The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
I took a bit of a hiatus from this book and other history of philosophy books with the intention of reading everything written by Plato and then I would move on to Aristotle, then Augustine, then the next, etc., etc. Reading primary works alongside the histories. I've read a lot of Plato, but not every word and am now simply trying to clean up my "current reading list" on Goodreads. I want to finish the two history books and move on to another subject. I have a complete works of Plato that I'll get to someday.
Ch. XIX Aristotle's Metaphysics
In studying Philosophers one must study both who the influences of the philosopher were and who they influenced.
Russell criticizes many whom Aristotle influenced but puts the blame more on those individuals than on Aristotle, noting that any ancient philosopher would have wound up being saddled with criticism if Aristotle had been replaced by any other ancient philosopher as the one who became dogmatic in the hands of later philosophers.
"He came at the end of the creative period in Greek thought, and after his death it was two thousand years before the world produced any philosopher who could be regarded as approximately his equal" (Russell, 159).
Aristotle became a bedrock in Church theology and since the 17th century, "almost every serious intellectual advance has had to begin with an attack on some Aristotelian doctrine" (Russell, 160).
Aristotle was born circa 384 BC in Thrace. At 18 he became a pupil to Plato. In 343 BC he became the tutor to Alexander the Great.
Aristotle lived in Athens until the death of Alexander. He fled the city when the Athenians rebelled against Alexander's successors and died a year later.
Russell suggest that neither Augustine nor Alexander had much of an impact on each other.
Aristotle is very different to his predecessors, writing as a professor and not an inspired teacher. There is no Bacchic enthusiasm in Aristotle.
Aristotle's metaphysics is a combination of Plato and common sense.
Aristotle believed universals cannot exist by themselves but must exist in particular things.
Russell claims that Aristotle's theory of universals is not clear, but it was an advancement in human thought.
For Aristotle, a universal is something that can be predicated to many subjects, i.e. man, dog, cat. An individual is a particular thing, Chris, Gallifrey, Porch Kitty.
Aristotle's metaphysics also emphasizes "essences". This is what you are by your very nature, a property of which you cannot lose without ceasing to be yourself.
Both individual things and species of things have an essence.
Aristotle has an important distinction between form and matter. The form is what gives boundaries to the matter to make whatever you are observing a thing. The form gives unity to the matter. The unity has a teleological aspect to it in Aristotle.
"The form of a thing, we are told, is its essence and primary substance" (Russell, 166).
There is a scale of actuality and potentiality in Aristotle. That which has more form has more actuality.
The soul is the form of the body in Aristotle.
In Aristotle, God is pure form and pure actuality. There is no potentiality; thus, no change. God is immutable.
Three types of substances in Aristotle:
1) The sensible and the perishable (plants and animals)
2) The sensible but not perishable (heavenly bodies)
3) The non-sensible and non-perishable (God and man's rational soul)
Aristotle argues that God exists from the argument of First Cause
Aristatle has an eternal, most good God that men must love. But like Spinoza's God, Aristotle's God cannot love men.
Four Causes in Aristotle
1) Material - the Matter
2) Formal - the essence
3) Efficient - the agent that brings the change (only modern cause)
4) Final - the end goal (teleological)
"The unmoved mover may be regarded as a final cause: it supplies a purpose for change, which is essentially an evolution towards likeness with God" (Russell, 169).
God is the final (teleological) cause of all activity.
For Aristotle, the soul was the final cause of the body. He taught against the transmigration of souls, believed asking whether the soul and body were one was as meaningless a question as to whether the wax and the shape given to it by a stamp were one and believed that mind and soul were different.
Aristotle differentiates between mind and soul, granting the mind a higher place than soul.
The mind is implanted in the soul and incapable of being destroyed.
The mind can be immortal even if the rest of the soul is not.
The soul gives form to the body by making it a unit.
"It seems, from these passages, that individuality--what distinguishes one man from another--is
connected with the body and the irrational soul, while the rational soul or mind is divine and
impersonal." (Russell, 172).
The irrational part of us separates from each other but the rational part unites us. Aristotle taught that the rational mind takes part in the divine which is immortal. It is our duty and goal to take part in as much divine immortality as possible but if we were to achieve this wholly we would become part of the divine immortality and cease to be an individual.
Russell admits that there are other ways of interpreting Aristotle but believes his interpretation is the "most natural".
Showing posts with label Metaphysics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Metaphysics. Show all posts
Monday, September 16, 2019
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Parmenides
Parmenides
The Classical Mind
W.T. Jones
1980
The first physicists and cosmologists to use the new geometric method of deductive reasoning from self-evident starting positions found that their logical conclusions clashed with the real world experience they had. The problem of perception was born.
Parmenides was consumed with the problem of change.
Parmenides started with monism and added two tautologies:
1) What is, is
2) What is not, is not
What is not, is not means that there is no nothing. 'Nothing' is essentially a meaningless word. His reasoning for claiming that there is no nothing is that it is impossible to think of nothing.
FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - The Parmenides - An Oxygen Like Bar where the users imbibe on a vapor that allows them to conceptualize nothing. It often drives its users to depression, madness and suicide. But, occasionally genius is borne out of using. Not recommended for persons on their first few cycles of birth and death.
From his two self-evident tautologies he deemed that what is, is uncreated, indestructible, eternal and unchangeable.
- It is uncreated because it was either created out of nothing or something. It can't be created out of nothing because nothing does not exist. It can't be created out of something because as a monist he assumed that there is only that one something.
-It is indestructible because to destroy it would make it become nothing. There is no nothing. Therefore it is indestructible.
-It is eternal because it is uncreated and indestructible.
-It is unchangeable because there is nothing it can change into in a monist system. Also, if it did change the old thing it was would become nothing. There is no nothing, so change is impossible.
History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1974
Heraclitus: everything changes
Parmenides: nothing changes
-From Elea, Southern Italy
-flourished circa 5th century BC
-Met with Socrates circa 450 BC
-Invented metaphysics based on logic
-believed the senses to be deceptive
-believed that the multitude of things was illusionary
-had two strands of thought: the way of truth and the way of opinion
Way of Truth: can't think about nothing, there is no nothing. there is no becoming and no passing away.
"Parmenides maintains that not only must George Washington have existed in the past, but in some sense he must still exist, since we can use his name significantly" (Russell, 49).
Parmenides' argument: if a word can be used significantly it must mean something and not nothing. Therefore, the meaning of the word must have some existence. This argument relies on the notion that the meaning of words is unchanging.
Because of the continual 'existence' that words guarantee, there really is no past. Since there is no past, there is no change.
Early Greek Philosophy
Jonathan Barnes
2001
"What can be said and be thought of must be; for it can be, and nothing cannot" (Barnes, 81).
He warned against the senses and extolled man not to let habit and experience force you to trust the deceptive senses.
What is, is un-generated and indestructible. No past, no future, always is.
"Thinking and a thought that it is are the same thing" (Barnes, 83).
FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - This is the basis for the Parmenides Engine. Think of the place that you are going and you are there. This allows for the space explorer to travel the vastness of space in short periods of time without massive amounts of fuel. The problem is that it can only be piloted by someone able to focus their mind completely on a single object. Distracted pilots have had disastrous results with this type of engine. Sometimes they end up half in one place and half in another. Sometimes they end up somewhere as something else. Sometimes they end up nowhere, if they have recently imbibed on the Parmenides vapor. This is actually the origin of black holes.
"[Parmenides] was the first to declare that the earth is spherical and lies in the middle [of the universe] - Diogenes Laertius" (Barnes, 89).
The Classical Mind
W.T. Jones
1980
The first physicists and cosmologists to use the new geometric method of deductive reasoning from self-evident starting positions found that their logical conclusions clashed with the real world experience they had. The problem of perception was born.
Parmenides was consumed with the problem of change.
Parmenides started with monism and added two tautologies:
1) What is, is
2) What is not, is not
What is not, is not means that there is no nothing. 'Nothing' is essentially a meaningless word. His reasoning for claiming that there is no nothing is that it is impossible to think of nothing.
FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - The Parmenides - An Oxygen Like Bar where the users imbibe on a vapor that allows them to conceptualize nothing. It often drives its users to depression, madness and suicide. But, occasionally genius is borne out of using. Not recommended for persons on their first few cycles of birth and death.
From his two self-evident tautologies he deemed that what is, is uncreated, indestructible, eternal and unchangeable.
- It is uncreated because it was either created out of nothing or something. It can't be created out of nothing because nothing does not exist. It can't be created out of something because as a monist he assumed that there is only that one something.
-It is indestructible because to destroy it would make it become nothing. There is no nothing. Therefore it is indestructible.
-It is eternal because it is uncreated and indestructible.
-It is unchangeable because there is nothing it can change into in a monist system. Also, if it did change the old thing it was would become nothing. There is no nothing, so change is impossible.
History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1974
Heraclitus: everything changes
Parmenides: nothing changes
-From Elea, Southern Italy
-flourished circa 5th century BC
-Met with Socrates circa 450 BC
-Invented metaphysics based on logic
-believed the senses to be deceptive
-believed that the multitude of things was illusionary
-had two strands of thought: the way of truth and the way of opinion
Way of Truth: can't think about nothing, there is no nothing. there is no becoming and no passing away.
"Parmenides maintains that not only must George Washington have existed in the past, but in some sense he must still exist, since we can use his name significantly" (Russell, 49).
Parmenides' argument: if a word can be used significantly it must mean something and not nothing. Therefore, the meaning of the word must have some existence. This argument relies on the notion that the meaning of words is unchanging.
Because of the continual 'existence' that words guarantee, there really is no past. Since there is no past, there is no change.
Early Greek Philosophy
Jonathan Barnes
2001
"What can be said and be thought of must be; for it can be, and nothing cannot" (Barnes, 81).
He warned against the senses and extolled man not to let habit and experience force you to trust the deceptive senses.
What is, is un-generated and indestructible. No past, no future, always is.
"Thinking and a thought that it is are the same thing" (Barnes, 83).
FUTURE MODERN ANCIENT GREEKS - This is the basis for the Parmenides Engine. Think of the place that you are going and you are there. This allows for the space explorer to travel the vastness of space in short periods of time without massive amounts of fuel. The problem is that it can only be piloted by someone able to focus their mind completely on a single object. Distracted pilots have had disastrous results with this type of engine. Sometimes they end up half in one place and half in another. Sometimes they end up somewhere as something else. Sometimes they end up nowhere, if they have recently imbibed on the Parmenides vapor. This is actually the origin of black holes.
"[Parmenides] was the first to declare that the earth is spherical and lies in the middle [of the universe] - Diogenes Laertius" (Barnes, 89).
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides & Proverbs
(Originally Written February 11, 2014 on scrap paper now lost)
History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Book I - Ancient Philosophy
Chapter 4 - Heraclitus
Xenophanes taught that gods were made up through anthropomorphic tendencies. He believed in only one God, but that God was not like man in either thought or form.
He also believed knowledge of God and gods to be impossible, "even if a man should chance to say something utterly right, still himself knows it not. There is nowhere anything but guessing (Russell, 40).
Xenophanes was a rationalist who disliked the mystical elements of Pythagorean thought.
Heraclitus lived around 511 BC in Ephesus. He was a mystic, believing the fundamental substance to be fire. He believed that everything was born by something else's death.
Heraclitus had a very negative view of mankind. He believed it was only force that compelled man to be good.
He believed war was not only a fact of life, but necessary to maintain existence. War brings death. Death brings life to the better things.
He was ascetic and proud of his asceticism.
The soul was made of fire and water. The better the soul, the more fire it had. The "dryer" the soul, the better it was.
He believed the world to be uncreated and eternal.
He believed that everything was in flux.
The constant flux produced strife. Strife produced conflict and that conflict proved to create the balance that exists in life. The flux had the effect of creating the cosmic justice that kept everything in its place and from one thing or one man from attaining too much power.
"The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has. The wisest man is an ape to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man" (Russell, 44).
Heraclitus' metaphysical notion of the endless flux is the stated by Plato to be: nothing ever is, everything is becoming. Aristotle described it as 'nothing steadfastly is'.
The doctrine of perpetual flux is a horrifying thing to men who seek something permanent. Science and philosophy have been trying to escape Heraclitus for thousands of years.
Chapter V - Parmenides
Parmenides countered Heraclitus' notion that everything is always changing by stating nothing ever changes.
Parmenides lived around 450 BC in southern Italy.
Parmenides taught that both thought and language require objects outside of themselves. You can't think of an object if that object doesn't exist.
Parmenides believed that in order for words to have meaning they must be attached to an object. If that object existed in the past it maintains some existence, otherwise we could not use the word meaningfully.
