Epistomology

Question 0

Russell’s Perceptional variation arg (counter for direct realism) + reply

Answer 0

Russell uses the example of a shiny brown desk - we say it’s brown but it doesn’t actually look an even colour all over: depending on how the light falls, some parts are lighter than others, and some are even white from the shininess. Does this mean that the brown colour is more real than the other colours experienced?
This example draws our attention to a distinction between appearance and reality.
This causes problems for the direct realist as they said they perceive objects ‘directly’ but through sense data

Main argument:

1) there are variations in our perception
2) our perception varies without corresponding changed in the physical object we perceive ( eg the table remains rectangular, even as the way it looks cheated at different angles)
3) therefore, the properties physical objects have and the properties they appear to have are not identical
4) therefore we do not perceive physical objects directly

Reply:
What we mean by the colour of the object is the colour that it appears to have when seen by normal observers in normal conditions.

Question 1

Direct realism

Answer 1

The belief that physical objects we perceive exist independent of our minds

Question 2

The argument from illusion (counter for direct realism) + reply

Answer 2

If you half submerge a straight stick in a glass of water, it looks crooked: but it isn’t. We see a crooked stick, but the stick isn’t crooked. However, just from what you experience, you can’t tell whether it’s an illusion or not. Someone who doesn’t know about the crooked stick illusion thinks they are seeing a crooked stick.

1) we perceive something having some property F
2) when we perceive something having some property F, then there is a something that has this property
3) in an illusion, the physical object does not have the property F (the stick is not bent)
4) therefore, what has the property F is something mental, a sense-datum
5) therefore, in illusions, we see sense-data, and not physical objects immediately
6) illusions can be ‘subjectively indistinguishable’ from veridical perception
7) therefore, we can see the same thing, namely sense data, in both illusions and veridical perception
8) therefore, in all cases, we see sense data and not physical objects, immediately
9) therefore, direct realism is false

Reply:

• 2 is wrong. It has the property of looking crooked
• same reply for perceptional variation

Question 3

The argument for hallucination (counter for direct realism) + reply

Answer 3

1) in a hallucination, we perceive something having some property F
2) when we perceive something have a property F, then there is something that has this property
3) we don’t perceive a physical object at all (unlike the case of illusion)
4) therefore, what we perceive must be mental - sense data.
5) hallucinations can be experiences that are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perception.
6) therefore, in all cases, we see sense data, and not physical objects, immediately
8) therefore, direct realism is false

Reply:
2) according to the disjunctive theory of perception, if something looks a certain way then either, i directly perceive a mind independent physical object that is f or as in the case of hallucination, it appears to me just as if there is a something that is F, but there is nothing that is F.

Question 4

Russell’s The time lag argument (counter for direct realism) + reply

Answer 4

It takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth. Therefore, it can be argued that we do not perceive objects directly.

Reply: direct realism can reply that this is a confusion of how we perceive and what we perceive. Direct realism can argue that except in special conditions, we don’t perceive light waves directly and physical objects indirectly. Light waves are part of the story of how we see physical objects

Question 5

Common sense/intuition (supporting reason for direct realism)

Answer 5

Describe what you see. You would normally do this by referring to physical objects. If you perceive the world via sense data, the immediate content of what you perceive is mental. If you try to describe through sense data however, it is virtually impossible for a normal scene. What this shows is that our perceptual experience presents what we perceive as mind independent objects. That doesn’t prove that we perceive mind independent objects, but it does make such a claim highly intuitive

Question 6

Indirect realism

Answer 6

We do not perceive physical objects directly (indirectly), only through sense data. However, they are mind independent

Question 7

Sense data

Answer 7

Sense data are mental images or representations of what is perceived, * the content of perceptual experience *. If sense data exist, they are the immediate objects of perception and are private, mind dependent mental things

Question 8

scepticism about the existence of the external world (counter for indirect realism) + reply

Answer 8

Russell in the problems of philosophy chapter 2 argues that if what we perceive directly are sense data, then all that we know about are sense data. We believe that behind the sense data there are real physical objects and that these cause our sense data. But how can we know this? To know that physical objects cause sense data we must first know whether they exist. But the only access we have to physical objects is through our sense data.

