Lecture 2 Flashcards
What happened in Europe in 1500 before and after the protestant revolution
Europe in 1500 was very fragmented. There were empires to the east and it contained many states. However, all were Catholic, and this is what held them together.
BUT in the 16th century, there was the protestant revolution. This involved the springing up of many churches and the Catholic church was attacked from within. Suddenly, there were many critiques of catholic dogma. This led to serious dissent and wars. 10% of Europe died in these wars.
What was the st valentines day massacre?
There were many massacres. The Saint Bartholomew’s massacre was done after Henry III of France tried to marry. He was protestant, she catholic. This would put a protestant on the throne of France (even though he had to convert to take the throne). Tens of thousands of protestants gathered in Paris to celebrate. They were massacres, 10-30 thousand people died. It was all premeditated. This increased anger in protestant circles.
What was research used to do before the massacre?
What replaced this research afterwards?
Before this, research was used to prove that Christianity was true. The belief was that if a reasonable person can talk to another reasonable person, they can use reason to convince them that Christianity is right, After the wars and during this period, people began to see that reason will not settle dissent or disagreement on core Christian dogma and hence, faith and not reason must be the primary guide on religious matters. This was called 16th Century Scepticism.
How did the religious wars channge the focus of philosphy in the 16-18 century?
This was the backdrop to 16th, 17th and 18th century philosophy. The idea was that there must be a better way to resolve things than blind faith and endless war. Epistemology becomes the main focus of philosophy: i.e., how can we know things for sure?
The Scientific Revolution of the 17th Century: Geocentric to Heliocentric
At the start of the renaissance was the geocentric model of the universe; the universe revolves around the earth. This comes from Ptolemy (100-170). This model requires epicycles (cycles within cycles) to account for the nonlinear movements of wandering stars (planets) that were observed.
In the 16th Century, concerns grew that the Julien calendar was getting out of phase – one day was missed every 134 years, and the calendar was now 11 days out of whack. This was fixed by skipping 11 days between Oct 4th 1582 and October 15th 1582 and adopting the new Gregorian calendar. For this, a lot of work was done to make it accurate. One person involved was polis h astronomer Nicholas Copernicus.
While working on this, he observed that a heliocentric model was much more accurate. The Sun was the centre of the universe, the earth revolved around it once a year (instead of it orbiting the earth daily) and the earth span around its axis once per day. He waited until after his death to publish these results. Why?
• No real practical utility over Ptolemy’s model since both must use epicycles.
• If the earth moves and spins around its axis, why is it that when you throw a stone from a tower, it ends exactly at the bottom of the tower? (No concept of gravity yet)
• If the earth spins around its axis, why is it that objects are not flung from the surface?
• Wouldn’t’ the stars appear as closer/further away as the earth moves around the sun?
• Why does the moon orbit the earth and not the sun?
Because of these « flaws » Copernicus model wasn’t taken seriously
- Around 1600 Keppler (1571 – 1630) realizes he can get rid of the epicycles by using elliptical orbits but wasn’t taken seriously.
- Inspired by Dutch inventors, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) builds a telescope in 1609, and made several observations that seemed to confirm Copernicus model:
- The size of Mars and Venus increased and decreased in cycles, which is impossible if they orbit around the earth.
- Jupiter had four moons (not everything orbits around the earth)
- Venus had phases just like the moon (cannot be perfectly lit i.e. like a full moon, in geocentric model)
These were the first pieces of evidence for one model (heliocentric) over the other (Geocentric)
How did the catholic church respond to galileo
The catholic church was not impressed.
- 1616: His book is put at the Index of prohibited books
- In 1632, at the age of 68, he decides to publish his model in a novel where one character defends his heliocentric model. In this, the defender of the catholic position is called Simplicius (idiot) and so he was kind of asking for it
- After a trial, he was placed in house arrest in 1633.
The Catholic Church was being challenged by the Reformation and did not want to appear to look weak and hence, this was bad timing for a challenge. In another era, he likely would have been tolerated more.
Galileo had many allies within the Church and probably thought he could win such a conflict
Eventually, he was executed.
Bacon basic background
Bacon (1561-1626) - Empiricist
Is considered by many as the father of empiricism, he considered himself a philosopher as the term scientist was not coined until 1833 by William Whewell. Bacon was a career diplomat; his science was more of a hobby, and he argued strongly for public funding for science. He died of pneumonia due to his research at 65.
Bacon and religion
What did he think science could do and should be used for?
Bacon was a deeply religious man. He argued that God gave Adam and Eve a cultural mandate to exploit and make the best out of the world they can. At the time the wars everywhere were sin as he saw it. He felt that science could be redemptive.