Chapter VI - Empedocles
Empedocles lived around 440 BC in Sicily. He claimed to be a god.
Empedocles was an old combination of science, religion and philosophy. His science and religion were often times at odds with one another.
Empedocles discovered properties of air and centrifugal force by experiment. He had a scientific belief in an odd version of survival of the fittest type of evolutionary theory.
Empedocles believed not in one primordial substance, but four: earth, fire, wind and water. However, love and strife were on equal footing with the aforementioned substances. Love brought about the combination of the elements. Strife brought about the dissolution of the elements.
Love and strife fought one another. There were periods of time when one mastered the other. Chance and necessity brought about the changes in the universe, not some overarching purpose.
Chapter VII - Athens in relation to culture
The greatness of Athens began when they defeated the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) and defeated Xerxes (480 BC).
Athens grew rich and prosperous after this under the guidance of Pericles until about 430 BC.
During this time Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished.
Proverbs 8
8:9 - "To the discerning all of them are right. They are faultless to those who have knowledge".
The wisdom of the Lord is known to the discerning. It is faultless to those who have knowledge. THen do the unbelieving have no knowledge, no discernment?
Help me to seek you that I may find your wisdom. Help me to seek you God.
Proverbs 9
9:10 - "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding"
Proverbs 10
"The way of the Lord is a refuge for the righteouss"
Lord, may you be my refuge. Put in me a desire to seek you always. Light my heart on fire so that it burns for you. Help me to turn from folly and wickedness. Keep my paths straight. Bless this request my God, my King.
History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Book I - Ancient Philosophy
Chapter 4 - Heraclitus
Xenophanes taught that gods were made up through anthropomorphic tendencies. He believed in only one God, but that God was not like man in either thought or form.
He also believed knowledge of God and gods to be impossible, "even if a man should chance to say something utterly right, still himself knows it not. There is nowhere anything but guessing (Russell, 40).
Xenophanes was a rationalist who disliked the mystical elements of Pythagorean thought.
Heraclitus lived around 511 BC in Ephesus. He was a mystic, believing the fundamental substance to be fire. He believed that everything was born by something else's death.
Heraclitus had a very negative view of mankind. He believed it was only force that compelled man to be good.
He believed war was not only a fact of life, but necessary to maintain existence. War brings death. Death brings life to the better things.
He was ascetic and proud of his asceticism.
The soul was made of fire and water. The better the soul, the more fire it had. The "dryer" the soul, the better it was.
He believed the world to be uncreated and eternal.
He believed that everything was in flux.
The constant flux produced strife. Strife produced conflict and that conflict proved to create the balance that exists in life. The flux had the effect of creating the cosmic justice that kept everything in its place and from one thing or one man from attaining too much power.
"The way of man has no wisdom, but that of God has. The wisest man is an ape to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man" (Russell, 44).
Heraclitus' metaphysical notion of the endless flux is the stated by Plato to be: nothing ever is, everything is becoming. Aristotle described it as 'nothing steadfastly is'.
The doctrine of perpetual flux is a horrifying thing to men who seek something permanent. Science and philosophy have been trying to escape Heraclitus for thousands of years.
Chapter V - Parmenides
Parmenides countered Heraclitus' notion that everything is always changing by stating nothing ever changes.
Parmenides lived around 450 BC in southern Italy.
Parmenides taught that both thought and language require objects outside of themselves. You can't think of an object if that object doesn't exist.
Parmenides believed that in order for words to have meaning they must be attached to an object. If that object existed in the past it maintains some existence, otherwise we could not use the word meaningfully.
Chapter VI - Empedocles
Empedocles lived around 440 BC in Sicily. He claimed to be a god.
Empedocles was an old combination of science, religion and philosophy. His science and religion were often times at odds with one another.
Empedocles discovered properties of air and centrifugal force by experiment. He had a scientific belief in an odd version of survival of the fittest type of evolutionary theory.
Empedocles believed not in one primordial substance, but four: earth, fire, wind and water. However, love and strife were on equal footing with the aforementioned substances. Love brought about the combination of the elements. Strife brought about the dissolution of the elements.
Love and strife fought one another. There were periods of time when one mastered the other. Chance and necessity brought about the changes in the universe, not some overarching purpose.
Chapter VII - Athens in relation to culture
The greatness of Athens began when they defeated the Persians at Marathon (490 BC) and defeated Xerxes (480 BC).
Athens grew rich and prosperous after this under the guidance of Pericles until about 430 BC.
During this time Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished.
Proverbs 8
8:9 - "To the discerning all of them are right. They are faultless to those who have knowledge".
The wisdom of the Lord is known to the discerning. It is faultless to those who have knowledge. THen do the unbelieving have no knowledge, no discernment?
Help me to seek you that I may find your wisdom. Help me to seek you God.
Proverbs 9
9:10 - "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding"
Proverbs 10
"The way of the Lord is a refuge for the righteouss"
Lord, may you be my refuge. Put in me a desire to seek you always. Light my heart on fire so that it burns for you. Help me to turn from folly and wickedness. Keep my paths straight. Bless this request my God, my King.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Notes on An Absurd Reasoning & Absurd Freedom (The Myth of Sisyphus)
(Originally Written October 10, 2008 in the Journal)
Notes on Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and other essays
Myth of Sisyphus
An Absurd Reasoning
"Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to human, stamping it with his real" (Camus)
This is pure subjectivism - all thought is anthropomorphic. A thought then, What of Imago Dei? If we, created in the image of God reflect on the world out of this sense aren't we reflecting on the world from a universal standpoint, albeit imperfectly due to our limitations?
Camus is an absolute empiricist. I feel my heart, it exists. I feel the world, I touch it. Therefore, it exists. "There ends all my knowledge, the rest is construction" (Camus). But he states even his own heart is and will remain indefinable to him.
The gap between certainty of existence and defining the content of existence is so wide it cannot be filled.
The irrational (existence's paradoxes and inconsistencies), the human nostalgia (our deepest desire for unity familiarity, and obsession with clarity), and the absurd (the abyss we stare at when we attempt of true knowledge and find none) converge to create in our minds a desert which we ought not attempt to escape by suicide (literal or the act of giving up thought or reason) or attempt to transcend by hope (a process of leaving knowledge to enter into pure construction). This is the point that demands action - suicide or recovery.
Philosophical suicide is the abdication of duty in pursuing knowledge either by giving up or by giving into hope.
The absurd is "the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints" (Camus).
The absurd is to be both impossible and contradictory.
The absurd is a disproportion between intentions and reality of consequences. "The absurd, which is a metaphysical state of the conscious man does not lead to God. Perhaps the notion will become clearer if I risk this shocking statement: the absurd is sin without God" (Camus).
Absurdity springs from comparison. It is essentially a divorce; it does not lie within the two things being compared but in the actual confrontation of the two things. The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in the meeting of the two.
The absurd is the fundamental truth - the one thing that cannot be disposed of.
Now, it is the absurd that crushes man - the force that drives man to a broken point. The thing that crushes us we must fight to preserve. The absurd is an unceasing struggle - which implies "a total absence of hope (which has nothing to do with despair), a continual rejection (which must not be confused with renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which must not be compared to immature unrest)" (Camus).
So Camus' way is thus:
1. Break from the monotony of life to discover life is meaningless.
2. This shock demands action, either suicide or recovery
3. The recovery is acceptance of the absurd as ceaseless struggle
4. Ceaseless struggle brings to the mind three realizations
- There is no hope
- There is continual rejection
- We must be dissatisfied
The existentialists (Chestov, Kierkegaard and Jaspers) came to the truth of the absurd and offered their reaction to it as escape. They did so out of forced hope - creating religion.
The absurd man, the existentialist, recognizes the absurd and the limited value of reason - but, rather than abandoning reason for religion, he in his awareness, simply knows there is no longer a place for hope.
The absurd man seeks to live with his ailments, while the man who has seen the absurd and turned to religion has become frantic and frenzied, seeking to be cured.
Kierkegaard views despair not as a fact, but as a state of existence - the state of sin. Now, Kierkegaard in his final dealings with the absurd sacrificed the intellect (reason) to the belief in God for he sacrificed his pride (sin) to God. Camus recognizes the limitations of reason, but states that if this is pride he sees no sufficient cause to sacrifice it.
The absurd man, the absurd mind seeks what is true at all costs. It seeks what is true, not what is desirable. If Kierkegaard warns that there is nothing but despair then the absurd man takes truth and despair.
Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) - the making of structures of consciousness and the phenomena which appears in acts of consciousness - objects of systematic reflection and analysis. Husserl used this to provide a firm basis for all human knowledge.
Phenomenology seeks to describe actual experience - not explain the world.
Phenomenology claims truths but that there is no Truth.
Husserl's method was "the intention":
1. Negate classical reasoning (thinking as a unifying/familiarizing procedure). Thinking is actually a relearning how to see again and to direct consciousness.
2. Directing consciousness illuminates every little truth.
3. It isolates events from one another to represent an incoherent-ness in experience; thus, every isolated object of consciousness is its own "magical appearance".
The absurd spirit wishes to enumerate experience, not transcend it.
Husserl's methodology would be acceptable to the absurd man if it simply stopped at the enumeration of experience, but Husserl jumps from the psychological truth of his theory to the metaphysical. Thus, he reintroduces a rationalism akin to Plato. Unlike Kierkegaard who returns to God - Husserl returns to a form of truth as polytheism - flattening all hierarchy and making all truth equal little gods.
The difference between Husserl's abstract god and the dazzling God of Kierkegaard is minimal and only one on how to arrive at the conclusion. Kierkegaard, like other religious philosophers deified the absurd and called it God. The abstract philosophers like Husserl rationalized the absurd to the point of creating standard reasons. They began at the nausea of recognizing the absurd but go to one extreme (rationalizing/abstract) or irrationalizing (deifying/religious escapism).
Nausea is looking into the face of the absurd. There are then three paths to follow. Religion is the path of deifying the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The abstract is the pat of rationalizing the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The absurd man does neither. He takes the divorce. This is the path of acceptance.
The absurd man knows that existence is unreasonable - neither too rational nor too irrational. He accepts the limits of reason and does not give it limitless power as Husserl or abandon it as sin (pride) like Kierkegaard.
Absurd Freedom
What is known (that what is certain) cannot be denied or rejected. One can negate all, but one's desire for unity. One can refute all the world but chaos.
One can only understand a thing in human terms (thus cannot transcend). "What I touch, what resists me - that is what I understand" (Camus).
The break - the divorce of mind (reason) and the world is caused by awareness of it.
The absurd man lives in the certainty of this divorce and does nothing except on the basis of certain knowledge. The only certainty is the absurd and thus he cannot escape it in good conscious through religion. He hears that this is the sin of pride but he does not know what sin is.
Life is better lived because it does not have a meaning.
Hope in transcendence (religion) is to escape the reality of the absurd - to abolish the intellect is to elude, not solve the problem.
The absurd man lives in constant revolt against the world and against his desire for unity (escape/hope). It is in this revolt that gives life its value.
Camus really loves the pride of man. He focuses all of his energy on praising the absurd man and abhors any type of degradation.
To the absurd man the notion of the metaphysical freedom or determinism is not important - the absurd man is only certain of his own freedom.
Camus denies the paradox of God and freedom has been solved or laid to waste, it remains. Either god is all-powerful and the author of all evil or we are free and God is not all-powerful. But, none of this is important because we only experience our own freedom and the eradication of hope and future makes us more free.
The absurd tells me this: there is no future. Freedom in the classical sense is based on hope, hope based on future. Our hope in the future actually makes us slaves to the conventions of thinking.
The Ideal of the absurd man: to live with a constantly conscious soul in a ceaseless procession of presents (no pasts/no future)/
Three consequences of absurd reasoning:
1. Revolt
2. Freedom
3. The ideal (passion)
Notes on Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and other essays
Myth of Sisyphus
An Absurd Reasoning
"Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to human, stamping it with his real" (Camus)
This is pure subjectivism - all thought is anthropomorphic. A thought then, What of Imago Dei? If we, created in the image of God reflect on the world out of this sense aren't we reflecting on the world from a universal standpoint, albeit imperfectly due to our limitations?
Camus is an absolute empiricist. I feel my heart, it exists. I feel the world, I touch it. Therefore, it exists. "There ends all my knowledge, the rest is construction" (Camus). But he states even his own heart is and will remain indefinable to him.
The gap between certainty of existence and defining the content of existence is so wide it cannot be filled.
