Social contract by Hobbes Locke and Rousseau::

Outline of the Theory The social contract theory of the origin of the state implies that
there was a time when men lived or would have lived without any recognized civil law,
without the state. This stage or life-pattern of men is described as the 'state of nature'.
Then the state was created through the voluntary agreement of all individuals who
constitute the state. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau have drawn different pictures of the
'state of nature', 'terms of the contract' and the character of sovereignty which came
into existence as a consequence of the birth of the state. It is important to note here
that the whole theory of the social contract is based on speculation. It seeks to trace
the origin of the state through logic, not through historical or scientific evidence. Locke
refers to a historical fact to illustrate this point, but illustration is no evidence. THE
STATE OF NATURE The state of nature denotes how men live or would have lived
without the authority of civil law, state or political control. At this stage, there is no
industry, no systematic production. Men live not only close to nature, they have to
depend on the bounty of nature for their survival. Their behaviour is largely governed by
their inner impulses, unrestrained by civil law, although a 'natural law' is supposed to
have existed. Men have no recognized rights, although they enjoy some 'natural rights'.
As all these conditions are determined by logic or particular lines of argument, not on
the basis of any scientific evidence, they do not lead to any uniform conclusions.
Different authors have, therefore, given different versions of the state of nature, etc.
Hobbes Hobbes draws a gloomy picture of the state of nature. This is a natural
corollary of his concept of human nature. Hobbes postulates that man is selfish by
nature; self-interest is the mainspring of human action. Men are moved to action not by
intellect or reason, but by their appetites, desires and passions. In the absence of law
and justice, the state of nature is characterized by a perpetual struggle, ceaseless
conflict and constant warfare. In Hobbes's own forceful words, the life of man at this
stage is 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'; 'every man is enemy to every man'. In
pursuance of his own pleasure, man wants power over others;
but as the physical and mental powers of natural men are nearly alike, nobody is able
to overpower the other. Hence, men stand in natural fear of each other. It is a state of
total insecurity. In such a state there is no room for industry. 'Might is right' is the
order of the day. Men are free to take what they can, and to rob whomsoever they
can. There is no law to prevent oppression or to contain the 'law of the jungle'. It is a
state of perfect anarchy. Hobbes is quite clear that he is not describing a historical fact,
but only trying to demonstrate what would happen if there were no settled government
for any length of time
Hobbes argues that there can be no morality or consciousness of duty or obligation in
the state of nature, because these are possible only after the establishment of law and
government. Natural rights are, therefore, nothing more than the natural powers of men,
used to oppress others. At best, natural liberty is nothing but 'the liberty each man hath
to preserve his own life'. This urge for 'self-preservation' is embodied in the law of
nature or natural law. This conforms to the rules of prudence and expediency. It is
natural law which prompts men to abandon the state of nature and to establish law
and government. It consists in the rules of self-preservation, particularly as follows: (a)
Everybody should aim at securing peace; (b) Men should be willing, in concert with
others, to give up their natural rights; (c) Men should keep their contracts; and finally,
(d) Men should show gratitude or return beneficence for beneficence. Thus, the
requirements of self-preservation itself created a sense of duty in the minds of men
which prompts them to form the state

Locke Locke draws an entirely different picture of the state of nature. In his view, it is
not a state of constant warfare. On the contrary, it is a state of 'peace, goodwill,
mutual assistance and preservation'. It is a state of liberty, not a state of licence. The
majority of people at this stage obey the law of nature, that it the law of inward
morality. Men are by nature rational beings, impelled by their inner nature to treat
humanity—whether in their own person or in that of any other person— in every case
as an end, never as a means only. But still, there are a few persons who set aside
the rules of morality in pursuance of their self-interest. In the absence of any
established authority in the state of nature, it becomes very difficult to deal with such
offenders. If men become judges of their own cases, justice would not be secured. In
this respect, the state of nature proves to be inconvenient. In order to rectify this
defect, men abandon the state of nature and enter into civil or political society by
means of a contract. Natural law, according to Locke, consists in the rules of morality
implanted in the human conscience. Natural rights consist in the 'perfect freedom and
equality' of every man 'not only to preserve his property, that is his life, liberty and
estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men, but to be judge of, and punish
th

breaches of natural law' committed by others. When men enter into political society,
they surrender their natural rights to be judges in case of breaches of law. This power
is now vested in the community instead of in individuals. But they still retain their
natural rights to 'life, liberty and property'. Locke's picture of the state of nature is,
again, hypothetical, not a historical account. As W.T. Jones {Masters of Political Thought,
Vol. 2; 1971) has elucidated: Locke means by the natural law ... a rule for human
behaviour only, and one which is not a description of how men do behave, but a
statement of how they ought to behave. Hence by his state of nature, paradoxically
enough, Locke primarily means something which is not natural or historical ... By
saying, for instance, that in a state of nature men are free and equal he does not
merely mean that there was a time in the past when men were, in fact, free and
equal; he means rather to assert that they ought to be free and equal.

Locke tries to overcome this difficulty by postulating several stages of the contract. As
Jeremy Waldron has elucidated: "Contract and consent have three stages in Locke's
description: first, men must agree unanimously to come together as a community and
pool their natural powers so that they can act together to uphold one another's rights;
second, the members of this community must agree by a majority vote to set up
legislative and other institutions; third, the owners of property in a society must agree,
either personally or through their representatives to whatever taxes are imposed on the
people."
This theory of several stages of the contract marks a clear departure from Hobbes's
position. Hobbes postulates that society and state are formed together; they are
dissolved together. On the contrary, Locke believes that society and state were created
in different steps: creation of society is the primary step; setting up of the government
is a secondary step. So, if the government is dissolved, society does not disintegrate.
Order will be restored by setting up another government in its place
ROUSSEAU::
. In his opening sentence of The Social Contract, Rousseau strikes a different note:
'Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.' He seems to make the point that
the civil state has deprived man of his natural liberty.
The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau takes a modified view of the civil state. He
seeks to justify its existence, not as a manifestation of the inequalities in society but as
an instrument for the protection of liberty

He seems to make the point that the civil state has deprived man of his natural liberty.
But he immediately proceeds to 'ignore this question' and attempt a justification of this
'change'. He seeks justification of authority in the natural agreement among men. Thus
he observes: "Since no man has a natural authority over other men, and since might
never makes right, it follows that agreements are the basis for all legitimate authority
among men." When men abandon the state of nature to enter into civil society through the
social contract, their loss is handsomely compensated. As Rousseau asserts, what man
loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and unlimited right to all which attracts
him and which he can obtain; what he gains is civil liberty and the property of what he
possesses.

Rousseau Rousseau, like Hobbes, postulates a single contract, and thereby creates
absolute, indivisible and inalienable sovereignty. But Rousseau distinguishes himself as
an exponent of popular sovereignty. Sovereignty, according to Rousseau, is not vested in
a ruler apart from society itself as Hobbes bad assumed; instead, it is vested in the
people themselves. When people enter into the social contract, they relinquish their
natural rights in their individual capacity; they surrender these rights to their collective
whole.

The social contract, according to Hobbes, is concluded among the people themselves
who emerge from the state of nature. The sovereign is not a party to the contract.
According to Hobbes's logic, the sovereign did not exist before the conclusion of the
contract—he comes into existence as a result of this contract, hence he cannot be a
party to the contract. It is a contract of each with all and of all with each, to set up a
sovereign authority. By this contract every man gave up his natural rights and powers
to a 'common power' who would 'keep them is awe' and give them security. Men
entered into the social contract to set up a ruler, as if every man should say to every
man: "I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this
assembly of men, on this condition, that thou give up the right to him, and authorize all
his actions in like manner." Thus the social contract brings a sovereign into existence
who enjoys supreme and absolute authority. All men in society, apart from the
sovereign himself, become his subjects. All natural rights of men are surrendered to the
sovereign once and for all. The powers conferred on him cannot be withdrawn, because
if men chose to revive their natural rights, they would revert into the state of nature,
characterized by anarchy and total insecurity. Hobbes, therefore, does not admit people's
right to revolt or revolution. On this basis, he condemned the civil war of 1642.
Since, according to Hobbes, the state and society come into existence together through
a single contract, repudiation of the contract would result not only in an overthrow of
the government but a disintegration of society itself. That is why Hobbes treats
sovereignty as absolute, indivisible and inalienable. He creates unlimited political
obligation

Al-Ghazali

.
He has been acclaimed(praised) as the Proof of Islam (hujjat al-Islam), the Ornament of Faith
(zain al-din) and the Renewer of Religion (mujaddid)
He was in turn a canon-lawyer and a scholastic, a philosopher and a sceptic, a mystic and a
theologian, a traditionist and a moralist
Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ta’us Ahmad al-Tusi al-Shafi’i,
generally known simply by his nisbah al-Ghazālī
born in 450/1058 at Tabaran, one of the two townships of Tus
His own father was a pious dervish who according to al-Subki would not eat anything but what
he could earn with his own hands {582} and spend as much time as he could in the company of
the divines.

Ghazali’s profound knowledge of Muslim law, theology, and philosophy so much impressed
Nizam al-Mulk that he appointed him to the Chair of Theology in the Nizamiyyah Academy at
Baghdad
His advice began to be sought in matters religious and political, and he came to wield influence
comparable to that of the highest officials of the State

The most important thing about al-Ghazālī’s system of thought is its method which may be
described as that of the courage to know and the courage to doubt.

all. For one thing, he came to the conclusion that the greatest hindrance in the search for truth
was the acceptance of beliefs on the authority of others and blind adherence to the heritage of
the past

Al-Ghazālī then considers the possibility that life in this world is a dream by comparison with the
world to come; and when a man dies, things may come to appear differently to him from what
he now beholds.20 There may be an order of reality different from this spatio-temporal order
which may be revealed to a level of consciousness other than the so-called normal
consciousness such as that of the mystics or the prophets.

Actually, in al-Ghazzall’s opinion, the relation of necessity which exists between the premisses
and the conclusions of a syllogism is not able to persuade both the mind and the heart. True
knowledge is the consequence of illumination (ilhdm), of a divine inspiration. Al-Ghazzall says
that “when God takes care of the heart …, the breast lightens and the mystery of the spiritual
realm [malakut] is revealed, and the veil of error vanishes and the reality of divine things shines
in the heart
Once the heart becomes owner of truth, the mind then obtains certainty

A second important issue arises regarding the strictly philosophical question of the relation
between truth and certainty, an issue al-Ghazzali viewed as a vital problem for the scholar. He
argued that philosophy cannot assure the truth because it does not produce certainty; and
brought against philosophy the same charge Ibn Rushd brought against theology, namely of
yielding to huge compromises about the logical coherence of its arguments

izam al-Mulk summoned al-Ghazali, a brilliant student, to Baghdad to teach at his new
showcase madrasa, the Nizamiyya ( ). Here al-Ghazali found himself not only at the
centre of the religious and political establishment, and but also of political intrigue.
But al-Ghazali had embarked on his own journey, which was as much spiritual as
intellectual. This is recorded in his autobiographical Deliverance from Error. At rst, he
arrived at the view (later known as logical positivism) that only sense–experience and
mathematics plus logic are reliable sources of knowledge
Then he doubted even that. He emerged, not with a philosophical system like that of
Descartes, but with the conviction
of a light which God,cast into my breast. That light is the key to the greater part of
knowledge.
By now (July ), ill and unable to carry on teaching, al-Ghazali nally abandoned ambition
and withdrew to meditate in secret. After ten years as a wandering Sufi
he had ‘learnt with certainty that it is above all the mystics who walk on the road to
God; their life is the best life, their method the soundest method’ (p. ). Al-Ghazali had
chosen ‘personal experience
ecstasy and a change of character
-Ghazali reassessed the relationship between Islam and Philosophy. Al-Ghazali argued
that reason cannot establish its own premises, and is therefore inferior to intuitive
knowledge. Once a premise has been established, however, syllogistic reasoning can be
used. Falsafa and kalam are subordinate to revelation, useful for explanation
-al-Ghazali was only now about to embark upon the most radical re-structuring of
Islamic thought that has perhaps ever been attempted

To understand the political stance of al-Ghazali and of those inuenced by him, one
must uncover the link between the Su way and al-Ghazali’s theory of knowledge,
namely, maÆrifa (gnosis): intuitive ecstatic knowledge, silent knowledge which does not
know what it knows. Mystical awareness illuminates the soul and unites it with God,
who is not, however, a mere object of knowledge. Upon this al-Ghazali built his
understanding of life. ‘Knowledge (Æilm)’ and ‘intelligence (Æaql)’ remain the supreme
religious values and pathways to the divine; the Reports say ‘through his intellect, man
becomes God’s deputy’ (Mizan, p. ). Knowing is the supreme religious act, ‘the basis for
happiness in this world and the next
But the knowledge al-Ghazali had in mind here was the direct knowledge acquired by
spiritual experience. In discussing the relative merits of engagement in the world and
withdrawal from it, he argued that one can understand the world only by experiencing
it. Knowledge is attained through ‘taste (dhawq)’; it is personal experience which conveys
absolute certainty:

True knowledge is that in which the thing known reveals itself completely in such a
way that no doubt remains about it and no error can tarnish it. It is a state in which
the heart cannot admit or even imagine doubt. All knowledge which does not achieve
this state of certainty is incomplete knowledge, subject to error

In general, al-Ghazali condemned the view that knowledge can be based on the
authority of others. Thus, he opposed both mere submission to tradition (taqlid) as
advocated by Hanbalis and hadith-collectors, and reliance solely on instruction (taÆlim)
by the Imam as advocated by the ShiÆa. Only the Quræan and Muhammad have that
kind of authority.

Al-Ghazali’s political thought pivoted on the relationship between caliph and sultan (but
see Janssens : –). This involved the whole issue of the relationship between religious
and political power. Al-Ghazali’s conception is rooted in the Islamic notion that the
religious and the worldly are interdependent. True, the only proper guide in politics is
revelation. Indeed, in al-Ghazali the circle of power became a circle of knowledge:
‘government educates the labourers; the prophets educate the Æulama … ; the Æulama
educate the rulers; and the angels educate the prophets’ (in Othman : ). Be assured of this,
O Sultan, that justice springs from perfection of the intellect and that perfection of the
intellect means that you see things as they [really] are, and perceive the facts of their
inner reality without being deceived by their outward appearance

The middle way:

Al-Ghazali used the middle way, or balance, to dene what is Right.

Quræan :: We sent Our Messengers with the clear signs, and We sent down with
them the Book and the Balance so that men might uphold justice. And We sent down
iron, wherein is great might … so that God might know who helps him, and his
messengers, in the unseen."

Religion and politics::

Al-Ghazali distinguished four types of governance (siyasa): () prophetic; () that of
Deputies, Kings and Sultans; () that of the learned (Æulama); and () that of popular
preachers. The rst rules over the internal (batin) and external (zahir) lives of both elite
(al-khassa) and common people (al-Æamma); the second rules over the external lives of
both these groups; the third over the internal lives of the elite; and the fourth over the
internal lives of the masses. These are complementary and co-existing, not alternative or
opposed, forms of governance. The noblest is the prophetic, followed by the siyasa
relating to knowledge and people’s souls: namely, authoritative taÆlim. Types (), () and
() all share in this. It includes encouraging the good and forbidding the bad (hisba) both
by persuasion and by coercion. Such authority is essential to political order. Thus,
religion and political authority once again support one another. Consent is achieved
through a shared understanding, albeit at different levels, of religious goals and duties. The
sultan must seek advice from devout Æulama and mystics; Sus and ‘true souls’ capable of
maÆrifa have a part to play in the state.

