phylosophy

6.3

Most empiricists have rejected skepticism while denying rationalist claims (such as the doctrine of innate ideas), building their theories of knowledge on the supposed firmer ground of sense experience. But the differences among the greatest empiricists are stark. Locke argues that we can know much about things external to our minds; Berkeley agrees that we can have knowledge but denies the reality of material objects; and Hume insists that the scope of our knowledge is much narrower than most 302 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism people realize, raising skeptical doubts about the existence of the external world and the inductive methodology of science. Locke In Locke’s philosophical masterwork, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), he builds a case against rationalism and for a thoroughgoing empiricism. First, he contends that the rationalist notion that we are born with knowledge (“innate principles,” as he says) already imprinted on our minds is unfounded. The rationalist argues, says Locke, that since all people seem to possess knowledge of certain universal principles (such as truths of logic), this knowledge must be inborn. How else could everyone have come by this knowledge? Locke replies that there are no such universal principles, and even if there were, they could have easily arisen through sense experience. They need not be present at birth. Here is Locke’s critique of innate ideas: John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove it not innate. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first being; and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only shew (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant, that it would be impertinent to suppose, the ideas of colours innate in a creature, to whom God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes, from external objects: And no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties, fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally imprinted on the mind. But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out of the common road; I shall set down the reasons that made me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse Figure 6.7 John Locke (1632–1704). 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 303 for my mistake, if I be in one; which I leave to be considered by those who, with me, dispose themselves to embrace truth, wherever they find it. 2. General assent, the great argument. There is nothing more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certain principles, both speculative and practical, (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all mankind: Which therefore, they argue, must needs be the constant impressions, which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring into the world with them, as necessarily and really as they do any of their inherent faculties. 3. Universal consent proves nothing. This argument, drawn from universal consent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were true in matter of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all mankind agreed, it would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shewn how men may come to that universal agreement, in the things they do consent in, which I presume may be done. 4. What is, is; and it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be; not universally assented to. But, which is worse, this argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such; because there are none to which all mankind give an universal assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in those magnified principles of demonstration; “Whatsoever is, is;” and “It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be;” which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have so settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it will, no doubt, be thought strange, if any one should seem to question it. But yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from having an universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they are not so much as known. 5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to children, idiots, etc. For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them; and the want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent, which must needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths: It seeming to me near a contradiction, to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives or understands not; imprinting if it signify any thing, being nothing else, but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint any thing on the mind, without the mind’s perceiving it seems to me hardly intelligible. If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to these truths: Which since they do not, it is evident that there are no such impressions. For if they are not notions naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can they be unknown? To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. For if any one may, then, by the same reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind is capable ever of assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to be imprinted: Since, if any one can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only, because it is capable of knowing it, and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus truths may be imprinted on the mind, which it never did, nor ever shall know: For a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. So that if the capacity of knowing, be the natural impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this account, be every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only to a very improper way of speaking; which, whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those, who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever 10 Locke says that universal agreement on principles does not prove that they are innate. Why does he say this? Is he right? 11 In response to Locke’s point about children, suppose a rationalist insists that children’s minds are not fully developed and so cannot yet have knowledge of innate principles—therefore, their lack of innate knowledge does not prove anything. Is this a good argument? 304 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism denied that the mind was capable of knowing several truths. The capacity, they say, is innate, the knowledge acquired. But then to what end such contest for certain innate maxims? If truths can be imprinted on the understanding without being perceived, I can see no difference there can be, between any truths the mind is capable of knowing in respect of their original: They must all be innate, or all adventitious: In vain shall a man go about to distinguish them. He therefore that talks of innate notions in the understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby any distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in the understanding as it never perceived, and is yet wholly ignorant of. For if these words (to be in the understanding) have any propriety, they signify to be understood: So that to be in the understanding, and not to be understood; to be in the mind, and never to be perceived; is all one, as to say any thing is, and is not in the mind or understanding. If therefore these two propositions, “Whatsoever is, is,” and “It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,” are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them; infants, and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their understandings, know the truth of them, and assent to it.10 For Locke, the mind does not come into the world already inscribed with ideas or knowledge. On the contrary, he says, the mind is unmarked “white paper” void of any ideas until sense experience gives it content. From where does the mind obtain “all the materials of reason and knowledge”? he asks. “To this I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge is founded.”11 Rationalists like Descartes would say that our most important items of knowledge must be innate because they could not possibly have come from sense experience. They would maintain, for example, that our knowledge of the concept “infinity” and of the proposition “Every event has a cause” must be prenatally imprinted on our minds because we can never observe instances of these in reality. Through sense experience we can become acquainted only with finite things, not an infinity of things; and we can observe only a limited number of events, not all events. Locke, however, holds that we can grasp such ideas by first having sense experience related to them and then extrapolating the ideas from the sense data. We can, for example, have the concept of infinity by experiencing finite things and multiplying and extending them in our imagination until we approach the idea of the infinite. Locke tries to defeat the skeptic by showing how our sense experience can reveal the existence of an external world. He says we must distinguish between the objects of our experience (external objects) and the experience of those objects (sensations, or sense data). Physical objects cause sensations in us, and we are directly aware only of those sensations (or ideas, as Locke calls them). So we have direct knowledge not of external objects, but of the sense data related to those objects. But if all we ever really know are sense data, how can we be sure they give us an accurate picture of the external world? Locke’s answer is that sensations caused by external objects somehow represent those objects and thereby give us knowledge of them. Sensations are, Locke says, “resemblances” of external things. But he points out that not all of our sensations No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience. —John Locke 12 Evaluate Locke’s point about extrapolating ideas from sense data. Is it plausible? Is it a good response to the rationalist? All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions. —Leonardo da Vinci John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 305 faithfully reflect reality. He distinguishes between two kinds of properties that external objects can have. Primary qualities are objective properties such as size, solidity, and mobility. They are in material objects, independent of our senses, and would be possessed by the objects even if no one was around to sense anything. Secondary qualities are subjective properties such as the color red or the smell of roses. They are in the mind, in that they depend on the operation of the senses. They exist only when someone experiences them. For Locke, we can have objective knowledge of material objects because some of our sense data represent the objects’ primary qualities, which are objective characteristics of them. Locke’s theory of knowledge, however, has been sharply criticized by both rationalists and empiricists. The main criticism is that Locke has not given us any good reason to think that our sense data are proof of the existence of an external reality. After all, according to Locke, we directly experience only our sensations, or ideas; we only indirectly perceive external objects. We have no way of jumping out of our subjective point of view to compare our sense experience with the objective world. For all we know, our sense data present a radically distorted or thoroughly false picture of reality. Here is Locke’s answer to this charge: 1. Is to be had only by sensation. The knowledge of our own being we have by intuition. The existence of a God reason clearly makes known to us, as has been shown. The knowledge of the existence of any other thing, we can have only by sensation: For there being no necessary connexion of real existence with any idea a man hath in his memory, nor of any other existence but that of God, with the existence of any particular man; no particular man can know the existence of any other being, but only when by actual operating upon him, it makes itself perceived by him. For the having the idea of any thing in our mind, no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world, or the visions of a dream make thereby a true history. 2. Instance, whiteness of this paper. It is therefore the actual receiving of ideas from without [outside], that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in us, though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does it. For it takes not from the certainty of our senses, the ideas we receive by them, that we know not the manner wherein they are produced: V. g. whilst I write this, I have, by the paper affecting my eyes, that idea produced in my mind, which whatever object causes, I call white; by which I know that that quality or accident (i.e. whose appearance before my eyes always causes that idea) doth really exist, and hath a being without me. And of this, the greatest assurance I can possibly have, and to which my faculties can attain, is the testimony of my eyes, which are the proper and sole judges of this thing, whose testimony I have reason to rely on as so certain, that I can no more doubt, whilst I write this, that I see white and black, and that something really exists, that causes that sensation in me, than that I write or move my hand; which is a certainty as great as human nature is capable of, concerning the existence of any thing, but a man’s self alone, and of God. