Term
| What is the ultimate source of certain indubitable knowledge for Rationalists? |
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Definition
| Reason. Rationalists however don't reject empirical knowledge, it just has to be built upon certain foundations. e.g. mathematical knowledge can be gained from reason alone as if you are left in a room alone, in theory, without your senses to help you, you could figure out geometrical and mathematical truths. |
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Term
| Why did Descartes seek something other than sense experience to build his 'house of knowledge'? |
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Definition
| Because sense experience is regularly shown to be fallible, and in order to find real truths in life, we have to have indubitable foundations for our 'house of knowledge' otherwise the whole structure would be weak. |
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Term
| What did Descartes define as a 'clear and distinct idea'? |
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Definition
| A clear and distinct idea is a belief gained through pure reason. (An a priori truth). Basically, mathematical truths, geometry and analytic truths. E.g. 2+3=5, all female foxes are vixens, Cogito Ergo Sum. |
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Term
| Did Descartes deny Empiricism? |
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Definition
| No, but he believed we had to build the foundations of Empiricism upon clear and distinct ideas and reason. Empiricism, for Descartes should be used to gain knowledge of the world and physical sciences. |
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Term
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Definition
| Plato believed that we had an innate capacity to recognize the eternal and necessary truths of mathematics. |
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Term
| What was the realm of the forms? |
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Definition
| The realm of the forms was, to Plato, a perfect, immutable realm with a perfect version of every idea that we have. E.g. all circles which we have encountered are just approximations of the perfect eternal circle which exists in our innate capacity. |
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Term
| Does Plato consider things such as beauty, justice and morality a part of the forms as well? |
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Definition
| Yes. He asks how else would we be able to identify beauty when we see it with all the variant examples of it that we encounter in life. |
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Term
| What is Plato's simile of the cave? |
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Definition
| Plato's simile of the cave is a way of explaining the divide between the realm of the forms and the physical world. |
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Term
| Why did Descartes enter the process of the doubt? |
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Definition
| He was concerned that because our senses commonly deceive us we are often led to believe things that aren't necessarily true. E.g. hallucinations and he gives the example of how from a far, a tower looks round, yet up close it is square. |
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Term
| What is the difference between ordinary doubt and Cartesian doubt? |
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Definition
| Ordinary doubt is where we are skeptical of what our senses tell us in single, specific situations. E.g. I can see my father in the distance. I might be skeptical about this on a foggy morning. Cartesian doubt goes about 'starting over', Descartes doubts everything and puts the circumstance of an evil demon deceiving him about everything, even the logical truths of mathematics. |
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Term
| What does Descartes discover through his methodology of the doubt? |
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Definition
| He finds that the only thing he can't doubt is that he is thinking, as doubting is a form of thinking. From this he concludes that to think is to exist, so he must be existing. (Cogito Ergo Sum = I am, I think) |
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Term
| How is the Cogito a synthetic a priori? |
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Definition
| The Cogito is synthetic a priori because Descartes says that the Cogito is an analytical self evident truth, found through reason, like mathematics, and also tells us something about the world. (That Descartes exists). |
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Term
| Why does Descartes need to prove the existence of God? |
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Definition
| Because he has doubted just about everything, he needs to avoid solipsism. He needs a priori truth of the existence of the external world, as a posteriori evidence is unreliable. |
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Term
| How does Descartes go about proving the existence of God? |
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Definition
| The Ontological Argument. (Deductive, uses reason only). |
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Term
| How does a proof for God ensure the existence of the external world for Descartes? |
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Definition
| Descartes avoids solipsism through proving the existence of God because if God can be shown to exist deductively, and by definition God is a supremely perfect being, then he must possess perfect goodness, and a perfectly good God wouldn't deceive Descartes about the laws of logic that he is using to structure this proof. Basically, reason depends on the laws of logic, he's using reason because he believes it is the indubitable source of certain knowledge, thus he needs to know that God exists to prove that the laws of logic are true and thus his deductive conclusion is true. However, Kant destroys his argument, so his solipsism remains. |
