PHIL 004 FINAL

PUN

Presupposing that a sequence of events in the future will occur as it always has in the past (for example, that the laws of physics will hold as they have always been observed to hold). (Hume called this the principle of the uniformity of nature)

Problem with the Continuum

- "Nothing takes place suddenly, and it is one of my great and best confirmed maxims that nature never makes leaps." -motion cannot rise from complete rest - any change passes through some intermediate change and that there is an actual infinity in things

Copy Principle

- "all our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent. - however, he allows that there can be complex ideas which do not have corresponding impressions, but these themselves consist of simple ideas. - Hume allows a single exception with his missing shade of blue example.

Apperception

- "consciousness, or the reflective knowledge of this internal state." He adds that this is "something not given to all souls, nor at all times to a given soul."

a priori/a posteriori

- All our knowledge is either a priori or a posteriori. A Priori judgments are from reason alone and a posteriori judgments come from experience.

analytic

- Analytic judgments explain our subjects and are necessarily true and everyone agrees on them without experience. The "predicate's connection with the subject is thought by identity. They dissect the the parts of the subject. The concept of a body having extension is analytic.

Inference to Best Explanation

- Another argument Berkeley offers for the view that there is nothing but what we are immediately aware of in perception is the argument that we have no reason to believe anything else exists. Berkeley raises two related considerations here. First, he suggests that there is no way we could come to learn about anything except the immediate objects of sense, since we can perceive nothing else directly, can construct no a priori argument for the existence of anything else, and cannot learn that certain kinds of experience are reliably correlated with anything else (since we cannot notice a certain kind of experience, notice some objective property of material substance, and then notice that the one is always accompanied by the second: all we ever perceive, on Berkeley's account, are items of the former sort). -Second, Berkeley points out that it is unnecessary to postulate the existence of material substance, since our experiences could be exactly the same whether there were any non mental cause of them or not. In both cases, Berkeley seems severely hampered by the absence of any notion of inference to the best explanation.

Degrees of Reality and Formal/Objective Reality

- Descarte separates "realness" into three levels: Modes, Finite Substances, and Infinite Substances. - Formal reality asks 'how real is the thing?' - Objective reality is the degree of reality if something were to exists. Only ideas have objective reality.

Real Distinction Arguments and Dualism

- Descartes - mind and body are separate from each other. - Meditation 6: 1. If I can C&D perceive x without y, then God could make x exist without y. 2. If God could make x exist without y, then x and y are really distinct. 3. I exist and I have a C&D perception of myself as merely a thinking and non-extended thing. 4. I have a C&D perception of a body as merely an extended and non-thinking thing. 5. So I can C&D perceive myself without any body. [3, 4] 6. So God could make me exist without any body. [1, 5] 7. Therefore, I, a thinking thing, am really distinct from any body. [2, 6]

Method of Doubt

- Descartes begins with doubting the truth of everything - from evidence of senses to the process of reasoning itself to defeat skepticism on its own ground. - (Perceptual Illusion, The Dream Problem, and the Evil Deceiver)

Idea of Nec. Connection/Power/Cause

- Events may appear conjoined, but never connected. And because there is no simple impression related to necessary connection, it would seem that that term is meaningless, both in philosophy and in common life. When we say that two events are connected, we simply mean that they have acquired a connection in our minds.

Eliminativism

- Galileo/Boyle: sensory qualities like taste, odor, and color do not exist in objects but only within us as sensations. ex: a feather tickles us, but the sensation of tickling is not inside the feather.