Although Russell doesn’t comment on this, his line of thought form a objection to indirect realism. Because we directly perceive sense data, we cannot know that a world of physical objects - a world external to and independent of our minds - exist. Scepticism is the view that we cannot know, or cannot show that we know, a particular claim, in this case the claim that physical objects exist. Indirect realism leads to scepticism about the existence of the external world.

Reply:
1) The fact that sense data are private means that no two people actually ever perceive the same thing. They have similar sense data if they are at the same place and time. The best explanation of this is that there are physical objects causing their sense data.
This arguments however is rejected by Russell as it assumes something we can’t know: that there are other people, and that they have sense data, and that their sense data are similar to mine. To assume that there are other people is to assume that there are physical objects, since people are physical objects.

2)
1. Either physical objects exist and cause my sense data or physical objects do not exist nor cause my sense data
2. I can’t prove either claim is true
3. Therefore, I have to treat them as hypothesis
4. The hypothesis that physical objects exist and cause my sense data is better
5. Therefore, physical objects exist and cause my sense data

Question 9

Scepticism

Answer 9

The view that we can not know, or cannot show that we know, a particular claim.

Question 10

Russell’s cat argument (supporting argument for indirect realism replies)

Answer 10

If I see a cat first in a corner of the room and then later on the sofa, then if the cat is a physical object, it travelled from the corner to the sofa when I wasn’t looking. If there is no cat apart from what I see in my sense data, then the cat does not exist when I do not see it. so the hypothesis that there is a physical object, the cat, that causes what I see is the best explanation of my sense data

Question 11

Scepticism about the nature of the external world (counter for indirect realism)

Answer 11

We have assumed so far that in talking about the external world, we are talking about physical objects. But even if we can show that our sense data are caused by something that exists independent of our minds, can we establish what kind of thing that cause is? We can’t tell what a cause is like just from its effects. For example when u see smoke do you know that fire caused it?

Question 12

Locke’s primary and secondary qualities (reply to scepticism about the nature of the external world)

Answer 12

Primary qualities are qualities that are ‘utterly inseparable’ from the object whatever changes it goes through, even if it is divided into smaller pieces. They are shape, motion, number and solidarity.
Secondary qualities are qualities that physical objects have that are nothing but powers to produce various sensations in us. They are colours, sound and taste
The distinction between the qualities is what the quality actually has in themselves and what is related to how they are perceived.

Question 13

Berkeley’s idealism

Answer 13

The immediate objects of perception are mind dependent objects

1) thorough vision, we perceive colours, shapes, size etc; through hearing, sounds; through smell, odours - and so on. Each sense perceived particular types of qualities
2) when we perceive physical objects, we don’t perceive anything in addition to its primary and secondary qualities
3) therefore, everything we perceive is either a primary or a secondary quality
4) both primary and secondary qualities are mind dependent
5) therefore, nothing that we perforce exists independently of the mind: the objects of perception are entirely mind dependent.

Question 14

Berkeley’s master argument (supporting argument for idealism) and reply

Answer 14

Philonous challenges hylas to think of an object that exists outside of the mind. Hylas then says he is thinking of a tree existing unperceived by anyone. Philonous objects and says what he is thinking depends on his mind. He isn’t actually thinking of a tree exists independently of any mind, he is imaging a tree standing in a solitary place where no one perceives it.

Reply:

1) thoughts cannot exist outside of the mind - thoughts are psychological events or states
2) therefore, my thinking of a tree is not mind independent. It is impossible is that there is a thought of a tree when no one is thinking of a tree
3) but what a thought is about, is not the same thing as the thought itself
4) therefore, just because my thinking of a tree is mind-dependent, it does not follow that what I am thinking of is also mind dependent. It is not impossible to think that a tree may exist when no one is thinking of it

Question 15

Idealism does not give an adequate account of illusions and hallucinations (counter for idealism) + reply

Answer 15

Berkeley discusses these, in the form of dreams on page 45. Hallucinations are products of imagination. Normally, imagination is voluntary and perception is not. But hallucinations are involuntary, so Berkeley provides two criteria that mark off hallucinations from perception.
First, they are ‘dim, irregular, and confused’. Second, even if they were as ‘vivid and clear’ as perceptions, they are not coherently connected with try rest of our perceptual experience.

