The Doctrine of Innate Knowledge Flashcards
(18 cards)
What is Rationalism?
The view that all knowledge comes through reason and nothing has to be directly experienced to know and understand it.
Key Rationalist Thinker
- Plato
- Descartes
- Leibniz
Origin of the most important Knowledge to Rationalists.
Reason because it is universal and indubitable.
Examples of the sorts of knowledge liked by Rationalists.
- Maths
- Logic
Rationalist view of Empiricism.
Knowledge from the senses is open to doubt and so isn’t really knowledge at all.
Descartes MOD: The Plan
- All previous opinion must be abolished by withholding assent from any opinion that is not completely certain.
- This will mean that the only thing left is certainty.
- Knowledge can then be rebuilt on these firm foundations which must be basic beliefs and thus indubitable, infallible and self-justifying
- Foundationalism; We must first address doubt of knowledge from the senses and then knowledge from reason.
Descartes MOD: Wave 1 - The Senses.
- Our senses sometimes deceive us
- (E.g. veridical tower would be straight but from a distance circular. A pencil in a beaker is bent.)
o They might always be deceiving us
o We should not trust them
- Despite this, we can’t doubt immediate sensory experience e.g. sitting in front of the fire.
Descartes MOD: Wave 2 - Dreams
- When asleep we have realistic experiences, baring all the hallmarks of reality, which aren’t true.
- There is never any sure way of distinguishing between dreams and reality.
o We cannot trust our immediate perceptions. - However;
o 1) Like painting, dream experiences are based upon real life.
o 2) Some things cannot be doubted, such as maths.
Descartes MOD: Wave 3 - Deceiving Demon
- God is omnipotent; therefore he could mislead me in everything – including mathematics.
- However God is good. (Vindicates god in the time of Galileo’s bad rep)
- Imagine a deceiving demon to be the one misleading, to show that all opinions are doubtful.
Descartes MOD: The Cogito.
- ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ – ‘I think therefore I am’.
- He is doubting so he doubts. He therefore thinks.
- Something must be doubting, something must be deceiving. I must be something, even if I am only thought.
Descartes: Opinion
- Not entitled to say there’s a God if he’s cleared his entire mind, if we were skeptical and there was a god then why would he have these characteristics still? Dogmatic
- The use of ‘however’ downgrades the truth of the argument as as a deductive form of reasoning it doesn’t work and is open to doubt. Without conjunction it is un-depleted however.
- Unsuccessful; humans don’t have the power to achieve strong cognitive internalism
Plato: World of Appearances (Visible)
- Humans experience the world of Appearances which is ‘in flux’
- Things take their identity from the way they conform to their real identity in the forms
- Simply a shadow of the perfection of the form
- We have some knowledge of the forms when in the world of appearances because before tied to a body the immortal soul was connected to the Forms.
Plato: World of the Forms (Intelligible)
- The world of the Forms is unchanging, immutable and exists transcendent to time altogether.
- Every object and quality in the world of appearances has a Form - a true essence of itself.
- Only Rational Philosophers can see the Forms because they think independently of the senses.
Plato: Form of the Good.
The most important form is the Form of the Good. In the material world we can label things as good, but this does not tell us what goodness is.
Plato: Cave Allegory
Man is chained, only able to see a cave wall since birth.
- A fire casts shadows onto the cave wall where men pass along carrying objects which project a shadow.
- They suppose that the shadows are the truth of the world.
- If someone was released he would be disbelieve his previous reality was an illusion.
- Upon seeing the sun he will be dazzled and no longer able to ignore reality, growing accustomed to the world around him.
- The others would think him foolish for jading his perceptions of the cave shadow world despite the fact he actually sees a higher picture now.
Plato: Cave Allegory - Implications and meaning.
***The allegory of the cave demonstrates Plato’s theory of the form.
- The trapped prisoners represent the regular people who can only see the shadows of the true Forms.
- The escaped prisoner represents the Philosopher who is trying to reach the world of Forms.
- The outside world represents the world of Forms, where the true Form of beauty lies.
- The sun represents the Form of the Good, as it is the source of all other Forms.
In what sense is Plato a Rationalist?
- Plato believes that the soul is immortal and thus all of our knowledge is innate.
- Knowledge from the senses is not real knowledge at all because that is merely knowledge of the world of appearances which is always in flux.
Descartes: Implications.
- Seeks to vindicate human intellectual Autonomy
- If a deceiving demon had been posited immediately his whole theorem would be undermined considering that the demon challenges prevailing scholastic interest with stringent skepticism for the first time in the period.
- He eases us in with a logical journey starting with benign doubts which develop into much more threatening
