EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy which deals with the nature and scope of
knowledge. The word Epistemology is derived from Greek ἐπιστήμη - epistēmē, meaning
"knowledge, understanding", and λόγος - logos, meaning "study of"). It is also referred to
as "theory of knowledge". It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and
the extent to which any given subject or entity can be known. Much of the debate in this
field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected
notions such as truth, belief, and justificationi.

The pre-Socratic philosophers had not put much interest on studying knowledge but they
were more interested in the nature and possibility of change however they took for
granted that knowledge of reality was possible. For example, Heraclitus thought that it is
acquired by means of sense yet he affirmed that the sensible world is in the state of flux.
The Eleatic school insisted that reality is one and unchanging. Instead, Parmenides
emphasized reason as the source of true knowledge of reality. It was not until the 5 th
century BC that sophists put a big skeptical problem of doubting the true knowledge of
reality. They doubted as to whether the human mind can know anything of reality with
certainty. They argued that if we are to demonstrate the validity of our knowledge, we
will need to make use of our knowledge and this will be already presuming its validity ii.
Realism is an absolute presumption of thought and any attempt to justify it already
represents a concession if not a surrender. The most famous of these were:
- Protagorasiii This one taught that Homo mensura doctrine. meaning that man (each
individual man) is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are and of things
that are not that they are not. In this way he denies the existence of things independent of
our minds. This means that there is no universal knowledge of things; his man
determines his own truth of things. Protagoras went on ant said that, the wind is warm to
the person if appears warm and cold to whom it appears cold. In this way he taught
relativism in knowledge. What is true to you may not be true to me and each one of us is
right. All perceptions are true and the ordinary view is mistake, he says. Whatever is true
for a person, it is true for him. Though he admitted that some perceptions are better than
others. E.g. A healthy man perceives better than a sick one or one who has a defect.

- Giorgias. This one claimed that nothing exists, and that if anything existed at all,
nobody could know it (because if we were to know things, we would know them by
thought but thought does not exist). If it could be knowable, then it would be
incommunicable (because words which we would use to communicate it are just symbols
yet no symbol expresses exactly what it symbolizes). There are no genuine people who
should claim a right of teaching others. Each one should measure things according to his
nature and according to his needs because only man is the measure of all things. We
cannot say of a thing whether it exists or not without getting absurd results. If it is it must
either be one or many. This implies that it is not. If it is not, it implies that it not. This
conclusion rests only in confusion between different senses of the verb to be. So Giorgias
suggests that we should omit the verb to be.

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But we cannot let these sophists lie like this and go uncriticized. So, let us give some
critiques against.

The fact that they think that what they believe is absolutely true that there is no certain
knowledge, they this implies that they agree that there is a certain truth which is
knowable and hence they have known it and therefore they teach it to others that there is
no certain knowledge of reality. And then if they teach it to others then it is held by them
as object truth. Which is already a contradiction to their teaching of no certain knowledge
and that no one should claim a right to teach others. They themselves are teaching others.
Giorgias claims that words cannot express anything of reality but he uses the very words
to pass on his massage, what a self-contraction. So sophists are not genuine thinkers.

However, sophists’ claims provoked responses from philosopher and as a consequence, a

philosophy of Knowledge was formulated to justify that reality really exists and that is
knowableiv. Though Democritus had already asserted that properties ordinarily attributed
to things such as size, shape etc. really belonged to them; hence he was already teaching
that true knowledge of things is possible, the philosophy of knowledge, is said to be
founded by Plato who attempted to deal with the basic questions like: what is knowledge?
Where is knowledge generally found? Do the senses provide knowledge? What is the
relationship between knowledge and true belief?

The nature of Epistemology

Four typical stages in the formation of knowledge are:

Doxa Unjustified certainty

Aporia Doubt. This can arise from an experience of error of judgment,
or a difference of view from someone else
When we realize that we don’t know this can lead to a crisis
Zetesis Research. Questioning and rational argument
Episteme Genuine and certain knowledge

 The observation that knowledge is subjective (e.g. “I see it like this.

You see it differently”). This leads to SUBJECTIVISM.
 The observation that knowledge is relative (e.g. “Today it is like this.
Tomorrow it will be different”). This leads to RELATIVISM.
 The observation that knowledge is elusive (e.g. “One will never know
how it really is”). This leads to SCEPTICISM (true knowledge is not
possible).
 The meaning of the problem of knowledge

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 The schematic representation of knowledge
When we begin to reflect on our knowledge of something, we spontaneously
create the following schematic representation:

know
Particular case: ‘I’ something

knowledge
General case: subject object

Schematic
S N O
representation:

Act / activity
‘S’ is the subject, ‘I’ or another human being acting in the first
person. N is the Noema or thought. O is the object

The validity of knowledge consists in the noetic relationship between the content
(‘noema’) and object of knowledge:

The problem of the critique of human knowledge is whether and under what
circumstances this correspondence can exist
Note that the relationship between the noema and the real object is twofold in that
there can be a correspondence (TRUTH), or discrepancy (FALSEHOOD).
Note that the question of the validity of human knowledge does NOT address
questions such as the origin or development of knowledge, nor its generation.

Note the following distinctions.

(1) The (real) relationship between things. This is the study aim of SCIENCE
and ONTOLOGY
(2) The (logical) relationships between thoughts (noemata). This is the study
aim of LOGIC
(3) The relationships between the subject and the noemata. This is the study aim
of PSYCHOLOGY

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 (4) The (noematic) correspondence between noema (the representative content
of thought) and the real object. This is the study aim of the CRITIQUE OF
THE VALIDITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

Speculation on knowledge in the Ancient Greek

Plato ( c. 428-347 BC).

Plato taught that true knowledge is possible and that if consists in those things that do
not change i.e. Ideas/forms. He believed that reality cannot be changing and that it
consists in the world of forms or ideas independent of the sensible world v. He may have
come up with the idea of the ideal world since justice what he referred to as the cardinal
virtue was not found anywhere in this world, so he thought that there must exist a world,
a perfect world where that idea exists otherwise how could it be imagined if it has no
existence.
He said that these forms might be known by reason never by senses. They are universal
entities by which we can think generally about things and also attach meanings to things
of this physical world which are mere imperfect copies of the true things. These forms are
the object of knowledge whereas the knowledge of material things is just opinion.

For example a thing is beautiful in relation to another thing. Therefore nothing is really
beautiful or good except the standards of beauty, and goodness themselves and these
standards are not sensible things.
Plato teaches that there are two types of knowledge, i.e., sensible or visible knowledge
and intelligible knowledge. The sensible one is divided into images or shadows and
opinions. The first one is the lowest level of knowledge and is formed of vague images of
true reality. The second one is the heist, formed of clear, with identifiable objects and
images organized in a coherent way. But none of these two types of knowledge
constitutes true knowledge because none of the two is comprehensible in terms of
universal forms.
True knowledge consists in the intelligible knowledge which deals with
ideas/universal forms of things. This too has two levels. The lower level consists in using
ideas as hypothesis without comprehension of their nature; objects at this level have
determinate properties. This is why we are able to make conclusions of a geometric
nature. The highest level is of absolute knowledge and it is arrived at only when one has
comprehended fully the idea of the nature of the object of knowledgevi.

The story of the allegory of the cave and of the sun, are used by Plato to explain how the
soul can be drawn up by education to true knowledge of the forms vii. Plato distinguished
between knowledge, ignorance and belief. The object of knowledge is what exists, that of
ignorance is paradoxically what does not exist and that of faith is between existence and
nonexistence. The last seem to be identified with the sensible world. That is why belief is
liable to error whereas knowledge is not liable to errorviii.
NB. Read about Plato’s:
- Doctrine of recollection,
- metaphor of the sun,
- The divided Line,

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 - The Allegory of the cave.

Aristotle.

Aristotle taught that all men by nature desire to know ix. Aristotle presented a doctrine in
which human mind was thought of as having much more power in its own right. He had a
very high opinion of the unaided intellect. But some of his ideas were real heresies, e.g.
his teaching that the world was eternal, that the separated substances (God and angels)
have no concern for the world and that in fact they do not even know about it. This led to
many criticisms of his doctrine by Christian philosopher of the thirteenth century e.g.
Bonaventure who interpreted Aristotle’s heresies as the evidence that unaided intellect
cannot reach at the truth.

Aristotle’s Epistemology consists in the fact that understanding is to be thought of after

an analogy with sensation. Intellect is like sensation. An external physical individual acts
on the sense organ for instance on the eye which is an organ of sense faculty of the soul.
This object acts on the organ (organon, a Greek word for tool) and leaves in the sense
faculty an impression. The soul uses the sense organ as a tool for extracting forms from
the sensible objects. This impression is called the species or a sensible species
(appearance of a thing)

The matter of the object is left behind but only its form is extracted.
NB. this sensible species is an individual just as the sensible object was but it is esse
intentionale ie it has only an intentional existence not esse reale.

Since this form has the same qualities of the real object out there in its prime matter, the
sense faculty therefore is a kind of mental analogue of prime matter. Aristotle theory is
not a representational theory whereby the intentional object in the mind represents the
real object out there. For him clearly states the object is present in person and not a proxy
(substitute). hence, the cause’s causing is identical with the effect’s being caused. Just as
the fire’s heating the water is the same process as the water’s being heated by the fire. In
the same way the sense power’s being actualized by some external object is identically
the same process as the object’s actualizing the sense power.

Let us try to digest Aristotle’s point here.

- The sense faculty is totally passive to begin with. It is potentially its objects.
- Then it takes on the sensible species, a thing that makes it pass from potency to
act. Before it was potentially the object but now it is actually so.
- But According to Aristotle, whenever you have something reduced from potency
to act, you need a cause. And in the case of sensation, it is the external object that
acts on the sense organ. That is the cause. And since Aristotle told us that
intellection is like sensation only that sensum est particularium, intellectus
(understanding) autem universalium, then analogously, it is a similar process
happening in intellectual cognition in the formation of concepts as it is in
sensation. Just as the sense faculty takes on the formal features of the object

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 (sensible species) both the essential and the accident ones stripped off prime
matter, likewise the intellect takes on the universal form of the same object
(intelligible species)and becomes formally identical with it. The sensible species
left behind prime matter but remains with its particulars and accident, but when it
passes on to the level of intelligible species, it leave behind its particulars and
accidents and remains only with the universal/essence.

Some criticisms on this teaching of Aristotle

- If sensation is of particular yet understanding is of universal, how can we have

any intellectual knowledge of singular things?
- How is the intellect reduced from potency to act? In other words, what causes the
independent matter-like intellect to become to some extent determinate, to take on
a form? What is the agent cause here? Aristotle taught us above that any change
from potency to act requires a cause.
-
Anyway, let us continue with his discussion of the intellect. Aristotle teaches that there
are two functions of the intellect. The passive function of the intellect and receptive is
referred to as the possible intellect or the material intellect. But the job of preparing the
form to be passed on this possible intellect is done by the agent intellect. The individual
forms that make impressions on the sense faculty are just potentially intelligible. Just as
colors are only potentially light shines then can be visible. So the agent intellect is the
light of the mind. This point shows Aristotle’s being influenced by Plato’s allegory of the
cave and of his metaphor of the sun, which will also influence Agustin’s illumination.
Aristotle teaches that the agent intellect actually is the mind (nous) and that it is separable
and unmixed with the body, that is why it survived death unlike passive intellect which is
corruptible so it dies together with the body.

Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle taught that knowledge is always universal; we know
particular things as instances of universal. But he rejected Plato’s idea of the existence of
two worlds, i.e. of ideas and the sensible one. For him, universals are inherent in
particularsx they are not separated each one in its world but are in this concrete world. In
knowing, it is the soul that perceives the forms of things. But knowledge begins with
sense perception. In his work called De anima, he teaches that the soul is not a distinct,
spiritual entity but a set of faculties processed by the body in so far as it has the organs to
manifest them. In perception, the sense organ, receives the form of a thing. Sense organs
have a faculty of potentiality of sensing things which it actualizes when it comes into
contact with the object. E.g. A hand has a potentiality of becoming hot which it realizes
when it comes into contact with a hot object. Likewise, the sense organ has the faculty of
potentiality which it actualizes when it sights an object.

Aristotle says that judgment plays a big role in perception. Yet it is through judgments
that perception errors can occur e.g. mistaking the identity of a thing. But if the sense
organ was to concentrate only on its function without relying on judgments, there would
be less chances of such errors. The sense organ perceives in a passive way, an intelligible
form of the object, then the intellect judges it, it is in this moment that an error may arise.

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Knowledge begins with sense perception. The intellect forms images from what the sense
organ presents it. This has been viewed as the beginning of empiricism.

Aristotle distinguishes between active and passive intellect. And that which formulates
images from what the sense organ presents it is the passive intellect. The active soul is
purely active without any potentiality and it is responsible with the actualization of the
soul. He says that this is the only function it has.

We know by classifying things under genus and species. So, for him knowledge implies
order. And above we have seen that Like Plato, Aristotle said that knowledge is universal
which implies like Plato that we know forms of things or essence of things. And for
Aristotle, establishing the essence of a thing, involves explanation of its cause. We have
knowledge of a thing in the primary sense if we can give its cause. To give the cause of a
thing involves demonstration of its essence from the first principle and that this is the
work of science. The first principles can be known only by a form of intuition. It is only
the foolish man who thinks that everything can be proved. E.g. the principle of non-
contradiction can only be proved dialectically, and a dialectic prove for him is that which
starts from commonly accepted.

Let us see some of the strong interpreters of Aristotle.

Themistius

This was a Greek commentator of Aristotle in the fourth century. Themistius

distinguished the active intellect from the possible intellect which correspond to
Aristotle’s active and passive intellects. Both are in the soul, the nous (mind) is a faculty
of the soul. He says that both the passive and the active intellect are separable. but this
violets Aristotle’s teaching that the passive that passive mind is corruptible. He talks
about the speculative intellect, which is not a third entity but it is what the possible
intellect becomes after it has been acted on by the agent intellect. That it is what you end
up with after the business is completed and we actually have a concept successfully
formed in our thoughtxi.

