A Level Philosophy & Religious Studies



Philosophy & Theology Pre-u Paper 2 – Topic 1. Epistemology HYPERLINK \l "empiricismVrationalism" Empiricism vs rationalism HYPERLINK \l "descartesphilosophicaldoubt" Descartes’ philosophical doubt HYPERLINK \l "globalscepticism" Global scepticism HYPERLINK \l "foundationalism" Foundationalism HYPERLINK \l "coherentism" Coherentism HYPERLINK \l "reliabilism" Reliabilism HYPERLINK \l "naieverealismandrepresentativerealism" Na?ve realism and representative realism HYPERLINK \l "berkeleysidealism" Berkeley’s idealism HYPERLINK \l "phenomenalism" Phenomenalism HYPERLINK \l "humesenquiry" Hume’s Enquiry – Sections 2 – 8 HYPERLINK \l "berkeleysdialogues" Berkeley’s Dialogues HYPERLINK \l "russellsproblemsofphilosophy" Russell’s Problems of PhilosophyEmpiricism vs rationalismDescartes’ philosophical doubtDescartes’ sceptical arguments (the three waves of doubt)Descartes thought that he could find certain knowledge, which he defined as knowledge which cannot be doubted, if he progressively applied his method of doubt to areas of supposed knowledge.Step 1: The 1st wave of doubt is the argument from illusion. Descartes doubts his perception since it has gone wrong in the past, e.g sticks in water look bent. However, Descartes does not think this subjects all perceptions to doubt, only those special cases.The 2nd wave of doubt is the argument from dreaming. This casts doubt on all my current perceptions by claiming that I could be dreaming, in which case my perceptions might not be of reality and therefore cannot provide certain knowledge.Step 2: There are reliable criteria for telling the difference between waking and sleeping, such as the greater coherence of your perceptions when awake.Step 3: Descartes is only trying to cast doubt on your current perceptions, however.Step 4: Nonetheless this seems to leave knowledge of previous perceptions undoubted.Step 5: While the origin of previous perceptions can be reliably ascertained by coherence, it is arguably impossible to do this beyond any doubt as reliability is insufficient for certainty.Step 1: The 3rd wave of doubt casts doubt on mathematics, which Descartes claims withstands the dreaming argument. Descartes postulates that instead of a God there could be an evil demon deceiving you about supposed mathematical truths, so even they cannot be certain knowledge.Step 2: We could reject the concept of an evil demon as incoherent as it requires some kind of supernatural magic power which cannot be analysed sufficiently for us to even know whether it amounts to a logical possibility. Step 3: The brain in a vat scenario supposes that your brain is not in your body but is being manipulated by scientists to generate your conscious experiences. If that were the case you would never know. This is similar to the evil demon argument but more conceptually analysable and can therefore be more easily said to be a logical possibility which seems to have the same outcome as Descartes’ third wave of doubt, as the scientists could manipulate our brains to think that 1+1=3 when really it is 5.Step 4: However, arguably it is not possible to manipulate someone’s brain to think that 1+1=3. They could be manipulated into saying it, but it’s inconceivable that they could be manipulated into thinking it. The Incoherence of being deceived about logical or mathematical truths by scientists shows further that the evil demon relied on incoherent magical powers. It’s possible to define the evil demon as that which has the ability to deceive us about maths, but that presupposes the logical possibility of such a deception. This suggests a fault in Descartes’ conception of knowledge as that which we cannot doubt. Such a view depends on conceivability entailing possibility as it requires that our ability to doubt something matches whether it can be the case in reality.Descartes’ own response to scepticism: The Cogito.Step 1: After the three waves of doubt, Descartes’ applied his method of doubt to the question of whether he can know he exists. He claimed that doubting your own existence is incoherent since you have to exist in order to do the doubting. It is therefore impossible to doubt your own existence and so we can know that we exist.Step 2: Kierkegaard argued that Descartes’ argument was really a tautology as it assumed the conclusion it was trying to prove; (‘I’ think, therefore ‘I’ am), is little more than (‘I’ therefore ‘I’). Nietzsche also criticised Descartes, arguing that the cogito assumes that it is ‘I’ who thinks, that something has to exist in order to think, that thinking exists in causal relations, that what is happening really is thinking and not something else such as willing or feeling. Step 3: Some Modern scholars have interpreted Descartes’ Cogito as not intended to be an explicitly logical argument which predicates existence to a thinking subject, but more an observation that ‘something’ is happening in conscious awareness which presupposes existence.Global scepticismThe distinction between local and global scepticism and the (possible) global application of philosophical scepticismLocal scepticism is scepticism about a particular claim (e.g. a particular sense experience) or domain of claims (e.g. all sense experience). Local scepticism occurs when our reasons for doubting are the sort which apply to specific knowledge claims.Global scepticism results from the reasons for doubt apply not to specific knowledge claims but seem to undermine all possible knowledge claims, e.g. the brain in the vat where scientists could manipulate our reasoning about mathematical concepts and our perceptual experiences both of the external world and our own mind.A contemporary global scepticism argument