philosophy midterm review

MIDTERM REVIEWBy

David Benjamin

Ancient lovers of wisdom asked questions and devoted their lives to seeking out answers to those questions. The type of questions asked were categorized to form the “Branches of Philosophy” which today includes:

Metaphysics Epistemology Ethics Political and Social

Philosophy Aesthetics Logic

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Metaphysics: The study of the ultimate characteristics of reality or existence.Answers such questions as

What is real? What is reality? What does it mean to be? What caused all things to

be? What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? Is there life after death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzThVCbvrI4&feature=player_embedded

Epistemology: The study of knowledge, identifying and developing criteria and methodologies for what we know and why we know it.

Answers such questions as How ought we to think? What is truth? What is knowledge? What is wisdom? How are truth, knowledge, and

wisdom attained? Can we ever really know

anything?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzm8kTIj_0M&feature=player_embedded 4

Ethics: The study of moral values and principles.

Answers such questions as

How ought we to act? What is right versus

wrong behavior? How should we treat

other people? How should we treat

animals?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoIEtjMudY8

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Other branches of philosophy include

Political and Social Philosophy The study of social values and political forms of

government. What is the nature of justice? What is the best form of government?

Aesthetics The study of beauty, art, and taste.

What is the nature of beauty? What is art?

Logic Establishes the rules of correct reasoning, clear

understanding, and valid arguments. Are conclusions supported by evidence? How does one avoid reaching a false conclusion?

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Pre-SocraticsThales: proposed that the primarily element of the

universe was water.

Anaximenes: suggested it was air.

Heraclitus: contended it was fire because “all is change.”

Democritus: advanced the prescient view that all matter in the universe was composed of invisible atoms.

Anaxagoras: anticipated modern cosmology in proposing that the entire universe is

composed of matter in motion.

Pythagoras: was convinced the fundamental principles of the universe were mathematical relations.

Parmenides: was an accomplished mathematician who believed that there was a

necessary static, unchanging unity running throughout all of what is in flux in the world of experience.

A Man From GreeceUnlike the great pre-Socratic thinkers, Socrates was not as concerned with the physics of the natural world as he was with the psychology of the mind.

He decided to develop his own methods of searching for knowledge based on the underlying intuition that all things have an intelligent cause directed toward what is best.

He developed what is known as the Socratic Method which uses a dynamic approach of questioning and intellectual analysis to draw answers out of people rather than lecture them.

Socrates left no writing of his own, so all that we know about him comes through other sources, such as his students Plato and Xenophon.

The Wisest of Men?

One of the oracles pronouncements was that no man was wiser than Socrates, delivered when he was 30 years of age.

Socrates did not accept this statement at face value but rather set out to gather evidence to prove or disprove it’s truth.

Socrates embarks on his own experimental exploration, interviewing the people thought to be the wisest in Athens using his Socratic Method.

As a result, Socrates discovers that those people thought to be wise are unable to articulate their ideas with clarity, logical soundness, and compelling rationale.

It is their smug self-certainty that inhibits their search for wisdom.

Socrates’ search reveals another element of his character: his obvious delight in unmasking pretention, deflating oversized egos, and revealing the emptiness and illogic of unexamined beliefs.

Socrates concludes that his investigations prove only that he is wiser than others because he recognizes his lack of true wisdom, he does not claim to know that which he does not know.

Socrates and the Search for Wisdom

In all of his investigation Socrates discovered that the most reputable men were the most foolish while the inferior men were wiser and better.

Socrates claims that what he is doing by questioning others is philosophy and he is teaching the people of Athens to care more about the soul, wisdom, and truth rather than about money, honor, and reputation.

Socrates argues that the god of the Oracle at Delphi charged him with his task and that he would rather listen to the god than listen to the men of the court who tell him to stop. Socrates argued that he was a gift from god to Athens and that putting him to death would be an act against god.

This is the teaching which he is charged with corrupting the youth. Since the youth followed him when he questioned the leaders of Athens and began to follow his example by doing the same.

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Form of the Good

In Book II of The Republic we find a description about the good or form of the good. Plato states,

“Now a god is really good, isn’t he, and must be described as such?

…And can what does nothing bad be the cause of anything bad?

…The good isn’t the cause of all things, then, but only of good ones; it isn’t the cause of bad ones.

…Therefore, since a god is good, he is not–as most people claim-the cause of everything that happens to human beings but only a few things, for good things are fewer than bad ones in our lives.

He alone is responsible for good things, but we must find some other cause for the bad ones, not a god.”

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Form of the Good

Also in Book II, Plato explains that good things are least liable to alter change.

“But the best things are least liable to alteration or change, aren’t they?

…And the same account is true of all artifacts, furniture, houses, and clothes. The ones that are good and well made are least altered by time or anything else that happens to them.

…Whatever is in good condition, then, whether by nature or craft, or both, admits least of being changed by anything.

…Now surely a god and what belongs to him are in every way in the best condition.

...Is it impossible, then, for gods to want to alter themselves? Since they are the most beautiful and best possible, it seems that each always and unconditionally retains his own shape.”

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Chapters 6 & 7

Plato uses the metaphor of the sun, the analogy of the divided line, and the allegory of the cave in order to convey his understanding of the forms indirectly, rather than approaching the subject directly.

It is impossible to place limits upon that which is boundless just as it is impossible to comprehend that which is incomprehensible.

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Chapters 6 & 7

Plato writes that the form of the good is the most important thing to learn about, yet we have inadequate knowledge of it.

Again, without knowing the form of the good, it is no benefit to us to know all other things.

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Metaphor of the Sun

The metaphor of the sun, analogy of the divided line, and allegory of the cave appear in sequential order in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic.

Concerning the metaphor of the sun, Plato gives an example of what the form of the good is like or similar to, namely, the sun.

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Metaphor of the Sun

Plato writes that there are two realms, that of the visible and that of the intelligible. The sun exists in the visible realm while the form of the good exists in the intelligible realm.

He explains that just as the sun allows our eyes to have sight, the form of the good itself allows our soul to have understanding.

