1st exam notes-plato philosophy

8/8/2019 1st Exam Notes-Plato Philosophy

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Intro

Philosophy = Love of Wisdom

1) Metaphysics ultimate reality, what exists? (Plato, reality)

2) People in particular (mind and body)

3) Peoples behavior (ethics and morality)4) Political Morality

Lawheads 4 definitions of Philosophy

1) Search for self-understanding

2) Love and pursuit of wisdom

3) Asking questions about the meaning of basic concepts

4) Search for fundamental beliefs that are rationally justified

2/3 Wednesday Class

Beauty is in the eye of beholderNietzsche was a subjective relativist: the only reality we can know is the reality that is

subjectively constructed by each individual. He rejected Correspondence Theory of Truth. We

can never have objective truth.

OBJECTIVISTS

1) Reality has a determinate, objective character

2) A belief is true if it corresponds to the objective features of reality.

Nietzsche believed in perspectivism: the theory that there cannot be any uninterpreted facts or

truths because everything we encounter is seen from one perspective or another.

We create a vision of the world that not only makes sense to us but that conforms to oursubjective needs.

Truth is independent of belief.

Relativism: Truth and knowledge is relative to individual or culture.

Truth depends on individual culture.

2/8 Class

Plato [The worlds of reality and knowledge]

Being

Most real, independent, unchanging, eternal, ideal, perfect, exemplary, original, form,

universal, intelligible, knowledgeable

Becoming

Less real, dependent (derivative), changing, transitory, actual, imperfect, approximation,

(imitation, imagery, representation, picture), instance, particular, feasible, senses, opinions


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Allegory of the cave

- People living in restricted area without knowing the higher reality

- Philosophers understand the true reality

- Socrates was executed because

- People can be mistaken, majority can be wrong.

LOWER = We see HIGHER = We cannot see

Some of Platos BIG IDEAS

1) There is a higher level of reality beyond what we sense.

2) Things we see/say are only pictures and representations of things that cannot be sensed.

3) What we sense are imperfect representations of ideals.

4) Reason provides knowledge of perfect concepts that cannot be found in the senses.

5) In order to know that it is imperfect, you must already have knowledge of perfect concept.

- We know ideals of reason before we have sense experience of objects.

- We have sense experience since we were born

- We have had knowledge of ideals

- Therefore, the mind exists with knowledge since before we were born.

6) The mind exists with knowledge before earth. (innate ideas)

7) Learning is remembering (reminiscence)

8) The mind is eternal (reason/intellect)

Lower Levels (sensible) is changing and transitory

Higher Levels(reason) is perfect and unchanging.

With respect to knowledge: it is an imperfect representation of higher truths that are revealed

to us through reason.

With respect to reality: the shadows that the prisoners see are lesser realities that arerepresentative of the wooden figures behind them.

5 Arguments for their existing of the higher level of reality.

1) The ideal triangle truly exists

- The ideal triangle did not really exist as an objective standard of judgment, we cannot judge

one picture to be better one or a closer approximation than another.

2) Because we can do proofs, we have knowledge. What we have knowledge of must exist.

- Knowledge is knowing approximation, its ideals

- We compare it to perfect, ideal standard

- Through reason we have knowledge of perfect- Through senses we have opinions

3) We see imperfect instances as version of the same ideal, which we would not do it. Ideals did

not exist.

4) Mind-independence: mathematical truth dont depend on belief and it must have to exist

outside our mind (pg 77)

5) Reason left us deal with reality, and it should give us an accurate picture of reality (pg 76)

(Theres universal form, that is why we compare triangles)


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Empiricism 2/18/10

Rationalism the minds faculty of reason provides knowledge of the world independent of my

sense experience

A priori knowledge Something known to be true/false independently of apart from any senseexperience

Rationalist A priori thruths are about the world, a priori truth is known purely by reason.

Empiricism ALL knowledge about the world comes from sensory experience.

David Hume (divorces reason from the world)

Relative ideas

A priori1) Known purely by thought

2) Denial is a contradiction

3) Central 2+2

4) Not dependent on what is any where existent in the universe

- Its raining, or its not rainy

- We have knowledge of must also exist * We know bachelors are unmarried regardless of the

world.

Matter of fact

A posteriori

1) Known by observation

2) Denial makes sense not contradiction, depends on what actually exists

*If the truth of a statement is not dependent on a particular state of the universe, the truth is

not about the universe.

* Definitions are true independent of the world, definitions are not about the world. Definitions

are about words, not the world

CONCLUSION: A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE IS KNOWLEDGE IF DEFINITIONS.

However, Hume argued that all our knowledge of cause and effect came through

habit. So, for instance, if we see the Sun rising it is not because it corresponds tosome eternal and unchangeable law, but because we have seen it rise countlesstimes. Therefore, the more we have experienced things, the more certain they willbe.


