Philosophy of knowledge Flashcards
Empiricism
scientific method, francis bacon, observations, hence knowledge, objective world leaves impressions on the mind, passive, more and more observations= general statements, inductive, generalisation, perception, acquiring knowledge though senses, subject at centre, starting point from the world and from senses
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience.[1] It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.[2] However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences.[3]
Historically, empiricism was associated with the “blank slate” concept (tabula rasa), according to which the human mind is “blank” at birth and develops its thoughts only through experience.[4]
Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.
Empiricism, often used by natural scientists, says that “knowledge is based on experience” and that “knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification”.[5] Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the scientific method.
Rationalism
Rationalist, base of knowledge starts in ritual, in reason, in subject itself, Descartes, senses can deceive us, look inward to come to absolute certainty, i can doubt everything except myself, i doubt therefore i am, i think therefore i am, there is a me, there is a first certainty, deductive reasoning, starting point from us, ability to know the world,to be able to know is to be able to know the world, It goes in one direction,
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that “regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge”[1] or “any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification”.[2] More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory “in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive”.[3]
In an old[4] controversy, rationalism was opposed to empiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths – in other words, “there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience”.[5]
A priori and a posteriori
A priori (“from the earlier”) and a posteriori (“from the later”) are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. A priori knowledge is independent from current experience (e.g., as part of a new study). Examples include mathematics,[i] tautologies, and deduction from pure reason.[ii] A posteriori knowledge depends on empirical evidence. Examples include most fields of science and aspects of personal knowledge.
The terms originate from the analytic methods found in Organon, a collection of works by Aristotle. Prior analytics (a priori) is about deductive logic, which comes from definitions and first principles. Posterior analytics (a posteriori) is about inductive logic, which comes from observational evidence.
Both terms appear in Euclid’s Elements and were popularized by Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, an influential work in the history of philosophy.[1] Both terms are primarily used as modifiers to the noun “knowledge” (i.e. “a priori knowledge”). A priori can be used to modify other nouns such as “truth”. Philosophers may use apriority, apriorist, and aprioricity as nouns referring to the quality of being a priori.[2]
Examples[edit]
A priori[edit]
Consider the proposition: “If George V reigned at least four days, then he reigned more than three days.” This is something that one knows a priori because it expresses a statement that one can derive by reason alone.
A posteriori[edit]
Consider the proposition: “George V reigned from 1910 to 1936.” This is something that (if true) one must come to know a posteriori because it expresses an empirical fact unknowable by reason alone.
René Descartes (1596–1650)
Descartes was the first of the modern rationalists and has been dubbed the ‘Father of Modern Philosophy.’ Much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings,[35][36][37] which are studied closely to this day.
Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths – including the truths of mathematics, and the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences – could be attained by reason alone; other knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He also argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about sensory reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works as Discourse on the Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing that cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained “without any sensory experience,” according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are broken down into elements that intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.
Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum or “I think, therefore I am”, is a conclusion reached a priori i.e., prior to any kind of experience on the matter. The simple meaning is that doubting one’s existence, in and of itself, proves that an “I” exists to do the thinking. In other words, doubting one’s own doubting is absurd.[21] This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysical dualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body (“res extensa”) and the mind or soul (“res cogitans”). This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as the mind-body problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.
Rationalism vs empiricism
Rationalism is often contrasted with empiricism. Taken very broadly, these views are not mutually exclusive, since a philosopher can be both rationalist and empiricist.[2] Taken to extremes, the empiricist view holds that all ideas come to us a posteriori, that is to say, through experience; either through the external senses or through such inner sensations as pain and gratification. The empiricist essentially believes that knowledge is based on or derived directly from experience. The rationalist believes we come to knowledge a priori – through the use of logic – and is thus independent of sensory experience. In other words, as Galen Strawson once wrote, “you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don’t have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don’t have to do any science.”[11]
Analytic/Synthetic Distinction (critical / speculative)
The analytic–synthetic distinction is a semantic distinction, used primarily in philosophy to distinguish between propositions (in particular, statements that are affirmative subject–predicate judgments) that are of two types: analytic propositions and synthetic propositions. Analytic propositions are true or not true solely by virtue of their meaning, whereas synthetic propositions’ truth, if any, derives from how their meaning relates to the world.[1]
While the distinction was first proposed by Immanuel Kant, it was revised considerably over time, and different philosophers have used the terms in very different ways. Furthermore, some philosophers (starting with W.V.O. Quine) have questioned whether there is even a clear distinction to be made between propositions which are analytically true and propositions which are synthetically true.[2] Debates regarding the nature and usefulness of the distinction continue to this day in contemporary philosophy of language.[2]
Object subject scheme
The subjective–objective dichotomy, a longstanding philosophical topic, is concerned with the analysis of human experience, and of what within experience is “subjective” and what is “objective.” The dichotomy arises from the premise that the world consists of objects (entities) which are perceived or otherwise presumed by subjects (observers) to exist as entities. This division of experience results in questions regarding how subjects relate to objects. An important sub-topic is the question of how our own mind relates to other minds, and how to treat the “radical difference that holds between our access to our own experience and our access to the experience of all other human beings”, known as the epistemological problem of other minds.[1]
The subjective–objective dichotomy can be discussed from two standpoints. First is the question of “what” is known. The field of ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences. The second standpoint is that of “how” does one know what one knows. The field of epistemology questions what knowledge is, how it is acquired, and to what extent it is possible for a given entity to be known. It includes both subjects and objects.