is Nick Bostrom’s simulation argument.P1: Minds can be simulated on computers.P2: Once a civilisation gains the technology to do so, it will simulate minds on computers which have conscious experiences indistinguishable from our own.P3: This will occur multiple times such that the number of simulated worlds will vastly outnumber the number of real worlds (one).C1: we should expect as a matter of probability to be in one of the simulated worlds.The strength of the simulation argument over the dreaming argument or the brain in the vat hypothesis is that it’s not simply a very difficult possibility to rule out but is actually overwhelmingly probable.FoundationalismThe meaning of ‘intuition’ and ‘deduction’ and the distinction between them.Descartes thinks we can gain informative (synthetic) knowledge through a priori means by intuition and deduction. Intuition is when the rational mind apprehends the truth or falsity of something with immediacy, which means without any process of reasoning or inference. The mind simply ‘grasps’ the rational rules by which we intuit that 2+2 necessarily equals 4. Descartes claims there is a ‘natural light’ of the mind which makes us recognize certain truths because we cannot doubt them. Deduction is using premises to reach a conclusion the truth of which is entailed by the truth of the premises. If we can know that the premises are true and that the conclusion follows deductively from them then we can know the truth of the conclusion. Descartes’ notion of ‘clear and distinct ideas’.Descartes claims that the cogito is apprehended by his mind in a special way which he calls clarity and distinctness. A clear idea is ‘present and accessible to the attentive mind’ – analogous to perceiving something visual clearly with our eye. An idea is distinct when it is so sharply separated from all other ideas that every part of it is clear’. Descartes claims that since the Cogito is a clear and distinct idea which he knows to be true, then clarity and distinctness must ‘as a general rule’ be a sign of truth. The cogito as an example of a priori intuitionStep 1: Descartes’ points out that we cannot doubt our own existence since that presupposes that we exist in order to do the doubting. We can therefore see that our existence is a clear and distinct idea intuited a priori.Step 2: Descartes’ then however points out that while we can know that clear and distinct ideas are true when we are apprehending them, it’s surely possible that they become untrue when we are not, perhaps because of God or an evil demon deceiving us. Therefore he feels the need to prove that is not the case.Step 3: To do that, Descartes first attempts to prove the existence of God with his ontological argument and the trademark argument.Empiricist responses to the cogitoStep 1: Hume argues that we only experience constantly changing mental states, not an enduring mental substance which could be the ‘I’ of the cogito, so we cannot know that there must be an ‘I’ which thinks. Hume argues that we wrongly and confusedly think that similarity of our mental states over time entails personal identity over time.Step 2: Descartes’ replies so this kind of argument by claiming it is clear and distinct that thoughts require a thinker.Step 3: Arguably Descartes is just influenced by the common sense ordinary experience of attributing thoughts to thinkers, but if he was truly doubting everything then why not the supposed link between thoughts and thinkers also?Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God as an a priori deduction.Step 1: The trademark argument. Descartes argues that the ‘natural light’ yields the causal adequacy principle - that there must be as much reality in the cause as there is in its effect. Just as something cannot come from nothing, neither can what is more perfect come from what is less perfect.He argues we imperfect beings are causally inadequate to create the perfect concept of God, therefore God must exist as the only causally adequate explanation of our concept of God.Step 2: evolution seems to violate the causal adequacy principle since it is an example of there being less reality in the cause as there is in the effect. The cause – single celled organisms – is lesser than the effect – humans. Step 3: However, it’s not quite the case that single celled organisms gave rise to humans. It was a combination of single celled organisms plus their environment, which together over billions of years resulted in humans. Empiricist responses to the trademark argumentStep 1: Hume argues that the concept of God is not innate but can be created by our minds. We start by imagining finite human qualities like goodness and imagine what they were like without limit by abstractly negating finitude/imperfection to create the concept not-finite/not-perfect, which is the concept infinite/perfect. We then combine goodness and infinite/perfect to imagine God’s omnibenevolence, and so too with God’s other attributes.Step 2: Descartes responds to this kind of argument by claiming that we couldn’t recognize imperfection as imperfection without appreciating that it was a lack of something which made it lesser than a standard of perfection which we must therefore already have an idea of. Step 3: Arguably the origin of the concept of perfection is merely a subjective preference for order over chaos since that typically enables survival which we have evolved to desire. It’s hard to see what objective basis there could be for perfection, but in that case the concept of God is only subjectively perfect which would not then place any constraints on its causal adequacy. Descartes’ proof of the external world as an a priori deductionThe existence of physical objects in the external