Infinite Substances

- God - highest formal reality - doesn't depend on anything to exist. - Idea of God - mode of an infinite substance

Test for meaningfulness of Ideas

- If we produce an idea that we contend is not derived from an original impression, or lively perception, then it is Hume's business to produce that impression or admit that his theory, his empiricism, is not correct. - Now if we produce an idea, like power or necessary connection, that we maintain is not derived from an antecedent impression, it is not incumbent upon Hume to produce the impression or abandon his empiricism. Instead, Hume can say this means that our idea is "without any meaning or idea." - So, the best that Hume can do is to attribute our belief in power, force, energy, and necessary connection to the psychological conditioning brought about by the "custom" or "habit" of experiencing the constant conjunction of causes with effects:

ideas

- one and all copies of impressions. This can be seen by paying attention to the ideas one has, and recognizing the impressions which are their source. - It can also be shown from the fact that a person born without the right sense organs never has the corresponding impressions, and always lacks the associated ideas. So there is a general maxim that all ideas are copies of impressions.

Subject Predicate Containment Theory

- In every true proposition, the predicate is somehow contained within the subject. - A proposition is made of the meaning of words and the meaning of a word is the concept we associate with that word. Ex: A triangle has three sides. Anything that is a triangle must also be something with three sides. -According to the PCP, every truth, the predicate concept is part of the subject concept. - "the notion of an individual substance includes once and for all everything that can ever happen to it. ex: the sweater I chose to wear is contained within me

Cause and Effect

- Kant considers this univeral principle as a synthetic a priori truth. It is valid for anything we experience because all our experience is shaped by the category of causality. He formulates this principle in the following way: everything that happens presupposes that which it follows in accordance with a rule.

*****Categories

- Kant proposed that the mind has "categories of understanding," which catalogue, codify, and make sense of the world. In Kant's philosophy, a category is a pure concept of the understanding. A Kantian category is a characteristic of the appearance of any object in general, before it has been experienced. Kant wrote that "They are concepts of an object in general...."[1] Kant also wrote that, "...pure cоncepts [Categories] of the undеr standing...apply to objects of intuition in general...."[2] Such a category is not a classificatory division, as the word is commonly used. It is, instead, the condition of the possibility of objects in general,[3] that is, objects as such, any and all objects, not specific objects in particular.

Response to Occasionalism

- Leibniz believed that there were no causal interaction between distinct finite substances, but they are causally active internally and can cause their own states. Everything causally contributes to their own states and if there seems to be an interaction it is because their states are harmonizing. - God does not control all our actions but he lays them out in advance.

Determinism

- Leibniz says that Since God is good and omnipotent, and since He chose this world out of all possibilities, this world must be good—in fact, this world is the best of all possible worlds. -Determinism is compatible with free will because the highest form of freedom is to act perfectly following sovereign reason. God inclines us toward freedom but due to our finitude, we can't always recognize the good.

Complex ideas

- Locke says that simple ideas come from 1. combination, 2. comparison, and 3 abstraction of simple ideas. - ex1: yellow+wheels+long= school bus or even for mythical ideas of unicorns. - ex2: ideas of "younger" or "cause and effect" - ex3: how general ideas are made - we see three cats, and we abstract from them the idea of a cat; instead of labeling each one because they look different, we focus on the similarities.

Locke's response to skepticism

- Locke's main response is to not take skepticism seriously. Can we really doubt that there is an external world? - Pragmatic response: sure, we can reject the external world, but what matters is that we know enough to enable us to get around in the world. We will never cease to act like there is no external world, whether there is or isn't. - Response through experiences: there is a vivacity in what we experience versus our thoughts. - Sense organs do not themselves give rise to those ideas. If that were the case, we would expect people to see colors even in the dark, or smell roses even when there were no flowers. But, this does not happen. Therefore, it must be something EXTERNAL to the sense organs that gives rise to these ideas

Notions

- Since ideas are always of sensible qualities or objects for Berkeley, we have no ideas (but only notions) of spirits. This is a complete enumeration of what is real: active thinking substances and their passive ideas. notion of the which is just to say that we know what the word means. - a spirit is one simple, undivided, active being. there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit: for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert. - we have a not in of spirit, but not "matter" has no content. "Spirit" has content because we know spirit through our own case, and the it is like how we know "I". you have no idea of your own soul, but you do have some sort of image of God with it, while material does not.

