate, there would not be a need for proof, but “there cannot any one moral rule be proposed, whereof a man may not justly demand a reason” (pg 76) ▪ IOW: moral rules need a proof, which they wouldn’t if they were innate o “I cannot see how any men, should they ever transgress those moral rules, with confidence, and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their minds” (pg 78) • Proposition 2 (?) o The only way bodies operate is by impulse o When bodies produce ideas of color, smell, sound, etc → the things producing it are similar to what is produced ▪ Resemblance between ideas and causes for primaries o In some sense there is an error in thinking things are how they appear to be o If primary qualities produce my idea of color → ? • Locke things personhood comes from memories and not the body o Ex: if a prince and a cobbler swapped bodies, the prince in the cobbler’s body is more the prince than the cobbler in the prince’s body o My q: what about dementia / brain damage? Is the body not then relevant for identification? o Responsibility goes with memory o “Person” as a forensic term o We attribute praise and blame according to people’s memories • → IMO perhaps some psychological continuity influence but it can’t be purely memory because of cases like dementia/brain damage – the body and bodily experiences are thus relevant too • CA: We can’t remember everything! I don’t remember most of being 0-5 but I was that person o Locke would point to the chain of memory linkages: when you were 7, you could remember when you were 5, and when you were 9 you remembered being 7 etc • CA: what about a car accident you don’t remember? o Locke would say you can remember before and after – even lead-up and results ▪ “I count that as me because I was the person that was driving that car before the accident” Chomsky • Linguistics as a biological capacity • Input =/= sufficient to determine the language that you require • Nothing in merely general learning theory indicates settling on grammar 1 or 2 or 3 • syntax is separate from semantics o 1. Store the Peter to went. o 2. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. o The first sentence is not written correctly but you know what it means. The second sentence follows the rules of syntax but means nothing semantically. • all human languages have a common underlying linguistic structure irrespective of their socio-cultural differences o Chomsky talks of a universal grammar – a tendency to pick up one kind of grammar o Rejection of Locke’s idea of being a “blank slate” at birth – Locke denies fully formed ideas ▪ Chomsky is explicitly defending something that Locke wants to attack o Rejection of the work of B .F. Skinner’s idea that human behavior is completely learned o Perhaps you have a tendency to pick up certain concepts even if you are not predisposed to the concepts? Spinoza • The only work he put his name to while he was alive was the Exposition of Parts 1 and 2 of Descartes’s something something • Principle attribute = essence = essential property of the thing o In Descartes, there are bodies and lumps of clay ? And particular minds • Property dualist (?) • Spinoza uses the word “mode” for the house and tree ???? • Book 1—substance and the universe and the physicality of it all • Book 2-- ? • Book 3—thinking and mind as it fits in the metaphysical system • Book later parts—ethics • Soft determinism: freedom and determinism together • Attribute = what we take to be the essence of a substance • Mode = affections of a substance o Affections = features / properties ▪ Ex: color o Properties as “in” things ▪ You only have a proper conception of the properties by thinking of the thing that has that property ▪ Ex: To think about the weight of a thing, you have to think about the thing itself – “you have to have a fix on the things before you can talk about the properties of the thing” • God = “absolutely infinite being” o Some relation to the number 6? o Physical space as infinite and extended o Substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses infinite essence • Eternity = lack of time/tenses, purely “existence itself” o We often think of eternity as time going on indefinitely but Spinoza uses it to mean a kind of perspective on changing things from outside change altogether o The kind of existence an eternal thing has – development in the way something’s essence demands o Imagine how God might look down upon the totality of the changes and think of them not as “this is happening now” or “this is happening soon” but a perspective of eternity (the perspective of a being outside time) o “Somespecia incantartus” ??? – under the appearance of eternity or from a POV of eternity • By part 5 of the ethics, we should reach an understanding from outside time (from the eternal point of view” • God = universe = created something outside himself o God = totality gradually changing o The universe evolves in its own way? o Natura naturata = nature brought into being ▪ Everything that follows from the necessity of God’s nature ▪ Effects o Natura naturans = active forces ▪ Causes o Producing things but involving in its own way? o Trees grow following its own nature and thereby producing change but in itself o Scholium??? = note or additional comment • Page 51: “nothing in nature is contingent” – “all things are…determined to exist and act in a [certain] way” o Spinoza = determinist • Proposition 1: substance is by nature prior to its affections o Logically more fundamental o Substance is more basic than its characteristics • Distinguishing by affections o Distinguishing because the attributes are different (mental or physical characteristics) • 5: there cannot be two or more substances of the same nature • Axioms of part 1 (generally about God and substance and the universe) o axiom 1: everything is a substance or mode or property (all things that are are either in themselves or in something else) ▪ page 21 o axiom 2: “that which cannot be conceived through another thing must be conceived through itself” o axiom 3: from a given determinate ___, effects follow necessary o axiom 4: thorough knowledge of an effect involves or depends on knowledge of the cause o axiom 5: o axiom 6: a true idea