HCJ 2 – Kant

Kant is perhaps one of my favourite philosophers, purely because of how much of a challenge his ideas are. He seems to step back from the ordinary and give a completely parallel perspective.

Kant goes against the a posteriori stance of Hume, and claims that something can be known completely indepdenently of experience – synthetic a priori.

Before I go on, I think I should define the different types of a priori and a posteriori:

A PRIORI

A priori is described as the necessary and universal way to know of things. We know things through reasoning, and we can only think of things in terms of space and time.

• Analytic: The statement would be true in itself, we could analyse the truth within the statement. E.g. All bachelors are unmarried.
• Synthetic: We can assess physical experience and create connections through our reasoning: cause and effect. E.g. We know that fire causes pain because we have realised the link between the touching of fire and the subsequent feeling of pain. This is what Kant believes. Kant’s theory of  there being a union between rationalism and empiricism (synthetic a priori) is known as the ‘Copernican Revolution’.

A POSTERIORI

To obtain knowledge through a posteriori is to obtain knowledge through raw sense data, dissociated perception, or simply: our senses. It is contingent.

• Analytic: It is not possible to mentally process a posteriori knowledge.
• Synthetic: The only way to know a posteriori, which is from experience. E.g. Some bachelors are bald.

Kant went on to say that we can only think in terms of space and time, it is necessary as it is our only perception.

Example: Rose tinted spectacles – you think you cannot think of anything not pink if you have only ever seen through rose tinted spectacles. We don’t have the experience without the spectacles, this makes it a necessary and universal. We have always been human, and so we cannot think of anything outside of space and time.

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You can prove using synthetic a priori the existence of both space and time – we cannot imagine anything that doesn’t occupy space and that is out of time. Space and time is a necessary and universal precondition of perception.

The universe exists independently of one’s own mind.

The phenomena are the apearences, and the noumena are the things themselves. These two ideas are vital to Kant’s understanding of the world and epistemology. All of our judgements are of the phenomenal realm, but we will never know of the nourmenal realm as it is independent of our experience.

For example, if you look at the pen, then it is understood in the phenomena, but if it is then taken away/hidden, it returns to the noumena (the pen still exists, but we are not experiencing it).

‘Unity of perception’ – this means that individual thoughts and sense data are sythesised into a whole picture. All experience is united as one perception.

Difference between waking and dreaming: waking consciousness is not dependent of sense data but of necessity. Dreaming is a random series of sense impression, there is no cause and effect in dreaming.

Objects of perception must conform to the mind. The mind creates imaginings by filtering raw sense data into the 12 categories, which can be deduced by synthetic a priori. These are:

1. Unity
2. Plurality
3. Totality
4. Reality
5. Negation
6. Limitation
7. Substance
8. Cause and effect
9. Community
10. Possibility
11. Existence
12. Necessity

All possible perceptions are synthesised from these, and exist in the mind as phenomena.

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Another thing to consider when talking about Kant is his ethics. Kant has ‘descriptive’ morality, rather than ‘prescripted’ – Hume.

The Categorical Imperative: this is a a maxim that should be done, but isn’t known necessarily from experience. We should act for the sake of duty, not for our own personal want of being moral. For example: You must stop at the red light.

The Hypothetical Imperative: this is a statement that consists of ‘if‘. For example: If you want to be good, then you must share your food. It doesn’t have to be done.

HCJ 2 – Locke and Hume

The next type of philosophers to consider in the topic of Epistemology are the Empiricists. Empiricism is the school of thinking where you obtain knowledge through our senses and experience – a posteriori. This is seen as a typically British approach to philosophy, especially after challenging European rationalist philosophers previously dealt with – Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.

An example to show the difference between the two is if you were born in a box and stayed there all your life, could you know anything about the world? For rationalists, the answer would be yes, because knowledge is innate. For empiricists, the answer would be no, because we have experienced nothing.