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 306 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism 3. This, though not so certain as demonstration, yet may be called knowledge, and proves the existence of things without us. The notice we have by our senses, of the existing of things without us, though it be not altogether so certain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our reason employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds; yet it is an assurance that deserves the name of knowledge. If we persuade ourselves, that our faculties act and inform us right, concerning the existence of those objects that affect them, it cannot pass for an illgrounded confidence: For I think nobody can, in earnest, be so sceptical, as to be uncertain of the existence of those things which he sees and feels. At least, he that can doubt so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts) will never have any controversy with me; since he can never be sure I say any thing contrary to his own opinion. As to myself, I think God has given me assurance enough of the existence of things without me; since by their different application I can produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of my present state. This is certain; the confidence that our faculties do not herein deceive us is the greatest assurance we are capable of, concerning the existence of material beings. For we cannot act any thing but by our faculties; nor talk of knowledge itself, but by the help of those faculties, which are fitted to apprehend even what knowledge is. But besides the assurance we have from our senses themselves, that they do not err in the information they give us, of the existence of things without us, when they are affected by them, we are farther confirmed in this assurance by other concurrent reasons. 4. Because we cannot have them but by the inlets of the senses. First, it is plain those perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses; because those that want [lack] the organs of any sense, never can have the ideas belonging to that sense produced in their minds. This is too evident to be doubted: And therefore we cannot but be assured, that they come in by the organs of that sense, and no other way. The organs themselves, it is plain, do not produce them, for then the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colors, and his nose smell roses in the winter: But we see nobody gets the relish of a pine-apple, till he goes to the Indies, where it is, and tastes it. 5. Because an idea from actual sensation, and another from memory, are very distinct perceptions. Secondly, because sometimes I find, that I cannot avoid the having those ideas produced in my mind. For though when my eyes are shut, or windows fast, I can at pleasure recall to my mind the ideas of light, or the sun, which former sensations had lodged in my memory; so I can at pleasure lay by that idea, and take into my view that of the smell of a rose, or taste of sugar. But, if I turn my eyes at noon towards the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas, which the light, or sun, then produces in me. So that there is a manifest difference between the ideas laid up in my memory, (over which, if they were there only, I should have constantly the same power to dispose of them, and lay them by at pleasure) and those which force themselves upon me, and I cannot avoid having. And therefore it must needs be some exterior cause, and the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose efficacy I cannot resist, that produces those ideas in my mind, whether I will or no. Besides, there is nobody who doth not perceive the difference in himself between contemplating the sun, as he hath the idea of it in his memory, and actually looking upon it: Of which two, his perception is so distinct, that few of his ideas are more distinguishable one from another. And therefore he hath certain knowledge that they are not both memory, or the actions of his mind, and fancies only within him; but that actual seeing hath a cause without. 6. Pleasure and Pain, which accompanies actual sensation, accompanies not the returning of those ideas, without the external objects. Thirdly, add to this, that many of those ideas are produced in us with pain, which afterwards we remember 13 Has Locke provided good reasons to think that our sense data prove the existence of an external world? Evaluate his attempt to answer his critics on this point. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 307 without the least offence. Thus the pain of heat or cold, when the idea of it is revived in our minds, gives us no disturbance; which, when felt, was very troublesome, and is again, when actually repeated; which is occasioned by the disorder the external object causes in our bodies when applied to it. And we remember the pains of hunger, thirst, or the headache, without any pain at all; which would either never disturb us, or else constantly do it, as often as we thought of it, were there nothing more but ideas floating in our minds, and appearances entertaining our fancies, without the real existence of things affecting us from abroad. The same may be said of pleasure, accompanying several actual sensations: And though mathematical demonstration depends not upon sense, yet the examining them by diagrams gives great credit to the evidence of our sight, and seems to give it a certainty approaching to that of demonstration itself. For it would be very strange, that a man should allow it for an undeniable truth, that two angles of a figure, which he measures by lines and angles of a diagram, should be bigger one than the other; and yet doubt of the existence of those lines and angles, which by looking on he makes use of to measure that by. 7. Our senses assist one another’s testimony of the existence of outward things. Fourthly, our senses in many cases bear witness to the truth of each other’s report, concerning the existence of sensible things without us. He that sees a fire, may, if he doubt whether it be any thing more than a bare fancy, feel it too; and be convinced by putting his hand in it. Which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain, by a bare idea or phantom, unless that the pain be a fancy too: Which yet he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again. Thus I see, whilst I write this, I can change the appearance of the paper: And by designing the letters tell before-hand what new idea it shall exhibit the very next moment, by barely drawing my pen over it: Which will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will) if my hands stand still; or though I move my pen, if my eyes be shut: Nor when those characters are once made on the paper, can I choose afterwards but see them as they are; that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport and play of my own imagination, when I find that the characters, that were made at the pleasure of my own thoughts, do not obey them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it; but continue to affect my senses constantly and regularly, according to the figures I made them. To which if we will add, that the sight of those shall, from another man, draw such sounds, as I beforehand design they shall stand for; there will be little reason left to doubt, that those words I write do really exist without me, when they cause a long series of regular sounds to affect my ears, which could not be the effect of my imagination, nor could my memory retain them in that order. 8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs. But yet, if after all this any one will be so sceptical, as to distrust his senses, and to affirm that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is but the series and deluding appearances of a long dream, whereof there is reality; and therefore will question the existence of all things, or our knowledge of any thing; I must desire him to consider, that if all be a dream, then he doth but dream, that he makes the question; and so it is not much matter, that a waking man should answer him. But yet, if he pleases, he may dream that I make him this answer, that the certainty of things existing in rerum natura, when we have the testimony of our senses for it, is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as our condition needs. For our faculties being suited not to the full extent of being, nor to a perfect, clear, comprehensive knowledge of things free from all doubt and scruple; but to the preservation of us, in whom they are; and accommodated to the use of life; they serve to our purpose well enough, if they will but give us certain notice of those things, which are convenient or inconvenient to us. 308 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism For he that sees a candle burning, and hath experimented the force of its flame, by putting his finger in it, will little doubt that this is something existing without him, which does him harm, and puts him to great pain: Which is assurance enough, when no man requires greater certainty to govern his actions by, than what is as certain as his actions themselves. And if our dreamer pleases to try, whether the glowing heat of a glass furnace be barely a wandering imagination in a drowsy man’s fancy; by putting his hand into it, he may perhaps be wakened into a certainty greater than he could wish, that it is something more than bare imagination. So that this evidence is as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleasure or pain, i.e. happiness or misery; beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowing or being. Such an assurance of the existence of things without us is sufficient to direct us in the attaining the good, and avoiding the evil, which is caused by them; which is the important concernment we have of being made acquainted with them. 9. But reaches no farther than actual sensation. In fine then, when our senses do actually convey into our understandings any idea, we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time really exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and by them give notice of itself to our apprehensive faculties, and actually produce that idea which we then perceive: And we cannot so far distrust their testimony, as to doubt, that such collections of simple ideas, as we have observed by our senses to be united together, do really exist together.12 Locke asks, in effect, what could possibly cause our sense experience if not external objects? His answer is that we know that external objects are real (and not a dream or delusion) because the theory that they exist is the best explanation for the sensations we have. External objects cause our sensations, and this is a much better explanation for our experience than that an evil genius or our own minds create a fantasy world that we take to be real. Berkeley Like Locke, George Berkeley is an empiricist who rejects skepticism. He believes that we can indeed acquire knowledge, and that the only path to it is through sense experience. But beyond these points of agreement, Berkeley veers sharply away from Locke’s view and from the theories of most other empiricists. (Caution: At first glance, you may think Berkeley’s theory of knowledge is both bizarre and wrong. But he provides plausible, and unsettling, arguments for his view, and generations of philosophers—whether they have agreed with Berkeley or not— have been forced to take his theory seriously.) For Berkeley, there are no material objects, no things that exist in the external world. There are objects to be sure, but they exist only as sensations (what Berkeley calls ideas) in some mind. They are real only because they are perceived by someone. Thus he declares in his famous phrase, esse est percipi, “to be is to be perceived.” What we usually call physical objects, then, are simply compilations of sense data, and reality consists only of ideas and the minds that perceive them. Our sense experience does not represent an external reality as Locke thought; our sense experience is reality. Locke’s view is vulnerable to skeptical criticism because he admits that there is a gap between our sensations and 14 Is Locke’s argument (an inference to the best explanation) successful? Evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge. —Unknown Figure 6.8 George Berkeley (1685–1753). John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 309 reality. Berkeley, however, tries to defeat skepticism by doing away with the gap entirely. He contends that there is no gap because material objects do not exist; only ideas exist along with the minds that perceive them. Let’s allow Berkeley to make his case: George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge I. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth. II. But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived. III. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow. And (to me) it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on, I say, exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelled; there was a sound, that is to say, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them. IV. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance 15 Is Berkeley right that belief in material objects involves a logical contradiction? Explain. 310 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world; yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations; and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these or any combination of them should exist unperceived? . . . VI. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being (esse) is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived. . . . VIII. But say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we look but ever so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? if they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense, to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.13 To provide further support for his theory, Berkeley takes aim at Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities. He claims that primary qualities are just as mind-dependent as secondary qualities are, for primary qualities can also vary according to the state of our senses, and primary qualities are inseparable from secondary qualities. IX. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities: by the former, they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number: by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of any thing existing without the mind or unperceived; but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call matter. By matter therefore we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure and motion, do actually subsist. But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion, are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence it is plain, that the very notion of what is called matter, or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it. George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge George Berkeley, Of the Principles of Human Knowledge 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 311 X. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities, do exist without the mind, in unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat, cold, and such like secondary qualities, do not, which they tell us are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can demonstrate beyond all exception. Now if it be certain, that those original qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind. But I desire any one to reflect and try, whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body, without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame an idea of a body extended and moved, but I must withal give it some colour or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere else. . . . XIV. I shall further add, that after the same manner as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them, for that the same body which appears cold to one hand, seems warm to another. Now why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of any thing settled and determinate without the mind? Again, it is proved that sweetness is not really in the said thing, because, the thing remaining unaltered, the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say, that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external object. XV. In short, let any one consider those arguments which are thought manifestly to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind, and he shall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of extension, figure, and motion. Though it must be confessed, this method of arguing doth not so much prove that there is no extension or colour in an outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true extension or colour of the object. But the arguments foregoing plainly show it to be impossible that any colour or extension at all or other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject without the mind, or in truth, that there should be any such thing as an outward object.14 Berkeley’s most interesting argument against the existence of material objects is a purely logical one: He contends that they cannot exist because their existence would be logically absurd. The commonsense view is that material objects continue to be even when no one has them in mind. But, says Berkeley, this would mean that they can be conceived of as existing unconceived, that we can think about things that no one is thinking about—a logical contradiction. Therefore, Berkeley concludes, the claim that material objects exist is false. 16 Do you think there is no substantial difference between primary and secondary qualities? Why or why not? The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. —Anaïs Nin 312 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism Critics have taken issue with this argument. They agree that in one sense it is impossible to conceive of something unconceived: It is impossible to contemplate a thing that is at the same time not being contemplated. But they maintain that there is no incoherence in believing the assertion that an entity exists unconceived. No contradiction lurks here. If so, the concept of a material object is not, as Berkeley charges, “a manifest repugnancy.” Some have faulted Berkeley’s theory in another way. They ask, Why do patterns of sensations present themselves to us as if they were entirely independent of our minds? That is, why do the configurations of sense data behave like material objects, seemingly existing unperceived and beyond our control? Berkeley’s answer is that things are never unperceived, for God continually perceives them and thus causes them to be as they are. God inserts a grand, intricate panoply of ideas into our minds—sensations that constitute for us a real world of God’s making. What we think of as material objects are instead repeating patterns of sense experience caused by God. Like the rationalist Descartes, Berkeley the empiricist ultimately brings in God to explain how knowledge is possible. But to many, his explanation of the peculiar nature of our sense experience is not as good by far as the commonsense explanation: Material objects exist independently of us and cause the patterns of our sensations. They think the God theory leaves too much unexplained; to them, the materialobject theory seems simpler and more consistent with scientific understanding of perception. As Bertrand Russell says, [E]every principle of simplicity urges us to adopt the natural view, that there really are objects other than ourselves and our sense-data which have an existence not dependent upon our perceiving them.15 Hume So, in their own ways, Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley wrestled with the great epistemological questions: Do we have knowledge? And if so, what exactly do we know? In the end they all concluded that we do indeed have knowledge, but they differed on its extent. In contrast, David Hume—the renowned Enlightenment thinker and preeminent British philosopher—argued for a thoroughly consistent empiricism that led him to a skepticism so extensive that few others dared follow his lead. Hume insists that whatever knowledge we have is of two kinds: “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact.” The former include truths of mathematics and truths of logic (such as “Either it’s raining or it’s not raining” and “No bachelors are married”); they are derived from reason. The latter consist of information about the world and are based entirely on sense experience. We can come to know relations of ideas with certainty, but they are not informative about reality. We know that “Either it’s raining or it’s not raining” is true, but the proposition tells us nothing about whether it is actually raining. It simply states an obvious logical truth. Matters of fact, on the other hand, are informative about the world, but they cannot be known with certainty. So contrary to the rationalists, Hume maintains that reason is not a source of 17 How does Hume’s empiricism differ from Locke’s and Berkeley’s? We have limited knowledge, or else science and philosophy would not be necessary. —Ivan Urlaub 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 313 knowledge about the world. In line with the empiricists, he holds that knowledge about the world can be acquired only through experience. But how much can we really know through experience alone? That is, what can we know about matters of fact? Hume’s answer: very little. He says that the information derived from experience—what he calls perceptions—consists of sense data (such as sights, odors, and sounds) and inner psychological states (such as hate, fear, love, and desire). Perceptions are of two types: impressions and ideas. Impressions are what we directly and vividly experience, the raw sense data and psychological states. Ideas are our less vivid thoughts and reflections about impressions. The experience of a bright red color when you look at a rose is an impression. Your thoughts or imaginings about the original rose experience is an idea. Hume uses this terminology to make his central point: For something to count as knowledge, it must be based on impressions or on ideas derived from impressions. And for a statement to be meaningful, it must ultimately refer to impressions. Here is Hume outlining these distinctions: David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Every one will readily allow, that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind, when a man feels the pain of excessive heat, or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation, or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses; but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigor, is, that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of vivacity, as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable. All the colours of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation. We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man in a fit of anger, is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me, that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning, and form a just conception of his situation; but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion. When we reflect on our past sentiments and affections, our thought is a faithful mirror, and copies its objects truly; but the colours which it employs are faint and dull, in comparison of those in which our original perceptions were clothed. It requires no nice discernment or metaphysical head to mark the distinction between them. Here therefore we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated Thoughts or Ideas. The other species want a name in our language, and in most others; I suppose, because it was not requisite for any, but philosophical purposes, to rank them under a general term or appellation. Let us, therefore, use a little freedom, and call them Impressions; employing that word in a sense somewhat different from the usual. By the term impression, then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or 18 Hume thinks that all knowledge must be traced back to perceptions; otherwise, assertions of knowledge are meaningless. From this he concludes that all theological and metaphysical speculations are worthless. Do you agree with him? Why or why not? 314 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism David Hume During his lifetime, David Hume (1711–1776) earned a reputation as one of Britain’s premier men of letters and garnered fame as the author of the six-volume History of England. In our own time, he is regarded as a key figure in the Enlightenment, the most influential of the British empiricists, and possibly Britain’s greatest philosopher. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, was educated at its university, and spent most of his literary career in the city of his birth. By age sixteen he was already well versed in classical literature, logic, metaphysics, philosophy, and ethics. Later, in a three-year period, he read, in his words, “most of the celebrated Books in Latin, French & English.” He wrote essays on politics, ethics, and economics, as well as major philosophical treatises. The first (and some say the greatest) of the latter was A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), followed by An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, his masterpiece in epistemology, he argued for a stronger and more encompassing skepticism than any other major philosopher dared embrace. His skepticism extended to induction, causation, the external world, the self, miracles, and the existence of God. (His Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was such a scorching attack on religious belief that he delayed its publication until after his death.) His doubts about all these ideas sprang naturally from his consistent and thoroughgoing empiricism, in which assertions can count as knowledge only if they can be traced back to experience. He boldly declared, “When we run over libraries, persuaded of these [empiricist] principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” Despite his tough-minded philosophy, Hume was blessed with a cheerful disposition, which probably helped him cope with the gloomy skepticism of his studies. He said that reason could not cure his melancholy, but distraction and recreation could. As he put it, “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.” But he did enter into them again many times—and so laid down a challenge to future thinkers to try to answer his philosophical doubts. By all accounts, Hume was a decent, generous, and honorable person, admired and liked by everyone who knew him. A contemporary of Hume’s, Adam Smith, the renowned philosopher and economist, said of Hume that “upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his life-time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will admit.” Philosophers At Work Figure 6.9 David Hume (1711–1776), philosopher, historian, and, reportedly, “a perfectly wise and virtuous man.” 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 315 hate, or desire, or will. And impressions are distinguished from ideas, which are the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned. . . . All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation, which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the two sides, is a proposition, which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is any where existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths, demonstrated by Euclid, would for ever retain their certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind.16 Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. —Alfred Lord Tennyson David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding To be fully acquainted, therefore, with the idea of power or necessary connexion, let us examine its impression; and in order to find the impression with greater certainty, let us search for it in all the sources, from which it may possibly be derived. When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other. The impulse of one billiard-ball is attended with motion in the second. This is the whole that appears to the outward senses. The mind feels no sentiment or inward impression from this succession of objects: Consequently, there is not, in any Hume argues not only that whatever we know about the world must be grounded in our perceptions, but also that we can be sure only of those perceptions. We know just our experience and can only guess what lies beyond it. It’s as if we are locked in a windowless room and must speculate about what it’s like outside based on a video we can watch indoors. The video may or may not resemble the outside world, but it’s the only information we have. Hume’s strict empiricism leads naturally to skepticism about a notion that we usually assume without question: causality. We believe the world is filled with causes and effects; we think one thing causes another, and the two are somehow physically linked. Every day of our lives we draw countless conclusions based on our assumptions about cause-and-effect relationships. But Hume argues that we have no good grounds for believing that causes and effects are related the way we think they are. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 316 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connexion. From the first appearance of an object, we never can conjecture what effect will result from it. But were the power or energy of any cause discoverable by the mind, we could foresee the effect, even without experience; and might, at first, pronounce with certainty concerning it, by the mere dint of thought and reasoning. . . . But to hasten to a conclusion of this argument, which is already drawn out to too great a length: We have sought in vain for an idea of power or necessary connexion, in all the sources from which we could suppose it to be derived. It appears, that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another; without being able to comprehend any force or power, by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating the operations of mind on body; where we observe the motion of the latter to follow upon the volition of the former; but are not able to observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion, which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing, which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings, or common life.17 Figure 6.10 The movement of one billiard ball may accompany that of another—but where is the evidence of a causal connection? David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 6.3 The Empiricist Turn 317 Hume asserts that neither reason nor experience can provide us with evidence that causal relationships exist. We can observe no power or force that enables causes to produce events. Our perceptions do not give us any reason to believe that one thing makes another thing happen. All we observe, says Hume, is one event associated with another, and when we repeatedly see such a pairing, we jump to the conclusion that the events are causally connected. We make these inferences out of habit, not logic or empirical evidence. In making judgments about causes and effects, we reason inductively. That is, we assume that events that followed one another in the past will do the same in the future, that the future will be like the past. We presuppose, in other words, the principle of induction. Because of previous experience, we expect night to follow day, fire to burn, bread to nourish, and dogs to bark. Likewise, the whole scientific enterprise runs on this principle, with scientists making inferences from empirical regularities to predictions about events to come. At first glance, it might seem that no one would seriously question the legitimacy of inductive reasoning. But Hume does: 19 Why does Hume conclude that we have no evidence for causal relationships between events? Do you agree with him? Why or why not? The principle of induction is the presumption that events that followed one another in the past will do the same in the future, that the future will be like the past. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding As to past Experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognizance: But why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar; this is the main question on which I would insist. The bread, which I formerly ate, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities, was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: But does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary. At least, it must be acknowledged, that there is here a consequence drawn by the mind; that there is a certain step taken; a process of thought, and an inference, which wants to be explained. These two propositions are far from being the same, I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other: I know in fact, that it always is inferred. But if you insist, that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connexion between these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is, I must confess, passes my comprehension; and it is incumbent on those to produce it, who assert, that it really exists, and is the origin of all our conclusions concerning matter of fact. . . . For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion, that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Let the course of things be allowed hitherto ever so regular; that alone, without some 318 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism new argument or inference, proves not, that, for the future, it will continue so. In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence, may change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens sometimes, and with regard to some objects: Why may it not happen always, and with regard to all objects? What logic, what process of argument secures you against this supposition?18 20 What is Hume’s argument against the principle of induction? Does his view imply that we must discard all inductive reasoning or scientific research? Why or why not? Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. —Immanuel Kant David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume asks, Do we have any grounds whatsoever for believing the principle of induction? What justifies our assumption that the future will be like the past? He argues that the principle cannot be an a priori truth, and it cannot be an a posteriori fact. It cannot be the former because the denial of an a priori truth (such as “All bachelors are unmarried”) is self-contradictory, and the denial of the principle of induction is not like that. It cannot be the latter because no amount of empirical evidence can show it to be true. Why? As Hume observes, to maintain that the principle of induction is an a posteriori fact is to say that it can be established by experience (that is, inductively). That is equivalent to saying that the principle of induction can be proved by the principle of induction—which is to beg the question. Arguing in a circle like this offers no support to the principle at all. This difficulty of justifying the assumption that the future will be like the past is known as the problem of induction, and it has incited generations of thinkers to try to solve it. They have explored whether there are grounds for believing that the inductive principle—so indispensable in science and daily life—is true. All the while we use the principle to make all kinds of inferences and predictions, which usually serve us well. Hume, for his part, holds that we rely on the principle of induction not because it is an established truth, but because it is a habit of mind. Because of our long experience of seeing one event repeatedly follow another, we develop a feeling of expectation that they will always follow one another. By now you probably know that Hume’s skepticism extends beyond causality and induction to the existence of the external world. He reasons that because all we can directly know is our experience, we can never be sure that an external world exists beyond our internal perceptions: By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects, entirely different from them, though resembling them (if that be possible) and could not arise either from the energy of the mind itself, or from the suggestion of some invisible and unknown spirit, or from some other cause still more unknown to us? It is acknowledged, that, in fact, many of these perceptions arise not from any thing external, as in dreams, madness, and other diseases. And nothing can be more inexplicable than the manner, in which body should so operate upon mind as ever to convey an image of itself to a substance, supposed of so different, and even contrary a nature. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 6.4 The Kantian Compromise 319 It is a question of fact, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by external objects, resembling them: how shall this question be determined? By experience surely; as all other questions of a like nature. But here experience is, and must be entirely silent. The mind has never any thing present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connexion with objects. The supposition of such a connexion is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.19 Provoked by Hume’s radical skepticism, philosophers have expended a great deal of energy trying to show that his views on causality, induction, and the external world are partly or wholly unfounded. But the brilliant Hume has put forward some compelling arguments, and they have proven hard to counter.