Creation – Sin (16th century scepticism) – Redemption (maybe through science)
He believed that scholastic disputes and religious wars had distracted people from this mandate and his solution was science.
He believed that philosophy should not be the ancilla theologiea (used to prove the churches position) but should instead serve society. He dreamed of a utopia in which science had created a better society.
What did Bacon feel should guide knowledge?
However, he was religious: Knowledge is power, but it should be guided by true religion and right reason to be careful how we use it. And what knowledge could give power of nature’s processes? Knowledge about natures processes!
Did Bacon agree with Aristotle?
He DISAGREED with Aristotle’s epistemology as he felt the last step would lead to ¨improperly and hastily abstracted concepts¨. Instead, this should be done through induction based on observations, with the goal of predictions. In this way he was somewhat similar to Democritus, in that he was fairly mechanistic. His book was called the norman organum (the new method).
Outline Bacon’s epistemology
Bacon’s epistemology
• Quite like Galileo
• One must use observations but carefully
• You put these observations into tables
• E.g. – to prove when C is there, so is Y
• Using the table of presence, when one is there, the other is there
• The table of absence, when one is absent, the other is absent
• The table of varying degrees, when one is high the other is high (and vice versa)
• In reality this is correlations, but he did not have the statistics for that
Did Bacon think his epistemology was the best?
He knows that this is not the end or the ultimate solution for epistemology. He imagines that this will advance over time. This was his epistemology as it was during his lifetime. No maths, no hypotheses, just observations (and maybe covariance).
Do we still use Bacon’s epistemology?
We still do this now with big data. Often, we have no hypothesis but just observe trends based on massive amounts of data. Is a bit like the cyclical theory of history.
Descartes background
Was a French philosopher who lived in the Netherlands. Believed that maybe all scientific questions could be answered by one man. Disagreed with previous epistemological positions.
Descartes:
Pre-emptive skepticism
What was he trying to do?
What did this lead him to?
Pre-emptive scepticism and “I think therefore I am”
Pre-emptive scepticism is the idea that the new method has to be able to present arguments that can be defended from scepticism. He imagined this as if there were an all-powerful, malignant spirit trying to fool him in any way it could. Effectively, he wanted to know of there was something so fundamentally true that this spirit could not possibly lead him astray i.e., so true that he could not doubt it.
He realised that malignant spirits could confound his senses and so these are unreliable. He examined all his thoughts with this scepticism in mind. He realised that he could not know for sure that he was awake as he could be asleep and dreaming. He kept doubting everything.
Eventually he realised that he cannot doubt that he was doubting as this is logically impossible. And from there he worked out that he could not doubt that he was thinking for the same reason (logically impossible). From this, he derived I think therefore I am.
What was Descartes epistemology (8 steps)?
His idea of an epistemology ran as follows:
- Doubting everything is good as you can be led astray by senses (hence, use reason and be rationalist)
- You cannot doubt that you are thinking because that doubt is a thought; I think therefore I am
- I can think of God
- But the lesser cannot give rise to the greater, so how can I, a mere human, think about God?
- The only answer is that this knowledge must have been put there by God himself and hence, God must in fact exist
- God is good and would not deceive him and so there is little to worry in terms of a malignant spirit or his effects
- Because God is good and would not deceive me, if I am a careful thinker, I can trust my conclusions
- When we arrive at conclusions through reason, we no longer need the active involvement of God (we can trust in this reason because God is good)
What was Descartes’ clockwork universe?
Clockwork universe
The Universe is one big space. He invented Cartesian coordinates. All of the properties of the universe that are not mass and space are mental.
God has created a self-perpetuating universe and does not have to look after his creation. Ion this way,
Descartes rejected the idea of an immaterial force beyond that of the human soul. This means things can be worked out mechanistically.
The material universe is made of material objects moving in space
Fior Descartes what is real in the universe and what are mental properties?
The material universe is made of material objects moving in space
All other properties are mental (colours, smell etc). All properties of the universe besides space and matter are mental properties and might not be true.
Descartes and the representational theory of knowledge
Why is this not an issue for Descartes?
Representational Theory of Knowledge
The mind looks at its internal ideas. There are two types of content. (1) acts like thinking/hoping etc and (2) Beliefs which is the content of our thoughts. E.g. (1) thinking about (2) Descartes.
These acts and beliefs should represent the external reality BUT we never truly observe the universe. We only indirectly observe it through our senses. And so, it is not clear how well we are actually doing this. Looking at mental content is like looking at the external world through distorted glass.
For Descartes, this still works because God is good and would not fool us. But the recognises that internal ideas represent external realities, they are not the realities themselves.