The main two empiricists that we are going to consider in this post is Locke and Hume.

LOCKE

John Locke believed that our understanding came from our experience, which is worked on by our power of reason to produce real knowledge – we assess what we learn.

We are born a blank slate, so we cannot simply rationalise knowledge, as we do not know anything of the world. God has given us the ability to discover knowledge – God-given facilities.

HUME

David Hume disagrees with Locke. He believes that there are no God-given facilities, and that our knowledge process just happens naturally.

Hume is often labelled ‘the great infidel’. Because he is a skeptic, some attack him and call him an ‘irrationalist’. Hume is pro science and anti superstition.

However, Hume is influenced by Locke on epistemology. Locke spoke about ideas – the way we get ideas is by acting on sensory data with reason, as stated above in Locke’s section. Hume refines this and speaks about perceptions, meaning content of the mind.

Perceptions can be impressions (hearing, seeing, feeling, etc.) or ideas (thinking of something instead of experiencing it). This is how we know things.

Beliefs can be split into relations of ideas and matters of fact:

• Relations of ideas = a priori bonds between facts (5+5=10)
• Matters of fact = experience, a posteriori. The process of cause and effect – induction. This, according to Hume, is not rational.

LOGIC

There are two types of logic:

Deductive = if all the premises of the argument is true, then the conclusion must be true. It further defines what we already know. E.g. all men are mortal > Socrates is a man > Socrates is mortal.

Inductive = aims to establish a conclusion to be true with some degree of probability. Applying the particular to the general. E.g. cancer, climate change.

INDUCTION:

The scientific method is about finding of natural laws are inductive leaps. We carry out experiments and make observations, then make a general law out of this. This is induction. Science cannot be established by observation as we cannot observe future events.

Hume had argued that was a problem about induction – it is unreliable. However we cannot help this because this is how we psychologically are. This is known as ‘Hume’s problem’. Our assumption of the future is flimsy, but it is the basis of all our thought. This is custom for us.

Hume doesn’t want us to abandon our trust in relations between cause and effect, but he demonstrating how little we depend on reason.

MIRACLES

A miracle is transgression of s law of nature, and one is usually presumed to have been caused by God. Never listen to a person who claims miracles – extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Proportion belief to available evidence.

HCJ2 – Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz

Throughout the whole of the second module of HCJ the topic is Epistemology. Strange word, and an equally strange meaning behind it. What it means is the philosophy of knowledge – how we acquire it, what it is, and what it is to know knowledge. Strange indeed.

The first set of philosophers that we have concentrated on with this topic are Descartes, Spinoza and Liebniz. These three are all rationalists, meaning that they discover knowledge through reason – a priori. There is no need for the physical observation of the world because all we can know is known through our use of reason and consciousness.

 

DESCARTES

The main points with Descartes are:

• Cartesian doubt
• The senses
• I think therefore I am
• Substance
• and God

Each of these aspects are all linked together and are not independent of one another.

Cartesian Doubt and the Senses

Cartesian refers to the school of thought of Descartes. Cartesian doubt is the act of doubting all that is physically doubtable and to return to the most basic facts that we can truly believe in.

Why may we do this? Well, it is because Descartes is a rationalist, and he does not believe that observation is the correct way to obtain knowledge. He says that our primary mode of knowledge is sensory, and that it is often wrong. For example, with hallucinations, mistakings, and so on. If this mode of knowledge is so unreliable, how can we possibly trust it?

I Think Therefore I Am

This leads Descartes to an analogy: What is there were a ‘demon’ manipulating our actions, trying to mislead us? If there was such a thing, then all that we see would be illusion and not natural contrary to what we believe.

However, there is one thing that Descartes cannot doubt, even with the misleading demon. That one thing is the fact that we are thinking, and because we are thinking, we must exist. Even if our thoughts are manipulated or misconstrued, we are still actively thinking those thoughts. This is known as Descartes’s Cogito, meaning consciousness. This is Descartes’s foundation of knowledge. We must conclude that the mind is one thing and the body is another. This is known as Cartesian Dualism.

