Aqa as Philosophy Revision Notes †Reason and Experience Essay

Knowledge and Belief People goat believe things that argonnt squargon(a). For you to make out something, it must(prenominal) be true and you must believe it. Beliefs croup be true or out of true. Beliefs empennage accident ally be true, but it isnt companionship. Types of Knowledge Analytic true by explanation Squares have 4 sides. Synthetic not analytic, true or false in the way the word is Ripe tomatoes are red. A priori doesnt require sense puzzle to know all bachelors are unmarried. A posteriori croupe be established through sense welcome Snow is white. whole Analytic propositions are known a priori.This doesnt spurious that all a priori propositions are analytic. The main question is atomic number 18 all synthetic propositions a posteriori? i. e do we have some knowledge that doesnt come from sense have it away? It is this question that forms the debate in the midst of keen-wittedism and empiricism. Rationalism vs. luridness Main dividing que stions are What are the sources of knowledge? , How do we acquire it? , How do we get concepts? . Rationalism transmits an important role to reason. Empiricism gives an important role to the senses. Why mucklet we use both in acquiring knowledge? Rationalism. Rationalism deed of conveyances that we can have synthetic a priori knowledge of the external world. Empiricism denies this. Rationalists argue that its possible for us to know some synthetic propositions just about the world outside our own estimates, e. g. maths and morality. Empiricists argue that it is not. Both rationalists and empiricists accept that we naturally have genuine thoughts and feelings inside our minds. Empiricism An advantage of empiricism is that it allows us to quickly see how we ascertain our knowledge through our senses by perceiving how the world is, which is a causal process it requires no mental reason. Empiricists samely claim that this is how we acquire our concepts through our sen ses. Once we understand the acquired concepts, we stool analytic knowledge. If we have knowledge that doesnt come from sense experience how do we get this knowledge? Rationalists argue that we either gain this knowledge from rational intuition or insight, which allows us to gain this knowledge intellectually, or we just know these truths naturally as part of our rational nature. Rationalists may also argue that some, or even all of our concepts are innate of come from rational insight. Do All Ideas Derive From Sense Experience?John Locke judgement as a Tabula Rasa Locke argues that all images derive from sense experience. He verbalises that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa a blank slate that gets filled up with ideas from the senses. He refutes the claim of innate ideas. Ideas can either be part of a proposition He had the idea that it would be fun to take the twenty-four hours off or they can be concepts the idea of yellow. Locke says that all our concepts derive f rom sense experience, and that we have no knowledge prior to sense experience. From Lockes definition of innate idea, it follows that every star with a mind should have the same ideas.However, there is no truth that every person (including sight lacking reasoning skills) can assent and agree to. So perhaps, with Lockes definition, innate ideas are ones that we known as soon as we gain the use of reason. Locke refutes this, saying that we arent lacking reason but the knowledge of ideas. For typeface, a child cant know that 4 + 5 = 9 until the child can seem up to 9 and has the idea of equality. It is the same thing as knowing that an apple is not a stick its not a festering of reason, just the gaining of knowledge of ideas.So therefore, if we must first acquire the concepts involved (through sense experience), the proposition cannot be innate, as no proposition is innate unless the concepts employ are innate. Locke argues that the mind has no concepts from birth, and so no trut hs or concepts can be innate. A Different definition of innate idea Lockes definition and argument against innate ideas hasnt been criticized People who believe in innate ideas dont accept Lockes definition Nativists maintain the view that innate ideas are those which cannot be gained from experience Nativists tend to argue on how concepts or knowledge cant be acquired from sense experience Because we dont know all concepts from birth, there is some point when we become aware of our concepts Rationalists argue that experience triggers our awareness of our innate concepts. Experience as a part Children begin to use certain ideas at certain time, and their capacities burgeon forth, so why cant their concepts and knowledge also develop? Children begin to use certain ideas at certain times Experience still plays a role a child must be exposed to the relevant stimuli for the knowledge to emerge, e. g.language. An idea is innate if it cannot be derived or justified by sense exp erience. Empiricists on Arguing Concepts John Locke 1. The senses let in ideas 2. These ideas furnish an empty cabinet 3. The mind grows familiar with these ideas and theyre lodged in ones memory 4. The mind then abstracts them, and learns general