The irrational (existence's paradoxes and inconsistencies), the human nostalgia (our deepest desire for unity familiarity, and obsession with clarity), and the absurd (the abyss we stare at when we attempt of true knowledge and find none) converge to create in our minds a desert which we ought not attempt to escape by suicide (literal or the act of giving up thought or reason) or attempt to transcend by hope (a process of leaving knowledge to enter into pure construction). This is the point that demands action - suicide or recovery.
Philosophical suicide is the abdication of duty in pursuing knowledge either by giving up or by giving into hope.
The absurd is "the divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints" (Camus).
The absurd is to be both impossible and contradictory.
The absurd is a disproportion between intentions and reality of consequences. "The absurd, which is a metaphysical state of the conscious man does not lead to God. Perhaps the notion will become clearer if I risk this shocking statement: the absurd is sin without God" (Camus).
Absurdity springs from comparison. It is essentially a divorce; it does not lie within the two things being compared but in the actual confrontation of the two things. The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in the meeting of the two.
The absurd is the fundamental truth - the one thing that cannot be disposed of.
Now, it is the absurd that crushes man - the force that drives man to a broken point. The thing that crushes us we must fight to preserve. The absurd is an unceasing struggle - which implies "a total absence of hope (which has nothing to do with despair), a continual rejection (which must not be confused with renunciation), and a conscious dissatisfaction (which must not be compared to immature unrest)" (Camus).
So Camus' way is thus:
1. Break from the monotony of life to discover life is meaningless.
2. This shock demands action, either suicide or recovery
3. The recovery is acceptance of the absurd as ceaseless struggle
4. Ceaseless struggle brings to the mind three realizations
- There is no hope
- There is continual rejection
- We must be dissatisfied
The existentialists (Chestov, Kierkegaard and Jaspers) came to the truth of the absurd and offered their reaction to it as escape. They did so out of forced hope - creating religion.
The absurd man, the existentialist, recognizes the absurd and the limited value of reason - but, rather than abandoning reason for religion, he in his awareness, simply knows there is no longer a place for hope.
The absurd man seeks to live with his ailments, while the man who has seen the absurd and turned to religion has become frantic and frenzied, seeking to be cured.
Kierkegaard views despair not as a fact, but as a state of existence - the state of sin. Now, Kierkegaard in his final dealings with the absurd sacrificed the intellect (reason) to the belief in God for he sacrificed his pride (sin) to God. Camus recognizes the limitations of reason, but states that if this is pride he sees no sufficient cause to sacrifice it.
The absurd man, the absurd mind seeks what is true at all costs. It seeks what is true, not what is desirable. If Kierkegaard warns that there is nothing but despair then the absurd man takes truth and despair.
Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) - the making of structures of consciousness and the phenomena which appears in acts of consciousness - objects of systematic reflection and analysis. Husserl used this to provide a firm basis for all human knowledge.
Phenomenology seeks to describe actual experience - not explain the world.
Phenomenology claims truths but that there is no Truth.
Husserl's method was "the intention":
1. Negate classical reasoning (thinking as a unifying/familiarizing procedure). Thinking is actually a relearning how to see again and to direct consciousness.
2. Directing consciousness illuminates every little truth.
3. It isolates events from one another to represent an incoherent-ness in experience; thus, every isolated object of consciousness is its own "magical appearance".
The absurd spirit wishes to enumerate experience, not transcend it.
Husserl's methodology would be acceptable to the absurd man if it simply stopped at the enumeration of experience, but Husserl jumps from the psychological truth of his theory to the metaphysical. Thus, he reintroduces a rationalism akin to Plato. Unlike Kierkegaard who returns to God - Husserl returns to a form of truth as polytheism - flattening all hierarchy and making all truth equal little gods.
The difference between Husserl's abstract god and the dazzling God of Kierkegaard is minimal and only one on how to arrive at the conclusion. Kierkegaard, like other religious philosophers deified the absurd and called it God. The abstract philosophers like Husserl rationalized the absurd to the point of creating standard reasons. They began at the nausea of recognizing the absurd but go to one extreme (rationalizing/abstract) or irrationalizing (deifying/religious escapism).
Nausea is looking into the face of the absurd. There are then three paths to follow. Religion is the path of deifying the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The abstract is the pat of rationalizing the absurd. It is an escape or a reconciliation to avoid the divorce. The absurd man does neither. He takes the divorce. This is the path of acceptance.
The absurd man knows that existence is unreasonable - neither too rational nor too irrational. He accepts the limits of reason and does not give it limitless power as Husserl or abandon it as sin (pride) like Kierkegaard.
Absurd Freedom
What is known (that what is certain) cannot be denied or rejected. One can negate all, but one's desire for unity. One can refute all the world but chaos.
One can only understand a thing in human terms (thus cannot transcend). "What I touch, what resists me - that is what I understand" (Camus).
The break - the divorce of mind (reason) and the world is caused by awareness of it.
The absurd man lives in the certainty of this divorce and does nothing except on the basis of certain knowledge. The only certainty is the absurd and thus he cannot escape it in good conscious through religion. He hears that this is the sin of pride but he does not know what sin is.
Life is better lived because it does not have a meaning.
Hope in transcendence (religion) is to escape the reality of the absurd - to abolish the intellect is to elude, not solve the problem.
The absurd man lives in constant revolt against the world and against his desire for unity (escape/hope). It is in this revolt that gives life its value.
Camus really loves the pride of man. He focuses all of his energy on praising the absurd man and abhors any type of degradation.
To the absurd man the notion of the metaphysical freedom or determinism is not important - the absurd man is only certain of his own freedom.
Camus denies the paradox of God and freedom has been solved or laid to waste, it remains. Either god is all-powerful and the author of all evil or we are free and God is not all-powerful. But, none of this is important because we only experience our own freedom and the eradication of hope and future makes us more free.
The absurd tells me this: there is no future. Freedom in the classical sense is based on hope, hope based on future. Our hope in the future actually makes us slaves to the conventions of thinking.
The Ideal of the absurd man: to live with a constantly conscious soul in a ceaseless procession of presents (no pasts/no future)/
Three consequences of absurd reasoning:
1. Revolt
2. Freedom
3. The ideal (passion)
Saturday, June 2, 2007
On the Ultimate Origination of Things
(Originally written June 2, 2007 in Book 14)
On the Ultimate Origination of Things
November 23, 1697
Gottfried Leibniz
Beyond the scope of all finite things exists some One Being who rules the universe which he fashioned and created.
This One Being is the ultimate reason for things.
The present world is physically or hypothetically, but not absolutely or metaphysically necessary.
Ultimate ground must be found in something metaphysically necessary.
Temporal, contingent or physical truths arise from eternal, essential or metaphysical truths.
A certain "Divine Mathematics" or "Metaphysical Mechanism" is used in the origination of things.
Possibility is the foundation of essence. Perfection (degree of essence) is the foundation of existence.
The Author of the World (God) can therefore be free and yet everything happens determinately because He acts from a principle of perfect wisdom.
Whatever exists must be grounded ultimately in metaphysical necessity because any thing or series of things cannot provide its own grounding (unless it is metaphysically necessary). But physical things are not metaphysically necessary. Furthermore only existing things can produce/ground existing things. Therefore, metaphysically necessary truths actually exist, if only in the mind of God.
The ultimate reason for the reality of both essences and existences lie in one source, namely God.
The world is physically, metaphysically and morally the most perfect it could be.
But yet, our experience leads us to doubt this fact. "In the end, the world appears to be a certain confused chaos rather than a thing ordered by some supreme wisdom, especially if one takes note of the conduct of the human race... it is unjust to make judgment unless one has examined the entire law... We know but a small part of the eternity which extends without measure, for how short is the memory of several thousand years which history gives us. But yet, from such meager experience we rashly make judgments about the immense and eternal" (Leibniz, 46).
On the Ultimate Origination of Things
November 23, 1697
Gottfried Leibniz
Beyond the scope of all finite things exists some One Being who rules the universe which he fashioned and created.
This One Being is the ultimate reason for things.
The present world is physically or hypothetically, but not absolutely or metaphysically necessary.
Ultimate ground must be found in something metaphysically necessary.
Temporal, contingent or physical truths arise from eternal, essential or metaphysical truths.
A certain "Divine Mathematics" or "Metaphysical Mechanism" is used in the origination of things.
Possibility is the foundation of essence. Perfection (degree of essence) is the foundation of existence.
The Author of the World (God) can therefore be free and yet everything happens determinately because He acts from a principle of perfect wisdom.
Whatever exists must be grounded ultimately in metaphysical necessity because any thing or series of things cannot provide its own grounding (unless it is metaphysically necessary). But physical things are not metaphysically necessary. Furthermore only existing things can produce/ground existing things. Therefore, metaphysically necessary truths actually exist, if only in the mind of God.
The ultimate reason for the reality of both essences and existences lie in one source, namely God.
The world is physically, metaphysically and morally the most perfect it could be.
But yet, our experience leads us to doubt this fact. "In the end, the world appears to be a certain confused chaos rather than a thing ordered by some supreme wisdom, especially if one takes note of the conduct of the human race... it is unjust to make judgment unless one has examined the entire law... We know but a small part of the eternity which extends without measure, for how short is the memory of several thousand years which history gives us. But yet, from such meager experience we rashly make judgments about the immense and eternal" (Leibniz, 46).
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Notes on Discourse on Metaphysics (C)
(Originally written May 29, 2007 in Book 14)
Discourse on Metaphysics
G.W. Leibniz
(continued)
31.
- God's grace is truly grace
- We do not know how much and in what way God dispenses grace. Nor do we know why he chooses to dispense grace to some and why he chooses to withhold it from others
- Among possible beings there must be a person with a notion or idea contains the entire sequence of ordinary and extraordinary graces
32.
- "Substance contains all its events with all their circumstances" (Leibniz, 35).
- All other substances rely on God.
- God alone acts on other substances
- God alone brings about the communication and connection between other substances
- A soul is sufficient to itself with God
- A soul cannot perish without annihilation, the dissolution of the body cannot destroy that which is indivisible.
33.
- The perceptions of our senses, though they be clear, must necessarily contain some confused feeling because our body receives the impression of other bodies
- Without the ability to reflect, there can be no moral qualities. Thus, the animals cannot be moral entities though they have souls
- The intelligent soul knows what it is, can reflect upon itself and is therefore, a moral agent
- The knowledge of one's self is what renders the intelligent soul capable of merits or demerits, rewards or punishments
34.
- Immortality is required of substance, which is no substance perishes though it may become something different entirely, but for this to have religious/moral implications, one must have memory. This is, "I know I" and makes intelligent soul a desirable position.
35.
- God will always preserve our substance and our person.
- Our person is the memory and the knowledge of what we are
- God is the most perfect of all minds and the greatest of all beings.
- Minds are the closest beings to perfection because they most closely represent the divine
- The difference between intelligent souls and non-intelligent souls is the difference between a person looking into a mirror and their reflection
36.
- Minds are the most perfectible substances
- Minds alone can serve God freely
- The moral quality God possess makes Him the Lord of minds
- It is due to the moral quality God has, "that he humanizes himself, that he is willing to allow anthropomorphism, and that he enters into society with us, as prince with his subjects; and this consideration is so dear to him that the happy and flourishing state of his empire, which consists in the greatest possible happiness of its inhabitants, becomes the highest of his laws" (Leibniz, 40).
- God has ordained everything in such a way that minds live always and that always preserve their moral quality
- To make man perfectly happy, God only works for them to love Him.
37.
- The gospel has entirely changed the course of human history.
- God alone can make souls happy or unhappy.
Discourse on Metaphysics
G.W. Leibniz
(continued)
31.
- God's grace is truly grace
- We do not know how much and in what way God dispenses grace. Nor do we know why he chooses to dispense grace to some and why he chooses to withhold it from others
- Among possible beings there must be a person with a notion or idea contains the entire sequence of ordinary and extraordinary graces
32.
- "Substance contains all its events with all their circumstances" (Leibniz, 35).
- All other substances rely on God.
- God alone acts on other substances
- God alone brings about the communication and connection between other substances
- A soul is sufficient to itself with God
- A soul cannot perish without annihilation, the dissolution of the body cannot destroy that which is indivisible.
33.
- The perceptions of our senses, though they be clear, must necessarily contain some confused feeling because our body receives the impression of other bodies
- Without the ability to reflect, there can be no moral qualities. Thus, the animals cannot be moral entities though they have souls
- The intelligent soul knows what it is, can reflect upon itself and is therefore, a moral agent
- The knowledge of one's self is what renders the intelligent soul capable of merits or demerits, rewards or punishments
34.
- Immortality is required of substance, which is no substance perishes though it may become something different entirely, but for this to have religious/moral implications, one must have memory. This is, "I know I" and makes intelligent soul a desirable position.