world.Descartes claims he has a clear and distinct idea of a physical object as something that has extension and is changeable.His perceptions of physical objects are involuntary and cannot therefore come from his mind over which he has voluntary control. These perceptions are caused either by an external world, God or I simply have a tendency to have false beliefs which I cannot correct.If God, then God is giving us perceptions which do not map onto reality which would make God a deceiver. God is perfect by definition and therefore not a deceiver, so he cannot be causing my perceptions nor allowing an evil demon to deceive me by causing them.If God exists and is not a deceiver, he cannot have created me with a tendency to have false beliefs which I cannot correct.According to Descartes’ other arguments, God exists.So by process of elimination, the cause of my perceptions of physical objects in an external world is the existence of physical objects in an external world.Empiricist responses to Descartes’ proof of the external world.Step 1: Hume’s fork holds that ‘all objects of human reason or inquiry’ are either ‘relations of ideas’ or matters of fact. Relations of ideas, including intuitive analytic knowledge such as mathematics, are not dependent on ‘what is anywhere existent in the universe’. Their truth is therefore established regardless of what the universe was like. It cannot be denied without contradiction, since there is no possibility of it changing to be false since it does not depend on anything which changes (the universe). Intuitions of the relations of ideas therefore can not be about the world.Matters of fact are dependent on what happens to in fact exist in the universe and can be denied without contradiction since whatever happens to exist might have happened not to exist, which our minds can imagine. Hume claims a priori intuition and deduction only provides us with analytic knowledge of the relations of ideas, not synthetic matters of fact. Step 2: Knowledge of maths is arguably about more than just our own concepts.Descartes assumes that his perceptions must have a cause, but Hume argues that this cannot be established a priori since the claim ‘everything has a cause’ can be denied without contradiction and is thus not analytically true.CoherentismReliabilismStep 1: Reliabilism replaces the justification criterion with ‘reliably formed’. A belief is reliably formed if it is produced by a process which produces a high percentage of true beliefs. Perception and memory are examples. They can produce false beliefs but they usually i.e. reliably produce true beliefs. E.g a sea captain on a ship in medieval times knows that a compass will reliably point to north. They cannot offer any justification for how the compass works so they have no justification for thinking it points north. However they have observed that it reliably points to north most of the time and so can have reliable knowledge without justification.Step 2: Goldman’s Barn facades. Henry is driving through the Barn County, a countryside where there are lots of fake barns which look real when viewed from the road. Whenever viewing a fake barn, Henry thinks “there is a barn”. Vision is usually a reliable process, but in Barn County, it only produced a reliable belief by accident. Step 3: Goldman suggested adding another condition to reliabilism to overcome this difficulty. Henry cannot distinguish between what he believed to be true – that he was in a barn county – and the relevant possibility which would make his belief false – that he was in a fake barn county. Adding this criterion of being able to distinguish between relevant possibilities to reliabilism will solve the barn fa?ade problem.Na?ve realism and representative realismNa?ve/Direct realism is the common sense intuitive view that the objects of perception are physical objects which exist independently of our minds. We think of Physical objects as existing objectively in space and time. If I am in a room and perceive some physical objects in it, then when I leave the room they remain as they are unless they are undergoing some sort of physical process like burning which would cause them to change when I wasn’t there to perceive them.Direct realism claims that our senses perceive those physical objects and their properties. For example, when perceiving the physical object of table, I perceive it’s properties such as color, shape, size, smell and texture. Direct realism therefore claims that sense data is veridical – coinciding with reality.Direct realism issue #1: perceptual variationStep 1: Bertrand Russell argued that what we perceive in sense data is not the same as what is in reality and so direct realism is false. Russell points to the example of a shiny, brown table. He argues that the color of the table actually depends on where you stand in relation to it. There is light falling on the table making a part of it shiny and therefore white in color in a certain spot, but if another person were to stand at a different place to you, that white spot would appear to them to be on a different part of the table than where it appears to you. Therefore, where one person sees the table to be white, another might see it to be brown. A particular spot on an object cannot be two colors at once, therefore color cannot be a property of the table. So direct realism is false for claiming the properties we perceive are necessarily properties of the physical object.Russell argues this can apply to texture too, since while the table feels smooth, on a smaller level it actually has indentations and grooves. Shape is also perceptually variable since it depends on the angle at which you view the table as to whether it looks rectangular.Step 