transcendental idealism
- Kant, synthesis, doubting the subject, but subject is only access to world, transcedental subject, he doesnt ask if the subect is reliable but starts from assumption that we have reliable knowledge, and asks how this knowledge is possible and reliable, transcendenatal, not found in subejct itself, something that precedes , soemthing transcending it, that makes empirical knowledge possbile, preconditions making it possible, normative answer
- Transcendental subject, central to argumentation, consitutative to knowledge, not hinderance but active part of constituion of knowledge, problem of casuality, put forth by hume,
- Hume argus says we cannot obsevre casuality, we can see things but we cannot see cause of them, how can it be that we see casual connections, successfuly argue in causal ways, by habit, see things often we see patterns,
- Kant a bit different, we see world ordered in causal connections because we are hardwired to see causality, fickelty of our mind, programmed to see them, possess pure category, precedes experience but also impose it
- Pure categories and Forms of intuition Allow us to understand and make sense of the world
- We have thus sensory perception, empiricist position, but we also have reason with intution and pure categories that allows us to make sense of the world in causally ordered world
- Thoughts without content are empty, intutitions without concepts are blind
- However world we know is not as it is, an sich, not numenal world
- Simply not accessible to us because we access it though our subjectivity
- -> What we then know is the world as it appears to us, the phenomenal world, equipped with forms of intution, answer to trasncendal question, there is a transcdental subject, not empirical itself, transdents the empirical, a priori to experience, enables the experience by itself,
- Noramtive, in terms of judgements, engaement in active judgements
- Subjective constituative of how we understand the world, we need it to understand world, does it not lead us to probelms with subejctivity?
- Thinking in Universal terms, everyone access to trnscendental self, share the same reasoning and subjectivity, not necessarily a problem, enlightenment philosophy,
Synthetic a priori knowledge
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system[1] founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant’s epistemological program[2] is found throughout his Critique of Pure Reason (1781). By transcendental (a term that deserves special clarification[3]) Kant means that his philosophical approach to knowledge transcends mere consideration of sensory evidence and requires an understanding of the mind’s innate modes of processing that sensory evidence.[4]
In the “Transcendental Aesthetic” section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant outlines how space and time are pure forms of human intuition contributed by our own faculty of sensibility. Space and time do not have an existence “outside” of us, but are the “subjective” forms of our sensibility and hence the necessary a priori conditions under which the objects we encounter in our experience can appear to us at all. Kant describes time and space as “empirically real” but transcendentally ideal.[citation needed]
Kant argues that the conscious subject cognizes the objects of experience not as they are in themselves, but only the way they appear to us under the conditions of our sensibility. Thus Kant’s doctrine restricts the scope of our cognition to appearances given to our sensibility and denies that we can possess cognition of things as they are in themselves, i.e. things as they are independently of how we experience them through our cognitive faculties.[citation needed]
In modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant introduced a new term, transcendental, thus instituting a new, third meaning. In his theory of knowledge, this concept is concerned with the condition of possibility of knowledge itself. He also opposed the term transcendental to the term transcendent, the latter meaning “that which goes beyond” (transcends) any possible knowledge of a human being.[7][8] For him transcendental meant knowledge about our cognitive faculty with regard to how objects are possible a priori. “I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them.”[9] Therefore, metaphysics, as a fundamental and universal theory, turns out to be an epistemology. Transcendental philosophy, consequently, is not considered a traditional ontological form of metaphysics.
Kant also equated transcendental with that which is “…in respect of the subject’s faculty of cognition.”[10] Something is transcendental if it plays a role in the way in which the mind “constitutes” objects and makes it possible for us to experience them as objects in the first place. Ordinary knowledge is knowledge of objects; transcendental knowledge is knowledge of how it is possible for us to experience those objects as objects. This is based on Kant’s acceptance of David Hume’s argument that certain general features of objects (e.g. persistence, causal relationships) cannot be derived from the sense impressions we have of them. Kant argues that the mind must contribute those features and make it possible for us to experience objects as objects. In the central part of his Critique of Pure Reason, the “Transcendental Deduction of the Categories”, Kant argues for a deep interconnection between the ability to have consciousness of self and the ability to experience a world of objects. Through a process of synthesis, the mind generates both the structure of objects and its own unity.