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2/22/10 John Locke page 95

Primary Qualities

Objective, mind-independent, really exists in the object, inherent, matter (material), cause,

reality, resemble objects correspond to, quantitative/measurable

Examples: solidity, extension, figure, shape, motion or rest, number

Secondary Qualities

Subjective, mind-dependent, only exists in the mind, relative to mind, mind/mental, effect in

mind, appearance, Do not resemble objects that correspond, qualitative

Examples: color, taste, sound, smell, pain, heat

Quality: property, characteristics, features, red, round, and heavy

Mind-dependent: requires or relies on mind for its existence

Inherent Quality: A properties, features that is in on object mind-independentlyLockes Belief Apotheos, Scientific Evolution (same as Issac Newtons)

Ex.1 The apple is red, sound, and sweet

- The qualities are in the object and it can be judged MIND-INDEPENDETLY

Ex.2 The room is cold The room is warm Whats the right answer?!

- Inherent quality, the room is cold no matter what

**Just because effects on your mind are not necessarily inherent qualities of objects heat may

not be the quality of fire**

**causes me to feel the cold = effect in mind**

** the room is cold = exists in the object**

Ex. 4 Garbage is stinky its delicious

- Smell and taste are subjective, mind-dependent

**LOCKE DOESNT THINK THAT FIRE, SAUNAS ARE IN YOUR MIND EXTINGUISHING THE

PERSPECTIVES THAT ARE IN YOUR MIND FROM PROPERTIES IN YOUR MIND. **

Atom smallest, invisible matter = leads to primary qualities

Experience - Perception of second quality do not correspond to object

OBJECTS HAVE PROPERTIES, WE HAVE REASON TO THINK THAT IT IS IN THE FIRE. WE TEND TO

CONFUSE ITS EFFECTS WITH THE PRIMARY QUALITIES OF OBJECTS.

The main thing Locke was trying to do is to limit knowledge to the things that could be said to

be primary qualities. So, as far as the table is concerned, such things as its size, shape and

weight are fixed and measurable. Its colour, on the other hand, is a matter of subjective

opinion.


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[Lockes arguments that secondary qualities do not inhere in objects]

1) X causes Y does not say X is Y

- If pain is in the mind, so too is the heat of the fire. Just because fire causes pain doesnt mean

fire is pain. Just because fire causes a feeling of heat, it doesnt mean fire is hot

2) Objects cannot have contradictory properties

- Something cannot be both warm and cold, or red and not red, or stinky and not stinky. Butobjects can be perceived to have opposite qualities, these qualities cannot be inherent in the

object.

[Locke]

- Color, taste depend on mind for its existence

- Our perception is caused by material objects

- (pg 96) We dont say fire is making me pain, fire is pain = NO!!!

- Because of atom, we get to see/sense things

- Pain in the head does not resemble pain in fire because there is no pain in fire

- Those perceptions, stinky, delicious, relative to mind (secondary qualities, mind dependent)

2/24/10 Bishop George Berkeley (STRAIGHTUP EMPIRICIST)Berkeleys criticisms to John Locke

1) Everything we know comes from the senses, empiricists cannot believe in what we cannot

see.

2) All qualities are secondary qualities.

Berkeleys Approach

- Empiricists cannot know object exists independent of the senses

- Locke and all empiricists cannot know there are material atoms that are too small to see

- Empiricists cannot believe in causal theory of perception

- The belief that there are material atoms, mind-independent causing our perception is

incompatible with empiricism

- The only thing similar to perception is perception

- Berkeleys skeptical that primary qualities resemble secondary qualities have smell, sound,

color. IT IS INCONCEIVABLE

-Berkeley thinks that solidity, extension, and figure are also in our mind, mind-dependent

[ 2 Arguments against the primary and secondary differences ] (THERES NODIFFERENCE)

1) Because it is inconceivable that primary qualities could not exist without secondary qualities,

they cannot be separated.- Because secondary qualities are in mind, primary qualities are also in mind

- There is no one point of view that tells you what shape it is. It cannot be both large and small

2) Same arguments that Locke used, cannot be both large and small, also applies to primary

qualities.

- How can matter exist without mental/spirit. Matter is nothing

- Materialism = everything is made of matter


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A mind-independent object could not have these qualities because these sensations are

experienced within the mind.

Idealism= Everything is made up of ideas, in spirit or mental

- To be is to be perceived = existence depends on mind, existence is mind-dependent

The main arguments for Idealism are based on the idea that our perceptions of objects arein us. In other words, when we say that an object is red, its redness is part of ourperception of it, not in the object or - as Locke argues - an effect of some power of rednessin the object.

- Theres gotta be mental/spirit that makes us to see the truth when we are not around. It is

God that makes you experience and perceive life.

The Master Argument. Berkeley's main argument is meant to show that it is impossiblefor something to exist without being perceived (or, as he says, esse est percipi, Latin for "Tobe is to be perceived"). This means that if we cannot imagine what the perception ofsomething must be like, we cannot really say that it exists. Berkeley uses this idea to attack

the notion of substance or matter, for if all the qualities that we ascribe to it are eitherprimary or secondary qualities, can we actually say that the substance itself exists?

1st exam notes-plato philosophy

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