names for them 5. The mind then has ideas and the language by which it can describe them However, what does it mean to let in ideas? We contrast ideas with sensations, e. g. the sensation of yellow isnt the same as the concept of yellow Locke fails to make this distinction David Hume Hume believes that we are directly aware of perceptions Perceptions are then divided into mental pictures and ideas Both Locke and Hume divide impressions into impressions of sensation and impressions of reflection Impressions of sensation come from our sense data and that which we directly embrace Impressions of reflection derive from the experience of our mind, such as feeling emotions. Hume says that ideas are faint copies of impressions Therefor e, there are ideas of sensation (e. g. the idea of red) and ideas of reflection (e. g. the feeling of sadness, happiness) Concepts are a type of idea. Humes theory of how we acquire ideas (from copying them from impressions) is a theory of how we acquire concepts) Locke and Hume both have slightly contrastive versions of how we acquire ideas with which we can think We start with experiences of the physical world which we get from sense data and experiences of our mind For Locke, this gives us ideas once we employ our memory to reflect on these experiences agree to Locke, this makes it sound that the remembered experiences are the ideas with which we think Hume corrects this, and says that we remember and think with the copies of the sensory impressions.Simple and complex concepts A complex idea is just an idea made up of several different ideas, e. g. a complex idea (a dog) is made up of simple ideas like shape, colour and smell. This complex idea has a complex impression We can therefore form complex ideas by abstraction. As an objection, rationalism raises the question of where do non-empirical ideas come from? Empiricism is appealing, as we seem to intuitively institutionalise our senses and it easily answers such questions. However, there are complex ideas that correspond to nothing from our sense experience, e. g. unicorns or God. So do all ideas derive from sense experience? Empiricists argue that these complex ideas are made up from simple ideas, which are copies of impressions (e. g. a unicorn is the simple concepts of a horse, a horn, and the colour white, and combined together they give us a unicorn) Hume and Locke argue that when creating complex ideas, one can just work with the materials that our impressions provide simple ideas Complex ideas are no more than take prisonerfast or abstracting these simple ideas Therefore, empiricists answer this rationalist objection So Are There Innate Concepts? What would an empiricists ana lysis of complex concepts like self, causality, substance, etc.be? These concepts must either be innate, or reached using a priori reasoning Hume accepts that these complex concepts cannot be derived from experience However, he states that each of these concepts has no application These concepts are separated, and we should always use concepts that can be derived from experience For example, we dont experience our self, we experience a changing array of thoughts and feelings. To come up with the idea of self, weve confused similarity with identity We do the same with the idea of a physical object A physical object exists independently of experience, existing in 3d space. But can experience show us something that exists independently of experience? If I look at a desk, look away, and then look backwards again, the desk must have existed when I wasnt looking at it. I cant know that my experience was of the same desk, only that the experiences are similar When coming up wi th the concept of a physical object that exists independently of experience, I confuse similarity with identity. Hume concludes that these concepts are incoherent confusions This can be objected though This makes most of our common-sense understand and analysis of theworld incorrect we know that our concepts are coherent. Empiricism now seems to challenging to accept, as it makes our concepts illusory. The fact that we cannot derive the said(prenominal) from experience shows that they are innate Empiricists therefore have a flawed argument explaining our most abstract concepts is an argument that these concepts are not derived from experience. Does this therefore mean that theyre innate or arrived at through rational intuition? One reason to think theyre innate is that children use these concepts before they develop rational intuition. Rationalists therefore argue that experience is the trigger for the concept Does all knowledge about what exists rest on sense experience? Humes sort out We can have knowledge of two sorts of things Relations between ideas, and matters of fact Relations of ideas are propositions like all sons have fathers Hume argue that all a priori knowledge must be analytic, and all knowledge of synthetic propositions must be a posteriori Anything that is not true by definition (matters of fact) must be learned through the senses Humes matters of fact are essentially analytic truths.Matters of Fact Hume says that the foundation of knowledge of matters of fact is what we experience here and now, or