Descartes:

Rationalist: knowledge comes from reason, from the mind, a priori.

The criteria for truth is certainty
 Good sense is something that all people have equally.
 The difference between people’s opinion comes from using different
methods to direct their thoughts.
 It is not enough to have a right mind you must also know how to use it
right.
So according to Descartes it is not the lack of ability that disables people
from following the right path but their failure to use a correct method.

 The use of a right method can elevate the average mind above the rest.

 Descartes believes that book learning has clouded his mind and that

 He observed that the work done by individuals is superior to the work done
by groups because the work of individuals follows one plan with all its
elements directed towards the same end.

 Descartes studies logic which is based on syllogism and it lead him to the
conclusion that Logic is a good way to communicate or explain to others
something that they already know but it is not useful to build new
knowledge.

 All this lead him to create a set of rules, a method, which is effective to
solve problems that he used to find difficult:

1) Certainty: never believe anything unless he can prove it absolutely

certain
2) Analysis: reduce the problem to its simplest parts
3) Synthesis: proceed in order from the simplest to the most complex
4) Comprehension: when solving a problem create a long chain of
reasoning and leave nothing out.
Descartes wants to reach what is clear and distinct not what is unclear and
obscure.
 He starts talking about doubt and that since the criteria for truth is
certainty, to make sure that we reach this certainty, everything we learn
can be doubted, even the things that we get from our senses.
 Since even what we get from the senses can be doubted, this lead him to
believe that knowledge comes from the mind not from the senses
 He said that at any moment he could be dreaming or his sense could be
deceived so he cannot trust them to form knowledge

 he also came to the conclusion that even if there is a deceiver, he will not
be able to deceive one thing that he called “the notion of residue”

1) I think therefor I am
2) I am a thing which thinks (doubts, understands, conceives, affirms,
denies, feels, imagines….)

 Cartesian doubt: anything that is capable of being doubted at all must be

rejected, what is left is the certain foundations upon which to build our
knowledge
 Cartesian dualism: the mind and the body are two separated things. For
descartes the human is the only dualistic creature. (what happens if we find
out that an animal is not a thinking thing? = it is just a body so just a
machine, they can’t think, they do not have a soul)
Thinking thing/ extended thing  soul/ body

 Man’s mind is whole and invisible whereas his body can be changed (hair or
nail cut, loss of organ, limb…) but the soul can’t and won’t be changed
Example of the wax: the wax before being melted has its particular shape
and odor and although after melting it the smell, color… will change, by our
reason we still know that it is a piece of wax because our reason know its
nature.
 So senses can change, we cannot rely on them, that is why knowledge is
derived from reason.
 Knowledge occurs in the mind, it can appear as confused but it will become
clear and distinct when the mind decides to pay attention to the details and
examine things carefully.
Locke:
Empiricist: knowledge comes from experience, from the senses (a posteriori).
 Locke believes that we don’t have any innate principles, for him human can
reach all knowledge without any innate principles only using the senses.
 Locke said we are all borne without innate ideas ‘tabula rasa’ = when we
are borne we are blank and the only way to fill this blank is from
experience.
 Universal consent: there are principles that are agreed upon by all humans
(so it supports the existence of innate ideas).
Locke denies the existence of this universal consent, he does not believe
that there are principles that are universally agreed upon nor smthg that
the entire mankind agrees on.

 Example of children and idiots: they do not have innate principles.

 For Locke, you can’t have a notion imprinted in your mind and not have an
understanding of. If the notion is innate, it can’t be unknown.
 There are 2 principles that Locke believes are the basis for scientific
knowledge:
1) Principle of identity: whatever is, is
2) Principle of non-contradiction: it is impossible for the same thing to
be and not to be.

 All this lead to conclude that there are 2 sources for knowledge (2 sources
of ideas):

1) Sensation: input from the physical world that we receive from the
senses. Observation of external material things
2) Perception: (or reflection) process by which the brain selects,
organizes and interpret the sensations. Operation of our mind
Sensation perception/ reflection understanding
 Knowledge happens when experience furnishes the understanding with
ideas.
 If the sensation and the perception don’t furnish the object to the
understanding we will not have an impression of it.

 The moment a person starts to have ideas = the moment they begin to
perceive.

 For Locke thinking (perception of ideas) is for the soul what motion is for
the body, they have to exist together but it does not mean that it should be
happening all the time.

When we are sleeping we are not thinking, bcz we are not perceiving ideas,
and it is hard to think without being conscious of it. Yet it does not mean
that a sleeping person does not have a soul.

Although thinking is the proper action of the soul, it is not necessary that
the soul should always be thinking.

 Locke simple and complex ideas:

Senses provide simple ideas that are clear and distinct, so we create clear
and distinct perceptions of these ideas.
Simple ideas are the material of all knowledge and are furnished to the
mind only by the 2 ways (sensation and reflection)
Once these simple ideas are stored in the understanding, it has the power
to repeat, unite and compare them which will create the complex ideas
But one thing is sure, once these ideas reach the understanding they can
never be destroyed.
Hume:
He is an empiricist (knowledge comes a posteriori, from what we experience,
from the senses)
 What we feel is a lot stronger than the thought we have of that feeling
when we later remember it or anticipate it.
The memory and imagination can only copy or mimic what we perceive
from the senses, but it cannot create a perception that is as strong and
lively as what we originally perceived.

