PHIL 250
wittgenstein on verification
"A proposition cannot say more than what is established by means of the method of its verification" LOGICAL POSITIVISM • Verifications theories of meaning o Verificationism: • the doctrine that a proposition is only cognitively meaningful if it can be definitively and conclusively determined to be either true or false (i.e. verifiable or falsifiable). • Meaning = verification - know how you would do it, not actually do it theories of meaning: • the verification theory of meaning claims that the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification.
Lock on the Prince and the Cobbler
"For should the soul of a Prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the Prince's past life, enter and inform the body of a Cobbler as soon as deserted by his own soul, everyone sees, he would be the same person with the Prince, accountable only for the Prince's actions: but who would say it was the same man?". RESULTING MAN: same MAN as cobbler (body) same PERSON as principle (mind)
LOCKE
"The Father of Liberalism" o "What worries you, masters you" o "All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions" o "We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves"
hume on Problem of Freedom of the Will
"a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will: that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may. Freedom is therefore, the ability to act as a free person without restraint from some external influence or source of coercion or restraint. Determinism is defined as the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will (OED). This concept poses a problem for the freedom of the will because if all events are causally determined, then there is no such thing as free will because it obstructs the "possibility of liberty" (TIP, para 4). Hume's solution to the free will debate is his compatibilist position on the argument which serves as an "adequate explanation of free will" (Neal, para 1) Compatibilists argue that even in a deterministic world, it is still possible for you to make decisions freely. For example, if your friends invite you to go see a movie and you decline, he would say that you are acting freely because you had the opportunity to accept the offer, but (willingly) declined: free actions are under the causal control of our beliefs and desires (ibid). Hume's position as a compatibilist allows him to accept the concept of determinism whilst maintaining the concept of freedom of the will: an act is performed freely so long as "an agent could have done otherwise, had the agent wanted to"
hume on ideas
"idea" as a catch-all term to refer to all mental objects Hume's empiricism that every idea has its origin in an impression
KANT on things-in-themselves
"things-in-themselves" (or "noumena") are unknowable It follows from this view that we never experience "pure" sensory data as it is prior to its organization by our conceptual scheme. Thus we can know things-as-they-appear-to-us, but not things-as-they-are-in-themselves. Noumena as Kant cryptically puts it: noumena are representations of a problem which makes sense, but to which no answer can be given
DESCARTES
(1596-1650) French philosopher, discovered analytical geometry. "Father of Modern Philosophy" "It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well" "Divide each difficultly into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it" "Cogito ergo sum"
LOCKE primary and secondary qualities
(a) primary qualities - mind-dependent b) secondary qualities - mind independent (not in the properties) Secondary qualities are said to be relative to the perceiver because the secondary qualities an object is experienced as having (e.g. its colour, smell, and sound, etc.) depend on the nature of the sense organs and brains of the perceiver.
Descartes' Certainty
Certainty demands finding basic beliefs that are absolutely certain and connections between beliefs that preserve that certainty.
HUME
A Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, and naturalism. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" "Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them" "A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence"
Objections to Descartes's Strategy
All at once o Descartes is wrong to think it makes sense to question all of our beliefs at once. o Descartes's strategy is self-defeating: if we reject any beliefs we have the remotest reason to doubt, then we will deny ourselves the recourses to rebuild knowledge. Why Certainty? the quest for certainty sets too high standards for knowledge
Kant
An influential German philosopher In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, he argued that space, time and causation are mere sensibilities; "things-in-themselves" exist, but their nature is unknowable "Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination" "He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals" "Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life"
Berkeley's critique of primary and secondary quality distinction [against Locke]
Berkeley has four principal (and related) lines of attack: (a) the veil of perception argument (b) the challenge argument (c) the critique of the secondary quality/primary quality distinction (d) his critique of Locke on abstraction
Mind-Independent Objects
Berkeley thinks we cannot make sense of mind-independent objects [no such thing as them]; but are we any better off when it comes to making sense of other minds? • The minds of others - and especially God's mind - are not directly present to us in experience. We have to infer that they are there. • Why is the inference to the existence of other minds any better than the inference to the existence of material objects? o It is important that, for Berkeley, minds are active, while ideas are passive. o We are aware that there are other minds when we undergo changes to our experience that we do not originate. o Although particular judgements about other minds do rest on inference, we can give empirical content to the idea of other minds by the experience of activity which is not our own.