Custom/Habit

- Skepticism quite properly forbids us to speculate beyond the content of our present experience and memory, yet we find it entirely natural to believe much more than that. Hume held that these unjustifiable beliefs can be explained by reference to custom or habit. That's how we learn from experience. - When I observe the constant conjunction of events in my experience, I grow accustomed to associating them with each other. - Although many past cases of sunrise do not guarantee the future of nature, my experience of them does get me used to the idea and produces in me an expectation that the sun will rise again tomorrow. I cannot prove that it will, but I feel that it must.

Synthetic

- Synthetic judgment come from our senses and can provide new information. - Experimental judgments are synthetic because you do not need analysis to formulate this. Heaviness of a body is synthetic because we are adding to a concept through experience. Mathematical judgements are synthetic

Occam's Razor

- The principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better. - the simpler the explanation, the better or "don't multiply hypotheses unnecessarily." When giving explanatory reasons for something, don't posit more than is necessary - Berkeley applied Occam's razor to eliminate material substance as an unnecessary plurality. According to Berkeley, we need only minds and their ideas to explain everything. Berkeley was a bit selective in his use of the razor, however. He needed to posit AG as the mind who could hear the tree fall in the forest when nobody is present.

Contradictory Phenomenon

- missing shade of blue example - Hume describes a hypothetical situation about a man who has every shade of blue from deepest to lightest placed before him except for one shade he has not experienced in his thirty years of life. Based on his previous explanation of impressions and ideas, a man who has not seen a particular shade of blue should not be able to imagine that shade. But he says that he believes that the man CAN conjure up the idea of that missing shade of blue, even though he has never sensed it. - he dismisses this an instance so singular that it does not affect his maxim.

Time and Space

- Time and space, Kant argues, are pure intuitions of our faculty of sensibility, and concepts of physics such as causation and inertia are pure intuitions of our faculty of understanding. - These intuitions are the source of mathematics: our number sense comes from our intuition of successive moments in time, and geometry comes from our intuition of space. - Kant turns this assumption on its head, suggesting that time, space, and causation are not found in experience but are instead the form the mind gives to experience. We can grasp the nature of time, space, and causation not because pure reason has some insight into the nature of reality but because pure reason has some insight into the nature of our own mental faculties. this is our motion/contribution to experience. - considered from the empirical perspective, they form the context in which objects interact outside of us; considered from the transcendental perspective, they are pure, so they exist inside of us as conditions of knowledge. - its transcendentally ideal and empirically real because we contribute it. space is not an empirical concept, we cant just experience space and somehow learn what space is. - space is also a necessary a priori representation that underlies all outer intuitions. although we can represent space as empty, we cannot represent to ourselves the absence of space. Space cannot exist independently of objects,

Real vs. Imaginary

- What I merely imagine exists in my mind alone and continues to exist only so long as I think of it. But what is real exists in many minds, so it can continue to exist whether I perceive it or not. (That's why, unsure of the reality of what I seem to see, I may ask someone else, "Did you see that?") The existence of sensible objects requires that they be perceived, but it is not dependent exclusively on my perception of them. - In fact, the persistence and regularity of the sensible objects that constitute the natural world is independent of all human perception, according to Berkeley. Even when none of us is perceiving this tree, god is. The mind of god serves as a permanent repository of the sensible objects that we perceive at some times and not at others.

Pre-established Harmony

- a philosophical theory about causation under which every "substance" only affects itself, but all the substances (both bodies and minds) in the world nevertheless seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to "harmonize" with each other. Leibniz's term for these substances was "monads" which he described in a popular work as "windowless". - this is different from interactionism

metaphysics

- a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it. - Attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms: What ultimately exists? What is it like?

