L 01 Flashcards by P -

First modern dualist

Rene Descartes

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there is no proof that any state of
consciousness is the cause of change in the motion of
the matter of the organism

Epiphenomenalism

Thomas Huxley

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If
epiphenomenalism is true, “then practically everything I
believe about anything is false and it’s the end of the
world

Against epiphenomenalism

Jerry Fodor

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Cogito ergo sum

Rene Descartes

First modern dualist

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Esse est percipi

George Berkeley

Irish Bishop
Subjective idealism

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God as the ultimate perceiver

George Berkeley

Subjective idealism
Esse est percipi

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I refute it thus and kicked a rock

James Bosely to Samuel Johnson

Matter exists; in repsonse to George Berkeley’s subjective idealism

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Everything that living things do
can be understood in terms of
the jiggling and wiggling of
atoms…

Richard Feynman

Physicalism or Materialism

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Men ought to know that from the
brain and from the brain only arise our
pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well
as our sorrows, pains, grieves and tears

Hippocrates

450-350 Century BC
Physicalism/Materialism

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People who are in support of Physicalism

Thomas Hobbes
Julien Offray de la Mettrie
Hippocrates
Richard Feynman

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Not only
are animals just mechanisms or
machines, so are we - going beyond Descartes

Thomas Hobbes

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We are soulless biological machines

Julien Offray de la Mettrie

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A proponent of neutral monism

Baruch Spinoza

Also called Dual aspectism
Might lead to pan-psychism

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There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has
said it.

Cicero

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Concepts like
“straight line”/“triangle” can’t come
from experience alone, as we never
encounter perfect exemplars of
these things in nature

Plato

on Platonic forms as evidence for rationalism

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Roots of rationalism

Plato

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There is
nothing in the intellect that is not
present first in the senses.

Aristotle

Argument for empiricism

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Roots of empiricism

Aristotle

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The true ideas which are
innate in me, of which the first and
most important is the idea of God

Descartes

God’s perfection as argument for rationalism
First modern rationalist

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Does the same wax remain after this change? We must
confess that it remains; none would judge otherwise. What then
did I know so distinctly in this piece of wax?

Descartes

Basis of knowledge is innate reason
First modern rationalist

Essays concerning Human Understanding

John Locke

A modern empiricist

Tabula rasa

John Locke

Modern empiricist

is filled with
1. Combination
2. Relating
3. Generalization

Who said the mind had innate components of appetite, memory, and imagination but no specific innate components?

John Locke

Tabula rasa
Modern empiricist

Nothing is in the mind that has not
been in the senses…
except the mind itself

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Modern rationalist number 2

Marble carving thing- experience brings out innate dispositions and tendencies

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Modern rationalist number 2

New Essays on Human Understanding

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Modern ratonalist number 2 Nothing in the mind that hasnt been in the senses except the mind itself Marble carving to bring out natural dispositions and tendencies

“If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

David Hume Hume's fork Knowledge must be either about the relations of ideas or fact

Perception as impressions and ideas

David Hume

All thoughts are sensations (inward sentiment) or reflection (outward sentiment)

David Hume

The ultimate sceptic

David Hume We have no proof for 1. matter beyond sensory impressions 2. cause and effect 3. validity of induction 4. unitary concept of self 5. religious claims and concepts

There is no idea in metaphysics more obscure or uncertain than necessary connection between cause and effect. This connection, which we feel in the mind, this customary and habitual transition of the imagination from a cause to its effect, is the impression from which we form the idea of necessary connection.

David Hume on our having no proof on cause and effect

In all reasonings from experience, then, there is a step taken by the mind (that the future resembles the past) which is not supported by any argument.

David Hume saying that inductive reasoning is not supported by proof

I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions.

David Hume saying that we don't have proof of a unitary concept of self

Hume awoke whom from his dogmatic slumber

Immanuel Kant

Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant

Knowledge of the world comes from experiences. Buy experience assumes certain knowledge because the mind structures it so.

Immanuel Kant

A priori vs A posteriori knowledge

Previously established concept to distinguish between rationalists and empiricists

Analytic vs synthetic knowledge

Immanuel Kant Analytic: predicate is contained within the subject Synthetic: predicate is not contained within the subject

Synthetic a priori knowledge

Immanuel Kant Knowledge not gained from experience but not merely tautological 1. Space 2. Time 3. Causation

Kant on empiricism

Not a complete theory because it cannot account for synthetic a priori knowledge Analytic a priori is tautological

Mental categories: mind innately designed to structure experience in certain unchangeable way

Immanuel Kant Quantity: unity, plurality, totality Quality: affirmation, negation, limitation Relation: substance-accident, cause-effect, causal reciprocity Modality: possibility, actuality, necessity

Transcendental or Critical idealism

Immanuel Kant Mental categories don't exist beyond the mind itself Phenomenal realm: what is true of the thing to me Noumenal realm: external reality

Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Steven Pinker Blank slate view is not true; genes matter too 1. Behavioural genetics (twin studies - differences) say that ALL psychological traits are partly heritable 2. Evolutionary psychology (similarities between people)

Forget as the twig is bent, think Omigod I'm turning into my parents

Steven Pinker Some traits like intelligence gets more heritable with age; adopted kids aren't much more related than random non-relatives; identical twins growing together or apart are similar

Sage of Könisberg

Immanuel Kant

The tabula of human nature was never rasa and it is now being read.

Willaim Hamilton

Though the 20th century saw horrific genocides inspired by Nazi pseudoscience about genetics and race, it also saw horrific genocides inspired by Marxist pseudoscience about the malleability of human nature. The real threat to humanity comes from totalizing ideologies and the denial of human rights, rather than a curiosity about nature and nurture.

Steven Pinker

Innate mathematical faculty

Stanislas Dehaene