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Introduction to Philosophy

Maaike Dassen English

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Optical ilusions
- 1. Distinguish our picture from the real world
  - Two possible interpretations
    - What is real is what is there in our senses
    - What is real is not in our senses
- 2. Within our picture (thoughts, theories) there might be things that come from the sense and others that come from our “mental set up” (Reasons, Ideas and Impressions)
Truth
- Distuingish Illusion/Appearence/ Thought from Reality
- A possible definition of truth: Truth is Accordance between Thought and Reality
  - Search for a (criteria): when and how do we know that a thought is in accordance with reality
    - Optimism about criteria
      - The standard model of optimistic philosophy (or science) says there is a ‘way’ (a method or procedure) to transform our ‘guessing’ or our ‘opinion’ into true knowledge
        Roughly: This method is called ‘justification’: we build our trust in certain beliefs by supporting them with other things we hold to be true
        Knowledge is thus defined as a i) true ii) justified opinion/belief
    - Different criteria of truth
      - Rationalism
        We need logical explanations, esp. if relying on our sense is not enough to decide
      - Empiricism
        A) We need to compare ideas and reality as it is given in our senses
      - consensus theory of truth
        We should trust the majority of people and find an agreement
      - Pragmatism
        We should just accept what ever works
      - Coherence Theory, Holism, Consilience
        We should try to find a unification of our beliefs such that they are in harmony and don’t contradict each other
    - Arguments for Criteria
      - All these theories presuppose the idea that you have something like ‘a gold standard’ or a ‘test’ of truth:
        a) If you accept that standard then you can use it to “test” certain beliefs (“thinking about reality”):
        normal ‘science’, everyday life
        b) How can we argue for ‘standards’? (thinking about thinking)
        philosophy or paradigm changes in science
        The problem of philosophy: we are Thinking about Thinking or we are thinking about the framework itself.
Thomas Nagel: What does it all mean - How do we know anything?
- Two basic questions
  - Are our representations in accordance with reality? what is a method to get to true representation and are these good definitions of truth and knowledge?
  - Does a reality outside of our thinking even exist at all? Can we proof this
- The Starting Point: Our own Consciousness
  - Everything else that we know: we know it, because it is “in our head”, “in our consciousness”
  - We have direct emotions, impressions, feelings, thoughts, everything else “is more far away”
  - Do we see the world or just our picture of it?
  - What would be different if all is a dream?
  - The problem of “radical doubt”
    - The question whether the world is real is not about claiming that it is not real, but it is about finding out how “knowledge” works
      - If we assume some knowledge we can infer other things we know,
      - but how do we ground our most basic knowledge, once we give up the idea of an “unmediated touch with reality”?
    - A closer second look at our “first” Definitions
      - Truth is Thought in Accordance with Reality
      - A Proof means I can give some reasons to belief p, so that I know that p is true
        A Proof can be coming from the senses (empiricism)
        A Proof can be deduced from other things I know
        In a proof the reason for believing or demonstrating something must be true: I can only follow truth from true premises
        Proofs therefore operate within certain frameworks (rules of justification, other beliefs)
        I cannot presuppose what I want to show, or it is not a proof
        Proofs as an independent confirmation
        What are good proofs?
        A Proof is usually understood as an independent confirmation: Something is true because something else is true and it follows from that or it gets confirmed
        Normal proofs work “within a framework” of presupposed knowledge: if I know (a), I can conclude (b)
      - Knowledge is a (1) true, (2) justified (3) belief
      - A basic problem of all rational knowledge?
        If knowledge is “a true and justified belief”,
        Then we must have a justification for believing certain things
        If a belief is justified by / follows from another belief, then:
        We have a infinite regress
        Or we have a circular argumentation
        Or we have a dogmatic ending / unjustified starting point
        The problem of rationalism: summary
        Rationalism (sometimes called: “Foundationalism”) aims to secure our knowledge in proofs
        Good proofs must be distinguished from bad proofs: knowledge can only be based in knowledge
        Thus we need a proof for the reasons (“presuppositions”) and the logical rules that we used in a proof
        But: We cannot proof “everything”: there are basic beliefs that we cannot proof and there are rules we already need in any proof
        A possible conclusion: Rationalism itself is based in some first believes: (“critical rationalism”)
        If you accept the first starting points and the rules of logic then you can proof something
        Then all our knowledge is not true knowledge, but it is relative knowledge
        But then all our knowledge is just based in some first beliefs (and we can never have a proof for these beliefs)
        Then all our knowledge is not true knowledge, but it is relative knowledge
        Some basic similar problems
        Can we have a proof for the rules of thinking?
        Thinking about Thinking
        The problem of philosophy: we are Thinking about Thinking or we are thinking about the framework itself.
        If everything we are thinking about is false (or a dream, an illusion, distorted etc...), whatever we use to show that we can have truth already presupposes what we want to show: that we have truth.
