Philosophy (Unit 1) Theme: Reason

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(No Transcript)
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Epistemology revisionTips for revision
examination technique
Actually Quite Simple

• Argument
• You will be marked on your ability... to
  organise information clearly
• Part-and-parcel of a good argument is
  demonstrating your point via illustrations/example
  s
•  
• Quotations
• Quotations and citations of important thinkers
  and scholars demonstrates you know a subject well
•  
• Specialist Vocabulary
• You will be marked on your ability... to use
  good English... and to use specialist vocabulary
  where appropriate

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• What is epistemology?
• Most generally a theory of knowledge
• More specifically, enquiry into the nature of
  knowledge, sources of knowledge and the
  possibility of knowledge
• Why is epistemology important for philosophy?

Epistemology in the News A comment on a great
political moment on television   14 Donald
Rumsfeld The US Defence Secretary briefing the
press in 2002 on instability in Afghanistan post-
invasion There are known knowns. These are
things we know that we know. There are known
unknowns. That is to say, there are things that
we now know we dont know. But there are also
unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know
we dont know. Its epistemologically
brilliant. Or barking.   The Times, Great
Political TV Moments, April 17th 2010
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EpistemologyMind-map
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Innate ideas in a nutshell (or, the structure
of this lesson)

• Point of departure A definition of ideas,
  specifically considering innate ideas
• Innate ideas as a central thesis of Rationalism
• Rationalism vs. Empiricism (or is this actually
  the case?!)
• Why some Rationalists claim that we have innate
  ideas
• How some Rationalists claim that we have innate
  ideas
• Rene Descartes Baruch Spinoza Godfreid Leibniz
• Why some Empiricists object to innate ideas
• How some Empiricists object to innate ideas
• John Locke (a less radical argument which objects
  to innate ideas)
• David Hume (a more radical argument which objects
  to innate ideas)
• Extensions
• How to bring this all back to the examination

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(1) Definition of ideas

• What are ideas?
• We use the word idea in a variety of ways, but
  in philosophical circles, it has a very specific
  meaning.
• They are entities/concepts that exist as contents
  of some mind.
• They are necessary in order to gain knowledge
  about the external world.
• Ideas are essential to categorising the world
  (e.g. recognising a cow and classifying it as a
  mammal).
• Even according to the philosophical meaning of
  ideas, there can still be different types of
  ideas
• Rene Descartes, for example, divided our ideas
  into three categories
• Abstract adventitious ideas, e.g. idea of
  colour
• Fictitious ideas, such as the idea of a unicorn,
  phoenix or hippogriff
• Innate ideas
• Now, the existence of the third type of ideas
  (iii) innate ideas is a very contentious point
  amongst philosophers. Descartes, in his
  categorisation, believed that they existed, but
  not all philosophers do.
• Write down some examples of abstract ideas and
  fictitious ideas.

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(2) Innate ideas rationalism

• What is the origin of ideas? Where do they come
  from? How do we get them?
• THIS IS THE CENTRE OF THE DEBATE.
• Rationalists tend to argue that at least some of
  our ideas are innate (i.e. they are not gained
  from experience)
• Innate concepts are in the mind ... but are not
  present in consciousness until we actually
  conceive them. (Routledge Encyclopedia of
  Philosophy)
• Innate ideas are significant, because there is a
  close connection between a philosophers view on
  innate ideas, a priori knowledge and necessary
  truths. we will simply focus on innate ideas
  today
• Rationalists typically posit that the mind has a
  set of innate ideas that provide the source of a
  priori knowledge of a wide variety of necessary
  truths.