Subjectivity
Philosophy[edit]
Thinkers[edit]
In Western philosophy, the idea of subjectivity is thought to have its roots in the works of Descartes and Kant though it could also come from Aristotle’s work relating to the soul.[5][1] The idea of subjectivity is often seen as a peripheral to other philosophical concepts, namely skepticism, individuals and individuality, and existentialism.[1][5] The questions surrounding subjectivity have to do with whether or not people can escape the subjectivity of their own human existence and whether or not there is an obligation to try to do so.[2] Important thinkers who focused on this area of study include Descartes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Foucault, Derrida, Nagel, and Sartre.[2][6]
Subjectivity was rejected by Foucault and Derrida in favor of constructionism,[2] but Sartre embraced and continued Descartes’ work in the subject by emphasizing subjectivity in phenomenology.[2][7] Sartre believed that, even within the material force of human society, the ego was an essentially transcendent being—posited, for instance, in his opus Being and Nothingness through his arguments about the ‘being-for-others’ and the ‘for-itself’ (i.e., an objective and subjective human being).[7]
The innermost core of subjectivity resides in a unique act of what Fichte called “self-positing”, where each subject is a point of absolute autonomy, which means that it cannot be reduced to a moment in the network of causes and effects.[8]
Phenomenology
Phenomenology (from Greek φαινόμενον, phainómenon “that which appears” and λόγος, lógos “study”) is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.[1] As a philosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl’s early work.[2]
Phenomenology is not a unified movement; rather, the works of different authors share a ‘family resemblance’ but with many significant differences. Gabriella Farina states:
A unique and final definition of phenomenology is dangerous and perhaps even paradoxical as it lacks a thematic focus. In fact, it is not a doctrine, nor a philosophical school, but rather a style of thought, a method, an open and ever-renewed experience having different results, and this may disorient anyone wishing to define the meaning of phenomenology.[3]
Phenomenology, in Husserl’s conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of consciousness. Phenomenology can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and reacting upon one another.
Husserl’s conception of phenomenology has been criticized and developed not only by him but also by students and colleagues such as Edith Stein, Max Scheler, Roman Ingarden, and Dietrich von Hildebrand, by existentialists such as Nicolai Hartmann, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre, by hermeneutic philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur, by later French philosophers such as Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida, by sociologists such as Alfred Schütz and Eric Voegelin, by Christian philosophers, such as Dallas Willard, and by American activist and scholar Angela Davis.
Logical empiricism
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of meaning).[1] This theory of knowledge asserted that only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content. Starting in the late 1920s, groups of philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians formed the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle, which, in these two cities, would propound the ideas of logical positivism.
Flourishing in several European centres through the 1930s, the movement sought to prevent confusion rooted in unclear language and unverifiable claims by converting philosophy into “scientific philosophy”, which, according to the logical positivists, ought to share the bases and structures of empirical sciences’ best examples, such as Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.[2] Despite its ambition to overhaul philosophy by studying and mimicking the extant conduct of empirical science, logical positivism became erroneously stereotyped as a movement to regulate the scientific process and to place strict standards on it.[2]
After World War II, the movement shifted to a milder variant, logical empiricism, led mainly by Carl Hempel, who, during the rise of Nazism, had immigrated to the United States. In the ensuing years, the movement’s central premises, still unresolved, were heavily criticised by leading philosophers, particularly Willard van Orman Quine and Karl Popper, and even, within the movement itself, by Hempel. The 1962 publication of Thomas Kuhn’s landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions dramatically shifted academic philosophy’s focus. In 1967 philosopher John Passmore pronounced logical positivism “dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes”.[3]
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- Interwar period, vienna, vienna circile, circle of modernist, progressive, anti clerical, viennese thinkers, basis of logcial empiricism - For them kantian basis does not hold any longer, synthetic a priori (judgements about world synthetic preceding experience, coming from reason, source of knowledge is not empirical observation but reason itself, a priori of transdendantl subject, ) - Newton and einstein expeplify this, einsetinian physics relativity theory, fundaments of science by kant, were then replcaed by this, examples did not hold anymore, - Transdendatal subject no longer survives, anew ask about origin of knowledge, staggering development of science in 19th century and accompnaing growth of scientific knowledge which had to be explained for which kants philosophy was not suited, not about growth but universal and timeless, - Lgocia empiricst then want to replace transdental subejct and explain growth of scientific knowledge - For empiricst rock bottom of solid knowledge aquisition is empirical observation, not on state of subject, excercis in logic, study meaning of propositions and study validty of reasonings syllegisms, focus on language on which science is built though tools of logic to study that lanugaage and uses of it, linguistic turn, logic because it became much more advance over past decades, contrast with philosphy, scientific knowledge growing and developping while philosphy still discussing same questions as centuries before, - For them lot of sloppy reasoning, purify philosophy and science, believe in language lies key, tool to udnerstanding meaning, empirical content - Understandign the lgoci of the growth of logic, how growth can be jsuitfied, Context of justification, not concered with discovery but how knoweledge cna be justified
verifiability criterion of meaning
Verficiation criterion of meaning, seperate science from non science or uses of knowledge, separates meaningful from meaningless, It is meaningful if its verifiable, true and untrue, meaning of statement, scientific language use, empirical conditions, ability to be able to explain when something is true and whne untrue, verification not necessarily true, but verifiable, whether we can say so not prove,
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cognitively meaningful, or else they are truths of logic (tautologies).