So, for al-Ghazali, sultan (political power) ‘is necessary for the good ordering of this
world, and the good ordering of this world is necessary for the good ordering of
religion, and the good ordering of religion is necessary for the acquisition of happiness
in the hereafter’
Social order is a fundamental value because without it we cannot serve God. ‘If one
has to spend one’s time in defending oneself against tyranny and in searching for food,
one cannot devote oneself to knowledge and good works which are the means of
acquiring happiness in the next world’
The origin and justification of state::
Worldly order requires the satisfaction of basic human needs. This requires a social
structure based on a division of labour between the necessary occupations: notably
‘agriculture for raising foodstuffs, weaving for manufacturing clothes, architecture for
building houses’ (Revival, Book , p. ). Such basic occupations ‘require tools and
machines’; consequently, ‘the need for new craftsmen arises: [such as] carpenters,
smiths and tanners, who are the makers of tools’ (Revival, Book , p. ). Such essential
occupations are (in the language of Islamic law) collective duties (fard kifaya): tasks not
everyone is obliged to perform but someone must. There is a remarkable interplay here
between qh and Iranian (and to some extent Greek) social thought. Socially useful
economic callings, including commerce, provided they are carried out with equity and
compassion, are given the status of jihad (Holy Striving). This is because they enable
people to provide for their families and are necessary for society as a whole. Social
organisation is also necessary because some are unable to earn a living due to sickness or
old age. Procreation, the education of children and economic cooperation, all indicate that
‘human beings were created [in such a way] that they may not live alone but are
forced to ock together with others of their kind’. ‘For the sake of fellowship and the
exchange of knowledge, men have aggregated together and become bound to one
another. They built cities and countries … They laid down market places, inns …’ (in
Othman : ). Among human relationships, al-Ghazali valued spiritual brotherhood
extremely highly; it is ‘on the same footing as kinship’, ‘like the contract of marriage’. In
its highest form, one puts one’s brother before oneself

But ‘whenever people live in houses and cities and carry out transactions between one
another, frictions are bound to occur’. There are several reasons for this. () ‘In the
nature of man there is, besides love, hate, envy and competition. These qualities breed
quarrelling and antagonisms’ (in Othman : –). () ‘Human association entails authoritative
relationships’, such as guardianships (wilayat), for example, of husband over wife. And
‘whenever authority is exercised over any rational human being it generates conict’. ()
‘Within the city conict arises between the members in their business transactions for
their respective needs. If they are left to themselves they will ght and extinguish one
another’ (Revival, Book , p. ). This is because, in the process of satisfying their basic
needs, people sometimes ‘forget themselves and their real objectives … they eat to
earn and earn to eat’. They may make wealth and power their aim
@@The conict caused by these factors in human nature means that, in addition to
farming, weaving and building, a fourth activity and a fourth profession is also
fundamental to human needs: siyasa (discipline/governance/government). As al-Ghazali
puts it, the civil wars ‘which occur at the death of sultans and imams’ have to be
restrained by a new ruling power obeyed by men (sultan mutaÆ); otherwise people will
starve and ignore God (Laoust : –). This function too is a ‘collective duty’. Indeed, it is
the highest profession because it unies people and reforms society. Siyasa includes
land surveying, soldiering and adjudication. The inescapable need for these public tasks
and professions arises from humans’ proneness to conict. This also makes taxation and
bureaucracy necessary. So, at this stage of social development, one can see three broad
social orders or categories among the people: rst, the farmers, herdsmen and craftsmen;
second, the soldiers … ; and, third, those who are the intermediary agents between
these two classes in collecting taxes and allocating revenues. The last group are the
governors, the tax collectors and their like.

Commerce:
Now enter commerce. This also acquires the status of a collective duty. Al-Ghazali’s
estimation of commerce reected Islamic values and a greater awareness of the
dynamics of political economy than that of the Greeks. ‘All the wants of human beings
are accommodated through [merchants] … Every section in society requires all the rest;
transportation of goods becomes essential, and merchants, whose function is this
transportation, become necessary’. Merchants are unquestionably motivated by ‘their
desire to accumulate wealth’ (though in fact they will probably lose it to a bandit or an
unjust sultan). But such ‘oversight and ignorance’ on their part is one means by which
God ensures ‘the preservation of society and the welfare of mankind’. If it were

not for ‘the oversight and petty ambitions of men … all the pious would perish’
(Revival, Book , p. ). Al-Ghazali has introduced what looks like Adam Smith’s ‘unseen
hand’. Al-Ghazali goes further. The economic interdependence of different regions
makes (in Othman’s words) ‘the unity of mankind inevitable’; it is a means by which
‘divine wisdom … makes all peoples need one another’ (in Othman : ). Here he seems
to nd a moral purpose in trade (which Hegel might have recognised).

Division of labor:
Al-Ghazali rounded off his discourse on the division of labour by observing that every
loaf of bread ‘has been wrought by nearly , kinds of “labourers”, each one performing a
fundamental job [in carrying out] the fundamental activities by which the welfare of
mankind is accomplished’

Ranks and hierarchy:

At the same time, the distinction between ranks is based not only on the division of
labour, but (following Plato) on people’s innate mental (epistemological) and, therefore,
religious abilities – a surprising view for a Muslim

State and sultan:

Al-Ghazali has demonstrated that good order in the world can be achieved only with the
help of a legitimate political power (sultan): human beings – because of the difference of
their natures, the inherent diversity of their passions and the divergence of their
opinions – would perish to the last man if they were left to their own devices and if
there were not an obeyed opinion to reconcile their differences.
What did this mean in institutional terms? Al-Ghazali, like virtually everyone in the
Muslim-majority world, believed that human quarrelsomeness – which makes political
power necessary in the rst place – further means that shared power can never provide
stability. Political authority can be stable only if it resides in a single monarch. ‘If these
various [governmental] functions were the responsibilities of many persons without any
power to bind those persons together, order would disintegrate. Hence, a king [malik]
becomes indispensable

How should the caliph be chosen? The traditional Sunni view was that he should be
elected, either by all Muslims, or by community leaders (‘those who loose and bind’), or
by some smaller group. Al-Ghazali dismissed these alternatives as impractical. This left
appointment by a single individual who makes the bayÆa (commitment of loyalty) on
behalf of everyone else. This, al-Ghazali argued (in what must be one of the most
specious pieces of reasoning ever adduced in support of a religious opinion), is
perfectly legitimate provided that individual possesses overwhelming military force
sovereignty nowadays is possible only through force [shawka]. The caliph is the person
to whom the possessor of force pays allegiance. Anyone who seizes power by force
and is obedient to the caliph

This was something of a revolution in Islamic political thought. Al-Mawardi had hidden
behind the pretence that the caliph was the political (as well as religious) overlord
because whoever actually held power could be seen as (was ‘really’) his delegate.
Al-Ghazali put the sultan (or de facto power-holder) centre stage as never before.
‘Al-Ghazali’s caliph had a novel feature in that he was not meant to rule his followers
in political terms.

Religious government::
Turning to the third type of siyasa (see above, p. ), the Æulama are ‘the heirs of
the Prophet’. Religious experts (sing. faqih), officials and students should, like soldiers,
secretaries and administrators, be paid out of public funds. There should be a faqih in
every tribe, village and city district. The Æulama should regard the enactment of the
prophetic Message as a missionary duty. This shows al-Ghazali’s concern to counter the
underground missionary activity of the IsmaÆilis.

Existentialism of heidegger, sartre.

a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as
a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will

Existentialism liberates us from the customs of the past founded on myth. The quote from Jean
Paul Sartre, Existence precedes and commands Essence.

Jean Paul sartre::

The anguish of freedom

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for
everything he does."

Jean-Paul Sartre believed that human beings live in constant anguish, not solely because life is
miserable, but because we are 'condemned to be free'. While the circumstances of our birth and
upbringing are beyond our control, he reasons that once we become self-aware (and we all do
eventually), we have to make choices — choices that define our very 'essence'. Sartre's theory
of existentialism states that “existence precedes essence”, that is only by existing and acting a
certain way do we give meaning to our lives.

According to him, there is no fixed design for how a human being should be and no God to give
us a purpose. Therefore, the onus for defining ourselves, and by extension humanity, falls
squarely on our shoulders. This lack of pre-defined purpose along with an 'absurd' existence
that presents to us infinite choices is what Sartre attributes to the “anguish of freedom”. With
nothing to restrict us, we have the choice to take actions to become who we want to be and lead
the life we want to live
According to Sartre, each choice we make defines us while at the same time revealing to us
what we think a human being should be. And this incredible burden of responsibility that the free
man has to bear is what relegates him to constant anguish.

Living in bad faith

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."

Jean-Paul Sartre decried the idea of living without pursuing freedom. The phenomenon of
people accepting that things have to be a certain way, and subsequently refusing to
acknowledge or pursue alternate options, was what he termed as "living in bad faith". According
to Sartre, people who convince themselves that they have to do one particular kind of work or
live in one particular city are living in bad faith.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre's renown discourse on phenomenological ontology, he

explains the concept of bad faith through the example of a waiter who is so immersed in his job
that he considers himself to be first a waiter rather than a free human being
This waiter is so convinced that his present job is all that he can do, that it's all that he's meant
to do, that he never considers the option of doing anything else in life

Sartre believed that we alone are responsible for everything that we really are, and by not
exploring the myriad possibilities life presents to us we alone are responsible for restricting our
freedom.

Rage against the machine

An ardent believer in the Marxist school of thought, Jean-Paul Sartre touted money as the one
factor that restricts a person's freedom. The need of money, he reasoned, is the excuse people
give themselves when they shut down the idea of exploring unconventional life choices.
Society's acquiescence of money infuriated Sartre and capitalism was the political system he
blamed for the phenomenon. He likened capitalism to a machine that traps people in a cycle of
working in jobs they don't like so that they can buy things they don't need. This necessity of
material things, he argued, did not exist in reality but rather was a man-made construct that led
people to deny their freedom and consider living in other ways as foolhardy.

Sartre was a vocal opponent of capitalism and took part in several Parisian protests in 1968
against the system. As a Marxist
We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are — that is the fact.”

Ultimately, Sartre was a humanist who wanted us to break free of our self-fastened shackles
and attain our massive potential. He wanted us to acknowledge our freedom, to not be restricted
by the popular definition of reality, and live life as we wished to live it.

. Not only each individual, but humankind in general, creates its own nature. God didn’t
determine the essence of humanity --- Sartre was an atheist. And biology doesn’t fix the nature
of humanity in many important ways. It fixes the way we digest things and gives us the ability
to perceive and move our bodies in various ways. But it doesn’t settle what is right and what is
wrong; that’s done by human decisions

Existence Precedes Essence Our acts create our essence. Humanity alone exists; objects
simply are (for example, they do not exist per se). Animals and vegetables occupy an
intermediary position. Plants grow, form fruits, live, and then die. Animals are born, chew their
food, make sounds, follow their instincts, and die. Neither plants nor animals make deliberate
choices or carry through with responsibility

EXISTENCE + FREEDOM OF CHOICE + RESPONSIBILITY = ESSENCE

Historically, philosophy before Sartre was "essentialist." That is, it was concerned with defining
the essence of each species, with providing details about generic traits. Existentialism, on the
other hand, places existence before essence. Man exists (is born) before he can be anything,
before he can become anything; therefore, his existence precedes his essence
An individual is responsible for making himself into an essence

Freedom Man's situation is an unhappy one: what is good? and what is evil? Since there is no
way of separating them, man is condemned to a life of freedom in which he must choose. If one
rejects the notion of God, who is to say what is good and what is evil? No one, since there are
no absolutes: There is good in evil and evil in good. One cannot act and remain pure since too
many fears and obstacles would present themselves; of necessity, one must make choices and
assume the consequences

Responsibility Man must be committed, engaged. He has a responsibility before other citizens
for his actions. By acting, he creates a certain essence for society ("by choosing for oneself,
man chooses for all men"); any action which one takes affects the rest of humanity. From the
moment when man makes a choice, he is committed. One must not renege on one's
responsibility (as does Electra in The Flies), nor must one place the responsibility for one's
actions onto the shoulders of someone else. Man should not regret what he has done. An act is
an act

The others" Other people are a torture for two reasons:

they are capable of denying one's existence and one's freedom by treating one as an object; for
example, if you do a cowardly act, and another person calls you a coward, this cuts off the
possibility of your doing something heroic or courageous; it stereotypes you as a coward, and
this causes anguish.

others judge you, observe you without taking into consideration your intentions (either your
intentions about a future act or an act which you've already committed). The image they have of
you may not correspond to the one you have of yourself. But you can't do without them because
only they can tell you who you are. Man does not always understand the motives behind his
actions; therefore, he needs others to help in this process. But there is relief; man can say to
himself: "I am torture for them, just as they are torture for me."

Sartre offers four ways of defending oneself from the torture of "the others
Sartre offers four ways of defending oneself from the torture of "the others":

evasion or avoidance: One can isolate oneself from them, go to sleep, commit suicide, remain
silent, or live in obscurity;

disguise: One can try to fool others, lie to them, give a false image, resort to hypocrisy;

emotions: One can inspire emotions such as love and friendship in others, make oneself
liked/loved by them: "My lover accepts me as I accept myself." Therefore, an "other" judges you
as you judge yourself;

violence: A dictator can put people in prison to prevent them from saying what he doesn't want
to hear.
) Commitment Man must not be indifferent to his surroundings. He must take a stand, make
choices, commit himself to his beliefs, and create meaning through action. Sartre is in favor of
an engaged literature, of art that has a goal, a purpose. As with a man shooting a gun in the air
or directly at a target, it's better to have a target, a message.

Existentialism of Martin heidegger::

Heidegger refused to associate his own thinking with the term existentialism

When philosophers try to figure out what really exists (God? matter? numbers?), Heidegger
thinks they've forgotten a question that really should come first: what is it to exist? He thinks that
instead of asking "What is Being?" we ask, as in a scientific context, "what is this thing?" This
approach then poisons our ability to understand ourselves or the world that we as human beings
actually inhabit, as opposed to the abstraction that science makes out of this.

Pragmatism::

Pragmatism Vs Idealism
Idealists believe that it is the knowledge or the idea , that leads practice, but pragmatism holds
that ideas are constructed from experience. First comes the practice , and then on its basis,
principles and ideas are derived.
Charles Sanders Peirce: Pragmatism. Pragmatism is a principle of inquiry and an account of
meaning first proposed by C. S. Peirce in the 1870s. The crux of Peirce's pragmatism is that for
any statement to be meaningful, it must have practical bearings.

Pragmatism: Doctrine that knowledge should be used to act on things. An idea is indeed true if it
has a practical efficiency.

Pragmatism is the Theory that the intelligence function is not to know to find, but to know to act

Pragmatism (from Greek pragmatic business) has an ordinary meaning (‘stick to reality’)
Pragmatism is primarily a method of philosophy designed to ‘make our ideas clear’ (Peirce) and
to avoid confusion by referring our ideas to their practical effects. The basic rule stated by
Peirce’s pragmatism is: ‘Look what the practical effects that you think can be produced by the
object of your design: the design of all these effects is the whole of your conception of the
object’
Pragmatism of John Dewey:
As Dewey pointed out, he regarded philosophy as a general theory of education and for this
reason placed a great deal of emphasis on epistemological
His philosophy emphasizes the social function of intelligence that ideas are instruments of living
rather than ends in themselves
Education is seen as basically a social process rooted in problem-solving and the exploration of
the meaning of experience
William James, who made pragmatism a wider public view. He believed that an idea must be
tried before it can be considered good. The final philosopher, which is considered to be the
greatest asset to pragmatism, was John Dewey. According to Dewey, no changeable absolutes
or universals exist

Dewey continually argues that education and learning are social and interactive processes, and
thus the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should take
place. In addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to
experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take
part in their own learning

In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a
pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one's full potential and the ability to use
those skills for the greater good
He notes that "to prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself;
, Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating
social change and reform
He argues that in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way
that allows the student to relate the information to prior experiences
According to Dewey, the teacher should not be one to stand at the front of the room doling out
bits of information to be absorbed by passive students. Instead, the teacher's role should be that
of facilitator and guide

Pragmatism reminds teachers to individualize their instruction to meet the needs of each
learner. One must remember to keep old traditions, but incorporate new idea
@@@. The philosophy of pragmatism born in America has been criticized by some
philosophers of Europe, such as Russell and Popper, who accused him of being a ‘philosophy
for engineers’ because of its emphasis on practice@@@

Dewey describes science as a kind of productive technique involving trials and tests.’. The
reason for this denial/criticism of dewey is too central position granted to engineering design
(effects of the action), at the expense of a more conventional design epistemic (cognitive
causes).

