Modern Philosophy (Lecture)

Bacon

Goal: to give foundations to the human knowledge

Changes from the theoretical Aristotelean approach
He wants to see humanity united against the forces of nature (positivistic look?)
Novum Organum (ne because not Aristotelic)
- Book 1: Man should conquer nature by understanding it.
  - Methods: (i) anticipate nature, (ii) interpret nature,
  - Idola Mentis: a study on the origin of human mistakes
    - Idola Tribus: from the human nature
    - Idola Spectus: from his own education, uses, personal tastes
    - Idola Fori: from social context/role, social structure, language
    - Idola Theatri: from dependence from philosophical systems
      - empirical methods can repair
      - metaphor: three of knowledge, metaphysics, the root, is needed
- Book II: Investigation of form is the goal of sciences
  - (ii) interpret nature: thanks to the experimental method:
    - 1. list of pos. instances (should happen), 2. list of neg. inst. (shouldn’t happen, 3. list of the limits (might happen) 4. induction (search for general laws from elimination of neg. inst.)

Descartes

Prima Philosophia (Metaphysics for Aristotle), proof of God and of the soul.
I. Meditation: hyperbolic doubt
- Doubts:
  1. Doubt the senses correspond to the object (optical illusion)
  2. Doubt the there are some objects outside (dreamer-argument)
  3. Doubt that words represent objects correctly (does a square have fours sides?)
  4. Doubt that words are in an objective order (gen. mal.: there are no squares!)
- Characters of Doubt: general, methodological, theoretical, hyperbolical, constructive function
- Consequences for sciences: doubt complex empirical principles, save arithmetics, geometry and analytical statements
- I might deceive myself believing the opposite of what it is. I must suppose there is a genius malignus for doing Prima Philosophia.
II. Meditation: the Archimedean point: cogito argo sum
- search for the Archimedean point of the soul, the undoubtable
- The genius malignus cannot make me believe that I am not
- I am no body, no perception, I am a thinking thing, res cogitans
- I doubt, hence I think, hence I am (same with dreaming)
- Phenomenal nature: wax example
  1. We usually imagine the Noumenical cause of the phenomena
  2. I cannot doubt that I am, but I can doubt that the wax is
  3. each empirical perception is also self-perception (like Kant) wax example again
III. Meditation: on God, its existence
- can we methodically expand our knowledge? At least beyond myself
- Rule of truth: all that I perceive clear and distinctively is true (clare et distincte)
  - save Senses and Mathematics
  - Justification for this rule? God
- Proof of God: existence and essence of God
  - To start: neither ideas or wishes can be true or false but only judgements, there I can be mistaken
  - Ideas are: (i) innate, from God, (ii) obtained ideas from either reason or (nature $\Rightarrow$ ) mistakes, (iii) constructions (hyppogryphos, sirens)
    - Ideas obtained by nature are mistaken,
      1. I am only used to those beliefs
      2. Sun is both small (senses) and big (reason)
  - Distinguish ideas on what they represent: something more objective cannot come from inside
  - There must be a cause, it must be God: cause of what has “more reality”, such ideas are:
    - Material things, animals, other people, angles, myself, God
    - Other than me and God, the rest might be result of myself only, though the idea of (i) myself and of (ii) God necessitate a cause.
      - (ii) I, as a finite being, cannot be the cause of the God’s idea I have clear in my mind.
        
        $\infty$ is not the negation of the finite, it comes first. More reality in $\infty$ than in finite.
      - (i) I might be caused by: myself, my parents or God
        
        I can’t cause myslef or I would have no desire nor make any mistake
        
        my parents cannot cause me as res cogitans only the extensa.
        
        hence: causa sui! he made me!
      - (ii) where did God’s idea come? innate, God gave me it and the knowledge of myself
IV. Meditation: on Mistakes
- Ontological mistake: I think about something that is not God, thinking about finite can always mistake me
  - “I” entails both the God’s idea and the idea of nothing, hence we know finiteness
  - A mistake is not something, it is the lack of something to get to God.
- Epistemological: I cannot make mistake as long as I use a good method.
  - wrong relation between will and understanding, no wrong will, no wrong understanding
    - divinity of men’s will: unlimited
  - For the right use of Will:
    - If unclear $⟹$ hold judgement
    - Consider: Understanding < $\infty$ , will is $\infty$ .
V. Meditation: on existence of the material things, a priori proof of God
- Knowledge of finite things: clare et distincte: geometry
- Ontological proof of God: in its nature it must exist, it is clear and distinct, hence it must exist
  - Existence of God is part of its essence, cannot be taken away like the valley from the mountain
- Knowledge of things depends on God, now that we have its description, we know it is not evil
VI. Meditation: Existence of material things
- Triangle vs Thousend sides: conceive vs imagine
- imagination uses some perceptions which must come from our body
- before: I thought to have a body but hold that doubtable,
- now: clare et distincte I know both res cogitans et res extensa
  - also: God is not deceiving me
- I perceive soul and body distictively and with no dependence:
  - I can well imagine soul to survive without body
  - I am no more than a sailor to his ship.
- Similarly I perceive clare et distincte the outer things and God is no deceiver
- Mistaken use of our possibilities
  - I. I feel warm $\neq \Rightarrow$ there is a direct correspondence of the idea of warmth in the warm thing
  - II. Take for nature only what comes from God
  - III. The idea of warmth does not come from warm things, but “something” caused it (see I)
  - IV. We are used to invert the order (see III)