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Term
| How does Descartes prove that all physical matter exists in 3 dimensions? |
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Definition
| Descartes observed a piece of wax, he remarks that it is hard, cold, and emits a sound when tapped. However, when placed near a fire, it loses these properties, but still remains as wax. Through reason we know it is still wax because its actual appearance and texture etc has all changed. Descartes says that this must mean that all matter is extended (exists in 3 dimensions). From this he concludes that matter occupies geometric space, thus reason has given us foundational knowledge about the true underlying nature of matter. |
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Term
| Strength of Rationalism: Geometry? |
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Definition
| Hume says that all maths is analytic a priori. However, geometry is a matter of fact that tells us how space can be divided up. This then proves geometry to be synthetic a priori because truths in geometry can be gained through pure reason, yet tell us something about the world. |
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Term
| Strength of Rationalism: Certainty? |
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Definition
| Rationalism gives us certainty in our knowledge. The knowledge it gives us is either analytic or synthetic analytic. Thus these truths are necessary and cannot be doubted. |
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Term
| Strength of Rationalism: Understanding? |
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Definition
| It appears to be obvious that knowledge cannot be coming from the senses alone. Proved through Descartes' example of the wax. |
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Term
| Strength of Rationalism: Innateness? |
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Definition
| The rationalist testimony and the fact that the truths they put forward seem to be known through thought alone and not sense experience seems to support their belief that innateness forms the foundations of our knowledge. |
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Term
| Strength of Rationalism: Self-Justifying? |
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Definition
| The type of knowledge that Rationalism uses is true in itself, it doesn't need evidence to support it. This means that Rationalism is not susceptible to the problems of Empirical knowledge. (Fallibility of the senses) |
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Term
| Criticism of Rationalism: Synthetic A Priori? |
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Definition
| Hume recognizes only two types of knowledge in his fork. Synthetic and analytic. To Hume, ideas that Descartes has named as synthetic a priori are simply category errors. Just because we have a name for something doesn't mean that the concept genuinely exists. For example Descartes' examples of the self is just a name we have given to a bundle of emotions that we have now and throughout our lives. |
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Term
| Criticism of Rationalism: Mathematics? |
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Definition
| Surely we check logic/reason with observations from the world? For example, do we really know mathematics innately, or know it how Locke said, by counting things such as fruits coming together to infer the rules of mathematics? |
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Term
| Criticism of Rationalism: Investigation? |
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Definition
| The use of Rationalism and Rationalist principles renders the method of investigation basically useless. If we can only discover truths through reason, then what happens to science? Is everything it has founded rendered useless? Despite this, Descartes himself was a scientist and he believed we were meant to use empirical data to discover knowledge about the physical sciences etc, as long as it is built on indubitable foundations (reason). |
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Term
| Criticism of Rationalism: Contradiction? |
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Definition
| Rationalism uses reason which assumes that the laws of logic are infallible. However, Descartes says that the evil demon could change the laws of logic to deceive him. However, because Descartes is using the idea of an evil demon simply as a postulate of the possibility of the deception that our senses could be imposing on us, not to be taken literally, and proving the existence of God would show that actually he isn't being deceived by the laws of logic. However, Kant destroys Descartes' Ontological Argument and this leaves us with no proof as to whether Descartes could really be being deceived as to the conclusion he comes to using reason/logic. |
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Term
| Criticism of Rationalism: Locke on Innate Ideas? |
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Definition
| Locke said that if a priori truths were innate then even children and idiots should have an understanding of them, however, we know that they do not. |
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Term
| What are the two responses to the criticism from Locke on Innate Ideas? |
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Definition
| 1.) Children have not reached a stage in their development where an innate idea comes into their consciousness yet. 2.) Plato was the only philosopher who believed that innate ideas were ideas that we were actually born with, making this more a criticism of Plato and not so much Rationalism. |