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(3) Rationalism vs. empiricism (???)
The matter is much more complex in terms of wider
philosophy. Not as simple as Scotland and
England vs. the Continent! But for our purposes,
Rationalists tend to believe that there exists
innate ideas Empiricists tend to believe that
innate ideas do not exist. More fundamentally,
the dispute is over synthetic a priori knowledge.
Empiricists do not believe that synthetic a
priori knowledge is possible Rationalists do
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(4) Why some rationalists claim we have
innate ideas
Beyond debating which is the right answer (i.e.
having a correct epistemology) Some
philosophers, for a whole range of reasons, finds
the claim that all knowledge is derived simply
through the senses problematic. The theory of
innate knowledge makes certain claims about the
universality of human thought and
experience. This is significant for a number of
spheres of thought anthropology (c.f.
Chomskys universal innate grammar) theology
(the existence of God and the createdness of
humanity)
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(5) how some rationalists claim we have
innate ideas
Historical philosophical answers include A
previous existence (Plato) but that has the
problem of infinite regress God, who placed
such innate knowledge in our minds at creation
(Descartes) More recent attempts, which tend
not to think of innate ideas as ideas known in
the mind from birth, find other explanations
include Evolution (Philosophical forms of
evolutionary biology) Nativist explanations -
triggers
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(6) Why some empiricists object to innate
ideas
An important observation innate ideas do not
seem to be a straightforward or even common sense
theory. Individuals are acutely aware of what
they have and what they dont have. Think iPhone
and iDea This is expressed in Lockes famous
claims that the mind is tabula rasa Nothing
can said to be in the Mind, which it never yet
knew, which it was never yet conscious of
(Essay Concerning Human Understanding) All
ideas must be gained from experience. This
thesis, so Empiricists claim, is the only
explanation that can account for the diversity of
ideas held by different people in different
situations at different times of their lives.
As Locke argues, there is no truth that every
person, including children and idiots, assents
to (Lacewing, p.12)
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(7a) how some empiricists object to innate
ideas

• There are various ways in which some (Empiricist)
  philosophers object to the innate-idea thesis.
  There are two main forms (although Lacewing
  explores a range of specific arguments)
• 7a John Locke (a less radical argument which
  objects to innate ideas)
• Locke argues that the supposedly innate concepts
  are indeed gained by sense experience
• He offers an account of the mental processes
  involved
• Lockes famous view of how the mind acquires
  ideas
• The senses at first let in particular Ideas, and
  furnish the yet empty Cabnet And the Mind by
  degrees growing familiar with some of them, they
  are lodged in the Memory, and Names got to them.
  Afterwards the Mind proceeding farther, abstracts
  them, and by Degrees learns the use of general
  Names. In this manner the Mind comes to be
  furnishd with Ideas and Language, the Materials
  about which to exercise its discursive
  Faculty (Essay Concerning Human
  Understanding)
• Lockes argument also goes on to explain how
  ideas (acquired from experience) continue to
  operate in the Mind it is through a repetitive
  process.
• We abstract from individual experiences to more
  general concepts

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(7b) how some empiricists object to innate
ideas

• 7b David Hume (a more radical argument which
  objects to innate ideas)
• Humes argument against supposedly innate
  concepts is (quite drastically) to suggest that
  we never had the supposedly innate concept in the
  first place.
• In other words, if you have a bit of a puzzling
  concept (which we call innate ideas) for which
  you cannot find an experiential source, then you
  should go back to the puzzling concept and (in
  Humes case) deny it
• This is the real application of Humes fork.
• Relations of ideas (logical knowledge)
• E.g. all grandmothers are females (the ideas of
  female and grandmother)
• 2 3 5 in doing a sum like this we gain
  knowledge about how the concepts involved are
  related, but we do not learn anything about the
  world as it exists independently of our mind
• Matters of fact (experiential knowledge)
• E.g. the sun shines
• Hume made the important claim that anything that
  couldnt be considered in these two terms was to
  be committed, to the flames for it can contain
  nothing but sophistry and illusion.
• Humes fork was developed into a linguistic
  principle that demonstrates the meaningfulness of
  all language. It was developed by A.J. Ayer and
  is called the Verification Principle. It used the
  later (Kantian) terminology to classify all
  meaningful statements (notice its not about
  ideas) into our two classic categories
• Analytic
• Synthetic

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(8) Extensions

• Theres so much more to say...
• Finding counter-arguments
• Assessing the theories
• Finding other solutions, e.g. Kant
• Kant is important because he drew attention to
  the fact that maybe the playing field on which
  Rationalists and Empiricists were playing wasnt
  quite right. They took for granted the relation
  between mind and reality
• Kant talks about something call transcendental
  idealism basically saying that there might be a
  difference between the way in which we view
  reality and the way it actually is. The mind
  projects categories onto reality in order to
  facilitate understanding of it. He gives a place
  for things like causality (which Hume had
  rubbished as nonsensical)

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(9) Bringing it back to the examination
Examination essay question (30mins) All ideas
derive from the sense experiences which they
copy. Discuss. 30 marks Remember Actually
Quite Simple ArgumentYou will be marked on
your ability... to organise information
clearly Part-and-parcel of a good argument is
demonstrating your point via illustrations/example
s Quotations Quotations and citations of
important thinkers and scholars demonstrates you
know a subject well Specialist Vocabulary You
will be marked on your ability... to use good
English... and to use specialist vocabulary where
appropriate