Descartes' criterion of truth
Clear and distinct ideas are true. We considered the definition of "clarity" and "distinctness" Descartes concludes that any claim that possessed these virtues would be true.
Objection to the 'cogito' Lichtenberg and Russell
Descartes is rash to move from the cogito to the claim that he is a res cogitans, a thinking thing. For surely Descartes cannot say that there is some thing that exists, only that "thinking is taking place" or "there is thought going on". The word 'I' is really illegitimate, for Descartes ought to state his ultimate premise in the form 'there are thoughts'. The word 'I' is grammatically convenient, but it doesn't really describe a datum" Russell BUT it makes no sense to think of a thought without a thinker Property or an attribute must belong to someone Therefore, this objection is defeated
Locke on persons mind
Each person's mind is fundamentally closed to other people. Since we each have direct access only to our own ideas, no-one can know directly what ideas are before the mind of another person. Therefore, we need some device to convey to each other what ideas are before our minds. Language is that device: we attach conventional labels to our ideas and therefore, by pronouncing the label, I can let you know which idea I have in mind (my using the word "dog" tells which idea I'm thinking of, and it causes the same idea in you). Thus, on Locke's account, words, "in their primary and immediate signification", stand for "nothing but ideas in the mind" of the speaker. Words stand for objects only indirectly, in virtue of standing for the ideas that represent those objects. the primary semantic function of language is NAMING ***************
Locke's Empiricism (the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience)
Experience has two sources: ideas of sensation (ideas we get from the senses) AND ideas of reflection (ideas the mind forms of its own operations by reflecting inwardly - e.g. the idea of believing, of remembering, etc.) Locke is NOT saying that all truths are empirical • Rather, his view is that the origin of all our CONCEPTS ARE EMPIRICAL - every concept gets its content from experience - but once experience has given us concepts we can determine that some things have to be true by reflecting on the nature of those concepts.
Hume on Reason
Hume is an empiricist, and he tries to advance as consistent a form of empiricism as possible. • A naturalist Hume loves to attack the pretensions of the faculty of Reason, arguing that Reason is INCAPABLE of establishing grounds for our most basic beliefs • argues that reason is incapable of determining what is of value • "reason is and can only ever be the slave of the passions"
Descartes' Dream Argument
Gives him reason to doubt all of his sensory knowledge Cartesian doubt, put all beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and matter in doubt.
Kant [metaphysical knowledge is possible] vs Hume [all genuine knowledge is possible]
HUME'S critique of reason rests on the application of two empiricist principles: all our ideas have their origin in experience - ideas derive their content from experience; hence, any idea that doesn't have the right kind of pedigree in experience is a pseudo-idea. (Hume's fork) All truth claims, if true, are either true in virtue of relations of ideas (i.e. they are conceptual truths) or matters of fact (i.e. they are empirical claims which can be tested in experience). KANT denies that all ideas are derived from experience. Certain crucial aspects of our conceptual scheme are not acquired from experience; they are preconditions of experience.
KANT ON Transcendental philosophy
His derivation of space and time as fundamental forms of intuition as the "transcendental aesthetic" [he is concerned with the "look" of the world.] Kant argues that no experience of an objective world is possible unless certain concepts have an application. Kant sets out the twelve "concepts of the understanding" (I) Unity, Plurality, Totality; (II) Reality, Negation, Limitation; (III) Substance, Cause, Community; (IV) Possibility, Existence, Necessity.