Substance and God

Descartes believed that we were made up of three substances – mind, body, and God. Mind and body are both obviously important factors to our existence as they are the only two realities we know of and can distinguish between. God, for Descartes, is necessary in an interesting way. In order to progress from the Cogito we must have something, a catalyst almost, to enable us to allow ourselves to expand our knowledge. God wouldn’t deceive us because He made us, and He is a benevolent being.

In order for this to be so, Descartes must prove that God is real, and does so by his version of the Ontological Argument.

Descartes jumps from statement to statement:

1. God possesses all perfections
2. Existence is a perfection
3. Therefore God exists

Descartes refers to an analogy of a triangle in order for us to understand why these statements are able to flow from one another so sweepingly:

A triangle has certain characteristics (predicates) that are necessary for it to be so – all of its internal angles must add up to 180°, there must be three sides. If these predicates are removed, then the triangle is no longer a triangle. This relates to Descartes’s argument because as the triangle must logically have three sides and so on, God must possess all perfections or else God would not be God.

 

SPINOZA

The main points with Spinoza are:

• Monism and opposition with Descartes
• God is the true substance
• No free will

Monism

Spinoza is a ‘logical monist’. What this means is that the world as a whole is a single substance, none of which can logically stand alone. There are not two different parts of the world such as Descartes said – there is simply the physical.

God is the true substance

The reason for our world being simply physical is that all of our thinking is embodied as a physical manifestation of God. If we had a separate substance from the world, that would mean that God is separate from it, and this cannot be. Our souls are aspects of a divine Being.

No free will

There is no such thing as personal immortality. We have no free will – all that is good is good, but what is evil does not exist to God. This is because we are all manifestations of God, so evil is eliminated.

All wrongdoing is due to intellectual error – the man who adequately understands his own circumstances will act wisely.

Spinoza expresses a form of Pantheism (the world being one and adds up to God). God did not create nature because He is nature.

Berkeley expresses similarity with Spinoza by saying that there is only one substance, but that is mental. All that exists is through mental stimulation, including ‘physical’ actions. For example, if we pick up a pen, it is not our physicality that matters, but the mental stimulation and interpretation of the action.

 

LEIBNIZ

Last, but not least (perhaps it should be last but not sane) is Leibniz, a somewhat confusing character, even when compared with Descartes and Spinoza.

The main points with Leibniz are:

• Substance – Monad
• Best World
• Ontological & Cosmological argument

Monad

There are an infinite number of ‘monads’ in the universe. A monad is the simplest form that is the foundation of our complex being. This is our form of substance. It is a ‘soul’.

Necessary and eternal truths may be known by reason – a rational soul may know more than an ordinary one.

Best World

Leibniz also said that this world is the best of all possible worlds because God is benevolent and chose this one out of an infinite number of possibilities. He also said that God has chosen the best plan for the universe.

Of course, this is disputed for obvious reasons.

Ontological and Cosmological Argument

Ontological = Anselm said, simply put, if we can conceive of a perfect Being, it must exist because we have thought of it. He further went on to say that it is impossible to conceive of a perfect being not existing.

Cosmological = Aquinas (derived from Aristotle) presents the concept of the unmovable mover/uncaused causer – everything is in a state of motion, everything has causality. There are contingent and necessary beings, contingent being us and necessary being God.

 

Comparisons between the three

•Descartes & Spinoza – where Descartes believes that God had created us to think and act in our own way (I think therefore I am), Spinoza is fully dependent on God in all aspects.

•Leibniz & Spinoza – similar in the way that they are monist and believe that God controls what we do

•Descartes & Leibniz – they both strip back to the simplest form, but D has more in-depth analysis of humans

•Substance

–Descartes = 3, mind body and God

–Spinoza = 1, God/nature

–Leibniz = 1, monad