I already had a course on this author, other reflection on his thought are present here: Nonsense in a Phenomenal Subject.

Spinoza

Geometrical method
- Axioms
  - “All that is either in itself or in something else”
  - “All that is not defined with other words, must be defined in itself”
  - “From a given cause a consequence follows necessarily; also if there is no cause then the consequence cannot follow”
- Content of the Ethics:
  - Critique to the Cartesian dualism
    - Descartes: res cogitans or res extensa, carrier of properties, causally independent.
    - Only one substance with two attributes: thought and extension.
  - S.: Substantia est causa sui, there’s only one and it is God, Deus sive Natura (panthesim)
    - Natura naturata: God as a free cause & Natura naturans: caused nature
    - God’s will is a necessity, we are “finitely free” following God’s will

Hobbes

I already had a course on this author and won’t take notes here.

Locke

Critique of the innate ideas
- Proof of the Tabula Rasa thesis
- both in the practical and theoretical sense, there are no such ideas.
The origin of ideas
- Inner and external perception: reflections and sensations, there are no others
- Simple and complex perception:
  - Simple: atoms of meaning, clear and simple
  - Complex: compare, connect simple ideas
    - Origin from simple ideas: (i) Combination, (ii) Comparison, (iii) Abstraction
    - Classes:
      - (i) Modi: not made by themselves (triangle, thinkable, mord)
      - (ii) Substances: made by themselves, collection of simple things (Army, many sheeps)
      - (iii) Relations: comparisons
        
        Causality, Identity (general or personal)
- Problems:
  - Tabula Rasa cannot be proved empirically
Primary and secondary properties:
- Primary: inseparable from the object, “necessary”
  - Simple ideas of primary properties $:=$ Real
  - Ex. Size, number, place, motion
- Secondary: that we cannot perceive directly
  - Complex ideas, not to trust
- Problems:
  - Value the subject but still talk about Eigen-schaften
  - Berkley and Hume don’t agree with the distinction
Theory of personal Identity
- Conscience: what you refer with “myself”, rational thing
- Problems:
  - no continuous conscience (sleep), you may not remember who you were,
What is knowledge?: collection of ideas, the rest is just perception
- Intuitive: white is white, analytic thoughts, highest degree of certainty
- Demonstrative: sameness or distinction of ideas, mistake is possible
- Sensitive: Knowledge of bodies outside us, lowest degree of certainty

Hume

Differences of forms of perception
- Impressions: more vivid, Urbild
- Ideas: less vivid (contrary to Desc. clare et distincte), limited and dependent, Abbild, also imagination
  - Principle of connection of ideas, three ways to construct new ideas
    - (i) similitude, (ii) contact in space-time, (iii) cause and consequence
- Rational determination of truth
  - A priori truth: rule of no contradiction
  - A posteriori (matters of fact), probable truth, weaker certainty
    - All of those involve Causality (like rule of no contr. for a priori truth), habit
      - only habit: (i) take an unknown obj., (ii) take Adam and ask him where the ball will go
        
        experience the past to “bet” on the future, assume continuity
        
        no contradiction in discontinuity “the sun might not rise tomorrow”.
    - Sceptical Solution: Principle of habit, reduce causality to habit and not rationality
      - inductively, more habit brings to higher and justified degree of belief
      - we cannot recognise any rational necessity, they only seem connected
      - Impression (Urbild): habit | Idea (Abbild): necessary connection
Freedom and Necessity are compatible
- Any necessity comes from habit
- Similar behaviour of men of all times and nations, such a uniformity is unseen in nature
On Rationality of Animals: no radical difference
- Rationality is men’s instinct
Critique of Substance
- Substance and accidents can be distinguished in two ways
  - trough senses: no one would say substance to have a colour or a tone
- It could else be: a (necessary) connection of properties
  - Critique to the res cogitans (thinking substance)
    - every impression comes from perception, we have none on the “I”, if we had one, it should last the whole life, though there is non such constant perception.
    - Solution: “I” denotes a collection of perceptions, “I” is a sort of theater on which the single perceptions take place, there is no unity nor identity of the “I”.

