Liberalism

1
Lecture

• Liberalism

2
Summary so far

• Classical theories of human nature Humans are by
  nature rational animals (Aristotle)
• Christian theories of human nature Humans are by
  nature sinful (early Christian thought)
• Liberal theory of human nature Humans are by
  nature free and reasonable. They will do good,
  progress, and flourish if they are provided with
  the right experiences.
• Comment TOHN and context?

3
Happiness

• Classical theories A life of reason
• Christian theories Rejoicing in God.
• Liberal theories A free life based on a
  cultivated and interested mind (ranging from
  nature, arts, history past, present, and future
  to collective interests).

4
John Locke (1632-1704)

• English philosopher (psychologist, educator,
  political theorist).
• Friend of Newton.
• His political writings influenced the authors of
  the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
• Pioneer of (British) empiricism. Empiricism An
  Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).
• Critique of the rationalistic idea that the mind
  is equipped with innate ideas, ideas that do not
  arise from experience.
• Locke Human mind develops knowledge from
  observations of things in the external world.
• Mind is passive and receptive.
• Mind without innate ideas Tabula rasa (blank
  slate).

5
Ideas

• Ideas come from two sources
• Sensations of objects Provide ideas about the
  external world.
• Reflections (on the mind's own operations)
  Provide ideas of the internal workings of the
  mind.
• Simple ideas versus complex ideas
• A simple idea (like an atom) could not be divided
  or analyzed further.
• Complex ideas were composites of simple ideas,
  and therefore could be analyzed.
• The inexperienced mind's earliest sensations and
  reflections give rise to a variety of simple
  ideas (redness, loudness, coldness, saltiness
  from sensation willing, perceiving, liking, or
  disliking from reflection).
• With experience simple ideas can be combined by
  the mind to produce complex ideas (idea of
  hunger).
• Some ideas are associated because they naturally
  belong together
• Other associations are learned by chance, custom,
  or mistake.
• Perception People are not directly aware of
  physical objects but only of ideas.

6
William Molyneux (1656-1696) Problem

• Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and
  taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube
  and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the
  same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and
  the other, which is the cube, which the sphere.
  Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a
  table, and the blind man be made to see quaere,
  whether by his sight, before he touched them, he
  could now distinguish and tell which is the
  globe, which the cube? (cited by Locke in An
  essay)
• Locke The blind man, at first sight, would not
  be able with certainty to say which was the
  globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them.
• Blind man does not have the experience.

7
Primary and secondary qualities.

• Distinction has a long philosophical tradition.
• The primary qualities of an object are its
  physical characteristics Solidity, mobility,
  shape, and weight.
• The secondary qualities are the perceivers
  judgments (taste, smell, color, and sound).
  Produced in the perceiver of the object.
• Locke Is temperature a primary or secondary
  quality?

8
Paradox of basins

• If you put one hand in cold water, the other one
  in hot, and then place both in tepid water, the
  water may produce the sensation of heat in one
  hand and cold in the other. But it is impossible
  that the water is both cold and warm.
• Explains how water felt as cold by one hand may
  be warm to the other. Ideas being thus
  distinguished and understood, we may be able to
  give an account how the same water, at the same
  time, may produce the idea of cold by one hand
  and of heat by the other whereas it is
  impossible that the same water, if those ideas
  were really in it, should at the same time be
  both hot and cold
• Temperature is a secondary quality.

9
Locke's influence

• George Berkeley (1685-1753)
• The only reality of which we could be aware was
  our perceptions.
• If there was a physical world, we could never
  experience it directly.
• Berkeley's motto "Esse est percipi" (to be is to
  be perceived).
• Depth perception. The ability to see things in
  three dimensions is not innate.
• David Hume (1711 - 1776)

10
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• Mills social philosophy
• Mill believed in scientifically guided social
  progress and the superiority of scientific
  knowledge.
• All phenomena are subject to natural law,
  comprehensible by science alone.
• Using science and technology Create prosperity
  for all.
• Liberalism A defense of civic freedom, private
  property, and the free market. Equal opportunity
  for men and women.

11
Mill on liberty

• Harm principle Individual liberty cannot be
  infringed by government, society, or individuals
  except in cases where the individual's action
  causes harm to others.
• On Liberty (1859) The sole end for which
  mankind are warranted, individually or
  collectively, in interfering with the liberty of
  action of any of their number, is
  self-protection. The only purpose for which power
  can be rightfully exercised over any member of a
  civilised community, against his will, is to
  prevent harm to others. His own good, either
  physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant
• Q What is harm? Epistemological violence?
• Some consequences
• No legitimacy for paternalistic laws.
• Legal restrictions on the expression of opinion
  are not justified.