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Term
| How does Descartes' Cogito fail? |
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Definition
| Descartes believes that he has established the I of personal identity through his Cartesian Doubt, although this is contested as there are many people who believe that actually Descartes has established the existence of a thinking-thing somewhere, not necessarily of himself existing. |
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Term
| How does Descartes' doubt fail? |
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Definition
| In his doubt, he suggests that he is 'starting over' and doubting everything, although there are certain things it appears that he refuses to doubt. Most importantly, he doesn't doubt reason itself. Secondly, he doesn't doubt the truth he has reached in the Cogito, which seems odd especially seeing as he can be deceived of the laws of logic, yet he won't doubt his conclusion of the Cogito. |
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Term
| How does Descartes' fail with regard to God? |
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Definition
| Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God through a deductive argument, the Ontological Argument, in order to get himself out of the solipsism he leaves himself in after the Cogito. However, Kant is well known for his systematic destruction of Descartes' Ontological Argument, so again, a vital part of his methodology (the ensurer that he is not being deceived of the laws of logic) seems to fail. |
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Term
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Definition
| Simplistically, an innate idea can be defined as an idea known without sense experience. |
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Term
| What were innate ideas to Descartes? |
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Definition
| Descartes believed that innateness was the disposition that we have to form certain thoughts through the process of reasoning & self-reflection. E.g. the methodology of the doubt shows the cogito to be self-evidently true (I am. I exist). Essentially, ideas that can be discovered through the proper use of our reason. These ideas discovered are self-evidently true e.g. the cogito |
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Term
| What were innate ideas to the nativists? |
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Definition
| This is grounded in genetics and cognitive psychology. It is considered the modern adaptation of innate ideas. They believe that innate ideas are genetically programmed to arise in our minds when we are exposed to certain experiences. |
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Term
| What did Carruthers say about innate ideas? |
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Definition
| Carruthers was a nativist who said that innateness was the genetically encoded ability to use an idea for the first time that can't be acquired through sense experience. He said that experience plays the role of exposing someone to the stimuli needed to trigger the use of a certain concept. E.g. Children can't learn language unless people talk to them. |
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Term
| What did Chomsky say about innateness? |
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Definition
| Chomsky said that our linguistic systems are so complex they can't be derived from experience alone. He believed the environment is too variable and indeterminate to explain the ability of young children to learn the complexities of grammatical construction. This suggests that humans are born with a universal innate grammar. |
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Term
| What was Kant's view of innateness? |
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Definition
| Kant believed that concepts such as space and time couldn't be learned through experience because we needed those concepts in the first place to make sense of experience. E.g. how can you perceive a pen without space or time? He argued that there were 12 a priori categories in the human mind by which we interpret sense data. |
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Term
| How does Kant's view of innateness differ from that of Descartes? |
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Definition
| Kant believed that our innate structures are inactive until sense experience activates them, whereas Descartes' view of innateness requires no sense data whatsoever. Descartes' methodology and reasoning innate disposition aims to tell us what reality really is and what exists and what doesn't whereas Kant's theory is just one of HOW we understand reality. Kant's theory just tells us how the human mind processes information. |
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Term
| Criticism of Innate Ideas: Analytic truths? |
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Definition
| The price we pay for asking that all knowledge comes from reason is that we wind up knowing nothing much at all. E.g. Descartes believed it was possible to work out laws of the universe with mathematical certainty by simply using our reasoning. Although, he ended up finding a problem of how to move from knowledge of his own existence to knowledge of the world. Mathematical truths may be eternal and necessary but they can't be used to overcome skepticism about he external world. E.g. to know that if i have 2 marbles and add 3 more marbles in, i will have 5 marbles, tells us nothing about whether marbles exist or not. |
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Term
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Definition
| Other criticisms are Locke's criticism of innateness and criticism of Descartes' doubt which have been mentioned already. |
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