Structure of Descartes Project

- basically doubt everything, then gradually disprove our doubts. (tower of objects) - I think —> I exist —> God Exists and is no deceiver —> C + D perception are true —> Mind and Body are distinct —> Material World exists

epistemology

- concerned with the nature of knowledge. - How is it acquired and what is the extent of knowledge that we have?

problem of induction

- does inductive reasoning lead to knowledge? - For instance, from a series of observations that a woman walks her dog by the market at 8am on Monday, it seems valid to infer that next Monday she will do the same, or that, in general, the woman walks her dog by the market every Monday. - He argues that causal relations are found not by reason, but by induction; one must observe occurrences of the causal relation to discover that it holds. - If all matters of fact are based on causal relations, and all causal relations are found by induction, then induction must be shown to be valid somehow. but he says that Induction, itself, cannot validly explain the connection - Hume's solution to this problem is to argue that, rather than reason, natural instinct explains the human practice of making inductive inferences. He asserts that "Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable [sic] necessity has determin'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel."

The Dream Problem

- everything I am perceiving can be a dream. Its possible to doubt that any physical things really exists or that there is an external world at all. - But mathematics and simple natures are unaffected, even if there is no material world, two plus three equals five, and red looks red.

sensitive knowledge

- forms the basis of scientific investigation. - we must rely on past experiences for future knowledge. - I only have sensitive knowledge that there is something producing the odor I smell.

Innate Ideas of True and Immutable Natures.

- he means innateness as a capacity within us where we can summon up an idea. They are the patterns on the basic on which we form all our other conceptions. - certain mathematical ideas(geometry), metaphysical idea(God), and eternal truths(something can't come from nothing) are innate.

Locke's argument against Innate Ideas

- he suggests that the concept of universal assent proves nothing, but that everyone is in agreement. - he even says that there is no universal assent; infants and the "handicapped" do not have this truism. - an innate idea cannot be imprinted on the mind without us knowing it ex:we can recall a melody when we hear the first few notes, but we are aware of the fact that we knew the melody - mind is a blank slate or "tabula rasa" all ideas come from experience and all our knowledge is founded in sensory experience.

intuitive knowledge

- highest degree of certainty; we cannot be more certain that one object is not identical with another - we can be certain of our own existence - no need for proof.

Master Argument

- his argument seeks to demonstrate that it is actually inconceivable for an object to exist outside of a mind. The argument goes like this: (1) We can conceive of a tree existing independent of an out of all minds whatsoever only if we can conceive of the tree existing unconceived. (2) But an unconceived conceived thing is a contradiction. (3) Hence we cannot conceive of a tree (or anything else) existing independent and out of all minds. - In plainer terms: In order to conceive it possible for a tree to exist outside of all minds, we need to be able to think of an unconceived tree. But as soon as we try to conceive of this unconceived tree, we have conceived it. So we have failed. Try to imagine, for instance, a tree deep in some primeval forest. Surely this tree has never been conceived. But it just was. As soon as you imagined it, it was conceived. - argument against this: he fails to distinguish between the act of perception and the content of the perception. It is one thing for me to be imagining the tree, and quite another for the content of my imagining to be of an unconceived, unperceived tree.

Simple Ideas of Sensation and Reflection

- ideas are what we immediately perceive with the mind through experience and the perception of agreement and disagreement among our ideas is knowledge. - ideas of sensation come from the causal operation of external objects on our sensory organs. ex: "red" or "sweet" - ideas of reflection come through the internal sense that is awareness of our own intellectual operations. ex: "remembering" or "thinking" - Locke says that both ideas include pleasure , pain, power, existence, and unity.

Molineaux case

- if someone blind from birth became familiar with solid figures by touch alone, then later gained the power to see, this person will not be able to distinguish a cube and a sphere alone without first touching them. - Locke agrees, only "habitual custom" associates ideas from distinct senses with each other.

Mind/Body Problem

- if the mind and body are not connected, how do they interact? 1. a less real thing cannot cause an action in a more real thing. Since mind and body are finite substances, it does not violate this causal principle. 2. sensation is what unifies the mind and body, they don't belong to either exclusively.