Verificationism thus rejects statements related to metaphysics, as well as fields such as theology, ethics and aesthetics, as “cognitively meaningless”. Such statements may be meaningful in influencing emotions or behaviour, but not in terms of conveying truth value, information, or factual content.[1] Verificationism was a central thesis of logical positivism, a movement in analytic philosophy that emerged in the 1920s by philosophers who sought to unify philosophy and science under a common naturalistic theory of knowledge.
Origins[edit]
Although verificationist principles of a general sort—grounding scientific theory in some verifiable experience—are found retrospectively even with the American pragmatist C.S. Peirce and with the French conventionalist Pierre Duhem,[2] who fostered instrumentalism,[3] the vigorous program of verificationism was launched by the logical positivists who, emerging from the Berlin Circle and the Vienna Circle in the 1920s, sought an epistemology whereby philosophical discourse would be, in their perception, as authoritative and meaningful as an empirical science.
Logical positivists garnered the verifiability criterion of cognitive meaningfulness from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language posed in his 1921 book Tractatus,[4] and, led by Bertrand Russell, sought to reformulate the analytic–synthetic distinction in a way that would reduce mathematics and logic to semantical conventions. This would be pivotal to verificationism, in that logic and mathematics would otherwise be classified as synthetic a priori knowledge and defined as “meaningless” under verificationism.
Seeking grounding in such empiricism as of David Hume,[5] Auguste Comte, and Ernst Mach—along with the positivism of the latter two—they borrowed some perspectives from Immanuel Kant, and found the exemplar of science to be Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper CH FRS FBA[9] (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British[10] philosopher, academic and social commentator.[11][12][13] One of the 20th century’s most influential philosophers of science,[14][15][16] Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely “the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy”.[17]
In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he believed made a flourishing open society possible. His political philosophy embraced ideas from major democratic political ideologies, including libertarianism/classical liberalism, socialism/social democracy and conservatism, and attempted to reconcile them.[3]
- Attacks verification criterion, - laws of nature, universal stattements, all swans are white, universal statement, cant be verifed, problem of induction, majority, but we have not seen all swans, scientists reason inductiveyl and not deductively, confirm but not verfiy, based on large number of observations, - Popper, falsification, not logically valid, criterion, scientist should not look for confirmation but look for falsificaiton and refutation, scientific knowledge not inductive but deductive but does not work through confirmation but through falsification - Leading to a deductive growth of knowledge and how science progresses according to popper - He calls himself rationalist, he claims we need theories to observe (all swans are white), universal in nature, to know what to focus on, basic sentence (there is a non-white swan), instance, corrobation, need to be tested leading to falsification - Crucial tests needed - He does believe in realism after all, there are scientific theories to be falsified and to be able to lead to confirmation or moving closer to the truth, as long as theory is phrased in falsifiable way - This leading to the distinction from propper science to pseudo science - The way we formulate theories, not adjustment to theories but rejection, very rigid in this - Hesitant towards value of history, general laws are hard to draw up in history and verfiy them, idea of prediction by itself impossible, state of science is important to how society looks like, dependenant, we do not not how science in future will look like, therefore we do not knowsicetiy in future - Prediciton in future also Undesirable , historicists, led to terrible political experiments, leading to people eanting to dictate history, in line with moral and political phislophy, open society and its enemies - Basic sentences preceding theories - Is poppers philosophy really logically sound, open to refutation and morally acceptable? - There has been criticism especially on his notion of critical tests Cannot expect reality behind theories
Vienna Circle
The Vienna Circle (German: Wiener Kreis) of logical empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Schlick. The Vienna Circle had a profound influence on 20th-century philosophy, especially philosophy of science and analytic philosophy.