GETTIER
His work: Is justified true belief knowledge
williams
His work: The self and the future
denote
His work: Where am I o "Contemporary discussions of personal identity are distorted by dualistic assumptions that we owe ultimately to Descartes." Explain and evaluate this claim with reference to Williams's "The Self and the Future" or Dennett's "Where am I?"
DAVIDSION
His work: on the very idea of a conceptual scheme Scheme and content
ANSCOMBE
His work: what is it to believe someone • Testimony • Finitude • Scepticism
KERN
His work: why do our reasons come to an end? Language is not just one of man's possessions in the world; rather, on it depends the fact that man has a world at all. The world as world exists for man as for no other creature that is in the world. But this world is verbal in nature (Gadamer) Discuss language o Locke on language Gardiner attacks this directly To be in the world (gadamer) being a creature with language - world evolves around language
hume on causation
Hume's view seems to be that we suppose that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect as a result of observing the constant conjunction between "cause" and "effect" Surely, to save the idea of freedom we need to show that there is a special kind of causation, causation by the will Hume's view of genuine freedom as "freedom from coercion" is reminiscent of Berlin's conception of negative liberty. It seems to follow from Hume's compatibilism that political conceptions of liberty are the only coherent conceptions.
Problem of Evil
If God is supremely perfect and benevolent, how could he create a world in which there is so much suffering? Suffering is a precondition of perfection since it makes possible goods like altruism, redemption, OR It is also sometimes argued that suffering is a consequence of the exercise of free will. OR Suffering of innocence to promote cosmic ends (KANT says absolutely no - any God worth that name should not use other people as a means to one's ends)
LOCKE AND BERKELEY (In common)
It's vital to realize what Berkeley and Locke have in common: (i) they are both empiricists, (ii) and they both agree on what experience amounts to - a flow of IDEAS of which we are immediately aware (of course, they disagree on the causal origins of experience) locke - real ideas berkeley - spirits and ideas .
Descarte's Skepticism
Meditation 1: o arguments designed to reveal truths that can form the basis of a deductive reconstruction of human knowledge o Our sensations are often subject to error - sensory error
Locke Rejecting Innate Ideas - Locke sees the mind as a blank slate
Innate ideas were thought to be impressed on the mind by God Hence it was usually assumed that if an idea was innate, it must be true. Locke's objections are as follows: (a) Why should God give us faculties to acquire knowledge and innate ideas? (b) Even if there were truths everyone agreed upon, this would not mean these truths were innate; (c) There are anyway no truths everyone agrees upon. "Children and idiots" don't know, say, that "everything is what it is and not another thing" (d) If we say that children do know such truths, but are not conscious that they know them, then either we are talking nonsense (e) An explanation of the origin of our ideas can be given which is consistently empiricist. Thus we don't need the doctrine of innate ideas.
"This proposition: I am, I exist, whenever it is uttered from me, or conceived by the mind, necessarily is true" (Descates). What does Descartes' famous "cogito argument" really show? What is its philosophical significance?
It is not an argument but a truth - manifest in any intellectual act • We cannot doubt • That we doubt • When we doubt • We exist when we think • I am, I exist - a thinking thing (capable of thinking) Philosophisophical significance • Radical doubt - uncovering real truths to lead us to better lives • Accepting truths get us nowhere - ie what if people still believed that the earth was flat?
The "Cogito"
It seems Descartes holds the cogito is not an argument but a truth that is manifest to us in any intellectual act.
Exam Question: Does knowledge need a foundation?
