Philosophical Foundations Flashcards
Descartes, Hume, Kant, Sober (12 cards)
Summarise
Meditation I
Of the things which may be brought within the sphere of the doubtful
DESCARTES
The Birth of Cartesian Doubt
1) INITIAL STAGE OF DOUBT: Sense-Deception / Argument from Illusion
although senses sometimes deceive us, there are some things we cannot reasonably doubt – right? but these senses are deceptive! thus much wiser not to trust anything you have previously been deceived by!
2) DOUBT INTENSIFIED: Dream Skepticism Argument
thre are no certain indication by which we may distinguish wakefullness from sleep as I have been decieved by similar illusions in sleep, making me think I was awake and vice versa..
=> PAINTER ANALOGY
things in sleep are like painted representations which can only have been formed as the counterparts of something real + true..
fantastical creatures => medley of different animals
something entirely novel => colours are real
so how, now, do we unearth these universal, fundamental truths??
3) RADICALISATION OF DOUBT: Evil Genius / Demon Argument / Deceiving God
what if some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful has employed his energies in deceiving me ∴ if we cannot rule out we might be victims of a scenario involving an all-powerful genius constantly deceiving us, we cannot (it seems), know anything
a radicalisation of the dreaming argument
Summarise
Meditation II
Of the nature of the human mind & that it is more easily known than body
DESCARTES
Continuation of Methodic Doubt; “From this time I begin to know what I am with a little more clearness and distinction than before”
- Senses and the body; “am I so dependent on body and senses that I cannot exist without these?”
- Back to all-powerful deceiver!
BUT! for deception to occur, there must be a subject (a thinker) to be deceived
=> Descartes’ own existence is confirmed by the very act of being deceived
∴ “I AM I EXIST” – a statement that does not rely on senses, the external world, it is self-evident
- Sensory attributes of the world and the objects contained within it are changeable and DO NOT define the existence of the objects and the world
BUT! it is worth noting, that these essences of each object are understood via REASON as something that persists depsite changes in sensory attributes
=> self-knowledge + understanding
Thought Experiment
Wax
DESCARTES
Our mind sees and understands things in terms of their (underlying) essence.
Wax may undergo a transformation, starting as a solid beige object that has no particular smell => melting into a brown flattened form with a pungent smell.
Despite these sensorial changes, we still understand it to be wax.
School of Thought
Cartesian Ontological Dualism
DESCARTES
Immaterial Mind + Material Body
while ontologically distinct substances, causally interact.
The mind is more easily inquired into than the body.
Res Extensa
DESCARTES
~ Physical World
Res Cogitans
DESCARTES
~ Mind + Consciousness
School of Thought
Rationalism
DESCARTES
reason and rational thought are the primary sources of knowledge
Critique of Empircism – challenges the idea that knowledge comes solely from the senses / sensory experience
A function of the mind; information may enter via the senses, but it is the mind that comprehends.
“I comprehend that which I beleived I saw with my eyes”
Methodic Doubt
aka Cartesian Doubt
DESCARTES
Quest for Certainty, Systematic Skepticism
“if I find myself able to find in each matter some reason to doubt, this will suffice to justify my rejecting the whole. And for that end it will not be requisite that I should examine each in particular which would be an endless undertaking”
Seeking to build up knowledge from a secure and certain foundation.
“The destruction of the foundation(s) necessitates the downfall of the rest of the edifice”
2 Types of Perceptions of Human Mind
HUME
-
Impressions (PRIMARY)
* “sensationl, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul”
* “enter with the most force and violence” -
Ideas (DERIVED)
* “the faint image of these (i.e. sensations, passions, and emotions) in thinking and reasoning”
* all perceptions excited by present discourse => when engaging in discourse / reasoning, we are typically NOT directly experiencing sensory input INSTEAD thinking about + processing past impressions
DIFFERENCES
* “degrees of force”
* “liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, sometimes they may approach one another”
e.g. ideas may approach impressions: in sleep, fever, madness, any violent emotions of soul => impression can also be lou dnad faint and thus indistinguishable from ideas
School of Thought
Empiricism
HUME
knowledge comes primarily from the senses
Subtypes of Both Perceptions
HUME
-
SIMPLE
* cannot be separated any further, they are given to the mind
* e.g. colour red, sour taste, sweet smell -
COMPLEX
* can be divided into underlying simple perceptions
* e.g. apple
“These divisions give order and arrangement to our objects”
Simple Perceptions => Complex Perceptions
Relational Statments
Relationship b/w Simple / Complex Impressions and Ideas
HUME
HUME p. 2