Limitation on Knowledge: Probable Assent

- intuition extends only to the identity and diversity of ideas we already have, demonstration extends only to ideas which we able to discover, and sensitive knowledge informs us only of the present existence of causes for our sensory idea. - faith is the assent to any proposition made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of the proposer, as coming from God, in some extraordinary way of communication. -Careful observation and experimentation may support a reliable set of generalizations about the appearances of the kinds of things we commonly encounter, but we cannot even conceive of their true natures. - Certainty is rarely within our reach; we must often be content with probable knowledge or mere opinion. Locke ultimately recommends that we adopt significantly reduced epistemological expectations

Idealist Monad View

- it may seem like there is causal interaction between things, but there isnt. keep Dualism, and deny interactionism. God does not get involved at each point on the occasion of mental event. Leibniz's pre-established harmony - bodily events work at a deterministic way. Every movement of our limbs occur harmoniously with the mental events so it seems like they are interacting, but the mind is not causing the event. God doesn't step in every time, but has pre-planned things for it to happen so he doesn't have to jump in at the occasion. -He becomes an idealist because he reflects on the problem of the continuum - what are the building blocks of extended bodies? - extentions are either infinitely divisible or there is a minimum size. - he doesnt think there is an extended part that is indivisible. -there are no brute facts - just because. - he doesnt think we can make sense of material substance. -so what are these objects? - if its not material, then it is a bare slumbering monad (or infinite bare slumbering monads)- kind of mind with no apperception - the monads are not consciously perceiving, but they have petite perceptions. - rational souls are the ones who perceive with knowledge and reason. they're predetermined to perceive monads slumbering monads are how other monads

Actual/Habitual knowledge

- knowledge is agreement or disagreement of ideas with one another - actual:we perceive the agreement in question and are conscious of it. - habitual: inclination to assent to what we've known in the past. It is preserved in our memory.

Berkeley's Idealist position and God's Role

- material things do not exist, and all reality exists as perceptions within the minds of spirits. - A good way of understanding Berkeley's position is to see it as taking Descartes' evil genius hypothesis seriously.For all I know, there is no material world whatsoever, and all of my experiences are hallucinations that are imposed into my mind by an evil genius. -This is simply the way that God constructed the world: it is a virtual reality that consists of God continually feeding our spirit-minds sensory information in a very consistent way. - How, though, can Berkeley be an empiricist if he doesn't believe in material objects? - He believes that God provides our sensations, not material objects. - all qualities of objects are really secondary and thus spectator dependent. - His main point is that so-called primary qualities are nothing beyond the secondary qualities that we perceive in things. Visual perceptions of shape, for example, are just patches of color, which are secondary. Ex: the quality of extension, that is, three-dimensional shape. Our conceptions of an object's shape hinge directly on the perspective of the spectator. The leg of a bug, for example, appears exceedingly small to us; to the bug itself it would appear to be a medium sized thing, yet to an even tinier microscopic organism it would appear to be huge. God directly feeds us sensory information without creating the material world as a useless middleman. - Thus, God is perfectly capable of feeding us sensory information directly without the need for him to create the material world as a crutch.

Modes

- properties of substances: location, volume, or judgment and desires of the objects. - least formal reality - depends on finite substances to exist. ex: My idea of a 2" length - FR:mode, OR: mode of a mode

secondary qualities

- properties that produce sensations in observers - color, taste, smell, sound, texture - knowledge that comes from secondary qualities does not provide objective facts. - they do not exist outside our mind, and they come from primary qualities - resemblance of the ideas of primary qualities, but the ideas produced in us by secondary qualities have no resemblances. ex: color blue

relations of ideas vs matters of fact

- relations of ideas: a priori and indestructible bonds created between ideas. Ex: "5 + 7 = 12" and "all bachelors are unmarried" are relations of ideas. Relations of ideas are intuitively or demonstrably certain, and a denial of such a proposition implies a contradiction. - Matters of fact: aposteriori and deal with experience ex:that the sun is shining, that yesterday I went for a walk, or that it will rain tomorrow are all matters of fact. - can be denied without fear of contradiction. If it is sunny outside and I assert that it is raining, I can only be proven wrong by looking out the window and checking: my assertion cannot be disproved simply by an appeal to logic and reason.

