reason as a source of knowledge

Question 1

what is the empiricist view

Answer 1

that all knowledge comes from experience

Question 2

what is Innatism

Answer 2

the view that we are born with all the knowledge that we have,
innate knowledge is a priori knowledge
we are born with innate propositional knowledge
in a prior existence we apprehended these perfect forms in their pure state and they are revealed to us from reason

Question 3

what is plato’s slaveboy argument

Answer 3

• plato gives the example of a slave, a boy who has never been taught geometry, has no prior knowledge
• socrates only asks questions, he does not teach the slave
• the boy manages to grasp an eternal truth about geometry/squares through questioning
• he derived this knowledge through reason, so the knowledge must have existed innately in him to begin with
• Plato emphasises that it is a process of recall, from memory that he already had within him
• not something that the boy newly acquired

Question 4

what is Leibniz argument based on necessary truth

Answer 4

• a necessary truth is true in every possible world eg. 2+2 =4
• experience only tells us how things are, not how things must be
• we know that 2+2 =4 must always be true because it is a necessary truth
• we wouldnt know that 2+2=4 is true in every possible world because of experience
• so knowledge of necessary truths is innate, we know them by paying close attention to what is already in our minds
• argument for innatism
• a collection of experiences can never explain necessary truths
• contingent truths we can grasp through senses e.g. “the sun will rise”

Question 5

what is Locke’s arguments against innatism (1. no universal assent, 2. transparency of ideas, 3. distinguishable

Answer 5

1. no universal assent -
   innate knowledge would be universal - children and idiots don’t possess some knowledge, so it is not universal
2. transparency of ideas-
   Locke says if we did have innate ideas we must have been conscious of them at some point, but some people are not aware of them until they are told of them eg. god
3. how can we distinguish innate ideas from non-innate ideas?
   how do we know whether our ideas are innate or gained from experience? did we have the colour blue with us from birth or was revealed to us by our senses when we saw it

Question 6

what is the tabula rasa argument?

Answer 6

• Locke says the mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ at birth, a blank slate in which is filled with our experiences
• he says that our minds receive impressions from the senses and these are copied into ideas/concepts
  these ideas allow us to think about things even when they are not present eg. I can think of cheese even when I am not near cheese
• we can combine simple ideas in our mind to create complex ideas eg. we can think of a unicorn, but the elements (white, horse, horn) all derive from sense impressions
• all of our ideas are derived from experience
• augmentation
• copy principle

Question 7

what are responses to Lockes arguments against innatism 1. no universal assent, 2. transparency of ideas, 3. distinguishable

Answer 7

1. children and idiots are aware of innate principles, they just can’t verbalise them eg. a child knows her teddy can’t be in her right hand and her left hand at the same time
2. there are memories in our mind that we have never been conscious of e.g. if we absorb a song on the radio but don’t consciously listen to it we might recognise it elsewhere but we don’t know when
3. we can distinguish innate ideas from non-innate ones because they are true in a. different way - they are necessarily true. once young children understand a truth, the mind recognises its eternal application and that its different from truths of fact

Question 8

what is a response to Lockes tabula rasa argument

Answer 8

• not all of our ideas might come from impressions
• I might be able to create a new shade of blue in my head by merging ones I already had
• then this new shade would not have come from a simple impression
• i would not have experienced this new shade of blue

Question 9

what does intuition mean

Answer 9

the ability to know something is true just by thinking about it

Question 10

what does deduction mean

Answer 10

a method of deriving true propositions from other true propositions using reason

Question 11

what is Descartes notion of clear and distinct ideas

Answer 11

• descartes says the mind intuits that clear and distinct ideas are true
• a clear and distinct idea is a recognition that its impossible for the proposition to be false
• any idea that presents itself as clear and distinct to our rational intuition is true
• a clear idea is bright and present to the mind
• a distinct idea is sharply separated from other ideas
  eg. pain is clear to the person afflicted, but not distinct as the cause may be hard to distinguish
• intuition is the single act where one inwardly ‘looks upon’ a proposition and immediately knows it to be true
• clear and distinct idea is perceived by the intuition
• rational intuition is a priori faculty that allows us to see the truth

Question 12

what is Descartes cogito as an example of a priori intuition

Answer 12

• I think
• therefore I doubt
• therefore I am
• descartes point is that he cannot doubt that he exists, even if an evil demon is deceiving him
• even if a demon was deceiving him there must be something for him to deceive in the first place
• the fact that’d Descartes can doubt his own existence is proof that he exists