Knowledge - facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. KANT argues that synthetic A PRIORI knowledge is POSSIBLE. A priori knowledge - knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences the proposition that (all bachelors are unmarried is a priori) HUME argues that synthetic A PRIORI knowledge is IMPOSSIBLE Rather, A POSTERIORI knowledge - derives from experience. - the proposition that it is raining outside now is a posteriori. I agree with Hume - that knowledge is derived from experience (a posteriori knowledge) Therefore, yes, knowledge does need a foundation - a posteriori is known on the basis of experience In a priori knowledge - the first example - this is not knowledge, the definition is in itself (therefore, a priori knowledge requires a foundation derived from experience) In a posteriori knowledge - the second example - this is knowledge - because it is known on the basis of experience It is known because you yourself experienced it - has more meaning • Therefore, Hume was right • Yes - knowledge does need a foundation
Locke on secondary qualities
Locke believed that error to knowing something lied in the secondary qualities. Locke built his theory of representative realism upon these ideas. He once said, "The mind represents the external world, but does not duplicate it" THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT REAL The moral of the story is that the subjective element of a secondary quality cannot be eliminated from the characterization of the quality. This is not true of primary qualities. Locke argues that our ideas of primary qualities resemble primary qualities as they are in the object, but our ideas of secondary qualities do not resemble secondary qualities as they are in the object.
objections to Locke's view that there are no innate ideas & the mind is a blank slate
Objection: If the mind were a "blank slate", as Locke suggests it is, then how could a child even begin to form concepts? How would it be possible to "process" the information that the senses yield, if we had, as it were, nothing to work with? ANSWER: Locke would reply that the mind has FACULTIES that enable it to sort and classify the data the senses provide, but that the POSSESSION of these faculties DOES NOT amount to KNOWLEDGE.
Exam question: "and thus now I seem able to posit as a general rule that everything I very clearly and distinctly perceive is true". How does Descartes reach this conclusion? Is this a plausible criterion of truth?
Perceptions which are so self-evident that, while they are held in the mind, they cannot logically be doubted. All knowledge is supposed to proceed from clear and distinct perceptions; no proposition is supposed to be judged as true unless it is perceived clearly and distinctly He sets out to show that we can know this, because we can know that God exists, and would not allow an evil demon to deceive us nor would God, benevolent and good, deceive us ... 1. I have a (clear and distinct) idea of a supremely perfect being, i.e., a being having all perfections. 2. Necessary existence is a perfection. 3. My (clear and distinct) idea of a supremely perfect being has necessary existence (as a property). 4. If I have a (clear and distinct) idea of something that has necessary existence (as a property)—i.e., if I have a (clear and distinct) idea of something that necessarily exists—then this thing necessarily exists. 5. If something necessarily exists, then it actually (actually) exists. But is this a plausible criterion of truth? o NO because his argument is circular, ergo, false (Cartesian circle) He says that 1. I am certain that God exists only because I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive; and yet 2. 2. I am certain of whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive only because I am certain that God exists.
Is meaning radically indeterminate?
Quine's view of "the indeterminacy of sentential meaning" has the consequence that we must think of meaning holistically, rather than atomistically. That is, the meaning of a sentence is not something it has in itself but derives from the role of that sentence in the theory of which it is a part: the theory as a whole determines the meaning of the sentences which are its parts, and changes in the theory result in changes in the meaning of its component sentences. Indeed, since the observational consequences of some part of our conception of the world depend again on the other parts of that conception, so we have to conclude that "the unit of empirical significance is (Quine says) the whole of science".
"Representative Realism"
Representative realism holds that a person perceives an object, O, when they have an idea caused by O (in the appropriate way) which resembles O.
Locke on Substance
Substances = naturally occurring things or stuff, "things" which "subsist by themselves" Thus, a dog, a tree, gold, mercury, and sand are all substances The checklist for the idea of a substance (a) anything must have if it is to be water (e.g. transparent, "tasteless", liquid at certain temperatures, solid and gaseous at others, dissolves certain substances, corrodes others...), and (b) define the word "water". These properties therefore constitute what Locke calls the "nominal essence" of water ("nominal", meaning pertaining to the name). Real essence consists in the fundamental "constitution of the insensible parts" of the substance (ie primary qualities)
Descartes' Evil Genius Argument
Suppose that "some evil genius not less powerful and deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me." Therefore, we can't know anything based on experience. PROVEN FALSE Descartes has proven God's existence, he can invoke God's benevolence to argue that, since God is no deceiver, Descartes cannot be wildly in error. Most of what Descartes believes must be true and the evil genius hypothesis is finally defeated.
