Human Nature

Question 1

Plato’s Rationalism

Answer 1

He believed that the physical world we perceive through our senses is merely an imperfect reflection of these Forms. True knowledge comes from grasping the Forms through reason and philosophical contemplation, not from sensory experience.

Question 2

Realm of forms

Answer 2

Plato argued that through intellectual engagement and reasoning, humans can access the realm of Forms - the perfect, abstract concepts or ideals that represent true reality.

Question 3

Allegory of the cave

Answer 3

The allegory of the cave illustrates how reason allows us to transcend the limited world of appearances and gain conceptual, abstract understanding of reality.

Question 4

Descartes’ Rationalism

Answer 4

Descartes used reason and radical doubt to arrive at the foundational truth “I think, therefore I am” - establishing the existence of the self through pure thought alone

Question 5

Descartes belief

Answer 5

He believed that through reason and deduction from clear and distinct innate ideas, we can gain certain knowledge about the nature of reality, including the existence of God

Question 6

Descartes human mind

Answer 6

Descartes saw reason as a faculty that gives the human mind access to timeless, conceptual truths about the world, independent of sensory experience.

Question 7

Empiricism

Answer 7

holds that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience. Empiricists like John Locke and David Hume argued that the mind is originally a (tabula rasa) and that ideas and knowledge come solely from observations of the external world through the senses

Question 8

Rationalism

Answer 8

Rationalism, on the other hand, maintains that reason is the primary and most reliable source of knowledge. Rationalists like Descartes believed that the mind is born with innate ideas and that we can attain knowledge through pure reason and deduction, independent of sensory experience.

Question 9

Kant’s Transcendental Idealism

Answer 9

Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and empiricism through his doctrine of transcendental idealism. He argued that the mind imposes certain innate structures (time, space, causality) on experience, but that empirical input is also necessary for knowledge.

Question 10

Analytic vs. Synthetic

Answer 10

Analytic statements are true by definition (e.g. bachelors are unmarried).

Synthetic statements make claims about the world that go beyond the meaning of the terms (e.g. all bachelors are unhappy).

Question 11

A Priori vs. A Posteriori

Answer 11

A priori means “from the former” - knowledge independent of experience.

A posteriori means “from the latter” - knowledge derived from experience.

Question 12

Synthetic A Priori

Answer 12

For Kant, some synthetic judgments like mathematical and scientific truths are known a priori, independent of experience.

These are possible because the mind actively structures sensory input.

Question 13

Kant on Human Nature

Answer 13

Kant argued that the mind has innate capacities (time, space, causality) that allow it to organize and make sense of experience.

These mental structures are part of our rational human nature.