Question 13

what is Descartes trademark argument

Answer 13

• an example of his intuition and deduction thesis
• his argument goes as follows
• I have the concept of god
• my ideas/concepts must be caused by something
• god is a perfect being
• I am a finite and imperfect being
• the cause of something must contain as much reality/perfection as the effect (causal principle)
• so the cause of my idea of god must be an infinite and perfect being
• so god exists
• descartes says the concept of god is like an innate ‘trademark’ placed in our minds

Question 14

what is descartes contigency argument

Answer 14

he asks wether the fact of his own existence must be enough to show that there must be a God
P1 the cause of my existence could be a) myself b) I have always existed c) my parents d) a being less than God or e) God
P2 I can’t have caused my own existence because I would have created myself perfect, nor can I sustain my own existence
P3 I can’t have existed forever for I would be aware of this
P4 my parents may be the cause of my physical existence but not of me as a thinking mind, and they don’t sustain me each moment
P5 I can’t be created by a being less than god, as I have the idea of god inside of me and there must be at least as much reality in the cause as the effect (causal principle)
C therefore god could have created me
- process of elimination

Question 15

what is Descartes ontological argument

Answer 15

• I have an idea of god as a supremely perfect being
• a supremely perfect being must have all perfections
• existence is a perfection
• therefore god exists.
• this argument is similar to anselms except it uses the concept of a perfect being rather than one which no greater than can be conceived
• propositions can be split up into the subject + predicate
• some predicates are a necessary part of their subject eg. ‘internal angles adding up to 180’ is a predicate of the concept of ‘triangle’
• likewise, ‘existence’ is a predicate which is part of the definition of ‘god’
• so stating ‘god exists’ is a tautology and stating that ‘god doesn’t exist’ is a self-contradiction

Question 16

explain descartes proof of the external world as one example of a priori deduction

Answer 16

Descartes attempts to prove the external world by showing that his sensations of objects must be caused by the external world

• his first argument says that sensations come from outside him because a will is apart of my essence and sensations are not subject to my will, showing they are external
• the second part of his argument says that sensations originate from matter because the origin of sensation can only come from either god or matter, and I have a natural strong inclination to believe they come from matter, so if their origin were god, god would be a deceiver. but god is not a deceiver, so sensation originates in matter

Question 17

what are responses to descartes cogito

Answer 17

1) who is the ‘I’ that Is thinking? if descartes is only aware of his existence when he is thinking about it, maybe every time he stops thinking about it he ceases to exist, and everytime the ‘I’ is a different person given the memories of descartes, or there is no ‘I’ at all and we are just floating thoughts

2) is it an intuition or a deduction? if he learns this by experiencing in his own case that it isn’t possible to think without existing, then he used reason and induction to work his way to the conclusion

Question 18

what is a response to Descartes trademark argument

Answer 18

the causal principle says that the cause of something has at least as much reality as its effect
the causal principle may be true in regard to the physical world, but it isn’t clear how it works in regards to the worlds of ideas. our minds can easily create better versions of real objects.
perhaps our idea of god is created through better versions of the virtues in other people.

Question 19

what is a response to the contingency argument

Answer 19

we could have been created by a less than perfect being. such as an evil scientist, an angel or even a process of evolution. why must our creator be restricted to only 3.

Question 20

what is a response to the ontological argument

Answer 20

• guanilo responded with the perfect island argument.
• he argued that it was possible to use the form of the ontological argument to prove the existence of a perfect island.
• the perfect island must exist otherwise it is possible to conceive of an island greater than that island which no greater can be conceived.
• i can think of a perfect island, therefore it must have the quality of existence
• this argument just applied the quality of existence to our ideas, it doesn’t prove that they exist
• but we know that the perfect island does not exist.
• in other words, the ontological argument does not make sense.
• the perfect island example could be applied to any object
• humes fork: humes fork is split into relations of ideas and matters of fact.
• Matters of fact require experience and are claims about what exists.
• according to Humes fork, the most that descartes argument could show is that the idea of god contains existence.
• descartes argument is just a claim about god’s existence
• this does not tell us if god exists as it requires experience.

Question 21

what is a response to descartes proof of the external world.

Answer 21

not everyone is inclined to believe that sensations come from matter. perhaps god feeds the ideas of material things directly into our mind- exactly the idealist view of Berkley. descartes says this means god is being deceptive, but for Berkley there is no deception.

humes for fork: descartes arguments rely on matter of facts. humes fork says matter of facts are a posteriori (developed via experience and claims about what exists)
so if humes fork is correct it shows that descartes arguments are not a priori. (innate).