The philosophical position of the Vienna Circle was called logical empiricism (German: logischer Empirismus), logical positivism or neopositivism. It was influenced by Ernst Mach, David Hilbert, French conventionalism (Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem), Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Albert Einstein. The Vienna Circle was pluralistic and committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment. It was unified by the aim of making philosophy scientific with the help of modern logic. Main topics were foundational debates in the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics; the modernization of empiricism by modern logic; the search for an empiricist criterion of meaning; the critique of metaphysics and the unification of the sciences in the unity of science.[1]
The Vienna Circle appeared in public with the publication of various book series – Schriften zur wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung (Monographs on the Scientific World-Conception), Einheitswissenschaft (Unified Science) and the journal Erkenntnis – and the organization of international conferences in Prague; Königsberg (today known as Kaliningrad); Paris; Copenhagen; Cambridge, UK, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its public profile was provided by the Ernst Mach Society (German: Verein Ernst Mach) through which members of the Vienna Circle sought to popularize their ideas in the context of programmes for popular education in Vienna.
During the era of Austrofascism and after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany most members of the Vienna Circle were forced to emigrate. The murder of Schlick in 1936 by former student Johann Nelböck put an end to the Vienna Circle in Austria.
Hermeneutics
- Discussions on what the unqie characterists of humanities were
- Studying geist, erklären und verstehen, not just explain, it is about understanding, find meaning, intepretation
- Interpretive / hermenutical disciplines
- Hermeneutics coming from greek world of translating, from one context to another,
paradigm
Thomas Kuhn 1922-96
- More historical
- Development of sicence, normal science
- Scientific revolution
- The strutcue of scientici revolutions
- Rejects Linear image of knowledge growth, instead, radical development
- 3 stages, normal science, scientific revolution, normal science
- Normal science, consensus on science and methods of study and theories, puzzle solving, paradigm exists -> exemplar (how scientists are supposed to work, practical dimension) or disciplinary matrix (shared theory, understanding, idea of objects in study, believes, methods, expectations, shared presuppositions, shared world view)
- Anomalies exists, to be discarded, fault lies with researcheers
- Situation may arise which is fruitful, when anomalies start to add up, leading to discomfort, revolution can arise, new paradigm arises, better equipped to solve anamolues of old paradigm, paradigm shift, not just adjusting theory step closer to truth, whole understanding of wolrd changes
- Allowing for change, more historical,
- Paradigms are incommensurable, you are always in a paradigm
- No crucial tests, or falsification
- Different ontologies between paradigms
- Problematic knowledge growth, only different kinds of knowledge
- Subject object? Questioned, object constituted by paradigm
Growth of knowledge
Francis Bacon
Bacon has been called the father of empiricism.[7] He argued for the possibility of scientific knowledge based only upon inductive reasoning and careful observation of events in nature. He believed that science could be achieved by the use of a sceptical and methodical approach whereby scientists aim to avoid misleading themselves. Although his most specific proposals about such a method, the Baconian method, did not have long-lasting influence, the general idea of the importance and possibility of a sceptical methodology makes Bacon one of the later founders of the scientific method. His portion of the method based in scepticism was a new rhetorical and theoretical framework for science, whose practical details are still central to debates on science and methodology. He is famous for his role in the scientific revolution, begun during the Middle Ages, promoting scientific experimentation as a way of glorifying God and fulfilling scripture. He was renowned as a politician in Elizabethan England, as he held the office of Lord Chancellor.