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Analogy of the Divided Line

In the analogy of the divided line, Plato again makes the distinction between the visible and intelligible.

Plato draws a line and divides it into four sections which represent conditions of our soul.

The lowest half of the line makes up the visible realm, the upper half of the line makes up the intelligible realm.

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In the highest section of the line, the soul uses hypothesis to reach a first principle by using forms rather than images.

Plato claims that when the soul grasps the first principle it uses forms to come to a conclusion that ends in forms.

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In other words, human comprehension of the form of the good is like or similar to a line representing conditions of our soul.

Only in the highest section of the line will our soul think about forms in ways that are inexpressible and incomprehensible outside of the highest section of the soul or line.

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Allegory of the CaveIn the allegory of the cave, Plato explains that understanding the form of the good is like or similar to being turned from darkness, deception, and ignorance toward light and truth.

Plato writes about humans chained inside of a cave and facing a wall with shadows projected upon it from a fire.

These humans play a sort of game where the best player is the one who is best at identifying the images on the wall with accuracy and speed.

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Allegory of the Cave

These humans have seen nothing their entire lives outside of the cave but only the shadows cast upon the walls within the cave.

According to Plato, these humans would believe that the truth is nothing more than the shadows upon the wall.

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If one man was released from his bonds and taken outside, he would need to adjust his eyes to the sunlight and would be unable to understand at first the things he saw.

After some time, he would gain some understanding of the truth about things outside of the cave and would be compelled to enter back into the cave to free the other humans.

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Upon entering into the cave, the prisoner turned philosopher would need to adjust his or her eyes to the darkness.

If he or she had to compete in the game with the other humans again, his or her eyes would fail and the others would perhaps ridicule him or her for having ruined his or her eyesight while outside of the cave.

The other humans would consider it best to stay put in the cave and would think of leaving the cave as self-destructive.

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Parallels

There are four parts of the line that parallel with four parts of the cave.

The bottom half of the divided line represents the visible realm which correlates with the inside of the cave.

The upper half of the divided line represents the intelligible realm which correlates with the world above the cave.

The cave represents the prison, the soul trapped inside of the prison of the body, or the world of unenlightened people preoccupied with the senses and pleasures and unable to grasp the ideal or intelligible.

Only when the prisoner leaves the cave does he or she enter into the intelligible realm where the sun represents the form of the good.

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ParallelsThe lowest part of the divided line contains images, shadows, and reflections just like the lowest part of the cave contains prisoners viewing shadows of images on a wall.

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Parallels

The second part of the divided line contains material objects such as plants, animals, and man-made objects while the second part of the cave involves the prisoner turning around toward the fire to observe the shadow puppets responsible for the images on the wall.

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Parallels

The third level of the divided line is in the intelligible realm that includes the use of mathematics and reason, and the use of hypothesis to reach a conclusion.

The third level of the line correlates with the prisoner being freed from the cave and adjusting to the sunlight to see the reflections of objects in the world above.

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Parallels

In the fourth or highest level of the divided line, the soul uses hypothesis to reach a first principle by using forms rather than images and concluding in forms, this level correlates with the freed prisoner contemplating the actual objects in the world above using dialectic.

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Prisoners

Each of the characters in the allegory of the cave represent and symbolize characteristics deeper meanings behind their roles.

For example, the prisoners in the cave are many things to many scholars.

Some scholars believe that all of us are prisoners in the cave.

Some argue that the allegory of the cave is strictly about politics and the prisoners are political conformists.

Some point out that the prisoners in the cave are those humans on the lowest level of the line who are dominated by the senses and pleasures while neglecting the ideal.

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Prisoners

The puppets represent the objects of true belief and the shadows on the cave wall represent false belief.

Similarly, the pleasures in the lowest level of the soul which bind the prisoners in the cave are copies or imitations of true pleasures attained in the higher levels of the soul.

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Cave Dwellers

In addition to the prisoners and returning philosophers, the other characters in the cave are the puppeteers, and perhaps poets and sophists.

If the returning philosophers pick up the puppets, then they must compete with the sophists and poets, unless the sophists and poets become abolished by the returned guardians and education by the guardians is instituted instead.

Being that Plato argues for the elimination of poetry from education, it seems logical that the returning guardians would rid the cave of the misleading sophists and poets and change the cave altogether.

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Cave Dwellers

It is believed that the second level of the cave is achieved by education concerning music and gymnastics, the third level which is outside of the cave contains mathematics, and the fourth or highest level contains dialectic resulting in knowledge, so education associated with the divided line also correlates with each level in the cave as well.

Overview of the JourneyWhat do philosophers study?

MetaphysicsEpistemologyEthicsLogicPolitical philosophyPhilosophy of religionPhilosophy of artPhilosophy of educationPhilosophy of historyPhilosophy of languagePhilosophy of lawPhilosophy of mathematicsPhilosophy of psychologyPhilosophy of scienceAnd so on…. 33

Overview of the Journey

Pythagoras (570 – 495 BCE) was the first to call himself a philosopher.

In once sense, everyone is a philosopher. Everyone has some beliefs about the existence of God, about how to determine if a statement is true or false, and about what is morally right and wrong.

Philosophical conclusions are woven into our conduct of daily life.

Many of our beliefs have been shared by great philosophers in history and we may discover philosophical labels for our beliefs, as well as arguments supporting or opposing them.

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Socrates’ Teachings:

How should we live if we are to be successful and fulfilled human beings?

1. The unexamined life is not worth living.2. The most important task in life is caring

for the soul.3. A good person cannot be harmed by

others.35


Socrates was sentenced to death by a jury made up of 500 Athenian citizens after being found guilty of corrupting the youth and impiety.

On the day he was to be executed by drinking poisonous hemlock, a group of 10 people (many Pythagoreans) came to visit him in his cell and convince him to escape.

Since much of his teaching throughout his life concerned justice, Socrates refused to leave as doing so would be unjust, even though it was unjust for him to be found guilty and put to death.

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Socrates’ Teachings:

How should we live if we are to be successful and fulfilled human beings?