2: The direct realist could alter their claim to be that perception is veridical in the case of a normal observer under normal conditions. There is no perceptual variation if we keep the conditions (such as lighting and relative position to object) the same.Direct realism issue #2: IllusionStep 1: If you look at a straight stick submerged in a glass of water, the light-refracting properties of water make it look bent. An illusion occurs when an object (the stick) appears to have a property (of bentness) yet in reality it does not have that property (It isn’t bent). Therefore, the perceived illusory property is sense data which exists in the mind, not reality. Illusions appear just as real as normal veridical perceptions – they are subjectively indistinguishable. Therefore, normal perceptions must also be of sense data in the mind, not of physical objects. So direct realism is false.Step 2: The direct realist could argue that we are directly perceiving the light-refracting properties of water. We are therefore seeing the true reality of how a stick looks due to the reality of how light and water interact. So the direct realist could argue that the stick has the property of ‘looking bent’. It is possible for something to have the property of ‘being straight’ yet also ‘looking bent’ so there is no inconsistency. Step 3: Hallucination. Perceiving a property which an object doesn’t have is an illusion but perceiving an object which doesn’t exist is a hallucination. So the direct realist response of step 2 will not work for hallucinations as there is no object which has the property of ‘looking like X’.Direct realism issue #3: HallucinationStep 1: Hallucination occurs when sensing an object which doesn’t exist. Therefore what we perceived must be mind-dependent sense data. Hallucinations are subjectively indistinguishable from normal veridical perceptions, therefore normal perceptions must also be of sense data, not mind-independent physical objects. So direct realism is false.Step 2: disjunctive theory of perception. A disjunction is when there are two possible ways something can be. It is either one or the other. Hallucination is very different from normal veridical perception as it involves a mind separated from reality. Therefore this case is disjunctive as it must be either/or – it cannot be both – the mind is either connected to reality or separated. So, what we perceive is either a hallucination or veridical perception. Just because those two possibilities appear the same, it doesn’t mean they are the same. In fact, since they are disjunctive, they cannot be the same. Therefore, just because hallucinatory cases are of mind-dependent sense data, it doesn’t follow that all perceptions are mind-dependent sense data.Direct realism issue #4: Time-lag argumentStep 1: It takes time for light to reach us from an object we perceive. The light from the stars we see in the sky may have taken billions of years to reach earth. So we see those stars as they were billions of years ago, not as they are now. Although the objects of perception we more regularly see are much closer, like a table or chair, the light still takes some time to reach us. Therefore, we are not seeing the objects of perception directly, we are seeing them as they were in the past. Therefore, direct realism is false.Step 2: The direct realist could claim that we can still perceive objects in the past directly as long as we are perceiving them as they actually were. So when viewing objects, we are directly seeing them as they were in the past.Step 3: Some might argue that direct has to mean instant, not just accurate.Representative/indirect realismIndirect realism is the view that the objects of perception are a mind-dependent representation which is caused by external mind-independent physical objects. Sense-data is perceived immediately (directly) whereas physical objects are perceived indirectly. The representation can be different from the object it represents. The argument from perceptual variation, illusion and hallucination, which try to show that what we see isn’t necessarily the reality, argue for indirect realismRussell defines sense-data as the ‘content’ of our immediate sensory perception. John Locke’s primary/secondary quality distinctionGrain of wheat example.Indirect Realism issue #1: Scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects.Step 1: If all we perceive directly are sense-data, then we never perceive the mind-independent objects which Indirect realists claim are giving rise to that sense-data. There is a ‘veil of perception’ between our sense data and the external world ‘behind’ it which we cannot see through. In that case, it seems we can’t actually know that mind-independent objects exist at all. If we can’t see through the veil, how do we know there is anything on the other side at all? Indirect realists it seems assumed the external world must be there to cause our sense-data, but there could be another explanation for the existence of sense-data than that. What reason have we got to think a mind-independent external reality is the correct explanation for sense data?Russell’s response: The existence of the external world is the best hypothesis. Step 2: Russell argued we can neither prove nor disprove either the claim that the external world exists and causes my sense data, or the claim that the external world does not exist and so does not cause my sense data. Since we cannot prove for certain either claim, we are left with making a hypothesis (a theory which is confirmed or disconfirmed by experience or reason). Russell argues the question then becomes which possibility – that the external world exists or does not – is the best hypothesis.Russell points to the