EPISTEMOLOGY

EPISTEMOLOGY

1. The theory of knowledge; what can we know? Even though we presume that science is definitive, it cannot clarify itself.

   • RUSSELL
     • Knowledge by acquaintance; one is acquainted with the sense data but not the thing itself which is unknowable.

2. REALISM

   • Realism is the view that the external world has existence independently of our mind.
   • Naïve realism accepts that the world is, how we see it.
     • HOBBES
       • Came before Locke. The Leviathan suggests that if we break down society and look at what people are like in primitive states we would be killing each other because we would be fighting over resources. Therefore we need a ruler to ensure this doesn't happen. It doesn't matter which ruler it is (eg. Cromwell).
       • Locke says that leaders only have authority if given by the people.
         • 'Divine right of kings'. Locke rejects that this is God's voice on earth-appointed by God.
         • To empiricists such as Locke, the mind at birth is like a blank slate. There are no innate ideas- all knowledge is derived from our senses and the external world.
   • Representative realism means that we have ideas about what the world actually is, not what it is in itself.

3. DESCARTES

   • The thing he knows for sure is that he is an existing thing. However, he does not know for certain that other people are existing.
     • Cartesian Dualism- a clear mind/body distinction. One of the main themes for rationalists.
   • How does he prove that we are not being deceived about the world around us? He wants to argue for God's existence.
   • He can't use the design or cosmological arguments because this implies the world exists; something that he doesn't know for certain. It is impossible to think of a triangle without thinking about 180 degrees because it is a concept that cannot be taken apart.
     • He uses the ontological argument where God is described as the most perfect being. It is better to exist in reality and the mind rather than just the mind. If God is to fulfil the definition of being the best thing, then he must exist in reality.
     • The way we link the body and mind is through the pineal gland. The physical world is connected to our thoughts in the same way.

4. SPINOZA

   • Rationalist (more emphasis on the mind than on the world around us) and uses the ontological argument to prove God's existence. Pantheistic view of God. Thought and things are both substance.
   • Believes that since there is only one substance, there is essentially no difference between the mind and body and therefore there is only correspondence.
     • The soul is the idea of the body, the body the extension of the soul. They are the same thing looked at from a different angle.
     • BERKELEY
       • ESSE EST PERCIPI- to be is to be perceived. Berkeley starts as an empiricist but moves to being an idealist. Russell criticises Berkeley's system.
       • Berkeley says that God is always there to observe things therefore even if we are not experiencing it, it is still there because for something to exist means that someone must be experiencing it.
       • We only have ideas of things in our minds; this is why Berkeley is an idealist. We get these ideas because the world is dependent on our experience of it.
       • Believers there is no reason to distinguish between primary and secondary qualities. One cannot form an idea of a substratum. The theory of material substance plays no explanatory role.
   • Ideas are rooted in substances, they inhere in them. God has two attributes which can be expressed in numerous ways; thought and extension.

5. LEIBNIZ

   • The Monads state that all things are composed from simple entities and that they are indivisible and not extended in space like the soul.
   • Monads are distinguishable from one another by their properties and cannot be created or destroyed. The Predicates of Monads are perceptions/mental states but not all perceptions are conscious.
   • Criticises Spinoza for abolishing the individual and immortality is worthless without the continuation of the soul.
     • Principles include the principle of non-contradiction, sufficient reason and everything that flows from God must be perfect because God is perfect; therefore we live in the best possible world.

6. HUME

   • Sceptical about everything. Impressions are immediate things but an idea is less immediate.
   • Believes that we can't know anything without experience and that our faculties mimic past experiences just not as intense. Causation is based on experience and you can't prove the external world you just have to accept it.
   • Nothing inherent in the universe that tells us that cause and effect are necessary. The reason we believe in cause and effect is because we see it over and over again. The external world is only a representation of what the world actually is.