Memory and imagination can represent the object only vividly enough so
we can almost say we feel it.

 He divided the mind into 2 classes:

 Impression: what we feel, it is vivid and lively.
 Ideas: (=thought) less lively, it is what we reflect on, the memory or
imagination, of what we perceived from the impression.

 Objection: the mind is very powerful and can, through imagination,

perceive things that have not been perceived before.
Hume’s response: what the mind imagines all comes from what it has
already perceived from the senses, so it formed simple ideas and
mixed/combined these simple ideas forming complex ideas (objects of our
imagination).

 Hume gave 2 arguments about this:

1) He suggested that all our complex ideas come from simpler ideas
which are derived from simple impressions.
The idea of God as supremely good, intelligent…comes from taking
our simplest idea of goodness and intelligence.. and augmenting it
without limits.
 2) Our imagination is limited to the ideas that we already have, for
example a blind man cannot imagine colors, a deaf man cannot
imagine sounds, a kind person cannot form ideas of cruelty.

All our ideas (thoughts) are copies of our impressions.

Weak perceptions lively perceptions

 Hume did find one counter example which showed him that simple ideas
are not always derived from corresponding impressions, so it is not
absolutely impossible for an idea to occur without previous impression.
(example of shades and colors).

 Hume does NOT think that we don’t have innate ideas at all as Locke did,
for him what they meant by there is no innate ideas means that all our
ideas are copies of our impressions.
If innate = original, not copied from other perceptions.
Then, all our impressions = innate (because they are original not copies)
All our ideas = not innate (bcz they are copies)

Ideas
All ideas are naturally faint and obscure,
the mind has only a weak hold of them.
Ideas can be mixed with each others.
(simple ideas -> complex ideas)
We tend to assume that a given word is
associated with a determinate idea just
because we have used it so often, even if in
using it we have not had any distinct
meaning for it.
impressions
All our impression (outward and inward
sensations) are strong and vivid.
There is more fixed boundaries between
impressions, harder to mix them.
Harder to make mistakes about them

Locke: sensation + reflection = knowledge

Hume: impressions + ideas = knowledge
Kant:
Rationalism vs Empiricism
A priori A posteriori
Universal singular, particular

Intuition: faculty of how we receive things.

 At first, they assumed that all knowledge comes from the object (a
posteriori)
However, if that is the case then we cannot say that anything is a priori, I
cannot say that anything is universal, no science of physics.

 Kant suggested to do as Copernicus did and change the point of reference:

So instead of saying that knowledge must conform to the object,
He suggested saying that the object should conform to knowledge. (apriori)

So regarding the intuition of objects:

If intuition must conform to the nature of the object  not a priori
If the object must conform to the faculty of intuition  a priori Knowledge

 So intuition is necessary for the production of the object, it is not itself the
object, it is not the understanding, it is not the sense. It is the faculty to
read the object and send them to the understanding. Intuition is a priori.

 We have an operating system which is the understanding; our senses

receive data (from the eyes, hands, tongue…), we are able to receive this
data bcz our faculty of intuition (faculty of how to receive things).

Upon receiving the data the faculty of intuition produces intuitions

(intuitions are referred to as the transcendental object) that are transferred
to the understanding. In the understanding, our operating system, we have
 concepts which are the tools that allow us to make judgment, and allow us
to understand what our senses are sending us.

Senses  intuition  intuitions  understanding  concepts  judge 

object

A priori: understanding, concepts, faculty of intuition

A posteriori: intuitions. (bcz they are created by the faculty of intuition after
exposure to the thing).
 So according to Kant, for the object to occur we need both a priori and a
posteriori (rationalism and empiricism).
The object is not outside of us, it is inside of us formed in our mind.

How did Kant change the definition of experience?

For empiricists (like Locke) the object is outside of us and experience is what the
senses are giving me of those objects.
For Kant, what we get through our senses is not yet the experience, it has first to
be treated by the understanding and when it is done, we have experience.
So experience is made of the object and it is the fusion of the categories of
understanding (a priori) with the phenomena (what I receive from my senses,
what appears to us in the intuition) (a posteriori).

So experience is both a priori and a posteriori.

 Another thing that Kant noticed is that our faculty of knowledge is limited
to what we get from the experience (so what we receive from the senses),
and there is also a limit to what we know as objects of experience.
 The limit to our experience are the things themselves (there are things in
the world, we know they are present but what we know of them is only
what we get from experience).

 Phenomena: as we said are what we receive from the senses, so only the
phenomenal presence. We only know from the things what they are as
objects of knowledge. And this is the limit.

We are limited to what we get from the senses, we don’t know what the
thing in itself is exactly.
Noumena = limit, we cannot know the thing itself.