needs to agree with the thing of which it is an idea o axiom 7: if a thing can be conceived of not existing, then it must exist (Ex: God) not part of the essence of the chair to exist • Axioms of part 2- the view of how mind exists in reality proposition = italics at the top proof = what follows the proposition to prove to proposition Conway • Argument that if it’s good to have a world, then it’s good to have more world than just one • 3 substances in the world: o God o An emanation from God (Adam Kadmon) who then creates: o Everything else • ▪ Minds ▪ Bodies Thinks minds and bodies are one single kind of thing that can change in character/convert into each other Hume • Scottish • Gets rid of God – world is left with all events loose and separate • Aspect eliminating causation and an aspect reducing causation to constant conjunction • Was secretly reading Cicero • Hume presents a counterexample about ideas and said it’s not important enough for him to revise his theory (sassy man?) • “However complex they may be, we always find they resolve themselves…into simple ideas…” • “secondly, if you get a defect…a person who is not susceptible to…sensation…that person is equally susceptible” o Just as unable to have the corresponding kind of idea o Blind person → no notion of color o Page or margin 20? • Enquiry section 2 o Impressions vs ideas ▪ Within ideas – complex and simple • Simple ideas perfectly represent impressions • Complex ideas have more depth/layers • Complex ideas are built out of simple ones ▪ Ideas are derived from impressions ▪ Impressions: vivid immediate sense perception ▪ Idea: memory of an impression o All ideas come from impressions (which are from senses and experiences) ▪ Similar to Locke o Ideas come from impressions – complex ideas can be analyzed and made of ideas so we can eventually get back to a collection of simple ideas • Enquiry section 4 part 1 o relations of ideas—these are connections between concepts, such as saying “this is that.” “This” is a concept, and “that” is a concept, and the connecting of the two is the relation of ideas. An example he gives is a math equation: 5 + 7 = 12. It’s an idea composed of ideas: the idea of 5, the idea of addition, the idea of 7, etc (Hume 4.1.1). o matters of fact-- statements of experience. For example, I am sitting in a chair. These are a posteriori, in that they are proven through experience and cannot be proven or disproven purely by logic. It must be shown in the external world, rather than something like a math equation that can be thought through mentally (Hume 4.1.2). ▪ we can learn these matters of fact through cause and effect rather than direct observation. ▪ Ex: knowing a friend is abroad in France. You might not be able to see the friend in France, but a letter saying they are in France is something you see (Hume 4.1.4). The letter is an effect that causes you to know a matter of fact. Causal knowledge like this cannot be a priori, because it’s based on experience. ▪ • Hume thinks this is an inference, but not a form of reasoning. Enquiry section 4 part 2 o distinguishes between two kinds of reasoning ▪ first category: “demonstrative reasoning” which applies to cases that are a priori, ones that don’t require a learning experience-- the kind of reasoning we use with matters like relations of ideas. We can use logic and induction, for instance, to see that 5 + 7 =12. • Demonstrative reasoning cannot prove wrong the nature of an experience: it’s not the kind of thing you can use logic alone to analyze. ▪ Second category: “Moral reasoning,” which is the kind focused on experiences of existence • Ex: trees coming into bloom in December and January cannot be determined as false a priori—it requires another form of reasoning, namely the moral kind (Hume 4.2.18). It requires some experience or knowledge of experiences. o Hume writes that all people, even infants, improve with experience by observing objects and their effects (Hume 4.2.23)—this is because it’s valuable information to us. • Enquiry section 5 o “skeptical solution” to problems from the prior section: How do we form any reasonable conclusions not based on a priori logic or direct experiences? o Hume claims that causation isn’t necessarily intuitive: that a person born into the world at an age that would allow understanding would consider things unconnected (Hume 5.1.3). I disagree with this, though, because psychology shows that cause and effect is something babies learn fairly quickly, even if they aren’t able to articulate their knowledge. o Hume proposes that this kind of reasoning is not something we come to understand, but something we are conditioned to do. He argues that these customs (or habits) are important because without them, matters of fact could only stem from experiences, and we’d never learn causation the way we do. Our experience is useful, he argues, because we can learn from it; “custom is the great guide to human life” (Hume 5.1.5). o Conclusion: “All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that and some other object” (Hume 5.1.8). • IMO: We can reasonably assume that because X has happened every time because of setup Y, that when Y happens, X will happen again. o There’s not evidence of not-X • How do we come to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow? o A question of if it’s well-supported / justified o A question of how we come to hold that view (psychological – what kind of processes in the mind) o Possible principle: nature is uniform/regular • Hume swings in two directions o One conclusion: it isn’t reason that he reaches these conclusion and maybe it’s just arbitrary • Projection o One idea: it’s pragmatically useful - projection is a useful process for human beings o One idea: we can’t get rid of it (it’s inevitable) o One idea: it’s pretty accurate • Instincts > reasoning • Hidden causal powers? • The word “cause” includes in its meaning priority, contiguity (only in the treaties), and necessity (or necessary connection) o He says there’s no impression or experience that yields an idea of necessary connection o “Necessary connection” could mean constant/repeated conjunction, or it could mean leads to habitual association o Constant conjunction