To this we might object that these criteria mark a difference of degree - perceptual experiences can be more or less clear or dim, more or less coherently connected with other experiences. But surely the different between hallucination and perception is a different kind. In perception, you experience something that exists outside your mind, in hallucination, you don’t.

In response, Berkeley could agree - the ideas you perceive originally in God, but in hallucination they don’t. His criteria are only supposed to indicate how we can tell.

Question 16

Solipsism

Answer 16

This is the view that only oneself, one’s mind, exists.

Question 17

Idealism leads to solipsism (counter argument for idealism and reply)

Answer 17

We can object that Berkeley’s four arguments against mind independent objects - starting from the claim that everything I perceive is mind dependent - lead to the conclusion that all that exists is my own experience. Or at least, experience gives no reason to believe that anything apart from my experience exists. * If all the I perceive are ideas, what reason do I have to think that other minds exist? For that matter, what reason do I have to think that mind exist? After all I do not perceive minds.

Reply from Berkeley:

1) the mind is that which perceives, thinks and wills, while ideas are passive
2) I am aware of myself as capable of this activity
3) therefore, I am not my ideas, but a mind
4) being a mind myself, I have a ‘notion’ of what a mind is
5) therefore, it is possible that other minds exist
6) my perceptions don’t originate in my mind
7) therefore, they are caused by some other mind
8) the complexity, regularity, etc, of my experience indicates that this mind is God

Question 18

Acquaintance knowledge

Answer 18

This is knowledge of someone of some place. For example, I know Oxford well.

Question 19

Ability knowledge

Answer 19

Knowing how to do something.

For example, knowing how to ride a bike

Question 20

Propositional knowledge (what the course focuses on)

Answer 20

Knowledge that a claim (proposition) is true or false

Question 21

The tripartite view

Answer 21

Claims that knowledge is justified, true belief and these are necessary and sufficient.

Question 22

Justification is not necessary condition of knowledge (counter for jtb)

Answer 22

Why think that justification is necessary for knowledge? Could knowledge be true belief?for example, someone on a jury might think that the person on trial is Guilty just from the way they dress. Their belief, that the person is guilty, might be true; but how someone dressed isn’t evidence for whether they are a criminal!
Or again true beliefs can just be lucky. For example, there is a lot of evidence that astrology does not make accurate predictions, and my horoscope has often been wrong. Suppose on one occasion it’s not. Do I know it was right?

In Both examples it is counter intuitive to Sarah the belief counts as knowledge, because the person has no reason, no evidenced or no justification for the belief.

Reply: this does not look like knowledge sometimes we use word know just to mean believe truly without justification.

Question 23

Truth is not a necessary condition of knowledge (counter for jtb)

Answer 23

Could knowledge simply be justified belief? There are two very different possibilities here. First, perhaps we can know what is false. Second, perhaps we shouldn’t talk about truth or falsehood at all.
For example, someone can claim that flamingos are grey, and think that they know this. But they are mistaken, flamingos are not grey, but pink. Of course, they believe flamingos are grey. But belief can be false, and if they are, then they are not knowledge. You can’t know something false.
Or when everybody used to believe the earth is flat. It does, after all, look that way. Should we say that people used to know that the earth is flat? Or should we say that they didn’t know it, they only believed it?

Question 24

Kuhn’s paradigm shifts (supporting arg for do u need truth?)

Answer 24

He argues that science repeatedly involved large shifts in thought like is the world is round or not (truth arg). When this happens Kuhn claims, we cannot compare the two paradigms in such a way as to say that one is true and the other is false, because ‘paradigm shifts’ involve changes in the concepts that we use to understand and explain reality. And there is not just one right set of concepts that matches reality.

Reply: do paradigm shifts happen?

Question 25

Belief is not a necessary condition of knowledge?