is justified true belief knowledge? the gettier problem
The Gettier problem, in the field of epistemology, is a landmark philosophical problem concerning our understanding of descriptive knowledge. Attributed to American philosopher Edmund Gettier, Gettier-type counterexamples (called "Gettier-cases") challenge the long-held justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge. The JTB account holds that knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief; if all three conditions (justification, truth, and belief) are met of a given claim, then we have knowledge of that claim. In his 1963 three-page paper titled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Gettier attempts to illustrate by means of two counterexamples that there are cases where individuals can have a justified, true belief regarding a claim but still fail to know it because the reasons for the belief, while justified, turn out to be false. Thus, Gettier claims to have shown that the JTB account is inadequate; that it does not account for all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge.
Locke - Notion of Self
The Notion of the Self: Psychological continuity theory of personal identity [ no innate ideas] sameness of "self" over time, which in turn depends on continuity of consciousness secured by memory
Descartes' Method of Universal Doubt
The argument P1: My senses sometimes deceive me. P2: One should never completely trust what once has deceived one. C1: So I should not completely trust my senses. P3: All of my beliefs have come either from or through my senses. C2: So I should not completely trust any of my beliefs. Problem: The argument is self-defeating If the conclusion is true, then the first premise is undermined. For we cannot know that our senses sometimes deceive us unless we at some point trust our senses to tell us that our senses at some other point were mistaken.
Objection to the 'cogito' Bouwsma
The evil genius hypothesis: Descartes is really just being fed thoughts by the evil genius (i.e. if the evil genius is controlling everything) then he couldn't really be said to be thinking at and the premise of the cogito ("I think") is false. Bouwsma's argument rests on the (pragmatist) principle that there is no difference that doesn't make a difference to experience. So, no detectable difference is no difference at all. BUT it is simply not true that a difference in the world that cannot be detected by Tom is not a genuine difference. Just ask Tom's friend Milly whether or not there is a difference in the world after the evil genius has destroyed everything but Tom THEREFORE, Bouwsma's argument that there is no genuine difference that doesn't make a different to experience is false
WITTGENSTEEIN on other minds
The problem of other minds is the problem of how to justify the almost universal belief that others have minds very like our own.
Locke on essence
The real essence of water is thus the "primary quality ground" of the properties we experience when we experience water. Locke denies that we have knowledge of real essences. For him, we know that the real essence of a substance results from its fundamental corpuscular constitution, but we have no idea what that constitution actually is.
quines attitude toward meaning
The term "meaning holism" is generally applied to views that treat the meanings of all of the words in a language as interdependent. (1) The Quine-Duhem thesis. Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) was a French scientist and philosopher who held that the individual sentences of a theory cannot be verified or falsified by observation one-by-one. This is because each sentence plays the role that it does only as part of a set of other theoretical sentences. Quine added that when we make observations that are incompatible with our theory, we always have a choice about what to do with this recalcitrant data. An example: Suppose we have a theoretical sentence (T) which says "electrons have property x", from this we make the prediction, "if T, then O". We do an experiment (E) and fail to observe O. Does this show that T is false? Not necessarily. We have a choice about what to do with this data. We can reject (T). We can reject (E) or (O). We can modify (T). Or we can do something yet more radical: we can argue that there is something about the set-up that makes it impossible for observers to make accurate observations. Or we can argue that electrons are funny entities that are both x and not x. Or we can modify the laws of logic, so that it no longer matters that there is a contradiction between theory and observation. So we have a choice about how to accommodate the recalcitrant data. Nothing "logical" forces us to go one way rather than another. What decision we make is obviously guided by various principles: conservatism (make the minimum change), generality (don't go for ad hoc changes), simplicity (keep the theory as simple and economical as possible). These principles, however, are heuristic - we are not forced to go by them because following them is more likely to lead to "truth". (This is not a fanciful example - physics in the early 20th century made various seemingly counterintuitive moves to accommodate theory