35.
- God will always preserve our substance and our person.
- Our person is the memory and the knowledge of what we are
- God is the most perfect of all minds and the greatest of all beings.
- Minds are the closest beings to perfection because they most closely represent the divine
- The difference between intelligent souls and non-intelligent souls is the difference between a person looking into a mirror and their reflection
36.
- Minds are the most perfectible substances
- Minds alone can serve God freely
- The moral quality God possess makes Him the Lord of minds
- It is due to the moral quality God has, "that he humanizes himself, that he is willing to allow anthropomorphism, and that he enters into society with us, as prince with his subjects; and this consideration is so dear to him that the happy and flourishing state of his empire, which consists in the greatest possible happiness of its inhabitants, becomes the highest of his laws" (Leibniz, 40).
- God has ordained everything in such a way that minds live always and that always preserve their moral quality
- To make man perfectly happy, God only works for them to love Him.
37.
- The gospel has entirely changed the course of human history.
- God alone can make souls happy or unhappy.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Notes on Discourse on Metaphysics (B)
(Originally Written May 16, 2007 in Book 14)
Discourse on Metaphysics
G.W. Leibniz
(Continued)
18.
- Force is a change that is separate from size, shape or motion
- Thus, not everything that exists in a body exists merely within the extension of that body.
19.
- It is a mistake to banish final causes from physical studies because it would seem to follow that God designed body with no end.
- It is foolish to believe we can decipher the end of everything that God hath mad because He sees all connections at once, but he has made the universe to suit man and man to suit the universe. "There is nothing in the universe which does not affect us and does not also accommodate itself in accordance with his regard for us" (Leibniz, 21).
- God does nothing by chance.
20.
Leibniz agrees with Socrates' criticism of Anaxagoras in Phaedo that philosophy cannot be so materialistic.
21.
- Mechanical rules depend on metaphysics.
- The physical phenomenal world would be entirely different without its metaphysical system.
22.
- Nature operates under natural phenomena, but this natural phenomena only occurs because God has caused it.
- God is so skilled an artisan that He has produced a world that can function completely with God's original simple design.
23.
- There are true and false ideas.
- Ideas precede reasoning about something
- Thus, the proof of God in ontological form states that I reason about God and in order for me to reason about God, I must first have the idea of God. The idea of God entails all perfections and thus, existing is more perfect than not existing and thus, God exists.
- The problem with the ontological argument is that we can have false ideas that do not correspond to reality. Thus, the ontological argument merely proves that if God is possible then He necessarily exists.
24.
- Confused knowledge - the ability to recognize a thing without being able to articulate its differences or properties.
- Distinct knowledge - recognition of a thing and an ability to explain its properties and differences.
- Distinct knowledge has degrees
- Adequate knowledge - a distinct knowledge of a thing down to its primitive notions
- Intuitive knowledge - an adequate knowledge in which all the primitive notions of a thing are known at once, distinctly.
- Intuitive knowledge is extremely rare because most human knowledge is confused or suppositive.
- Suppositive knowledge - "A notion intermediate between intuitive and clear is when I have been deprived of clear knowledge of all surrounding notions"
- Clear knowledge - knowing how a thing is distinguishable from other things but only being able to say, I know not what makes X different than Y, but know that they differ.
Degrees of Knowledge
Confused - recognition
Clear - Recognition + ...
Distinct - Recognition and some explanatory ability
Adequate - Distinct + ...
Intuitive - immediate full knowledge
Clear, Distinct and Adequate are suppositive knowledge. Suppositive is a combinative knowledge.
Nominal definitions - a definition that leaves one able to still doubt if that which is defined be possible.
Real definition - a definition that includes a property which makes the thing's possibility known
"As long as we have only a nominal definition, we cannot be certain of the consequences we derive, for if it concealed some contradiction or impossibility, the opposite conclusions could be derived from it"
But truths are not dependent on name nor are they arbitrary, contra Hobbes.
Real definitions are twofold:
1) When it is known via experience a thing is real its definition is merely a real one.
2) When the proof of possibly is a priori the definition is real and causal.
An essential proof is perfect, a priori, and sees all the way to its primitive notions
25.
- We can have no idea of a notion when it is impossible
- We cannot contemplate a notion when we have suppositive knowledge of it because it may have some hidden contradiction
- We skip over the contemplation in suppositive knowledge because we suppose we know the thing
- "Only in confused notions when our knowledge is clear or in distinct notions when it is intuitive do we see the entire idea in them" (Leibniz, 28).
26.
- An idea is a quality of our soul.
- Our souls have these qualities in them whether we are thinking on them currently or not
- Our souls express God, the universe, all essences and all existences.
- Nothing can be taught to us whose idea is not already in our mind
- Plato's doctrine of reminiscence is correct so long it is purged of his notion of preexistence.
- "Our soul knows all these things virtually and requires only attention to recognize truths, and that, consequently, it has, at very least, the ideas upon which these truths depend" (Leibniz, 29).
27.
- Some things outside us express things more particularly than our own souls. It is through their more acute expression that we can understand a truth more completely.
- Ideas are expressions in our soul whether we conceive them or not
- Notions or concepts are ideas that we conceive or form
- It is false that all of our conceptions come via the senses, the sensual data we receive merely brings our attention to internal experience
28.
- There is no external cause acting upon us aside from God
- No other external object is capable of touching our soul or perception
- We have ideas of everything in our soul by virtue of God's continual action on us
- "God is our immediate external object and that we see all things by Him" (Leibniz, 30).
29.
- Our ideas however are in us and not in God.
30.
- Ordinarily, God does nothing more than follow the laws He established
- God determines our wills to choose the better option without necessitating it
- God finds it good that certain men should exist despite foreseeing they will sin
- It ought to be enough for us to know this without understanding it while we are yet on this earth
- God is clearly not the cause of evil
Discourse on Metaphysics
G.W. Leibniz
(Continued)
18.
- Force is a change that is separate from size, shape or motion
- Thus, not everything that exists in a body exists merely within the extension of that body.
19.
- It is a mistake to banish final causes from physical studies because it would seem to follow that God designed body with no end.
- It is foolish to believe we can decipher the end of everything that God hath mad because He sees all connections at once, but he has made the universe to suit man and man to suit the universe. "There is nothing in the universe which does not affect us and does not also accommodate itself in accordance with his regard for us" (Leibniz, 21).
- God does nothing by chance.
20.
Leibniz agrees with Socrates' criticism of Anaxagoras in Phaedo that philosophy cannot be so materialistic.
21.
- Mechanical rules depend on metaphysics.
- The physical phenomenal world would be entirely different without its metaphysical system.
22.
- Nature operates under natural phenomena, but this natural phenomena only occurs because God has caused it.
- God is so skilled an artisan that He has produced a world that can function completely with God's original simple design.
23.
- There are true and false ideas.
- Ideas precede reasoning about something
- Thus, the proof of God in ontological form states that I reason about God and in order for me to reason about God, I must first have the idea of God. The idea of God entails all perfections and thus, existing is more perfect than not existing and thus, God exists.
- The problem with the ontological argument is that we can have false ideas that do not correspond to reality. Thus, the ontological argument merely proves that if God is possible then He necessarily exists.
24.
- Confused knowledge - the ability to recognize a thing without being able to articulate its differences or properties.
- Distinct knowledge - recognition of a thing and an ability to explain its properties and differences.
- Distinct knowledge has degrees
- Adequate knowledge - a distinct knowledge of a thing down to its primitive notions
- Intuitive knowledge - an adequate knowledge in which all the primitive notions of a thing are known at once, distinctly.
- Intuitive knowledge is extremely rare because most human knowledge is confused or suppositive.
- Suppositive knowledge - "A notion intermediate between intuitive and clear is when I have been deprived of clear knowledge of all surrounding notions"
- Clear knowledge - knowing how a thing is distinguishable from other things but only being able to say, I know not what makes X different than Y, but know that they differ.
Degrees of Knowledge
Confused - recognition
Clear - Recognition + ...
Distinct - Recognition and some explanatory ability
Adequate - Distinct + ...
Intuitive - immediate full knowledge
Clear, Distinct and Adequate are suppositive knowledge. Suppositive is a combinative knowledge.
Nominal definitions - a definition that leaves one able to still doubt if that which is defined be possible.
Real definition - a definition that includes a property which makes the thing's possibility known
"As long as we have only a nominal definition, we cannot be certain of the consequences we derive, for if it concealed some contradiction or impossibility, the opposite conclusions could be derived from it"
But truths are not dependent on name nor are they arbitrary, contra Hobbes.
Real definitions are twofold:
1) When it is known via experience a thing is real its definition is merely a real one.
2) When the proof of possibly is a priori the definition is real and causal.
An essential proof is perfect, a priori, and sees all the way to its primitive notions
25.
- We can have no idea of a notion when it is impossible
- We cannot contemplate a notion when we have suppositive knowledge of it because it may have some hidden contradiction
- We skip over the contemplation in suppositive knowledge because we suppose we know the thing
- "Only in confused notions when our knowledge is clear or in distinct notions when it is intuitive do we see the entire idea in them" (Leibniz, 28).
26.
- An idea is a quality of our soul.
- Our souls have these qualities in them whether we are thinking on them currently or not
- Our souls express God, the universe, all essences and all existences.
- Nothing can be taught to us whose idea is not already in our mind
- Plato's doctrine of reminiscence is correct so long it is purged of his notion of preexistence.
- "Our soul knows all these things virtually and requires only attention to recognize truths, and that, consequently, it has, at very least, the ideas upon which these truths depend" (Leibniz, 29).
27.
- Some things outside us express things more particularly than our own souls. It is through their more acute expression that we can understand a truth more completely.
- Ideas are expressions in our soul whether we conceive them or not
- Notions or concepts are ideas that we conceive or form
- It is false that all of our conceptions come via the senses, the sensual data we receive merely brings our attention to internal experience
28.
- There is no external cause acting upon us aside from God
- No other external object is capable of touching our soul or perception
- We have ideas of everything in our soul by virtue of God's continual action on us
- "God is our immediate external object and that we see all things by Him" (Leibniz, 30).
29.
- Our ideas however are in us and not in God.
30.
- Ordinarily, God does nothing more than follow the laws He established
- God determines our wills to choose the better option without necessitating it
- God finds it good that certain men should exist despite foreseeing they will sin
- It ought to be enough for us to know this without understanding it while we are yet on this earth
- God is clearly not the cause of evil
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Notes on Discoure on Metaphysics (A)
(Originally written May 12, 2007 in Book 14)
We come back to my mentor and favorite, the much maligned G.W. Leibniz.
Discourse on Metaphysics and other Essays
G.W. Leibniz
Trans. Daniel Garber & Raoger Ariew
Hackett Publishing Co.
Indianapolis, IN
1991
Discourse on Metaphysics 1686
1. On Divine Perfection and that God does everyone in the most desirable way
- God is an absolutely perfect being
- Power & knowledge are perfection and have no limits within God
- The more enlightened we are of God's works the more we'll "be disposed to find them excellent and in complete conformity with what we might have desired" (Leibniz, 1).
2. Against those who claim that there is no goodness in God's works or that the rules of goodness and Beauty are arbitrary
- By looking at the created things we can discover the creator
- All acts of will presuppose a reason for willing
- Reason is prior to the act of will
- Eternal truths of metaphysics and geometry and the rules of goodness, justice and perfection are not merely the effects of the will of God, but the consequences of His understanding.
3. Against those who believe that God might have made things better
- The consequences of believing that God could have made things better are wholly contrary to the glory of God.
- "A lesser evil is relatively good, so a lesser good is relatively evil" (Leibniz, 3).
- To act with less perfection than one could have is to act imperfectly
- The reason many believe that God could have created better is our inadequate knowledge of the general harmony of the universe and the hidden reasons for God's conduct
- "God does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified" (Leibniz, 3).
4. That the Love of God requires our complete satisfaction and acquiescence with respect to what he has done without our being quietist as a result
- Those who are dissatisfied with God's creation cannot fully love God
- We must be truly satisfied with everything that comes to us because it is according to His will
- As to regards to future events though we must not be passive and simply await what God will do, but act in accordance to what may be the will of God as best we can. We must strive to contribute to the general good.
- The outcome of our actions may show that God did not wish our good to have immediate effect, but it does not follow that He did not wish us to act
- "He never demands more than the right intention, and it is for Him to know the proper hour and place for letting the good designs succeed"
5. What the rules of the perfection of divine conduct consist in, and that the simplicity of the ways is in balance with the richness of the effects
- To know in detail the reason that could have moved God to choose the order of the universe is beyond the scope of finite minds
- As finite minds we cannot fully comprehend why God allows sin or bestows grace in the way He does, especially prior to attaining the full enjoyment of the vision of God.
