Lecture 3 Flashcards
Kant and his critique of pure reason
How did he disagree with Hume?
Where did he think ideas like causality come from if not from experience?
Wrote this when he was nearly 60 years old. 1781: Critique of Pure Reason
- 1783: Prolegomena to any future metaphysics
- Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that studies the essence of a thing.
“Since the Essays of Locke and Leibnitz, or rather since the origin of metaphysics so far as we know its history, nothing has ever happened which was more decisive to its fate than the attack made upon it by David Hume. I openly confess, the suggestion of David Hume was the very thing, which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber, and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction.”
Hume pissed off Kant and woke him up.
- What are the prospects for metaphysics once Hume has demonstrated the cause-and-effect is in the eye of the beholder?
- Scottish common-sense philosophers have missed the point! They just said “we can trust stuff cos if we cannot then we are in big trouble. Kant felt they had missed the point.
Hume never said we do not need cause and effect, just that it is not something we do sense
Kant reasoned that maybe these ideas, like cause and effect are actually present a priori (independent of experience).
Kant’s Transcendental method
He gets to these a priori concepts via his transcendental method.
Transcendental ≠ Transcendent (God)
Transcendental method: Method used for getting at the inner resources that the human mind brings. What is it that reason brings a priori to the quest for Knowledge? Are there any universal concepts?
- > Not an innate idea in the sense of Plato (pre-formed idea already in your mind that you can recollect)
- > Not an innate idea in the sense of Descartes (self-evident)
- > Not a full-blown concept
- > More of a framework (mold, lens): A priori concepts are formal principles that give rational form to things, rather than factual concepts that tell you about things – the a priori concepts by themselves they tell you nothing
Cueball example of the transcendental method
If you see a cue ball hit a purple ball and that purple ball disappear into a pocket, we think the white ball hit the purple ball and this caused the purple ball to move.
Kant tried to remove all the empirical parts of that experience and all he was left with was the idea of causation.
So, the transcendental method is to remove all empirical information and then you will be left with only the concept of causality. This is an a priori structure; something the mind has when you remove all experience. You can remove the experience, but you CANNOT remove the idea of causality.
Using the transcendental method, how does Kant get to a priori knowledge more widely?
What are they like?
DOes emperical information on its own help us?
Tried to apply this more widely. Realises there are other a priori structures. The two main ones are space and time. We have these in our minds before we interact with the world.
These are kind of like lenses. Very different to Plato. They are like glasses we use to see the world or an ice tray we fill with the water of experience. They provide its structure. The tray is there before the water. Structure that allows us to understand reality.
Kant thinks that everything starts with empirical input but that input by itself is meaningless. If we consider music, the input is just discreet notes. We need the a priori concept of time to understand these notes and get that they are a tune with one following another. The idea of a timeline is needed but this does not exist for real, it is something that we contribute to the world.
The two a priori concepts of space and time are not out there in the universe, they are just concepts that we use to order our experience (and it is us that provide them).
Kant’s first step
So, for Kant, in the FIRST STEP we have an empirical input which we combine with a priori forms to create perception.
Kant’s second step
IN THE SECOND STEP To make sense of that perception we must combine it with a priori categories to arrive at understanding.
Kant’s two-step process
Like a two-step process. Perception > interpretation. There are 12 categories, and you can think almost every kind of thought by combining them.
IN THE FIRST STEP IT IS LIKE HE IS SAYING To the rationalists: Concepts without objects are empty, you cannot do it alone. IN THE SECOND STEP he is saying that percepts without context are blind i.e. you cannot do it alone either!
Kant’s Copernican Revolution
This means he is bringing subjectivity as a real concept. This is Kant’s Copernican revolution. Before Kant, the idea was to get objective knowledge. The representational theory of knowledge has also been called the spectator theory, the individual just spectates, the do not interact. Kant disagrees with this assessment. The mind actively participates in the perception of reality.
What is the Noumena?
What is the Phenomena?
Is there any objectivity in our observations according to Kant?
The Noumena is the thing itself which is out there in the world.
The phenomena is the thing that is out there for me. We put the world in our head, and we are ready to perceive it.
This denies the prospect of objectivity at all.
Kant and the Newtonian Universe
The structure of the Newtonian universe is a structure we have given to it… We’ve structured the world that way, we thought of it in terms of space, time, cause-and effect, matter, substance… these are our categories. Therefore, it is this way.
Does Kant think Psychology can be a science?
What is a historical doctorine of nature?
What is a natural science?
What is a proper science?
Is Chemistry a proper science?
What about Psychology?
Psychology as a science.
Kant doesn’t think psychology can be a science
In his book he outlines this (Metaphysical foundations of natural science (1786))
- Empirical approach leads to a collection of facts (historical doctrine of nature), which is below the level of science
- Natural science requires rational analysis, axioms and demonstrations.
- A proper natural science requires the axioms and demonstrations to be written as mathematical laws –
Chemistry isn’t a proper science
- Forget about psychology:
- there is no substance or space in inner observations, only time, i.e. there is nothing to measure
- Inner observation cannot be separated and recombined at will
- The act of introspection itself changes the content of the mind.
- At most psychology can be a historical doctrine of nature (and he is not confident
Who was Christisan Wolff
What did he write?
How did he think that we should make psychology a science?