Finite Substances

- rocks, trees, human bodies and minds. - medium formal reality ex: myself - FR: finite subtance ex 2: my IDEA of myself - FR: mode, OR: mode of a finite substance. ex 3: idea of a unicorn - FR: mode, OR: mode of a finite substance because if it were to exist, it would be finite.

rationalist/empiricist Synthesis

- senses transmit to the intellect the object that is to be understood by the faculty of the understanding. - our perceptions, which are representations of the sensations, bring to the knower the matter, which is plugged into, so to say, the a priori forms of the understanding. Kant claimed that the forms, in the mind before any experience is brought to the knower, can be known by the knower without the matter of experience, and, therefore, he embarked on a detailed analysis of these forms.

Skeptical hypothesis

- something I cannot rule out and would falsify everything if it were to be true - i believe these things but I do not know them

Relativity

- the first sensible quality that Philonous tries to link with pain is intense heat. Intense heat, he tells us, is simply felt as pain. What it means to feel intense heat, is to feel pain. So since pain can only exist in a sentient being, the same is true of intense heat. Intense heat, then, is mind-dependent. - In detail the argument goes like this:(1) Nonsentient things do not experience pain and pleasure.(2) Matter is nonsentient. (3) Matter is not capable of pleasure and pain.(5) Intense heat is a form of pain.(6) Hence matter is not capable of feeling intense heat.(7) So intense heat is mind-dependent. (7) Finally, since intense heat and all other degrees of heat must be the same type of thing, all degrees of heat must be mind-dependent. - Sensible qualities can only exist inside the mind, and cannot belong to matter. (1) The same thing cannot be both cold and warm at once. (2) Material things that are perceived to have a moderate degree of cold or warmth are really cold or warm. This is a materialist assumption. (3) The same water can be perceived to be cold to one hand and warm to the other. For instance, imagine that one hand was just in the freezer and the other in the oven. Now you stick them both in the same bucket of lukewarm water. To the hand that was in the freezer the water feels warm, and to the hand that was in the oven the water feels cold.(4) So the same water is both cold and warm at once.(5) Therefore, the cold or warmth cannot belong to a material object (i.e. mind-independent water), since the same thing cannot be both cold and warm at once.

Idea of Active Power

- the power to make a change ex: fire has the power to melt gold (passive power: gold has the power to be melted) - idea through sensation and reflection - two kinds: motion(of matter) and thought(of mind)

Empiricism

- the theory that experience rather than knowledge is the foundation of certainty in knowledge - philosophers: Berkeley, Locke, Hume

Rationalism

- the theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge. - philosophers: Descartes, Leibniz, Melanbranche

Evil Deceiver Argument

- there is an omnipotent being that tries to deceive me. Every time I believe something, a deceiver could change the world to make my belief false.

Perceptual Illusion

- things are always not what they seem at first glance through the senses - ex:if the light is poor, or the object is far away. So the senses are not always reliable. Reply: Sense deceptions are only unreliable in non-ideal conditions of observation.