1. The unexamined life is not worth living.2. The most important task in life is caring

for the soul.3. A good person cannot be harmed by

others.37

Evaluating Philosophical Claims and Theories

6 common criteria for evaluating claims:

1. Conceptual clarity2. Consistency3. Rational coherence4. Comprehensiveness5. Compatibility with well established facts

and theories6. Having support of compelling arguments

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Clarity-If the terms or concepts in which the philosophy is expressed are not clear, then we do not know precisely what claim is being put forth.

Consistency-A philosophy may not contain any contradictions. Something cannot be both true and not true at the same time

Coherence-The elements of a philosophy must fit together well.

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Comprehensiveness-The philosophy which makes sense out of a wide range of phenomena is better than one which ignores human experience and raises more questions than it answers.

Compatibility-A good theory increases our understanding by unifying our knowledge and is compatible with well established facts.

Compelling Arguments-Claims must not conflict with those of other philosophers but rather must be supported by compelling arguments.

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The Nature of Arguments

An argument is a group of statements, one of which is supposed to be supported by the rest.

Supporting statements are known as premises; the statement being supported is known as a conclusion.

Example of an argument:P1: All dogs have fleas.P2: Fido is a dog.C: Fido has fleas.

Arguments may vary by number of premises but all arguments have at least one premise intended to support a conclusion.

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There are two basic types of arguments, deductive and inductive.

Deductive Example:P1: All men are mortalP2: Socrates is a manC: Therefore Socrates is mortal.

Deductive ArgumentAn argument that is supposed to give logically conclusive

support to its conclusion.

Valid ArgumentA deductive argument that succeeds in providing logically

conclusive support for its conclusion. If the premises are true then the conclusion must be true. The conclusion follows from the premise.

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Invalid ArgumentA deductive argument that does not offer logically

conclusive support for the conclusion .

In an invalid argument, it is not the case that if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true.

Invalid Argument Example:P1: All ducks are mortalP2: Socrates is a manC: Therefore, Socrates is mortal

The argument is invalid because even though the premises are true, the conclusion is not necessarily true as it does not follow from the premises.

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Inductive ArgumentsAn argument that is supposed to offer probable support to

its conclusion.

P1: Almost all men at this college have high SAT scores.P2: Julio is a student at this collegeC: Therefore, Julio probably has high SAT scores.

This argument is inductive because it is intended to provide probable support to the conclusion rather than decisive support. It is intended to show only that the conclusion is probably true.

Inductive arguments may possibly have premises which are true but conclusions which are false.

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Strong ArgumentAn inductive argument that does in fact provide probable support for its conclusion.(If the premises are true, the conclusion is more likely than not also true.)

Weak ArgumentAn inductive argument that does not give probable support to the conclusion.(If the premises are true, the conclusion is not more likely to be true than not true.)

Weak Argument Example:P1: Some of the men at this college have high SAT scoresP2: Julio is a student at this collegeC: Therefore Julio probably has high SAT scores

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Indicator words often appear in arguments to signal the presence of a premise or conclusion, or to indicate that an argument is deductive or inductive.

Conclusion Indicators:Therefore, consequently, hence, it follows that, thus, so, it must be that, and as a result.

Premise Indicators:Because, since, for, given that, due to the fact that, for the reason that, the reason being, assuming that, and as indicated by.

Deductive Argument Indicators:It necessarily follows that, it must be the case that, it logically follows that, conclusively, and necessarily.

Inductive Argument Indicators:Probably, likely, in all probability, it is reasonable to suppose that, odds are, and chances are.

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Sound ArgumentA valid argument with true premises.

Cogent ArgumentA strong argument with true premises.

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Reason Vs Experience

One of the most important issues in the theory of knowledge is the relationship between reason and experience.

A priori knowledge = knowledge that is justified independently of (or prior to) experience.

Examples: definitions, logical truths

All unicorns are one-horned creatures is true by definition.

Either my football team will win or they wont. Even if they tie they still wont win and so it is logically true.

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Reason vs Experience

A posteriori knowledge = knowledge that is based on (or posterior to) experience.

Empirical = anything based on experience

Examples:

Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.Tadpoles become frogs.

We can verify the freezing point and life cycle of frogs through experience. 49

Three Epistemological Questions

1. Is it possible to have knowledge at all?

2. Does reason provide us with knowledge of the world independently of experience?

3. Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is?

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Options Concerning Knowledge

1. Skepticism

2. Rationalism

3. Empiricism

4. Constructivism

5. Epistemological relativism

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Skepticism

Skepticism = the claim that we do not have knowledge.

It is impossible to have justified beliefs.

No one has provided any reasons to think that our beliefs are capable of being justified.

The skeptics answer no to question #1 and the other 2 questions are thought irrelevant.

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Rationalism

Rationalism = claims that reason or the intellect is the primary source of our fundamental knowledge about reality.

Rationalists claim reason can give us knowledge apart from experience.

Example:We can arrive at mathematical truths about circles or triangles without having to measure, experiment with, or experience circular or triangular objects.

We do so by constructing rational, deductive proofs that lead to absolutely indubitable conclusions that are always universally true of the world outside our minds (a priori knowledge about the world)

Rationalists think question #2 is true. 53

Empiricism

Empiricism = the claim that sense experience is the sole source of our knowledge about the world.

When we start life, our intellect is a blank slate.

Only through experience does that empty mind become filled with content.

Mathematical truths are not already in the mind before we discover them and there is no genuine a priori knowledge about the nature of reality.

Empiricist answer no to question #2. 54

Constructivism

Constructivism = refers to the claim that knowledge is neither already in the mind nor passively received from experience, but that the mind constructs knowledge out of the materials of experience.

Immanuel Kant introduced this view due to trying to reach a compromise between both rationalists and empiricists.

Kant answers no to question #355

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650)

Some of the best known arguments for skepticism were produced by the French philosopher Rene Descartes.

Descartes life long passion was to find certainty.

Although Descartes did not end up a skeptic, he initially used skeptical doubt as a test to decide which beliefs were absolutely certain.

Descartes carried out his project of philosophical demolition and reconstruction in a work called Meditations of First Philosophy.

This works consisted of six meditations that traced his journey from skeptical doubt to absolute certainty.