William James:
James presented pragmatism as a way to avoid the errors of the two key rival
philosophies of his day — overly scientistic and materialist empiricism on one side, and
sentimental, over-optimistic religious idealism on the other. James endorsed a version of
the pragmatic maxim, described above, taking it to be a method for finding the real
content in philosophical doctrines and disagreements. James argued that when the
maxim is applied to many standard philosophical debates, it does not typically show that
these lack content; instead the maxim reveals hidden and substantial issues that are at
stake. These issues, for James, often concern the long-term direction being taken by
the universe, and the role of human choice in affecting how things turn out. James saw
pragmatism as a way of distilling the genuine human significance from obscure
philosophical theories and debates

Psychological ðical egoism|utilitarianism

First, psychological egoism is a theory about the nature of human motives.

Psychological egoism suggests that all behaviors are motivated by self-interest. In other words,
it suggests that every action or behavior or decision of every person is motivated by self interest

Psychological egoism is the empirical doctrine that the determining motive of every voluntary
action is a desire for one's own welfare. On this view, even though all actions are regarded as
self-interested actions, the egoist readily points out that people usually try to conceal the
determining motives for their actions because such concealment is usually in their self-interest

Criticism /fallacious
The descriptive psychological law that all persons act from the motive of self-interest is false
because there are many disconfirming instances
any people have injurious habits such as smoking, worrying, or self-defeating behavior.

Many people do their duty when their self-interest lies elsewhere. Many people will help
someone in need without thinking of self-gain. Many people will follow religious precepts without
personal benefit.

Many people will react in such a manner that their action is done for the "heck of it." I.e., some
actions are performed precisely because they are not in our self-interest. We "cut off our nose to
spite our face." Dostoevsky writes, "And what if it so happens that a man's advantage,
sometimes, not only may, but even must, consist in his desiring in certain cases what is harmful
to himself and not advantageous.

Some people will act against their self-interest so that they can follow their conscience. They do
what's right even though they won't personally benefit.

Almost everyone will act against their short-term self-interest in order to obtain a greater
long-term self interest. Students will stay up all night to get a term paper done even though the
short-term effects are disadvantageous (loss of sleep, lack of attention in class, altered
circadian cycle, and so forth

By the way psychological egoism is defined, all possible counter-examples have been ruled out.
This marks the theory meaningless. Suppose a soldier falls on a grenade to save his buddies.
The psychological egoist would say the action can be said to be in the interest of the soldier
because he could not live with himself if he did sacrifice his own life or he did so because he
would go out as a hero and so forth. No matter what action is set forth as an exception to the
generalization, we can always rationalize that the action was a self-interested one.

Psychological egoism is the theory that all our actions are basically motivated by self-interest. It
is a view endorsed by several philosophers, among them Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich
Nietzsche, and has played a role in some game theory.

But are all our actions self-interested? On the face of it, there seem to be lots of actions that are
not. For instance:

A motorist who stops to help someone who has broken down.

A person giving money to charity.

A soldier falling on a grenade to protect others from the explosion.

But psychological egoists think they can explain such actions without abandoning their theory.
The motorist might be thinking that one day she, too, could need help.

And so on..

Objections to psychological egoism

The first and most obvious objection to psychological egoism is that there are lots of clear
examples of people behaving altruistically or selflessly, putting the interests of others before
their own. The examples just given illustrate this idea. But as already noted, the psychological
egoists think they can explain actions of this kind. But can they? Critics argue that their theory
rests on a false account of human motivation

Psychological Egoism

On one side of this is the simple belief about why we act the way we do. Psychological egoism
states that human actions are based in self-interest. In this doctrine, we are making a factual
claim about human behavior, with absolutely no moral judgments attached. See, I told you not
to worry - no one's judging you

Ethical Egoism

All right, get the shrinks out of here. We're done talking about scientific facts; it's time to talk
some philosophy. Philosophers don't necessarily believe that all human actions are motivated
by self-interest, but many believe that they ought to be. Ethical egoism is the theory that a moral
action is one that is based in self-interest. According to this doctrine, at the end of the day, the
only real value to a person is their own welfare,

MORAL ABSOLUTISM::
Moral absolutism is the belief there are universal ethical standards that apply to every situation.
Moral Absolutism is the ethical belief that there are absolute standards against which moral
questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of the context of
the act
. Thus, actions are inherently moral or immoral, regardless of the beliefs and goals of the
individual

Many religions have morally absolutist positions, and regard their system of morality as having
been set by a deity, and therefore absolute, perfect and unchangeable.E.g alcohol drinking
Haram no matter in what context someone drink out of misery and dejection or just for fun.

Moral Absolutism

Moral absolutism asserts that there are certain universal moral principles by which all peoples’
actions may be judged. It is a form of deontology.

The challenge with moral absolutism, however, is that there will always be strong disagreements
about which moral principles are correct and which are incorrect.

Moral absolutism contrasts with moral relativism, which denies that there are absolute moral
values. It also differs from moral pluralism, which urges tolerance of others’ moral principles
without concluding that all views are equally valid.

So, while moral absolutism declares a universal set of moral values, in reality, moral principles
vary greatly among nations, cultures, and religions

In morals, Kant’s starting point is that the only thing which is good without qualification is a good
will. Talents, character, self-control, and fortune can be used to bad ends; even happiness can
be corrupting. It is not what it achieves that constitutes the goodness of a good will; good will is
good in itself alone.

f. Good will is the highest good and the condition of all other goods, including happiness

according to Kant, no moral worth. Worth of character is shown only when someone does good
not from inclination, but from duty: when, for instance, a man who has lost all taste for life and
longs for death still does his best to preserve his own life in accordance with the moral law,

Utilitarianism::
Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion
as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness."
Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ
in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be
weighted more heavily than baser pleasures
The theory of utilitarianism has been criticized for many reasons. Critics hold that it does not
provide adequate protection for individual rights

Utilitarianism is also a consequentialist theory – in that

only the consequences of an act count – not the
intentions which precipitated the act.
@@Mill criticism on bentham
Bentham established no hierarchies of
goods – suggests that there are no
qualitative differences@@

The justification for

happiness depends
on human
psychology – we
have no choice in
our preference for
happiness/pleasure –
to demand
otherwise is
impossible.

Mill feared that the

central problem of
Utilitarianism would
become the “tyranny
of the majority” that
egregious harms to the
minority would be
justifiable by the
benefit to the majority.

Hobbes social contract:

According to Hobbes, the state of nature was “a state of war of all against all in which
the chief virtue of mankind were force and fraud.” There was no Government of civil
laws to maintain peace and order, but a Government of fear, danger and coercion
Hobbes was of the view, “The only basis of human action is a perpetual and restless
desire of power after power that ends only in death. By nature man is selfish and
egoistical. Every one is striving for the gratification of his appetites and these appetites
are different from individual to individual because of physical constitution, education and
experience." Hobbes’s man lived originally in state of nature without the benefits of
Government. All human actions were regulated by two things:
The instinct of self-preservation 2.Individual egoism According to Hobbes, the state of
nature was “a state of war of all against all in which the chief virtue of mankind were
force and fraud.” There was no Government of civil laws to maintain peace and order,
but a Government of fear, danger and coercion.

Morality

Moral Philosophy

Moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy that contemplates what is right and wrong. It
explores the nature of morality and examines how people should live their lives in relation to
others.

Moral philosophy has three branches.

One branch, meta-ethics, investigates big picture questions such as, “What is morality?” “What
is justice?” “Is there truth?” and “How can I justify my beliefs as better than conflicting beliefs
held by others?”

Another branch of moral philosophy is normative ethics. It answers the question of what we
ought to do. Normative ethics focuses on providing a framework for deciding what is right and
wrong. Three common frameworks are deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics.

The last branch is applied ethics. It addresses specific, practical issues of moral importance
such as war and capital punishment. Applied ethics also tackles specific moral challenges that
people face daily, such as whether they should lie to help a friend or co-worker.

So, whether our moral focus is big picture questions, a practical framework, or applied to
specific dilemmas, moral philosophy can provide the tools we need to examine and live an
ethical life.

Morality Defined
Morality speaks of a system of behavior in regards to standards of right or wrong behavior. The
word carries the concepts of: (1) moral standards, with regard to behavior; (2) moral
responsibility, referring to our conscience; and (3) a moral identity, or one who is capable of
right or wrong action. Common synonyms include ethics, principles, virtue, and goodness
How should we live? Shall we aim at happiness or at knowledge, virtue, or the creation of
beautiful objects? If we choose happiness, will it be our own or the happiness of all? And what
of the more particular questions that face us: is it right to be dishonest in a good cause?

Plato:
Good people don't need laws to tell them act responsibly,
And bad people will find a way around the laws.

Ultimately, Plato argues that justice is a kind of harmony between the three different parts of the
just society which, correspond to the individual’s parts of the soul. When a person achieves
harmony between these parts Plato thinks they will naturally act justly in the conventional sense.

Aristotle

The purpose of human life is eudaimonia (human flourishing, happiness).

To achieve eudaimonia one must be virtuous.

Ethics is an inexact science.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure but to avoid pain(Aristotle)
Happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim. All our
activities aim at some end, though most of these ends are means toward other ends. For
example, we go grocery shopping to buy food, but buying food is itself a means toward the end
of eating well and thriftily. Eating well and thriftily is also not an end in itself but a means to other
ends. Only happiness is an end in itself.

Kant ::
Kant based his ethical theory on the belief that reason should be used to determine how people
ought to act.[1] He did not attempt to prescribe specific action, but instructed that reason should
be used to determine how to behave
Good will and duty[edit]

In his combined works, Kant constructed the basis for an ethical law from the concept of duty.[3]
Kant began his ethical theory by arguing that the only virtue that can be unqualifiedly good is a
good will. No other virtue has this status because every other virtue can be used to achieve
immoral ends (the virtue of loyalty is not good if one is loyal to an evil person, for example). The
good will is unique in that it is always good and maintains its moral value even when it fails to
achieve its moral intentions

John staurt Mill:

Mill’s moral philosophy was a modified version of the utilitarian theory
Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ
in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be
weighted more heavily than baser pleasures
He modified and defended the general principle that right actions are those that tend to produce
the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, being careful to include a distinction in
the quality of the pleasures that constitute happiness

Cultural relativism::
How Different Cultures Have Different Moral Codes
Darius, a king of ancient Persia, was intrigued by the variety of cultures he
encountered in his travels. He had found, for example, that the Callatians (a tribe
of Indians) customarily ate the bodies of their dead fathers. The Greeks, of course,
did not do that—the Greeks practiced cremation.
One day, to teach this lesson, he summoned some
Greeks who happened to be present at his court and asked them what they would
take to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They were shocked, as Darius knew
they would be, and replied that no amount of money could persuade them to do
such a thing. Then Darius called in some Callatians, and while the Greeks listened
asked them what they would take to burn their dead fathers’ bodies. The
Callatians were horrified and told Darius not even to mention such a dreadful
thing.
What is thought right within one group may be utterly abhorrent to the members
of another group, and vice versa.

It is easy to give additional examples of the same kind. Consider the Eskimos.
They are a remote and inaccessible people. Numbering only about 25,000, they
live in small, isolated settlements scattered mostly along the northern fringes of
North America and Greenland. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the
outside world knew little about them. Then explorers began to bring back strange
tales.
Eskimos customs turned out to be very different from our own. The men often
had more than one wife, and they would share their wives with guests, lending
them for the night as a sign of hospitality. Moreover, within a community, a
dominant male might demand and get regular sexual access to other men’s wives.
The women, however, were free to break these arrangements simply by leaving
their husbands and taking up with new partners—free, that is, so long as their
former husbands chose not to make trouble. All in all, the Eskimo practice was a
volatile scheme that bore little resemblance to what we call marriag

The
Eskimos also seemed to have less regard for human life. Infanticide, for example,
was common. Knud Rasmussen, one of the most famous early explorers, reported
that he met one woman who had borne 20 children but had killed 10 of them at
birth. Female babies, he found, were especially liable to be destroyed, and this
was permitted simply at the parents’ discretion, with no social stigma attached to
it. Old people also, when they became too feeble to contribute to the family, were
left out in the snow to die. So there seemed to be, in this society, remarkably little
respect for life.

Cultural Relativism
To many thinkers, this observation—”Different cultures have different moral
codes”— has seemed to be the key to understanding morality. The idea of
universal truth in ethics, they say, is a myth. The customs of different societies are
all that exist. These customs cannot be said to be “correct” or “incorrect,” for that
implies we have an independent standard of right and wrong by which they may
be judged. But there is no such independent standard; every standard is culture-
bound.
@@@@@ Cultural Relativism, as it has been called,
challenges our ordinary belief in the objectivity and universality of moral truth.@@@

4. There is no “universal truth” in ethics; that is, there are no moral truths
that hold for all peoples at all times.
5. The moral code of a society determines what is right within that
society; that is, if the moral code of a society says that a certain action
is right, then that action is right, at least within that society

The Greeks believed it was wrong to eat the dead, whereas the
Callatians believed it was right to eat the dead.
2. Therefore, eating the dead is neither objectively fight nor objectively
wrong. It is merely a matter of opinion, which varies from culture to
culture
Or

1. The Eskimos see nothing wrong with infanticide, whereas Americans

believe infanticide is immoral.

Therefore, infanticide is neither objectively right nor objectively

wrong. It is merely a matter of opinion, which varies from culture to
culture.
Clearly, these arguments are variations of one fundamental idea They are both
special cases of a more general argument, which says:
1. Different cultures have different moral codes.
2. Therefore, there is no objective “truth” in morality. Right and wrong
are only matters of opinion, and opinions vary from culture to culture. That stem from their
religion or tradition

To make the point clearer, consider a different matter In some societies, people
believe the earth is flat In other societies, such as our own, people believe the
earth is (roughly) spherical. Does it follow, from the mere fact that people
disagree, that there is no “objective truth” in geography? Of course not; we would
never draw such a conclusion because we realize that, in their beliefs about the
world, the members of some societies might simply be wrong

In the passage quoted above, William Graham Sumner summarizes the essence of
Cultural Relativism. He says that there is no measure of right and wrong other
than the standards of one’s society: “The notion of right is in the folkways. It is
not outside of them, of independent origin, and brought to test them. In the
folkways, whatever is, is right.” Suppose we took this seriously. What would be
some of the consequences?
1. We could no longer say that the customs of other societies are morally inferior
to our own. This, of course, is one of the main points stressed by Cultural
Relativism. We would have to stop condemning other societies merely because
they are “different.”

However, we would also be stopped from criticizing other, less benign practices.
Suppose a society waged war on its neighbors for the purpose of taking slaves. Or
suppose a society was violently anti-Semitic and its leaders set out to destroy the
Jews. Cultural Relativism would preclude us from saying that either of these
practices was wrong. We would not even be able to say that a society tolerant of
Jews is better than the anti- Semitic society, for that would imply some sort of
transcultural standard of comparison. The failure to condemn these practices does
not seem enlightened; on the contrary, slavery and anti-Semitism seem wrong
wherever they occur. Nevertheless, if we took Cultural Relativism seriously, we
would have to regard these social practices as also immune from criticism.

2. We could decide whether actions are right or wrong just by consulting the
standards of our society. Cultural Relativism suggests a simple test for
determining what is right and what is wrong: All one need do is ask whether the
action is in accordance with the code of one’s society. Suppose in 1975, a resident
of South Africa was wondering whether his country’s policy of apartheid—a
rigidly racist system—was morally correct. All he has to do is ask whether this
policy conformed to his society’s moral code. If it did, there would have been
nothing to worry about, at least from a moral point of view.

This implication of Cultural Relativism is disturbing because few of us think that

our society’s code is perfect; we can think of ways it might be improved. Yet
Cultural Relativism would not only forbid us from criticizing the codes of other
societies; it would stop us from criticizing our own. After all, if right and wrong
are relative to culture, this must be true for our own culture just as much as for
other cultures.

