Descartes = "De Omnibus Dubitandum Est" Everything dubitable, is = All things
are doubtful.
Locke = Ideas are inactive objects of thought. Primary and Secondary, they have
the power to produce ideas on the mind. Primary qualities have a real existence. Secondary
qualities only exist in our minds and not in reality.
Berkeley = Says that we perceive real things. The idea of a real thing is a
real thing, it doesn't matter if it has material substance or not. Also says material substance
doesn't exist, just our own mind and the ideas in it.
Malcolm = Knowledge in the strict sense. Experiences through the senses.
Immediate judgements of perception.
Code = Central idea of her text: The sex of the knower. The knower is a white
middle-aged male. Epistemology has been too narrowly focused.
Philosophy of Language:
Wittgenstein = Language Games. He contrasts them with the Agustinian view of
Language that says this is the primitive view of language, the central argument is that this view
is incomplete and too narrow and languge is more complex.
Whorf = Thought is based on language, language is reffered to as thought.
Linguistic relativity. Natural Logic = Common sense idea that thought thinking
is independant of language.
Pinker = Mentalese, language of thought.
Ross = Intentional Transcendence is a shared, common trait between attidude and
metaphor which reffers to their irreducability to set of beleifs and literal talk respectively.
- Definitions
- Matching philosophers to terms
- Fill in the Blanks
Tabula Rasa = Blank slate. Ideas put in the mind through experiences. This
is Lockes Empiricist view.
Empiricist = The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of
knowledge.
Rationalist = Certain knowledge can be deduced independant of sense experience
Epitemology = The study of knowledge. (Traditional) justified true belief.
Metaphysics = Meta means beyond or after. Physics means physical world, laws
of nature. Study of things beyond the physical world. i.e. Does God exist? Do I have a soul?
Cogito Ergo Sum = "I think, therefore I am."
Reductio As Absurdum = Reduction to the absurd.
Dualism: (i) The view that a human being is comprised of both a visible part
(body) and an invisible part (soul), and (ii) the view that there are 2 distinct worlds, physical
in immaterial.
Immaterialism = Only minds and ideas exist. Material substance does not exist.
Matterialism = Only matter exists. Ideas are nothing more than electro-chemical
brain states. Rejects the mind.
Esse Est Percipi = To be is to be perceived.
Solipsism = All one can know is the contents of one's own mind. One's own ideas is one's own experiences.
Sol(alone) ips(self) ism.
Sence Data = Immediate objects of direct sensation or ideas that are perceived.
Linguistic Relativity = One's thinking is relative to one's language.
Irreduceability = Cannot be reduce to any further.
Skepticism: View that there is no certain knowledge. Hume is the
supreme skeptic.
The classical definition: Justified belief.
| RATIONALISTS | EMPIRICISTS |
| Rene Descartes | John Locke |
| Bennidict Spinoza | George Berkeley |
| Leibniz | David Hume |
| TRANSCENDENTALIST | |
| Emmanuel Kant | |
Descartes
Locke
Berkekley
Russel
Malcolm
Code
Wittgenstein
Pinker
Whorf
Ross
Here are six essay questions to help you prepare for the second test. Four of these six questions will appear on the test, and you will be expected to answer them as accurately and thoroughly as possible.
Descartes was looking for one thing that he could know for certain. To find this out, he wrote
the "Discousre on Method" Which says to question what you have learned and doubt it to be
true until you prove it yourself.
The 4 steps of Descartes' method are:
a) Only accept what is clear and distinct,
b) Break everything down into its smallest parts
c) Start with the simplest things
d) Be thorough and complete
The only thing he knew for certain was "Cogito ergo sum", I think, therefore I am. And, he
pre-supposes the existence of God
Locke says that ideas are a Tabula Rasa: No Innate Ideas. The mind is a blank slate. Ideas
are gained through experience. He talks about Primary and Secondary Qualities of ideas.
Primary Qualities: Exist in bodies, solidity, bulk, figure, extension, motion,
and number.
- Real existence, they resemble something in the matter.
- They are all quantitative (measured mathematically).
i.e. a snowball produces ideas in our mind like white, round, cold, heavy, and number.
Secondary Qualities: Comes from the notion of the Primary Qualities. Touch,
taste, smell, sound, and color.
- These qualities have no real existence. They only exist in the mind, not in the real world.
- They are not quantitative, rather they are qualitative.
- They depend on the mind of the perceiver.
Thr problem with Tabula Rasa is A Priori, or prior knowlede. Why can some people walk on a baseball mound and through a perfect curve ball, while professionals sometimes have problems with throwing a curve ball. Some people just know how to do things without being told how to.
Locke believes that there are invisible particles that come from an object and travel to our minds which give us our ideas of an object.
Russell says that what we perceive is only Sense Data, we do not see, hear, or feal the object itself. Berkeley says that an object has to be perceived in order for it to exist, and God is the ultimate perceiver, that is why things don't just dissappear when nobody is perceiving an object. Here's an example of someone looking at a table:
Berkeley holds the view that material substance do not exist, only minds and ideas in a mind exist. Sensible qualities are ideas perceived by the senses and to have an idea is to perceive. Ideas cannot exist in an unperceiving thing. Thus, there is no unthinking substance of ideas.
Code and Ross were the 2 feminists.
Code = The sex of the knower, white male middle-aged men. How we know things, and
the sexism involved in it. Women have been denied access to knowledge.
Ross = The attitude, or metaphor, behind the word is the offensive part, not the
word itself. i.e. going up to someone and casually saying that you are going to beat the crap out
of them has no real meaning. But if you do the same thing while brandishing a weapon or yelling
at them while you are talking, then you have put attitude behind the meaning of the word. Now it
means something.
Agustinian view = A name stands for an object. The meaning of the word is that object. i.e.
a chair is just a chair, this is a very literal meaning of a term.
Wittgenstein says this is a very primitive view of language, incomplete, and too narrow. Language
is more complex, meaning is not found simply through an object. The meaning of a word comes from
its use. i.e. a chair is just a chair, but it also has shape and color and texture, etc...
Also, language comes from the relative experiences of a person. i.e. a hammer is a hammer, but ask
a carpenter to use a hammer to build a table and then ask an abstract painter to use a hammer to
build a table and you could end up with a simple table from the carpenter and a nice piece of art
from the painter.
Whorf says no, Pinker says yes.
Whorf = nouns are long lasting events. i.e. house, man
verbs are short lasting events. i.e. hit, run
Pinker = Mentalese, the language of thought.