6.4

Immanuel Kant was sure that knowledge was possible, that we can know many things about the world, most notably countless propositions in mathematics and science. But Hume had raised serious doubts about the possibility of this knowledge, and his extreme skepticism shocked Kant into trying to show that Hume was wrong. Kant declares, I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing, which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic 320 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction. I was far from following him in the conclusions at which he arrived.20 Hume had maintained that knowledge of the world comes entirely from experience; we know nothing unless our knowledge can be traced back to perceptions (sense data and internal states). Moreover, he had insisted that we have access only to these inner experiences. We have direct awareness of our own perceptions, but not of the world beyond them. This means that the empirical laws and principles of science, which scientists regard as universal and changeless, cannot be known. They cannot be known because they assert more than experience is capable of establishing. This skeptical conclusion, Hume had argued, applies even to the principle at the heart of the scientific enterprise—the law of cause and effect. He had maintained that our experience cannot reveal to us any causal connections, for all we can actually perceive is some events following other events. And even if we could repeatedly observe a particular sequence of cause and effect, we still could not conclude that the sequence would happen the same way in the future. We may drop a baseball from the roof of a house and watch it fall downward, and we may repeat this little experiment a hundred times with the same result. But according to Hume, we have no basis for inferring—and therefore do not know—that exactly the same thing will happen on the hundred-first try. So Hume’s view meant that scientists could never legitimately conclude that they had discovered a universal, changeless law of nature. They could not know what they thought they knew. This was the conclusion that so exasperated Kant—and that set him on his quest to disprove it. To map out the epistemological differences between Hume and Kant, we can apply some terms that Kant himself used. Two of these terms we have already met: a priori statements (statements known independently of or prior to experience) and a posteriori statements (statements that depend entirely on sense experience). Two new terms are analytic and synthetic. An analytic statement is a logical truth whose denial results in a contradiction. For example, “All brothers are male” is analytic. To deny it—to say that “it is not the case that all brothers are male”—is to say that some males are not males, which is a contradiction. Or consider, “All bodies are extended (occupying space).” To deny this is to say that something extended is not extended—another contradiction. Analytic statements are necessarily true (cannot be false), but trivially so. They are true but tell us nothing about the world. The statement about brothers is obviously true but does not tell us whether any brothers exist. A synthetic statement is one that is not analytic. It does tell us something about the world, and denying it does not yield a contradiction. Science specializes in synthetic statements, and so do we in our everyday lives. Examples include “Every event has a cause,” “The planets orbit around the sun,” “From nothing comes nothing,” “Water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level,” and “Abraham Lincoln was born in the United States.” Both Hume and Kant agree that we can know analytic statements without appealing to experience (that is, a priori). (Remember, Hume refers to such statements as “relations of ideas.”) Through reason alone we can come to know such analytic a And seeing ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. —William Shakespeare An analytic statement is a logical truth whose denial results in a contradiction. A synthetic statement is a statement that is not analytic. 6.4 The Kantian Compromise 321 priori propositions as “All brothers are male” and “All bodies are extended.” But Hume also holds that we can know synthetic propositions (those that are informative about the world) only a posteriori (only through experience). And this synthetic a posteriori knowledge (“matters of fact”) is limited: We cannot know what our perceptions cannot detect. According to Hume, we are not able to directly observe causality at work, and we cannot infer universal propositions or laws based on limited, local observations. The empiricist path to knowledge, then, is detoured by skepticism. Kant, on the other hand, insists that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. We can indeed know things about the world, and we can know them independently or prior to experience. Because this knowledge is a priori, it is both necessarily true and universally applicable, a far cry from Hume’s extensive skepticism. Kant says we can know that every event has a cause (a synthetic truth), and we can acquire this knowledge a priori, through our powers of reason: 21 Contemporary scientists assert that in the realm of subatomic particles, some events are not caused. Does this fact prove false Kant’s claim that the law of cause and effect is a synthetic a priori truth? There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity of our understanding to compare these representations, and, by combining or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions into that Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason . . . if we seek an example from the understanding in its quite ordinary employment, the proposition, “every alteration must have a cause,” will serve our purpose. In the latter case, indeed, the very concept of a cause so manifestly contains the concept of a necessity of connection with an effect and of the strict universality of the rule, that the concept would be altogether lost if we attempted to derive it, as Hume has done, from a repeated association of that which happens with that which precedes, and from a custom of connecting representations, a custom originating in this repeated association, and constituting therefore a merely subjective necessity.21 So Kant’s epistemology is neither entirely empiricist nor fully rationalist. He departs radically from tradition by finding a third way—one that sees merit and error in both theories of knowledge. In line with the empiricists, he holds that all knowledge has its origins in experience, but that doesn’t mean experience alone is the source of all our knowledge. With a nod to the rationalists, he maintains that experience by itself is blind, but that doesn’t mean we can acquire knowledge of the world through reason alone. Kant says that Plato took this latter route and, like a dove trying to fly in empty space with no air resistance, found himself trying to reason about reality with no raw material (experience) to reason about: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 322 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), a small-town man of conventional living, started a revolution in philosophy and earned the title of the greatest philosopher of the last three hundred years. A superficial look at his life would lead many to think he was about as dull and as unimaginative as one could get. He was born, lived all his life, and died in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad). His habits were so regimented that the good folk of his town could set their watches to his punctual daily stroll. But appearances can be deceiving. Kant had many friends, was charming and interesting in conversation, participated in many of the scholarly debates of his time, and made exciting discoveries in both science and philosophy. Early in his career he wrote about physics and astronomy and predicted the existence of the planet Uranus, which was found three-quarters of a century after his death. Kant studied at the University of Königsberg for six years, later served as a private tutor, and then in 1755 began lecturing at the university, an appointment that lasted over forty years. He taught physics, mathematics, geography, philosophy (all the main areas of study), and more. Most of his writings reflected his relentless search for the proper philosophical foundations or methods in science, metaphysics, and ethics. In epistemology, he effected his Copernican revolution by turning the conventional assumptions about knowledge upside down. To acquire knowledge, he said, the mind does not conform to reality—rather, reality conforms to the mind. Thus, he found what he thought was a third path to knowledge between empiricism and rationalism, extracting from each their grains of truth and changing epistemology forever. He published his greatest work, The Critique of Pure Reason, in 1781. After that came an extraordinary procession of other influential writings, including Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). Philosophers At Work Figure 6.11 Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), quiet revolutionary. knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In the order of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and with experience all our knowledge begins. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience. For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself. If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we are not in a position to Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 6.4 The Kantian Compromise 323 distinguish it from the raw material, until with long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it. This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and does not allow of any off-hand answer:—whether there is any knowledge that is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the senses. Such knowledge is entitled a priori, and distinguished from the empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience. . . . Mathematics gives us a shining example of how far, independently of experience, we can progress in a priori knowledge. . . . Misled by such a proof of the power of reason, the demand for the extension of knowledge recognises no limits. The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space. It was thus that Plato left the world of the senses, as setting too narrow limits to the understanding, and ventured out beyond it on the wings of the ideas, in the empty space of the pure understanding. He did not observe that with all his efforts he made no advance—meeting no resistance that might, as it were, serve as a support upon which he could take a stand; to which he could apply his powers, and so set his understanding in motion.22 But Kant cannot simply assert that synthetic a priori knowledge is possible and leave it at that. He must show how it’s possible. His starting point is the premise (which he thought obvious) that science and mathematics do give us necessary, universal knowledge about the world. From there he argues that something must therefore be fundamentally wrong with both