Intuition And Deduction Flashcards
Intuition
The ability to know something is true just by thinking about it
Deduction
A method of deriving true propositions from other true propositions, a process of reason
Clear and distinct ideas
- distinct means they’re different from other ideas
- clear -> ‘shine brightly’ in our minds, make a powerful impact on us intuitively
- an idea is distinct if its clear
- ‘not open to any doubt’ means they are logically impossible to doubt, if any idea can be found that is necessarily true then it must be true
Descartes cogito
“I think, therefore, I am”
- cant doubt that you’re a thinking being, as soon as you doubt you’re thinking
- obviously, there must be something doing the doubting
- is a priori because its independent of experience
PROOF OF EXTERNAL WORLD: trademark argument
- the cause is always bigger than the effect
- effective of objective reality from a cause of intrinsic reality
P1. I have the concept of God
P2. The concept of God is a concept of something infinite and perfect
P3. As a mind, i can create many ideas including those of people and physical objects
P4. Yet i am finite, whilst God is a concept of something infinite
C1. Therefore, it is a concept of something that has more reality than does my own mind
P5. The causes of the concept of God must have as much reality as that of which it is the concept
C2. Therefore my mind could not have created it
P6. The only possible cause is God
C3. Therefore God exists
Cosmological argument
- must be caused by something
1. if I caused by own existence i would’ve given myself all perfections
2. I depend on something else to exist
3. I am a thinking thing and have an idea of God
4. Whatever caused me to exist must also be a thinking thing that has the idea of God
5. Whatever caused me to exist must either be the cause of its own existence or caused by something else
6. If it was caused by something else then this must also be its own cause or caused by something else
7. There cant be an infinite chain of causes
8. Must be something that caused its own existence
9. God
Ontological argument
- claims we can deduce the existence of God from the concept of God
P1. I have the idea of God
P2. The idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect being
P3. A supremely perfect being doesn’t lack any perfection
P4. Existence is perfection
C1. God exists
Proof of the external world: what is he trying to do?
- descartes argues we cannot know from perception that physical objects exist
- we can knowing that are having sensory experiences, but those experiences do not provide us with knowledge that their causes are physical objects
- need to understand the concept of a physical objects, what is a coherent concept > contradictory one, its possible that physical objects exist and argue we know what they can do
Proof of external worlds existence
- I have perceptions of an external world with physical objects
- My perceptions cannot be caused by my own mind because they are involuntary
- So the cause of my perceptions must be something external to my mind
- God exists
- If the cause of my perceptions is God and not the physical objects themselves, then God has created me with a tendency to form false beliefs from my perception
- But God is a perfect being by definition and so would not create me with a tendency to form false beliefs from my perceptions
- So i can trust my perceptions
Hume’s fork as an empiricist response - generally -
- only two kinds of knowledge; relations of ideas (analytic propositions) or matters of fact (synthetic knowledge)
- hume claims that a priori knowledge (relations of ideas) is analytic and that all knowledge of synthetic propositions (matters of fact) is a posteriori
- all of our ‘matters of fact’ are based on our current experience, memory or causal inference
- ^ causal inference is also based on past experience
- cant know what causes what by a priori reasoning or deduction
Empiricist response to Descartes cogito
- empiricists deny that descartes is a thinking thing
- simply a succession of thoughts with nothing persisting from one to another
- experiences doesn’t support the concept of mental substance or mind
- we experience a constantly changing string of thoughts, emotions and feelings but we do not experience an identical self that has them
- descartes responds and says that logically, thoughts require a thinker
- hume accepts this but maintains that it still doesn’t establish i am the one and same ‘mental substance’
Empiricist response to Descartes trademark argument
- the concept of God is not innate
- challenge trademark by rejecting the first premise
- if the concept of God comes from experience then Descartes argument is not entirely a priori and fails to establish rationalism
Empiricist response to Descartes cosmological arguments
- we cant know from experience that everything has a cause
- its possible descartes is uncaused
- we cant know from experience that a cause must have at least as much reality as its effect
- we dont know that an infinity of causes is impossible -> argue infinite regress
Empiricist response to descartes ontological argument
P1. Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction
P2. Whatever we conceive as existence, we can also conceive as non existence
C1. Therefore, there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction
-> from Humes fork
Empiricist responses to Descartes proof of external world
- didnt get here through a priori, got here through sense experience
- HUME: we cannot know a priori that our perceptual experiences have a cause
- BERKELY: only believe in what he sees directly without exceptions