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Three Anchor Points of Rationalism

1. Reason is the primary or most superior source of knowledge about reality.

2. Sense experience is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge.

3. The fundamental truths about the world can be known A Priori: They are innate or self-evident to our minds.

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Three Anchor Points of Rationalism

3. The fundamental truths about the world can be known A Priori: They are either innate or self-evident to our minds.

Innate Ideas = ideas that are inborn. They are ideas or principles that the mind already contains prior to experience.

The notion of innate ideas is found in rationalist philosophies but rejected my empiricists.

The theory of innate ideas views the mind as that of a computer that comes from the factory with numerous programs already installed on it, waiting to be activated.

Rationalists say that such ideas as the laws of logic, the concept of justice, or the idea of God are already contained deep within our mind and only need to be brought to the level of conscious awareness. 58

Rene Descartes

Descartes is considered the founder of modern rationalism because of his arguments that reason could unlock all of the secrets of reality.

Descartes began his philosophical journey with the attempt to doubt every one of his beliefs to see if he could find any that were certain beyond any possible doubt.

Consequently, he discovered that the one thing he could not doubt was his existence.

“I am, then, in the strict sense only a thing that thinks; that is, I am a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason.”

In our dreams we have the experience of running, eating, swimming, and engaging in all sorts of bodily activities, but are illusory and so body-like experiences or physical experiences cannot be known with certainty as true reality.

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Three Anchor Points of Empiricism

1. The only source of genuine knowledge is sense experience.

2. Reason is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge unless it is grounded in the solid bedrock of sense experience.

3. There is no evidence of innate ideas within the mind that are known apart from experience.

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Empiricist Answers to Three Epistemological Questions

1. Is knowledge possible? 2. Does reason provide us with knowledge of the

world independent of experience?3. Does our knowledge represent reality as it

really is?

The four empiricists we examine will provide different answers to each question (Aristotle, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume).

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Aristotle

Aristotle (3884-322 BCE) was a Greek philosopher who made experience the beginning point of knowledge and took issue with the rationalism of his teacher Plato.

Aristotle was born in Macedonia and grew up there.

Following a long family tradition, Aristotle’s father was a physician to the king. 62

Around age 18 Aristotle became a student of Plato’s Academy in Athens.

He studied there for 20 years until Plato died around 348 BCE.

In 342 BCE he was summoned by the Macedonian King Philip who asked him to tutor his 13 year old son Alexander, the royal heir, who would later be known as Alexander the Great.

In 335 BCE Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his school The Lyceum, which was located near the temple of the god Apollo Lyceus, where most of his writings were composed.

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Aristotle on the Possibility of Knowledge

In answer to question 1 Is knowledge possible?

Aristotle would answer yes.

Aristotle raised several arguments against the skeptics who claimed that knowledge was impossible.

For example, Aristotle said that we can know the laws of logic. (Aristotle was the first to set out the basic laws of logic).

One such principle being the law of non-contradiction, which states that it is impossible for something to be both A and not A at the same time.

The skeptic is either resigned to silence or else must acknowledge that we can know logical truths.

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Aristotle and the Role of Reason

Question 2 asked: Does reason alone provide us with knowledge of the world?

Aristotle says no.

He says that prior to experience the mind is like a blank tablet (tabula rasa).

There is nothing there until experience makes its mark on the tablet of the mind.

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This idea of the mind being a blank tablet is repeated by John Locke 2,000 years later and becomes the iconic image of empiricism thereafter.

Obviously, if the mind is like a blank tablet apart from experience, this rules out the possibility of there being any innate knowledge, contrary to what Plato, Socrates and the other rationalists claimed.

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Aristotle on the Representation of Reality

Question 3: Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is? Yes.

Aristotle thinks that because language, thought, and reality seem to fit together they must share the same structure.

First, thought and reality must be related. When we reason from one proposition to another we are going from one piece about the world to other facts that are true of the world.

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John Locke (1632-1704 CE)

Although the roots of empiricism go back to ancient Greece, it was English philosopher John Locke who laid the foundations of modern empiricism.

Locke studied theology, natural science, philosophy, and medicine at Oxford University.

Locke was active in political affairs, and in addition to holding a number of public offices, he helped draft the Constitution for the American Carolinas in 1669. 68

Locke on the Possibility of Knowledge

Question 1: Is knowledge possible? Yes.

Locke thought that experience gives us knowledge that enables us to deal with the external world.

The building blocks of all knowledge are what he calls ideas.

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Complex ideas are combinations of simple ideas that can be treated as unified objects and given their own names, according to three mental activities which produce them:

compounding (uniting together two or more simple ideas),

relating (deriving complex ideas by relationships or comparison), and

abstracting (common properties found in our experiences of particulars, books, buildings, dogs, people).

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Locke and the Role of Reason

Question 2: Does reason alone provide us with knowledge of the world? No.

Locke attacked the notion of innate ideas.

The idea that we could have innate ideas that we were unaware of is rubbish because no proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of.

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Locke on the Representation of Reality

Question 3: Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is? Yes.

We must clarify what parts of our experience objectively represent reality and what parts only reflect our own subjectivity.

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Properties are objective that are independent of us and that are part of the makeup of the object itself are called primary qualities.

The primary qualities of an object are its properties of solidity, extension, shape, motion or rest, and number.

In other words, they are the properties that can be mathematically expressed and scientifically studied.

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Properties that are subjectively perceived, that are the effects the subject has on our sense organs, and whose appearances are different from the object that produces them are secondary qualities.

Secondary qualities are properties of color, sound, taste, smell, and texture.

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Our experience of primary qualities gives us knowledge of reality as it really is.

But our experience of secondary qualities registers how the objective world effects our particular sense organs.

We find it easy to agree on the size, shape, number, and position of a glass of iced tea because these are its objective, or primary, qualities.

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George Berkeley

George Berkeley studied at Trinity College in Dublin, and is considered Ireland’s most famous philosopher.

In 1710 he was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church where he later became a bishop.

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He donated books to Harvard college, founded the library at Yale, and influenced the establishment of king’s college known as Columbia today.