what we can remember All our knowledge that goes beyond the aforementioned rests on casual inference For example, if I receive a letter from a recall dose with a French postcard on it, Ill believe that my friend is in France. I know this because I infer from post mark to lieu I think that where something is posted causes it to have a postmark from that place. If the letter was posted by my friend, I believe that he is in Fran ce. I know this because I rely on past experiences. I dont work out what causes what by thinking about it It is only our experience of cause and causes that brings us to infer what cause has what effect. Hume denies that this is proof He says that knowledge of matters of fact, beyond what were experience here and now relies on induction and reasoning about probability. Induction and Deduction The terms relate to a type of argument Inductive is where the ending is not logically entailed by its premises, but supported by them If the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true. The French letter example is an example of inductive reasoning. A Deductive argument is an argument whose conclusion is logically entailed by its premises If the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false E. g. Premise 1 Socrates is a man Premise 2 All men are mortal Conclusion Socrates is mortal. Using a priori intuition and demonstration to establish claims of what exists Rationa lists argue against Hume, saying that some claims about what exists can be grounded on a priori intuition. A priori demonstration, or deduction, is deduction that uses a priori premises Rational intuition is the view that you can discover the truth of a claim by thinking about itDescartes Descartes says that we can establish the existence of the mind, the physical world and God through a priori reasoning. He attacks sense experience, and how they can rat us We cant tell if were being deceived by an evil demon through our senses, as what we are experiencing will be false We can establish that we think, and therefore we exist, even if our senses do deceive us (as we dont need our senses to know our mind exists) This conclusion of thinking and unbelieving that we exist was gotten to by pure reasoning. He also establishes that the mind can exist from the body. Descartes says we dont know what causes these experiences It could be an evil demon, God, or the physics world exists e xactly how we perceive it. If it was God, it would mean he was a deceiver as we have a very strong tendency to trust our senses If it was a demon, God must have created this demon to deceive us, and because God is perfect by definition, this would mean God isnt a deceiver, and so he cant have made a demon so there must be some kind of a real world by dint of a priori intuition and reasoning, Descartes says that the external world must exist, because God exists, and he would not deceive us.Conceptual Schemes and Their Philosophical Implications Humans dont all have the same concepts There are two distinguishable elements to our experience the data of the senses, and how this datas interpreted by our concepts By the latter, it implies that different people would impose different conceptual scheme if they have different concepts. Conceptual relativism claims that because our conceptual scheme affect how people experience and understand reality, people with different conceptual schemes have different realities. An Implication Conceptual relativism. We assume people have different realities because we cant translate their to ours It assumes language constructs reality to say reality is relative to our conceptual schemes It would mean that reality is dependant on language, which isnt true we express our realities by language A proposition in one conceptual scheme can be true without needing to be express in another set of scheme. This means that there isnt one set of scheme with how the world works An objection is that people argue that the relation between experience anc conceptual schemes doesnt make sense. Benjamin Whorf says that languages fancy up our experience of the world This is like trying to organize a wardrobe itself and not the clothes in it If a conceptual scheme organizes our experience, then our experience must be comprised of individualistic experiences Conceptual scheme all have a set of experiences in common We can pick out in dividual experiences like smelling a flower, feeling cold, etc. Any conceptual scheme with these sorts of experiences will end up similar to our own, despite the concepts one hold and their language, and so translation between two different conceptual schemes will be possible. There may be small parts that cant be translated, but this only leads to a very mild form of conceptual relativism. We cant necessarily combine conceptual scheme An example is that we can have more or less colours in our vocabulary, and so can describe things in different ways. The Greeks thought that there was only one colour bronze, and that everything else was a different shade of bronze. This doesnt mean they saw everything in what we call bronze, its just how they described their experiences. We can therefore only state things depending on the concepts we have.