example of a cat. When first you glance, it is in a corner of the room. The next time you look, it is on a sofa. If there is no external world, then the cat just disappeared from one place in perceptual experience and then appeared in another. However that does not provide an explanation of the experience as there is no reason why that should happen. If we take the other hypothesis, that there is an external world so the cat is a mind-independent object which continues existing when unperceived, then we have an explanation of our sense data of the cat having moved to the sofa – it walked there when you weren’t looking! Since this hypothesis explains our sense data, Russell argues it is the best hypothesis.Step 3: Russell seems to assume that what provides a better explanation of our sense data must be what we have most reason to think true.John Locke’s argument from the involuntary nature of our experience.Step 1: Locke argues that perceptions from sense experience have a key difference to perceptions from memory or imagination in that we have no choice over what we perceive in sense-data. However, we can choose what to remember or imagine. If there really were no external world causing our sense-data, then everything must be in our mind. In that case, we should expect to have choice over perceptions from sense experience. However we do not – if we look at a bottle of water we have no choice but to see one. Yet if we want to imagine a bottle of water filled with gold or remember the last time we drank from one, we can. Since we have choice over perceptions which originate from our mind yet we have no choice from those from sense experience, it follows that perceptions from sense experience do not originate from our mind but from an external world.The argument from the coherence of various kinds of experience (Locke & Cockburne).Locke also argues that sense-data from different senses back each other up. E.g if I see an apple, I can touch it to see if it also feels like one, and taste it to see if it also tastes like one. Locke combines these two arguments in the example of changing how paper looks by writing on it – so sight and the sense of your hand moving cohere. You cannot cause the words to appear on the paper by mere imagination, you have to actually write. Once it is written, it cannot be changed except by further writing. If someone else read out what you had written, there would be coherence between your auditory (hearing) sense-data and what you thought to write. Lock argues this ‘leaves little reason for doubt’ that there is an external world.Step 2: Arguably however Locke hasn’t proven that there is an external world of physical objects, he has merely given some reasons as to how it makes sense of our sense-data for there to be one. Locke claims the fact that we have no choice over our sense-data perceptions shows they are not a part of our mind. However, this is to assume all parts of our mind are under our control. There might be some reason unknown to us why sense-data originating from our mind isn’t under our control. There might also be some reason why we get the same information from different senses, despite them also potentially originating from our mind. Step 3: Indirect realism can still be backed up by Locke’s arguments if we use Russell’s notion that it is the best hypothesis. The existence of the external world is the best explanation of lack of choice over perceptions and the coherence of various senses.Catherine Cockburn also responds to scepticism about the existence of mind-independent objects with an argument from experiential coherence. She first points to the radical difference between experiences gained from different senses. E.g. The sound a waterfall makes is not just different to but of a very different sort than the visual experience of it. Cockburn then points out we learn to pair visual and auditory experiences together such that we are able to make an inference from one to the other. If we are walking on a mountain and hear a waterfall, we can infer and accurately predict what it looks like; and vice versa, if we see a waterfall from far away, we can infer and accurately predict what it will sound like when we have moved closer. The fact that we can accurately infer and predict our experiences suggests that there is some mind-independent object which both senses perceive yet is independent of any particular sense. If it could be heard without being seen and seen without being heard, then it seems to follow it exists without being seen or heard, i.e. mind-independently.Indirect Realism issue #2: Scepticism about the nature of the external worldStep 1: Scepticism about the existence of the external world questioned whether indirect realism could provide a basis for thinking there is an external world beyond the veil of perception at all. However, there is a further criticism which remains even if an indirect realist can make a case for that existence, which is to question whether they can provide a basis for claiming that we can know anything about the nature of that external world. This attacks the Indirect realist claim that objects of perception are representations of mind-independent objects. How can they know such objects are representations, or indeed have any link whatsoever, to the actual objects in the external world? How do they know the external world is even composed of anything like an object?The argument from George Berkeley that we cannot know the nature of mind-independent objects because mind-dependent objects cannot be like mind-independent objects.Russell’s argument depends on sense data in our minds being caused by physical objects. Imagine a physical fire causes light to enter our eyes which sends signals