He predicted that American civilization would expand all the way to the western coast, where the State of California established a university after his name. 77

Berkeley on the Possibility of Knowledge and Role of Reason

With Locke, Berkeley gave affirmative answers to the first two basic questions of epistemology.

He believed that we do have knowledge, and that it was only through experience and not reason that we have any knowledge of reality.

Berkeley began his philosophy with an analysis of experience.

Following Locke, he refers to the concrete contents of our experience as ideas.

Ideas = redness of a rose, coldness of ice, smell of freshly mown grass, the taste of honey, and the sound of a flute. 78

We also have ideas of our own psychological states because we experience our own willing, doubting, and loving.

Thus, ideas are images, feelings, or sense data that are directly present to the mind wither in vivid sensory or psychological experiences or in less vivid presentations of memory or imagination.

When Berkeley says we have an idea of an apple he is referring to the experience or memory of the combined ideas (experiences) of roundness, redness, hardness, and sweetness. 79

Berkeley’s Theory of Experience

Berkeley did not thing that Locke went far enough as an empiricist and so he carried to theory of empiricism further to its logical conclusions.

Berkeley concluded that because all we know is what we find in experience, it follows that we can never know or even make sense of a material world that allegedly lies outside of our own, private experiences.

Berkeley’s philosophy is commonly referred to as subjective idealism, although he himself called it immaterialism.

Idealism is a position that maintains that ultimate reality is mental or spiritual in nature. 80

Berkeley’s position is known as subjective idealism because he believes reality is made up of many individual minds rather than one cosmic mind.

According to Berkeley, reality is non-physical and everything that exists falls into one of two categories, minds (or spirits) and the ideas they perceive.

Berkeley claims that all the objects we encounter in experience (books, apples, rocks) fall into category 2 and are nothing more than mind dependent collections of ideas.

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Berkeley on the Ideas of Matter

Berkeley argued that matter is unintelligible and empty of content.

Matter is a misleading term for the collection of sensory experiences we have, such as texture and hardness (in which case it is internal to the mind) or something external to the mind that is without shape, color, odor, taste, or texture.

A mind independent object could not have these qualities because these kinds of sensations are experienced within the mind.

If an object did not have such qualities it would be a kind of nothingness that we can never experience, know, or imagine. 82

Berkeley on the Representation of Reality

Berkeley and Locke disagree on the answer to the third epistemological question concerning knowledge representing reality as it really is.

Locke’s view is known as” representative realism” = the view that we do not directly experience external objects, but their primary qualities (such as shape and size) produce ideas in us that accurately represent these real properties of the objects.

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Berkeley’s position is that we can only know what reality is like if our ideas (the contents of our experience) are the only reality there is to be known.

Locke’s distinction between objective and subjective qualities cannot be made since all the qualities of objects are within our experience and equally objective.

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The Cause of Our Ideas

According to Berkeley, only a mind can produce ideas.

If our minds did not produce the ideas or experiences we encounter, then God’s mind must have created them within us.

God directly gives us the world of our experience without the intermediate step of external physical matter.

God continuously maintains the world in existence, for even if we are not experiencing a particular object, it still exists within God’s mind.

Contrary to Descartes evil genius, Berkeley believed that a benevolent God was producing experiences within our minds and that these experiences are the only reality.

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We can still enjoy the coolness of water and the warmth of a fire.

The only difference is that we will realize that these experiences are in the form of mental events provided us by God.

According to Berkeley, you can reject the theory of an external, mind independent, physical world and still have a world of real objects within your experience.

Furthermore, science is still possible as long as we review it as the recording of regularities within our experiences and the predicting of future experiences based on this view. 86

David Hume

David Hume was born in Edinburgh Scotland into a Calvinist family and he attended Edinburgh University.

He published a number of important works on human nature, the theory of knowledge, religion, and morality.

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Hume’s Empiricism

Hume was an empiricist, for he believed that all knowledge of the world comes through experience.

The contents of consciousness are what he calls perceptions.

Perceptions include our original experiences, which he labels impressions.

There are two kinds of impressions:1. Sense date (visual data, sounds, odors, tastes, tactile

data)2. Internal impressions (composed of contents of

psychological experiences)88

Hume defines impressions as “all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will.”

Perceptions also include what he calls ideas, or the contents of our memories and imagination.

Our impressions are more vivid and trustworthy than the copies we find of them in our ideas, for an idea to have legitimacy it must be traceable to original impressions.

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In addition to arguing that all our knowledge about the world comes through experience, Hume adds that none of our knowledge about the world comes through reason.

Reason can only tell us about the relationships between our own ideas, it can map the connections between the ideas in our minds, but it cannot establish connections between those ideas and the external world.

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Hume on Causality

Hume examines what we can know about the world.

Hume contends that we can learn nothing about what lies outside the subjective contents found within our experiences.

According to Hume, most of our judgments about the world are based upon our inferences from causes and effects, which assumes the principle of induction.

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Principle of Induction could be summarized as the assumption that the future will be like the past.

This principle requires the belief in the uniformity of nature = the thesis that the laws of nature that have been true thus far will continue to be true tomorrow.

Hume argues that just because we have discovered certain things hold true in the past does not make it logically necessary that they will be true in the future.

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Hume on Knowledge about the External World

The problem that Hume raises is that impressions are always data that are internal to our subjective experience, and, hence, we have no idea about what is external to our experience.

We tend to believe in a world that continues to exist apart from our experience because of the repeated experiences of similar impressions throughout time.

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Hume argues that we cannot make causal judgments about what lies outside experience.

Hume does not deny that the external world exists, he agrees that it is a natural and almost unavoidable belief that we have, but our fundamental beliefs are based on psychological habits that carry us far beyond what logic and experience could ever prove to us.

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Hume on the Three Questions About Knowledge

1. Is it possible to have knowledge? Hume pointed out that if all we can know is the sensory contents of experience, how can we have knowledge of an external world, our own minds, or God?

Hume believes he is more consistent than Locke or Berkeley, for he stays strictly within the bounds of experience.