Transcendentally Real and ideal

- transcendental argument to prove synthetic a priori attempts to prove a conclusion about the necessary structure of knowledge on the basis of an incontrovertible mental act. Kant argues in the Refutation of Material Idealism that the fact that "There are objects that exist in space and time outside of me," (B 274) which cannot be proven by a priori or a posteriori methods, is a necessary condition of the possibility of being aware of one's own existence. It would not be possible to be aware of myself as existing, he says, without presupposing the existing of something permanent outside of me to distinguish myself from. I am aware of myself as existing. Therefore, there is something permanent outside of me. - transcendental: one of Kant's four main perspectives, aiming to establish a kind of knowledge which is both synthetic and a priori. It is a special type of philosophical knowledge, concerned with the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience. However, Kant believes all knowing subjects assume certain transcendental truths, whether or not they are aware of it. Transcendental knowledge defines the boundary between empirical knowledge and speculation about the transcendent realm. 'Every event has a cause' is a typical transcendental statement. (Cf. empirical.)

Leibniz response to Locke

- we can know of things without being conscious of them. Memory is unconscious until we consciously retrieve it. - important distinction between necessary and contingent truths. - necessary: priori and innate - contingent: posteriori. ex: its like saying that '2+2=4' is a generalization of our experience so far, and that one day we could disprove it. - obviously wrong, so we should say that mathematical knowledge is a priori and established through reasoning alone.

Empiricist Pedigree

- we can trace all our meaningful ideas to experience.

demonstrative knowledge

-requires a connection ex: sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles, not evident at first sight. - idea of God - if the idea of God was innate, then all people would have this knowledge and no every culture does.

Existence is to be perceived, perceive, or will

-To be means to be perceived, or esse est percipi, -Actually, Berkeley does not deny that physical objects continue to exist when we are not perceiving them - that tomato remains on the table even while none of us observes it; your kitchen continues to exist even after you have turned off the light and gone to bed. Why? Because God constantly observes everything.

Petite Perception

-perceptions that are not perceived. - lacks intensive magnitude and its brief. ex: we hear the totality of the ocean, and not each individual wave.

Appetition

-tendencies from one perception to another perception - we represent the world in our perceptions and these representations are linked with an internal principle of activity and change, which urges us ever onward in the constantly changing flow of mental life. - the principle force which is our essence, expresses itself in momentary derivative forces involving two aspects: representative aspect(perception) and the dynamical aspect(striving towards new perceptions).

Ontological proof of God in Meditation Five.

1. All that I perceive clearly and distinctly as applying to the thing really does apply to it. 2. I understand clearly and distinctly that the necessary existence belongs to the essence of God 3. therefore, existence belong to the essence of God, and God exists. - God would not be God, if he didn't exist, just like if a triangle was not three sided, it would not be a triangle. - Caterus' objection: He says that we must look elsewhere for proof that God exists before we label God as having the essence of existence. He says that Descartes argument only shows that the CONCEPT of existence is inseparable from the CONCEPT of God. We can come up with parallel arguments Ex: existacorns - if existing is a part of its essence, then it is still hypothetical - "if God exists, he has these qualities" does not mean he exists. he replies that if it is part of the concept of God that God must exist, then God must exist. (does this really answer the objections....?) - Descartes reply: my argument was only supposed to work with True and Immutable natures - God is a special case. If it is a part of the concept of God that he exits, then he must exist.

Contemporary Skeptical Scenarios

1. Brain in a Vat - everything we believe could be false because we are a brain inside a lab that a scientist or aliens are playing with. 2. The Matrix - Similar to above but our body exists and we are controlled by computers.

Cartesian Circle

1. Descartes proof of clear and distinct perceptions comes from the thought that God is not a deceiver. 2. God's existence comes from reliability in clear and distinct perceptions.

First Proof of God in Meditation Three

1. I exist 2. There must be a cause for my existence. 3. The cause must be one of the following: (a) myself, (b) my always having existed, (c) my parents, (d) something less perfect than God, or (e) God. 4. Not (a) because I would have made myself perfect and I am not perfect. 5. Not (b), because my existing now does not follow from my having existed in the past. 6. Not (c), for this leads to an infinite regress. 7. Not (d), for this couldn't account for the unity of the idea of God that I have. 8. Therefore (e), and God exists - he cannot doubt the existence of God because he has such a clear and distinct perception of God's existence. - if the Mediator was created by God, then the idea of him was within him, and God is not a deceiver because deception comes from imperfection and God is perfect.