Michel foucault, 1926-84
gave a very influential reading of development of humanities
- The birth of man,
- Les mots et les choses, similarities with kuhn, no linear development of knowledge and knowing world step by step, rejected, deep breaches and ruptures in development, new ontologies, new worlds,
- Three Epistemes, renaissance - 1650 / classical age - 1800 / modern age, archeology of knowledge, not limited to one disciplines, ways ware that they know, what type of knowledge was possible, at certain point of time, pre conditions, deep strucutres of knowing, epistemes,
- Three areas in modern age, economics, biology, linguistics, these disciplines have more in common with each other than predecessors in classical age (science of welath, natural histroy, general grammar)
- Does not state origins of this
- Every episteme own form of knowing, historical a priori, if knowledge changes worls and expeirence changes too
- Does not opt for simple object subject scheme
- Everytime we enter a new episteme or form of knowing we enter a new order of things (les mots et les choses), this order of things is decided by relation of words and things, relation between things and words and order of things changes over time
- Celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge example different systems of order at work at the same time, conflict our sense of order because different time
- Relation between words and things, sign we use to express knowledge,
Epistemes
- Every episteme own form of knowing, historical a priori, if knowledge changes worls and expeirence changes too
- Does not opt for simple object subject scheme
- Everytime we enter a new episteme or form of knowing we enter a new order of things (les mots et les choses), this order of things is decided by relation of words and things, relation between things and words and order of things changes over time
- Celestial emporium of benevolent knowledge example different systems of order at work at the same time, conflict our sense of order because different time
- Relation beteen words and things, sign we use to express knowledga,
- Renaissance = knowledge based on idea we use similarities which refer to other similarities, full of signs, eveyrthing connected, language part of the world, not simply to depict world but gives us knoweldge about the world, epitemology, part of elaborate system of similarities
- Classical age = language and world fall apart, now opposed, lagnuage becomes sign to describe world, these sign have capacity ro represent, give eprfect represenation, world and lagnuage connect seamlessly, languag eperfectly able to describe world as it is, leads to certain type of sicnetifc knowledge, ordering of the world, i.e. tables,
- Modern episteme = time starts to play a role in way we think, new categories enter, language develps histrocially, concepts studied in development, historically, forms inner principles, difficult to represent in language, representation enter problem, seamless connection between language and world ceases to exist, how is representation possible, how is knoeldge possible?, language itself does not suffice,
The appearance of man
- Kantian transcdental subject, the dilemma of how representation and knowledge is possible is sovled through the knowing subject, enabling us to have emirical knoweldge, part and profit of human reason, birth of man, subject/ object for humanities
- From 1800 we create a new way of thinking about humanities with specific entitiy and characterists, kants philosphy is an illustration of the coming to existence of this specially equiped man
- Kant recap, through subject knowledge i spossible, double role for subejcg, both possible object as well as a subject that is a precondition for having knowledge, subject and object same time, different from rest of surroundings,
- Through carving out a piece of the human being, transcndental subject, here kant situates a creature that can detract itself not part of laws of nature, carving out space allowing for freedom and judgement free will, realm of tr.subject, room for epistemology, aesthetics and morals, judgement, subject is needed
- Accrodign to foucault, here man comes into existence, “a strange, empirical, transcendental double figure”,
Subejct always precondition to study object
Geist
- dialectics of the geist (dialectic meaning the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions as well as two opposing sides arguing for thruth.) , certrain oppositions in world whihc will lead to new states of affairs which in and of itself already bears fruits for new oppositions which will lead to new sttes of affairs etc.
- So, world is a product of the geist, yet humans only progressivley discover this, so there is a mismatch/opposition/dialectic between subjective geist and objective geist (how world is experienced vs how it is which is the product of the geist) so slowly civilizations develop, in differenct dialects all the times between subejctive and objective geist so history moves forward, eventually man will realize that the world is his own creation
Hegel
- Geist central concept of Hegel (1770-1831)
- Delivers humanities object to study, domain for humanities
- Hegel Building on work of kant and notion of tr. Subejct and reason, with argument that our knoeldge of world is a product of transcedental subject he opened up way to idea that world is a product of human geist / mind /spriit, central idea of gemrna idealism, product of ideas,
- Hegel argument broader than simply reason, many notion of geists, geist is not jsut individual it is also collective, volksgeist, zeitgeist, transcends individual geist, states of consciousness, products life of their own of individual geists, cultural products, study them in seperate domain
- Hegel introduced notion of historicity, important reaction to kant, historical philosophy, no as timeless and unviersal as kant, hegel palces geist in developmental perspective, places it historically
- dialectics of the geist (dialectic meaning the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions as well as two opposing sides arguing for thruth.) , certrain oppositions in world whihc will lead to new states of affairs which in and of itself already bears fruits for new oppositions which will lead to new sttes of affairs etc.
- So, world is a product of the geist, yet humans only progressivley discover this, so there is a mismatch/opposition/dialectic between subjective geist and objective geist (how world is experienced vs how it is which is the product of the geist) so slowly civilizations develop, in differenct dialects all the times between subejctive and objective geist so history moves forward, eventually man will realize that the world is his own creation
- History, according to hegel, is then a process of unfolding self knowledge, man will reach final destination of histroy when he finally understands himself fully, fundemantally histrocial world view
Friedrich schleienmacher
Friedrich Schleiermacher
His theories are based upon Dilthey’s hermeneutics. He introduced hermeneutics as a general doctrine of exegesis (explication) and interpretation. He aimed to transform theology into a rigorous science which required a historicizing approach to the texts. This lined up to the belief that arose in the 19th century of the historicity of human consciousness. The aim of this general hermeneutics is to
reproduce the author’s original thinking: having into account that the meaning of a text does not depend on the author itself but is also determined by its structure and historical context and these were independent from the author’s intentions. A key element is the hermeneutic circle: a work as a whole can only be understood on the basis of the interpretation of its individual elements, but conversely, the interpreting of an individual line also requires a holistic understanding of the work as a whole and of the cultural and societal circumstances in which the work has been written. This interpretation is circular because it is infinite; the interpretation of a text can never be concluded. This method is linked to the romantic notion of genius, where unconsciously great works are created.