Kant

The Copernican Turn
- Focus on the subject, let’s forget about the objects
- Objects are shaped by our forms of perception
Introduction
- All our knowledge comes from experience but not all our knowledge is on experience (can be on us)
- a priori: pure knowledge, independent for experience (bodies are extended)
  - strong generality: properties of those rules without exceptions in our perceptions
- a posteriori: empirical knowledge, only thanks to experience
  - weak generality
- Metaphysics Q: S. 24-27
  - The dogmatic metaphysics: not falsifiable and a priori
- Analytic: all bodies have extension (in the definition)
  - Analytic $\Rightarrow$ a priori (no anal. a post., you know the definition in advance)
- Synthetic: all bodies have weight (that is not in the definition of bodies)
  - Synthetic a posteriori: empirical judgements
  - Syn.pr.: All has a cause, math (expand our knowledge and do not need experience) unfalsifiable
    - Metaphys. is syn.pr.: the world must have a beginning
    - Mathematics too
    - Science has some: quantity of matter is constant (necessary ( $\Rightarrow$ a priori) and clearly syn.)
- How are syn.pr. possible? (Hume grounded all on caus. and believed it not necessary hence not a pr.)
  - How are math and natural sciences possible?
    - Those are real, no questioning whether they exist.
  - How is metaphysics as a science possible?
    - metaphysica naturalis is real, though not as a science, a popular speculation
    - pure reason has the goal to decide whether we can or not answer questions and if yes, answ.
      - (i) make judgements, (ii) set limits to our knowledge
      - transcendental: on how we perceive things, not on things in an a priori way
- Transcendental idealism: the distinction of Noumenon and Phenomena, must find the limits of reason
  - None can be said on the Noumenon, it is the limit of our experience and reason.
    - Does it exist? We are not able to say that.
Transcendental Esthetics: determine the forms of perception, give foundations to mathematics
- Two a priori (pure) forms of perception of the pure perception Subjecktive Bedingungen:
  - Space
    1. each imagination of things outside or close requires space
    2. you can imagine a void space but not without space
    3. each single space must be part of the infinite total space
    4. space is imagined as infinite, you cannot imagine to be at the border of space (antique arg.)
  - Time
    - Any sort of order requires time, we cannot imagine to be without time, it is infinite
  - (Subj Moment) it is not per se necessary and general, (Obj. Moment) though they are for us
  - Against emp. (Locke): experience requires space and time, those cannot come from it.
  - Against objectivistic vision (Newton): There are no space and time without matter and events
Transcendental Logic: investigates the origin, the extension and objective validity.
- Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer, Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind
- Transcendental Analytic: forms a priori of understanding (Verstand)
  - Analytik der Begriffe: concepts are functions (active) which order or unify rapresentations.
    - e.g. body contains metal., concepts can be pure or coming from experience:
      - pure concepts = categories
      - a judgement is a category applied to an experience.
      - quantity, quality, relation and modality
    - Esthetic: multipl. of perc. always is in space and time
    - Anal. of conc.: mutipl. of concepts always in categories
    - Transcendental Deduction: hardest problem: justification of the categories
      - (a) each thought requires the “ich denke”, (b) the “ich denke” uses categories, (c) all thoughts use categories
      - phenomena are ruled by the a priori form of our intellect.
  - Analytic der Grundsätze: on the highest principles of all synthetic judgements
    - this highest principle is: there must be a synthetical unit of the multiplicity of perception
    - synth. a pr. are possible when it is both prior to experience and shows a synthetic unit of a transcendental apperception.
    - table of principles
- Transcendental Dialectic: analysis of the pure forms a priori of the reason (Vernunft)
  - Reason want to go beyond the phenomena, what we cannot know
  - It is an necessary ambition to examine those ideas which we cannot know
  - In general the mistake is to apply forms a priori to other forms a priori instead of experience
  - We can in fact think about those ideas, but we cannot know them
  - Dialectic in the sophistic sense, rhetorical, no actual content.
  - The three ideas of reason are:
    - Soul: unity of all interiori perceptions, this is the ich denke applied to itself (rational psych.)
      - One in fact applies the category of substance to the ich denke (paralogism)
    - World: unity of all exterior perceptions, (rational cosmology)
      - we will never have all perceptions, there is nothing I can say on it (antinomy)
    - God: (rational theology, error: ideal of pure reason)
      - Ontological (Anselm, Desc): existence must derive from experience, no proof
        
        perfect in thought is not like perfect in reality (100euros example)
      - Cosmological (Thomas, Arist.): causal chain is emp., cannot prove metaphy. beings
      - Physical: all happens for God’s Reason: order is emp. not metaphy.

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