Task 3 - Objectivity/Subjectivity And Body/Mind

Question 1

Rene Descartes

Answer 1

1596-1650
Reasoning: Rationalist (deductive reasoning, innate knowledge)
His contribution: Mechanism and Mind-Body problem.
Founder of DUALISM
Interactionalist dualism

Question 2

Mechanistic View

Answer 2

Everything in the material universe can be understood as a complex machine. Natural processes are mechanically determined and capable of explanation by the laws of physics and chemistry.

Question 3

Determinism

Answer 3

The view that every act is determined / caused by past events (we can predict the changes that will occur in the universe if we understand how its parts function)

Question 4

Reductionism

Answer 4

The view that complex phenomena can be described completely by reducing them to their basic components.

Question 5

Reflex Action Theory

Answer 5

By Descartes.
The idea that external stimuli can cause an action without a person’s conscious intention.

Question 6

“I think, therefore I am.”

Answer 6

Descartes.
Cogito ergo sum.

Question 7

The doctrine of innate ideas

Answer 7

Descartes.

The mind produces two kinds of ideas:
1. DERIVED IDEAS: produced by the direct application of an external stimulus. They are products of the experiences of the senses.
2. INNATE IDEAS: developed from the mind/consciousness, independent of sensory experiences

Question 8

Isaac Newton

Answer 8

1643-1727

Question 9

Age of Enlightenment

Answer 9

18th century.
The western philosophy and cultural life, in which autonomous thinking and observation became advocated as the primary sources of knowledge rather than reliance on authority.

Question 10

Positivism

Answer 10

The view that authentic knowledge can only be obtained by means of scientific method. It saw religion and philosophy as inferior forms of explanation.

Introduced by AUGUSTE COMTE (1798-1857) who is seen as the founder of sociology.

Question 11

Law of three stages

Answer 11

A hypothesis proposed by Comte that civilizations pass through three stages:
1. THEOCRATIC STAGE: gods and spirits dominate the culture. Within this stage there is transition from animism to polytheism to monotheism.
2. METAPHYSICAL STAGE: Philosophical explanations dominate.
3. POSITIVISTIC STAGE: Scientific explanations dominate and society reaches maturity.

Question 12

Materialism

Answer 12

The view that considers everything in the universe (including the human consciousness) to be explainable by the properties of matter and energy.

Question 13

Romanticism

Answer 13

Romantic movement: late 18th and early 19th centuries
Reacted against the mechanistic worldview and the emphasis on reason preached by the Enlightenment.

It saw the universe as a changing organism and emphasized on anything that deviated from rationalism: the individual, the irrational, the imaginative, the emotional, the natural, the transcendental.

Question 14

Rationalism

Answer 14

Main proponents: Descartes, Plato …
Knowledge is obtained through deductive reasoning on the basis of innate knowledge.

Source of knowledge: Reasoning

Question 15

Empiricism

Answer 15

Came during scientific revolution.
Main proponents: Natural philosophers, Locke (father), Berkeley, Hume
Knowledge is obtained by means of perceptual experiences (places emphasis on inductive reasoning).
Human mind at birth is a blank slate and there is no innate knowledge in the beginning, it all arises from sensory experience and induction.

Question 16

John Locke

Answer 16

1632-1704
Father of Empiricism.
No innate knowledge but thought language is innate.

Question 17

Locke: Two types of experience

Answer 17

1. SENSATION: leads to simple impressions on which the mind operates, reflecting on them to form ideas.
2. REFLECTION: a cognitive function that depends on sensations (as it is based on sensory experiences)

Question 18

Locke distinguished between two forms of ideas:

Answer 18

1. SIMPLE IDEAS: can arise from both sensation & reflection and cannot be reduced to even simpler ideas.
2. COMPLEX IDEAS: a combination of simple ideas that is a product of the process of reflection.

ASSOCIATION: the process of linking simple ideas into complex ideas (which result in knowledge)

Question 19

Locke distinguished between two types of qualities of objects:

Answer 19

PRIMARY QUALITIES: qualities that belong to the object whiter or not we perceive them (e.g. size, shape)
SECONDARY QUALITIES: Qualities that exist only in our perception of the object (e.g. color, taste)

Question 20

Idealism / Mentalism

Answer 20

A philosophical view that human knowledge is a construction of the mind and may not represent the outside world correctly.

Main proponents: Berkeley (Founder), Hume (Founder)

Question 21

Realism

Answer 21

A philosophical view that human knowledge tries to reveal the real properties of the outside world.

Question 22

Dualism

Answer 22

Proposed during scientific revolution (17th century)
Main proponents: Descartes (Founder)

View of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body
• human soul is divine, has innate knowledge
• everything else (universe, human body …) was regarded as a machine that could be studied

Question 23

George Berkeley

Answer 23

1685-1753
Argued that contents of the soul entirely consist of impressions acquired through observation.

Idealism.

Agreed with Locke’s distinction of primary and secondary qualities but he believed that only secondary ones exist.

Question 24

David Hume

Answer 24

1711-1776
Expanded Berkeley’s position and criticized scientist’s way of making causal inferences.

Question 25

Immanuel Kant

Answer 25

1724-1804
Agrees with Berkeley and Hume that we cannot have direct knowledge of the outside reality through perception.