3. The idea of moral progress is called into doubt. Usually, we think that at least
some social changes are for the better. (Although, of course, other changes may
be for the worse.) Throughout most of Western history the place of women in
society was narrowly circumscribed. They could not own property; they could not
vote or hold political office; and generally they were under the almost absolute
control of their husbands. Recently much of this has changed, and most people
think of it as progress.

If Cultural Relativism is correct, can we legitimately think of this as progress?

Progress means replacing a way of doing things with a better way. But by what
standard do we judge the new ways as better? If the old ways were in accordance
with the social standards of their time, then Cultural Relativism would say it is a
mistake to judge them by the standards of a different time. Eighteenth-century
society was, in effect, a different society from the one we have now. To say that
we have made progress implies a judgment that present-day society is better, and
that is just the sort of transcultural judgment that, according to Cultural
Relativism, is impermissible.

Why There Is Less Disagreement Than It Seems

The original impetus for Cultural Relativism comes from the observation that
cultures differ dramatically in their views of right and wrong. But just how much
do they differ? It is true that there are differences. However, it is easy to
overestimate the extent of those differences, Often, when we examine what seems
to be a dramatic difference, we find that the cultures do not differ nearly as much
as it appears.

Belief/religion and logic behind cultural relativism::

Consider a culture in which people believe it is wrong to eat cows.

But does it? We have not yet asked why these people will not eat cows. Suppose
it is because they believe that after death the souls of humans inhabit the bodies of
animals, especially cows, so that a cow may be someone’s grandmother. Now do
we want to say that their values are different from ours? No; the difference lies
elsewhere. The difference is in our belief systems, not in our values. We agree
that we shouldn’t eat Grandma; we simply disagree about whether the cow is (or
could be) Grandma
Consider again the Eskimos, who often kill perfectly normal infants, especially
girls. We do not approve of such things; a parent who killed a baby in our society
would be locked up. Thus there appears to be a great difference in the values of
our two cultures. But suppose we ask why the Eskimos do this. The explanation is
not that they have less affection for their children or less respect for human life.
An Eskimo family will always protect its babies if conditions permit. But they
live in a harsh environment, where food is in short supply. A fundamental
postulate of Eskimos thought is: “Life is hard, and the margin of safety small.” A
family may want to nourish its babies but be unable to do so
As in many “primitive” societies, Eskimo mothers will nurse their infants over a
much longer period of time than mothers in our culture. The child will take
nourishment from its mother’s breast for four years,
nfant girls are more readily disposed of because, first, in this society the males
are the primary food providers—they are the hunters, according to the traditional
division of labor—and it is obviously important to maintain a sufficient number of
food providers. But there is an important second reason as well. Because the
hunters suffer a high casualty rate, the adult men who die prematurely far
outnumber the women who die early. Thus if male and female infants survived in
equal numbers, the female adult population would greatly outnumber the male
adult population. Examining the available statistics, one writer concluded that
“were it not for female infanticide…there would be approximately one-and-a-half
times as many females in the average Eskimo local group as there are food-
producing males.”
So among the Eskimos, infanticide does not signal a fundamentally different
attitude toward children. Instead, it is a recognition that drastic measures are
sometimes needed to ensure the family’s survival. Even then, however, killing the
baby is not the first option considered. Adoption is common; childless couples are
especially happy to take a more fertile couple’s “surplus.” Killing is only the last
resort.

DOES MORALITY DEPENDS ON RELIGION::

In popular thinking, morality and religion are inseparable. People commonly believe that morality
can be understood only in the context of religion.
The Scientific View of the Universe ▪
When viewed from a nonreligious perspective, the universe seems to be a cold, meaningless
place, devoid of value and purpose.
“That all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness
of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system.(Bertrand
Russell)

The Divine Command Theory ▪

Behavior is considered morally right if it is commanded by God and morally wrong if it is
forbidden.

In other words, Lewis believes that living a moral life is an easier go for a religious person
because he has an internal power to rely upon in the quest to become a better individual.

However, we all cheat from time to time, and often the only thing that stops us from cheating is
supervision by our peers. If one believes a god, spirit, or dead ancestor is watching over us, we
will act as if under a permanent degree of supervision. This enhances our moral rectitude, giving
religious groups an advantage over non-religious rivals

Morality and love are seen as that which makes us special and distinct from an inferior animal
kingdom. Religion finds itself in similar territory when claiming we have a unique purpose, a
soul, and an afterlife that is off-limits to non-humans. To justify these claims, morality is co-opted
by religion. This is why we can see morality as part of by and large every religion on Earth.

For starters, in a Western system of governance, the major difference between morality, law,
and religion is that laws are enforced by the state. For instance, many religions believe that
drunkenness is a sin. However, an alcoholic can sit quietly at home downing shot after shot to
the point of unconsciousness, and the police have no business interfering.
Now, many would say what he's doing to his body and his family is immoral, but as the popular,
albeit not completely valid mantra states, government can't legislate morality. The law must wait
until our imbiber threatens public safety. Unless he destroys someone else's property, hurts
someone, or gets behind the wheel of a car, he's free from prosecution under the law.

The Divine Command Theory

In the major theistic traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, God is conceived as a
lawgiver who has laid down rules that we are to obey. He does not compel us to obey them. We
were created as free agents, so we may choose to accept or to reject his commandments. But if
we are to live as we should live, we must follow God�s laws. This conception has been
elaborated by some theologians into a theory about the nature of right and wrong known as the
Divine Command Theory. Essentially, this theory says that �morally right� means
�commanded by God� and �morally wrong� means �forbidden by God.

The Theory of Natural Law

In the history of Christian thought, the dominant theory of ethics is not the Divine Command
Theory. That honor goes to the Theory of Natural Law. This theory has three main parts.

1. The Theory of Natural Law rests upon a certain view of what the world is like. On this view,
the world is a rational order with values and purposes built into its very . A central feature of this
conception was the idea that everything in nature has a purpose.
Like a knife can do good when it serve it's purpose i.e cutting fruits etc. On the contrary if it kill
somebody it's the wrong side or evil purpose of knife. Similarly men when do right or virtuous
deeds they're serving the purpose and when they

Historical and dialectical materialistic of Karl Marx.

https://www.leftvoice.org/marxism-a-method-theory-and-practice​.
Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics
was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an
opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who
believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was
the best method of arriving at the truth.

The basic tenets of dialectical materialism are: that everything that exists is material and is
derived from matter; that matter is in a process and constant change; and that all matter is
interconnected and interdependent.
Marx never wrote a text on dialectics or even used the term “dialectical materialism,” and so
articulating Marx’s dialectic was left to Engels and those who followed

Though/albeit Marx is one of the unmistakable founders of modern social science. Throughout
a lifetime of research and writing he aimed to arrive at a scientific analysis of modern economic
life

Marxism as a method

As a method of analysis, Marxism is based in dialectical materialism. This means that, far from
being a dogmatic set of truths written in “The Communist Manifesto,” Marxism is a way of
analyzing the world in its current moment, taking into account multiple elements. Distinct from
other methods of analysis, including religious, postmodern and empiricist methods, Marxism is
based on an understanding of a material reality that is in constant motion
Materialism can be summed up by the idea that, in the final analysis, our material reality—not
God, not ideas, not language—shapes our existence

Marx, deeply influenced by Hegel, criticized the Young Hegelians, an intellectual circle he was
once associated with, who believed that changes in society come about through ideas and
language
Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life
In other words, we exist within material bodies that have material needs fulfilled through
production, and it is this process of production and the “life process” that produces our
consciousness. In “The German Ideology” Marx says, “Men are the producers of their
conceptions, ideas, etc

While Marx has important criticisms of Hegel, he does not break with all of Hegelian thought.
Rather, Marx took up Hegel’s dialectic, based on the idea of contradictions—thesis and
antithesis coming into conflict and forming a synthesis. Likewise, Marx sees society as
characterized by conflicts and tensions, in constant movement. But for Marx, these tensions are
rooted in the material character of society, not in ideas. Marx took Hegel and “turned him on his
head”—using a similar dialectical method as Hegel, but arguing that material reality moves
society

Famous quotes:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to
change it.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.

Marx’s Dialectics

Hegel saw the “idea” as an absolute and as the creator and center of the material world. From
Hegel’s thinking Marx seized on the pertinent role of the “idea,” but found it to be “nothing else
than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.”

Marx understood that the brain – the very medium of our thoughts and ideas – is itself a material
construction, it grows and develops with and as a result of material conditions without which it
would cease to be and could not generate thoughts. Purged of metaphysical influences,
dialectics regards nature as a connected and unified whole, as a combination of organically
bound phenomenons that are interdependent and affect each other’s development

. Therefore, no activity in nature can be understood if it is isolated from surrounding

phenomena(worldly materialistic environment)
Metaphysics teaches that nature exists in an absolute and unchanging state. The dialectical
method teaches that nature remains in a state of constant change, development and renewal.
This can be seen through scientific and even general studies of nature and natural processes.
Nothing remains the same

One has to “leave philosophy aside” … one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an
ordinary man to the study of actuality, for which there exists also an enormous amount of literary
material, unknown, of course, to the philosophers..Karl Marx

Everything is in a state of either growth, relative equilibrium or decline, but is never stagnant. All
matter is in a state of constant motion through increases or decreases in quantity

But dialectics doesn’t merely see things in a state of motion where there is only increase or
decrease in quantity without fundamental changes in quality. This means that phenomena
moves and develops not in straight lines but in spirals. These qualitative and overlapping
changes are seen as leaps. An example of change from quantity to quality can be seen in how
all matter changes in quality, according to the quantity (increase or decrease) of temperature,
from gas to liquid to solid.

In recognizing the continual growth and development of all material processes, dialectics
recognizes that at the root of all motion are internal contradictions – opposite forces operating
inside of things, pulling back and forth between their poles for control. Such polar forces can be
seen competing, merging and changing positions in everything; negative and positive, light and
dark, sickness and health, hot and cold, birth and death, pain and pleasure, advancement and
decline, old and new, contraction and expansion, electron and proton and etc

This is the unity of opposites that operates within all phenomena large and small, known and
unknown. Without one, the other could not exist, nor could the matter or phenomenon exist that
they combine into. Because of the constant struggle between such opposite forces, everything
remains in constant motion. Because of this constant motion and resultant change, dialectics
recognizes that that there are no unchangeable absolutes, and therefore continual study and
experience of these material processes is the only source of proofs, “truth,” and understanding

Without proper analysis of material conditions and their internal and external contradiction, it is
impossible to develop a proper understanding of them(things)

Lenin stated:

“…in order really to know an object we must embrace, study, all its sides, all connections and
“mediations.” We never achieve this completely, but the demand for all-sidedness is a
safeguard against mistakes and rigidity.”
This scientific method of all-sided analysis, which is not the method of lazy or idealistic minds,
can be applied to all areas of existence; mental, emotional, social, physical, etc. Dialectics
“…takes things and their perceptual images essentially in their interconnection, in their
concatenation, in their movement, in their rise and disappearance.” (Marx and Engels)

The term dialectics comes from dialego (Greek) which means to debate or discuss, and was in
times past the pastime of philosophers, who would engage in debates to overcome the
arguments of their opponents that contradicted their own. The ancient philosopher thought that
such debate and introspection was a source of reaching truth.
Most social, economic, political, cultural and historic theorists today continue in this tradition to a
greater or lesser degree. However, the Marxist approach advanced dialectics as a method of
understanding reality in relation to existing phenomena and its internal and external
contradictions, allowing “truth” to be determined and proved through the test of material practice

like Hegel’s concept of the “idea,” marred by traditional metaphysical idealism. But as Engels
pointed out, Marxist philosophical materialism “…means nothing more than simply conceiving
nature just as it exists, without any foreign admixture
Idealists claim only our consciousness really exists and the real world, therefore, exists only in
our minds. However, Marxist materialism recognizes that the world of matter, nature and being
is an actual world that exists independent of our consciousness. Matter is primary, since it is the
source of all we know, feel and think, whereas consciousness is secondary, since it is a product
of and reflection of matter that actually exists in the physical world

The brain is of material construction. Without it, we’d have no thoughts and no mechanism with
which to process thoughts into physical actions – so how can we separate or raise our
consciousness above matter? “It is impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks.
Matter is the subject of all change,” – Marx

On a grander scale, there is a dialectical relationship between universal consciousness and

physical matter. In physics, this unity of opposites was proven by the physicist, Albert Einstein,
(who was a Marxist), in his famous formula E=mc2, or that energy is matter moving at great
speed; light, electricity, magnetic force, etc. are examples of this. Indeed our brain signals,
which communicate thoughts or messages – and can transmit them to be acted upon in the
physical world – are electrical impulses of matter in motion

Marxist materialism solved the problem that philosophers had long disputed – the relation of
thinking to being, spirit to nature. “Matter is that which, acting upon our sense organs, produces
sensations… Matter, nature, being, the physical – is primary, and spirit, consciousness,
sensation, the psychical – is secondary.” (Marx..

Holding that thought is a product of matter, Marxist materialism understands that the material
world and its laws are fully knowable. That by testing our knowledge of nature by experiment
and practice, we can lean and know objective “truth.” Nothing is unknowable. There are only
things that are as yet unknown, but which we can learn through the scientific approach of
dialectical experiment and practice

Marxist materialism therefore opposes idealism, which believes that the world is beyond our
ability to know, and therefore we can never really grasp objective truths or change conditions
In essence, idealism leaves people feeling helpless to understand and change conditions

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM::
DM is a scientific tool that allows us to consciously understand and change material conditions
by coming to “know” the laws governing the physical world, and prove or disprove our
knowledge by applying it through practice and experiment. As the scientist knows, it is the result
of physical experiment that ultimately proves or disproves the “truth” of his/her theory

How indeed do scientists approach studying and solving problems in the material world? They
begin with using their perceptual senses to observe some phenomenon and its internal
properties as it interacts with its environment and other phenomena, and then they analyze the
data accumulated from these observations. Through this process of observation, scientists
accumulate a quantitative amount of perceptual knowledge about the object(s) of their study,
and at some point, a qualitative leap takes place, and they begin to make conceptual
connections and develop theories, ideas and predictions about the observed thing(s), its
development and its nature
In order to prove or disprove these theories, ideas and predictions, the scientists begin to design
and perform experiments that will add to their conceptual knowledge. It is only by acting out
their ideas in practice that “truth” can be determined. The science surrounding particular things
or phenomena is then advanced. This is the essence of DM, the scientific approach to study
and practice

Historical Materialism

Social Formation In Marxist thought, a form of organization of society which comes into
existence around a specific mode of production. Changes in mode of production give
rise to different social formations which are associated with different historical epochs. Thus
household-based small-scale production gives rise to slave-owning society; large-scale
agriculture-based production gives rise to feudal society; and large-scale machinebased
production gives rise to capitalist society.

HM is DM applied to the study and understanding of social development and history. Marx saw
that the past philosophical approaches to understanding history and social development were
not scientific but were inconsistent and incomplete. He therefore applied DM to the study and
analysis of society and history. In doing this, Marx saw that the very core of human society is the
struggle for survival, which expresses itself in the systems of social production

The application of materialist dialectics to the reshaping of all political economy from its
foundation up, its application to history, natural science, philosophy and to the policy and tactics
of the working class – that was what interested Marx and Engels most of all, that is where they
contributed what was most essential and new, and that was what constituted the masterly
advance they made in the history of revolutionary thought(Lenin)

Based upon advances in the technologies used to extract survival necessities from nature, the
quantity of production increases (or has the potential to do so) and this creates a conflict with
the existing social institutions, which have become a fetter on further development and
represent outmoded social relations. This dialectical relationship (contradiction) between the
developing productive forces and decadent relations of production and distribution creates a
revolutionary situation
In other words, when the economic foundation advances and changes while the social
institutions and those running them attempt to remain conservative, and rigid, there inevitably
develops a social-economic demand for overthrow of these old and outmoded institutions and
those running them. New and progressive institutions and leaders are called forth which will be
compatible with the changes in the mode of production
Based upon these processes of social-economic development, HDM holds that humyn societies
have developed through several transitional stages, beginning with the primitive communal, to
the slave, to the feudal, to the wage-slave or capitalist system. Modern imperialism, or monopoly
capitalism, is the highest stage of capitalist development. From here, society is ripe to make the
leap to communism, or classless society, by passing through the transitional stage of socialism
In politico-economic language, the first stage would correspond to the communal agricultural
and cattle-raising society, in which the social structure is horizontal, without any state; the
second to feudal or assimilated agricultural or agro-industrial bourgeois societies, with a vertical
social structure and a state; the third to socialist or communist societies, in which the economy
is mainly, if not exclusively, industrial (since agriculture itself becomes a form of industry) and in
which the state tends to progressively disappear, or actually disappears, and where the social
structure returns to horizontality, of a higher level of productive forces, social relations and
appreciation of human values.