Answer 25

There are two strengths of the objection that belief is not necessary for knowledge. The weak objection is that sometimes it is possible to know something without believing it. The strong objection is that knowledge is never a form of belief.

Weak: suppose john is sitting in an exam, but he is very nervous and has no confidence in his answers. Suppose when answering ‘which philosopher wrote the meditations’ he writes ‘Descartes’. He’s right, and the answer isn’t a lucky guess - he remembers it from class. So it is plausible to say that john knows the answer, he knows more than he thinks - he’s just unconfident. But because he’s unconfident, we should say hay john doesn’t believe that the answer is Descartes. So he knows the answer without believing it.
Reply: we can say that john doesn’t know the answer as he can’t justify his reason for giving it.

Strong: knowledge is not a subset of belief, knowledge is something else all together. In the same way that perception and hallucination look the same but are all fundamentally different. Williamson concludes this argument by saying that knowing is unanalysable .

Question 26

Another counter argument for jtb - knowledge is not a form of belief

Answer 26

Timothy Williamson argues that knowledge is not a form of belief. Either you believe something or you know it; but you don’t know something by believed it

Knowledge is the same. You can only know that p if on is true. Belief, by contrast, is mental state that can be true or false - you can have a belief that p whatever the world is like.

Question 27

Gettier’s argument (it’s own argument but also a counter for jtb)

Answer 27

Justified true belief is not knowledge. He starts by claiming that deducted argument preserved justification.

Smith and Jones are applying for the same job. Smith has excellent reason to believe that Jones will get the job e.g smith has been told this by the employer. Smith also has excelled reason to believe that Jones has ten coins in his pocket e.g smith has just counted them. Therefore, both of these beliefs are justified. Smith then puts the two beliefs together and deduced that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. This belief is justified, because it is inferred deductively from justified beliefs. It turns out tho that Jones doesn’t get the job, smith does. It also so happens that, unknown to him, smith also has ten coins in his pocket. So smiths belief that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket is true.
Smiths beliefs is both true and justified, but we shouldn’t say that smith knows that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith inferred his belief from a false belief, namely that Jones would get the job. So the reason smith has for his belief is false. What makes his belief true has come apart from what justifies belief. There is no connection between what justifies his believed and his beliefs being true.

Question 28

Deductive argument

Answer 28

If the premise is true then the conclusion must be true.

Can be unsound or invalid if conclusion is wrong or premise false

Question 29

Inductive argument

Answer 29

An argument whose conclusion is supported by its premises. If the premise are true, the conclusion is likely to be true, but it is still possible that it is false.

Question 30

Fix attempt for gettier problem - no false lemma condition

Answer 30

Adding an extra condition to true believe and justification

you know that p if

1) p is true
2) you believe that p
3) your belief that p is justified
4) you did not infer that p from anything false

A lemma is a claim part way through the argument

In the example ‘Jones will get the job’ is a lemma.

A possible reply:
Deals with the ten coins. Jones will get the job is a false lemma but this fix has its own problem in ferried cases that have no false lemmas. For example, the barn county example by Goldman. There are lots of fake barns, but they have been built so that they look just like real barns when seen from the road. As he drives along, Henry often thinks ‘there’s a barn’, or ‘hey, there’s another barn.’ These beliefs don’t count as knowledge because they are false. But just once, Henry thinks ‘there’s a barn’ when looking at the one and only real barn in the area. This belief is true. And it is justified. But it is not knowledge as it is luck that Henry’s belief is true in this instance.
Henry hasn’t inferred that there is a barn from something false. forming beliefs from perception isn’t a matter of inference - we simply believe what we see. None of the claims are false.

Question 31

Infallibilism

Answer 31

Argues that perhaps smith is not justified or not enough to ensure knowledge. If so then his deduction will not be justified enough either.

Infallibilism argues that knowledge is certain. Only certainly can provide the degree of justification needed to turn belief into knowledge. We can either say that a belief is not justified if it is not certain or that it is not sufficiently justified to count as knowledge of it is not certain.

Key point: the implication is that gettier cases show that our beliefs are rarely sufficiently justified to count as knowledge.