Every substance expresses the universe

According to Leibniz, in each possible world every state of every substance "represents" every other substance state. This must be the case, because every possible world is ordered in a certain way (with the best possible world, say, ordered in the way that makes the most sense). - Each monad has its own perspective on the universe, depending on how it is situated with respect to the other monads (and as such each monad has a different degree of clarity and confusion in the expression of truths about the universe as a whole). - Moreover, since we know that God made the best possible world, we can see God in things themselves. This must be the case because every stage of every monad, being a stage in the best possible world, reflects what it does -- or has the degree of clarity or confusion that it does on the rest of the universe -- for a reason. - And that reason is the best reason possible. So in all things, and at every stage in time, God's infinite wisdom and omnipotence can be reflected, because from any particular part of the best possible world one can determine that it is the best possible world.

The Cogito

Descartes - "I think, therefor I am" or "I am thinking, therefore I exist" is necessarily true whenever it is conceived in my mind. It is impossible doubt that I exist. There is no way one could be deceived unless on existed in order to be deceived.

Proof of existence of material things

Descartes - only material things can cause our ideas of material objects so it must exist. Material objects could not have come from: 1. myself - because if i were to create material objects, I could have everything I willed. 2. God, because he would have to not have provided me with the ideas of material objects directly without also giving me some reason for recognising their origin - then he would be a deceiver. 3. deceiver - we can reject some demon hypothesis since I have been given no capacity to recognise such deception - God would not allow it.

impressions

Hume says that the fundamental difference between this and ideas is said to be the liveliess of vivacity, impressions being the more lively.

predications/generalizations

Generalizing about the properties of a class of objects based on some number of observations of particular instances of that class (for example, the inference that "all swans we have seen are white, and therefore all swans are white," before the discovery of black swans)

Leibniz View on Freedom

God causally determines every human act and he has foreknowledge of every human act.

Copernican Revolution in metaphysics

Kant achieves what he calls a Copernican revolution in philosophy by turning the focus of philosophy from metaphysical speculation about the nature of reality to a critical examination of the nature of the thinking and perceiving mind. - In effect, Kant tells us that reality is a joint creation of external reality and the human mind and that it is only regarding the latter that we can acquire any certain knowledge. - - Kant challenges the assumption that the mind is a blank slate or a neutral receptor of stimuli from the surrounding world. The mind does not simply receive information, according to Kant; it also gives that information shape. - Knowledge, then, is not something that exists in the outside world and is then poured into an open mind like milk into a cup. - Rather, knowledge is something created by the mind by filtering sensations through our various mental faculties. Because these faculties determine the shape that all knowledge takes, we can only grasp what knowledge, and hence truth, is in its most general form if we grasp how these faculties inform our experience. -Kant had solved the problem of how the mind acquires knowledge from experience by arguing that the mind imposes principles upon experience to generate knowledge.

empirically real and ideal

Kant is an empirical realist about the world we experience; we can know objects as they appear to us. He gives a robust defense of science and the study of the natural world from his argument about the mind's role in making nature. empirical: one of Kant's four main perspectives, aiming to establish a kind of knowledge which is both synthetic and a posteriori. Most of the knowledge we gain through ordinary experience, or through science, is empirical. 'This table is brown' is a typical empirical statement.

Primary Qualities

Locke - properties of objects that are independent of any observer - solidity, extension, motion, number, and figure - convey facts and exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjective judgments ex: if a ball is spherical, no one can argue that is triangular

eye of the mind

The mind cannot experience anything that is not filtered through the mind's eye. Therefore, you can never know the true nature of reality. In this sense, Kant claims that indeed "perception is reality."

idealism

The term "idealism" comes from the word "idea" insofar as the only things that exist are ideas in one's mind.

Reductionism

This is an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things.