to observational evidence - only consider wave-particle duality, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, many aspects of relativity theory, and so on.) As a consequence, no individual sentence of a theory faces "the tribunal of experience" alone: there is no such thing as the set of observations that would conclusively confirm or disconfirm a particular sentence, S, considered on its own: confirmation of S is always conditional upon holding other parts of the theory constant. What are confirmed or disconfirmed are theories, not sentences. (2) An empiricist theory of meaning: the meaning of S is the difference the truth of S would make to the evidence of one's senses. These combine to produce the view that INDIVIDUAL NON-OBSERVATION SENTENCES DO NOT HAVE THEIR OWN INDIVIDUAL MEANING
QUINE how does one have meaning
These combine to produce the view that individual non-observation sentences do not have their own individual meaning. To have meaning they have to have a set of observation consequences: there has to be a difference their truth would make to possible experience. But, considered in itself, no sentence makes a determinate difference, for the difference it makes depends on what else we accept as true. Quine concludes that the meaning of a given sentence is not some determinate characteristic which the sentence carries around with it. Meaning is a property of theories, not of sentences. Quine's view of "the indeterminacy of sentential meaning" has the consequence that we must think of meaning holistically, rather than atomistically. That is, the meaning of a sentence is not something it has in itself but derives from the role of that sentence in the theory of which it is a part: the theory as a whole determines the meaning of the sentences which are its parts, and changes in the theory result in changes in the meaning of its component sentences. Indeed, since the observational consequences of some part of our conception of the world depend again on the other parts of that conception, so we have to conclude that "the unit of empirical significance is (Quine says) the whole of science". It is important to realize that Quine is saying not just that you can't really tell what a sentence means unless you know the context in which it is placed, but that the sentence itself has no meaning "of its own" at all unless it is seen as part of a wider theory.
Proof of the Existence of God
They must have come from God; therefore God exists OR It must be God who created me and gave me the ideas of a perfect God (1) Do I have enough power to preserve my own existence? (2) No - for I am simply a thinking thing; and if I had that power, I would know it. It must be a power outside me. (3) Since I am a thinking thing, what created me must also be a thinking thing and possess all the ideas of perfections of God. (4) Parents can't be responsible for creating and preserving me. If there is God, and he is no deceiver, he cannot be wild in error Descartes has proven God's existence, he can invoke God's benevolence to argue that, since God is no deceiver, Descartes cannot be wildly in error. Most of what Descartes believes must be true and the evil genius hypothesis is finally defeated.
o Berkeley's famous principle
To be means to be perceived, or esse est percipi, is Berkeley's famous principle. if this is what we mean by "to be," then clearly THINGS EXIST ONLY when they are BEING PERCEIVED.
Logical Positivism
Verifications theories of meaning Verificationism: Meaning = verification All vixens are foxes is NOT meaningful (in definition) Statements that say something about the world Theories of meaning: the verification theory of meaning claims that the meaning of a sentence is the method of its verification A meaningless sentence- not verifiable (although might even be true) (ie) Rachel looks like a naked mole-rat - not verifiable (although could in theory be true)
QUINE
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century." To be is to be the value of a variable. Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump. Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.
the self and the future
Williams begins by describing a case which we are, intuitively, inclined to think of as a case of two persons exchanging bodies. This is similar to Locke's example of prince and the cobbler: may encounter in the future. "A" body person is fearful for A william argues that "A" fear of pain, which is brought though anticipated psychological changes of "A" it is also brought to the later "A" body person. contrary to the first experiment it suggests that bodily continuity is a necessary condition of personal identity. A and B By means of extraction device have some of their memories transferred into one another bodies. The result is Body A has the memories of Body B and Body B has the memories of Body A. The Catch Body A was told he was going to be tortured but once the torture was over he would have no recollection ever being told he was going to get tortured. his past recollections will come from Body B but they have have no memory of this either. This experiment brings forth the fear of physical pain that of A It illustrates that A's fear does not go away.