        Thomas Nagel: How do we know anything – Two basic problems of Rationalism
        Circular Arguments
        All we have in order to proof the existence of the world (or the “reality of what we think about) would be part of our dream, part of our thinking
        The “totality” of Thinking
        We “cannot get out”, because what else could you use as a proof “it is all a thought”
        The Unavoidableness of Thinking: The basic argument for Subjective Idealism or “Internalism”
        We cannot get “out of our” heads
        We can not compare our additions to the world to the world without our additions: (no god’s eye view, no view from nowhere)
        There is something wrong with the distinction of “our picture” “the reality”: because it is both our picture or our conceptualization
        The argument for Subjective Idealism II
        How do we know things?
        Skepticism
        “We just don’t know”, we cannot proof the existence of the world from inside
        BUT: we also cannot proof that the world does not exist
        Verificationism
        We should only belief or discuss theories that we can verify: if a theory could not be checked ‘empirically’ we should not discuss it (Ayer)
        It does not make sense to say that nobody could ever find out anything true about the external world
        We only know that something is a dream (or a mistake) if we can wake up (or find out that it is a mistake)
        Nagel: Truth abut reality is not defined as “that what we see” or “what we can find out” There can be things that we never find out
        Things can be experienced because they exist, not the other way round
        Maybe we can generalize the argument of dream or mistake
        Local Skepticism: (for example: Maybe the church lies, the authorities are wrong) Global: Everything is wrong, everything an illusion
        Pragmatism
        it is impossible to act as if the world would not be real
        Separation of Theory (Knowing) and Practice (action)
        Maybe “we don’t need reasons”?
        But then maybe most of our beliefs still could be wrong
        And we would have no way to exclude this
        Solipsism
        Radical solution
        “Only I exist”
        BUT: Why communicate and why write books (for whom)
        BUT: Experience of the “Givenness”, you cannot fantasize freely.
        But..
        But must there not be something real at all? (to explain experience?)
        We think that there is something, only we see it wrong (we are in a dream, we are in a tank etc.): Something is there that appears to us
        Why must there be a reason/cause for everything? How could you know what kind of causes there are? (no “direct” observation)
        How can you use the inner Principles of Reasoning to assume that it is also like that outside?
        Modern Philosophy
        The ‘existence of the outer world’ a huge problem of theoretical philosophy since the beginning of modern philosophy
        Starting point of modern Philosophy: your thinking
        Emphasis on modern subjectivity The whole world is only a creation We can only accept what is reasonable
        Descartes Argument: the Benevolent God - Kant’s Argument: Appearance presupposes existence - Heidegger’s Answer: Being in the world - Carnap/Quine: A senseless question - Putnam’s Internalism
        Possible Solutions
        Mistrust in those “meta-concepts” like “Reality”, “Existence”, etc
        Examples for “bad” reflexive statements: “This is a lie”
        These are logical paradoxes: if a is true, then a is false, if a is false then a is true (“antinomies”)
        What is the problem? We change from the “object-language” to a meta language
        Mathematical problem of the “set of all sets” (Russell, Whitehead, Tarsky)
        Self-contradiction of this limitation
        Every meaningful term must have “an extension” (i.e. a sense-object), else it is meaningless (success of science vs. chaos of antinomies and philosophy) But… What object does “every” refer to? What does “meaningless” refer to?
        We cannot speak about all levels of language, we always need a higher language From which level is this said? No propositions are allowed to refer to themselves?
        General Problems of Self-contradiction
        If we have only truth about things in the world, then only Natural Sciences gives us truth
        This idea is however a philosophical idea The idea that “only statements about the empirical reality are meaningful” is itself not about the empirical reality
        The Theory of nonsensical speaking is in itself nonsensical !
        But esp. in our case: Realism and Idealism can be understood as two opposing views, there seems to be nothing problematic about it Existence is not “defined” as something “within language”
        The picture can only capture reality, it cannot capture/express its own relation to reality
        Don’t answer these questions, eliminate them, heal them: it is a wrong use of language
        If there is no empirical solution, then it is “logical non-sense”
        Knowledge is ‘empirical knowledge of science’: here we can answer questions
        Meta-physics is impossible. (Speaking about nature, like natural science das is meaningful, traditional philosophical problems are ‘meaning-less’.
        Carnap’s “way out”
        We must think about the “correct use of language”
        Philosophy must control our language
        Many famous philosophical problems are pseudo-problems
        Language works if we talk about ‘things’ – it runs into difficulties if we ‘talk about talking’
        We can only ask the “existence-questions” about “objects in the world”
        To say what is real is defined by “definitions” (acceptance of “a conceptual scheme”) and a method.
        We need empirical data interpreted in the light of that scheme (or we need the rules of mathematics)
        There is no other way to speak about “existence”, independent of a context
        Speaking about the world is ‘internal’
        Problems
        We can understand the question: it does not seem to be “non-sense” or meaningless
        History of Philosophy has gone back to this questions (“Internalism”, Externalism”)
        Carnaps “Solution” presupposes the idea of a “object-language” as the only legitimate language (sense-language vs. non-sense speculation)
        In what ‘meta-language’ do we speak about the fact that there is only a ‘meaningful (empirical) level of language? This meta-level must include ‘problematic statement’.