All we are left with is the flow of sensory data.95

Hence, all that we can know are subjective contents of our individual minds, but this conclusion means that it is impossible to distinguish between the way things appear to us and the way things really are.

Thus, we lack a necessary condition for having knowledge, according to Hume.

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2. Does reason alone tell us about reality?

Hume’s answer is that not only can experience not tell us about reality, but reason cannot either.

Reason can tell us about the relationship between our ideas but it gives us no information about the world.

For example, logic can tell us that all unicorns have one horn but cannot tell us if unicorns exist.97

3. Does our knowledge represent reality as it really is?

The only certainty that we can have concerns the relationships of our own ideas.

But since these judgments concern only the realm of ideas, they do not tell us about the external world.

Such judgments are never certain and merely give us information about what has been true in past experience. 98

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg in what was then known as East Prussia (now Kaliningrad Russia), and he lived there all of his life.

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Kant’s Agenda

Kant believed that we do have knowledge and that it was undeniable that arithmetic, geometry, and physics provide us with information about our world.

He also believed that these disciplines involve universal and necessary principles such that no future discoveries will ever shake our conviction of their truth.

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Kant concluded that both reason and experience play a role in constructing our knowledge.

Accordingly, Kant’s epistemology could be referred to as “rational-empiricism” or “empirical-rationalism”, though he himself called it critical philosophy as he wanted to critique reason.

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Synthetic a posteriori knowledge- knowledge that is based on experience and that adds new information to the subject. (lemon juice is acidic)

Synthetic a priori knowledge- knowledge that is acquired through reason, independently of experience, that is universal and necessary, and that provides information about the way the world is. (all events have a cause)

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Phenomena = in Kant’s theory, the things as they appear to us that exist in the world of our experience, which is partially constructed by the mind.

Noumena = in Kant’s theory, the things in themselves that exist outside our experience.

It is impossible for us to leap outside experience to compare our view of the world as structured by the mind with the way reality is in itself.

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Two powers of the mind are at work in experience, sensibility and understanding.

Sensibility = a passive power, it is the ability of the mind to receive sensory intuitions.

Understanding = an active power, enables us to organize the intuitions we receive into meaningful objects by applying concepts to our experience.

Examples of categories of understanding = substance, causality, unity, plurality, possibility, necessity,

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What is Reality Like?

The good news of Kant's epistemology is that we can have objective, universal, and necessary knowledge of the world, since the world we know is always the world of experience and the world of experience will always have a certain structure.

Because of this structure, synthetic a priori judgments are possible.

What is crucial for Kant is that every human mind will structure experience in the same universal and necessary way. 105

The bad news of Kant’s position is that we can never know reality in itself because we can never jump outside our minds and see what reality is like before the minds have done their job of processing and filtering it.

The world we know is the world that appears to us in experience (phenomena).

But because experience is structured by the mind, we can never know reality in itself (noumena).

106

To Summarize, Kant believed:

1. We can never know reality as is it in itself

2. Our minds structure our experience of reality

3. There is a single set of forms and categories by which this structure is done, which is universal to every human knower

4. This process is fundamentally rational 107

Philosophical questions about the nature of reality fall under the heading of metaphysics.

The term metaphysics was originally coined by a scholar in the first century BCE who was editing the manuscripts of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE).

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One of Aristotle’s studies of nature was titled physics, and it was followed by an unnamed work about the more general principles of reality, to which the editor applied the title Metaphysics which literally means “that which comes after physics.”

Even though originally referring to the order of Aristotle’s manuscripts, it has come to designate that area of philosophy that deals with the nature of reality.

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Metaphysical questions about reality in general shifted toward metaphysical questions about human nature.

The two major metaphysical questions about the nature of persons concern (1) the mind body problem (2) freedom and determination.

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What Are my Options Concerning Metaphysics?

Philosophers can be divided into two groups with regard to metaphysics:

1. Those who claim there is only one kind of reality (metaphysical monism).

2. Those who claim there are two kinds of realities (metaphysical dualism).

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There are basically two kinds of monism:

1. metaphysical materialism- claims that reality is totally physical in nature. The mind is explained in terms of the physical body or brain and a non physical mind does not exist.

2. Idealism- claims that reality is entirely mental or spiritual in nature. A feature of ancient Hinduism regarding our individual mind being a partial manifestation of God’s mind and all of reality is an expression of the divine mind. 112

The major alternative to monism is dualism, which maintains that one part of reality is physical while another part is non physical.

Dualism is a compromise, as the dualist can accept physical reality and the physicists explanation of it while insisting that there is more to the big picture that the physical dimension alone.

On the other hand, the dualist claims that the mind is fully real and cannot be explained in terms of the physical. 113

The Basics of Metaphysics

Simplify Complexity

In the face of the overwhelming multiplicity of things, qualities, and events in our experience, we continually seek to understand them in terms of as few categories and principles as possible.

Ockham’s razor = the principle that we should eliminate (shave off) all unnecessary entities and explanatory principles in our theories.

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The Bottom Line Issue in Metaphysics

Ontology is that area of metaphysics that asks the questions “what is most fundamentally real?”

How do we define fundamental reality?

1. Fundamental reality is that upon which everything else depends. For some this may be a spiritual reality such as God.

2. Fundamental reality is that which cannot be destroyed. If we found out that what we accept to fundamentally real could be brought into being or destroyed that it would be dependent on something more fundamentally real than it. For the theist, God cannot be created or destroyed.115

Every metaphysical theory attempts to lump things into 3 broad categories:

1. Things that are not real.

2. Realities that can be reduced to more fundamental realities.

3. Things that are fundamentally real.

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What Are My Options Concerning the Mind Body Problem

The two most significant alternatives to the mind-body problem are:

1. mind-body dualism2. Physicalism

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Mind body dualism = the claim that the mind and body (which includes the brain) are separate entities. The body is a physical thing whereas the mind is a non physical (immaterial or spiritual) thing.

Physcalism = the claim that the self is identical to, or the product of, the activities of the body or the brain and that there is no nonphysical aspect of a person.