- In the Rationalist tradition: Descartes – Spinoza – Leibniz –
Theoretical philosophy vs practical philosophy –
Theoretical philosophy constituted of three special metaphysics:
1. Rational Psychology (study of soul)
2. Rational Cosmology (study of nature)
3. Rational Theology (study of God)
He wrote the first two books with psychology in the tile
He proposes the use of the astronomy model to make psychology a science. And that we should aim for mathematical demonstrations (psychometria).
Compe and Psychology
Most violent critic of the idea that psychology can be a science.
Comte and positivism
What would make society better?
Is introspection good?
Comte came up with positivism, this idea that certain positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations.
Information derived through sensory experience and then interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all certain knowledge.
Truth is found only in this a posteriori knowledge.
This is a very positive view of science, like Bacon’s but after 100 years of scientific progress as evidence.
If society were ordered according to these principles, the world would be better.
Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected under this model as metaphysical and theological claims cannot be verified by sense experience.
Comte’s theory of science
According to Comte, there are 3 stages that societies go through
(1) The theological stage
Gods and spirits dominate the culture
“Primitive” societies are stuck here (super western centric)
Within this phase there is a progression (a) Animism > Polytheism > Monotheism (like Christianity)
(2) The metaphysical or abstract phase
Like the enlightenment. Reason dominates but still lack a scientific method
Still make abstract suppositions – Rousseau’s idea of a promitive “social contract” to justify individual rights was not based on science
(3) The positive or scientific phase
Science based on observations dominates
Social policies should aim at rational
Comte’s ranks of science
Comte ranked sciences based on generality and complexity.
For Comte there was a clear hierarchy of science where the generality and complexity of instruments grow smaller (maths is the highest and most generalizable). E.g., chem helps to explain Biology but biology does not help to explain chem. Math is used to explain everything below.
The ordering is inversely proportional to the complexity of the studied field.
Conversely, the complexity of phenomena also has a hierarchy at which Math is on the base and sociology (most complex) is at the top. Psych is not even in the hierarchy! Comte does not believe Psychology can be a science (especially not introspection).
What allowed psychology to become a science?
Physiology allows psych to become a science. Wundt wrote the principles of physiological psychology which surveyed the state of physiology at the time and was very influential, notably on William James.
Physiologists had successfully delineated two types of nerve, afferent sensation and efferent motricity. Leaves a big void between the two – this is the space within which Psychology acts.
SR responses
Dualism in the 18th and 19th centuries
Did Germans like Dualism?
Where and when did this start to chift?
It was practical to describe behaviour as a response to a stimulus (S>R). Very popular in the 20th century.
Late 17th and early 18th century Europe mostly accepted dualism and followed Descartes. Hence, stimulation was not needed. In humans, voluntary actions were explained by the souls. In animals, involuntary actions were explained by inner mechanisms. People had a mechanistic explanation for this (as exemplified by automatons).
In Germany, this began to shift in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. Germans did not like Descartes and preferred Leibniz and his monads.
What was vitalism?
One example of viatlists (not Muller)
What did he decide?
Germans come up with Vitalism. Living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles then are inanimate things. This puts humans and animals together as both are alive (which is very different to Descartes and his dualism and is more in line with monadism)
One example of a vitalist was Haller. He said sensibility is a unique property of living nerves, and animate motion depends on a special irritability of certain nerves. Something mysterious in these nerves allows them to convey their effects and this is not mechanistic.
Mulles the Vitalist.
What law did he create?
Another example is Muller. Muller came up with the law of specific nerve energies: each sensory nerve in the body is made to convey only one kind of sensation. Something special in the nerve allows them to convey this specific sense.
How does vitalism allow us to escape dualism?
Vitalism helps us escape dualism. With Descartes there is a big gap between the soul and the body, in vitalist physiology, the organism transforms stimulus into response.
Does the organism work like an automaton?
What does this explain?
The organism doesn’t work like an automaton (the causality is not mechanical), we need to understand the laws governing the functioning of living organisms to understand their responses to stimulation. Responses which preserve the integrity of the organism are emitted.
This explains why small stimuli can elicit large responses (they preserve the organism). Mechanistically, this would not happen.
Are stiumuli always physical?
What example can you give?
If you have many ideas of stimuli, what are you close to?
Responses to stimuli are involuntary, and their causes can be physical or mental.
Voluntary vs. Involuntary is more a matter of degree.
An example would be the response to vomit. This could be caused by (S1) ingesting poison or (S2) thinking about vomiting. Either way, the organism responded. This completely contradicts the preceding dualistic view that involuntary actions are caused by physical causes and voluntary actions are caused by mental causes (the will). Both could be involuntary.
By the end of the 18th century there are now many classes of stimuli
External in environment. Internal are mental. Mixing with associations of ideas and you get close to modern psychology.
Discovery of the reflex arc and how this impacts vitalism.
In the 19th century – most physiologists abandon vitalism as they see they might be able to explain everything including the soul mechanistically.
If they cannot, they may add something later, but they will see if they need it later.
Focus on animal movement, with the reflex as model (e.g., Marshall Hall (1790-1857))
- Focus of enquiry changes from broad questions pertaining to the organism, towards more specific questions on the details of the circuitry. Becomes more mechanistic and maybe reductionist
- Consciousness is evacuated, stimulation (physical) is preferred over sensation (conscious)