- Minds have perfections and these consist of virtues
- The happiness of minds is the principal aim of God
6. God does nothing which is not orderly and it is not even possible to imagine events that are not regular
- The acts of God are commonly divided into ordinary and extraordinary. But everything is in conformity with the universal order.
- In understanding this we understand little other than what happens happens according to the order of harmony that God established.
7. That miracles conform to the General order, even though they may be contrary to the subordinate maxims; and about what God wills or permits by a General volition
- Miracles are as much in the order of things as typical events
8. To distinguish the actions of God from those of Creatures we explain the notion of an individual substance
- Every predicate of a subject must be contained within the subject at least "in-esse"
- One who understands perfectly the notion of the subject would also know the predicates which belong to it
- There is something in the being of every substance or in the haecceity (thingness) of a thing, vestiges of everything that has happened to it and that will happen to it and even traces of everyone that happens in the universe. But, God alone is capable of recognizing this and knowing the thing's haecceity perfectly.
9. That each singular substance expresses the whole universe in its own way, and that all its events, together with all their circumstances and the whole sequence of external things are included in its notion
- Two substances cannot resemble each other completely and differ only in number or spatial qualities
- A substance can only begin by creation and end via annihilation
- A substance is not divisible into two. Likewise two substances cannot be combined into one.
- Every substance is like a complete world and a mirror of God
- The glory of God is multiplied by the number of substances in the universe
- Every substance bears in some way the infinite wisdom of God and imitates it insofar it is capable
10. That the belief in substantial forms has some basis, but that these forms do not change anything in the phenomena and must not be used to explain particular effects
- Without using the forms (Platonic forms) we cannot "elevate our minds sufficiently well to the knowledge of incorporeal natures and the wonders of God" (Leibniz, 10).
11. That the Thoughts of Theologians and Philosophers who are called scholastics are not entirely to be disdained
- If we are to look at St. Thomas and the other scholastics we would find a great treasure of demonstrative truths
12. That the notions involved in extension contain something imaginary and cannot constitute the substance of body
- The nature of substance and body does not wholly lie in extension, that is size, shape and motion, but is something related to souls or substantial form
- Souls sustain existence of bodies from moment to moment and preserve the basis for knowledge of what they are
- Souls alone are susceptible to punishment and reward and citizens subject to God.
13.
- The individual notion of each person includes once and for all everything that will ever happen to him but these truths are nonetheless contingent because they are caused by either the Free Will of God or of his creation
- It would appear that if all that happens is included in the nation of a single substance we would be left with complete fatalism. However, there is a big difference between certainty and necessity. Everything that will occur is certain because God foresees all actions, but it does not follow that what happens happens necessarily.
- An effect is necessary when its opposite implies a contradiction. An effect is contingent when its opposite course is not a contradictory one.
- Whatever happens in conformity with the predeterminations is certain, but not necessary, fore he would have done the opposite without it causing a contradiction, despite it being impossible for him to take the opposite action
14.
- Every created substance depends on God who preserves them in the manner we preserve our thoughts, only completely and perfectly.
- Every created substance is independent of everything save for God.
- No substance truly acts upon or is enacted upon by another substance because every substance is sustained by itself and God.
15.
- A substance is of infinitely extension insofar as it expresses everything, but is limited insofar as it expresses everything imperfectly
- Substances act upon one another in only the sense that they serve to limit the extension of one another. When one substance is greatened another must be limited to accommodate the other's growth.
- Whenever a thing acts it improves its efficacy. Thus, when a thing increases its efficacy it achieves more perfection and is strengthened and another substance is weakened.
- Pleasure arises when a perceptional being increases itself and pain occurs when it is decreased.
- One can sin by seeking to increase and thus seeking power and pleasure.
16.
- Miracles and extraordinary influence from God on man seems impossible because all events are consequences according to nature's demands.
- Miracles exist but are always in conformity with the universal law and general order of the universe.
- Miracles are miracles because they cannot be presupposed or foreseen by any created mind.
- What we express is our essence or idea and that is unlimited, but our nature or our power is limited.
- Whatever surpasses the nature or power of created substances is supernatural, but nothing can surpass our essences.
17.
???
We come back to my mentor and favorite, the much maligned G.W. Leibniz.
Discourse on Metaphysics and other Essays
G.W. Leibniz
Trans. Daniel Garber & Raoger Ariew
Hackett Publishing Co.
Indianapolis, IN
1991
Discourse on Metaphysics 1686
1. On Divine Perfection and that God does everyone in the most desirable way
- God is an absolutely perfect being
- Power & knowledge are perfection and have no limits within God
- The more enlightened we are of God's works the more we'll "be disposed to find them excellent and in complete conformity with what we might have desired" (Leibniz, 1).
2. Against those who claim that there is no goodness in God's works or that the rules of goodness and Beauty are arbitrary
- By looking at the created things we can discover the creator
- All acts of will presuppose a reason for willing
- Reason is prior to the act of will
- Eternal truths of metaphysics and geometry and the rules of goodness, justice and perfection are not merely the effects of the will of God, but the consequences of His understanding.
3. Against those who believe that God might have made things better
- The consequences of believing that God could have made things better are wholly contrary to the glory of God.
- "A lesser evil is relatively good, so a lesser good is relatively evil" (Leibniz, 3).
- To act with less perfection than one could have is to act imperfectly
- The reason many believe that God could have created better is our inadequate knowledge of the general harmony of the universe and the hidden reasons for God's conduct
- "God does nothing for which he does not deserve to be glorified" (Leibniz, 3).
4. That the Love of God requires our complete satisfaction and acquiescence with respect to what he has done without our being quietist as a result
- Those who are dissatisfied with God's creation cannot fully love God
- We must be truly satisfied with everything that comes to us because it is according to His will
- As to regards to future events though we must not be passive and simply await what God will do, but act in accordance to what may be the will of God as best we can. We must strive to contribute to the general good.
- The outcome of our actions may show that God did not wish our good to have immediate effect, but it does not follow that He did not wish us to act
- "He never demands more than the right intention, and it is for Him to know the proper hour and place for letting the good designs succeed"
5. What the rules of the perfection of divine conduct consist in, and that the simplicity of the ways is in balance with the richness of the effects
- To know in detail the reason that could have moved God to choose the order of the universe is beyond the scope of finite minds
- As finite minds we cannot fully comprehend why God allows sin or bestows grace in the way He does, especially prior to attaining the full enjoyment of the vision of God.
- Minds have perfections and these consist of virtues
- The happiness of minds is the principal aim of God
6. God does nothing which is not orderly and it is not even possible to imagine events that are not regular
- The acts of God are commonly divided into ordinary and extraordinary. But everything is in conformity with the universal order.
- In understanding this we understand little other than what happens happens according to the order of harmony that God established.
7. That miracles conform to the General order, even though they may be contrary to the subordinate maxims; and about what God wills or permits by a General volition
- Miracles are as much in the order of things as typical events
8. To distinguish the actions of God from those of Creatures we explain the notion of an individual substance
- Every predicate of a subject must be contained within the subject at least "in-esse"
- One who understands perfectly the notion of the subject would also know the predicates which belong to it
- There is something in the being of every substance or in the haecceity (thingness) of a thing, vestiges of everything that has happened to it and that will happen to it and even traces of everyone that happens in the universe. But, God alone is capable of recognizing this and knowing the thing's haecceity perfectly.
9. That each singular substance expresses the whole universe in its own way, and that all its events, together with all their circumstances and the whole sequence of external things are included in its notion
- Two substances cannot resemble each other completely and differ only in number or spatial qualities
- A substance can only begin by creation and end via annihilation
- A substance is not divisible into two. Likewise two substances cannot be combined into one.
- Every substance is like a complete world and a mirror of God
- The glory of God is multiplied by the number of substances in the universe
- Every substance bears in some way the infinite wisdom of God and imitates it insofar it is capable
10. That the belief in substantial forms has some basis, but that these forms do not change anything in the phenomena and must not be used to explain particular effects
- Without using the forms (Platonic forms) we cannot "elevate our minds sufficiently well to the knowledge of incorporeal natures and the wonders of God" (Leibniz, 10).
11. That the Thoughts of Theologians and Philosophers who are called scholastics are not entirely to be disdained
- If we are to look at St. Thomas and the other scholastics we would find a great treasure of demonstrative truths
12. That the notions involved in extension contain something imaginary and cannot constitute the substance of body
- The nature of substance and body does not wholly lie in extension, that is size, shape and motion, but is something related to souls or substantial form
- Souls sustain existence of bodies from moment to moment and preserve the basis for knowledge of what they are
- Souls alone are susceptible to punishment and reward and citizens subject to God.
13.
- The individual notion of each person includes once and for all everything that will ever happen to him but these truths are nonetheless contingent because they are caused by either the Free Will of God or of his creation
- It would appear that if all that happens is included in the nation of a single substance we would be left with complete fatalism. However, there is a big difference between certainty and necessity. Everything that will occur is certain because God foresees all actions, but it does not follow that what happens happens necessarily.
- An effect is necessary when its opposite implies a contradiction. An effect is contingent when its opposite course is not a contradictory one.
- Whatever happens in conformity with the predeterminations is certain, but not necessary, fore he would have done the opposite without it causing a contradiction, despite it being impossible for him to take the opposite action
14.
- Every created substance depends on God who preserves them in the manner we preserve our thoughts, only completely and perfectly.
- Every created substance is independent of everything save for God.
- No substance truly acts upon or is enacted upon by another substance because every substance is sustained by itself and God.
15.
- A substance is of infinitely extension insofar as it expresses everything, but is limited insofar as it expresses everything imperfectly
- Substances act upon one another in only the sense that they serve to limit the extension of one another. When one substance is greatened another must be limited to accommodate the other's growth.
- Whenever a thing acts it improves its efficacy. Thus, when a thing increases its efficacy it achieves more perfection and is strengthened and another substance is weakened.
- Pleasure arises when a perceptional being increases itself and pain occurs when it is decreased.
- One can sin by seeking to increase and thus seeking power and pleasure.
16.
- Miracles and extraordinary influence from God on man seems impossible because all events are consequences according to nature's demands.
- Miracles exist but are always in conformity with the universal law and general order of the universe.
- Miracles are miracles because they cannot be presupposed or foreseen by any created mind.
- What we express is our essence or idea and that is unlimited, but our nature or our power is limited.
- Whatever surpasses the nature or power of created substances is supernatural, but nothing can surpass our essences.
17.
???
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Quick notes & Barebones Outline of a lost Epistemology Paper
(Originally written December 9, 2006 in Book 12)
Ok, it's Saturday about 1:00 pm. I have a major epistemology paper due at 9:00 am on Monday, which I have not ben diligent in working on. So, it's research time!
Thesis (preliminary) all knowledge is analytic in nature. Synthetic nature is artificial.
Louis Pojman
The Theory of Knowledge 3rd Edition
VII.2 An Empiricist Critique of A priori knowledge - A.J. Ayer
No matter of fact can be shown to be logically necessarily or universally true (Hume).
Ayer states that no proposition with factual content is necessarily true.
Every empiricist must accept the thesis that no factual propositions can be necessary truths.
Empiricism faces difficulties with this thesis in dealing with mathematics and logical truths. There are two ways of dealing with this:
1) They are not necessary truths (in this case their universalness must be somehow explained).
2) They have no factual content (in this case they must be able to explain why a proposition without factual content can be true and useful and surprising).
If both of these prove unsatisfactory, empiricism is proven wrong and rationalism is vindicated.
Rationalism states that thought, independent of experience is a more reliable source of knowledge than experience.
John Stuart Mill adopted the thesis that mathematic and logical truths are not necessary. He maintained that they were merely inductive generalizations based on a very large number of experiences. Thus, these mathematical and logical truths were very probable, but not certain.
The difference between Mathematical and logical truths and scientific generalizations was a difference of degree, not kind.
Ayer admits that by rejecting Mill's approach, empiricists are obliged to be somewhat dogmatic.
The Irrefutability of the Propositions of Mathematics and Logic
In every instance when a mathematical or logical truth appears to be refuted we can easily find a way to show that it has not. Truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.
The Nature of Analytic Propositions
Kant's definition of an analytic proposition, "one in which the predicate B belonged to the subject A as something which was covertly contained in the concept of A" (Pojman, 381).
Analytic judgments add nothing to the subject; whereas synthetic judgments do.
Analytic judgments provide no factual content and it is for this reason no experience can refute them.
Because analytic judgments provide no factual content it does not follow that they are senseless.