to our brain. How does that give rise to sense data though? Berkeley argued it’s not clear how something can transform from a physical mind-independent thing into a mental mind-dependent thing. That seems to be what is required for anyone who claims the external world is mind-independent though, including Russell here.Berkeley’s idealismBerkeley thought all that existed in the world are minds and ideas. Attack on Primary & secondary quality distinction.Berkeley argues that our sense data is immediate, so their cause must be inferred. We do not perceive the cause of our perceptions. Berkeley repeats Locke’s illustration that a hot hand feels room temperature water to be cold yet a cold hand feels the same water to be hot. Since the water cannot be both hot and cold, the feeling of heat cannot be intrinsic to the water. Berkeley thinks this is true for color too.Berkeley argues against the direct realist attempt to suggest that e.g sound is a vibration of air, since vibrations are seen or felt, not heard.Having established that secondary qualities are mind-dependent, Berkeley then argues that primary qualities are also mind-dependent because they are perceptually variable.Things can look larger or smaller depending on the size of the observer or the distance of the observer from the object. Smooth things can appear rough under a microscope. Shapes can look different depending on the angle they are seen from. Animals that think faster than us perceive motion slower than we do. Berkeley concludes that the mind perceives qualities only, not primary nor secondary ones.We do not perceive anything that is independent of the mind.Berkeley makes a second argument that primary qualities are mind-dependent. He argues that to think of a physical object of any size or shape will require that it have color. If you had a black ink pen and a black piece of paper, you would not be able to draw a shape on it of any size. We can’t separate the idea of size and shape from secondary qualities. Therefore, size, shape and color are not separable. Therefore, it cannot be that size and shape are primary while color is secondary.Locke response: a blind person is able to imagine size and shape without color. Locke also argues that when we perceive a primary quality, we see the physical object as it exists independently. So Locke shows this argument only works if Berkeley’s other arguments work.Berkeley’s third argument is that we can never know what is behind the veil of perception. We never see the ‘thing-in-itself’, to use Kant’s phrase. So if the size of a table is a quality of it, then in itself it must have no size since the quality only exists in our perception. Therefore the claim that the thing-in-itself is beyond our perception leads to scepticism. We cannot know whether the objects of perception at all represent the true reality, or even if there actually is a true reality.The Master argument. Berkeley claims that if you can conceive it to be possible that something mind-independent could exist, then he will ‘grant it actually to be so’. Hylas claims in response to be thinking of a tree that exists without anyone perceiving it. However Berkeley points out that by stating it thus, Hylas has conceived of that tree and thereby made it mind-dependant. Berkeley then argues that the cause of our perceptions must be a mind, not matter. We know that minds can cause ideas in others. If I say ‘think of the Eiffel tower’, then I can cause an idea in your mind. What we perceive are bundles of ideas. Ideas, however, are passive as they don’t cause anything. Only minds can do that. Therefore whatever causes our perceptions must be a mind. Berkeley also points to the complexity and systematicty of our perceptions. Matter alone has no reason to be organized and complex, so it’s more likely to be a mind.Berkeley finally argued that because we do not have control over the ideas we perceive, while we do have control over our imagination, the objects of perception do not originate from our mind. The only way to explain all this is our perceptions originate from God’s mind.To be blue is to look a certain way, not to actually possess any quality of blueness.Idealism issue #1: illusions Step 1: Idealism claims we perceive ideas directly as they are, so the stick in water really is bent.Step 2: Berkeley responds that what we see really is bent, but that we are mistaken if we infer that if we reached into the glass and felt the stick, it would not feel bent. So Berkeley claims illusions mislead our inferences made on the basis of what we perceive.Step 3: If we reach into the glass to feel that the stick is straight, while also looking at the stick appearing bent, then we will be perceiving two inconstant things at the same time. The stick cannot be both bent and straight. Therefore, one must merely be an appearance while the other is the reality, and so there is more to reality than what appears. Therefore idealism is false.Step 4: Berkeley responds that this is a mistake in the language we use to talk about the situation. When we say ‘the stick is bent’ what Berkeley argues we really mean is that it would look bent under normal conditions, which is clearly false. Berkeley suggests instead saying “the stick looks bent”, which is clearly true. Idealism issue #2: hallucinationsStep 1: A hallucination is the perception of an object which doesn’t exist. Since Idealism claims that the objects of perception are directly perceived ideas, it seems impossible according to idealism for a hallucination to exist since to be is to be perceived. A hallucinated object is perceived, therefore it exists and so is not really hallucinated.Step 2: Berkeley argues that hallucinations result from the imagination. While