Reply: deals with gettier cases but at a too high price - that we know next to nothing.

Question 32

Reliabilism (fix attempt for gettier)

Answer 32

It rejects he idea that knowledge requires justification.

It claims that you know that p if

1) p is true
2) you believe that p
3) your belief is caused by a reliable cognitive process

A reliable cognitive process is just one that produces a high percentage of true beliefs.

Reply:
It doesn’t work for barn country. We said that Henry doesn’t know he is looking at the one real barn when he looks at it. But reliability says he does. One solution is to make reliability more complex. In normal situations, Henry can discriminate between barns and things that aren’t barns just fine, so he knows a barn when he sees one. But he can’t do this in barn country.

Question 33

Virtue epistemology (a form of reliabilism) (fix for gettier problem)

Answer 33

The idea of virtue links to intellectual virtue.

It claims that you know that p if
P is true
You believe that p
Your true belief is a result of you exercising your intellectual virtues.

Question 34

Knowledge empiricism

Answer 34

is the claim that all synthetic knowledge is a posteriori, while all a priori knowledge is analytic.

Question 35

What is analytic and synthetic

Answer 35

The contrast between analytic and synthetic proportions is a contrast between types of proposition. A proposition is analytic it is true or false just in virtue of the meanings of the words. Many analytic truths, such as ‘squares have four sides’.
A proposition is synthetic if it is not analytic I.e it is true or false not just in virtue of the meanings of the words, but in virtue of the way the world is

Question 36

What is a priori and a posteriori

Answer 36

The contrast is between types of knowledge. It concerns how we know whether a proposition is true. You have a priori knowledge of a proposition if you do not require (sense) experience to know it to be true. An example is, ‘bachelors are unmarried’. If you understand what the proposition means, then you can see straightaway that it must be true.

Propositions that can only be established through experience are a posteriori. An example is ‘there are more than 6 billion people on the earth’.

Question 37

Empiricism

Answer 37

Claims that knowledge of synthetic propositions is a posteriori, while all a priori knowledge is of analytic propositions. Anything that we know that’s is not true by definition or logic alone, we must learn and test through our senses.

Question 38

Rationalism

Answer 38

They deny the empiricist view and argue that there is some a priori knowledge of synthetic propositions, either because this knowledge is innate or because we can gain such knowledge using reason rather than sense experience.

• innate ideas
• intuitions and deductive thesis

Question 39

Hume’s fork (supporting argument for empiricism)

Answer 39

Hume defends knowledge empiricism, arguing that we can have knowledge of just two sorts of claims: the relations between ideas and matters of fact. He uses two related criteria to make the distinction, though it is easier to grasp what he means by taking them in a different order:

1) relations of ideas ‘can be discovered purely by thinking, with no need to attend to anything that actually exists anywhere in the universe’. Matters of fact, by contrast, are propositions ‘about what exists and what is the case’
2) relations of ideas are statements that are ‘either intuitively or demonstratively certain’. Hume gives the example of 3x5=30/2 - a statement about the relations of numbers. Relations of ideas that are demonstratively certain are known by deduction. Matters of fact are not known deduction. But any claim that can be shown to be false by deduction implies a contradiction

Counter: the second point needs explanation contradiction asserts and denies something. A true analytic proposition cannot be denied without contradiction. To say that Vixen are not foxes is a contradiction of terms; it is to say that female foxes are not foxes.

Question 40

Knowledge innatism: Plato geometry (counter for empiricism and reply)

Answer 40

Knowledge innatism argues that there is at least some innate knowledge. Things in the mind from birth rather than gained from experience (a priori)

Plato’s dialogue meno covers this.
Plato argues that learning is a form of remembering. He demonstrated this by asking meno’s slave boy a series of questions about a theorem in geometry.
Socrates draws a square in the ground that is 2 feet by 2 feet, it’s total area is therefore 4 square feet. How long are the sides of a square with a goal area of 8 square feet? The slave boy has not been taught geometry, and yet is still about to answer each stage of the proof. How? He didn’t gain the knowledge from experience so he must have known it innately. Socrates has simply triggered this memory he had known before birth, but had forgotten.

