Reason as a source of knowledge/ I+D thesis Flashcards
What is the difference between analytic and synthetic truths?
A proposition is analytic if it is true or false by virtue of the meanings of the words themselves. For example, the proposition ‘the bachelor is an unmarried man’ is true due to the definition of the term ‘bachelor’. A proposition is synthetic if it is true by virtue of the way the world is. For example, the proposition ‘grass is green’ is a synthetic truth.
What is the difference between necessary and contingent truths?
A proposition is contingently true if it is possible that it could be true or false. An example of a contingent truth would be ‘I am sitting my philosophy exam’ - this is true, but it is also possible that I could be doing something else. In contrast, a proposition is necessarily true if it must true and would be true in any possible world. For example, mathematical propositions such as ‘2+2=4’ are necessarily true as it is not possible for them to be different.
Outline innatism
Innatism is a rationalist theory of knowledge which argues that innate knowledge (that we are born with) is possible of necessary truths (a truth that must be true in all possible worlds, such as 1+1=2) which we do not require sensory experience to access. Experience is required to articulate these truths, but everybody is able to grasp them a priori (without experience). These innate ideas provide timeless truths: they are, and always will be true regardless of time, place or circumstance.
Explain Plato’s ‘slave boy’ argument
In ‘Meno’, Plato uses the example of a slave boy to show that we have accessible innate ideas. The argument can be laid out as such:
P1: The slave boy has no prior knowledge of geometry
P2: Socrates only asks questions; he does not teach the boy about geometry
P3: After the questioning, the slave boy can grasp an eternal geometric truth
P4: This eternal truth was not derived from the boy’s prior experience, nor from Socrates
C: This eternal truth must have existed innately in the boy
(Possible response – perhaps the boy is simply using reason to work out Socrates’ questions. It is not necessary to posit innate knowledge to explain how the boy can reason his way to a geometric truth)
Explain Leibniz’ argument from the necessity of truth
Leibniz argued that our knowledge of necessary truths must be innate as he felt that the universality of some truths cannot be established purely through the senses. His argument can be laid out as such:
P1: Our sensory experience can only display particular instances (for example, instances of mathematical propositions)
P2: A collection of instances is not sufficient to show the necessity of truth
P3: We can grasp and prove many necessary truths (including mathematical propositions like 2+2=4)
C1: Therefore, the necessary truths we grasp in our mind do not derive from our senses
C2: Thus, these ideas must be known innately
Explain the view that the mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ at birth
A claim made by classical empiricists, such as Locke and Hume, is that the mind at birth, or before the first point at which we are conscious, is a ‘tabula rasa’ - a blank slate. This means that there are no (a priori) concepts, knowledge or truths present within the mind at this point, denying the existence of innate ideas. Empiricists would argue that such concepts, knowledge and truths are derived from (a posteriori) sensory experiences, a notion which is based on Hume’s copy principle (which shows that all ideas in the mind ultimately derive from impressions).
Explain Locke’s argument against innatism
P1: If there is innate knowledge, it must be universal
P2: For an idea to be part of the mind, the mind must know or be conscious of it (Locke said ‘no proposition can be said to be in the mind which it has never known or been conscious of’)
C1: Therefore, innate knowledge is knowledge that every human being is or has been conscious of
P3: ‘Children and idiots’ do not know of theorems in geometry or ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be or not to be’ because they do not understand such concepts
C2: Therefore, these claims are not innate
P4: There are no claims that are universally accepted, including by ‘children and idiots’
C3: Therefore, there is no innate knowledge
Potential response – Leibniz could challenge premise 3 by arguing that children and idiots employ innate principles in their everyday actions, even if they cannot articulate them. For example, a child knows that a teddy cannot be their hand and in the loft at the same time)
Explain Locke’s argument against innate concepts
The claim that there are innate concepts means that not all concepts are learned from experience; some concepts are somehow part of the structure of the mind. However, Locke argues that innate concepts are impossible. He argues that, if we observe newborn babies, we have no reason to believe that they have any concepts beyond those from their time in the womb, such as warmth and pain. It seems implausible to imagine that babies can grasp concepts such as identity or impossibility. However, to have innate knowledge, we must have innate concepts, which clearly we don’t have. Therefore, innatism is wrong.
Outline simple and complex concepts
Locke argues that our minds receive impressions from the senses and that these are then copied into ideas or concepts. These ideas allow us to think about things that are not present to our senses. We can also combine simple ideas (like horse, white or horn which must derive from actual sense impressions) in our minds into complex ideas which may have no corresponding impression (e.g. a unicorn).
Explain the meaning of ‘intuition’ and ‘deduction’ and the distinction between them
Descartes thinks we can gain knowledge through intuition and deduction. Intuition is ‘to look upon with the light of reason’ – it is an intellectual capacity to grasp the truth of a self-evident proposition directly and non-inferentially. For example, we intuit that 2+2 necessarily equals 4. Deduction is reasoning by using premises to reach a conclusion. If the premises are correct, then the conclusion must also be correct.
Explain Descartes’ notion of clear and distinct ideas
Descartes claims that he can find certainty in ideas (such as the cogito) based on how it presents itself in his mind with ‘clarity and distinctness’. A clear idea is one which is ‘present and accessible to the attentive mind’. An idea is distinct when it is sharply separated from all other ideas.
(Possible response – the generalisation that any claim that can be conceived clearly and distinctly must be true isn’t valid, Ryle criticises Descartes’ purely internal criteria for truth rather than the correspondence theory of truth, which suggests that a belief (internal to you) is true when it corresponds to a fact (external to you))
What is the cogito?
The cogito, put forward by Descartes, argues ‘cogito ergo sum’ (I think, therefore I am). This is the principle establishing the existence of a being from the fact of its thinking or awareness
Explain Descartes’ cogito as an example of a priori intuition
Descartes’ cogito (I think, therefore I am) is put forward as an example of an a priori intuition. This means that we can intuit that we exist, at the very least, as a thinking thing. The reasoning behind this is that we cannot logically doubt our own existence since that presupposes that we exist in order to do the thinking. We can therefore see that our existence is a clear and distinct idea intuited a priori.
Explain Descartes’ trademark argument for the existence of God
P1: The cause of something must be at least as perfect as its effect
P2: My ideas must be caused by something
P3: I am an imperfect being
P4: I have the idea of God, which is that of a perfect being
IC1: I cannot be the cause of my idea of God
IC2: Only a perfect being (that is, God) can be the cause of my idea of God
C: God must exist
(Possible responses – this is not an a priori argument – Hume argued that we can never deduce the effect from examining the cause, or the cause from examining the effect. We need experience of causes and effects before we can learn of their connection. So, from knowing the effect (the idea of God), we cannot deduce what caused it)
Explain Descartes’ contingency argument from the existence of God
P1: The cause of my existence as a thinking thing must be a) myself, b) I have always existed, c) my parents, or d) God
P2: I cannot have caused myself to exist or I would have created myself perfect
P3: I cannot have always existed or I would be aware of this
P4: My parents may be the cause of my physical existence, but not of me as a thinking mind
C: Therefore, only God could have created me
(Possible response – this argument fails because it does not cover every possible cause of my existence. A less than perfect being could have created me or I could be the result of a process of evolution)
(Another possible response – not a priori – it starts from a state of affairs in the world and attempts to induce the cause. For this reason, it should be classed as an a posteriori deduction)