the imagination normally produces voluntary and relatively dim perceptions which are not vivid, Berkeley argues that at times it can produce involuntary and vivid percpetions. Berkeley argues hallucinations also lack logical connection to the rest of our experience. Step 3: Some hallucinations might be logically connected to the rest of our experience however. Someone with a fever might look out a window and hallucinate a person walking down the street. There is nothing illogical about that and so no way to tell.Step 4: Berkeley only needs to explain how Idealism could account for the existence of hallucination however, not give us a method for telling which perceptions are hallucinatory. His response that they come from the imagination, as shown by hallucinations usually being unconnected logically to the rest of our experience, does explain that, even if there are some hallucinations which are logically connected. Idealism issue #3: SolipsismStep 1: Berkeley’s arguments against objects being mind-independent logically leads to solipsism - the view that all that exists is my own mind. Step 2: Berkeley thinks we can know that God’s mind exists, so it can’t be only my mind in existence. The complexity and regularity of the ideas we perceive shows that they come from God’s mind. This alone counters Solipsism since if God’s mind exists then my mind is not the only mind. However, Berkeley also argues we at least have some evidence to justify thinking other people have minds too. We can infer that on the basis of our own experience of them.Metaphysical & epistemological solipsismIdealism issue #4: Whether God can be used to play the role that he doesStep 1: If I throw a lit match into an empty room and come back later, the room will have changed. On Berkeley’s idealism, however, it seems that the room ceased to exist as soon as I left it, since ‘to be is to be perceived’. Something that does not exist cannot undergo change. The room did undergo change however, which suggests Idealism is false. Berkeley solves this problem by claiming that God perceives the room and indeed everything other idea, thereby keeping them in existence regardless of whether any human is observing them. This seems to be relying on God however.Step 2: Berkeley claims that he is not relying on God but actually proving his existence, however. With his arguments against the primary and secondary quality distinction combined with his master argument, Berkeley thinks he has proven idealism – that the objects of perception are directly perceived mind-dependent ideas. That being the case, the only explanation of the changeability of ideas when no human perceives them is that there is a God which perceives them.Step 3: If Berkeley’s attack on the primary/secondary quality distinction and master argument fail to establish idealism, or if some other argument proves idealism false, however, then his inference of God would likewise fail.PhenomenalismHume’s Enquiry – Sections 2 – 8Section 2. Impressions and ideas. The mind is composed of perceptions. Impressions are lively and vivid perceptions. They concern ‘all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will’.Ideas are less lively and vivid and comes from memory or imagination. They result from reflecting on our impressions. Seeing the color red results in an impresson of red. Remembering the color red later results in an idea.Ideas and impressions can be simple or complex. A simple idea or impression is one which cannot be divided or broken down into anything simpler. A red rose is a complex idea, composed of simple ideas like redness. Redness is a simple idea because it is not composed of anything simpler than it. A complex idea/impression is simply a multiple of simple ideas/impressions which are joined together. Hume thinks that our imagination is limited to merely joining together different ideas we have gained from impressions. We can never imagine an idea that was not copied from an impression. If we imagine a gold mountain, we are just joining our idea of gold and our idea of mountain together. This is called the copy principle. Hume argues its proof is based on the fact that we cannot think of any simple idea that was not copied from an impression.Our idea of God, for Hume, is created from taking human goodness or human intelligence and combining them with the idea of limitlessness. Hume admits there is an exception to his theory - the missing shared of blue. If someone who had not seen a particular share of blue was shown a sheet of paper with all the other shades of blue, they would be able to infer what that missing shade would look like, despite having never experienced an impression of that particular shade of blue. Hume says he has no explanation of this but thinks it an insignificant example.Section 3. Connections between ideas. Hume argues all ideas are linked to other ideas, in one or more of three ways that he can think of:Resemblance: whereby the idea of something resembles the idea of something else.Contiguity in time or place: whereby an idea might be connected to another due to location in space or timeCause and effect: whereby an idea is connected to what it causes or is the effect ofSection 4. Hume’s fork.Relations of ideas are a priori. They are intuitively known and cannot be denied without contradiction.Maters of fact are a posteriori, are known through experience and can be denied without contradiction.Cause and effect must be based on experience as any instance of cause and effect can be denied without contradiction.Demonstrative reasoning is based on relations of ideasMoral reasoning is based on matters of factHume then questions inductive reasoning. He asks how we could have knowledge of future events and