Analytic propositions provide us with some new knowledge. They clarify. They show new linguistic usages.
Analytic judgments allow us to make explicit what was implicit.
The Propositions of Geometry
Kant believed that geometry was the study of the properties of physical space.
Non-Euclidean Geometry has proven that geometry is not the study of physical space. We merely use geometry to reason about physical space.
Necessary truths are devoid of factual content. A priori truths are always analytic. They are always tautologies.
How can Tautologies be surprising?
The power of logic or mathematics to surprise us has its origin solely in the limitedness of our minds, not in their content.
All a priori truths are tautologies. Tautologies serve to guide us in our empirical search for knowledge, they do not contain any information about any matter of fact.
Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
translated by: Paul Schrecken and Anne Martin Schrecker
The Unity of Leibniz's philosophic thought
There is a pervasive inner unity that flows through all of Leibniz's work.
Leibniz held a belief in a universal language.
Reflections on knowledge, truth, and ideas
All knowledge is either obscure or clear. Clear knowledge is either confused or distinct. Distinct knowledge is either adequate or inadequate. Distinct knowledge is either symbolic or intuitive.
"The most perfect knowledge is that which is both adequate and intuitive" (Leibniz, 3).
Knowledge is obscure when it is insufficient to recognize what it represents.
Knowledge is clear when it is sufficient to recognize the object it represents.
Clear knowledge is confused when it cannot be distinguished from other objects in description. It is recognizable, but only to me.
Distinct knowledge is distinguishable and explicable knowledge. It is distinct when we can explain it to others.
Perfect knowledge is both adequate and distinct, but Leibniz doubts whether or not man can give a true account of this, but numbers come close.
Intuitive knowledge occurs when the whole of simple idea is known at once. Symbolic knowledge is knowledge o highly complex notions where the whole is known without full knowledge of all the parts.
There is a difference in definitions:
1) Nominal definitions - contain only marks to distinguish the defined thing from other things
2) Real definitions - actually describing the object in its fullest
By distinguishing these definitions we refute Hobbes' notion that all truths are arbitrary. (Hobbes' assumption rests on all definitions being nominal ones).
An idea is true when it is possible (it is false when it involves a contradiction).
Possibility is known either a priori or a posteriori
Causal definitions are known a priori.
A posteriori possibility is known when we experience a thing in reality.
When we have adequate knowledge we also possess a priori knowledge of a possibility.
Thought experiment - when we perceive green we are unaware that we are actually perceiving blue + yellow. Thus, what is green is known, analytically, as yellow+blue.
On the Universal Science: Characteristic XIV
All certain knowledge is established through demonstration or experiments.
Science is based on reason.
We need some exact language, or a form of truly philosophical writing in which ideas are reducible to a kind of "alphabet of human thought"
Leibnizian demonstrations involve two principles:
1) What implies contradiction is false
**2) Reason can be given for any truth, the predicate concept always inheres in its subject concept, either explicitly or implicitly
Necessary truths can be reduced to identical propositions
Contingent truths require an infinite analysis which can be performed solely by God. Only God can know contingent truths a priori.
Contingent truths are truths of fact.
XV
"All human reasoning uses certain signs or character" (Leibniz, 17).
Knowledge is symbolic.
All human ideas can be reduced into a few primitives. (cogitationes -> primitivas)
Critical remarks concerning the General Part of Descartes' principles
One must, in searching for truth, doubt everyone at some point in one's lifetime.
2. That what is doubtful should be considered false.
-There is no advantage to this.
4. Why one can place in doubt the truth of sensible things.
-All we need to know is that they are consistent among themselves.
Linehan - This is interesting, but unhelpful to my research. I'm skipping it.
On the Improvement of Metaphysics and on the concept of substance
Mathematics possesses clarity; metaphysics possesses obscurity.
The cause of metaphysical obscurity is that the general concepts of metaphysics are ambiguous.
Metaphysics needs clarity and clearness and certitude even more than mathematics.
Force is inherent in substance. Force is the faculty to act, action itself and requires effort.
What is nature? Reflections on the force inherent in created things and on their actions
What does nature consist of?
Do created things posses an energy?
The whole of nature is the perfect work of God's making.
Robert Boyle states that nature is the mechanism of bodies.
Linehan - I think I have exhausted my resources in this book for my epistemology paper. But, just reading a little bit of Leibniz has restored my love and respect for him and rationalism in general.
So now it is time for the paper!
Paper Structure:
I. Thesis
II. Definitions
A. Historical
i. epistemological/metaphysical/semantical categories
1. Kant's 4 Quadrants
2. A.J. Ayer's a priori
3. Leibniz divisions of knowledge
B. Personal
III. Thought Experiments (proofs of I)
1. Logical
2. Mathematical
3. Propositional
IV. Objections and responses
V. Closing
Thesis: Knowledge is...
1) Analytic (semantical)
2) Tautological (semantical)
3) A Priori (epistemological)
4) Necessary (metaphysical)
Knowledge has three major components
1) Epistemological
2) Semantical
3) Metaphysical
Epistemological and semantical knowledge are closely related and focused on together, mainly because of Kant. Metaphysical knowledge has been intertwined with epistemological and semantical, though less explicit.
Definitions of Knowledge
Leibnizian distinctions lead to my definition.
First of the three components: Epistemological
definition of a priori (Pojman, 367)
definition of a posteriori (Pojman, 367)
Kantian definition of analytic propositions
Ayer definition of a priori truths
2nd of the 3 components: Semantical
definition of analytic
definition of synthetic
Ayer's distinction
Leibnizian definition/personal additions
Ayer's truth of logic (mathematics)
Thought experiments
1) Logic
2) Mathematics
3) Empirical (most controversial)
3rd of 3 Components: Metaphysical
definition of necessary truths
definition of contingent truths
Hume's objection (needs more research)
Ayer's factual content necessary truth?
Metaphysical difficulties for the empiricist
Ayer has satisfactory proved factual content but he has not eliminated rationalism. Explain why and you'll be able to demonstrate all three parts of your thesis and vindicate your definition of knowledge (conclusion).
Ok, it's Saturday about 1:00 pm. I have a major epistemology paper due at 9:00 am on Monday, which I have not ben diligent in working on. So, it's research time!
Thesis (preliminary) all knowledge is analytic in nature. Synthetic nature is artificial.
Louis Pojman
The Theory of Knowledge 3rd Edition
VII.2 An Empiricist Critique of A priori knowledge - A.J. Ayer
No matter of fact can be shown to be logically necessarily or universally true (Hume).
Ayer states that no proposition with factual content is necessarily true.
Every empiricist must accept the thesis that no factual propositions can be necessary truths.
Empiricism faces difficulties with this thesis in dealing with mathematics and logical truths. There are two ways of dealing with this:
1) They are not necessary truths (in this case their universalness must be somehow explained).
2) They have no factual content (in this case they must be able to explain why a proposition without factual content can be true and useful and surprising).
If both of these prove unsatisfactory, empiricism is proven wrong and rationalism is vindicated.
Rationalism states that thought, independent of experience is a more reliable source of knowledge than experience.
John Stuart Mill adopted the thesis that mathematic and logical truths are not necessary. He maintained that they were merely inductive generalizations based on a very large number of experiences. Thus, these mathematical and logical truths were very probable, but not certain.
The difference between Mathematical and logical truths and scientific generalizations was a difference of degree, not kind.
Ayer admits that by rejecting Mill's approach, empiricists are obliged to be somewhat dogmatic.
The Irrefutability of the Propositions of Mathematics and Logic
In every instance when a mathematical or logical truth appears to be refuted we can easily find a way to show that it has not. Truths of logic and mathematics are analytic propositions or tautologies.
The Nature of Analytic Propositions
Kant's definition of an analytic proposition, "one in which the predicate B belonged to the subject A as something which was covertly contained in the concept of A" (Pojman, 381).
Analytic judgments add nothing to the subject; whereas synthetic judgments do.
Analytic judgments provide no factual content and it is for this reason no experience can refute them.
Because analytic judgments provide no factual content it does not follow that they are senseless.
Analytic propositions provide us with some new knowledge. They clarify. They show new linguistic usages.
Analytic judgments allow us to make explicit what was implicit.
The Propositions of Geometry
Kant believed that geometry was the study of the properties of physical space.
Non-Euclidean Geometry has proven that geometry is not the study of physical space. We merely use geometry to reason about physical space.
Necessary truths are devoid of factual content. A priori truths are always analytic. They are always tautologies.
How can Tautologies be surprising?
The power of logic or mathematics to surprise us has its origin solely in the limitedness of our minds, not in their content.
All a priori truths are tautologies. Tautologies serve to guide us in our empirical search for knowledge, they do not contain any information about any matter of fact.
Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
translated by: Paul Schrecken and Anne Martin Schrecker
The Unity of Leibniz's philosophic thought
There is a pervasive inner unity that flows through all of Leibniz's work.
Leibniz held a belief in a universal language.
Reflections on knowledge, truth, and ideas
All knowledge is either obscure or clear. Clear knowledge is either confused or distinct. Distinct knowledge is either adequate or inadequate. Distinct knowledge is either symbolic or intuitive.
"The most perfect knowledge is that which is both adequate and intuitive" (Leibniz, 3).
Knowledge is obscure when it is insufficient to recognize what it represents.
Knowledge is clear when it is sufficient to recognize the object it represents.
Clear knowledge is confused when it cannot be distinguished from other objects in description. It is recognizable, but only to me.
Distinct knowledge is distinguishable and explicable knowledge. It is distinct when we can explain it to others.
Perfect knowledge is both adequate and distinct, but Leibniz doubts whether or not man can give a true account of this, but numbers come close.
Intuitive knowledge occurs when the whole of simple idea is known at once. Symbolic knowledge is knowledge o highly complex notions where the whole is known without full knowledge of all the parts.
There is a difference in definitions:
1) Nominal definitions - contain only marks to distinguish the defined thing from other things
2) Real definitions - actually describing the object in its fullest
By distinguishing these definitions we refute Hobbes' notion that all truths are arbitrary. (Hobbes' assumption rests on all definitions being nominal ones).
An idea is true when it is possible (it is false when it involves a contradiction).
Possibility is known either a priori or a posteriori
Causal definitions are known a priori.
A posteriori possibility is known when we experience a thing in reality.
When we have adequate knowledge we also possess a priori knowledge of a possibility.
Thought experiment - when we perceive green we are unaware that we are actually perceiving blue + yellow. Thus, what is green is known, analytically, as yellow+blue.
On the Universal Science: Characteristic XIV
All certain knowledge is established through demonstration or experiments.
Science is based on reason.
We need some exact language, or a form of truly philosophical writing in which ideas are reducible to a kind of "alphabet of human thought"
Leibnizian demonstrations involve two principles:
1) What implies contradiction is false
**2) Reason can be given for any truth, the predicate concept always inheres in its subject concept, either explicitly or implicitly
Necessary truths can be reduced to identical propositions
Contingent truths require an infinite analysis which can be performed solely by God. Only God can know contingent truths a priori.
Contingent truths are truths of fact.
XV
"All human reasoning uses certain signs or character" (Leibniz, 17).
Knowledge is symbolic.
All human ideas can be reduced into a few primitives. (cogitationes -> primitivas)
Critical remarks concerning the General Part of Descartes' principles
One must, in searching for truth, doubt everyone at some point in one's lifetime.
2. That what is doubtful should be considered false.
-There is no advantage to this.
4. Why one can place in doubt the truth of sensible things.
-All we need to know is that they are consistent among themselves.
Linehan - This is interesting, but unhelpful to my research. I'm skipping it.
On the Improvement of Metaphysics and on the concept of substance
Mathematics possesses clarity; metaphysics possesses obscurity.
The cause of metaphysical obscurity is that the general concepts of metaphysics are ambiguous.
Metaphysics needs clarity and clearness and certitude even more than mathematics.
Force is inherent in substance. Force is the faculty to act, action itself and requires effort.
What is nature? Reflections on the force inherent in created things and on their actions
What does nature consist of?
Do created things posses an energy?
The whole of nature is the perfect work of God's making.
Robert Boyle states that nature is the mechanism of bodies.
Linehan - I think I have exhausted my resources in this book for my epistemology paper. But, just reading a little bit of Leibniz has restored my love and respect for him and rationalism in general.
So now it is time for the paper!
Paper Structure:
I. Thesis
II. Definitions
A. Historical
i. epistemological/metaphysical/semantical categories
1. Kant's 4 Quadrants
2. A.J. Ayer's a priori
3. Leibniz divisions of knowledge
B. Personal
III. Thought Experiments (proofs of I)
1. Logical
2. Mathematical
3. Propositional
IV. Objections and responses
V. Closing
Thesis: Knowledge is...