Instead, Alexander of Aphrodisias (200AD), interpreted Aristole saying that the soul is
the form of the body, and therefore it is corruptible like all forms of corporeal bodies. He
also goes on and says that there is also one agent intellect outside the soul (only one and
serves all people; it is identical with God) which activates the material intellect, reducing
it from potency to act resulting into the acquired intellect (intellectus adeptus). This
notion of an outside agent will influence St. Agustin’s thought that human mind needs
illumination from God, that on its own it is incapable of true knowledge.
- Avicenna
- Alfarabi
- etc

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Medieval Thought.

St. Augustine (354-430AD)

St. Augustine’s thought was very much influenced by Neo-Platonism. He himself

confessed that it was Neo-Platonism that saved him from Manichaeism and Skepticism xii.
Already a convinced Neo-Platonist, he took it for granted that knowledge was possible.
In his work called Contra academicos Augustine says that there are things of which
people have absolute knowledge such as the principle of non-contradiction and his own
existencexiii. No one can doubt his own existence because the doubt itself is its own proof.
Hence his famous saying, Si Fallor, Sum meaning that if I am deceived of that, then I
existxiv. Certainly, he who does not deceive himself does not exist. But if I deceive
myself, through this very act I am. Since I exist from the moment in which I deceive
myself. So, I cannot doubt that I am since I am certain that I deceive myself. Therefore, if
I deceive myself, I undoubtedly do not deceive myself that I am. He used the example of
deceit because he said it in his argument against the deceit of the sophists. This may have
influenced Rene Descartes’ cogito ego sum 1,200 years laterxv.
So, we see that Augustine, Knowledge does not depend on sense perception.
Continuing with his teaching on doubt, he says that not even senses make us doubt our
existence and our life. Nor does knowledge depend on visual images. For example, a
straight stick immersed in water seems broken and the keel seems in movement to those
who navigate or in a thousand others cases where things are not what they seem. He says
that the truth of which he is speaking is not perceptible through the eyes of the flesh. It is
in virtue of internal cognition that we know that we are alivexvi. There is no error in
asserting that I am alive. This is something that does not provide discords among
philosophers. Not even senses deceive us. For if one is ill and or sleeping, or insane, it is
not the senses that give him false images; these false images are created by his spiritxvii.

In his work called On the Trinity, Augustine argued that if I know that I know that I am
alive, then I know that I know that I know that I am alive. In his other work called the
City of God, he also makes another claim that, he knows that he loves. And he asserts
that, “for neither am I deceived in this, that I love, since in those things which I love I am
not deceived”.

Therefore for St Augustine, the real problem was not as to whether true knowledge is
possible or not. For him it was clear that true knowledge was possible but the only
epistemological problem was the source of knowledge. St Augustine’s epistemology
gives precedence to the soul in a Neo-Platonic sense. He argues that the soul functions
autonomously from the body.

Perception is brought about by the impressions produced by the soul when the body is
stimulated. Like Plato, St Augustine too taught the soul knows by conceptualizing. To

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have understood these concepts, in St Augustine, we need to refer to the forms in
platonic sense the only difference from Plato is that for Augustine, the forms are in the
mind of God. That is to say that, universals have real existence in the mind of God.
Therefore, all knowledge including sense knowledge involves some awareness of God.
Perception is the lower level of knowledge whereas the knowledge of God is at the higher
levelxviii. St Augustine taught that the intellect is the point of man’s contact with God.
Communications from God appear in the mind. God puts true understanding of both
Himself and of creation into each individual’s intellectxix.

He insisted that human knowledge of things would be impossible without God’s

illumination of the human mind and thereby allowing it to see, grasp, or understand ideas.
An eye can see only and only if God illuminates it. St Augustine’s theory of illumination
does not only apply to knowledge of mysteries or spiritual knowledge but to all human
knowledge, unless it is illuminated by God, it is impossible.

Augustine’s doctrine of illumination

This is how St Augustine explains the process of knowledge. He distinguishes three

cognitive operations. The sense, the inferior reason and the super reason. The sense
knows the qualities of bodies, the inferior reason knows the laws of the physical world,
and the superior reason knows eternal truths.
1. The sensitive knowledge of colors, odors, etc. is obtained through the senses.
But still the soul is not passive with regards to sensitive knowledge. St. Augustine
influenced by Plato, he believed that the soul is superior to the body it is not
influenced by it in any of its activities not even sensible activities. Sensation is an
activity exercised by the soul through the body. The body undergoes the
impression from sensible bodies and the soul through the impressions gleaned by
the body acquires knowledge of the corporeal world. Therefore, for St Augustine,
bodies are not known immediately but through mediation.

The soul knows physical bodies independently of the body though through the
body. When one sees the outside objects through the window, it is not that the
window is the beginning process of his seeing those objects out there. The
window is open in vain when the he who sees through it is absent. The window is
compared with the eye while he who sees through the window is compared with
the soul. It is therefore not the eye which sees but the soul that sees through the
eyexx. Dr. Markus, R. A, a philosophy teacher at the university of Liverpool, in
England, in 1970s suggested that perhaps this Augustine’s teaching which
suggests an inner man who operates through the body is influenced by biblical
passages such as, Job 24:15 saying that the eye of the adulterer also waits for the
twilight, saying that “ no eye will see me”. Prov. 18:15the eye of the wise seek
wisdom. Matt. 5:27-28, he who looks at a woman lustfully, he has already
committed adultery with her in his heart. that this may have made Augustine think
of the inner man acting inside usxxi. I object to Dr. Markus’ claim of Augustine
being influenced by these Biblical passages on the ground that, this reasoning of
Augustine is purely Platonic not biblical. It was Plato who clearly taught that the

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 man is his soul imprisoned in the body. All man’s actions are nothing other than
the soul acting through the body. St. Augustine himself confessed his being
influenced by Neo-Platonismxxii. But it should be noted that unlike Plato, St
Augustine did not equate man with only the soul, but a mixture of body and soul
though the body is the inferior aspect of man while the superior one is the soul.

2. Scientific knowledge. This knowledge is obtained through the inferior reason (

ratio inferior). Scientific knowledge occupies itself with the corporeal world and
seeks to discover universal laws through the process of abstraction.
3. Knowledge of Eternal Truth is obtained through divine illumination. Not
through reminiscence (memory) and illumination is the greatest highest of reason
(ratio superior) so Augustine rejects Plato’s pre-existence of the soul. For him it
is illumination that makes eternal truth visible. What this means is not clear. Some
think that he meant that illumination makes truth, justice etc knowable and others
interpret it to mean that illumination shows the truth of judgments.

So we have seen that for Augustine, ratio inferior and ratio superior are two
functions in which knowledge takes on two opposite directions. The former is
oriented towards the divine, the universal, the eternal and the immutable. While
the later is directed at the world, the contingent, the mutable and particular. But
both functions are necessary to man. One has a choice either to choose the
primacy of the ratio superior whereby he orients all activities towards the divine
and eternal or he can choose the primacy of science (ratio inferior) hence
orienting himself towards things in order to exploit them to his advantage. And
this is the beginning of the malice of the spirit, call it egoism whereby one refuses
possession in common, and he decides to master everything and possesses them
alone. And this is cupidity (greed) and pride and in scriptures this is a sin. This
scientific knowledge taken exclusively is the annulment of contemplation
(wisdom) yet intellective knowledge of eternal things belong to wisdom and the
rational knowledge of temporal things belongs to science.

St Augustine appeals to all of us to leave aside what belongs to the exterior man
and elevate ourselves eternally and reach the knowledge of intelligible and
supreme, eternal realities. And that let us try to see if possible an image of the
Trinity in rational knowledge.

In conclusion, we see that, St August gave a knockout to skepticism from which it did not
recover for 100years and then it rose again. St Augustine’s Platonic epistemology
dominated the middle age until mid-13th century when St Albertus magnum (1200-1280)
and his student St Thomas Aquinas (1224/25-1274) developed an alternative theory of
knowledge to Augustine’s illumination.

Thomas Aquinas (lived between 1224–1274).

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Aquinas was born of an aristocratic family in Naples which is found in southern Italy. He
joined a religious order of the Dominicans in 1244. When the Dominicans sent him for
further studies at Paris, his family abducted him on the way and took him back home and
held him there for almost two years. His family tried whatever possible to make him
abandon the idea of being religious. His brother hired a prostitutes to seduce him, but
Aquinas angrily chased her out of his room, when his family saw how he was convinced
and determined to be religious, in 1245 they allowed him to go back to the Dominicans
who still sent him for further studies at the University of Paris where he encountered
professor Albert the great who introduced him to the study of Aristotle. They became
great friends to extent that when Prof. Albert left transferred to the University of Cologne
in German, Aquinas followed him there in 1248. But after he returned to Paris and then
back to Rome where he served as a regent master of the Dominicansxxiii.

Aquinas was much more influenced by Aristotelian trend of thought that was revived in
the thirteenth century. Like Aristotle, Aquinas rejected Plato’s self-subsistent
universalsxxiv.

Thomas’ rejection of Platononism, and hence his development of a doctrine that

substitutes that of St Augustine that had dominated catholic spirituality, led to his
teaching came under attack, largely by Franciscans, immediately after his death. But the
Dominicans defended it. This contributed to the Dominicans’ becoming highly Thomists
and Franciscans non–Thomists.

Aquinas is highly valued in the Catholic Church because he really saved the church in the
critical moment of his time. Thomas Aquinas lived at a critical juncture of western
culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the
question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus vivendi
that had obtained for centuries. This crisis flared up just as universities were being
founded.

The Catholic Church very much upheld Aquinas’ teaching and actually took it as her own
doctrine. In 1567 Aquinas was declared a doctor of the church and shortly after his death
he was declared Doctor communis a title which was upon almost all middle age thinkers.
and later on he was declared a Universal teacher hence doctor communis universalis since
everybody validated his teachingxxv.

The Cognitive power

Aquinas divides cognitive power into Sensory and Intellectual.

He teaches that man shares sensory power in common with animals whereas he shares
intellect together with angels and with Godxxvi. Cognitive power in general helps us to
have some particular information about things in the world.

Sensory Power

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 Since sense organs are material they are attuned to the particular items of physical
objects. They perceive particular qualities that distinguish between physical objects.
Sensory power, helps us to know for example, how big a thing is, its color, its position in
the world, and so on. Whereas intellectual power helps us to have general information
about things in the world such as concepts of tallness, fatness, trueness etc xxvii. The object
of any sensory capacity is a form as it exists in the bodily matter which is the principle of
individuationxxviii. So, the capacity of sensory part is cognitive of particulars only.

There are two operations in the SENSITIVE PART. The first one is called Immutatio or
Impression. This operation of the senses takes place by the senses being impressed by the
sensible. The other is FORMATIO, this is when the sense forms for itself an image of an
absent thing, or even of something never seen. Both of these operations are found in the
intellect. Therefore, 1st moment of the activity of sensible knowledge is ‘immutatio’ and
the 2nd moment of the activity of sensible knowledge is the ‘formatio’.

Natural immutation takes place by the form of the immuter being received according to
its natural existence, into the thing immuted, as heat is received into the thing
heated.
Whereas spiritual immutation takes place by the form of the immuter being received,
according to a spiritual mode of existence, into the thing immuted, as the form of
color is received into the pupil which does not thereby become colored.
Now, for the operation of the senses, a spiritual immutation is required, whereby an
intention of the sensible form is affected in the sensible organ.
.

The Five external senses

Aquinas distinguishes five external senses which are the cognitive powers (virtus) that
receive directly external stimulus and each with its distinguished sensible quality and
sensible organ. ie. Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch. Though they have distinct
functions, some sensible objects are not restricted to only one sensory power, eg. size can
be perceived by sight or by touch.

Common sensibles and proper sensibles.

Common sensibles: size, shape, etc.are thoses sensible that are not restricted to only one sense
power. For example, size shape, etc, can be perceived by both sight and touch.
Proper sensibles: are those that are perceived by only one sense power. For example, color is
proper to sight, sound to hearing, smell to smell, hear, cold, are proper to the sense power
of touch etc. senses perceive singular things.

The five exterior senses are not equal. Sight is the most spiritual and most universal of all
senses. instead hearing, touch, taste and smell, require a natural immutation on the part of
the object. Touch and taste are the most material of all, touch is the lowest as it is present
everywhere in the body.

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 Why is sight the most spiritual? It is because, is receives sensible species in
spiritual form ie images. Whereas other senses like touch taken in its sensible
objects like heat, cold, etc physically/naturally ie natural reception. The skin
really becomes hot when it senses something hot. The same applies to the ear
which receives physical locomotion of sound. It is only sight that has spiritual
change (immutatio) when it sights something. When it sights color, it does not
become colored physically like a hand becomes hot when it senses heat.

Apart from the external senses, Aquinas distinguishes also internal senses which too use
corporeal organs in particular the brain.

Internal senses

- Common sense, compares and also integrates impressions (information) of different

senses. All senses feed into the common sense. It is the common sense that discerns
information from other senses eg. discerns white from sweet, a thing which no other
sense can do.
- imagination (Phantasia) stores sensory impressions received in the common sense. It is
an apprehensive power which apprehends the sensible species when the sensible object is
absent.
- Estimative power (cognitive power) is responsible for instinctive reactions to sensory
stimulus, such as fear of objects. By this sense, we discern that to seek and what to flee
from. what is useful from what is harmful. This we have it in common with animals.
- Momory stores impressions produced by the estimative power.

In Summa Teologiae Aquinas recognizes sensory capacity as a cognitive power.

The Schemata of perception.