which is out in the world + the feeling which is in the mind Kant • He believed germs would get in your mouth if you talked while walking outside • Sensible perceptions represent things in themselves • Metaphysical claims restricted to items that we experience • Where there is no contradiction to what we know by reason as knowledge, then we can have belief • “Science” = systematic knowledge o Not just chemistry, basically o while we can comprehend phenomena, noumena remain beyond our grasp • we stand in time • sensation: “effect produced by an object upon the faculty of representations, so far as we are affected by it” • Empirical: An intuition of an object by means of sensation • phenomena (how things appear to us) vs noumena (things as they exist independently of our perception) • realm of appearances (phenomena) vs the realm of noumena (things-in-themselves) o Appearance: The undetermined object in an empirical intuition o CAUSE AND EFFECT ▪ we cannot apply this principle beyond appearances—causality does not necessarily govern things as they exist independently of human perception • “to exist” is a logical predicate (it has the ordinary syntax of predicates) • Reason should not be discouraged by abstract doubts • Perhaps God didn’t create the world but ordered it/systemized it • Empiricism in the end leads to skepticism o More than one way to reply: one of which is combing skepticism and naturalism and another is to be a full skeptic and accept it ▪ Another is to say that skepticism isn’t the end point because the starting point is not right Intro + Preface • metaphysics is in a poor state, especially in comparison to other fields. o look at other domains that have reached the stage of “science” – which he uses to mean systematic knowledge apparatuses. ▪ o Science works from the same rules metaphysics is struggling to become a science because it simply doesn’t meet the criteria for one. Instead, it is “a completely separated and speculative rational science of reason which declines all teaching of experience and rests on concepts only” (Kant 97). o If you continually end up back at square one, and if you keep getting disagreements from experts in the field, then you don’t have a science. ▪ This describes philosophy, because while it does build on itself, there are not established facts that can then become a foundation. The success of other fields comes from limiting themselves to the study of structures; for example, logic and math work with forms and facts not subject to the same amount of disagreement (Kant 95-98). • → Copernican revolution: involves moving reference points (Kant 95). o Kant looks to external objects—perhaps we make an imprint on the things we experience, and that our experiences are at least partially due to us. This is the opposite of the prior thinking: external objects imprint on us and that’s our experience. Kant does an experiment that he claims allows us to say that we can be sure the thing’s structure that we encounter meets certain requirements to test if we could be correct in “assuming that objects conform to our mode of representation” (Kant 100). • “I am not allowed even to assume God, freedom, and immortality for the sake of the necessary practical employment of my reason,” he writes (Kant 103). o Kant places a limit here: for metaphysics, we should look at our domain of experience. Practical (or moral) philosophy becomes significant because this is where we can go beyond immediate experiences • The unconditioned: to Kant, refers to a thing in itself in the realm of things outside our experience • our understanding of the world is shaped by our minds, which are influenced but not entirely reflective of the world around us. He writes that "all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt" (Kant 104). o IOW: human cognition starts from sense experience, then moves to understanding to reason. Kant also writes that "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." Our sensory experience, as he understands it, is inherently intertwined with our conceptual understanding. Selections from the Transcendental Aesthetic • Intuition is described in the first sentence of this section as “whatever the way and the means may be by which a cognition may [directly] relate to objects” (Kant 104). o only possible when we are presented with an object. From there, we sense objects, and then we can use our intuition (Kant 104). • Empirical – sense perception from the outside world • Pure intuition – abstracted ones o A priori always, but a priori =/= pure intuition • a priori and a posteriori o a posteriori: “Only the matter of appearances is given us a posteriori, but their form must lie ready for them in the mind a priori, and must therefore be capable of being considered as separate from all sensations” (Kant 105). ▪ IOW: what something looks like in particular is information we get after experiencing it, but our concept of what that thing is must exist in advance. For instance, I must know in advance what a bike is to be able to identify it as one, but what a specific blue bike with a silver bell looks like is something I learn through the senses. o A priori: we intuitively understand space and time. ▪ These are a priori concepts because they are not properties of anything in particular, but rather, ways in which we understand all things. ▪ “These belong to pure intuition, which, a priori and even without a real object of the senses of sensation, exists in the mind as a mere form of sensibility,” he wrote (Kant 105). ▪ he looks to appearance and illusion: “the quality of space and time, lies in my manner of intuition and not in these objects by themselves” (Kant 109). • Spontaneity = freedom, ability to do by own free will • The faculty of sensibility is a matter of you being affected by things (receptivity) o Being affected by an object • Ex: When I think “Prof is late” → it is a sensory experience (intuition) of his absence in the room and applying a concept of time/personhood to it • We can distinguish the matter and structure of sensations • Two forms of ordering: time and space o Time ordering includes inside and outside o Space is only for external ordering o All experiences are ordered in time