1) Analytic (semantical)
2) Tautological (semantical)
3) A Priori (epistemological)
4) Necessary (metaphysical)
Knowledge has three major components
1) Epistemological
2) Semantical
3) Metaphysical
Epistemological and semantical knowledge are closely related and focused on together, mainly because of Kant. Metaphysical knowledge has been intertwined with epistemological and semantical, though less explicit.
Definitions of Knowledge
Leibnizian distinctions lead to my definition.
First of the three components: Epistemological
definition of a priori (Pojman, 367)
definition of a posteriori (Pojman, 367)
Kantian definition of analytic propositions
Ayer definition of a priori truths
2nd of the 3 components: Semantical
definition of analytic
definition of synthetic
Ayer's distinction
Leibnizian definition/personal additions
Ayer's truth of logic (mathematics)
Thought experiments
1) Logic
2) Mathematics
3) Empirical (most controversial)
3rd of 3 Components: Metaphysical
definition of necessary truths
definition of contingent truths
Hume's objection (needs more research)
Ayer's factual content necessary truth?
Metaphysical difficulties for the empiricist
Ayer has satisfactory proved factual content but he has not eliminated rationalism. Explain why and you'll be able to demonstrate all three parts of your thesis and vindicate your definition of knowledge (conclusion).
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Aristotle, Epicurus & The Stoics
(Originally Written October 24, 2006 in History I)
Aristotle's Politics
Classifications of Government:
1. Kingship/Monarchy (right form) v. Tyranny (deviant form)
2. Aristocracy (right form) v. Oligarchy (deviant form)
3. Polity (right form) v. Mob rule (deviant form)
Criticism of monarchy
- Individuals are more corruptible than groups
- Problems of succession
The polity is the best form of government because:
- It is most just
- Its deviant form is the least worst of the three
Epicurus
341-270 BC
-Born in Samos
-Founded a school in Athens (The Epicureans)
Physics: Atomism (Atoms & The Void)
Added the concept of swerve to account for freedom
Freedom of the Will:
1. Hard determinism - universal causation and no freedom
2. Libertarianism/Indeterminism - Denies universal causation and affirms freedom
3. Compatibilism/Soft Determinism - combines universal causation & freedom
Metaphysics
1. Materialism
2. The 'gods'
3. No belief in afterlife
- But death is not to be feared because:
A) death brings end to pain
B) death is never experienced
Ethics: Hedonism
Two kinds of hedonism:
1. Psychological hedonism - all people in fact seek pleasure
2. Ethical hedonism - all people should always seek pleasure
Distinction between desires
-Should we satisfy every desire?
1. Natural desires
- merely natural (sex, good reputations, etc.)
- Necessary natural must be satisfied for life itself and for the blessed life
2. Groundless desires
-exotic foods, flashy clothes, vain and idle luxuries
3. Profligacy
-Epicurus condemns over-indulgence
4. Virtue
-Necessary for the blessed life
-prudence is the greatest virtue
Stoicism
Founded by Zeno (346-264 BC)
Famous Stoics include Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.
Stoic Epistemology:
1. Empiricism - all knowledge via sense perception
2. Nominalism - all knowledge is particular, there is no universal
Stoic Physics & Metaphysics
1. Monism
2. Mutation (flux)
3. Deterministic
Aristotle's Politics
Classifications of Government:
1. Kingship/Monarchy (right form) v. Tyranny (deviant form)
2. Aristocracy (right form) v. Oligarchy (deviant form)
3. Polity (right form) v. Mob rule (deviant form)
Criticism of monarchy
- Individuals are more corruptible than groups
- Problems of succession
The polity is the best form of government because:
- It is most just
- Its deviant form is the least worst of the three
Epicurus
341-270 BC
-Born in Samos
-Founded a school in Athens (The Epicureans)
Physics: Atomism (Atoms & The Void)
Added the concept of swerve to account for freedom
Freedom of the Will:
1. Hard determinism - universal causation and no freedom
2. Libertarianism/Indeterminism - Denies universal causation and affirms freedom
3. Compatibilism/Soft Determinism - combines universal causation & freedom
Metaphysics
1. Materialism
2. The 'gods'
3. No belief in afterlife
- But death is not to be feared because:
A) death brings end to pain
B) death is never experienced
Ethics: Hedonism
Two kinds of hedonism:
1. Psychological hedonism - all people in fact seek pleasure
2. Ethical hedonism - all people should always seek pleasure
Distinction between desires
-Should we satisfy every desire?
1. Natural desires
- merely natural (sex, good reputations, etc.)
- Necessary natural must be satisfied for life itself and for the blessed life
2. Groundless desires
-exotic foods, flashy clothes, vain and idle luxuries
3. Profligacy
-Epicurus condemns over-indulgence
4. Virtue
-Necessary for the blessed life
-prudence is the greatest virtue
Stoicism
Founded by Zeno (346-264 BC)
Famous Stoics include Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.
Stoic Epistemology:
1. Empiricism - all knowledge via sense perception
2. Nominalism - all knowledge is particular, there is no universal
Stoic Physics & Metaphysics
1. Monism
2. Mutation (flux)
3. Deterministic
Thursday, October 5, 2006
Aristotle - Causes, Metaphysics and Logic
(Originally Written October 5, 2006 in History I)
Aristotle's Physics:
Doctrine of change:
-What is change? A movement from a starting point to a goal (Telos).
-There is no pure change.
-Movement from potentiality to actuality.
The Four Causes of Change:
1. Material cause - the stuff of which the thing is composed of
2. Formal cause - the form, pattern or meaning of the thing
3. The efficient cause - that which brings about the change
4. Telic (Final) cause - the purpose/end for which the change occurred
Efficient causation is backward looking. Telic causation is forward looking.
Luck/Chance:
Lucky events are irregular occurrences and incidental occurrences.
Chance is broader. It is not confined to rational agents and is also found in natural objects. AN event that has a cause but not for the sake of relational causes. Chance is pointless.
Metaphysics:
-That which transcends the physical world.
-A second order discipline
First Principles:
-logical principles:
1. Law of non-contradiction: it is not possible that both "A" and "not-A" can be at the same time
2. Law of the excluded middle: "A" or "not-A"
3. Law of identity: If A is the case, the A is the case
Law of identity + Law of Excluded Middle, therefore Law of non-contradiction
Characteristics of the Laws of thought:
1. Most true
2. foundational
3. self-justifying (impossibility of the contrary)
Why some people challenge the laws of logic:
1. Observations are misconstrued
2. Relativity of sense perception
Aristotle's Physics:
Doctrine of change:
-What is change? A movement from a starting point to a goal (Telos).
-There is no pure change.
-Movement from potentiality to actuality.
The Four Causes of Change:
1. Material cause - the stuff of which the thing is composed of
2. Formal cause - the form, pattern or meaning of the thing
3. The efficient cause - that which brings about the change
4. Telic (Final) cause - the purpose/end for which the change occurred
Efficient causation is backward looking. Telic causation is forward looking.
Luck/Chance:
Lucky events are irregular occurrences and incidental occurrences.
Chance is broader. It is not confined to rational agents and is also found in natural objects. AN event that has a cause but not for the sake of relational causes. Chance is pointless.
Metaphysics:
-That which transcends the physical world.
-A second order discipline
First Principles:
-logical principles:
1. Law of non-contradiction: it is not possible that both "A" and "not-A" can be at the same time
2. Law of the excluded middle: "A" or "not-A"
3. Law of identity: If A is the case, the A is the case
Law of identity + Law of Excluded Middle, therefore Law of non-contradiction
Characteristics of the Laws of thought:
1. Most true
2. foundational
3. self-justifying (impossibility of the contrary)
Why some people challenge the laws of logic:
1. Observations are misconstrued
2. Relativity of sense perception
Monday, October 2, 2006
Aristotle v. Plato
(Originally written October 2, 2006 in History I)
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)
-educated at Plato's Academy
-Founded a rival school: The Lyceum
The Corpus: Explanation of the textual problems
1. The Corpus is not his writings, but actually his students' notes on his teaching
2. The Corpus is actually Aristotle's lecture notes
3. The originals were lost, recovered and poorly pieced back together
Aristotle's relation to his predecessors:
Biggest influences:
1. Heraclitus' doctrine of flux
2. Plato's theory of forms
Conception of the sciences:
1. Contemplative science (Theoretikos: what cannot be otherwise than it is)
-Math
-Metaphysics
-Nature
2. Practical science (Praktikos: what is subject to human deliberation)
-Politics
-Ethics
3. Productive science (Poietikos)
-involves productive use of reason
-the arts
-rhetoric
Criticism of Plato's Doctrine of Forms:
Plato: Eternal Forms + Matter
Aristotle:
Two senses of substance
1. Primary substance (ousia) - a particular (This is the most real for Aristotle)
2. Secondary substance - an essence of a thing (universal) (This is the most real for Plato)
Aristotle's distinction:
Matter - material stuff that things are made of
Form - overall shape, essence or patterns
The Categories:
1. Substance: what kind of a thing is it?
2. Quantity
3. Quality
4. Relatedness
5. Place
6. Time
7. Position/Posture
8. What it possesses
9. In what way is it active?
10. In what way is it passive?
Criticizes Plato's Doctrine of Forms: in order to know that two things are similar we would need to know a third thing to make the comparison
"Evil has no form, it is merely the absence of goodness or perfection in forms relating to morality". Ha! Yes!
Forms:
1. Otherworldly (Plato)/ Belong to this world (Aristotle)
2. Exist as universals (Plato)/Embedded in particulars (Aristotle)
3. Ontologically distinct (Plato)/Conceptually distinct (Aristotle)
4. Abstract (Plato)/Concrete (Aristotle)
5. Sensed particulars provide no knowledge (Plato)/Sensed particulars are a source of knowledge (Aristotle)
6. Matter changes, forms are permanent (Plato)/Matter is enduring, forms change (Aristotle)
7. Knowledge via reason (Plato)/Knowledge via senses (Aristotle)
Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)
-educated at Plato's Academy
-Founded a rival school: The Lyceum
The Corpus: Explanation of the textual problems
1. The Corpus is not his writings, but actually his students' notes on his teaching
2. The Corpus is actually Aristotle's lecture notes
3. The originals were lost, recovered and poorly pieced back together
Aristotle's relation to his predecessors:
Biggest influences:
1. Heraclitus' doctrine of flux
2. Plato's theory of forms
Conception of the sciences:
1. Contemplative science (Theoretikos: what cannot be otherwise than it is)
-Math
-Metaphysics
-Nature
2. Practical science (Praktikos: what is subject to human deliberation)
-Politics
-Ethics
3. Productive science (Poietikos)
-involves productive use of reason
-the arts
-rhetoric
Criticism of Plato's Doctrine of Forms:
Plato: Eternal Forms + Matter
Aristotle:
Two senses of substance
1. Primary substance (ousia) - a particular (This is the most real for Aristotle)
2. Secondary substance - an essence of a thing (universal) (This is the most real for Plato)
Aristotle's distinction:
Matter - material stuff that things are made of
Form - overall shape, essence or patterns
The Categories:
1. Substance: what kind of a thing is it?
2. Quantity
3. Quality
4. Relatedness
5. Place
6. Time
7. Position/Posture
8. What it possesses
9. In what way is it active?
10. In what way is it passive?
Criticizes Plato's Doctrine of Forms: in order to know that two things are similar we would need to know a third thing to make the comparison
"Evil has no form, it is merely the absence of goodness or perfection in forms relating to morality". Ha! Yes!
Forms:
1. Otherworldly (Plato)/ Belong to this world (Aristotle)
2. Exist as universals (Plato)/Embedded in particulars (Aristotle)
3. Ontologically distinct (Plato)/Conceptually distinct (Aristotle)
4. Abstract (Plato)/Concrete (Aristotle)
5. Sensed particulars provide no knowledge (Plato)/Sensed particulars are a source of knowledge (Aristotle)
6. Matter changes, forms are permanent (Plato)/Matter is enduring, forms change (Aristotle)
7. Knowledge via reason (Plato)/Knowledge via senses (Aristotle)
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Class and book notes on Kant
(Originally written September 10, 2006 in Book 8)
A priori knowledge
Classifications and Definitions
"The problem of synthetic a priori knowledge involves epistemological, metaphysical and semantic considerations" (Pojman, 367).
"A priori and a posteriori are latin terms that were first developed in the Middle Ages by scholastic philosophers.
Leibniz used both to prove knowledge. Kant further developed the notions.
Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? Kant held that it was necessary from a logic standpoint.