1. Anything received in something, is received in accordance with the state of the

recipient. (Explanation just as water received takes on the shape of the jug).
2. Something is recognized in accordance with how its form is received in the
cognitive power.
3. The intellect recognizes the abstract nature of a thing, apart from its material
condition.
4. Therefore, a form is received within intellect apart from its material conditions.
(the forms do not carry with them material conditions. ie they do not cause any
material change of what they inform. And in order not to mute anything of the
presented object, the intellect has to be immaterial).
5. Therefore, the intellect exists in an immaterial state.

Intellectual Power

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This constitutes higher cognitive functions like abstracting, understanding, judging and
its objects are the universals.

Let us first explain two types of intellectual powers presented by Aquinas later on we
shall see that of God:

1. The first one is the purely intellectual power, that kind of power which is
neither the actuality of the body organ nor in any way connected to bodily matter.
This is the intellect of Angels and its object is the form subsisting without matter.

Aquinas explains the epistemology of the Angels, and it is due to this that he gained the
title of the angelic doctor (doctor angelis). He says that angels think of themselves and
of God’s ideas. Their intellect is not directly attuned to this physical world. They acquire
knowledge of the physical world through thinking of God’s ideas of the physical world.
The Angelic intellect is directed up wards towards God through whom they knowxxix.

2. And the second one is the human intellectual power. This is one of the powers
of the soul which is connected to the body capable of sensation or detecting
sensory stimuli. So, it is proper to it to cognize a form of existing individually in
bodily matter, but not as it is in such matter.

Aquinas teaches that human intellect can directly apprehend natures only if they are
abstracted from their material conditions. Neither the senses nor the intellect alone can
recognize properly but the human being does through each of them. The sense grasp
particulars (simple apprehension) but not universals and the intellect grasps universals
(abstraction) not particular so man cognizes through both the sense and the intellect.

Abstraction

The sense through simple apprehension takes in the phantasm (sensible species or the
representation of the perceived sensible object ie the means by which the sense
participates in cognition) from the perceived object. The phantasm is similar ie has the
likeness of the sensible object out there. The term Aquinas uses is similitudo translated as
likeness with is associated with similis translated as similar. Similarity is seen in two
ways. (1). In so far as similar things share the same nature. As in the case of heat of fire is
in the body heated by fire. And (2) in the sense of representation. As the similitude of fire
is represented in the sight.

NB. When the motion of phantasm is simultaneous with the motion of the sense, it is
true but sometimes it is in the absence of sensible eg in imagination or in a dream in this
case it is most likely deceptive.

-Phantasia is from a Greek word phos meaning light (that which makes things to appear);
and from phos, phonos which means appearance is derivedxxx. So the phantasm of an
object is the appearance of that object.

14
Therefore, the phantasms give us a conscious experience of the sensible. A person who
only remains at this phantasm can describe some futures of what he sees but since he
does not cognize its form which is at the intellectual level, he would fail to identify what
he sees. Cognizing what one perceives depends on the first operation of the intellect, that
recognizes the quidity or whatness of a thing and the second operation of the intellect that
compounds, and divides hence making a perceptual judgment.

At the level of sense power-phantasm there is “seeing”. But at the level of sense power-
phantasm-intellect, there is “seeing as”. Neither the sense power alone with its phantasms
nor the intellect alone can reach at “seeing as”. But the acting together of the three at the
same time not one after the other.
To reach at the “seeing as” we need four processes. First, perception of the sensible
species, their formation into phantasm, the extraction of intelligible species from
phantasms and finally the processing of intelligible species into intellected intensions.

Intelligible species

In its first operation, whereby the intellect abstracts from the phantasms (that the sense
power creates from the sensible) universal concepts that Aquinas calls intelligible species
which are similar to the sensible species only that they are immaterial.

The intellect’s second operation that includes mixing one apprehended aspect with
another or dividing one from another, and proceeds from one composition or division of
one from another; and this is reasoning. It is at this level that judgments on the concepts
acquired in the first operation takes place. At this level, the intellects abstract from this
phantasm universal concepts. The cognition of the quidity (essence of a thing) takes place
at this second operation. It is at this level that memory is possible.

But phantasms are particular as they represent physical objects, they can only inform the
physical organ (the brain) the intellect being spiritual it can only be informed by spiritual
entities. So, these phantasms to have impact on the intellect, they have to be transformed
into intelligible species. And these are mental representations at the level of intellect.

And it is the Agent Intellect that does the work of abstracting universal forms (species
impressaxxxi) from the phantasms and then the Possible Intellect/ passive intellect,
impressed/informed by them, takes them on as species intelligibilis impressa (they are
universal concepts or essences of the sensible objects out there or call them the intellected
intentions) and reasons with themxxxii. These intellect intensions are one with the intellect,
the intellect knows them by turning to itself since it has assimilated them to itself.
Cognition is to assimilation. This is what Aquinas means when he says that at the end of
the process of cognition, it is the knower that is known, or the cognizer is the one
cognized.

However, there was some difficulties in conceiving what the Agent intellect really is.
Some thinkers in Aquinas’s time thought that the agent intellect was divine not human
but he argued them out that if it was divine, we could not think individually the fact that

15
each person thinks individually shows that they are powers of human soul but they are
not divine.

Averroes thought that not even the possible intellect belongs to the human soul and others
thought that the possible intellect was not a separate entity from the agent intellect. But
Aquinas contested them arguing that if they are the same entity how comes that the
possible intellect is passive while the agent intellect is active? That a thing cannot be
active and passive at the same time. We can speak of knowledge only once the
intelligible species reach the possible intellect. Our intellect understands material things
by the process of abstraction from the phantasms the intelligible species.

However, Aquinas was faced with the problem of explaining how the immaterial agent
intellect can carry out the abstraction from the material phantasms.

Aquinas took refuge in divine illumination, when he was faced with a trouble to
explaining how the agent intellect moves from potency to act that is from the moment
when sense perception has not yet presented the phantasms, to the moment when the
phantasms are presented and the agent intellect begins to act on them abstracting from
them the intelligible species.

This was real trouble because it would mean that the phantasms which are themselves
physical, are the causes of the agent intellect’s moving from potency to act. Which would
be absurd a material entity to cause the immaterial one hence determining it since the
cause determines the effect. More so, it would be a contradiction to what he himself had
said as we see it in Summa Teologiae 1a 85.1c that the intellect knows material things by
abstracting from phantasms. Yet these phantasms being forms of material entities in the
internal senses of the brains they cannot have any direct causal impact on the immaterial
intellect.

So to dodge this trouble, Aquinas resorted to Augustine’s idea of divine illumination

whereby he introduces the idea of the Intellectus Divinus as the cause of knowledge in
the Intellectus Humanus. In this way he fails to develop further his Aristotelian
naturalistic explanation of human knowledge and resorts to a super natural explanation
whereby the story of the agent intellect seems to be discontinued or not clearly further
elaborated. He begins teaching that the human intellect participates in the light of the
divine intellect and receives thereby the capacity to illuminate phantasms through the
light of its own.

Aquinas’ Doctrine of Divine Illumination

This is the further step Aquinas takes to explain how the Agent intellect is enabled to
carry out its function of abstraction. It does so by participating in the light of the divine
intellect.

Intellectus Divinus and the Intellectus Humanus

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Thomas talks of the two types of knowledge: intellectus divinus (divine intellect) that
absolute creative knowledge of God and intellectus humanus (human intellect) that non
creative reality-conformed knowledge of man. The creative knowledge of God is the
mensurans non mensuratum ie (gives measures without itself been measured) while
human knowledge is the mensuratum non mensurans (measured and does not give
measures). But it does not give measure to natural things but it measures res artificiales
artificial things. Here St Thomas distinguishes between how natural things come into
being ie thought by God and artificial things come, thought by man. He goes on and
explains that things have a double concept of truth: that of the creative fashioning of
things by God and the intrinsic knowability for the human mind. So to say that things are
true, means in the first place that they are creatively thought by God in the second place it
means that they can be grasped by human knowledge. (But we see that this idea of God’s
creative knowledge was already existing in Africa. The ancient Egyptian ontology had
already talked of it)xxxiii.

It is the creative fashioning of things by God’s mind which makes it possible for them to
be known by human mind. So, things can be known by us because God has creatively
thought them. This means that things do not have their own nature for themselves alone
but also have a reality for us this is how they are intelligible. They have their intrinsic
brightness and radiance infused by the creative mind of God together with their essential
being. It is this radiance that makes them perceptible to human knowledge. So, to be
known is to be created. Things are knowable because they have been created. In his work
known as Summa Theologica, St. Thomas teaches that the truth of things lies in the fact
that as creatures they correspond to the archetypal creative thought of God; it is this
correspondence which formally constitutes the truth of things. In the second place, we
can talk of truth in reference to human knowledge whereby a thing is true in so far as it
receives its measure from and corresponds to the objective reality of things. The truth of
human knowledge consists in this second meaning.

Man can not only know things but he can also understand the relationship between things
and his concept of them. By his perception of things, he can have knowledge by means of
judgments and reflection. So human knowledge is not only true but it can also be
knowledge of the truth. And by truth St. Thomas intends the correspondence of the
concepts in the mind to reality. Concepts are the mental word. So, the intellect has a
language of its own which uses concepts that it uses to signify things.

Human knowledge of God.

The intellect apprehends being and its modalities. To know a thing is to know being in a
certain form. In so far as being itself (God) is manifested in the being of sensible things
as the necessary source of all beings, then the embodied human intellect can transcend
sense to know this source of being as non-dependent, non-conditioned, and as the
absolute being itself, being Ipsum Esse Subsistens. A being that has in itself, its reason for
being. A being whose essence is its existence and vice versa. We express this knowledge
when we say that Being is.

17
Therefore, God is known through the transcendental concept of being and through the
idea of causal dependency in being of contingent beings on the absolute Being itself.
He is known positively and analogically as Being and cause of being. And negatively as
immutable, incorporeal, non-dependent, non-conditioned etc.

Self-knowledge

One can know his particular self-depending on his sense knowledge of his activities and
lived experience. His intellect makes a conversion to his imagined lived experiences
(phantasmata) that one obtains an indirect reflexive knowledge of one’s own self.

The epistemology that we have seen so far, right from Plato has left in debate a big
epistemological problem. The problem of the universals by which the intellect knows.
Platonic theory of though tells us that these universals (forms) are innate to our minds are
memories of the true reality that our souls used to see in the world of ideas. Aristolelic
trend of thought teaches that these universals exist in the concrete objects from which our
intellect abstract them by means of the sense organs. Some thinkers in the thirteenth
century not satisfied by these two trends of thought attempted to come up with their
explanation known as Nominalism.

Nominalist theory of knowledge.

The Nominalists were preoccupied by the fact that some things are of the same nature
(essence). They found difficult to accept the realists’ teaching for example that much as
dogs are different from each other, they all have something universal to all of them
(dogness) that identifies them as dogs distinct from any other animal.

The Nominalists deny the existence of the universals, they see Plato’s world of ideas as a
myth. They say that if such an ideal world exists where should it be located? Here they
take a naturalistic point of view that there is nothing situated outside time and space. In
this way they deny not only Plato’s world of ideas but also St. Augustine’s claim that the
universals are contained in the mind of God.
Nominalism is of the view that only individuals or particulars exist in nature hence only
them are real. Universals do not exist except as thoughts in the human mind. Universals
are mere flatus vocis a breath of a voice or mere names that do not have real existence.
They have no objective reality that to which they correspondxxxiv. There are no concepts
independent of linguistic expressions. Concepts are mere sounds of words but they have
no reality. There is nothing similar in objects except our applying the same words to
them. Nominalists were condemned by the church as heretics because their teaching that
denies universal implied that there are no Dogmas which are universal truths.

18
Moderate realists try to answer to these Nominalists saying that universals exist and are
situated located in space and time wherever they are manifest but not located in a specific
realm.

All the same the nominalists insist that there cannot be a single thing that exists in
multiple entities simultaneously. For them want to explain everything without using
universals such as dogness, catness, treeness etc.
An example of the prominent nominalists is Ockham William.

Ockham William (William of Ockham)

Ockham, W is estimated to have lived between 1285-1349 in the South west of London.
He was a Franciscan friar who was once charged of teaching heresies and he was called
by the holy see which was by then at Avignon in France to answer the charge of his
heresies and this was in 1324. However, Ockham was together with Thomas Aquinas and
Duns Scotus among the most prominent figures in the high Middle age period. While
Aquinas wrote the summa of theology, Ockham wrote the summa of logic. he was the
most exemplary logician of his time.

Ockham’s theory of knowledge

Ockham affirmed that the only singular things that exist in reality. He rejected the
Aristotelian and Aquinas’ claim that knowledge involves the transmission of a species
between the object and the mind. He rejected the theory of species on the ground that it is
not supported by experience. Introspection reveals nothing of the sort in our cognitive
process. Instead Ockham is in favor of intuition and abstractive cognition.

Ockham clearly contests the existence of the universal’s ideas. He insists that the only
universals are words. this was generally held by all nominalists and it was this belief that
only words (nomen) are universal that they came to be called nominalists. Ockham
defined
words as conventional signs corresponding to concepts. And concepts are natural signs
of thingsxxxv. Universals are just the content of the mind when speaking generally. So their
existence is merely logical ie. They are universals in the sense that they are predicated to
many entities. So, they are just intentional, hence have merely a thought reality. And this
is what is referred to as Ockham’s fictum theory, which holds that universals have no real
existence at all. Redness is not a name of any entity but of the content of the relation
which exists between the sign or concept red and particular red things. This intention
realm of fictive reality is not even necessary. He rejected Aquinas’ theory of species that
it is factious and not necessary in explain the theory of knowledge. Instead he developed
an intellectual theory of which universals concept is just the act of thinking about several
objects at the same time.