Reply: Locke argues that we have no innate knowledge.

1) if there is innate knowledge, it is universal
2) for an idea to be part of the mind, the mind (the person) must know or be conscious of it.
3) therefore innate knowledge is knowledge that every human being is or has been conscious of
4) children and ‘idiots’ do not know theorems in geometry.
5) therefore these claims are not innate
6) there are no claims that are universally accepted, including by children and idiots
7) therefore there is no innate knowledge

Question 41

Leibiz argument for knowledge innatism (counter for empiricism and reply)

Answer 41

He wrote his ‘new essays’ as a commentary on and in response to Locke.

1) we can know thing without being conscious of them. Locke is wrong to claim that an ideas can only be in the mind is we are conscious of it
2) * there is an important distinction between necessary and contingent truth. Necessary truths are a priori, while ‘truths of fact’ are a posteriori
3) innate knowledge exists as ‘a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation’ in the mind towards developing, understanding and knowing certain thoughts’

Reply:
Alternative explanations
*The answer is the same as before: necessary truths are a priori but analytic. We squire the concepts involved from experience, and then in understanding the concept, we come to know the necessary truths.

Question 42

Necessary and contingent truths

Answer 42

To understand intuition and deductive thesis we must create the distinction between necessary and contingent truths.

A proposition that could be true or false is contingent. Of course it will be either true professed but the world could have been different. For example, it is true that you are reading an answer but you could have been doing something else.

A proposition is necessary if it must be true (if it is true), and must be false (if it is false). For example, mathematical problems are necessary. Likewise, analytic truths are necessary: if a proposing is true by definition, then it must be true.

Question 43

Descartes meditations III - clear and distinct ideas (counter for empiricism and reply)

Answer 43

Cognito - ‘I think’

Theory of rational intuition:
At the start of the meditations 3, Descartes reflects on the cognitive.
1) in this first item of knowledge there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting
2) if clarity and distinctness do not guarantee truth, then I cannot know that I exist
3) I do know that I exist
4) therefore, ‘as a general rule … Whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true’

Reply:
If Descartes’ deductions of the existence of himself fail, then he hadn’t shown that we have knowledge through a priori reasoning.

Question 44

Concept empiricism

Answer 44

The claim that all concepts are derived from experience.

Opposing this is the concept innatism, which claims that some of our concept are innate.

Question 45

Tabula rasa (supporting reason for concept empiricism and concept innatism)

Answer 45

Locke argues that at birth or before birth, our mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ (blank slate).
It contains no ideas - no thoughts or concepts. If you observe new born babies, Locke says, you’ll find no reason to disagree.
All our ideas, then, derive from one of two sources:
1) sensation: our experience of objects outside the mind, perceived through the senses. This gives us ideas of ‘sensible qualities’
2) reflection: our experience of ‘the internal operations of our minds’, gained through introspection or an awareness of what the mind is doing. This provides the ideas of perception, thinking, willing, and so on. These ideas may well arrive later in childhood

Question 46

Impressions and ideas (supporting reason for concept empiricism)

Answer 46

Hume - he divides perceptions into impressions and ideas whilst Locke divides ideas into sensation and reflection.

Hume argues that ideas are ‘faint copies’ of impressions.

Question 47

Simple and complex concepts (supporting argument for concept empiricism)

Answer 47

Locke argues that basic building blocks of all thought are simple ideas, or more precisely, simple impressions - single colours, single shapes, single smells and so on. For each, there is a corresponding simple idea. A simple impression or simple concept ‘contains nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind, and is not distinguishable into different ideas’

Hume says the same. All concepts must ultimately derive from experience. He the days the concept God, based on perfection and infinity, are derived from concepts of imperfections and finitude.

Reply: trademark argument.

Question 48

Concept innatism

Answer 48

Argues that some of our concepts are innate. This means that not all concepts are derived from experience; somehow part of the structure of the mind.