According to the Marxist perspective, the structure of society may be understood in

terms of its base (the foundation) and superstructure (the external build-up). Base
consists of the mode of production while superstructure is represented by its legal and
political structure, religion, morals, social practices, literature, art and culture, etc. Mode
of production has two components: forces of production and relations of production.
Forces of production cannot remain
static; they have an inherent tendency of development in the direction of achieving the perfect
society.
Forces of production have two components: means of production (tools and equipment), and
labour power (human knowledge and skills). Men and women constantly endeavour to devise
better ways of production. Improvement in the means of production is manifested in the
development of technology. This is matched by development of human knowledge and skills as
required to operate the new technology. Hence there is the corresponding development of
labour power.On the other hand, relations of production in any given epoch are determined by
the pattern of ownership of the means of social production. This gives rise to two contending
classes—haves and have-nots.
In earlier stages of historical development, development of the forces of production fails to make
any dent in this pattern. In other words, changes in the mode of production bring about changes
in the nature of contending classes, but they do not bring about an end of the class conflict.
Change in the nature of contending classes is itself brought about by a social revolution. When
material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production,
these relations turn into their fetters. The new social class which comes to own new means of
production, feels constrained by these fetters and overthrows the old dominant class in a
revolution. As a result of social revolution, an old social formation is replaced by a new social
formation. In this process old contending classes are replaced by new contending classes, but
class conflict continues on a new plane. This has been the case till the rise of capitalism, which
will be overthrown by a socialist revolution, leading to the eventual emergence of classless
society
Class struggle::
Lord and serf, master and slave, oppressor and oppressed ,modern capitalist society, by
class conflict between bourgeoisie (capitalists) and proletariat (workers).
, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now
open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstruction of society at
large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great
classes directly facing each other – bourgeoisie and proletariat.” (Marx & Engels) The
Communist Manifesto

This basic contradiction within the capitalist system, between a small exploiting class that
privately owns the socially produced wealth and means of production (land, tools, factories,
railroads, natural resources, and the labor power of the workers), and the exploited majority
(who must sell their labor power to survive) who are the producers of society’s wealth, is the
basic contradiction in capitalist society, manifested in the class struggle

However, as Lenin pointed out, the capitalist class consolidated its forces and began to exploit
the whole non-industrialized world to feed the industries of the imperialist countries with cheap
raw materials and capture markets for their products, transforming the class contradiction into
an international one.

Imperialism, as the highest form of capitalism, represents the concentration of the fundamental
contradiction within capitalism; with the people and nations exploited and oppressed by the
system at one pole and the monopoly capitalists and their henchmen at the other. Within the 3rd
world countries, the struggles against colonialism and neo-colonialism take the form of national
or “New-Democratic” revolution.

Thought without practice is empty – action without thought is blind!” — Kwame Nkrumah

Idealism of Berkeley and plato and realism of Locke.

For Berkeley important

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjacinto-philosophy/chapter/subjective-idealism​/

For Plato and Berkeley

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_idealism.html

Lockes representative realism:

Locke and Berkeley's Views on Representative Realism

Representative realism is the belief that physical objects are independent of the mind
and that they carry certain characteristics that have nothing to do with the individual perceiving
them. It is the belief that objects exist whether or not they are being perceived or not. John
Locke was a realist, who held a strong belief in the idea that physical objects are real and that
they carry specific characteristics no matter whom the perceiver is. He held that our perception
is not always accurate as it does not always tell us how something really looks or feels or
smells, etc. and that objects will always be there, that we, as human beings, perceive ideas first
and than the physical object itself. We perceive primary qualities, i.e. physical properties. Locke
believes that primary qualities, such as motion or shape, are in the objects themselves and do
not rely on being perceived. Secondary qualities, such as colour or temperature, depend on the
mind of the perceiver. They produce specific sensations in us, which affect how we view them.
George Berkeley, an idealist, believed that nothing can exist without the mind insofar as
characteristics and qualities are not in the object itself but rather in the perceiver. He held that
primary qualities are no different from secondary qualities in that they are both mind-dependent.

John Locke thought objects had two classes of qualities:

Primary qualities were qualities which were 'explanatorily basic;' they could be referred to as the
explanation for other qualities or phenomena without requiring explanation themselves. They
were distinct in that human sensory experience of them resembled them in reality. (For
example, one perceived an object as spherical precisely because of the way the atoms of the
sphere were arranged.) Primary qualities could not be removed by either thought or physical
action, and included mass, movement, and, controversially, solidity (although later proponents
of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities usually discounted solidity
Secondary qualities were qualities which one's experience did not directly resemble; for
example, when one saw an object as red, the sensation of seeing redness was not produced by
some quality of redness in the object, but by the arrangement of atoms on the surface of the
object which reflected and absorbed light in a particular way. Secondary qualities included color,
smell, and taste.

Representationalism (also known as Representative Realism or Indirect Realism or

Epistemological Dualism or the Representative Theory of Perception) is the philosophical
position that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real world itself, but merely a
miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation

Empiricism(Locke, Hume, Berkeley)

A simple way to express his view is: Knowledge comes from experience. This is the perspective
of empiricism, a major school of thought within epistemology
So in his view, actually experiencing the world through our senses is the only way to arrive at a
conclusion and to know the truth about something. A person testing a key in a lock would be a
legitimate way to come to the conclusion, 'My key opens the door

Locke::
The philosophy of Locke stands on two main foundations: first, that all knowledge derives from
reasoning about our ideas and, secondly, that all ideas originate in experience. We cannot in
our thinking and knowledge go beyond the ideas or concepts we actually have-ideas are the
materials of thought and knowledge-and the ideas we have are bounded by what ideas can be
attained through experience.

From this it is not surprising to find that Locke opposes what he

regards as a prevalent notion that we have innate, or inborn, ideas in the mind independently of
experience. It soon becomes clear that what Locke is most concerned to oppose is the
existence in the mind of innate principles and knowledge; although in denying the existence of
innate ideas-ideas being the building blocks of knowledge-Locke is also denying innate
knowledge of truths. One of the chief motives for Locke's denial of innate knowledge is that the
identification of a principle as innate or inborn is sometimes used, especially in moral matters,
as a block to any questioning of the truth of that principle. But we must, Locke says, think
through what we claim to know, and make knowledge our own. This goes along with Locke's
general suspicion of authority as a valid ground for accepting something as true.
Tabula Rasa

Locke saw a human being as a blank slate or blank tablet at birth. The Latin phrase often used
to describe this concept is tabula rasa. To Locke, this means that we come into the world
without any understanding inside of us, like a blank piece of paper where nothing has been
written yet. We can only reason based on what happens to us and what we learn

So if a human being is a tabula rasa from day one, they can only know things based on
interactions with the world
. Locke argued that the mind does not have innate ideas, and so sensory knowledge is the only
knowledge we can have. This view is known as empiricism

Locke argued that we have two types of experiences: sensations and reflections. We gain some
knowledge from reflection, some from sensation, and some from both. In An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, Locke described reflection as “that notice which the mind takes of its
own operations, and the manner of them”. Reflection allows us to be conscious of our mental
processes, and so tells us about how our minds operate. Examples of reflection include
“thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing”, and “willing”. These experiences all invoke
qualia (discussed in Chapter 26) that do not correspond to external objects, and so Locke
referred to reflection as an “internal sense.
Sensations arise from external stimulus and tell us about the external world. Locke described
two types of sensations, those corresponding to primary and secondary qualities. Primary
qualities are similar to the properties Descartes equated with rational introspection, such as
size, shape, and quantity. Secondary qualities correspond to qualia, like colour, sound, and
emotion.
Like Thomas Hobbes (discussed in Chapter 26), Locke didn’t think we’re capable of
understanding how external objects give rise to qualia. He stated that,

experience...convinces us, that we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence and an
internal infallible perception that we are. In every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are
conscious to ourselves of our own being, and in this matter we don’t fall short of the highest
degree of certainty.[2

But this tells us nothing of the substance the mind is made of, and so Locke did not accept
Descartes’ dualism. He suggested it’s equally possible that the mind and body could be made of
the same substance, leading to the idea that physical matter could be capable of thought.

Locke has two main arguments against the innateness of ideas, both speculative and practical.
First, he argues, people in fact do not universally hold to these ideas, contrary to what
defenders of innate ideas typically claim. This is particularly obvious with the laws of thought,
which children and mentally challenged people have no conception of whatsoever:

If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions upon them, they
must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and assent to these truths. Which since
they do not, it is evident that there are no such impressions. For if they are not notions naturally
imprinted, how can they be innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can they be
unknown? To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the
mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression nothing
Locke’s second argument is that it makes no sense to hold that such ideas lie dormant within
us, and then blossom when we reach the right age, contrary to what defenders of innate ideas
commonly claim. Again, particularly with the laws of thought, children reason perfectly well
regarding identity and non-contradiction, yet at the same time are completely incapable of
articulating those specific ideas. If these ideas really were innate, then children should be able
to verbally express them. As Locke states it, “How many instances of the use of reason may we
observe in children, a long time before they have any knowledge of this maxim, ‘That it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be?’(A=A and not equal to A simultaneously ,
Aristotle's logic)
Simple and Complex Ideas

According to Locke, then, we should completely reject the theory of innate ideas and instead
look for the true source of our ideas within human experience. His basic position, which
encapsulates the entire empiricist approach, is that the mind is from birth a blank slate

Simple ideas are the building blocks from which all other ideas are formed, and, for Locke, there
are two main sources of simple ideas. The first and most obvious source is that they come from
sensation, specifically our five senses which give us perceptions of colors, tastes, smells, tactile
solidity. The color of blue, the taste of sweetness, the tactile sensation of smoothness, the
sound of a high-pitched etc
all basic sensory experiences that are building bocks for our ideas about the external world.
Second, there are simple ideas that come to us through reflecting on our mental processes;
these are ideas of reflection, or “introspection” as we now call them. I can shut my eyes and
think about how my mind operates: how I perceive things through my senses, how I think about
problems, how I doubt questionable ideas, how I believe reasonable ideas, how I will to perform
actions. According to Locke, “This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though
it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might
properly enough be called internal sense
Nothing that we perceive through our five senses will give us ideas of these. Then there is an
especially interesting group of simple ideas that we can get either through sensation or
introspective reflection. Pleasure and pain is a good example. I can feel physical pain through
my senses as when a candle flame burns me; but I can also experience emotional pain in my
mind when a loved one dies. Another example is the notion of causal force, or “power” as 18th
century philosophers called it. Through my senses, I see a volcano spew out lava with great
causal force. But through introspective reflection I can also experience causal force when I
reflect on my own willful decisions
My will itself is a causal power.
For Locke, there are countless simple perceptions that flood into our minds through sensation
and reflection, in fact so many that we don’t even have names for most of them. But as we store
these raw simple notions in our memories, our minds mechanically shuffle them around and
create new ones which he calls complex ideas. There are three specific mental processes that
form complex ideas. First, some are the result of simply combining together more simple ideas.
For example, I can get a complex idea of an apple by assembling the simple ideas of
roundness, redness, sweetness, and moistness. Second, some complex ideas involve relations
that we get from comparing two things, such as the notions of “larger” and “smaller” that I get
when comparing two apples of different sizes. Like to make tea our complex idea.
the complex ideas will be of two types: ideas of substances and ideas of modes. Ideas of
substances are those of individual objects such as such as rocks, trees, houses, animals,
people and God. Ideas of modes are attributes of those objects that cannot exist independently
of them, such as an apple’s attributes of being round, crunchy and moist

Primary and Secondary Qualities

One of Locke’s philosophical claims to fame is his development of the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities of objects. The issue involves a distinction between qualities of
objects that actually belong to the object itself(primary), and qualities of objects that we impose
on them(secondary)
. For Locke, a primary quality is an attribute of that is inseparable for a physical body, and
includes solidity, shape, motion, number. If you break a grain of wheat into parts will remain that
much solid same texture.
In contrast with primary qualities, there are also secondary qualities that are
spectator-dependent: we impose the attributes onto objects, and these include colors, sounds,
and tastes. For example, there is something in the apple that makes it appear red to me, but the
redness itself does not reside within the apple but instead is a function of my sense organs and
biology. The phenomenon of colorblindness is ample proof of this
Locke adds there is a third type of quality of objects—tertiary qualities—which involves the
power that an object has to produce new ideas or sensations in us. For example, the mere sight
of an apple may produce a feeling of hunger within me

Berkeley::
Irish philosopher George Berkeley believed that Locke’s Essay did not carry the principles of
empiricism far enough. While still an undergraduate, this future bishop of the Anglican church
worked out his trenchant criticism of Locke and proposed a simple but startling alternative
. Berkeley expresses this point with the idealist motto that to be is to be perceived. That is,
external things exist only in our minds or in God’s mind
Empiricism and Idealism

Some of Berkeley's views were aligned with the main idea of empiricism, which argues that
what we know comes from sense experience. However, unlike some of the other empiricists of
his time, such as John Locke, Berkeley did not see a separation between a physical world and a
mental world. Instead, his perspective was idealism, the view that mind-independent things do
not exist.
Berkeley exemplifies one way of stringently applying empiricism:
he conjoins the view that all we can ever know is our immediate ideas with the view that words
and other expressions in our language derive their meaning only from ass ociation with specific
ideas; this leads to the ontological doctrine that only ideas subs isting in minds and minds
themselve s can be said to exist because to talk of things existing in any other way is
meaningless as the expressions used in the talk are necessarily unconnected to any ideas.
Expressions not translatable into, or ass ociated with, some experience are meaningless.

Berkeley rejected Descartes’ dualism and Locke’s agnosticism. Because everything that we
experience originates in the mind, Berkeley claimed that the only theory available to empiricists
is idealism, the view that physical objects do not exist.
Berkeley described the mind as “one simple, undivided, active being”, and because nothing can
exist without a mind to perceive it, he concluded that the external world must exist within the
mind of God.[3] A modern version of this idea could include other types of perceivers, such as
that provided by an advanced computer simulation.