There is nothing general but a relation between the mind and particular things. He says a
thing never had of in the medieval period that the mind on its own is capable of
apprehending particular things by means of intuition. In that way he denies Aquinas’

19
simple apprehension and its phantasms. By intuition, he refers to the direct knowledge of
a thing without mediations. The senses provide the objects’ intuition of its existence
whereas the intellect intuites its nature. So, he denies Aquinas’ theory of abstraction.
Intuition can be perfect or imperfect depending on whether is concerns with the present
or past experience. So, intuition is not always clear but anyway, clarity is not the one that
guarantees truth. He claims that we have clear knowledge of our own minds than of other
things, and that God puts some intuition in our minds some of which is of non-existing
things.

He argues that the doctrine of universals contradict certain other things we know are true
in virtue of three sources of knowledge which are: self-evidence, whereby a thing is
known through itself, experience, and Sacred Scripture.

For this matter, whenever we meet difficulties in his argument which necessitated the use
of universals of ontological categories, he would suspend the judgment. This ontological
reduction is referred to as the “Ockham razor”. Whose slogan was do not multiply
entities beyond necessity. For example, in his summa of logic, he argues that we can
account for the truth that Socrates is similar to Plato without appealing to the relational
entity called similarity. But just looking at both Socrates and Plato have some quality of
the same species. Eg. color, the fact that both of them are white, they in that respect, they
are similar. No need of looking for similarities among things using Aristotles’ 10
categories
For Ockham, all terms whether absolute or connotative, signify nothing other than
singular qualities or singular substances.

Ockham’s questioning of Aquinas’ highly accepted claims gave more strength to

skepticism in the medieval period.

Intuition cognition.

Ockham’ intuition cognition unlike abstractive cognition has nothing to do with the
abstraction of universals from particular via sense organs. But it abstracts from existence
or non-existence of objects. Intuitive cognition of a thing is a cognition such that by
virtue of it can be known whether it exists or not. Once it is intuited as existing, the
intellect can know whether it is distanced or close to another thing, it can know whether it
inheres in another thing or inhered by another thing and its color. But God if He wants,
can neutralize the natural causal effect of this intuitive cognition and direct causal a false
judgment in one’s cognition. But even intuive cognition can on its own induce a false
believe if the circumstances are ubnormal but even then, still they would cause some true
contingent judgements.

The Conceptualists.

While nominalism view is that universals (concepts) are merely linguistic expressions,
Conceptualism teaches that Universals are a creation of the mind and do not correspond
to things in nature. They do not correspond to anything in nature. We do not abstract

20
concepts from objects but we put them in the objects ourselves. Concepts only come from
our minds. Universals are a reflection of the mind to classify or group things together.
Therefore, they are created by the mind. This conceptualism is kind of situated between
realism and nominalism.

Conceptualist theory of knowledge considers the universality of particulars as a

conceptualized framework situated within the thinking mind. They are reflections of
similarities among particular things. Eg the concept male, reflects the similarity between
David, Peter, Simon etc. So, it denies the universals’ presence in the particular objects out
there. It denies the existence of any sense data that can serve as a foundation for
empirical knowledge. All human knowledge is conceptual. That is what differentiates us
from other animals. Conceptual capacities belong to rationality. These universals are
patterns in God’s mind according to which he creates particular things.

One of the great representatives of a conceptualist epistemological view in the medieval

period was Albelard Peter.

Albelard Peter (1079-1142) before Aquinas, had already taught about universals that they
were concepts existing only in individuals, outside individuals they exist as concepts.
They exist in the individual not as essence but as individualxxxvi. There is no essence in
things, essence is just a way of thinking about things. They are not separate from
abstraction based on the similarities among individual things.

Before Aquinas Albelard had talked of generic images of what is common to the whole
class of things. This is how we can think of entities of the same class universally. And
that this is how we can give meaning to things in this meaningless world. This is because
for him, meaning is constructed only by the virtue of concepts, so if we want to give
meaning to things we resort to universals. But not for cognition purpose. For example, for
the Aristotelians, to know is to assimilate. The concept is a natural likeness of which it is
a concept. Albert very much contests this on the ground that if this was the case, to know
a big tree would necessitate enlarging the mind to the size of that tree. Futher more, that
the immaterial mind how can it take on the semblance of a material object. Furthermore,
the mind’s being transformed through the inheritance of a form is not the same as the
mind’s possession of a concept.

This idea was much influential in the 17th century promoted by great thinkers of the time
ie the Jesuits such as Hurtado de Mendoza, Rodrigo de Arriaga and Francisco Oviedo but
later on with the rise of Francisco Suarez also a Jesuit, realism was resumed with greater
force and over shadowed conceptualism. However, it has influences in early modern
thinkers like Rene Descartes, John Lock, Leibniz but in a simplistic form. It is also traced
in Kant who holds that universals have no connection with external things because they
are produced by a priori mental structures.

Rationalists

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Rationalists are those who assert that by reason alone we can arrive at true knowledge.
They deny that through sense experience we can arrive at any certain knowledge. This
thinker foreshadowed by Plato, asserted that true knowledge is found in innate ideas.

It was in this period that men like the great French philosopher and a mathematician,
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) rose. Descartes believed that the great thinkers of that time
deceived themselves on things they thought to know very well. Much as he doubted as to
whether real people have true knowledge or they just deceived themselves that they
know, he did not surrender to skepticism since he had an intense desire for certaintyxxxvii.

Descartes held an internalist epistemological theory. A theory of epistemic justification is

internalist insofar as it requires that the justifying factors are accessible to the knower's
conscious awareness. Descartes’ internalism requires that all justifying factors take the
form of ideas. For he holds that ideas are, strictly speaking, the only objects of immediate
perception, or conscious awareness.

Rene Descartes never not trusted sense perception. He said that everyone is familiar with
the phenomenon of being deceived by the senses. That one may see something at a
distance but when he comes closer to it, it turns out to be otherwise. And that thing
appear differently when they are in water than when they are out of it xxxviii. So how can we
be certain that everything we see and do, are not part of a dream? He poses a question to
himself that if we are just dreaming why is it that when we pinch ourselves, we feel real
pain? His answer was that there is no guarantee that our senses experience is not part of
the dream! But then he said that even if it happens to be true that we are dreaming, at
least a dream has to be based on something. The various objects that we experience might
be part of the continuous dream-world and the study we make of them may be nothing
other than an illusion.

Descartes begun to think that, perhaps the world is commanded by a deity that deceives
man. So, we are compelled to make mistakes that we are incapable of detecting. But it
does not seem true for Descartes that we are systematically deceived by the deity. But
how can we have certain knowledge then? Descartes believed that if he could find an
indubitable knowledge, he could use it to justify the entire human knowledge. Descartes
continued doubting all knowledge that he had ever heard of. He doubted even the
existence of heaven and Earth. He doubted the existence of minds and of bodies. He
doubted everything to the extent of doubting even his own existence. While he was still
doubting the truth of all knowledge he had ever heard of suspecting that there is a great
deceiver who deceives him of that knowledge, it came to his mind that even if he may be
deceived by that great deceiver, at least there is something that he cannot be deceived of.
And that is that he exists. He said that, let the deceiver deceive me as much as he wants,
but he will never make me be nothing since I think that I am something that is deceived.

The fact that I think, therefore I am. I am a thinking being. Hence his famous slogan of je
pense donc je suis (in French his mother tongue) translated into Latin as cogito ergo sum
and into English as, I think therefore I am. He said that whenever he thought about it,
wondering as to whether it is true that he exists or not, proved to him beyond any

22
reasonable doubt that he exists, that is why he can think about his existence. If I think
therefore, I have to be absolutely certain that I am (I exist). When someone says “I am
thinking, therefore I am, or I exist,” he does not deduce existence from thought by means
of a syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the
mind. (Replies 2, AT 7:140)

By this certain clear and distinct truth (scientia as opposed to the lesser grades of
conviction persuasio), that Descartes had discovered, he felt that he had given a knock-
out to skepticism. And that he can use this method of doubt (whereby he doubts all the
knowledge he had ever heard of and begins to search from zero) to judge the truths of
other statements. This gave rise to the famous methodic doubt of which clarity and
distinctiveness are the marks of true knowledge. they are the distinguishing
characteristics by which you can distinguish truth from falsity. So, from here he drew a
general rule that whatever is conceived as clear and distinct is true (see his 5 th
meditation). His methodic doubt starts from simple and certain thoughts and proceeds
from them to more complex onesxxxix.

Descartes explains what he means by clear and distinct. He says that knowledge is clear if
no judgment can be formed against it. Such knowledge is not only clear but distinct too.
He calls clear that which is present and apparent to an attentive mind. But distinct is that
which is so precise and different from everything else and it contains nothing within itself
that is not clear.

Descartes claims that the innate ideas are the ones that are clear and distinct. Like the
ideas of mathematical objects and the ideas of the perfect being God. Such ideas have
properties that do not appear in our experience. Perfection is in our ideas not in
experience that is why no circle we see in our experience is perfectly round like that one
we see in our ideas. We ourselves are not perfect to be able to make such perfect ideas.
So perfect ideas like the idea of God and of mathematical figures are innate ideas
implanted in our minds by some agent other than us and other than our experiences, but
by an agent that has the same perfection like them. A Substance that is eternal, infinite,
immutable, independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, creator of allxl and this has to be God.

Therefore, there must be a God who holds these attributes and is the one who created me
and He implants these clear and distinct ideas in me. Descartes explains what his idea of
God is by saying that,

“By God’ I mean the very being, the idea of whom is within me, that is,
the possessor of all the perfections which I cannot grasp, but can somehow
reach in my thought, who is subject to no defects whatsoever” (Med. 3,
AT 7:51f).

Now Descartes has established two truths. One is of his own existence and the other is of
God’s existence. He claims that, the certainty of all other things depends on the
knowledge of God, so that without it nothing can ever be perfectly known (Med. 5, AT
7:69). Thus for Descartes, it is plain that the certainty and truth of all knowledge

23
(scientiae) depends uniquely on the awareness of the true God, to such an extent that one
is incapable of perfect knowledge about anything else until he becomes aware of Him.
(Med. 5, AT 7:71)

Descartes believed that since God is perfect, he cannot deceive since in Him imperfects
like deceit cannot exist. So, God is not that evil or demon of which he had talked of as
deceiver who deceives us. God does not deceive so we can put complete trust in whatever
He gives us since they are clear and distinct. But since we are imperfect beings, we insist
on using our faculty of judgment in matters of which we have no assurance rather than in
clear and distinct ideas God gives us. This misuse of the faculty of judgment makes us
make mistakes. According to Descartes, it is God who gives us the clear and distinct
mathematic truths like 2+3=5. So, we can be certain of three things: of one’s own
existence, of God’s existence and of that whatever is conceived as clear and distinct is
true since it is given by God the perfect being in whom there can be no imperfections like
deceit.

Descartes through reflection came to believe that there exists also another world existing
outside his mind from where our experiences come. Through reflection on the physical
world, he realizes that he is in relation with it. He comes to believe that there exists at
present a living human body, which is his body. This body was born at a certain time in
the past, and has existed continuously ever since. But the earth had existed also for many
years before his body was born. However, he says that nothing he sees belonging to his
essence as affirmed in cogito ergo sum apart from the “I”, a thinking and un-extended
thing. While on the other hand he has a clear and distinct idea of a body as extended and
unthinking thing. This means that his I is distinct from the body and can exist without it.
So, his existence as a thinking thing does not prove the existence of his body and of other
bodies. But be finds in himself certain faculties and activities like the power of changing
position and of local motion in general which clearly and distinctively express the
existence of his bodyxli. He says that,

“Surely my awareness of my own self is not merely much truer and more
certain than my awareness of the physical objects for example wax, but
also much more distinct and evident. For if I judge that the wax exists
from the fact that I see it, clearly this same fact entails much more
evidently that I myself also exist” (Med. 2, AT 7:33).

Descartes goes on and says that, we say that we see the wax itself, if it is there before us,
not that we judge it to be there from its color or shape; and this might lead us to conclude
that our knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees, and not from the scrutiny
of the mind alone. But then if we look out of the window and see men crossing the
square, we normally say that we see the men themselves, just as we say that we see the
wax. But do we see any more than hats and coats which could conceal automatons
(robots)? We judge that they are men (Med. 2, AT 7:32).

He concludes that, “I see that without any effort I have now finally got
back to where I wanted. I now know that even bodies are not strictly

24
 perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination but by the intellect
alone, and that this perception derives not from their being touched or
seen but from their being understood; and in view of this I know plainly
that I can achieve an easier and more evident perception of my own mind
than of anything else” (Med. 2, AT 7:34).

Descartes teaches that the mind's sensation extends strictly and immediately only to the
ideas,

“the ideas are, strictly speaking, the only immediate objects of my sensory
awareness” (Med. 3, AT 7:75).

He goes on and defines what he means by idea saying that,

“I make it quite clear in several places … that I am taking the word ‘idea’
to refer to whatever is immediately perceived by the mind” (Replies 3, AT
7:181).

Descartes seems to view all ideas as mental pictures, of a sort. As he writes:

“the term ‘idea’ is strictly appropriate” only for thoughts that “are as it
were the images of things” (Med. 3, AT 7:37.

Since our ideas of this external world of physical bodies are natural, they too are God
given and since he is not a deceiver, then our ideas of this external physical worlds exists
are clear and distinct since they are not from the senses but from God xlii. But our sense
experience can never give us certitude since it is not clear and distinct. We can only be
certain of the laws of physical bodies insofar as they are mathematical relationships, but
we cannot know with certainty the indistinct or unclear features of the world like its
colors, sound, smells etc.

Material bodies exist in as far as they constitute the object of pure mathematics since
regarding them in this aspect, I can conceive them clearly and distinctly. And there is no
doubt that God created them since nothing is impossible for Himxliii.