empiricism and rationalism, because these theories fail to explain how this kind of knowledge is possible. In Hume’s empiricism, he says, sense experience can shine no light on the outer world, leaving in profound doubt the existence of external objects, causality, and scientific laws. And rationalism promises access to synthetic knowledge while ignoring sense experience, where such knowledge begins. To Kant, only a drastically different approach could demonstrate how synthetic a priori knowledge could be justified. Actually, to call Kant’s approach drastically different is an understatement, for what he proposed was a full-fledged revolution in epistemology that he thought was comparable to the Copernican revolution in science. At a time when the prevailing (and Church-sanctioned) belief was that the sun orbited the earth, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) thought the better theory was that the earth orbited the sun. Copernicus turned out to be right, and he arrived at his answer through a stunning reversal of the received view. In similar fashion, Kant thought he had instigated his own revolution by turning the traditional perspective on knowledge upside down. For centuries the conventional view was that knowledge is acquired when the mind conforms to objects—that is, when the mind tracks the external world. But Kant proposed the opposite: objects conform to the mind. He argued that sense experience can match reality because the mind stamps a structure and organization on sense experience. Synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, he said, because the mind’s concepts force an (a priori) order onto (synthetic) experience. The idea is not that our minds literally create the world, but that our minds organize our experience so we perceive it as recognizable objects. The empiricists see the mind as a passive absorber of sense information, but Kant says the mind is an active shaper of experience into objects that we can know a priori. As he says, The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend—and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. —Immanuel Kant 22 What is the point Kant is making with the example of a dove flying in empty space? Who do you think is closer to the truth regarding the nature of a priori truth—Plato or Kant? Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? —T. S. Eliot 324 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge. This would agree better with what is desired, namely, that it should be possible to have knowledge of objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being given. . . . If intuition must conform to the constitution of the objects, I do not see how we could know anything of the latter a priori; but if the object (as object of the senses) must conform to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, I have no difficulty in conceiving such a possibility.23 Figure 6.12 Copernican sun-centered (heliocentric) system of planetary motion. Copernicus proposed a reversal of the old earth-centered theory. How was Kant’s epistemological system just as revolutionary? 23 What is Kant’s Copernican revolution? Is his theory of knowledge more plausible than rationalism or empiricism? Explain. According to Kant, the mind shapes raw experience by organizing it in accordance with certain fundamental concepts such as time, space, and causality. All our experience is sifted and sorted through the mind’s “conceptual processor,” without which we could make no sense of the bewildering flow of sights, sounds, smells, and other perceptions. Our raw sense data may consist of a blur of red, for example, but Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 6.4 The Kantian Compromise 325 by interpreting this information in light of basic concepts (roundness, space, time, past experience, etc.), our minds perceive a red rose. We therefore know the world only as conceptualized sense data, a world that Kant calls phenomena. What the world is in itself outside our experience Kant calls noumena, a reality forever beyond our ken. Kant’s insight about conceptualized experience might sound odd, but he was on the right track, anticipating findings in modern science by two centuries. Research in developmental and cognitive psychology shows that our perceptions are not the result of the mind’s passive recording of sensations. Our perceptions are, to a large degree, constructed; they originate with our unfiltered sense experience and then are interpreted by the mind according to our preexisting ideas. For example, our experience may consist only of red sensations in dim light, but because we have reason to believe we are looking at a red rose and already have in mind the relevant concepts, we perceive a red rose. We hear only a muffled sound in the next room, but because of our expectations, we perceive the sound as a telephone ring. When we look at a car in the far distance, the image we see is tiny. But because of previous experience and our understanding of how the size of objects stays constant, we perceive the car as having normal dimensions and being actually much larger than we are. This is how Kant explains the role of sense experience and concepts in our perception of reality: The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. —Plato 24 What does Kant mean by “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind”? Do you agree that at least some of your perceptions are conceptualized? Our knowledge springs from two fundamental sources of the mind; the first is the capacity of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions), the second is the power of knowing an object through these representations (spontaneity [in the production] of concepts). Through the first an object is given to us, through the second the object is thought in relation to that [given] representation (which is a mere determination of the mind). Intuition [raw sense data] and concepts constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge. . . . Our nature is so constituted that our intuition can never be other than sensible; that is, it contains only the mode in which we are affected by objects. The faculty, on the other hand, which enables us to think the object of sensible intuition is the understanding. To neither of these powers may a preference be given over the other. Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. It is, therefore, just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition, as to make our intuitions intelligible, that is, to bring them under concepts. These two powers or capacities cannot exchange their functions. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge arise.24 Kant thought his theory of knowledge corrected the errors of rationalism and empiricism and expelled the skepticism that these views engendered. In their theories the rationalists had bet heavily on reason as the key to knowledge; the It is therefore correct to say that the senses do not err—not because they always judge rightly, but because they do not judge at all. —Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 326 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism empiricists had bet everything on experience. Kant tried to show that genuine knowledge is a synthesis of both reason and experience. He argued that we can know many things about the world—cause-and-effect relationships, the truths of mathematics, the laws of science—and we can know they are necessarily, universally, and a priori true. We can, in other words, take hold of synthetic a priori knowledge. We can obtain it because our thinking is framed by fundamental concepts that guarantee our experience will take a predetermined form. And we can be sure the truths we discover are universal because all our minds possess the same cognitive structure determined by the same set of innate concepts. In short, Kant’s answer to the Philosophy Now Conceptualizing the World Kant’s view of the mind as an actively constructive faculty is echoed in contemporary psychological research, which shows that our minds constantly construct and interpret our perceptions. That is, our senses are not mere recorders Figure 6.13 What do you see here—a duck or a rabbit? Although the image does not change, your interpretation can vary so you see either a duck or a rabbit (but not both at the same time). If you change your interpretation of the image, you see something different. Figure 6.14 Depending on how you conceptualize this figure, you will see a young woman or an old woman. 6.4 The Kantian Compromise 327 rationalists, empiricists, and skeptics is that we know the world because we, in effect, constitute it. After Kant, epistemology was never the same. Anyone who has seriously tried to fathom the nature and extent of our knowledge has had to contend with his insights and arguments. That is not to say that everyone who has delved deeply into Kant has agreed with him. Some philosophers doubt that everyone uses the same set of basic concepts to make sense of the empirical world. They point to anthropological and psychological research showing that not every culture uses the same set of concepts (the same conceptual scheme) to interpret and organize their experience. Other of perceptual information; instead, our minds take the raw data of experience and rework them in light of the concepts and beliefs already in our heads. Our minds must “conceptualize” the raw sensory input so we can understand it. We do this so often and so extensively that we are hardly aware of the process. Consider these three examples of “ambiguous figures.” In each case, it’s possible to see the figure in two ways—even though the visual input is the same in both. None of this is controversial. It becomes so when we claim that our immediate, raw sense data are determined entirely by our concepts or theories. This would mean that we experience only what our concepts allow us to see and that we never see the world objectively. Many philosophers reject this view because, among other things, it implies that we would never be able to experience anything new or surprising. But this result seems highly implausible. Do these examples prove Kant’s constructivist theory of knowledge? Or do they just show that much of our sensory input is conceptualized? Do they show that our conceptualized experience is nothing like what is actually “out there”? Figure 6.15 Do you see a woman’s face here—or the silhouette of a saxophone player? 328 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism critics have argued that Kant’s theory does not adequately explain our certainty that facts about the world must be consistent with logic and mathematics. We think that truths of logic and mathematics are true necessarily and universally regardless of the structure of our minds. But Kant wants us to believe that logical and mathematical concepts do depend on the innate structure of our minds. This implies that the structure of our minds could possibly change to make 5 + 12 = 13, or make the statement “All brothers are male” false. These and many other criticisms of Kant’s work will be debated for generations to come—which is proof of his lasting influence.