WITTGENSTEEIN private language argument
Wittgenstein explored the idea of a private language through an examination of the relationship between language and the sensations that we experience: "the words of this language are to refer to what can be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So another cannot understand the language" (Wittgenstein, 1953: p 89). The argument has stimulated an array of debates surrounding the nature of language. Consequently, if there is no such thing as a private language, as Wittgenstein suggested, then it would follow that language solely serves as a social function of expression. He wants to argue that our psychological conceptions as well as the way we communicate about the mind should be regulated by public criteria (Professor Bakhurst, 2019, Class Notes Week 21, para 9). The idea of a private language as an inconsistent concept has largely negative consequences on the overall field of philosophical study, specifically epistemology and metaphysics, because the nonexistence of a private language hinders the concepts of private experience and mental states that are often explored in philosophy. Through an examination of the private language argument, it will be determined that Wittgenstein's successful attack on private language has negative consequences on other philosophical fields, specifically epistemology and metaphysics, because it would follow that there would also be inconsistencies in other theories exploring these 'private' concepts, such as mental states and experiences.
Difference between analytic and synthetic truth
analytic truth - are true in virtue of meaning alone synthetic truth - are true both because of what they mean and because of the way the world is This, says Quine, is untrue, no sentence is immune from revision come what may: it is always open to us to adjust our theory of the world in a way which would reject some supposedly analytic truth (this is easiest to see for the laws of logic). So, the analytic-synthetic distinction collapses.
Cartesian conception of freedom
freedom must involve a genuine uncoerced choice between alternatives.
quine on the principal question in epistemology
how our conception of the world (our total "web of belief") can issue from such meager data as our senses provide. On the basis of the "irradiation of our sensory surfaces" human beings are able to construct elaborate concepts and theories which have tremendous explanatory power.
hume on perceptions
ideas and impressions The thesis that all ideas have their origins in impressions Hume arguing in the similar way to Berkeley: our thoughts get their content from the experiences from which they are ultimately derived. A putative [supposed] idea that can't be traced back to impressions is empty in content or meaningless.
Berkeley (opposed to Locke)
immaterialist - matter does not exist Belief that only mental entities are real, so that physical things exist only in the sense that they are perceived. Berkeley defended his "immaterialism" on purely empiricist grounds, while Kant and Fichte arrived at theirs by transcendental arguments. Berkeley felt that his materialist opponents portrayed "the visible beauty of creation" as nothing but "a false imaginary glare".
Impressions
impressions are distinguished from ideas by their greater "force", "vivacity" and "liveliness"
consequence of Quine's holism (the parts of a whole are interconnected)
it challenges the distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences Quine rejects the idea that some sentences are true simply in virtue of the meaning of their component parts (analytic), while others are true, if they are, in virtue of the combination of what they mean and the way the world is. If there is no such thing as sentential meaning, then there is no meaning for sentences to be true merely in virtue of! QUINE: no sentence is immune from revision come what may: it is always open to us to adjust our theory of the world in a way which would reject some supposedly analytic truth (this is easiest to see for the laws of logic So, the analytic-synthetic distinction collapses.
Locke on Knowledge Limits
knowledge of the real essences of substances is beyond us, Locke sets a significant limit to the scope of human knowledge. Knowledge is limited to "the perception of the connexion of and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas". Locke gives some examples of knowledge of the "connexion of ideas" Knowledge that white is not black and that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.
"Cartesian dualism"
mind and matter are two distinct substances, utterly different in kind. he is essentially a thinking thing; that is, he cannot imagine himself existing without thinking - thinking is essential to his being. He can, however, imagine himself existing without a body (this he did in the evil genius hypothesis). Hence he is not essentially a bodily thing. Since Descartes is essentially a mind, but only contingently a body, it follows that MIND and BODY must be DISTINCT. for example a 'dualist' is someone who believes that Good and Evil—or God and the Devil—are independent and more or less equal forces in the world.
quine on revision
no sentence is immune from revision come what may: it is always open to us to adjust our theory of the world in a way which would reject some supposedly analytic truth (this is easiest to see for the laws of logic). So, the analytic-synthetic distinction collapses. (Quine argues to this conclusion in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" Two Dogmas of Empiricism: - paper provides various arguments to the conclusion that "analyticity" cannot be defined without circularity, but the argument that emerges later rests on the combination of Duhem's thesis and verificationism about meaning.