We conclude by saying that Descartes is a rationalist. But his specialty as seen in his
methodic doubt is his mode of perception which is not pure intellection like Plato’s but it
consists in the mind’s turning upon itself and considers someone, of the ideas it possesses
within itself. This is different from mere imagination. Because in imagination, the mind
turns towards the body, and contemplates in it some object conformed to the idea which
are either of itself or apprehended through sensexliv.

Much as in Descartes’ view, introspective judgments are indeed privileged, he regards

them as nonetheless subject to error. Even introspective perception has to stand the taste
of clarity and distinctiveness in order to be indubitable.

25
From the above presentation of Descartes reasoning, we clearly see the so-called
Cartesian Circle. Descartes first argues from clearly and distinctly perceived premises to
the conclusion that a non-deceiving God exists; he then argues from the premise that a
non-deceiving God exists to the conclusion that what is clearly and distinctly perceived is
true. The conclusion that a non-deceiving God exists is derived from premises that are
clearly and distinctly perceived. The general veracity of propositions that are clearly and
distinctly perceived is derived from the conclusion that a non-deceiving God exists.

Criticisms of Descartes’ methodic doubt.

Descartes is criticized to be inconsistent. That he claims to have found an uncontestable

truth which is clear and distinct yet he still seeks to prove that these clear and distinct
idea corresponds to the external bodies. He also tries to established the truth of his ideas
from the ideas themselves. It is a logical fallacy of circulus in probando ie arguing in a
vicious circle.

In the seventeenth century, people have gave hundreds of reasons as to why rationalistic
claims to have found true knowledge right from Plato through Descartes to the modern
period, have found certain knowledge have been nothing other than their own fantasies.
That all rationalistic held true knowledge is mere believes taken so much by those who
believe in them. Descartes for example says that mathematical truths are uncontestable
but the development of science has proved that even mathematical findings are subjected
to criticism since they keep changing as new discoveries come.

Some theorem once regarded as true now have been disapproved xlv. For example, before
Euclidean geometry stated that one and only one line could be drawn parallel to another
line through a given point but this was changed by a non-Euclidean geometry which
holds that no line could be drawn parallel to another line through a given point. With this
view, an unlimited number of lines can be drawn parallel to a given line through a given
point. In this way

Rationalism has been criticized that it does not help us to solve our day to day problems
as empirical science does help us.

Spinoza, Benedict Baruch a 17th century Dutch philosopher.

In his work known as Ethics, Spinoza presents three kinds of knowledge. That is opinion
or imagination (cognitio primi generis), adequate ideas and intuition yet in the Treatise
on the Correction of the Understanding, he presents four kinds of knowledge whereby he
adds on hearsay which he presents as the lowest. For our own knowledge, let us treat the
whole four.

26
The first kind of knowledge is what he terms as knowledge by hearsay. This is the
lowest of all. He gives an example that he possesses the knowledge of his birthday by
hearsay. He was simply told that he was born on such and such a date and he has no
doubt about itxlvi.

The second kind is knowledge which in ethics is the first, from Opinion. This reminds
us of Parmenides’ distinction between aletheia, or truth, and doxa, calls it opinionxlvii. The
first kind of knowledge is also the only source of falsity Spinoza teaches that this
knowledge is of confused or vague ideas from whatever causal association our bodies
enter intoxlviii. Whatever ideas we make at this level are merely images which are passive
not active. It is knowledge which is out of mechanical connections other than logical
connection. With this kind of knowledge, the mind remains passive, not active xlix.Spinoza
teaches that there are two ways we can have the first kind of knowledge:

1. From random experience: "from singular things which have been represented to
us through the senses in a way that is mutilated, confused, and without order for
the intellect and he calls this perception knowledge from random experience.
General and universal ideas belong to this level of knowledgel.

When my body interact with other bodies, general ideas are formed. when this
keeps on repeating itself, it results into the formation of an abstraction of a
composite image and this is what constitutes a general idea. These ideas are
general in the sense that they are the same for all men since human bodies have
the same characteristics, they produce similar experiences when affected by
others bodies, hence produce general ideas like man, dog, etcli. However, this
cannot be genuine knowledge. I do not know my body out of my mind’s
reflection but out of its being affected by other bodies it comes into relation with.
It is in that way that I come to know of its existence. But this knowledge is vague,
not coherent. I know of other external bodies only insofar as they affect by body
but I do not know of its nature ie its essence. Such a knowledge that depends on
sensation id inadequate and confused.

2. From imagination: from signs, e.g., from the fact that, having heard or read
certain words, we recollect things, and form certain ideas of them, which are like
them, and through which we imagine the things. By this knowledge men deceive
themselves that they have liberty yet we are determined. Humans imagine they
get to make choices because their knowledge is an inadequate expression of what
actually determines them to do everything they do, which includes them
imagining they have free will. Another example of falsity that Spinoza gives is an
extension of prejudice and superstition. It is the religious instinct to believe in the
miraculous and prophetic, both of which depend upon the imagined reception of
the revelation of God’s free choices. These beings are prophets and priests, and
prophecy for Spinoza is nothing but a clever way of exploiting and disciplining
the multitude through the use of an agile and vivid imagination (TTP, 1). For
Spinoza, “revelation has occurred through images alone” (TTP, 1), which means

27
 that all religions based on revelation are essentially false. Revelation is an utterly
inadequate and inappropriate way of understanding God.

The third kind of knowledge which is the second in his work called Ethics, is
what Spinoza calls Knowledge of ratio, ie. Reason. It consists of adequate ideas
and it arises from the fact that we have common notions and adequate ideas of the
properties of things. This results from the fact that as bodies interact with each
other, similarities between the experiences of interaction of different bodies result
in building up certain universal notionslii. The common elements of this
knowledge are the spatial and physical properties of bodies. Practically speaking
this is the scientific knowledge. This is composed of common notion which is the
foundation of principles of mathematics and of physics. Common notion is not to
be confused with general or universal ideas composed of images formed by
confusion and ideas which are logically unrelated. This knowledge of common
notion is true since its based on adequate ideas. And an adequate idea is the one
which is considered without regards to the object, it has all the properties or
intrinsic marks of a true idealiii. So, no need of seeking for the criterion for the
truth of an adequate idea outside itself. Truth is its own stand and criterion.

We cannot have an adequate idea without knowing conscious that the idea is
adequate. If we know, we necessarily know that we know. I can never be puzzled
whether I know. But I can because I do not only possess adequate ideas but also
ideas of those ideas; I realize that in the light of the adequate ideas, many of my
other ideas are confused, they lack clarity liv. So, I have to use these adequate
ideas to correct the confused one. How do I know that the adequate ideas are true
to the extent of using them to correct confused ideas? He says that they are
absolutely true because they are related to God. The idea is true if it exhibits the
logical necessity of the relationship between the characteristics of that of which it
is an idea. Eg an idea of extension is true insofar as it states what properties any
extended thing necessarily possesseslv.

In Ethis 2, on page 32, Spinoza argues that "All ideas, insofar as they are related to God,
are true. Since by "God", he means the one substance which exists necessarily and
absolutely infinitely, it follows that an idea as it is without reference to knowledge a
particular person has, is necessarily true, since it is just a particular instance of God's
essence. That is, true ideas are true because they agree entirely with their objects These
ideas are, then, perfectly adequate.

Spinoza argues: "All ideas are in God; and, insofar as they are related to God, are true,
and adequate. And so, there are no inadequate or confused ideas except insofar as they
are related to the singular Mind of someone."(E2, P36) . So inadequate ideas, or
falsehoods, are a feature of finite beings. That is, even though ideas considered
objectively as elements of the universe are always adequate (meaning their relation to
their object is total), when a particular individual has an idea of something, such an idea
is necessarily incomplete, and therefore, inadequate. This is the source of falsehood.
Spinoza believed that every idea that in us is absolute, or adequate and perfect, is true.

28
(Ethics 2, P34). Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge which inadequate, or
mutilated and confused, ideas involve. With this conception of knowledge, there is not
big distinction between natural science, theology and philosophy.
The fourth kind of knowledge which in Spinoza’s Ethics, is the third , he refers to it as
Intuition, scienza intuitiva. It procedes from adequate ideas of the formal essence of
certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things. This total
system of ideas is the infinita idea Dei ie. The infinite idea of God. It is a kind of
knowledge that is particularly important because it is what he thinks allows us to have
adequate knowledge, and therefore know things absolutely truly. At this level, a thing is
perceived through its essencelvi. And this kind of knowing proceeds from an adequate
idea of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things. This
is the perfect knowledge of God. It is only God that possesses the perfect idea of himself.
All things are in God and conceived through Him. We can deduce from this knowledge
of God, many things which we can know adequately. This level of knowledge gives
much satisfaction and emotional fulfillment. Insofar as I approach the possession of that
knowledge, I necessarily approach the condition of god, and in that way, I necessarily
become God in a certain extent, (the God-intoxicated man) since I possess the knowledge
of a highest grade the knowledge of the divine mindlvii.

In conclusion, we have observed that the specialty in Spinoza’s epistemology is the fact
that true knowledge is acquired by intuitively affirming the truth inherent within all of
reality. Reality is liable to such an intuition because every being is a mode of it, or a way
that it expresses itself. This reality is God, the only substance (Spinoza’s monism). So,
knowledge for Spinoza is always of what he calls God or Nature, which can also be
understood as the universe itself.

However, Spinoza’s theory of knowledge received some criticisms, for example that,
such epistemology oversteps the limits of human finitude and also that what Spinoza
experienced within himself that which he called “the truth,” it is a personal experience for
us, we have no access to it.

Perhaps Spinoza came up with such a theory of knowledge as in a search for true
meaning in life, having been faced by tribulations he resorted to the search for a
consolation. My suspicion is based on what he said himself that, “After experience had
taught me that all the things which regularly occur in ordinary life are empty and futile,
and I saw that all the things which were the cause or object of my fear had nothing of
good or bad in themselves…. I resolved at last to try to find out whether there was
anything which would be the true good, capable of communicating itself, and which
alone would affect the mind, all others being rejected—whether there was something
which, once found and acquired, would continuously give me the greatest joy, to eternity
( Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect paragraph 1).

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Idealists

Many idealists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by a
priori processes or is innate. The relevant theoretical processes often go by the name
"intuition"lviii. The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure
of the human mind (as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism), or they may be said
to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's theory of Forms). Realism denies
common sense, and realist view of material object’s existence independent of our
mindslix. Hence, they are immaterialists. For example, Bishop George Berkeley (1685-
1753), an Anglo-Irish philosopher. In his work known as A Treatise concerning the
Principles of Human knowledge, Dublin 1710, claimed that a man born blind, if made to
see, he will at first have no idea of objects by sight, but will all seem to be in his mind lx.
For Berkeley, we do not derive matter from sense perception. Otherwise what is the
flavor of matter? How does it look like? How does it feel? What is its sound? If matter
was sensible, we would be able to answer those questions.

Matter is a deposit we create by our minds. Our minds perceive sensible things like
color, sound, shape, motion etc., then we conclude that there must be something that
unifies them or on which they rest and then we call this matter. But actually, matter is not
real; it is a creation of our mindlxi. This is a phenomenon construction of reality. We have
ideas of things in our minds, we have a universe of ideas in our minds such as shape,
magnitude etc, and them we deposit a substance on which they can be based. Berkeley’s
epistemology is known as immaterialism since he asserted that there are no such things as
material substancelxii. Leibniz too took this trend of thought though in a metaphysical line,
so his unlike Berkeley is not an epistemological but a metaphysical immaterialistlxiii.

Berkeley’s fundamental epistemological immaterialism lie in is affirmation that, what we

immediately perceive are sensations or ideas which are necessarily objects of perception
since their esse-essence, is percipi-is to be perceived. And that what we call physical
things such as tree, rock etc, are orderly groups or collections of sensations or ideas
which are mind-dependent like the sensations or ideas that composes themlxiv.

This means that Berkeley accepts sensation but not matter since according to him, the
senses inform us of ideas but not of material substance to which these ideas belong.
Contrary to realists, whereby ideas are mediated by sense perception in the sense that
they are abstracted from sensible species, immaterialism of Berkeley teaches that ideas
are perceived immediately. Hence things are known immediately since they are ideas and
they are as they seem to be. It is not possible to conceive anything existing apart from
being thought of, for it must be thought of in the very act of being conceived. So,
Berkeley tried to include sensation in his idealism. But how does he account for it? He
claims that our knowledge comes from sense experience which are ideas in the mind.
Things are only the ideas we have of themlxv.

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To explain how our sensation has nothing to do with physical object, Bishop Berkeley
introduces the notion of God. Berkeley explains that we have two kinds of ideas. The
first type consists of ideas of images we create by our minds and he calls them ideas of
imagination. Whereas the second kind of ideas is made of ideas of objects that we do not
create ourselves. And he refers to these as ideas of sensation. These ideas of sensation
(ideas of the sensible world) are created in our minds by another mind; the mind of God.

A question was asked to Berkeley that if things have no existence independent of the
mind, such sound exists only if there is a mind that perceives it, do you mean that when a
tree falls in the forest where there is no person, it does not make sound since there is no
person to perceive that sound? Berkeley replied that it makes sound since there is God
who perceives it.

A critique of Berkeley tried to challenge him that matter really exists. He kicked a stone
and asked him that if it is not really solid matter why does he feel pain? Berkeley replied
that it is because he has put it in his mind that what he perceives has a solid matter which
when he kicks it feels pain, yet it is by the law of regularity god put in the universe that if
you think that that what you kick is solid and you feel pain when you kick it, you will do
feel pain when you kick it. So, the feeling of pain when kicked the stone does not prove
the existence of matter. So, things in nature do not happen by coincidence or
mechanically, they are all regulated by God.