12
Mills Support of Womens Emancipation

• Described the subjugated status of women.
• Argued for gender equality.
• Proposed a plan of social and political change to
  bring about equality.

13
Mills psychology.

• Mill proposed a scientific psychology in his
  book A system of logic (1843).
• Science Explain the causes and effects of
  individuals personal and social actions. Provide
  the means for improving these actions.
• Human happiness Shaped by environmental factors.
  
• Psychology An inexact science. Its subject
  matter was not amenable to the experimental
  method of the physical sciences. Psychology was
  amenable to other empirical methods such as
  observation.
• Mill Mental chemistry. Sensations can combine to
  form a new sensation that is different from any
  of the individual sensations that comprise it.
  Complex ideas not just aggregates of simpler
  ideas.

14
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• German philosopher. One of the greatest
  philosophers of all time.
• Kant was the foremost thinker of the
  Enlightenment.
• Enlightenment Celebration of reason.
• Reconciled rationalism and empiricism.
• Reason in knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics.

15
Knowledge Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

• Criticism Concepts without perceptions are
  empty, perceptions without concepts are blind.
• We need reason and experiences.

16
We approach nature with principles that UNDERLIE
experience.

• (a) Forms of sensibility (space, time)
• (b) Categories (a priori) (mind organizes
  phenomena according to them).
• Without categories (Kant identified 12) our
  sensory experience would have no meaning.
• Four groups of categoriesQuantity Unity,
  plurality, and totality.Quality Reality,
  negation, and limitation.Relation
  Substance-and-accident, cause-and-effect, and
  reciprocity.Modality Possibility, existence,
  and necessity.

17
Constructivism

• The external world consists of things-in-themselve
  s, objects that are independent of experience.
• Humans can know only what is presented to their
  senses or what is contributed by their own mind.

18
Ethics Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

• Categorical imperative Act only on that maxim
  through which you can at the same time will that
  it should become a universal law.
• Formal principle.
• Inclination versus moral reason.
• Duty and moral obligation Matter of reason.
• Desire Matter of inclination.
• Follow reason.
• Intentions versus outcome.

19
Aesthetics Critique of Judgment (1790)

• Taste Faculty of judging the beautiful
• The beautiful is different from the pleasurable
  and the good.
• Subjective universality (we assume that a
  judgment is universally valid).
• Beauty is independent of perfection.

20
Kant's critique of psychology

• Background 18th century German psychology
• Academic psychology (Christian Wolff) (faculty
  psychology)
• Physiological psychology
• Popular psychology (Magazin zur
  Erfahrungsseelenkunde)
• Analytic psychology (detailed account of inner
  feelings)

21
Main figures of academic psychology

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
• Monads
• Christian Wolff (1679-1754)
• Rational psychology versus empirical psychology
• Johann Nikolas Tetens (1736-1807)
• Division of psychological faculties into
  processes of feeling (Gefühl), understanding
  (Verstand), and willing (Wille)
• Division became the systematic basis for Kant's
  critical philosophy

22
Rational and empirical psychology(Wolff)

• Psychologia rationalis est scientia eorum, quae
  per animam humanam possibilia sunt
• Psychologia empirica est scientia stabiliendi
  principa per experientiam, unde ratio redittur
  eorum, quae in anima humana fiunt
• Deductive - inductive

23
Topics

• Rational psychology The soul's substantiality,
  simplicity, immateriality, immortality.
• Empirical psychology The souls ability to know,
  desire, the interaction of the soul and the body,
  the faculties of the soul
• Cognitive faculties or faculties to know (de
  facultatis cognoscendi)
• Lower cognitive faculties Perception, senses,
  imagination, memory, oblivion, and reminiscence.
• Higher cognitive faculties Attention,
  reflection, and reasoning.
• Appetitive faculties or desiring faculties (de
  facultatis appetendi).
• Lower desiring faculties
• Higher desiring facultiesWilling.

24
Kant

• Critique of rational psychology was more
  important than critique of empirical psychology
• Critique of rational psychology Critique of Pure
  Reason (1781)
• Understanding (Verstand) transforms sensory
  experiences.
• Reason (Vernunft) transforms understanding when
  it grasps abstract ideas.
• Yet, reason runs into problems.
• Soul Reason -gt Paralogisms.
• Universe Reason -gt Antinomies.
• God Reason -gt Problems.

