Scepticism Flashcards
Outline Descartes’ 3 waves of doubt
ILLUSION: senses have failed us before ✏️💧, how do we know we aren’t being deceived now?
—> rejects this, seems nonsensical and crazy 🤪
DREAMING: nonsensical things happen in dreams. Maybe we r being deceived in dreaming 😴 rn? However, there are still fundamental principles common to dreams and reality e.g. 1+1=2. Surely thats undoubtable?
DECEPTION: nothing is undoubtable. What if there is an evil demon 👹 deceiving us? 1+1 then might not = 2 😧
What does Descartes claim are 4 indubitable truths?
Cogito 🧠 ergo sum 😊
Clear + distinct ideas r true ✅
God exists 🙏
External world exists 🌎
what is the difference between philosophical scepticism and normal incredulity
-philosophical scepticism doubts even things that may seem certain. Its theoretical basis is the claim that evidence does not provide certainty in knowledge and that belief is not inherently justified.
-normal incredulity=In our everyday lives, we doubt things all the time. For example, you might be unsure whether a friend’s birthday is the 17th or the 18th of August, or what time the philosophy exam is, or you might doubt your memory of a fact such as ‘Paris is the capital of France’.
What are clear and distinct ideas?
something that is so self-evidently true that it cannot logically be doubted
Clear: can think of an idea fully with all our mind’s attention.
Distinct: not defined in terms of anything else that is unclear. Precise and different from other things.
goes back to the idea of rational intuition. Rational intuition is an a priori faculty that enables us to see truth.
How does Descartes prove the existence of god?
TRADEMARK ™️ ARGUMENT.
1. CAP 🧢
2. My ideas must be caused by something.
3. I have an idea of God as a supremely perfect 🤩 being.
4. Bc I am imperfect, according to CAP 🧢 I CAN’T BE THE CAUSE OF MY IDEA 💡 OF GOD 🙏
5. Only a perfect being can cause my perfect 🤩 idea of God.
6. So GOD MUST EXIST and left his ™️ on each of our brains at birth
Outline the causal adequacy principle (CAP🧢)
A cause has to be greater than or equal to its effect (e.g. weak baby can’t push heavy car)
How does Descartes’ trademark argument respond to scepticism?
God exists.
God is omnipotent 💪 , omniscient 🧠 and omnibenevolent 😊.
So, it is impossible for there to be an evil demon deceiving us.
So, the external world we see must be real.
Describe Hume’s fork🍴and why its an issue for cogito and C+D ideas.
ALL TRUE STATEMENTS ARE EITHER:
RELATIONS OF IDEAS: analytic a priori truths
or
MATTERS OF FACT: synthetic a posteriori
Descartes’ C + D IDEAS and COGITO are SYNTHETIC A PRIORI. They cross the fork 🍴 . So they can’t be true.
Define global scepticism
view that questions the certainty of ALL knowledge
Define local scepticism
the view that one cannot possess knowledge in some particular domain
What is the purpose of scepticism?
to ensure we aren’t being deceived, that the knowledge we do have is indubitable
name 6 responses to scepticism
Descartes
Locke
Trotter-Cockburn
Russell
Berkeley
Reliabilism
Descartes’ response to scepticism
Global scepticism disproved. God exists, preventing an evil deceptive demon from existing.
RESPONSES:
- CAP not always true. Counter examples (helium 🎈 , life 🌲 , cake 🍰)
- CAP not true: Hume on causation. WE ONLY KNOW CAUSE OF SOMETHING FROM EXPERIENCE.
- CAP not true: misapplying rules. True to physical things, but not metaphysical like GOD.
- Hume: we don’t ❌ have an idea of perfect being
Locke’s response to scepticism
Voluntary imagination but involuntary perception. So, external world must exist bc we can’t control our senses.
RESPONSE:
Counters local scepticism of existence of external world, but doesn’t disprove the idea that we are being deceived,
Trotter-Cockburn’s response to scepticism
Coherence of senses: different senses provide corresponding information so it makes sense that an external world exists.
RESPONSE:
Counters local scepticism of existence of external world but doesn’t disprove global scepticism or evil deceiver argument