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There are also different varieties of physicalism:

1. Identity theory (Reductionism)2. Eliminativism

Identity theory = A type of physicalism that denies the existence of a separate, non physical mind but retains language that refers to the mind; also called reductionism

Eliminativism = a type of physicalism that denies the existence of a separate, non physical mind and discards all language that refers to mental events.

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Functionalism = a philosophy that claims that the mind is characterized by particular patterns of input processing output.

Functionalists argue that the brain is like the physical hardware of the computer and the mind is like the computer program that is run on the hardware but logically distinct from it.

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Dualism

Even though our mind and our body seem to be joined together throughout our lives, most people can imagine the possibility of the two existing separately.

But even though we think we can imagine this possibility, is it really coherent?

Furthermore, even if it is coherent, are there any reasons to suppose that the mind actually is separate from the body?

The dualist wants to convince you that the answer to both of these questions is yes.

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Rene Descartes is the most famous advocate of mind body dualism.

The one belief that Descartes could not doubt was “I exist.”

However, the certainty of his own existence applied only to existence as a mind, a mental substance distinct from his body.

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Descartes Arguments For Mind-Body Dualism

Descartes’ Basic Premise:

Descartes offers several arguments to convince us that the mind and body are two separate realities.

Implicit within his arguments is the same basic premise, often labeled the principle of the nonidentity of discernible.

If two things do not have exactly identical properties, then they are not identical.

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Descartes had one remaining problem, although the mind and body are separate he was convinced that they interact.

Accordingly, Descartes specific version of dualism is called interactionism.

It seems easy to understand how mental activities interact and how physical entities interact, but how can the spiritual substance causally interact with the physical?

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Descartes attempt to answer this question is the least satisfactory part of his philosophy.

In his day, scientists were aware of the existence of the pineal gland, but they did not know what the gland did.

So Descartes had an organ whose function was unknown and a function whose location was unknown.

He concluded that he could solve both problems with one hypothesis: The pineal gland is where the mind and body interact.

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Descartes thought that the pineal gland was affected by vital spirits, and through this intermediary, the soul could alter the motions of the brain, which then could affect the body and visa versa.

But the gland is merely another part of the body and does not solve the mind body problem.

126

One of the leading alternatives to mind-body dualism is physicalism, the theory that human beings can be explained completely and adequately in terms of their physical or material components. 127

Accordingly, the physicalist claims that when we talk about the mind or mental processes, we are really talking about something physical (such as brain activity) or else we are talking about something that does not exist at all.

There are many varieties of physicalistic theories of the person, such as behaviorism, functionalism, identity theory (reductionism) and eliminative materialism.

128

Identity Theory

Physicalists disagree over the details of their theory.

The identity theory (or reductionism) treats mental events as real but claims that they are identical to brain events.

Hence, when we talk about beliefs, pains, desires, we can reduce these terms to talk about brain states.

The identity theory claims a one to one identity between a particular mental state and a particular brain state.

129

We can continue to use our mentalistic language so long as we keep in mind the real object of our talk.

The identity theorist cautions that nouns such as mind, belief, desire, motive, or pain tempt us to suppose that these terms refer to certain kinds of nonphysical entitles.

When we speak of beliefs, desires, and thoughts, we are not referring to anything apart from different states or activities in the brain. 130

Eliminativism

The other form of physicalism is eliminativism.

The eliminativist believes that our mentalistic talk is so deeply flawed that it must be abandoned, because there is no hope of correlating our talk about beliefs and desires with our talk about brain states, as the identity theorist does.

The eliminativist labels traditional psychological theories as folk psychology.

Before the rise of modern science, people relied on folk science or bizarre theories about what causes events in the world.

131

For example, ancient Greeks explained the falling of a stone by saying the stone desired to return to its mother, the earth.

Similarly, fate was thought to be a real force in the world that caused events to happen.

References to desires in stones or to the activity of fate cannot be translated into the terminology of modern physics.

Because rocks do not have desires and fate is not a causal force, the Greeks were not talking about anything at all.

Hence, we abandoned these folk theories and now talk in terms of an entirely different characterization of physical and historical events. 132

Similarly, the eliminativist believes that as our brain research advances, we will abandon our traditional mentalistic vocabulary and explanations just as we have abandoned the mythological folk science of the Greeks.

The eliminativist claims we literally do not have beliefs or desires, nor are there really such states or activities as believing or desiring going on within us.

Instead, we merely have certain kinds of brain states and processes.

133

What makes it a movement of a pawn in chess is not the chemical composition of the piece or its shape but the distinctive pattern of its movement as well as its powers and relations to other pieces.

Chess moves have to be made with something but this something can be many types of things (pieces of wood, symbols on paper, or even human beings).

This sort of property is what philosophers call multiple realizability.

The same chess move can be realized in multiple ways in different media. 134

The functionalist argues that what is essential to a mind is not a certain sort of material (the wet, grey, fleshy stuff of the brain).

Instead, minds are constituted by a certain pattern or relation between the parts of a system, independent of the material that embodies the system.

In other words, mental events have the property of multiple realizability.

135

To be a mind, requires the embodiment of a series of functional states that bore the sorts of causal relations to each other and to inputs and outputs that we would identify as psychological states (beliefs, hopes, fears, desires, and so on).

Functionalism is neutral on the issue of dualism versus physicalism, as there is no official position on what a system must be made out of to have mental states.

However most functionalists are physicalists who claim that it happens to be the case that our functional mental states are identified with brain states.

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According to the functionalist, the hardware of the computer (the wires, chips, and so on) are like the brain or whatever substance underlies the mental states.

The software is a set of logical relationships that direct the processing of inputs, the changing states of the system, and the outputs.

Software is analogous to the mind.

Hence, differently designed computer systems can run functionally similar software.

137

Functionalists tend to find important analogies between human psychology and computers.

In computer jargon we make a distinction between hardware and software.

Hardware is the actual physical computer, including its chips and circuits.

The software is the program giving the computer its instructions.

Hence, the same hardware could run a word processor, and action game, a music synthesizer, or an artificial intelligence program that plays world class chess. 138

In 1950, the British mathematician Alan Turing proposed a test to determine whether a computer can think or not.