His philosophical mantra:

@@@to be is to be perceived@@

his first exposition of the then revolutionary theory that objects exist only as perception and not
as matter separate from perception, summed up in his dictum

He called the theory Immaterialism (conceived as it was in opposition to the prevailing

Materialism of the time), although it was later referred to by others as Subjective Idealism. The
theory propounds the view that reality consists exclusively of minds and their ideas, and that
individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas, not the objects themselves.
argued that if he or another person saw a table, for example, then that table existed; however, if
no one saw the table, then it could only continue to exist if it was in an infinite mind that
perceives all, i.e. God. He further argued that it is God who causes us to experience physical
objects by directly willing us to experience matter
So, Berkeley's view of reality might be summed up as follows: there exists an infinite spirit (God)
and a multitude of finite spirits (humans), and we are in communication with God via our
experience

To him there are only two crucial elements involved in perception: the perceiver and what is
perceived. All we need to do, Berkeley argued, is eliminate the absurd,
philosophically-conceived third element in the picture: that is, we must acknowledge that there
are no material objects. For Berkeley, only the ideas we directly perceive are real
Immaterialism is the only way to secure common sense, science, and religion against the perils
of skepticism
Take heat, for example: does it exist independently of our perception of it? When exposed to
great heat I feel a pain that everyone acknowledges to be in me, not in the fire, Berkeley
argued, so the warmth I feel when exposed to lesser heat must surely be the same. What is
more, if dip both of my hands into a bowl of tepid water after chilling one and warming the other,
the water will feel both warm and cold at the same time. Clearly, then, heat as I perceive it is
nothing other than an idea in my mind.
Putting aside all of the forgoing lines of argument, Berkeley declared, the whole issue can be
allowed to rest on a single question: is it possible to conceive of a sensible object existing
independently of any perceiver? The challenge seems easy enough at first. All I have to do is
think of something so remote—a tree in the middle of the forest, perhaps—that no one presently
has it in mind. But if I conceive of this thing, then it is present in my mind as I think of it, so it is
not truly independent of all perception
George Berkeley 1685-1753 • Idealist/Empiricist: knowledge
arises from experience but all experience is perception.
• The universe may only be matter, but matter only exist to the extent that it is perceived. “To be
is to be perceived.”
• Does the external world exists if unperceived? It does because God is the ever-present
perceiver. The universe are ideas in God’s mind.
• Against Locke: there are no primary qualities of objects, only secondary qualities.
•

David Hume::
David Hume 1711-1776 • Sought to create an empirical science of human experience and
behavior model on the success of Newtonian physics. • Inductive method inspired by Bacon.
Careful observation of human experience and its relation to behavior from which general
principles might be derived.
• Agreed with Berkeley that all we can know is what we perceive including our sense of self and
mind, in other words we only exist to the extent that we perceive ourselves perceiving or
thinking. But disagreed that reality was only perception.
• Impressions: strong, attended to, vivid, emotion-laden sensation. Ideas: faded, recalled,
reflected upon, faint ‘images’ of impressions. Imagination: the process of combining and
rearranging ideas into complex ideas, which may not correspond directly to sense impressions.
Association of ideas can create beliefs, which allow prediction or expectation that one event will
follow another. “Will loves money, so losing the bet will anger him’
• Laws of association: resemblance – categorical similar ideas associated together; contiguity –
experience together; causation – effects associated with causes and vice-versa
• Theory of motivation based on passions: Ideas don’t drive behavior, passions associated with
ideas do. Certain emotions ( passions) give rise to certain behaviors (anger leads to
aggression). While there is commonality across humans in passions, passions vary in degree.
These varying patterns of intensity of passions across individuals constitute character.
• Where Do Beliefs Originate?

Many philosophers in history have had a deep interest in questions like, 'What is the nature of
the soul?' and 'Does God exist?' David Hume was not one of these people.

In fact, his focus was less about explaining the mysteries of existence and more about
considering the question, 'Why do we believe what we believe?' In this lesson, we'll look at how
Hume categorized different human experiences and how this influenced his approach to
philosophy.

Science and Natural Laws

Hume believed that what we know comes from sense experience, a school of thought called
empiricism. As a Scottish philosopher living in the 18th century, he took a great interest in the
scientific discoveries of his time. These discoveries involved testing, calculations, and
experiments to learn about the world
One of the key concepts during this era in science was the idea that natural laws could explain
much of the phenomena we see in the world. For instance, an apple falling from a tree could be
observed and the law of gravity used to explain it. Measurements and calculations could be
used to better understand and speculate about many other phenomena, like the shape of the
earth or the speed of sound.

Hume was drawn to consider philosophy from this perspective of the physical world and its
natural laws

This is part of why he took less interest in metaphysical questions like, 'What is the nature of the
soul?' and more interest in a somewhat more concrete topic like, 'How we come to know what
we know.' He was looking to explain what could be observed, rather than speculate
Empiricism (roughly characterised): opinions are reasonable if, and only if, they are supported
by evidence that is ultimately grounded in experience.
Experience’, here, can mean everyday observation using one or more of the five senses, but it
is also meant to include rigorous scientific experimentation

David Hume::
David Hume and epistemology

The British philosopher David Hume agreed with Berkeley’s claim that we do not directly
experience any properties of the external world, but this did not lead him to accept idealism, the
view that physical objects do not exist. Instead, he remained just as sceptical about the
existence of the mind.

origin of ideas. Thoughts and ideas flow through our minds endlessly – ideas of people, houses,
music concerts, scientific discoveries, God, on and on. Where do they all come from? Hume’s
answer is that all of our ideas come from two types of experiences, or impressions as he calls
them: (1) outward impressions through our five senses and (2) inward impressions through
reflection on our mental operations. For example, the idea I have of the color red ultimately
came from some outward sensory experience that I had of the color red that was stored in my
memory. The idea I have of fear similarly came from an inward feeling of fear that I experienced
in the past.

Empiricism vs rationalism

The empiricist s in genera l have tendencies which contrast with those of the rationalists .
Empiricists hold that all the material for knowledge, our ideas or concepts, and all knowledge of
actual matters of fact , as opposed to logical or conceptual truths, must be derived from, or be
reducible to , aspects of our experience: features of the information provided by the content of
our sens.
All propositions which tell us anything about the real or actual world are truths of fact.
Propositions stating matters of fact cannot be known to be true merely by our understanding
them, or by our deducing them from other propositions known to be true by the understanding
alone; if we can know them to be true at all, they must be known through consulting experience.

The basic contrast between rationalism and empiricism is an argument about the extent and
nature of what truths it is logically possible to know a priori by the understanding independently
of experience, by intellectual intuition and pure logical reasoning alone, and what truths it is
logically possible to know a posteriori by the senses, by experience and observation alone. The
rationalist argues that certain things can be known with certainty to be necessarily true about
the nature of reality, what exists, by a priori reason alone, even if such truths refer to a reality
that lies behind appearances. This the empiricist denies, arguing that claims to knowledge of
truths concerning the nature of reality or the actual world must seek their justification, if such
justification is possible at all, in experience; a priori reason alone cannot reveal the real or actual
nature or existence of the world.
A deductively valid argument is one in which to assert the premises and deny the conclusion
would be a contradiction. Conclusions can be validly deduced from premises independently of
the evidence of experience; but if the conclusions are factual, then such deductions must
involve factual premises which can be known to be true not by reason alone but only by the
evidence of experience; without the evidence of experience any factual conclusion of a
deduction is at best hypothetical and not yet known to be true.
As knowledge that arises through our experiences, empirical knowledge is about the material
universe

The Epistemic Goal of Natural Philosophy

For rationalism (Descartes): to gain certain knowledge of the essential nature of reality

For empiricism (Locke): to gain probable knowledge of the world in so far as the limitations of
our experience allow

2. Nature and Sources of Knowledge of Reality

For rationalism (Descartes): some knowledge of reality derives from innate, indubitable ideas

For empiricism (Locke): all knowledge of reality ultimately derives from experience—from the
way it appears to us

3. The Nature of Reason

For rationalism (Descartes): reason is the means by which innate ideas are discerned, and then
further ideas deduced according to self-evidently certain logical laws

For empiricism (Locke): reason is the means by which patterned relationships among the ideas
of experience are discerned, and then further ideas deduced according to intuitively certain
logical laws

Extreme empiricism (e.g. J. S. Mill): even the logical laws of the operation of reason ultimately
derive from experience

Inductive vs deductive &logic

https://www.theclassroom.com/advantages-disadvantages-inductive-reasoning-8491871.html

Important
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fs.blog/2018/05/deductive-inductive-reasoning/amp/
Rationalism(plato, Descartes, Spinoza)

Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Rationalism and empiricism are schools of thought that search for meaning in our existence.
Each of these philosophies quest for the truth in our life by promoting skepticism, or a doubt that
the other ideas are true. Fundamentally, these two philosophies are essentially opposites
What is Rationalism?

Rationalism functions on three key principles that work to find the truth:

Deduction - Deduction is the application of concrete principles to draw a conclusion.

Mathematical principles are an example of deduction. For example, finding the square footage
of a room is always done the same way, by multiplying the width and length.

Innate ideas - Innate ideas is the concept that we're born with fundamental truths or experiences
left over from another life that we're born with. These ideas can also come from God. Innate
ideas can explain why some people possess significantly more talent in some things than others
who have exactly the same exposure to them.

Reason - Reason uses logic to determine a conclusion. Logic can use multiple methods to
determine the truth, and the emphasis is on finding the truth, not on the method
What is Empiricism?

Empiricism, on the other hand, works with key principles to use skepticism in its school of
thought that rejects the principles of rationalism.

Sense experience - Empiricists believe that our ideas come solely from sense experience.
These ideas are either simple or complex and make use of the five senses (touch, taste, smell,
sound and sight). Simple ideas are those that use only one of the five senses to establish
perception. For example, sugar is sweet. Complex ideas use more than one of the five senses
to gain a more detailed perception. Sugar is sweet and white and granular, for example.

Innate ideas - Empiricists reject the notion of innate ideas. A popular term associated with this
came from John Locke, who believed that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa.

Induction - Induction is the most crucial principle to empiricism, similar to how crucial reason is
to rationalists. Induction is the belief that very little can be proven conclusively, especially
without experience. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a
sound? This is an example of an empiricist's perspective on induction. Since there is no one in
the forest to experience the sound of a tree falling, then it can't be determined as truth that it
makes a sound
Rationalists have claimed that the ultimate starting point for all knowledge is not the senses but
reason. They maintain that without prior categories and principles supplied by reason, we
couldn’t organize and interpret our sense experience in any way. We would be faced with just
one huge, undifferentiated, kaleidoscopic whirl of sensation, signifying nothing

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent to which we are
dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gain knowledge. Rationalists claim that there
are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense
experience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts
and knowledge.
Rationalism is the viewpoint that knowledge mostly comes from intellectual reasoning, and
empiricism is the viewpoint that knowledge mostly comes from using your senses to observe the
world

THE EMPIRICISTS: Empiricists share the view that there is no such thing as innate knowledge,
and that instead knowledge is derived from experience (either sensed via the five senses or
reasoned via the brain or mind). Locke, Berkeley, and Hume are empiricists (though they have
very different views about metaphysics).

THE RATIONALISTS: Rationalists share the view that there is innate knowledge; they differ in
that they choose different objects of innate knowledge. Plato is a rationalist because he thinks
that we have innate knowledge of the Forms [mathematical objects and concepts (triangles,
equality, largeness), moral concepts (goodness, beauty, virtue, piety), and possibly color – he
doesn’t ever explicitly state that there are Forms of colors]; Descartes thinks that the idea of
God, or perfection and infinity, and knowledge of my own existence is innate;

Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, they argue that there are cases
where the content of our concepts or knowledge outstrips the information that sense experience
can provide. Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that
additional information about the world. Empiricists present complementary lines of thought. First,
they develop accounts of how experience provides the information that rationalists cite, insofar
as we have it in the first place. (Empiricists will at times opt for skepticism as an alternative to
rationalism

EMPIRICISM (IN FAVOR OF EMPIRICISM, AGAINST RATIONALISM):

1. Empiricism is Simpler: Compared to Empiricism, Rationalism has one more entity that
exists: Innate knowledge. According to the Empiricist, the innate knowledge is unobservable
and inefficacious; that is, it does not do anything. The knowledge may sit there, never being
used

Colors: How would you know what the color blue looks like if you were born blind? The only
way to come to have the idea of blue is to experience it with your senses. (This objection only
works possibly against Plato
The Advance of Science: Much of science is founded on empiricist principles, and would not
have advanced without it. If we base our conclusions about the world on empiricism, we can
change our theories and improve upon them and see our mistakes
RATIONALISM (IN FAVOR OF RATIONALISM, AGAINST EMPIRICISM):

1. Math and Logic are Innate: Doesn’t it seem that mathematical and logical truths are true
not because of our five senses, but because of reason’s ability to connect ideas?

2. Morality is Innate: How do we get a sense of what right and wrong are with our five
senses?

Poverty of Stimulus Problem: Three year olds use language in ways that they are not explicitly
taught. For example, they form original sentences from words that they haven’t heard put
together in precisely that way before. Also, they start to understand grammatical rules before
they even know what a noun or a verb is. which theory can better explain it?
Empiricism Undermines Creativity? According to Empiricism, you can combine things, separate
them, and nothing else. With Rationalism, we come to experience with ready-made tools for
creativity. E.g., Plato would say that we’re in touch with abstract, immutable realities, which
provide lots of material with which to create

We naturally think in terms of cause and effect. And this helps organize our experience of the
world. We think of ourselves as seeing some things cause other things to happen, but in terms
of our raw sense experience, we just see certain things happen before other things, and
remember having seen such before-and-after sequences at earlier times. For example, a rock
hits a window, and then the window breaks. We don’t see a third thing called causation. But we
believe it has happened rationalism emphasize thinking and research.

Rationalism is any view appealing to intellectual and deductive reason (as opposed to sensory
experience or any religious teachings) as the source of knowledge or justification

DESCARTES RATIONALISM:
While sitting by the fireplace, Descartes inspects a piece of wax and asks himself what he
knows of the wax. He begins by listing all the sensory properties of the wax: it is white, has a
certain smell, makes a certain sound when one raps it with one’s finger, is hard, and has a
certain taste. After listing all its sensory properties, he then places the piece of wax by the fire
and sees how it loses all those properties: it changes color, smell, texture, taste, etc. Descartes
concludes, among other things, that the essence of the wax, insofar as it is a body, is that it is
extended in length, breadth, and depth since that is the only thing that remains constant about
the wax. In this respect, the piece of wax is no different from any other body—that is, its
essence is to be extended. Extension, then, according to Descartes, is the essence of body.
René Descartes is one of the earliest and best known proponents of Rationalism, which is often
known as Cartesianism (and followers of Descartes' formulation of Rationalism as Cartesians).
He believed that knowledge of eternal truths (e.g. mathematics and the epistemological and
metaphysical foundations of the sciences) could be attained by reason alone, without the need
for any sensory experience. Other knowledge (e.g. the knowledge of physics), required
experience of the world, aided by the scientific method - a moderate rationalist position. For
instance, his famous dictum "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") is a conclusion reached
a priori and not through an inference from experience. Descartes held that some ideas (innate
ideas) come from God; others ideas are derived from sensory experience; and still others are
fictitious (or created by the imagination). Of these, the only ideas which are certainly valid,
according to Descartes, are those which are innate.
René Descartes with his strong Christian convictions
He posited that although humans attain knowledge through ideas rather than sensory
perceptions, those ideas exist only in God, so that when we access them intellectually, we
apprehend objective truth
The Meditations are best understood as a series of cognitive exercises that train the meditator
to discover truths about the world by the use of pure intellect, independent of the senses.
He claims that a finite being could not create the innate idea of an infinite being, thus the infinite
being, God, must exist and perfect thing(God) can create perfect things(nature etc) ,finite
substance or imperfect thing/substance(human being) can only create imperfect things

::Benedict spinoza::
Now, here’s a quote from a biographer of Spinoza, a man named Colerus – who wrote the
following just a generation after the Great Philosopher lived:

“He also often took his magnifying glass, observing through this the smallest mosquitoes and
flies, at the same time reasoning about them. He knew, however, that things cannot be seen as
they are in themselves. The eternal properties and laws of things and processes can only be
discovered by deduction from common notions and evident axioms. ‘The eyes of the mind, by
which it sees and observes the things, are the demonstrations.'

Philosophy

Spinoza is perhaps the most radical of the early modern rationalists. Like Descartes and
Leibniz, he held that reason is capable of giving us knowledge of the nature of reality in a way
that the senses and imagination are not. Yet Spinoza held that it is possible for the human mind
to know God's own essence, and that the use of reason reveals that the Bible is man written
constitution for the state.

Descartes states in the Principles of Philosophy that attributes are the essence of a thing, so the
essence of mind is thought or thinking, and the essence of body is to be extended
If the cause through which one conceives something allows for the deduction of all possible
effects, then the cause is an adequate one, and there is no need to fear a false hypothesis
The one work that Spinoza published under his own name in his lifetime was his geometrical
reworking of Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy
Spinoza puts a strong emphasis on the hypothetical nature of the explanations of natural
phenomena
In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza describes forming the concept of a
sphere by affirming the rotation of a semicircle in thought. He points out that this idea is a true
idea of a sphere even if no sphere has ever been produced this way in nature
Spinoza’s view of hypotheses relates to his conception of good definitions
If the cause through which one conceives something allows for the deduction of all possible
effects, then the cause is an adequate one, and there is no need to fear a false hypothesis.
Spinoza, like Descartes, emphasized the importance of discovering proper principles from which
to deduce knowledge of everything else, he was no less aware than Descartes of the need to
proceed via observation and experiment in descending from such principles to particulars.
Karl Popper

Popper's philosophy of science represents a radical departure

from almost all other views about knowledge
The
view that knowledge has and needs no foundations is counterintuitive
But Popper's fallibilism is in fact a far cry from anti-
realism.