questions whether it could be based on knowledge of the past. As it is not a contradiction to suggest the future will not resemble the past, we cannot know it by demonstrative reasoning. Moral reasoning also fails since we cannot know that the future will continue to resemble the past merely because it has done so thus far. Section 5:Hume thinks that reasoning from cause and effect cannot be defended. Someone suddenly being brought into existence in the world would have no concept of cause and effect. We cannot sense cause and effect nor can our reason discover it.Hume argues that our belief in cause and effect is due merely to the way we operate socially – through custom. This explains the fact that it takes repeated witnessing of events following one another in order to reach the inference that they are causally related. If we did not have this custom, we could not speculate about the future nor even act.Two types of imagination:Fiction – when we splice simple impressions into original complex ideas representing things that, while possible, we have no reason to think are realBelief – when we imagine original complex ideas but also think they are real. Hume concludes that since children and even adults can make errors in their reasoning, it is useful that cause and effect are produced by something other than reason like the instinctual intuitions produced by custom.Section 6. Of probability.Hume argues that chance is not operative in the functioning’s of the universe. It is just because our knowledge is limited that we have the concept of chance. Belief differs from fiction in that it is more intense in our imagination as we think it more likely to be true due to inductive reasoning.Section 7. Berkeley’s DialoguesRussell’s Problems of PhilosophyChapter 1Russell claims, like Descartes, that it’s possible to doubt what appear to be self-evident everyday assumptions, such as that he is sitting on a chair at a table with a certain shape which has paper on it. Russell’s table. Perceptual variation occurs as light appears to cause different shades of color depending on your relation to the table. We ordinarily think the table has a definite color but it seems actually to be a relation depending on the observer and conditions like how light falls on the table.This causes doubt that one real color of the table actually exists.Russell notes that when we talk of color in ordinary language we refer to an observer’s ordinary conditions for perception but suggests there is no reason to think that is somehow veridical.Texture is also observer-relative since while the table appears smooth to the naked eye, it would appear like mountains of roughness under a microscope. Russell claims there is no way to claim one texture is more real than another.Shape is also perceptually variable since the table appears a rectangle or square depending on one’s relation to it. So too with touch/pressure and sound. There is a distinction ‘between what things seem to be and what they are’.The reality of the table must be inferred from sense data; the immediately known appearance in sensation.Perceptual variation shows that sense data does not directly reveal reality but are a sign of some property which ‘perhaps causes all the sensations’, though Russell notes that it’s possible to doubt that there is a reality behind our sense data. Nonetheless at least our sense data, due to being immediately known, is knowable.Russell asks whether there is a real table at all and ‘if so, what sort of object can it be?’ He turns his attention to the common view that ‘real objects’ are physical objects understood as ‘matter’, so Russell asks does matter exist and ‘if so, what is it’s nature?’Chapter 2Russell claims Descartes’ cogito shows that ‘subjective things are the most certain’. Our sense data is not in question, but that an external world of physical objects may be inferred from them is in question.Russell asks whether we have any reason for regarding sense data as ‘signs of the existence of something else, which we can call the physical object.’Russell considers whether the difference between public and private experience could be such a sign. If a group of people is sitting around a table at a dinner party, it is reasonable to think they sense the same cutlery, glasses and so on. Each person will have a slightly different sense experience because their individual sense data will result from a different point of view because of factors such as where they are sitting. Since the cutlery exists in common experience we think of it as what Russell calls a ‘public neutral object’. Since more than one person can know them, they appear not to be merely private sense-data.However, Russell claims that public neutral objects depends on the existence of other people who are themselves only represented by our private sense-data. So appealing to sense-data outside our own private experience is assuming what we have to prove.Russell claims that ultimately Descartes’ dreaming argument is unanswerable. It will always be a logical possibility that the ‘external world’ is in fact a dream in our own mind since no logical absurdity results from that hypothesis. Although that cannot be disproven, nonetheless Russell claims there is no reason in support in it either. Since we cannot prove for certain either claim, we are left with making a hypothesis (a theory which is confirmed or disconfirmed by experience or reason). Russell argues the question then becomes which possibility – that the external world exists or does not – is the best hypothesis.Chapter 3The nature of MatterPhysics reduces natural phenomena like light, head and sound to ‘wave motions’. ................
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