Phil assignment 5
Cooper2021
philosophychapter6.pptPHILOSOPHY 1001 – PPT6
SEGMENT 3
EPISTEMOLOGY
MIDDLE AGES (400AD – 1300AD)
RATIONALISM AND EMPIRICSM
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SEGMENT 3 – TIME FRAME
MIDDLE AGES 400AD- 1300 AD
- Begins with “fall of Rome”
- Christianity dominates
- St. Augustine (at beginning of era – Plato)
- St. Thomas Aquinas (at end of era- Aristotle)
- Mohammad - Islam begins
- Ends with Renaissance / Scientific Revolution
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TERMS TO KNOW
- Epistemology
- Rationalism / Rationalist
- Innate ideas - a priori- inside out - reason
- Empiricism / Empiricist
- Experience- a posteriori - outside in- senses
- Universals (i.e. Tree)
- Particulars (i.e. Pine tree)
- “I think therefore I am.” - Descartes
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EPISTEMOLOGY
Metaphysics - study of reality- what is real?
Epistemology- study of knowledge- how do you know?
The epistemological question; How do you know rationally and with certainty that something is real?
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EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology - Two Basic Approaches
(framed by Plato/Aristotle)
Rationalism
People are born with innate knowledge discovered through reason.
Empiricism
People born as “blank slate” discovering knowledge through experience.
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PROBLEMS
- The problem of universals- (how is it that everyone seems to know what a tree is?)
- What are they and where do they come from?
- The challenge of rationalism
- Where do innate ideas come from?
- The challenge of empiricism
- The senses can deceive so how can you trust what you perceive through them?
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RATIONALISM
Inside out- we come to comprehend the reality of the world starting from within- innate ideas
- knowledge in mind from birth from which organize our view of world
- reason is chief faculty allowing us to organize reality in our minds.
- we do observe things and learn -but couldn’t understand without reason and innate concepts
- universal ideas (universals) seem to exist in people’s thinking. Where do they come from if not in mind already?
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PLATO / RATIONALISM
Plato
- Soul pre-existed in being world, people spend life recollecting (innate) truth.
- Truth is suppressed in becoming world (world of experience)
- Forms are the vehicle through which truth is transmitted to people not experience
So, Plato- Rationalist
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DESCARTES 1546 -1649
(DESCARTES’ EPISTEMOLOGY)
Descartes set out to prove the reality of things (God) using a reason alone approach (rationalist) He rejected empiricism.
Descartes’ method: Since senses can deceive, (causing doubt) look for anything that can not be doubted.
Descartes’ method led to three metaphysical conclusions.
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DESCARTES
3 METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS
1. He first concluded he could not doubt the reality of his own thoughts. So; Conclusion #1- there is mind
2. Then, in his thoughts he found the idea of perfection, an idea not found in the ever-changing imperfect world. So, he concluded that the idea of perfection (God) must have been implanted by God in his thoughts. So; Conclusion #2 - God must exist
3. Believing God would not deceive about the existence of matter, Descartes believed matter must be real. So;
Conclusion #3 – matter is real
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3 CONCLUSIONS CONT’D
Descartes’ famous quote:
“Cogito Ergo Sum” - “I think therefore I am.”
1. Mind 2. God 3.Matter
Nearly all modern philosophies can be traced back to Descartes. His ideas provided a foundation for knowing not based on the uncertainty of the senses. His method also undercut the notion of knowing by faith.
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DESCARTES / RATIONALISM
Descartes
“Cogito ergo Sum” – “I think therefore I am”
The idea of perfection is in our minds
Where did the idea come from (innate) if not from God?
This knowledge comes from reason, not experience
So; Descartes- Rationalist
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CHOMSKY/RATIONALISM
Noam Chomsky- (1928 – present) MIT Linguist
Rationalist conception of the nature of language
- Ability to learn language is “innate”
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EMPIRICISM
Knowledge comes through experience
- “Experience” to the Empiricist means perceptions about reality derived from 5 senses.
- Empiricism; all knowledge of reality derived from sense experience.
- Where do the universals come from? (challenge for both Rationalism and Empiricism.)
- Human beings start with a blank slate
- knowledge comes outside- in
- the senses and experience are required
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CLASSICAL EMPIRICISM
- Aristotle
- Rejected Plato’s theory of the forms
- Form is in the thing
- Knowledge of the form comes from experience
- Plato – forms- the universal- help us understand particular things
- Aristotle- particular things lead us to understand universal ideas
- We draw the universal idea out from our experience with the particulars - “Induction”
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CLASSICAL EMPIRICISM CONT’D
- St. Thomas Aquinas (1225- 1274 AD)
- (Christian Theologian/Philosopher who used Aristotle’s ideas to express Christian theology. )
- “Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses”
- Essences of things locked inside the particulars, intellect liberates them and universals are seen.
- “Abstraction” – process by which the universal is separated out from the particulars (like Aristotle’s “Induction”)
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MODERN EMPIRICISM
- John Locke 1632-1704
- Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690
- Reacts against Descartes type rationalism
- Agreed with Descartes’ mind and matter
- Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke – despite challenge of senses being deceptive- we can find knowledge that is certain and universal.
3 British Empiricists- Locke, Berkely, Hume
Radical Empiricism- Hume/Berkeley
- Locke; we can know mind and matter though can’t know what matter is in itself
- Berkely; we can’t know matter, only mind (ideas)
- Hume; can only know perceptions (no certainty)
- Phenomenalism- all we can know (for sure) is the appearance of things
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IMPLICATIONS OF RADICAL EMPIRICISM?
- How would critique the idea that you can’t know anything for sure?
- A. How would this conclusion affect ideas about morality or meaning or purpose?
- Nurture or Nature?- Plato and Aristotle set argument in motion
- Rationalism- you know innately that it is wrong to take a life- but, if nature is set, who is responsible?
- Empiricism- you learn what is right and wrong- but what if raised in poor environment? Who is responsible?
- What is a jail called now?-
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Which approach- Nature/Rationalism or Nature/Empiricism does “Corrections” imply?
IMPASSE
- What comes next in the journey of thought?
- Can the rationalism/empiricism impasse be resolved?
- Immanuel Kant brings a new perspective
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TERMS TO KNOW
- Epistemology
- Rationalism / Rationalist
- Innate ideas - a priori- inside out - reason
- Empiricism / Empiricist
- Experience- a posteriori - outside in- senses
- Universals
- Particulars
- “I think therefore I am.”
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THINGS TO KNOW
- What are the two basic approaches to answering the Epistemological question discussed in this ppt.? Can you describe the difference between them?
- What basic approach is represented by Plato, Aristotle?
- Can you describe Descartes’ epistemology? What is his famous saying and what does it mean related to his epistemology?
- On a piece of paper make a column each for rationalists and empiricists. Can you place the thinkers listed in this ppt in the correct column?
- How do the terms Nature and Nurture relate to the discussion of Rationalism and Empiricism?
- What does the term “Correction Center” related to rationalism/empiricism?
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END
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