3 contribution of Karl Popper:

ItispossibletoidentifythreeimportantconnectedstrandsofthoughtinPopper'sphilosophy:(a)thesoluti
onoftheproblemofinduction,(b)theproblemofdemarcatingsciencefromnon-science,(c)theimportan
ceofmaximizingcriticismandmaintaininga"criticalattitude"asessentialforrationalityandvitalforthegro
wthofknowledge

In the following discussion, I wish to suggest that Popper develops his theory of
knowledge based upon, and within the perimeter of, his fallibilist conviction. This is true,
in fact, if we are aware of his adherence to this conviction whenever he talks about
knowledge where he maintains, for example, that ‘we are always or almost always capable
of error and that we therefore know nothing or only very little (in the classical sense
‘knowledge’)’ (ISBW, 33). This awareness of human fallibility, in its turns, led Popper to
devise an epistemological principle that emphasised the discovery of mistakes and the
importance of learning from mistakes. At this point of fact, Popper writes:
We can learn from our mistakes (even in science). This fundamental insight is,
indeed, the basis of all epistemology and methodology; for it gives us a hint how to
learn more systematically,
By plucking such phrases from two of his works, it is possible to suggest that
Popper regards mistakes as absolute in the growth of scientific knowledge, and thus, in a
logical sense, it makes him reject the idea of philosophical absolutism which combined
with a dogmatic and authoritarian claim to possess the truth, or a criterion of truth and
hence claims the mantle of infallibility. As oppose to the idea of philosophical absolutism,
Popper advocates the idea of fallibilistic absolutism, where he says:
Merely asserts that our mistakes, at least, are absolute mistakes, in the sense that if a
theory deviates from the truth, it is simply false, even if the mistake made was less
glaring than that in another theory. Thus the notions of truth, and of falling short of
the truth, can represent absolute standards for the fallibilist.
As he advocates the idea of fallibilism, Popper has been accused of being a sceptic and of
encouraging relativism. But, to these accusations, Popper retorts that he is neither a sceptic
nor a relativist. For being a fallibilist does not necessarily turn him into a sceptic since, as
we have already seen, he admits the fact that knowledge can grow, and that science can
progress just because we can learn from our mistakes. Furthermore, he is far from a sceptic
as he asserts that he is never interested in doubt and uncertainty, since he regards these as
subjective states and because he gives up as superfluous the search for subjective certainty
(ISBW, 7). This is based on the fact that subjective knowledge is not opened to objective
criticism (RMC, 1028), while the growth of knowledge, as we have seen earlier, is based on
criticism and refutation. And so far as the accusation of instigating relativism is concerned,
Popper retorts by saying the fact that we can make mistakes entails that the truth exists.
Although he admits the statement, ‘I may be wrong and you may be right’ (OS II, 225), this
is not, however, tantamount to the banal relativism which holds that each point of view is
equally true within its specific frame of reference (ISBW, 150). And Popper goes on to
write:
nothing is more vital than to be able to view our own ideas critically; without
however becoming relativists or sceptics, and without losing the courage and the
determination to fight for our convictions, even though we realize that these
convictions should always be open to correction, and that only through correcting
them may we free ourselves from error, thus making it possible for us to grow in
knowledge
@@@@Now, with the fallibilist epistemological principle in mind, Popper turns his task to
develop
fallibilism into a theory of knowledge which he designates as falsificationism which holds
the idea of falsifying various theories which claim certain knowledge. This theory is
construed as a rejection of the other competing theories of knowledge called:
verificationism or justificationism; and irrationalism or scepticism (i.e. the disappointed
verificationism). Now, it seems imperative to contrast between falsificationism or
fallibilism with the other theories as to understand to what extent they differ with each
other and what makes Popper rejects them.
The verificationists or justificationists believe that if a theory cannot be supported
by positive reasons it should not be believed, or even to be seriously considered. But, on the
contrary, the falsificationists or fallibilists hold that:
What cannot (at present) in principle be overthrown by criticism is (at present)
unworthy of being seriously considered; while what can in principle be so
overthrown and yet resists all our critical efforts to do so may quite possibly be
false, but is at any rate not unworthy of being seriously considered and perhaps
even of being believed—though only tentatively.@@@@@@
Given this fact, fallibilists hold that science has nothing to do with the quest for certainty
or probability or reliability. Contrary to the verificationists, they are not interested in
establishing scientific theories as secure, or certain or probable. To err is human. And all
human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain. But, conscious of human fallibility,
they are only interested in criticising them and testing them, hoping to find out where we
are mistaken, and learning from our mistakes, and thus proceeding to better theories.
@@@ For, according to Popper, anything can be the sources of human knowledge,
but none has authority (CR, 32), and that we cannot justify scientific theories with a priori
reason because it is fallible, and we cannot justify them with sense experience because it is
fallible as well.@@@

Popper proposed a "solution" to the problem of induction by arguing that there is no need for
induction in the scientific method. The method of science is to propose conjectural theories
which are then submitted to rigorous tests in the attempt to falsify them. Theories which fail
these tests are to be rejected. Theories which survive attempts to refute them may be accepted
tentatively, but are not proven to be true. At best, they may be highly corroborated. This
"falsificationist" philosophy of science has a more general application beyond the method of the
sciences. The attempt to falsify a theory is an attempt to criticize the theory. For Popper,
criticism lies at the heart of rational thought, which he took to consist in the method of critical
discussion and reflection
 The resulting general position is known as "critical rationalism". Popper extended these ideas
as well into the social and political realm. He introduced the distinction between open and
closed societies. Open societies welcome and foster critical discussion and change whereas
closed societies, which are usually tribal societies, are based on unchanging social custom and
ritual

Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a
scientific theory, but a single counterexample is logically decisive; it shows the theory, from
which the implication is derived, to be false. To say that a given statement (e.g., the statement
of a law of some scientific theory)—call it "T"—is "falsifiable" does not mean that "T" is false.
Rather, it means that, if "T" is false, then (in principle), "T" could be shown to be false, by
observation or by experiment.
For rationality, falsification etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

Descartes deduction

The method developed by Descartes was based on the following rules (1, p. 12):

- The first rule was never to accept anything as true unless I recognized it to be evidently such:
that is, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudgment, and to include nothing in my
conclusions unless it presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that there was no
occasion to doubt it.

- The second was to divide each of the difficulties which I encountered into as many parts as
possible, and as might be required for an easier solution.

- The third was to think in an orderly fashion, beginning with the things which were simplest and
easiest to understand, and gradually and by degrees reaching toward more complex
knowledge, even treating as though ordered materials which were not necessarily so.

- The last was always to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I would
be certain that nothing was omitted.

@@@@The simplest way that we can compare inductive and deductive reasoning is to look at
deductivereasoning as "top down," where we start with a generalization and it leads us to a
specificinstance - that the conclusion is very specific. Whereas inductive reasoning is bottom
up.@@@

His basic approach to all areas of study rested on a skeptical predisposition to doubt everything
except “self-evident” truths. He was not a skeptic, however; his doubt was a suspension of
judgment, not a denial of judgment

Logic::
The moral philosophy of Rene Descartes is based primarily on his method of logic. He had four
basic precepts which he employed:1) Accept nothing as true which is not clearly and
recognizably so.2) Divide complex problems into as many simpler parts as
possible in order to judge the truth or falsehood of each part.3) Deduce from those few truths
the implications that follow in an orderly and logical fashion, moving from the simple to the more
complex.4) Finally, keep records that are accurate and review the logical order carefully so that
the accuracy of the result will be unquestionable.
This logical process must begin with self-evident truths, premises which cannot be denied. The
mental operation by which these truths are established is referred to by Descartes as “intuition.”
Descartes defines intuitions as innate ideas

The careful application of the mind’s intuitive knowledge followed by steps two, three, and four
will enable one to seek and find truth.

. Everything must be looked upon with doubt, at first, in order to make the operations of intuition
possible. When one doubts everything in the universe, no matter how obviously true it may
seem, the only reality which is accepted initially is the reality of the act of doubting. Doubting,
reasons Descartes, implies a doubter, an entity which is giving the act existence. Since he
defines doubting and all other mental processes as “thinking,” he accepts as his initial and
guiding self-evident truth, “Cogito Ergo Sum”—I think, therefore, I am.

This concept gives his entire philosophy its justification. He proves, not only his own existence,
but the existence of God, and in turn uses the existence of God to prove the reality of the
material world. Of three basic proofs for the existence of God, one deals with innate ideas. He
claims that a finite being could not create the innate idea of an infinite being, thus the infinite
being, God, must exist. “I should not, however,

Aristotle's logic

Aristotle’s principal logical investigations concerned relations between sentences which make
statements. Which of them are consistent or inconsistent with each other? When we have one
or more true statements, what further truths can be inferred from them by reasoning alone?
These questions are answered in his Prior Analytics. Unlike Plato, Aristotle does not take a
simple noun–verb sentence such as ‘Theaetetus is sitting’ as the basic element of logical
structure. He is much more interested in classifying sentences beginning with ‘all’ ‘no’ and
‘some’, and evaluating inferences between them. Consider the following two inference

Syllogism - A formal argument, chiefly in deductive reasoning, couched in rigid form, and
observing rules that insure the validity of the conclusion. A typical syllogism
consists of three statements, as follows:a) Major premise: All cows are females.b) Minor
premise: Bessie is a cow.c) Conclusion: Bessie is a female

2. The conditional syllogism is so called because its initial premise is introduced by an “if’
clause—a conditional clause. This “if’ clause (called the antecedent) is followed by a “then”
clause (called the consequent):If he goes to the game, then he cannot study.(antecedent)
(consequent)
The alternative syllogism offers in its major premise an alternative in the “either-or” form: “Either
we eat, or we starve.” One of the alternatives must be true: therefore, if we show that one of
them is false, we prove that the other is true. A valid argument reads:Either we eat, or we
starve.We do not starve.Therefore, we eat.

The disjunctive syllogism has a major premise in the “not both ...and ...’’form: “Men are not both
dishonest and happy.” One of the two conditions must be false; therefore, if we show that one of
them is true, we show that the other must be false. A valid argument reads:We cannot both eat
our cake and have it.We have eaten our cake.Therefore, we cannot have it.The major premise
is disjunctive.

All Greeks are Europeans

Some Greeks are male
Therefore, some Europeans are male.

Aristotle devoted much attention to inferences displaying this feature, which are nowadays
called ‘syllogisms’ after the Greek word which he used for them. The branch of logic which
studies the validity of inferences of this kind, which was initiated by Aristotle, is called
‘syllogistic’.

Deductive-argument gives logical support to its conclusion

 Arguments based upon laws, rules, or other widely accepted principles are best expressed
deductively.
 The conclusion of deductive method is certain.
 Deductive reasoning starts mostly in JST schools in Mathematics & reasoning unlike PST.

Deductive reasoning/logic/deduction informally “top down” logic, is the process of reasoning

from one or more statements (premisises) to reach a logically certain conclusion.
Example:
All men are mortal (that cant live forever)
Ali is a man
Therefore, Ali is mortal

inferences with two premises, each of which is a categorical sentence, having exactly one term
in common, and having as conclusion a categorical sentence the terms of which are just those
two terms not shared by the premises. Aristotle calls the term shared by the premises the
middle term (meson) and each of the other two terms in the premises an extreme (akron)

Socratic methods

What Is the Socratic Method?

The Socratic method is named after Greek philosopher Socrates who taught students by asking
question after question. Socrates sought to expose contradictions in the students’ thoughts and
ideas to then guide them to solid, tenable conclusions. The method is still popular in legal
classrooms today.
How Does It Work?

The principle underlying the Socratic method is that students learn through the use of critical
thinking, reasoning, and logic. This technique involves finding holes in their own theories and
then patching them up
The Socratic method is a different style of education than a lecture. This approach involves a
conversation in which a student is asked to question their assumptions. It is a forum for
open-ended inquiry, one in which both student and teacher can use probing questions to
develop a deeper understanding of the topic

Socrates (470-399 BC) was a Greek philosopher who sought to get to the foundations of his
students' and colleagues' views by asking continual questions until a contradiction was exposed,
thus proving the fallacy of the initial assumption

Socrates style of conversation involved his own denial of knowledge (Socratic irony)
Socrates encouraged in us to evaluate cases critically as critism is linchpin to research and
development.

. In the Socratic dialogues, Socrates only wants short answers that address very specific points
and refuses to move on to more advanced or complicated topics until an adequate
understanding of basic principles is achieved

The modern style is not deconstructive, but constructive. This is the most widely used style
today because it is the easiest to employ. It is much easier to lead a person, by baby steps, to
specific knowledge through a series of questions than it is to force a person to abandon a
cherished idea and rethink an important or controversial issue just by asking creative questions.
The Modern Socratic method is not called modern because it was invented recently, but
because it is the most popular usage in modern times. The Modern Socratic method has
historical precedent in the dialogues of Plato. The most famous example is the geometry
experiment with the slave boy in a dialogue called Meno. The Modern Socratic method is
discussed below and is referred to as 'The Constructive Agenda' style of the Socratic method.

The Deconstructive Phase

The purpose of the first phase of the Classic Socratic method is that it prepares people to think.
The only people who are incapable of thinking about an issue are those who are already
convinced they have “the” understanding of an issue. There are no “Socratic teachings”, but
there is a Socratic goal. The goal inherent in any method of questioning worthy of the name
“Socratic” is the improvement of a human being through increased understanding. The first
phase of the Classic Socratic method deconstructs people’s previous understanding using their
own words and leaves them with the experience of being less sure of what they previously knew
with greater certainty. This is its value

But this methods of deconstruction helps us to do away with fallacious knowledge etc.

The Constructive Phase

When a person who has been exposed to Socratic questioning admits to themselves that an
idea they held was wrong or inadequate in some way, that person is freed from the constraints
of previous understanding and has been brought to a place within themselves which brings to
life new ideas and understandings. This bringing to birth of new ideas is the constructive second
phase of the two-phase freestyle of the Classic Socratic method.

The Cyclic Structure of Phases

There is a division of labor in the Classic Socratic method between the Socratic questioner and
the respondent. This division of labor can be described within the framework of the two phases.
The first phase (deconstructive) is primarily the work of the Socratic questioner. The second
phase (constructive) is entirely the work of the respondent(student client etc)

(Es ma teacher student say kisi cheez ki definition etc pouchyga aur pher student ko pattern
wise question kryga at the end student realise kryga Jo definition ma na btai the wo ghlt ha, a
self-contradiction style)

Bacon's inductive method:

Baconian Method (inductive)

Experimentalism is the method of induction by observation and experiment that seeks to

establish general principles that constitute new learning. Experimental investigations
themselves predate Bacons investigative method,
Bacon proposed a skeptical, or Socratic, examination of nature itself. Just as Socrates had used
the skeptical method to examine the thought of his interlocutors(a person taking part in
conversation)
Bacon suggested that we conduct a Socratic examination of nature. The new method asks us to
find discrepancies in the appearances of things, and use these discrepancies to sift out the
reality behind the conflicting appearances. Investigating them critically, in the manner of
Socrates, we find the true principles. [T]he induction which is to be available for the discovery
and demonstration of the sciences and arts, must analyze nature by proper rejections and
exclusions; and then, after a sufficient number of negatives, come to a conclusion on the
affirmative instanceswhich has not yet been done or even attempted, save only by Plato, who
does indeed employ this form of induction to a certain extent for the purpose of discussing
definitions and ideas
Bacons main addition to the method of skeptical inquiry directed at interrogating nature is to
suggest that we do not try to solve each riddle or discrepancy one by one, leaping to the highest
level of generality from it, but rather to postpone the search. We first make a careful collection
of discrepancies in the appearance of things. This is the help his method suggests for our
understanding. Once we decipher the source of the emanation of all the discrepancies at once,
we have a true insight into the thing itself.