        You can doubt everything that your senses tell you , but you cannot question your own existence
        Descartes Argument
        “cogito ergo sum”
        BUT
        If you think that you don’t exist: Something in you must exist that is now thinking “I don’t exist”, the demon cannot trick you here
        If we proof God’s existence, and if we know that God is good and not evil, we can trust our senses, because God does not want to deceive us
        If we believe in God we can trust reason
        God is good and there is no evil demon
        If we can trust reason we can proof that God exists
        Circular Problem
        Could be true: but we need (1) to proof (2), and (2) to proof (1)
        How to get from the Certainty of the Ego sum to a more general certainty?)
        There could be an evil powerful demon that gives you all the illusions
        The problem of the 'real world
        Two main problems of epistemology
        Frameworks
        How to find arguments for the rules of thinking (yet independent of the question of “reality”)
        Dualism of “inside your mind”, “outside in the world”
        Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits?
        A basic problem for all rational knowledge
        Two problems of Epistemology reconsidered
        Circularity
        The special case of self-contradictions:
        we cannot think that some principles are wrong, because in denying them we presuppose them:
        Example: “None of our thought has any validity in reality”
        Example: “all that we think is an illusion” Then it is an illusion to think that all is an allusion
        Nothing is true”, “There is no truth…” Is it true that nothing is true?
        Arguments from self-contradiction are very important in philosophy:
        You cannot generalize “mistakes”, “illusions”
        We find out that we make mistakes
        Example The logical rule of non-contradiction
        “The logical rule of non contradiction is not valid”
        But then “the logical rule of non contradiction is valid” and “the logical rule of non contradiction is not valid” would be valid
        In order to argue for the one or the other, and in order to say something, you already need this rule
        Two kinds of proofs
        Deductive (normal) Proofs
        If a then b
        Problem: we need a proof for a
        Proofs by self-reference
        If a then a
        If non a then a
        No third possibility (either a or non-a)
        Possible Solutions
        V. Hoesle 1990
        “Every truth is relative” can itself not be an absolute truth, or “absolute truth is impossible” can itself be not an absolute truth
        “under some assumptions there is absolute truth”, or “absolute truth is possible”
        If it is possible, it can not be “contingent”, then it must exist
        Broaden Descartes Idea
        From “cogito sum” to “veritas est”
        I can think about the truth (or there is truth)
        What is presupposed if we doubt truth?
        Can this doubt be truthfully expressed?
        “Can it be true and still be true”: Is it in harmony with itself?
        An alternative way of argumentation to deduction and circularity:
        Only in Thinking about Thinking do we have this special kind of arguments
        “Reflexive-transcendental arguments”
        I deny that x
        What is presupposed as knowledge in the act of denying x
        I know that y
        What is presupposed in knowing that.
        We cannot escape thinking
        This is only a problem if thinking is “subjective”
        If it is not, we don’t need to avoid it
        (1) I cannot claim with our thinking that the world is different from our thinking: how would I know that?
        (2) But if the world is not different from our thinking than the fact that we cannot get out is not a problem
        (3) The argument for subjective idealism presupposes what it wants to show:
        that “(p) there is a distance or a difference between thought and reality:”
        But: if it were true that there is a difference
        -> then this thought (p) cannot be real!
        Only if there is this difference then the fact that we can’t get out is a problem.
        If knowledge is “a true and justified belief”,
        Then we must have a justification for believing certain things
        If a belief is justified by / follows from another belief, then
        We have a infinite regress
        Or we have a circular argumentation
        Or we have a dogmatic ending / unjustified starting point
        Repetition
        Lesson learned from skepticism
        Maybe there is a difference in everyday knowledge and the way and arguments we need to answer philosophical questions.
        If ‘normal argumentation” (by induction and observation) does not solve skeptical problems
        Either we can’t solve them
        Or we need a different kind of argumentation
        The dualism of subjectivity and objectivity might be wrong!
        Skepticism entails a self-contradiction:
        It says, we cannot make true statements about the world, because the world is different This however are supposed to be true statements about the world. Overcome this dualism of thought vs. reality, or else you cannot have true statements (Plato, Hegel, Aristotle, Davidson)
        We can only see the world the way we see it, not as it would be without our conception of it. (Tautology!),
        To conceptualize the way the world is in itself is not possible, is a self-contradiction
        The world as wee see it is part of our thinking
        The world as we think it is is also part of our thinking
        Can we have a proof that there is truth?
        Must we accept certain things without proof?
        Isn’t this always a bad argument (called a “vicious circle” or just a dogmatic beginning?)
        Is the “trust in reason” just a “belief”: or worse a belief for which we can never have a proof? (“critical rationalism”)

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Description: Mind Map on Introduction to Philosophy, created by Maaike Dassen on 10/06/2015.
Created by: Maaike Dassen · Jun 2015
Updated: Feb 19, 2016
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Introduction to Philosophy

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