6.5

Feminism, as both a movement and an approach to social and intellectual issues, is concerned with identifying and remedying harm and disadvantage arising from biases against women. Feminists argue that such prejudices are common throughout society and academia, and that they lead to the widespread discrediting of women’s ideas and experiences and the relegating of women to subordinate roles. Feminist philosophy is an attempt to address the disparagement or subordination of women in philosophy and related fields, and feminist epistemology tries to do the same in theories of knowledge. In philosophy, there is no single outlook that can be called feminist; rather, there are several different viewpoints and approaches that deserve the name. Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. —Voltaire 6.5 A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 329 The common thread is an emphasis on gender and on how it shapes the issues at hand. Alison Ainley, a feminist philosopher, notes the diversity of the philosophical projects: Alison Ainley, “Feminist Philosophy” Feminist approaches to philosophy can take place at a number of levels and from different perspectives, and indeed this has been identified as a notable strength. For example, feminists have presented philosophical critiques of philosophers’ images of women, political critiques of the organization of the discipline of philosophy, critiques of philosophy as masculine, historical research into the work of past women philosophers whose work may have been unjustly disregarded, and positive contributions to philosophy from a feminist perspective. Feminist philosophers may take some or all of these approaches to be important, but, generally speaking, feminist philosophy will assume the question of sexual difference to be a philosophical issue at some level and, depending on the point of departure, produce very different ways of theorizing about this question. Although women tend to work in this area, not all women philosophers are necessarily feminist philosophers (although there may be feminist implications in their work).25 Feminist thinkers have had good reason to suspect bias in the philosophical enterprise. It is easy in philosophy’s history to find eminent male philosophers dismissing, devaluing, or ignoring the female intellect—even though women philosophers have been present in every age, from the classical period to modern times. (Some important male philosophers have afforded women more respect—for example, Plato and John Stuart Mill—and some have developed ideas that have been put to use in feminist writings—for example, David Hume and John Dewey.) Louise M. Antony points out some of the more notorious examples of bias: Louise M. Antony, “Embodiment and Epistemology” Although women were largely ignored by the major philosophers, whenever we were discussed, we were denigrated. Strikingly, the insult often involved a philosopher’s explicitly denying to women some characteristic that that philosopher had elsewhere held to be essential to full personhood, making us, by definition, less than human. Thus Aristotle, who defined “man” as a rational animal, claimed that women’s reason was defective in that it was “without the power to be effective.” Locke, who thought that “man” could transcend natural power relations by means of civil agreement, still found it obvious that in case of conflict between husband and wife, “the rule . . . naturally falls to the man’s share, as the abler and the stronger.” Rousseau, who took freedom to be the distinguishing mark of humanity, held that it followed from the different natures of men (“active and strong”) and women (“passive and weak”) that “woman is made to please and be dominated” by man. Perhaps most notoriously of all, Kant, who made acting from apprehension of the categorical imperative the essence of moral agency, averred that “I hardly believe that the fair sex is capable of principles.”26 25 Does the fact that some famous philosophers held negative views of women impugn the nature of the philosophical enterprise? Why or why not? 330 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism Feminist epistemology focuses most of its attention on the “situated knower” and “situated knowledge”—that is, on how knowledge arises from the unique perspectives and practices of those involved in knowing. The basic claim is that gender has skewed traditional epistemology toward the dominant male perspective and has thus adversely affected women and other disadvantaged groups. Feminist philosophers say the remedy is to develop theories of knowledge based on alternative conceptions of gender and power, banishing the ill effects of the traditional view in the process. According to Elizabeth Anderson, Elizabeth Anderson, “Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science” Various practitioners of feminist epistemology and philosophy of science argue that dominant knowledge practices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from inquiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority, (3) denigrating their “feminine” cognitive styles and modes of knowledge, (4) producing theories of women that represent them as inferior, deviant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests, (5) producing theories of social phenomena that render women’s activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledge (science and technology) that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies.27 Eve Browning Cole, another feminist philosopher, characterizes traditional epistemology like this: Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism [T]here is widespread agreement that the dominant theories of knowledge provided by the Western philosophical tradition have focused on a specific kind of knowledge which is, as Lorraine Code has described it, “a commodity of privilege.” Asking such questions as “How do I know that there is a cat on the mat?” assumes that any “I” might be substituted for any other, that conditions of knowing are homogeneous and can be generally specified. All potential knowers have a presumed equal access to the view of the cat, and the epistemologist’s job is to explain what is going on in their viewing and whether it amounts to knowledge or something else. But the fact of the matter is that ideal viewing conditions simply do not obtain for all potential viewers; in our society, knowledge conditions are vastly different for members of groups differentiated by gender, race, class, age, economic status, and so forth. An aged woman who cannot get out to see her social worker, or who fears going downtown on the bus alone, will be ignorant of important benefits to which she may be entitled; in this sense, she will not be in a position to view that particular cat on its mat. Traditional epistemologies have not regarded such situations as If women be educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? —Mary Wollstonecraft 6.5 A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 331 problematic or interesting; they have not regarded them at all. Yet surely these are situations in which the social and situational differences among knowers are crucial for determining the kind of knowing that can take place. Epistemologies that do not have room for these differences doom themselves to irrelevance at best, and at worst they perpetuate injustice—for, as we have already stressed, knowledge is power.28 26 What is Cole’s main point in the preceding passage? Do you agree with her? Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half. —Plato To develop alternatives to traditional theories of knowledge, feminist philosophers have explored three epistemological paths: feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism. Feminist empiricism is probably the least controversial. It doesn’t want to abolish established theories; instead, it calls for a deeper, more rigorous application of empiricism, a theory with a long history. As Cole says: One way to react to all this is that prescribed by the feminist empiricist, who suggests that philosophy’s shortcomings with regard to white women, to women and men of color, to lesbians, and to all the nonprivileged, can be remedied by a more careful adherence to what is after all philosophy’s stated mission: the pursuit of wisdom, the search for truth. What has produced the lamentably flawed history of philosophy has been a pattern of failures to live up to the basic scenario of empiricist knowing: the unbiased observation of the face of the universe. Prejudice and bias have been all too clearly present, clouding the judgment of the philosopher and skewing the resultant description. To give just one famous example: Aristotle, whose allegiance to careful empirical observation is stated and evinced everywhere in his work, is incorrect about the number of teeth women have. He asserts that the adult man has thirty-two teeth but the adult woman only twenty-eight. Now, this cannot have been a function of the difficulty of observation, as women with countable teeth existed in plenty then as now. Rather, scholars have hypothesized that Aristotle counted the teeth in the male jaw and, in the grip of a powerful prejudice, subtracted four to arrive at the number in a woman’s (smaller) jaw. Another possibility is that he observed the dentition of a woman who had no wisdom teeth. In either case, Aristotle’s mistake is a result of failing to be a good enough empiricist rather than something endemic to the method of observation itself. The feminist empiricist maintains that philosophers and scientists need to be told to “Look again!” rather than to find a wholly new way of