Turing is considered to be the founding father of computer science.

Although he never built a computer himself, he laid the theoretical and mathematical foundations that were essential for designing our modern computers.

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Let us suppose that you and several other judges are seated in a room in front of a computer terminal.

Your terminal is communicating with another terminal in another room.

You communicate interactively with the unseen person in the other room by typing a question on your keyboard and reading the other person’s responses on your monitor.

The key feature of the test is that in some of the sessions you are not communicating with a flesh and blood person but with an AI program running on a computer.

Turing’s claim was that if the computer program could fool a panel of judges into thinking they were communicating with a human being a significant percentage of the time, this deception would be proof that the computer program was capable of thought.

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Hence, Turing replaced the question “can computers think” with “can computers pass the Turing test?”

The theory behind this test can be summed up by

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.”

In other words, if a computer’s responses fulfill the criteria we use to judge that a human is intelligent, then we are committed to saying that the computer is intelligent. 141

Some philosophers have expanded Turing’s thesis into the claim that the ability to pass the Turing test is a logically sufficient condition for having a mind.

In other words, an appropriately programmed computer really is a mind and can be said to literally understand, believe, and have other cognitive states.

This thesis is known as the strong AI thesis.

The weak AI thesis is the claim that artificial intelligence research may help us explore various theoretical models of human mental processes while acknowledging only simulate mental activities.

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John Searle’s Chinese Room

Assuming that a computer could pass the Turing test, would this result be a sufficient condition for saying that the computer has a mind?

The contemporary philosopher John Searle attempted to refute the strong AI thesis by offering his famous 1980 Chinese room thought experiment.

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We shall begin by assuming you have no knowledge of the Chinese language.

Now, imagine that you are in a room with a rather large rule book giving directions in English on how to respond to Chinese sentences with appropriate Chinese replies.

This instruction manual does not contain stock sentences, for there is no way to predict what sentences it will need to process.

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Furthermore, it does not explain the meaning of the symbols to you.

Instead, the manual contains formal rules for systematically analyzing one set of Chinese symbols and constructing another set of Chinese symbols that a native speaker would recognize as an appropriate response.

Chinese speakers slip messages under the door written in Chinese.

The papers contain various marks made up of straight and curved lines, none of which you understand.

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You look these figures up in the book.

Next, following the instructions you write out another set of symbols and pass this message back to the Chinese speakers outside.

Unknown to you, their messages are questions and, thanks to the rule book, your responses are articulate answers to these questions written in Chinese.

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You can see that Searle is trying to construct something like a Turing test for understanding Chinese.

At this point, Searle appeals to your intuitions.

You have passed the Turing test by fooling the people on the outside that you are fluent in Chinese.

However, in spite of this success, you still do not understand a single word of Chinese.

Clearly, something different is going on when you are manipulating Chinese symbols than when you are receiving and responding to messages in English, which you understand. 147

Searle claims that this formal manipulation of symbols is comparable to what goes on in a computer’s AI program.

His point is that no matter how effective a computer program may be in simulating conversation, it will never produce real understanding.

Hence, a computer program can simulate intelligence, but it cannot duplicate it.

Contrary to strong AI thesis, Searle claims a computer program is nothing like a mind because its states are different from our cognitive states.

The computer lacks intentionality.148

Intentionality = a feature of certain mental states (such as beliefs) by which they are directed at or are about objects or states of affairs in the world.

Suppose the rule book tells you that the response to symbol ### is symbol &&&.

But for you, these symbols lack any meaning.

In other words, they do not refer to anything external to themselves (intentionality is lacking).

On the other hand, the symbol “dog” is more than a set of marks for you.

It produces a mental state that refers to a certain type of furry creature.

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Thinking about Freedom

Two kinds of freedom are relevant to our discussion of philosophy.

Circumstantial freedom = when we have the ability and the opportunity to perform whatever action we choose.

Circumstantial freedom is a negative condition, because it means we are free from external forces, obstacles, and natural limitations that restrict or compel our actions.

In this sense you would not be free to go to the movies if you were tied up or if someone was holding a gun to your head (external forces).

Similarly, you are not free to jump 50 feet in the air (a natural limitation).

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All philosophers would agree that it is possible for us to have the circumstantial freedom to act as we desire.

The controversy is whether we have the second kind of freedom, metaphysical freedom.

Whether we have metaphysical freedom depends on what sort of universe we live in and on what is fundamentally true about human nature.

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Metaphysical freedom is identical to what we ordinarily mean when we talk about free will, a concept that refers to the power of the self to choose among genuine alternatives.

Metaphysical freedom does not relate to our external circumstances but to our internal condition.

Hence, the self is the creative, originating cause of a decision or action.

If we have this freedom, then we could have made different choices in the past than the ones we did.152

What are my options concerning Human Freedom?

We can formulate the issue of freedom and determinism in terms of these statements and different combinations of responses to these statements.

The three statements are:1. We are determined2. If we are determined, then we lack the freedom necessary to

be morally responsible3. We do have the freedom necessary to be morally responsible.

These statements create an inconsistent triad which means it is impossible for all three statements to be true.

You can accept any two of these statements but must reject the third statement. 153

Three Points of Freedom, Determinsim, and Responsiblity

Hard determinism = all our choices are determined and we do not have moral responsibility for our actions.

Statement 1 = agreeStatement 2 = agree (affirming incompatibilism)Statement 3 = disagree

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Libertarianism= the position that rejects determinism and asserts that we do have metaphysical freedom.

Statement 1 = disagreeStatement 2 = agreeStatement 3 = agree

At least some choices are free and exempt from causal necessity.

It is impossible to predict every detail of a persons behavior.

We have the capacity to be morally responsible.155

Compatibilsm = the claim that we are both determined and that we have moral responsibility.

Statement 1 = agreeStatement 2 = disagreeStatement 3 = agree

An action is free to the degree that is not the product of external compulsion.

If the immediate cause of your action is your own psychological states, including your will, choices, values, or desires, then it is free or voluntary action for which you can be held responsible .

At the same time, you personality, motives and values are completely determined by previous causes.

We do not have metaphysical freedom. 156

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