Descartes and mind body dualism
Mind-body dualism
Starts with the dissociation between Subject and Object – I can imagine myself in another body, but I cannot imagine myself without thinking. SO, there must be a difference between the two things (mind and body). In theory one could have a soul without a body or a body without a soul. The two substances do not have to interact.
The soul for Descartes stirred the body (it is analogous to free will) and only humans have souls. Before Descartes, thinkers said that souls give life to bodies (i.e. Aristotle). Descartes says bodies can live on their own without souls. In fact, animals all do this.
The issue with this is in humans, how do these two substances interact? Descartes chooses the pineal gland to be the site of interaction as it is just behind the optic chiasm. He does not explain how this works. Body res extensa, mind res cogitans.
He believes the soul is not just the pilot but totally inhabits the body. There is bi-directional information flow from soul to body and from body to soul.
Descartes: Free Will vs. emotion
Is there something in this theory that persists in psychotherapy?
(In reality in CBT)
Free will, emotion vs. reason.
In one direction – the soul (free will) causes action by transmitting information to the body. In the other, the soul passively receives information (passions) from the body.
Descartes believed there were animal spirits circulating in the body. These spirits caused passions of the soul: wonder, love, hatred etc. They influence the soul to will or want certain actions. But in the end the soul (free will) has to dominate. Passions can influence behaviour but for Descartes, the free will (soul) must dominate.
Psychotherapy usually acts to attempt top reinforce the mind to control passions.
Newton’s arrival
1st and 2nd law
Where did this leave math?
What was his impact on what was considered science?
Came immediately after Descartes and was a big influence. Much like Descartes he described the Universe mechanistically. Started from one of Galileo’s observations: the trajectory of a cannonball is a parabola.
- But what prevents the cannonball from leaving orbit?
- Came up with gravity; objects are attracted to one another as a function of their mass.
Formulation of the first laws of physics Principia Mathematica (1687):
Explains all movements of the universe with three laws and the postulate of gravitational force.
1st law « the law of inertia »: An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
2nd law: Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object).
3rd law: For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.
This put math at the heart of science hereafter. He comes to this conclusion in a way that is closed to Descartes than Bacon i.e., not via observations but rather via a postulate (gravity) and then uses observations to confirm this idea. This could be seen as an example of Descartes thinking carefully and arriving at an understanding of the universe. So, newton was perhaps more rationalist than empiricist.
By the end of Newton’s time, everyone is very impressed by what he has achieved and wants to use his method. From here on out, all want to use this scientific method.
Spinoza biography
Was a Jewish Dutch philosopher but shunned by Jewish society aged 23. His books were put into the index cos prevailing religions said God created the Universe and so must be separate from it. The Netherlands was really advanced in lens making and these were the principle scientific tool of the day. He was a lens grinder and died from lung disease at 44.
How did Spinoza explain god was everywhere?
What is Pantheism?
He was an Ultra Rationalist. He wrote his book Ethics with no rhetoric at all, purely logic. The book was entirely definitions > mathematical proof.
His main argument is that there is only one substance. This is because he defined God as infinite. If God is infinite, there is no space for anything else. If there were a separation between God and the Universe, there would have to be a point where God stopped, and His creation started. If God is infinite, this is impossible. There can be only one substance – nature is divine.
Comes up with something similar to dual-aspect monism. Mind and matter are just two names for different aspects of the same thing. Starts as a rationalist like Descartes but denies dualism. In religious terms this is called pantheism: the physical universe is equivalent to God and there is no division between the Creator and the subject of its Creation.
Explain Spinozas one substance, two modes
There is one substance but with two attributes. But these have two modes, finite and infinite.
1 – thought
Our own human thoughts are the finite mode of though
God is the infinite mode of the attribute of thought.
Encompasses all the thoughts in the universe. It is infinite.
2 – Extension
Human bodies are the finite mode of the attribute extension
Nature is the infinite mode
Everything is of the same substance. Our thoughts are not separate to God, out thoughts of God are actually God thinking about himself.
How does spinoza deal with emotions?
On emotions, as he is not a dualist, he does not compare emotions with reason, what he says is that emotions are modes of function within the body. The other aspect of emotions are feelings.
Emotions are modifications happening in our bodies and feelings are just the other side of this coin, they are us thinking about the emotions.
Unlike Descartes there is no problem with emotions/passions. In Spinoza, yes, emotions come from the body
Emotion: bodily modification increasing or decreasing its active power or autonomic arousal in the physical sense
-> modification: temporary mode of bodily being ->
bodily power: causal energy by which one bodily state is followed by another bodily state.
He recognises that these come from within the body BUT that these do not impose themselves on the mind.
The feeling of an emotion, the subjective aspect of an emotion, are just the other side. The corresponding change in consciousness associate with the bodily change. -> this is different from passions in which mind is passive