"A. Epistemological Categories
1. A priori knowledge does not depend on evidence from sense experience. (Plato's innate ideas and Leibniz's 'truths of reason') for example, mathematics and logic.
2. A posteriori knowledge depends on evidence from Sense experience. (Plato's 'appearance' and Leibniz's 'truths of fact') - empirical knowledge.
B. Metaphysical Categories
1. Necessary truths 'are' true in all possible worlds (for example, the statement that, 'God exists' according to the ontological argument).
2. Contingent truths 'are' true in the actual world but not in all possible worlds (for example, the fact you exist and were born after January 1, 1800)
C. Semantical categories
1. Analytic-predicate is contained in the subject, explicative, not ampliative (for example, 'all mothers are women')
2. Synthetic - predicate is not contained in the subject but adds something to the subject ampliative, not explicative (for example, Mary is a mother)" (Pojman, 367-8)
Combinations
Synthetic a priori knowledge is affirmed by rationalists and denied by empiricists.
Neither believe that there are such things as analytic a posteriori knowledge because that implies a contradiction.
Kant, a radical rationalist, held that all knowledge was grounded in a priori knowledge.
"The essential claim of those who hold to synthetic a priori knowledge is that the mind can grasp connexions between ideas (concepts) that are not strictly analytical related" (Pojman, 368).
Kant's Chart of Knowledge
(clarifications are for my own sake)
Synthetic a priori knowledge
-Math, i.e. 5+7=12
-Exclusionary: i.e. nothing red is green
-Presuppositions of experience: space, time and causality
-Moral judgments - the categorical imperative
-The Laws of Logic: i.e. The principle of non-contradiction
-Metaphysical - The existence of God, Free-Will
Until Kant, people believed our knowledge must conform to objects. This had led to a failure to establish a priori knowledge. Kant switched it around so that objects conform to out knowledge, making a priori knowledge possible. This is Kant's so-called Copernican revolution.
Prolegomena: Preamble on the Peculiarities of all Metaphysical Knowledge
S1. Of the Sources of Metaphysics
Sciences differ from one another based on one or all of these:
1) object
2) sources of knowledge
3) kind of knowledge
As for metaphysics and its knowledge, it can never be, or come from things, empirical.
It can not be from external experiences because that is physics; nor can it e from internal experiences because that is psychology. Therefore, ti must come from a priori knowledge. It comes from pure understanding and pure reason.
Metaphysics is pure philosophical knowledge.
S2. Concerning the kind of knowledge which can alone be called metaphysical
Metaphysical judgments are judgments that are explicative, that is, they add nothing to their content.
Synthetical judgments are judgments that are expansive, that is, they increase the knowledge.
Analytical judgments merely analyze the subject in the predicate: 'All bodies are extended'.
Synthetical judgments add something to the subject in the predicate: 'All bodies have weight'
The common principle in all analytical judgments is the law of contradiction.
A priori knowledge
Classifications and Definitions
"The problem of synthetic a priori knowledge involves epistemological, metaphysical and semantic considerations" (Pojman, 367).
"A priori and a posteriori are latin terms that were first developed in the Middle Ages by scholastic philosophers.
Leibniz used both to prove knowledge. Kant further developed the notions.
Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? Kant held that it was necessary from a logic standpoint.
"A. Epistemological Categories
1. A priori knowledge does not depend on evidence from sense experience. (Plato's innate ideas and Leibniz's 'truths of reason') for example, mathematics and logic.
2. A posteriori knowledge depends on evidence from Sense experience. (Plato's 'appearance' and Leibniz's 'truths of fact') - empirical knowledge.
B. Metaphysical Categories
1. Necessary truths 'are' true in all possible worlds (for example, the statement that, 'God exists' according to the ontological argument).
2. Contingent truths 'are' true in the actual world but not in all possible worlds (for example, the fact you exist and were born after January 1, 1800)
C. Semantical categories
1. Analytic-predicate is contained in the subject, explicative, not ampliative (for example, 'all mothers are women')
2. Synthetic - predicate is not contained in the subject but adds something to the subject ampliative, not explicative (for example, Mary is a mother)" (Pojman, 367-8)
Combinations
Synthetic a priori knowledge is affirmed by rationalists and denied by empiricists.
Neither believe that there are such things as analytic a posteriori knowledge because that implies a contradiction.
Kant, a radical rationalist, held that all knowledge was grounded in a priori knowledge.
"The essential claim of those who hold to synthetic a priori knowledge is that the mind can grasp connexions between ideas (concepts) that are not strictly analytical related" (Pojman, 368).
Kant's Chart of Knowledge
Analytic
|
Synthetic
|
|
A Priori
|
-Entailments
-Identity Statements
-Tautologies
-Definitions
|
-Mathematics
-Exclusionary
-Presuppositions of experience
-Moral Judgments
-Laws of Logic
-Metaphysical
|
A Posteriori
|
XX
|
-Empirical
“All bodies are heavy”
“John is a bachelor”
|
The Kantian Theory About Synthetic A Priori Knowledge
The question: How are synthetic a priori judgments possible? This is Kant's primary concern in his Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant (via Ewing) makes four claims about synthetic a priori judgments
1. They are logically necessary - wholes that determine their own parts
2. They are not derivable from particular sensations (but empirical experience is the trigger to cause them to arise)
3. They are presupposed in all of our experience
4. They are contributed by our minds.
Synthetic a priori knowledge is of the conditions of experience, not of reality.
A.J. Ayer critiques the notion of the synthetic a priori knowledge from a conventionalist's point of view. He believes that all the supposed a priori knowledge can actually be reduced to analytic truths.
A.C. Ewing counters Ayer and is in favor of it. Maintaining that if nothing else, the laws of logic are a priori.
W.V. Quine denies the notion of containment being meaningful. (Containment is the notion of an idea being expressed in the definition of the word: bachelor contains the ideas 'unmarried' and 'man'). Since Quine denies containment then he makes no distinction betwixt analytic and synthetic judgments. This also rids him of a priori judgments.
H.P. Grace and P.F. Stranson disagree with Quine.
Roderick Chisholm defends a priori and analytic knowledge.
Saul Kripke throws a major curveball, contending that is possible to have a posteriori necessary truths and non-necessary a priori knowledge.
VII.1. A Priori Knowledge
Immanuel Kant
Kant (1724-1804) was born in Königsberg and never left the town.
He was deeply pious and Lutheran
He was inhuman in his orderliness. Some citizens of Königsberg set their clocks by Kant's walks.
The Critique of Pure Reason started a revolution in theory of knowledge.
He was "woke from his dogmatic slumber" by Hume.
Kant held that we have incredible structured minds that interpret and categorize all experiences that we have. This is the "Kant's Copernican Revolution"
Kant's distinctions between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is famous.
A priori knowledge is what we know prior to experience. A posteriori is knowledge we gain through experience.
Hume considered all knowledge of matters of fact a posteriori and only analytic statements a priori.
Kant rejects Hume's theory and states that it is possible to have a priori knowledge of matters of fact.
Kant holds that all knowledge begins with experience, but it does not mean that all knowledge arises out of experience.
Kant also holds that mathematical truth is synthetic (the predicate ads something to the subject) not analytical.
Other synthetic a priori knowledge is knowledge of time, of space and of causality.
A priori
|
A Posteriori
|
|
Analytic
|
Tautologies & entailments
|
None
|
Synthetic
|
Causality, Space and time, 5+7=12, and the moral law
|
Empirical judgments
|
Basically, an analytic judgment explicitly states a subject and its definition in the predicate. If an analytic statement contradicts itself it is false.
There are two types of synthetical judgments:
1) a priori
2) a posteriori
Synthetical judgments cannot be deduced solely from the Law of Contradiction, but they are still subject to it.
Judgments of experience are always synthetical by nature.
Mathematical judgments are synthetical. This is a fact that eluded people for years.
All mathematical judgments are a priori because they are necessarily true.
Arithmetic judgments like 5+7=12 are definitely true because there is nothing in the notions '5', +, '7' that demands the sum of 12.
Linehan - I think I disagree. The concept of '12', if we truly know it can be analyzed and known as, '0+12, 1+11, 2+10, 3+9, 4+8, 5+7, 6+6, and so forth, provided that we know the notion of '7".
Geometrical judgments are likewise synthetical because they require us to use intuition tadas.
"the essential and distinguishing feature of pure mathematical knolsedge among all after a priori knowledge is that it cannot proceed from concepts, but only from construction of concepts" (Pojman, 373).
Kant criticizes Hume for believing mathematics contained only analytical propositions and metaphysics having only synthetical a priori propositions. But, had Hume realized that mathematics were a priori synthetical propositions he would not have discarded metaphysics.
Metaphysical judgments are synthetical. But, judgments pertaining to metaphysics are analytical.
Definitions like a substance is that which exists as a subject is an analytical judgment pertaining to metaphysics. The concept "substance" is metaphysical but the judgment is analytical and therefore, not a metaphysical judgment.
Metaphysics is different from every other science in the way it produces its a priori cognitions.
Metaphysics receives from outside itself analytic judgments, but uses those analytic judgments to accomplish its end, which is to form a priori synthetical judgments.
"The generation of a priori knowledge by intuition as well as concepts, in fine, of synthetical propositions a priori, especially in philosophical knowledge, constitutes the essential subject of metaphysics" (Pojman, 374).
S3. A remark on the general division of judgment into analytical and synthetical:
The distinction is extremely important, but it is difficult to find in other men's work. It is obscure, and difficult to put into words. Once one discovers it though, they will be able to see the difference in places where they never saw it before.
S4. The General Question of the Prolegomena: Is Metaphysics Possible?
We cannot assume that metaphysics exists as a science, but we can confidently state that there are a priori synthetical cognitions (i.e. pure mathematics).
The question is not whether, but how is metaphysics possible?
S5. The General Problem: How is knowledge from pure reason possible?
Metaphysics stands or falls on the ability or inability to have synthetic a priori knowledge.
There can be an incredibly well put together metaphysical system with tons of truths, but if the architect of that system has not given an account to how one comes to know a priori synthetic judgments then, "to all that which thou protest me thus, I refuse to give credence, and hate"
If we did not see true synthetical a priori judgments in life then we would see that the question of how to come by that knowledge as insoluble.
To solve this we must divide it into four parts:
1) How is pure mathematics possible?
2) How is pure natural science possible?
3) How is metaphysics in general possible?
4) How is metaphysics as a science possible?
I am so irritated! Kant spends this entire last section suspending others from metaphysics but gives no definite answer. Ahh! I am thoroughly agitated right now. This is on e of the biggest disappointments in my brief (about fourteen months now) investigation into philosophy!
Metaphysical judgments are synthetical. But, judgments pertaining to metaphysics are analytical.
Definitions like a substance is that which exists as a subject is an analytical judgment pertaining to metaphysics. The concept "substance" is metaphysical but the judgment is analytical and therefore, not a metaphysical judgment.
Metaphysics is different from every other science in the way it produces its a priori cognitions.
Metaphysics receives from outside itself analytic judgments, but uses those analytic judgments to accomplish its end, which is to form a priori synthetical judgments.
"The generation of a priori knowledge by intuition as well as concepts, in fine, of synthetical propositions a priori, especially in philosophical knowledge, constitutes the essential subject of metaphysics" (Pojman, 374).
S3. A remark on the general division of judgment into analytical and synthetical:
The distinction is extremely important, but it is difficult to find in other men's work. It is obscure, and difficult to put into words. Once one discovers it though, they will be able to see the difference in places where they never saw it before.
S4. The General Question of the Prolegomena: Is Metaphysics Possible?
We cannot assume that metaphysics exists as a science, but we can confidently state that there are a priori synthetical cognitions (i.e. pure mathematics).
The question is not whether, but how is metaphysics possible?
S5. The General Problem: How is knowledge from pure reason possible?
Metaphysics stands or falls on the ability or inability to have synthetic a priori knowledge.
There can be an incredibly well put together metaphysical system with tons of truths, but if the architect of that system has not given an account to how one comes to know a priori synthetic judgments then, "to all that which thou protest me thus, I refuse to give credence, and hate"
If we did not see true synthetical a priori judgments in life then we would see that the question of how to come by that knowledge as insoluble.
To solve this we must divide it into four parts:
1) How is pure mathematics possible?
2) How is pure natural science possible?
3) How is metaphysics in general possible?
4) How is metaphysics as a science possible?
I am so irritated! Kant spends this entire last section suspending others from metaphysics but gives no definite answer. Ahh! I am thoroughly agitated right now. This is on e of the biggest disappointments in my brief (about fourteen months now) investigation into philosophy!
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