- Friedrich schleiermacher 1768-1834, interpreted bible, find original word of god, schleidermacher however saw bible also as historical object, distant from 19th century, no longer self evident one could understand it because of golf of time, to interpret it one needed to bridge this gap, to understand a tekst you have to understand authors intentions as well as nunderstand tekst in context where it came into existence, bridge gap in time, time travel?,
He coined the term hermeneutics. Distinguished psychological understanding from grammatical interpretation of a text. Sought to analyze texts on their own terms disregarding authorial intent. hermeneutic circle: a work as a whole can only be understood on the basis of its individual elements and vice versa, so we should always move back and forth between the two. This is not a vicious circle but an upward spiral that leads to an ever-increasing understanding of the text. We consciously re-enact the method of the genius/author, eventually understanding their work better than they ever did. This method is based on a Romantic understanding of author/artist as genius.
While Schleiermacher did not publish extensively on hermeneutics during his lifetime, he lectured widely on the field. His published and unpublished writings on the subject were collected together after his death and published in 1838 as Hermeneutik und Kritik mit besonderer Beziehung auf das Neue Testament. However, it was not until Heinz Kimmerle’s 1959 edition[20] “based on a careful transcription of the original handwritten manuscripts, that an assured and comprehensive overview of Schleiermacher’s theory of hermeneutics became possible.”[21]
Schleiermacher wanted to shift hermeneutics away from specific methods of interpretation (e.g. methods for interpreting biblical or classical texts) and toward a focus on how people understand texts in general. He was interested in interpreting Scripture, but he thought one could do so properly only after establishing a system of interpretation that was applicable to all texts. This process was not a systematic or strictly philological approach, but what he called “the art of understanding.”[22] Schleiermacher viewed a text as a vehicle that an author used to communicate thoughts that he had had before creating the text.[23] These thoughts were what caused the author to produce the text; at the moment of text creation, these “inner thoughts” become “outer expression” in language. In order to interpret a text, then, the interpreter must consider both the inner thoughts of the author and the language that s/he used in writing the text. This approach to interpreting texts involves both “grammatical interpretation” and “psychological (or technical) interpretation.” The former deals with the language of the text; the latter with the thoughts and aims of the author.[24]
The language used by an author “is what mediates sensuously and externally between utterer and listener”.[25] The ultimate goal of hermeneutics for Schleiermacher is “understanding in the highest sense”[26]— experiencing the same thoughts that the author experienced when writing the text. Understanding is a historical process involving learning about the context in which the author wrote, and how the text’s original readership understood its language.[27] Understanding is also a psychological process drawing upon intuition and a connection between interpreter and the author.[28] Reader and author are both human. As humans, they have some degree of shared understanding. That shared understanding is what makes it possible for a reader to understand an author.
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historicity
A historian is not a transcendental subject (Kant) but a historical subject, deeply rooted in temporal and geographical context. The historian is a product of the past, including that portion of the past which they choose to study. Wilhelm Dilthey spoke of the historicization of the human subject; we cannot require people to abandon their material relation with the past, the human subject is always exposed to influences from the past. Hence the subject does not float above the past, but is firmly rooted in the historia res gestae. Dilthey also stated that the subject and the object are interrelated: subject and object form part of the same historical process. If they are both situated in the historical process, the object does not only influence the subject, but subject and object are exposed to the same forces. According to Dilthey, the subject partly comes into being through the object, while both form part of the same historical process. Subject and object therefore primarily belong together.
dialectics of the geist
Willard van orman quine
- Willard van orman quine, 1908-2000, language, statements also cannot be isloated, others are invovled, criticist of empiricism, rejects idea of reductionism, rejects analytic-synthetic distinction, each statement is connected to other statement, not just testing one thing, what should we revise? No principal distinction between analytical and synthetic statements, they intermingle, in light of experience we can necessitate ro review any kind of statement,
- Quine, nothing is in isoltion, everything is connected, we cannot just test and ask one question, there are many more attached to it, to origins, to meaning etc
- No reality that simply describes the categories we should use to desrcibe reality
- Also not clear whether we should opt for one theory or another, undetermination of theories, multiple theories fit, cannot decide which theories we should choose
- Quine, holist, meaning canot be attributed sentence by sentence ,meaning is spread out on a whole lot os statements, all-in connection, together meaning comes from that, derive from web of statements, does well in humanities and complex theories
Pierre duhem
- Pierre duhem 1861-1916, held objection to popper before popper himself,
- Theories are untestable, observation is theory laden, within framework of theories, not realist,
- Theory of evolution for instance
- Not testing theory against ralisty but testing more theories against theory laden observations, observations nnever leaving framework of theories, not testing theory independently of theory
- Popper suggests crucial estings
- Duhem disagrees, you never know what you are testing, philosophical objection,
- Is context important in testing? Are we testing with preconceived answer in mind? Are we refuting or are we to test until we got our answer?