This shows how Berkeley’s idealism did not reject theories of physics such as Newton’s
law of gravity but he accepted it in the way that does not overwrap religious truth of God
who ordered the universe. The universe moves according to the regulations God put for
it. Newton’s physics just helps us to predict future experiences but it does not give any
causal account of changing things in the universe, ie it has no metaphysical significance.
The law of gravity for example, tell us how objects behave when thrown up in the air but
it does not why they do so.

On top of ideas in the mind, Berkeley also adds the what he referred to as notionslxvi. And
the basic notion is our awareness of ourselves. We do not perceive ourselves in the same
way we perceive other objects is by sensory qualities like color, shape etc, but we know
ourselves by the awareness that we are active agents who think, will, act, etc. so it is the
awareness of the active thinking spirit who is myself or me. It is our primary notion. We
also develop the notion of God as the omnipresent spirit who thinks and perceives all
ideas. It is through notion that we come to know of the structure of the world.

Berkeley insists that belief in matter is the root cause of skepticism. He gives an example
that realists say that ideas are representations of real physical objects. This leads to
skepticism that how can we be sure that ideas really correspond to objects if we do not
perceive them immediately but through mediation of the sense organs.

He also accuses materialism to be the cause of Atheism. The regularity of sensation is

done by God’s mind the pretense to regulate them by our own senses whereby we deposit

31
a substratum (material) to unify the sensible, is pretending to do away with God, hence to
reject God’s existence.

He argues that idealism restores the sense experience which informs us that the world is
how we really experience it while materialism leads us to endless wrangles which can
never be resolved.

With that, Berkeley declares himself the champion not only of religious truths, but also of
common judgment, common sense (un like other theories that deny what everybody new,
his is in agreement with what people commonly know that thinks they immediately
perceive are the real things), as well as common life.

Much as Berkeley gave all these credits to himself, his contemporaries regarded his
theory as pure fantasy. To disapprove his fantasy that everything is immaterial idea
without real concrete matter, when he went to visit Dean Swift, he did not open for him
the door but told him to come in through the closed door since it had no concrete matter
but it was just an immaterial idealxvii.

Transcendental idealism.

Immanuel Kant.

Kant, in his work known as Critique of Pure Reason, refers to his idealism which refuted
other forms of idealism as a transcendental idealism that he referred to as problematic
(Cartesian idealism) and dogmatic Berkeley’s) realismslxviii.

Immanuel Kant argued that the reality of things as they are in themselves (noumena) we
do not know, what we know is only how things appear to us (phenomena)lxix. He teaches
that the human mind creates for its self-categories of thought by which it tries to know
things. There are 12 categories in the human mind. Eg substance (by which we think that
there are persistent things in the world), causality (by which we assume that a thing to be
has to be cause by something else), plurality (by which we presume that the world
contains a plurality of different kind of entities), unity (by which we force common basis
which make it possible for us to formulate ideas and laws about them), existence (which
makes us force existence in things independent of our minds), space, time, etc.

For Kant, these categories such as space and time and other categories of the mind, are
the conditions of the possibility of experience rather than features of things as they are in
themselveslxx. He asserts that we could not experience anything of this world without
these categories of thought. They are necessary to have objective experience of objects in
the world. He gave an example of a series of pictures. First of a man entering a ware
house, then another one of the man powering a liquid on the floor, another one of the man
lighting with a match-box, that liquid, and another of the ware house on fire. He argues
that if various people see these pictures, they will apply the categories of the mind to

32
them. Eg. substance (persistence)-that the man who was entering the house is the same
one who powered the liquid on the floor and the very one who lit the fire. Causality- that
the match which was lit was the cause of fire, etc. he argues that without these categories,
we could not be able to come up with coherent interpretation of the world. His critique
asked him that if these categories are the same in every man’s minds why is it that some
can give different interpretation of the same event? He replied that it depends on which
categories they applied on that same event. If one applies different categories from those
applied by others, he will have a different perception of the same event. This is a prove
that no one perceives the noumena (true nature) but only the phenomena of reality.

Kant says that the reason to why science and mathematics are able to give objective
knowledge yet philosophy is unable to come up with an objective truth of anything, is
because science and mathematics deal with the phenomena (things as they appear to us)
yet philosophy deals with the noumena (things as they are in themselves). They utilize
the categories of space and time to make general knowledge of appearances. Mathematics
with its number series 1,2,3,4 etc, employs time while geometry utilizes space. Science
which is about laws and behaviors of things in our boundary it uses time and space
which are in the boundary of our understanding and this knowledge of science Kant
referrers to it as synthetic a posteriori since it comes after experience) unlike knowledge
of the abstract mathematical propositions that he refers to as analytic a priori. Since these
categories are objects of our consciousness, make the knowledge of objects possible.
Without time there could be no experience. To experience something is to undergo
through it, there is no undergoing through something without time. Space and time are
two forms of the mind that experience has to conform to in order to be experience.

Kant calls these space and time as forms of intuition or forms of sensibility. We do not
get these ideas from experience, because we have to first form them in order to get
experiences. That is what Kant calls the A priori ie from the first, or from the beginning
(without first experiencing but we need them in order to experience). These general truths
of reality derived from the categories of the mind not from experience, are what Kant
calls synthetic a priori. Synthetic in the sense that they are artificially made by the mind
hence not real, but they are about something real in the world. They are a priori not
posteriori (after experience) since we do not get them from experience but from
categories that we presume to have a priori existence. We do not know of their truth we
know the meaning of their words. The human mind is the source of these intuitions based
on the by which we best know them. They come from the mind and we impose them on
the world. This is what he calls the transcendental reduction of the categories.

By this Kant brings back man at the Centre of the universe from where Copernicus had
displaced him. Now the world moves around man. With this, Kant boasts as he had made
a Copernicus revolution. He has dismantled all the previous thought of the previous
thinkers including scientists and has given a new direction of thought.

To account for the universal ideas, Kant introduced what he called practical reason. Here
he talked of hypothetical imperatives in morality eg. if you want others to trust you, you
ought not to tell lie. This makes everyday life full of ifs and ought’s. Bu Kant thought

33
that ethics and morality could not be merely represented by hypothetical imperatives.
Since for him ethics is rooted in duty, it is situated in categorical imperatives which have
no ifs and ought’s, which state categorically eg. that do not lie because it is wrong.
Categorical imperatives are universally absolute moral principles. In them there is
nothing other than particular actions conform to universal laws. The first version of the
categorical imperatives demand that “act only on that maxim through which you can will
at the same time that it should become a universal law.” He rejected morality based on
external authority like religion, society etc. for if rejected hypothetical imperatives which
presuppose that if one acts immorally it will affect society. He is in favor of categorical
imperatives which dictate that should act morally because immoral acts bear in them a
contraction. Eg making a promise and do not fulfill it, is like saying it is good-bad which
is a contradiction in itself. It is this acting according to our internal law that distinguishes
us from irrational animals which act by instinct.

On this basis Kant invites us to forgo our selfish, egoistic, and self-interest instinct, and
follow our universal categorical imperatives, it is by following this self-legislation that
we really be free beings.

The second version of the categorical imperative which he calls the principle of humanity
states that, “ act so that you always use humanity in your own person as well as in the
person of every other, never merely as means to your own ends, but always at the same
time as an end in himself.”

The third version is referred to as Kingdom of ends principle. It states that “we should act
towards all other rational beings as if we were all members of a kingdom of ends whose
free actions and choices are worth respecting”.

It is through the establishment of the moral law and the free will that we can talk of God
to guarantee and for the significance of them.

However, Maimon criticized Kant’s epistemology that it has no criterion to determine

how the concepts of the understanding apply to the intuitions of sensibility a thing that
leave room for skepticism within the framework of Kant’s own philosophy. He asks that
how can such heterogeneous realms as the intellectual and the sensible be known to
correspond with one another. And how do we know that a priori concepts apply to a
posteriori intuitionlxxi.

Kant’s transcendental idealism gave birth to absolute realism at the end of the 18 th-19th
century. He influences philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel
all purveyed their own panoramic versions of German Idealism.

Absolute idealism.

Fichte (1762-1814)

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Fichte was very much influenced by Kant to the extent of affirming that our
representations, ideas, or mental images are merely the productions of our ego. That there
is no external thing-in-itself that produces the ideas. So knowing subject, or ego, is the
cause of the external thing, object, or non-ego. And that truth can be immediately seen by
the use of reason.

Schelling (1775–1854)

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling with regard to the experience of objects, Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph Schelling claimed that the Fichte's "I" needs the Not-I, because there is
no subject without object, and vice versa. So, the ideas or mental images in the mind are
identical to the extended objects which are external to the mind. According to Schelling's
"absolute identity" or "indifferentism", there is no difference between the subjective and
the objective, that is, the ideal and the real.

Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher was a theologian who asserted that the ideal and the real are
united in God. He understood the ideal as the subjective mental activities of thought,
intellect, and reason. The real was, for him, the objective area of nature and physical
being. Schleiermacher declared that the unity of the ideal and the real is manifested in
God. The two divisions do not have a productive or causal effect on each other. Rather,
they are both equally existent in the absolute transcendental entity which is God.

Hegel

Hegel objects to the claimed relation between perceptual objects and anything outside
perception, such as an independent external worldlxxii. He accepts Kant's view that
knowledge begins with, but does not arise out of, experience. Like Kant, Hegel, rejects
the idea that through what is given directly in experience, we can know what lies outside
itlxxiii.

Hegel accepts Kant's view we only know the phenomena but not the noumena. He
maintains that knowledge depends on the relation of our view of the object with the
object of that view as it is experienced, that is, within the subject’s mind. For there to be
knowledge, three conditions must be met:

1. In the first moment, a concept is presented, in an abstract form; it is immediate

(stemming directly from the process of thought and without aid of other,
intermediate conceptions) and indeterminate.
2. In the second moment, the abstract concept is mediated by rival conceptions, so
as to become determinate ie. So as to say something specific about its subject-
matter.
3. The conflict between the abstract and the determinate conception is resolved by
an intellectual transcendence, to a truer (more complete) conception that

35
 embodies both. Thus, it is the consciousness realizing itself in that it raises itself
from abstract thinking to rationalitylxxiv.

Hegel here tries to show us how in knowing we proceed from abstract to determinate in
progressive stage. First, we perceive a thing in space, then we perceive it as a living
thing, then as an animal, and then as a cat. but these various stages are reach through a
contradiction. Ie on the first stage, I perceive universal concepts (abstract). The second
moment, is of contradiction (antithesis) in that these universal concepts ie abstract
concepts, have to be applied particularly. So, these universal concepts must apply
themselves and moreover their application is a particularization. So, the universal abstract
concepts(thesis) have to be counterbalanced by a particularizing element (antithesis).
This leads to finding a solution (a partial truth) lxxv to the two (synthesis) which is the idea
of a concrete reality eg a cat, dog, tree etc. So first we perceive an abstract idea, yet we
have the urge of concretizing. This urge is what Hegel refers to as a conflict between the
universal/abstract (thesis) and the particular (antithesis), and the end result is the creation
of the concrete entity as a solution (synthesis) hence Hegel presents a dialectical way of
knowing.

At this level, we are conscious of a particular idea created by our mind eg cat, tree etc.
but the conscious is not satisfied, it attempts to go beyond this particular idea to locate it
in the world out there. When the conscious tries to go beyond the veil it only finds there
itself as the knowing subject, that invests the objects of its world, hence it becomes the
object of its knowledge. So, the dialectical process ends in self-conscious. The conscious
that knows itselflxxvi. So, in penetrating the forces behind of phenomena we become aware
of what we ourselves have devised (invented). And he considers self-conscious to be
human freedom which is necessary for knowledge.

The key point is obviously the claim that we can never go beyond our view of an object
other than as it appears to the subject within consciousness.
So, Hegel tells us that the cognitive subject constitutes its object. In elaborating this
point, the cognitive subject becomes central to his epistemological theory. Experience
occurs on the level of consciousness. The more difficult question is whether and how to
go from the phenomenon, given in conscious experience understood as an appearance, to
what appears without going beyond the limits of consciousness.

Hence beyond the limits of experience, to what is inferred to exist as a condition of

experience and to what is experienced. If knowledge is limited to what is given in the
experience of consciousness, we can never know anything beyond it, or more precisely
we can never know that we know anything beyond consciousness.

Third, we cannot understand a phenomenon as an appearance since, as already noted, we

cannot relate it to what appears. No inference is possible from the object as it appears to
the object as it is, or from appearance to an external reality, or finally from consciousness
to anything outside it.

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Fourth, when we go beyond the plane of perception to see the object as it is, we find there
only ourselves. In other words, we are ourselves at the root of our own knowledge.

Husserl (1859-1938)

Husserl’s developed a phenomenology characterized by the slogan of back to the things

in themselves. His phenomenology seeks to found a foundation of all knowledge. He
seeks for the necessary truthlxxvii. He formulated the idea of the transcendental Ego which
the aim of finding the truth that can be used as the basis of his philosophylxxviii.

Husserl believed that the truth about the world is given to us through intuition. The
conscious is passive; it just receives the ideas of the world. So for Hurssel we know the
world truly as it is. This is why his epistemology is characterized by a return to the things
in themselves. Unlike Kant and Hegel who thought that the things in themselves we
cannot know. For Husserl the true nature of things we know it through intuition. Having
got the intuition of the essence of things in the world, we try to give interpretation of it
which gives us another form of knowledge that is constituted by consciousness. For him
conscious is always conscious of something, so it is an intentional conscious lxxix as it
tends towards something existing.

So we do not just have the received knowledge by intuition but we also have the
interpretative knowledge (which is like that of Kant’s phenomena) by which we try to
explain the things given to us by intuition. This explains why when you see an object,
you only see the front part but you are able to presuppose that it has a behind unseen part,
that it has a texture even if you have not touched it. It is because you have already the
intuition of the whole object.
This leads us to his phenomenological reduction. For example, he talks of the epoche
which is a Greek word meaning suspension lxxx. Here we thing that what we see is given
by sense perception yet it is a projection of the world my conscience to the world out
there.