looking. The prospects for a better philosophical understanding of human existence and its surroundings will improve as larger numbers of women enter the domains in which “received knowledge” is processed: universities, laboratories, publishing houses, journal editorial boards, and funding agencies. These women will be placed well to point out mistakes in the observations of their colleagues and to set up research agendas that promise to avoid the mistakes of the past.29 Feminist standpoint theory says that different social groups have distinctive kinds of knowledge acquired through unique experiences, and that some of these groups may enjoy epistemological advantages over others. In particular, the type of Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism 332 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism knowledge derived from women’s experiences may be just as good as or better than knowledge acquired by the dominant knowledge-producing group—that is, white, middle-class men of science. Cole explains: I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. —Rebecca West We noted . . . that philosophy’s history has issued predominantly from the minds of privileged white males. It was suggested that their position, their standpoint, has had a decisive influence on the shape history has taken. Though many philosophers have presumed to speak for all “mankind,” for “Reason itself,” or even for “Absolute Spirit,” and to be discussing the general “Nature of Mind,” “conditions for knowledge,” and “the human good,” feminist critics have shown and continue to show the limitations of such spuriously universal discourse, and to point out large portions of human experience as yet undreamt of in their philosophy. This specificity of the traditional standpoint has led some feminist philosophers to explore the potential of basing an epistemology in a feminist (sometimes in a women’s) standpoint. The basic assumption, originating in a Hegelian or Marxian view that the human self is essentially shaped by its material activities and situation, is that women’s lives have differed from men’s lives in ways that would construct clear differences in their respective world views and self-concepts. Since the making and transmitting of knowledge are crucially important human activities, women’s “ways of knowing” may be expected to be no less real than men’s, but they are also quite likely to be very different from what traditional epistemology has supplied from the white men’s standpoint. Feminist-standpoint epistemologies seek to uncover and describe women’s knowledge-making activities as these have originated in and been shaped by women’s daily work and women’s values. . . . Now, standpoint theorists in feminist epistemology look at how these different work situations (women’s dual-sphere work responsibilities, men’s single-sphere work responsibilities) shape personality and character along gender-specific lines. Women, to be proficient workers in both their domains, must become conversant with two different sets of behavior prescriptions: those appropriate to the domestic, personal situations in which they are caregivers and maintainers of life, and those appropriate to the more public and male-dominated locations in which they also labor. Behaviorally, then, and epistemically, they must be able to speak two languages, avail themselves of two different repertoires of rules dictating appropriate activity. . . . This brings out an important point concerning standpoint theories. Those who advocate the construction of a feminist-standpoint epistemology do not merely maintain that “adding in” this standpoint, derived from women’s experiences and practices traditionally excluded from philosophy’s purview, will produce better philosophy, science, politics, etc.; they go further and argue that the feminist standpoint has certain inherent epistemic advantages over androcentric [male-centered] epistemologies which make it a better place to stand, so to speak, when engaged in the making of knowledge.30 Critics, however, have argued that standpoint theory undermines itself. The theory says that the feminist perspective is privileged (for example, better than traditional theories), and that every perspective is both limited and validated by a group’s experiences. But there are many different groups and perspectives—how then can the feminist view be better or less limited than any other? In philosophy, postmodernism is a distrust or rejection of some of the most influential epistemological ideas of modernity: objective or scientific truth, objective Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism 6.5 A Feminist Perspective on Knowledge 333 27 Which view strikes you as more plausible—feminist empiricism or feminist standpoint theory? Explain. Feminist postmodern epistemologies are thus essentially critical. Only through a thoroughgoing deconstruction of “our intellectual heritage” (every word of which phrase should be questioned), an abjuring of privileged standpoints and claims to objective truth, and a relentless critique of the relation between knowledge-making and power-guarding can a liberatory feminist thinking and practice proceed. In the absence of objective truth, epistemically privileged standpoints, methodologies legitimated by experts, and all the other apparatus of traditional knowledgeseeking, what will make any knowledge claim more reliable than any other? Is this epistemic anarchism, a situation in which all claims, no matter how bizarre or contradictory, are equally valid? Postmodern feminist epistemologies maintain that knowledge claims will find all the legitimation they need in “localized practices,” in the application they find in contexts socially and historically specific, for which they were designed. Thus what will emerge is a kind of epistemic pluralism, similar to that seen in [lesbian epistemologies]; the knowledge I need will be made by me, and those immediately surrounding me, in the work we do; it will be circulated to the extent that others’ practices encourage such interaction, and will grow or change in this interactive process. What I must not do is dictate in advance the shape this knowledge must take (rational, empirical, justifiable under counterfactual test, etc.) or impose this knowledge on anyone else in some kind of intellectual imperialist frenzy.31 Cole also notes the criticisms that have been lodged against the theory by feminists themselves: Some feminist philosophers express serious concerns about postmodernism as a viable basis for epistemology or for feminist politics in general. If a radical deconstruction of gender categories is carried out, where is the basis for the claim that women as such have anything in common? If gender identity is revealed to be an entirely social construct, a myth told to serve the interests of the lords of culture, where is the basis for feminist thinking? Sisterhood is not powerful if it is merely a bad dream caused by some foul cognitive substance we ingested last millennium. Sandra Harding has expressed concern that the willingness to resign objectivity and individual autonomy to the dustbin of outmoded obsessions is perhaps a luxury many feminists would not afford. Western academic women have “had access to the benefits of the Enlightenment” and thus might give them up more easily than other women, especially third-world women, who have yet to achieve the political autonomy, suffrage and legal rights, and degree of access to the benefits of science their reality or fact, universal propositions, foundational knowledge, ultimate justification, and traditional conceptions of rationality. Feminist postmodernism is similarly skeptical of these notions and sets about systematically “deconstructing” them (critically analyzing and debunking them). Feminist postmodernists refuse to accept a basic tenet of feminist standpoint theory: that there can be a single privileged perspective from which to acquire knowledge. Instead they insist on the existence of countless perspectives, a plurality of viewpoints, with none able to claim any epistemological advantage over the others. None can be called objectively true, because there is no perspective-neutral standard by which to judge objective truth. Cole characterizes feminist postmodernism like this: 28 Do you think feminist postmodernism undermines itself in the ways that Cole suggests? Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism Eve Browning Cole, Philosophy and Feminist Criticism 334 Chapter 6 Knowledge and Skepticism Western sisters enjoy. Thus it is all too easy for Western feminists to criticize the philosophical foundations on which liberalism and modern science rest; such critical latitude is born of privilege. There are also good reasons for caution about the relinquishing of the concept of objectivity as understood by Western science. Many of the most significant advances in women’s political history have been achieved through successfully putting across the argument that barriers to women’s freedom are based only on prejudice, a mistaken and subjective attitude. Appeals to fairness, justice, and dispassionate objectivity have been powerful elements in this argument. Most of us believe that sexism, racism, heterosexism, and other pernicious attitudes are not objectively defensible, are based in part on false beliefs and bad faith or moral inconsistency. If we no longer have a standpoint from which to make these claims, with what justification can we continue to decry the attitudes? We ought rather to seek to reconceive the notions of objectivity, justice, and truth than to discard them and leave ourselves rhetorically helpless.3