Bacon proposed his own experimental method, prior to Descartes, with a different response to
the problem of the deception of the senses. In this method, we use skepticism as a tool in the
investigation of nature. We cast off all preconceptions about what is taken to be real, and
attend merely to what appears to be the case. But in doing so we pay particular attention to
discrepancies in what appears to be the case. Then we make a whole list of as many such
discrepancies as we can find. If we find the source of all these discrepancies, then we have the
hidden and formative nature of the thing to be investigated.
 Is investigative scientific inductive method by Sir Franics Bacon; based upon collection of
facts, observation, ordering to categorize & analyses.
 His method was put forward in his Book “Organum 1620” was supposed to replace organon
method of Aristotle.

 Example: His method suggested that a scientist start with specific information about what
they wished to study and use experiments to find more general theories and data.

Criticism
 His method was rejected hypothesis & lacked explanatory power as compare to the
deductive scientific method in current world. Even Aristotle’s power of observations were flawed.

John Stuart methods of induction::

The Method of Agreement
If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in
common, the
circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or eåect) of the given
phenomenon (p. 390). Mill used the phrase `cause (or eå ect)’ not out of any uncertainty as to
which would
be which, but because the Method was meant to be used both for experiment (in
which one is trying to ascertain the eå ect) and observation (in which one is trying
to ascertain the cause). To give an example :
if we can observe a in two diåerent combinations, a b c and a d e; and if we know, or can
discover,
that the antecedent circumstances in these cases respectively were A B C and A D E; we may
conclude¼that A is the antecedent connected with the consequent a by a law of causation
(p. 389).
The Method of Diåerence (also called the Direct Method of Diåerence)
If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs, and an instance in which it
does not occur, have every circumstance in common save one, that occurring only in the former,
the circumstance in which alone
the two instances diåer, is the eåect, or the cause, or a necessary part of the cause of the
phenomenon (p. 391). This is diå erent from the covariation principle because it involves only
two instances,
as Mill repeatedly emphasized. `If the eå ect of A B C is a b c, and the eå ect of B C
is b c, it is evident that the eå ect of A is a ’ (p. 391). This refers to a hypothetical
experiment, but the same inference can be made by observation if there are two
instances, one of a b c and one of b c, and it can be ascertained that A B C held in the
former and B C (i.e. ® A) in the latter. Not just any two instances will do: a causal
inference is only possible if the two instances have exactly the properties described
in the de®nition of the Method.
As an example, `when a man is shot through the heart, it is by this method [i.e.
the Method of Diå erence] we know that it was the gunshot which killed him: for he
was in the fulness of life immediately before, all circumstances being the same, except
the wound’ (p. 391). This illustrates the kind of case Mill had in mind for the Method
of Diå erence : a single occasion on which a single change occurs, with a comparison
being made before and after the change. This is not the conceptual foundation of the
covariation principle, the use of which involves observations taken on multiple
diå erent occasions and involving any number of occurrences and non-occurrences.
Cheng (1993) attempted to apply probabilistic contrast reasoning to a single instance.
In imagining one billiard ball striking another and making it move, it is possible to
break down this single event into a series of time units. It will then be found that
there is one time unit in which the ®rst ball contacts the second and the second starts
to move, and several in which the ®rst ball does not contact the second and the
second does not start to move. This enables one to compute an association between
contact and the start of the second ball’s motion. As the example shows, however,
this analysis requires several observations (time units) within the one instance, so
here too the resemblance to the Method of Diå erence is not exact.
The Indirect Method of Diåerence, or the Joint Method of Agreement and Diåerence Under
many circumstances it is not possible to obtain the two precise instances
needed for the use of the Method of Diå erence. For such circumstances Mill
proposed the Indirect Method of Diå erence.
If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs have only one circumstance in
common, while two or more instances in which it does not occur have nothing in common save
the absence of that circumstance ; the
circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances diåer, is the eåect, or the cause, or a
necessary part of
the cause, of the phenomenon (p. 396). This method stipulates two independent requirements,
both in essence applications
of the Method of Agreement. The second requirement is an employment of the
Method of Agreement on absences of the circumstance in question. As an example,
if there are two instances, one of a not occurring and b and c occurring, and another
of a not occurring and d and e occurring, and it can be ascertained that A was absent
from the former and B and C were present, and that A was absent from the latter and
D and E present, then the second requirement has been met. That requirement is not
su¬ cient on its own: the ®rst requirement is also needed, the Method of Agreement
on occurrences of a in the presence of A. When both are met, then it can be inferred
that A is the cause of a by an inferential principle similar to that embodied in the
Method of Diå erence. That is, the instances in which a occurs diå er from the
instances in which a does not occur by the presence of A in one and its absence from
the other. From this diå erence a causal connection between A and a is inferred.
The Method of Diå erence requires two instances only, those instances identical in
every particular except one. The Joint Method of Agreement and Diå erence is
intended to broaden the applicability of the inferential principle of the Method of
Diå erence and employs it on sets of instances that may diå er in many particulars: hence the
need for more than two of them, and for preliminary selection using the
Method of Agreement.
The Indirect Method of Diå erence is not the covariation principle. One reason for
this is that it makes no explicit reference to covariation, and indeed does not involve
assessment of covariation. There is simply a comparison between two sets of
instances possessing de®ned attributes. More importantly, the Method only identi®es
a subset of perfect covariates of eå ects as causes. In other words, it identi®es nothing
other than perfect covariates as causes and does not identify all perfect covariates as
causes. Taking the former ®rst, it will not identify A as a cause of a if there is any
instance in which a occurs and A is absent, or any in which a does not occur and A
is present, no matter how strong the covariation between A and a across the whole
set of instances. As for the latter, the Method cannot be used if there is only one
instance in which a occurs and A is present, or if there is only one instance in which
a does not occur and A is absent. A and a could still be perfect covariates under either
circumstance, and A could still be identi®ed as the cause of a by the covariation
principle. For example, if there is one instance of a occurring and A being present,
and there are nine of a not occurring and A being absent, A and a would covary
perfectly and use of the covariation principle would lead to A being identi®ed as the
cause of a. But the Indirect Method of Diå erence could not be applied in this case
because Mill stipulated that there must be at least two instances of a occurring and
A being present. The same can be said of instances where a does not occur and A is
absent: if there were nine instances of a occurring and A being present and one of a not
occurring and A being absent, the Indirect Method of Diå erence could not be
applied, even though A and a were perfect covariates.
In summary, there is some resemblance between the Indirect Method of Diå erence
and the covariation principle, but the two operate in diå erent ways and the former
is of more limited applicability.$
The Method of Residues
Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the eåect of
certain
antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the eåect of the remaining antecedents (p.
398).
Thus, if the antecedents A B C are followed by a b c, and one has ascertained that A
is the cause of a and B is the cause of b, then by subtracting those the conclusion
arrived at is that C is the cause of c. This was described by Mill as a form of the
Method of Diå erence. It can only lay claim to validity if one can be sure that C is the
only condition that remains once A and B have been subtracted, and Mill admitted
that this was impossible in practice. Even so, he claimed, `the Method of Residues
is one of the most important among our instruments of discovery’ (p. 398).
The Method of Concomitant Variations
The ®nal set of cases considered by Mill is the set of `Permanent Causes or
indestructible natural agents, which it is impossible either to exclude or to isolate’ (p.
398). Obviously the Method of Diå erence cannot be employed if there is no instance
from which the actual cause of the eå ect is absent, and the Method of Agreement
cannot be used if there is no instance in which the actual causes cannot be isolated
from other non-causal factors. It may appear that if the actual cause cannot be
excluded then the eå ect of that cause should always occur, but one case under which
this is not so is that in which the actual cause is a continuous variable. This is the case
for which the Method of Concomitant Variations was devised: it is to be used for
possible causes that either can be modi®ed in experiment or undergo natural change
that can be observed. As Mill put it:
If some modi®cation in the antecedent A is always followed by a change in the consequent a,
the
other components b and c remaining the same; or¼if every change in a is found to have been
preceded by some modi®cation in A, none being observable in any of the other antecedents;
we may safely conclude that a is, wholly or in part, an eåect traceable to A, or at least in some
way
connected with it through causation (p. 400).
The Method is de®ned more precisely as follows: `Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner
whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an
eåect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation ’ (p. 401). This
quotation and the previous one give away the fact that this Method is not yet the
®nished article. Not all concomitant variations validly indicate causal relations. One
problem for this Method, as for all methods based on ideas of contingency or
covariation, is that of distinguishing genuine from spurious causal relations. To
borrow Cheng’s(1997) example, among mothers of young infants absent-mindedness
may vary concomitantly with two antecedents, breast-feeding and sleep deprivation.
A valid method of causal inference must be able to distinguish the antecedent that
is the genuine cause from the one that is spurious, and Mill’s Method of Concomitant
Variations fails to do that.

wemustnarrowandencloseourfieldinordertocaptureourprey.Themethodofinductionmustincludeate
chniquefortheclassificationofdataandtheeliminationofhypotheses;sothatbytheprogressivecanceli
ngofpossibleexplanationsoneonlyshallatlastremain

Definition, scope and relevance of philosophy.

From the ancient time, the common tendency of man is to attempt to know the unknown and to
explain his surroundings. And philosophy has given him a rational way to think about his
problems. Actually, philosophy is such a knowledge which has a close or loose relation with
almost all of the prevailing branches of knowledge
Philosophy is basically love of wisdom.
Literally, philosophy is “the study of nature and meaning of the universe and of human life.
The origin of “Philosophy” is from two Greek words – ‘Philos’ meaning love and ‘Sofia’ meaning
knowledge or wisdom Philosophy means "love of wisdom." The word was first coined by
Pythagoras

. So, the total meaning is the love for knowledge or love for wisdom
Philosophy is the science of sciences”. (Comte)
Philosophy is the sum total of all scientific knowledge”. (Dr. Paulsen)
In fact philosophy deals with all the branches of thought. Yet we can consider the following facts
–

Dealing with God is a significant concern of philosophy. It tries to find out the possibility of the
existence of God, nature of God, method of activities of God

The prime concern of philosophy is life. Nothing in the universe is beyond life and nothing in life
is beyond philosophy. Moreover, philosophy is the criticism and interpretation of life. It enquires
into the nature, meaning, purpose, origin and destiny of human life

The chief instrument of philosophy is logic. Being logical, it does not want to believe anything
without logic. Its method is rational speculation – logical analysis and synthesis

Because of its dealing with scientific method, everything of philosophy is methodical based on
science.
· Philosophy has a close affinity with psychology. It takes efforts to disclose the functions of
psychology.

Philosophy also deals with animal and plant life.

· Philosophy also deals with science. It tries to find out the origin of science, possibility of
changing the methods of science.

Philosophy harmonizes the highest conclusions of the different sciences, co-ordinates them one
another, and gives a rational conception of the whole world

Nature of philosophy::
Wisdom is a matter not of knowledge but of understanding and insight. It is achieved by
enquiring into the why of things rather than into their how or what. Such enquiries lead
philosophy to ask questions that are more basic and fundamental than those asked by science:
not "what is the cause of X?" but "Is it the case that everything has a cause?" Unlike religion,
philosophy wants to understand why things are the way they are and not simply to accept on
faith that they must be so. Philosophy may in part be defined as an attempt, by way of reason
alone, to gain an understanding of our nature and the nature of the world we live in.

This doesn't mean that each branch of philosophy is entirely autonomous -- there is often much
overlap between some fields, in fact. For example, political and legal philosophy often cross with
ethics and morality
Aesthetics

This is the study of beauty and taste, whether in the form of the comic, the tragic, or the
sublime. The word comes from the Greek aisthetikos, "of sense perception." Aesthetics has
traditionally been part of other philosophical fields like epistemology or ethics but it started to
come into its own and become a more independent field under Immanuel Kant.

Epistemology

Epistemology is the study of the grounds and nature of knowledge itself. Epistemological
studies usually focus on our means for acquiring knowledge; thus modern epistemology
generally involves a debate between rationalism and empiricism, or the question of whether
knowledge can be acquired a priori or a posteriori.
Ethics

Ethics is the formal study of moral standards and conduct and is also often called "moral
philosophy." What is good? What is evil?

Logic and the Philosophy of Language

These two fields are often treated separately, but they are close enough that they are presented
together here. Logic is the study of methods of reasoning and argumentation, both proper and
improper. The philosophy of Language involves the study of how our language interacts with our
thinking.
Metaphysics

In Western philosophy, this field has become the study of the fundamental nature of all reality -
what is it, why is it, and how are we to understand it. Some only regard metaphysics as the
study of "higher" reality or the "invisible" nature behind everything, but that isn't actually true. It
is, instead, the study of all of reality, visible and invisible.
Philosophy of Education

This field deals with how children should be educated, what they should be educated in, and
what the ultimate purpose of education
it is a part of pedagogy, which is learning how to teach
Philosophy of History

The Philosophy of History is a relatively minor branch in the field of philosophy, focusing on the
study of history, writing about history, how history progresses, and what impact history has upon
the present day

Philosophy of Mind

The relatively recent specialty known as Philosophy of Mind deals with the consciousness and
how it interacts with the body and the outside world. It asks not only what mental phenomena
are and what gives rise to them, but also what relationship they have to the larger physical body
and the world around

Philosophy of Religion

but the primary difference is that theology tends to be apologetical in nature, committed to the
defense of particular religious positions, whereas Philosophy of Religion is committed to the
investigation of religion itself rather than the truth of any particular religion
Philosophy of Science

This is concerned with how science operates, what the goals of science should be, what
relationship science should have with society,

Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics,
liberty, justice and the enforcement of a legal code by authority. It is Ethics applied to a group of
people, and discusses how a society should be set up and how one should act within a society.

Philosophy of law::

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's
relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks
questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal validity?", and "What is the
relationship between law and morality

Ontology::
Ontology & Metaphysics
Have you ever wondered what it means to exist, or what existence actually means?
Complicated questions like those are part of a branch of philosophy known as ontology.
Ontology, at its simplest, is the study of existence. But it is much more than that, too. Ontology
is also the study of how we determine if things exist or not, as well as the classification of
existence.

It attempts to take things that are abstract and establish that they are, in fact, real. Ontology is a
part of metaphysics, a branch of philosophy that looks at the very nature of things, their being,
cause, or identity
Ontology as a Philosophy

Aristotle distinguishes between two ideas in his work entitled Metaphysics. First, he says, there
is general metaphysics, or the study of beings as they exist. The second part of Aristotle's idea
deals with special metaphysics, which he assigns to the study of specific ideas, such as the
existence of the soul. The difference between the two ideas is really confusing, especially when
you consider the fact that Aristotle's general metaphysics is what we call ontology today

When Plato, Aristotle's teacher, created his ontological argument, he called it the theory of
Forms. Essentially, the Form (capital F) of something was its essence, whereas, the form
(lowercase f) was the actual physical representation. He used this idea to separate man's soul
from his body, and explain the idea of the soul in a quantifiable way. Plato's Dualism
or the mind-body problem, also explored existence as an ontological question. Basically, he
argued, that the body was a physical thing, something we can observe
. Did someone try to tell you that you weren't that hurt because you weren't bleeding? This
person could see your body, but not the inside of your mind. According to Plato, the ontological
question here is how could the mind, which can't be seen, relate to the body, which can
In the 17th century, German philosopher Jacob Lorhard officially coined the term ontology
Ontology is the branch of metaphysics which examines the nature and categories of existence.
It asks questions like “What is the difference between really existing and only appearing to
exist?”, “Does the external world really exist
: What is existence? and What is the nature of existence? When we ask deep questions about
"what is the nature of the universe?" or "Is there a god?" or "What happens to us when we die?"
or "What principles govern the properties of matter?" we are asking inherently ontological
questions.

How philosophy relates to science

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-relationship-between-science-and-philosophy

Also difference between Renaissance and enlightenment. And how can we relate it to most of
the questions
http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-rena
issance-world-view-and-enlightenment-world-view/