Secondly, he talks of eidetic which is from Greek eidos meaning form of essence of
things. Here we try to figure out what the essential features of experience may be. Eg of a
ball, vessels etc. but he suggests to turn back to the things in themselves, to the essence of
the object as given through intuition that is where we can have knowledge of it. That is
where we find knowledge common to all since it is knowledge of the essences. What is in
essence it is not in essence for some people and to others no, it is essence for all. So,
people have common experience of essences of things given in intuition.

Epistemology in Traditional African Perspective.

Just as a thought to be called European for example Hegel’s Philosophy does not need to
be shared by all Europeans, in the same way, a thought to be called African does not need
to be believed in by all Africans. So long as a thought or a practice is has its roots in a
well-established African traditional ethnical group or tribe, it is African.

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Generally, for Traditional Africa, knowledge is of two types; subjective and absolute
knowledge. Subjective knowledge is derived from sense experience of an individual’s
apprehension of physical objects by use of external sense organs. This is very much in
line with the western empiricists. One perceives, verifies all at a physical level. And the
mostly known external senses are two: hearing and sight. The sense of touch, smell, and
taste, are all referred to as hear. Eg. I hear someone touching me, I hear that this banana is
sweet, I hear with my figures the hardness of a stone. I hear a dog barking. Why do we
African use very much a sense of hearing? It is just as modern science tells us that when
one touches you, your body’s neural system informs the brain of it and the brain
interprets which kind of touch it is. Likewise, for an African, when is touched, his body,
which is part of him (he is body and soul) informs his minds (which is also an aspect of
his). This informing an African understand it as telling, to which corresponds hearing
what is being told or informed of. This explains according to me why an African says I
hear instead of I feel, I taste, etc. eg. I hear that you touch my hand. The sense of sight is
for seeing. Sometimes an Africa even uses the term seeing for touch which led to the
slogan that the eyes of a African are in his fingers. One can say let me see while bringing
the fingers to touch.

In some languages like the Bangwa of Cameroon, the verb N’jeuh which means to see
freely substitutes the verb N’juh which means to hearlxxxi.

Likewise, generally Africans have two internal senses ie hear and see. The mind sees
which is used synonymously with understanding, the hearing of the heart meaning the
feeling of the heart, (perceiving the information from the heart). The husband hears that
he loves his wife. Meaning that he feels loving his wife. Subjective knowledge is tied to
space since it is to do with sense perception. As the Baganda say that buli omu wali
walabira omwezi n’enjuba. Meaning that each one sees (seeing in the sense of knowing)
the sun and the moon from the location where he is found. The more one travels the more
this knowledge enhances since he perceives many things. Eg the Baganda say that
atanayita yita ya tenda nyina okufumba. Literary meaning that, he who does not travel,
thinks that his mother is the best cook. Hence it means that who does not travel to
discover new realities, has a limited knowledge. When one travels, he learns new
realities.

This kind of knowledge is also influenced by time. The longer one lives; the more
experience he will have hence the more knowledge he will have. This is seen in saying of
the Bangwa language that, Nkeag njeuh, n’jeah meaning that I have seen, I have
knownlxxxii. This refers to seeing a lot in life which generates knowing. This explains why
in Africa the aged are highly respected due to much knowledge they have accumulated.
In some way to live is to know. As seen in the Bangwa expression legnang ngong. Only
he who lives knows. The more one lives, the more he becomes an expert of life that the
youth go to, to consult the knowledge of how to live.

This knowledge is characterized by memory which is the cognition of the past

experiences. The memory is very much upheld since it rends the ancestors present in
people’s minds. So even this level of knowledge has to do with the intellect. This is seen

38
in the expression of the bangwa Ezeagh which means that which falls from within the
spheres of intelligence. When the Bangwa people say that ezeagh atugoh they mean that
your head is full of intelligence.
The culmination of this kind of knowledge is what is known as wisdom. It is by wisdom
that one knows how to live well, that is how to harmonize all the forces of live.

The second type of Knowledge is Objective knowledge. This is knowledge of revealed

truths. It is given knowledge by God through the ancestors. It is vital force for it exists for
the enhancement of the life of society. It is uncontested and passed on from generation to
generation through proverbs and wise sayings. It is the measure of the truth of subjective
knowledge. This explains why when someone had knowledge of something, and wanted
to persuade others to accept the rationale of his knowledge, he had to back it with some
proverbs. Even after the death of the ancestors, people still receive revealed knowledge
through divination. But the truth obtained through divination has to be scrutinized by that
passed on by ancestors through tradition. So, it has to be backed up by proverbs.

It should be noted however that much as I said that this second type of knowledge is
objective, it does not mean that it applies to all humanity. The word objective here means
that it applies to all members of a given community. Each tribe receives it revealed truths
in accordance to its vital needs through its own ancestors. Nobody feels uncomfortable
with the fact that other tribes have different truths from his.

Empricism

John Lock, an English Philosopher (1632-1704)

Lock’s epistemology dominated Western epistemology for about 100 years. Lock was
indeed an influential philosopher of the eighteenth century. His epistemology was used in
contrast with the Cartesian rationalist philosophy. Lock does not object to the fact that
there are, truth and certainty ideas, he says there indeed they exist but not accessible
through a methodic doubt but they are found in propositions of relationships. It is
obvious to a bright mind that 3 is more than 2, that black is not white, that a circle is not a
triangle, etc but these ideas are not got through meditation, they are not innate, they are
got through sense perception.

Lock considers knowledge to be as an operation, an activity of the mind. And by idea,

means the object of understanding, or of awareness of our consciousness lxxxiii. Lock
recognizes degrees in knowledge where intuition and demonstration are the ones that
strictly deserve the term knowledege. Intuition is more fundamental and certain. In
intuition the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by
themselves without the intervention of any other. Such knowledge is irresistible and
leaves no room for hesitation, doubt or examination. Upon it depends all the certainly of
all other knowledge. Intuitive knowledge is the knowledge of the mind perceiving its own
act. Instead, in demonstration, the mind the mind perceives agreements or disagreements
by means of mediation of other ideas. We compare ideas together; we go through several

39
steps to demonstrate the truths of this knowledge lxxxiv. This knowledge in most evident in
mathematics but it is not limited only to it. The third degree of knowledge is sensitive
knowledge. It tells us of the actual existence of particular things. Although it does not
give us knowledge, we can be sure of. It is employed about the particular existence of
finite beings without us, which going beyond bare probability and yet does not reach
perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes under the name of
knowledge.

Ideas. He says that ideas stand between reality and understanding, they are the objects of
understandinglxxxv. He teaches that man is conscious of two things: the first is that he
thinks and the second is the ideas in the mind about which he thinks.

For lock, all our ideas are got from two sources: sensation, whereby we get ideas from
perceiving physical objects by our sense organs and then the mind performs various
operations with them. And the second source is Reflection, where the mind experiences
its own operations dealing with sensation. It is through sensation that we get the idea of a
tree and then my mind compares them as tall, short, big, small, etc. so I do not only have
experience of a tree but I also have a judgment of it. When we perceive the operation of
our minds when reflecting, we are furnished with ideas of perception, thinking, doubting,
believing, reasoning, knowing, willing etc. Locks views contemplation (contemplation
according to Lock consists in holding an idea before the mind for some time) and
memory (the power to receive ideas that the mind once had) as indispensable to
knowledge.

Lock was influenced by a 17th century philosopher called Pierre Gassendi, who taught
that the complex being of the world are formed by the combination of simple atoms. So
Lock came up with an idea that mind takes in simple ideas from sensations and combines
them into complex ideas in three categories: modes (these are dependence or affections of
substances), substances (the idea of a substance represents collective ideas of substances
and distinct particular things subsisting in themselves) and relations (the idea of relations
compares one idea to another , cause and effects, and these include duration, space,
identity, diversity, time, number, infinity, motion, sense qualities, thinking, pleasure,
pain, power, certain mixed modes etc).

Lock insists that there are no innate ideas. All our knowledge is limited to our sense
experience of the world. No knowledge beyond human experience. In this case he rejects
divine revelations, or divine illumination. Our mind is limited to what is given by sense
experience. We can have no rational knowledge of what the mind is, apart from knowing
how its behavior islxxxvi. Eg. that the mind thinks. Lock goes on and says that we cannot
have any knowledge of what matter is, apart from what we see that it is extended in
space, impenetrable etc. In other wise lock may be rejecting ideas of essence, or forms.
We base on such knowledge and we conclude that matter is solid and the mind is thought.
We can only know what God mad us to know. And he considers this acceptance of the
limitedness of our knowledge, humility. However, lock asserts the real objective
existence of material thingslxxxvii.

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By knowledge, Lock intends the perception of the connection and agreement or
disagreement of any of our ideaslxxxviii.

We are made to know in terms of matter and mind yet we have no clear knowledge of
that they are. We only know that we have a thinking soul but its nature we cannot know.
And it is useless to waste time in endless speculations of what they are for we cannot
know that. And the title that we know of them is not from logical analysis but from
experience which is always open to criticism.

Knowledge is bound to sense experience and always open to correction by further

experiences. Eg. a person from a tropical zone, can assert that water can never solidify to
the extent that a one can walk on it. But if he happens to travel to Europe in winter and
experiences solidified water, he has to modify his knowledge of water. We clearly see
here that Lock rejects absolutism in knowledge which indeed a scientific approach to
knowledge. No wonder that Lock’s epistemological theory became the dominant one
through the 18th century which was an error of science.

The Mind as Tabula rasa, for Lock, the mind has no innate ideas lxxxix, but it is a tabula
rasa on which nature imprints ideas via sensations. It is at this moment that the minds
even become aware of itself ie as it comes in relation with sensation, it is when it
becomes aware of itself as a thing that reflects on ideas got through sensation. It
associates simple ideas (color, sound, odor, warmth, smell etc), it combines them to form
complex ideas asxc. While simple ideas are ideas of real existence, complex ideas are a
creation of our minds.

However, propositions about the world since they are from ideas got through sense
perception, they are to be taken just as probable since they are subjected to change, and
modification by future experience. Lock thinks that names we give to objects of our
experience are meant to keep our memory of our past experiences alive.

How ideas are produced.

Lock insists that ideas do represent things of the real world outside our minds and do
constitute the link by which we know something of the external world. He talks of
powers that produce ideas and he refer to them as qualities. Each body impinges on the
other, giving rise to sensation and if the sensation strikes our senses, produces an
appropriate motion therein and then our senses convey it into our minds and it begins to
thinkxci.

Primary qualities are primary because they are constantly found in bodies and
inseparable from every particle of matter.eg. Solidarity, mobility, extension, figure, etc.
Secondary qualities, are powers that produce various sensations of ideas like, color,
odor, sound, etc. these ideas do not resemble the qualities of bodies.
Lock also presents a third quality which is the power of body to produce a change in
another body for example the power of the sun to melt wax.

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Ethical knowledge.

For Lock, even our ethical knowledge is based on sense perception. We call good those
things we believe that lead to our well-being and we call bad those we believe that cause
pain to us. This ethics hence is relativistic and it rejects rationalistic and idealistic type of
morality such as Kant’s morality based on a priori categorical imperatives. The theory of
innate ideas encourage laziness since such ideas are not subjected to extermination yet
they themselves are vaguexcii.

Lock went as far as rejecting religious truths which are not based on empirical evidences

The idea of God.

For lock, the idea of God is coming from sense experience and intuition, not from divine
illumination nor from innate ideas since these two do not exist. by sense experience, we
come to the knowledge of cause-effect as seen above. This makes us believe that all
things are caused, it is impossible for something to come out of nothing. Therefore, if
something exists now, there is no time when nothing existed since nothing cannot
precede something. Something has always existed that has caused others to exists. That
which has its beginning from another as its cause, must also share its properties.
Therefore, all the perfections of existing things must be at a higher degree in that original
being from which these beings come. It must for example have all the powers we see in
the existing things. Therefore, it must be all powerful.

We have seen above that by intuition (mind reflecting on its acts) man comes to know
that he not only exists, but also thinks. So, it would be absurd to think that that eternal
being, the cause of man a thinking being’s existence, that it does not think more perfectly
than man who is merely its creature. If it is all knowing/all thinking, it cannot be material
but spiritual since a all thinking being cannot be made up of unthinking components ie
matter.

This eternal, all powerful, all knowing being, is what anyone will please to call God.

DAVID HUME (1711-1776)

David Hume was a Scottish empiricist and one of the masters of the 18 th centuryxciii. He
began his epistemology by asserting that everything that we are aware of can be classified
under impressions or ideas. He maintained that ideas which are mental representations
are images from experience. He teaches that every idea is an idea of a being. He
distinguished between sensitive impressions which produce ideas from ideas. He argues

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that sensitive impressions are distinguished by their vivacity or force; they are clear and
distinct than their reflections which are the ideas.

He differentiates ideas and impressions into simple ones which he said that they admit of
no distinction or separation. The perception of quality blue is simple, whereas the
perception of a blue picture is complex and can be separated into parts. Simple ideas are
like simple impressions. Simple impression precedes simple ideas. We first get a simple
quality like orange and then occurs an idea which is identical to it ie an idea of an
orangexciv. Ideas on the other hand, lack vivacity or force, they lack clarity since they are
mere copies of the sensitive impressions. Ideas depend on impressions from which they
comexcv. We cannot have any idea of anything before first having its sense impression got
from sense perception.