QUINE notion of analyticity
sentences that are so deeply entrench in our conceptual scheme that wee are very strongly disinclined to give them up We discussed how the rejection of the analytic-synthetic distinction has great significance for philosophy. For Quine, there is no hard and fast distinction between conceptual and empirical enquiry, and hence there is no distinctive domain for philosophy. No longer can philosophy represent itself as charting logical space to establish conceptual truths about what we must hold true.
Berkely - there are only two kinds of things
spirits and ideas. Spirits are simple, active beings which produce ... Ideas; ideas are passive beings which are produced and perceived [his theory is directly opposed to .. Locke - primary qualities are real Berkely - neither primary nor secondary qualities are real - matter is not real]
the problem of error
the ideas of free will He argues that God does not cause us to err by feeding us false information or by making us judge wrongly. We can make mistakes because we are free to judge: God has given us free will, which is a good. Being imperfect, we sometimes fall into error when we freely make judgements about the information the senses or the understanding provides. Descartes also suggests that the world as a whole might be more perfect for the imperfection of some of its parts. - We CHOOSE what to believe - Descartes argues that his will is the only faculty of his mind that is comparable in its character to God's. - This is because acts of will are simple acts, of affirmation or denial. - An act of will is free if and only if it is not dictated by external forces
another consequence of Quine's view
the indeterminacy of translation follows from the indeterminacy of sentential meaning: simply follows from the indeterminacy of sentential meaning: if a sentence in one language has no determinate meaning then no two sentences in different languages can have the same determinate meaning the indeterminacy of translation The indeterminacy of translation simply follows from the indeterminacy of sentential meaning: if a sentence in one language has no determinate meaning then no two sentences in different languages can have the same determinate meaning.
quine on Naturalized epistemology
the principal question for naturalized epistemology is the character of the relation of "meagre input" and "torrential output" Human beings receive as input various limited sorts of sensory stimulation and they produce as output extraordinarily grand conceptions of the world. How do they do it? We can study this at the level of scientific community and scientific theory, in which case we need to do the history and philosophy of science, or we can study this at the level of the individual subject in which case the epistemologist may draw on psychology and neurophysiology, cognitive science and anthropology. But at all times this is an inquiry which goes on within science, rather than "above", "beyond" or "outside" it.
Locke on Language
thought is prior to and independent of language his idea that language is an invention made to enable us to communicate our thoughts Primary Functions of Language (a) communication (III.ii.1) and (b) the organization of thought and memory Are "all languages equal"? If language is a tool for communication and an aid to thought and memory, might SOME NATURAL LANGUAGES be BETTER tools THAN OTHERS
wittgenstein "My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything that I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hand as evidence for it..... The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing." (Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ## 250 and 166). Discuss.
• In all ordinary cases of incredulity (disbelief), the grounds for the doubt can be removed. • As Wittgenstein would say, doubt occurs within the context of things undoubted. If something is doubted, something else must be held fast because doubt presupposes that there are means of removing the doubt.[2] • We doubt that the bird is a robin because, at least in part, we think we know how robins typically fly and what their typical coloration is. That is, we think our general picture of the world is right—or right enough—so that it does provide us with both the grounds for doubt and the means for potentially removing the doubt. • Thus, ordinary incredulity (doubt) about some feature of the world occurs against a background of sequestered beliefs about the world. • We are not doubting that we have any knowledge of the world. Far from it, we are presupposing that we do know some things about the world. To quote Wittgenstein, "A doubt without an end is not even a doubt" (Wittgenstein 1969, ¶ 625).