- Are we testing the theory or are we testing circumstantial stuff?
- Dodging responsibility? Popper suggests getting rid of conventionalist tricks and agree upon what we are testing, methodlogcially good answer but duhem has philosophical pbjection, what is true and what not depends on peoples views and agrreance then, serious blow to science ambition to represent reality as it is, testing is still dependent on subject, sicence is also done by humans, humans are not objctive, discussion between scientists what they are testing
Reinhart koselleck 1923-2006
- Explaining old topos of historia magistra vitae, history sa the teacher of life, use of history
- Lessons for present, according to kosselek reasoining only valid when past present and future look alike, kontinuierlicher raum möglicher erfahrbarkeit, continous space of what was possible to experience, same as what willl happen in future, no fundemtnal difference in what is happening, history can teach us lessons, if there is no fundamental similarity between apst and present and future than why look to past for lessons or uses in present
- Something changes in 1800, erfahrungsraum and erwartungshorizont are no longer the same, what has happened and what will happen, histroy speeded up, things changed drastically, now common to think that apst present future fundemtnally differen, historia magistra vitae no longer valid, histroy loosing it fucntion? - Developmental perspective, however world view ebcame more histroical
- Before, people did not think historically, not about change and ruptures, developmental eprspective comes into existence, world seen in terms of development, understanding world as historical world, has become norm,
19th century history became basic pattern to udenrstand world
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Francois hartog
Hartog explored the relationship of the past, present, and future as understood at moments of crisis in history. Like other thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Reinhart Koselleck, Hartog maintains that there is no difference between past and present since all history is “actually contemporary history”.[6] Drawing from a broad range of sources, he published his analysis in the book Regimes of Historicity Presentism and Experiences of Time. For instance, he used texts such as the Odyssey to demonstrate the threshold of historical consciousness.[7]
According to Hartog, there are three regimes of historicity: the history of exemplary lives; the modern history that dates back from the French Revolution; and, the regime focused on the present as the primary referent for historical interpretation (late twentieth century).[8] The “regimes of historicity” has been understood in two ways. The first asks how society treats its past and what it says about it while the second approaches the notion as the “modes of consciousness of human community”.[9]
In his analysis of the different “regimes of historicity”, he described the modern period as “presentist” - that the present turns to the past and the future only to valorize the immediate.[10] This “presentism” concept has been interpreted as that regime wherein the present is dominant. It implies an approach to temporality, which rejects the linear, causal, and homogeneous conception of time characteristic of the modern regime of historicity.[11]
“Regimes of historicity” is considered a heuristic tool for further research concerning experiences of time.[12] It has also been described as part of the cooperation among historians that allow adjustments in the interest of constructing conceptual categories and configurations that promote an understanding of “historical consciousness”.[13]
A criticism of the “regimes of historicity” cites the resulting “permanent lag” produced by the discrepancies that emerge from different histories and varying relationships within this new temporality.[14] It is also suggested that it leads to the periodizations that suppress diversity of conceptions of time formulated within their limits.[15]
cartesian anxiety
- Cartesian anxiety,every intepretation in historiy and humanities shaped by contex tin which it came into being, therefore all knowledge is relative, worth nothing, no knowledge possible anymore, however, the implicit deifitnot of this position of what true knowledge is unattainable and too demanding, implicit assumption is knowledge should be universally true and valid, objective, unobtainable, no absolute certain knowledge, only if you attain to that your prone to cartesian enxiety, instead we should accept that knowledge is limited, does not decrease its value or usage,
- Philosphers who argued tht we need this situation, subjected problem is necessary and part of the answer, necessary precondition to engage in intepretation at all
If every author writes on the basis of their own relation with the past, where does this leave the idea of common, objective truth raised above all biographical particulars? If historians are incapable of rising above the material relation shouldn’t they stop writing altogether? This is what Richard Bernstein calls a Cartesian anxiety; an either/or thinking that plays off universal validity and historical determination against each other. In this way of thinking our knowledge of the world is either valid for all times and places or wholly dependent on context. But this either/or is not as inevitable as it seems, for it exists merely by virtue of the extreme requirement that knowledge needs to be timeless, unchanging and uninfluenced by the material relation. According to Bernstein both objectivists and relativists underestimate the productive power of a historically situated viewpoint. Historians need not go to superhuman lengths to rise above their limitations in time and place, for Bernstein a position in the here-and-now can be a starting point. Dilthey did not go far enough in his historicization of the human subject: it is not enough to establish that the subject is firmly placed in historical reality; this material relation should be positively valued.
Presentism
Structuralism
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