Question 49

Locke’s argument against innate concepts &reply

Answer 49

When Locke begins his attack on innate concepts, he has already discussed and rejected innate knowledge. ‘An essay concerning human understanding’

3 main reasons he rejects:

• 1) if we observe new born babes, we have no reason at all to think that they have any concepts beyond, perhaps, ones derived from experience in the womb, such as warmth and pain. Certainly, we can’t think that such advanced concepts as identity or impossibility add concepts babies are familiar with and conscious of
  2) another favourite of innatism is the concept of God. But not only is this not a concept that babies have, it is not a concept that all human beings have - whole societies, historically, have been atheist. The concept of God is not innate, but learned by children from their teachers.
  3) the only way a concept can be part of the mind without the mind being conscious of it is if it is lodged in memory. To remember something is to have been conscious of it in the past. If you aren’t remembering a concept, then it is new to your mind - arising from some impression of sensation or reflection. Innate ideas would have to be neither remembered nor new. How could there be such a thing

Reply:
(They reject his claim that it is impossible for concepts to exist ‘in the mind’ unless we are or have been conscious of them. Innate concepts are concepts which cannot be gained from experience, and arguments defending innatism try to show that experience cannot explain how we have or use the concept. )

the fact that babies don’t believe in God is not a problem for the trigger theory because experience is need to trigger the concept

Question 50

Trigger theory by Carruthers (supporting argument for concept innatism)

Answer 50

Experience alone cannot explain how certain concepts come into our mind - we seem to have a predisposition to form certain concepts (God) which we cannot have formed just from experience.

Use counter argument 1 from Locke about whole societies being atheist

Question 51

Plato on universals (supporting argument for concept innatism and reply)

Answer 51

Plato provides an argument for the claim that very many concepts are innates. How do we acquire concepts of universals? If we only ever experience this particular beautiful thing or that particular beautiful thing, we never experience beauty itself.
Furthermore, our concept of beauty is a concept of a kind of perfection. But everything that we experience through our senses is imperfect. Nothing is perfectly beautiful - it is always not beautiful in some way or at some time. So how could we have derived the concept of beauty from experience?

Reply/counter: Locke and home can reply that they are derived by abstraction from experience. They can argue, for example, that the concept beauty is likewise an abstraction from what beautiful things have in common.

Question 52

Descartes problem of wax (supporting arg for concept innatism & counter)

Answer 52

1) when u melt a piece of wax, it loses all of its original sensory qualities (the particular taste, smell, feel and shape it had)
2) yet I believe it is the same wax
3) therefore, what I think is the wax is not its sensory qualities
4) what I think is the wax is not its sensory qualities
5) this is a body, something that is extended - I.e. Had size and shape and takes up space - and changeable, I.e. Its sensory and spatial properties can change
6) I know that the wax can undergo far more possible changes, including changes in its extension, that I can imagine
7) therefore, my concept of the wax as extended and changeable does not drive from my imagination
8) therefore, I ‘perceive’ the wax as what it is by my mind alone
9) only this thought of the wax, and not the perceptual experience of it, is clear and distinct.

Put simply: when you melt a bit of wax it changes completely, yet we believe it is the same substance. Why? Because I have an innate idea (clear and distinct) beyond my experience that the wax has extended and changed. Descartes is claiming that our concept of physical object does not derive from sense experience therefore it is innate.

Counter: the could argue that the concept of extension is a primary quality and must derive from our sense experience, both vision and touch.

Question 53

Descartes trademark argument (supporting argument for concept innatism and counter)

Answer 53

In the trademark argument, Descartes tries to prove that God exists just from the fact that we have a concept of God. This concept, which he argues is innate, is like a trademark that our creator has stamped on our minds.

1) I have a concept of God
2) that concept is of an infinite and perfect being
3) I am finite
4) therefore the idea of God is greater than my mind
5) the cause of the concept must have as much reality as the concept does, therefore God must have put it there

Counter:
Empiricists can argue that we can form the idea of God from experience by abstraction and negation. We are familiar with things - such as ourselves - being finite and imperfect, so we can form the concepts of not finite and not imperfect.

Reply:
Descartes rejects this proposal. The idea of imperfection or lack depends upon an idea of perfection; we can’t recognise that we are imperfect unless we have an ideas of perfection with which to compare ourselves.