25
Paralogisms

• Kant's critique of rational psychology is
  contained in the extensive section on paralogisms
  (A338-A405 B406-B432)
• Paralogism (Aristotle) "Whenever, if A is or
  happens, a consequent, B, is or happens, men's
  notion is that, if the B is, the A also is but
  that is a false conclusion

26
First paralogism of substantiality

• A The absolute subject of our judgments and
  something that cannot be used to determine
  another thing is defined as substance
• B The cogito (I think) is "the absolute subject
  of all my possible judgments, and this
  representation of Myself cannot be used as the
  predicate of any other thing"
• Rational psychologys conclusion I am, as soul,
  substance.
• Kant This conclusion is false. The category of
  substance has no objective significance and has
  only meaning when a perception is subsumed under
  it.

27
More paralogisms

• Second paralogism of simplicity
• Third paralogism of personality
• Fourth paralogism of the ideality
• Epistemology
• Kant False conclusion, that "the existence of
  all objects of outer sense is doubtful

28
Summary

• The subject matter of rational psychology (I
  think) is a consequent (Aristotle's B) based on
  which rational psychologists made false
  conclusions regarding the substantiality,
  simplicity, identity, and relations of the soul
  (Aristotle's A).

29
From rational to empirical psychology

• Rational psychology is a discipline that should
  limit the speculations of reason, reject
  materialism as well as spiritualism.
• One should move from useless speculation to the
  practical use of reason.
• Because rational psychology goes beyond the
  powers of human reason, we have only the
  opportunity to study the soul from an empirical
  point of view.
• But empirical psychology is not a science but
  only an assembly of psychological bits and
  pieces.

30
Kant's critique of empirical psychology

• Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
  (1786)
• Philosophy has two basic subject matters Nature
  and freedom
• Freedom What should be.
• Nature What is.
• Physics (objects of the external sense)
• Psychology (objects of the inner sense)

31
(A) Hierarchy of sciences

• At the top
• Proper natural science Studies its objects
  according to a priori principles and shows
  apodictic certainty.
• Requires mathematics.
• The complete body of knowledge can be organized
  systematically according to principles.
• Example Physics.

32
(B) Hierarchy of sciences

• Proper natural science is followed by
• Improper natural science Studies its subject
  matter according to empirical laws and shows
  empirical certainty.
• Example Chemistry.
• Chemistry is according to Kant a systematic art,
  an experimental doctrine.

33
(C) Hierarchy of sciences

• At the bottom
• Psychology is not a proper natural science
  because mathematics is inapplicable to the
  phenomena of the internal sense and their laws
• Psychology is not an improper natural science,
  because psychology is only able to develop an
  empirical doctrine of the soul which contains
  organized facts.

34
Empirical psychology and method

• Psychology can "never become anything more than a
  historical (and as such, as much as possible)
  systematic natural doctrine of the internal
  sense, i.e., a natural description of the soul,
  but not a science of the soul, nor even a
  psychological experimental doctrine"
• Introspection
• Leads to idolization Schwärmerei and even to
  madness Wahnsinn.
• One would discover only what one has put into the
  mind.

35
Implications for Kant

• Empirical psychology should be banished from the
  field of metaphysics.
• Understood as applied philosophy it was too
  important to be neglected.
• Kant included it in his Anthropology From a
  Pragmatic Point of View (1798)
• Anthropological Didactic cognition, senses,
  ideas, consciousness, reason, imagination,
  understanding, feelings, desire, affects,
  passions, the moral good, etc.
• Anthropological Characteristic Character of
  person, gender, folk, race, and human species.

36
Implications for the discipline

• Traditional rational psychology after Kant
  Declined in academia.
• Dessoir (1911) An irony of history that despite
  everything, fundamental progresses in psychology
  were introduced by Kant's criticism.
• Boring (1950) Kant "set his mark on German
  thought of the entire nineteenth century.
• Researchers wanted to render Kant wrong.
• Neo-Kantianism.

37
Kant and the problem of colonialism

• "The Negroes of Africa have by nature no sense
  which would transcend the foolish".
• "The blacks are very vain, in a Negro way, and so
  chattily, that they have to be chased apart by
  beating them".
• The "strong smell of the Negro ... cannot be
  avoided through any hygiene All Negroes stink."
  
• The Negro is "strong, fleshy, supple but also
  lazy, feeble, and dallying".
• Skin color of Africans explained by phlogiston
  theory.
• Kant Perversions of modernity and Enlightenment?

38
Liberty

• Negative liberty Absence of obstacles, barriers,
  constraints. Individualistic.
• Positive liberty Presence of possibilities of
  action. Freedom produces a positive good.
  Collectivistic.
• Negative and positive liberty might contradict
  each other. Example National health care system.
  
• Smoking?