He recognizes only introspective and scientific knowledge and he claims that there are
only three principles with which the mind associates its various ideas. 1 resemblance, 2.
spatial-temporal contiguity, and 3 cause effect. He explains that you have an image of
what you look at, then close your eyes you still see that image in your mind. This is
resemblance. For spatial temporal contiguity, Hume explains that, I move from one
position to another, and you see me in another position and you see that I have filled that
position between the former and the later as I was passing on to the later position, in a
certain time. That continuity you perceive creates a sense of identity between those
various experiences. So, space and time are manners in which our impressions occur xcvi.
Then Hume explains cause-effect as follows. When I push an object and it moves, you
see that it moves because I have pushed it. This perception causes an idea of causal-effect
relationshipxcvii.

All knowledge that can be broken into classes. The first one deals with relation between
ideas. Intuitively certain knowledge is found in mathematics and logic. eg. if I say that 1
plus 1 equals 2 or that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, cannot
be denied since they are truth values. But this knowledge much as is certainly true, does
not tell us anything about the world apart from telling us about the relations between
things.
The second class of knowledge deals with matters of facts. Those that have existential
implications about the nature of existence. This knowledge has no logical basis but
experience. Eg. if I release the pen from my hand it falls down. It is by experience that I
know that. In this way we come up with the principle of cause and effect and we proceed
with it even to unseen phenomena believing that they were all caused. So, the knowledge
of cause–effect is neither a priori nor from logical analysis but from sense experience.

For Hume, all of our knowledge of matters of fact are ultimately based on experience of
constant conjunctions and is never absolute. Hume asked that what makes us think that
the future will be like the present where objects behave in the same way eg. that when I
release a pen from my hand will fall down not do upwards? He replies that from our
experience (from habits and customs), we presuppose that the future will resemble the
present. Custom; that instinctual power, the great guide of human life, that principle
which makes our experience useful, predicts the future.

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So, our knowledge in not based on rationality but instinct which is practical. This
explains why Hume undermines most of the metaphysical doctrines of the 18 th century.
For him, no metaphysical necessary connections since necessary connections do not
derive from sense perception so like logical proves, metaphysical necessary connections
have no existential implications. You cannot imagine the color of a necessary
connection. That if he can move his hand as he wishes, shows that there are no necessary
connections. Imagine one who is sick not able to move his arm if there were necessary
connections his hand would be able to move. All is physical, nothing is metaphysical
Hume claims.

Liberty and necessityxcviii. Hume insists that we are human beings with a free will and
choice. We are not mechanistic materials run by cause and effect. necessity and causation
which are the basis of determinism, come from our own sense experiences of constant
conjunctions. Liberty by way of contrast is merely the absence of external restraint. It has
nothing to do with abstruse doctrines of a free or uncaused will. In fact, it is perfectly
consistent with a causally determined universe. Hume argues that if our actions were
caused by metaphysical causal necessities (determinism) other than causal-effect
relationship, then there would be no punishment for people’s actions. But punishments
exists because our actions are caused by our characters. We freely cause our actions.

Memory and Imagination. Is a faculty in which have present in the mind a series of
ideas in a fixed order or sequence? The other faculty is the imagination by which arrange
our ideas in any order we like. We normally associate ideas in our minds, we inspect
ideas to see if they resemble or not, whether one is darker than the other or not and this
knowledge which by immediate inspection of ideas Hume calls it intuitive and certain. It
cannot be false since it is merely bringing two or more ideas in our imagination and
inspect them. It is by this demonstrable knowledge that we develop a branch of
knowledge like arithmetic. Even the idea of cause- effect is derived from this level where
we inspect the ideas of contiguity and succession xcix, for example when we observe things
causing others eg a rock falling on the window causing it to break. The same applies to
scientific principles result from having perceived events occur many times, eg that a
certain impression called alcohol boils and conjoined with another impression of a
thermometer reading 80 degrees and then a principle was formed that alcohol boils at 80
degrees centigrade under normal atmospheric conditions.

Doctrine of Miracles.

Hume does not believe in miracles and in biblical revelations c. He teaches that a believe
in miracles is ignorance of laws of nature: water turns into blood, manna falls from
heaven, the red sea divides into two. Such things cannot be experienced. He said that first
of all let us consider the persons who claim to have seen miracles: the people of the Old
Testament who were still barbaric Hebrews. But how comes that when they settled down
and begin to develop, they never saw miracles again; nor more manna from heaven?
Even in our times miracles still are believed by primitive people, like the Mexicans who
claim to see the apparitions of Mary in Guadalupe). How comes that no apparitions or

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other forms of miracles in Manhattan or in Washington DC? Hume asserted that
Christianity itself is irrational. It cannot be believed by any reasonable person, not even
by one of a high school education. We went as far as attacking the resurrection of Christ
that it never happened.

Refutation of skepticism. Hume argues that Skepticism is not refuted rationally after all
skepticism is a library of metaphysical jokes. It is refuted practically, since there is no
practical reasons to believe in skepticism.

In conclusion, it was such a free-thinking attitude, and trust in common sense perception,
that lead to the heart of enlightenment and its great representative was David Hume.

NB. Read about Hume’s theory of probability if you want.

CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

PRAGMATISM

Pragmatism was the most influential philosophy in the America of the first half of the
twentieth centuryci. Pragmatism is a method of philosophizing often said to be a theory of
meaning. A method for evaluating intellectual problems and a theory about the kinds of
knowledge we are capable of acquiring cii. It was first developed by Charles Pierce in
1870s and then reformulated by William James in 1898 as a theory of truth and then
developed further by thinkers like John Dawey, F.C.S. Schillerciii.

William James (1842-1910).

W. James was one of the principle figures of the Anglo-American philosopher of his
time. James intended pragmatism to be a method or a generic theory of truth. A method
used to resolve all metaphysical issues.

James classified all the previous philosophical views into natures. Ie. The tender-
mindedciv (rationalism and idealism) that he described as intellectualists, optimistic,
religious in orientation. They wanted to believe things about the world that made them
happy. They stress free will, and are dogmatic. The other classification he referred to it as
the tough-minded materialists, empiricists, realists). That these ones, rather than arguing
on principles, they tend to facts. Therefore, are sensationalists arguing that the senses
build up the knowledge of the World. This is pessimism, irreligiosity, and skepticism as
opposed to optimism, and the religiosity of the tender minded (rationalists and idealists).

However, both of these two classes of philosophies are full of virtues and vices. The
tender minded, inspire us by systems that fill us with awe and offer cosmological
promises but at the expense of our scientific conscience. They believe in principles that
violate our scientific understanding. Eg. they talk of a God creator and sustainer of the
universe.

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The tough-minded preserve that scientific conscience, but do so at the expense of
religion, hope and psychological well-being.

James observes that in between these two classes of philosophers, there is a lay man who
does not understand these discourses yet him too wants the good things that both sides
dispute. This is the reason why James introduces pragmatism as the means of achieving
both of these good goals. Pragmatism of James teaches that the world is one if you look
at it in one way, and many if you look at it in another ways. Everything is determined and
free at the other hand. So, a free will-determinism is the true philosophy. This is a
psychological evaluation of philosophy. In this way he tries to establish a synthesis to
spiritualism (idealism and rationalism) and materialism. Pragmatism interprets things in a
way that comes to the consequences we should expect. Theories and principles are to be
seen as instruments of action not fixed or final answers to metaphysical enigma cay
(mystery).

James sees no difference between those two classes of philosophy as far as we consider
them with reference to the past. Both of their account to what has happen up to today can
be acceptable in whatever way one pleases to follow, ie. Either explaining the past
phenomena in terms of laws of science that materialism has provide, or on the basis of
spiritualism using the notion of God. The difference is their prospective of the future. For
materialism, the universe will collapse so all our projects will turn to nothing.
Spiritualism on the other hand assures us of the hope where our achievements and
examples persist in the mind of God. Materialism is the denial that the moral order is
eternal whereas spiritualism is its affirmation.

The problem of free will and determinism

James rejects the treatment of cause effect in terms of reward and punishment. In
particular he opposes Lock’s argument seen above for the free will that if our actions
were determined, there would be no punishments. For James the problem of punishment
is not resolved by philosophers but by policemen, judges and lawyers. For him
determinist means that the future will resemble the present and the past though this leads
to pessimism. Free will for him means novelties in the world. That the future may neither
resemble the world nor the past but it will be improved due to the free will which permits
creativity. The notion of free will makes us have a sense that the world can be made
better.

God

For James, one is free to decide what works for him, either to believe in God as the
creator or science which teaches that the universe was created by random atoms. So, his
pragmatism aims at liberating, empowering people above authorities, so that they make
their own choices. For that matter he said that even if one chooses to believe in God, he
does not need the mediation of the church to do so. Believe in God expresses a fear that
of the unguaranteed future so a need of a guarantor. Another issue is that we believe in
God so that we take a moral holiday after all God will take care of everything. Yet if we

46
do not believe in god, we take responsibility of our moral order and of the world that
surrounds us, we are always in a moral action.

James’ pragmatism is a kind of Nietzsche’s perspectivism. In fact, the two had much in
common like: similar view about philosophy, truth and metaphysics. both studied and
were attracted by idealism and romanticism, none of the two a real philosophical training
(Nietzsche studies languages whereas James was a doctor in modern psychology, this
explains why he approached philosophy from a psychological point of view). They were
both anti-realists which they described as chaotic. They both considered reality as a tool
particular species use to curb natural problems. They both see metaphysics not as a
doctrine about the nature of reality but with optimality associated with spiritual
consolation and of a lonely animus in the isolated universe.

But the difference is in the way each of them spine (backup) his perspectivism. For
Nietzsche sees the lack of absolute truth as the opening up of the a bit more fascination of
the animus towards cruelty, elitism contempt ion of the hard. Whereas for James the lack
of absolute truth is a philosophical torture to embrace tolerance, openness and democratic
egalitarianism.

The problem of Truth

For Nietzsche, truth is following the power principle. He taught that senses are true if
they make us feel our will to power. Anything that is not absolute is a lie. Instead, James,
an economic minded thinker, took an instrumental theory of truth. He believed that truth
has a cash valuecv. It helps us get purchases on reality. We ask what difference will it
make is I believe it, and what consequence would follow from my activities if I acted
according to it. If a theory has no cash value it makes no difference believing it true or
not, it does not affect his action. So for James, truth is not absolute but helpful.

Pragmatism, truth is something that happens to an idea or believe. We event truths to

cope with a number of experiences. True believes are those that marry new experiences
to our circle. Truth is a name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of believe.
So, what is true is what is profitable for us to believecvi.

Like Nietzsche, James rejected the correspondence theory of truth that states that an idea
is true if it corresponds to the object in reality of which they are ideas. He insists that the
function of thought is not to copy images of reality but to form ideas in order to satisfy
the individual’s needs and interestscvii. For him understood truths and beliefs as principles
by which we manipulate the world and are therefore mad true by verification. He insists
that in science the truth of an idea is determined by experimental verification. Since
verified ideas serve our need to predict experience and cope with our environment,
scientific truth fulfills our practical interests.

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate and verify whereas false ideas are
those that we cannot. True beliefs and facts are instruments of action but not copies or
correspondents of the world or thoughts in God’s mind.

47
Truth is the primitive term that cannot be defined. Just as Good cannot be defined, but it
is just a complement one pays to actions, similar, truth the experience in ways of belief as
a compliment to pay to belief. Truth and good are applied for determinate and specific
reasons. Hence there is no absolute truth. truth is for us and by us since man is the
measure of the world. It is not a fixed datum to correspond to. We create truth and falsity
as we construct new names and hence concepts of the world. And each time to do so we
change its nature. We cannot rule out human contribution to the world as it is. Experience
without language would be chaotic.

You cannot have any knowledge of the world prior to interpreting it. By naming the
world we make it useful, serviceable to our biological and psychological needs.
Therefore, beliefs are true if they have a survival value for us. Common sense is the basis
of such beliefs that have a survival value for us. A view is true if it works in human
experiences. He only reason we have to assert that a thing is true is that it workscviii.

Criticisms

However, W. James’ theory of truth has been rejected by Bertrand Russell, Arthur O.
Lovejoy, Dewey among others. They argued that the notion of truth as what works is not
clear to begin with since the concept of working is ambiguous. So, the theory is
inadequate since it ignores the common meaning of truth. they claim that James failed to
identify that a statement like “it is true that other people exists is not the same as “it is
useful that other people exists”. Furthermore, that a belief may work in different senses cix.
See more from, Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy. P.428ff.

NB. Certainly the pragmatic consideration of truth is opposed to the traditional

Correspondence theory of truth held by St. Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell and
some great philosopher of the Ancient time like Aristotle and Plato’s Socrates. Certainly,
a pragmatic theory of truth does not convince rationalists and idealists such as Leibniz,
Spinoza, Hegel, Bradley and others who assert a Coherent theory of truth. And it is
also rejected by philosophers like F.P. Ramsey and P.F. Strawson who introduced a
Performative theory of truth.

48
i
Ashby, W.R., Design for a Brain. Chapman & Hall: London, 1960,
ii
Kenneth, G.T., The Philosophy of Knowledge, pp. 3-9.
iii
Richard, H.P., Filosofia Per tutti, il Saggiatore, Milano, 1997, p. 248.
iv
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, Macmillan publishers, New York, 1967, p.9.
v
Ibid., p. 10
vi
Richard, H.P., Filosofia Per tutti, il Saggiatore, Milano, 1997, pp. 253-254
vii
Sirtori,V.,Le Grandi Opere della Filosofia, Garzanti editore, 1996, p. 235.
viii
Richard, H.P., Filosofia Per tutti, il Saggiatore, Milano, p. 10
ix
Kenneth, T.G., The Philosophy of Knowledge, New York, 1964, pp. 3ff.
x
Ibid., p. 12
xi
Sorabji, R., Aristotle Transformed., London, 1990, pp. 113-123, Mahoney, E.P., Neoplatonism, The Greek commentators
and Renaiscence Aristoteriansim, in O’meara, D.J., neoplatonism and Albony, 1992, pp. 169-177.
xii
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 14.
xiii
Mondin, B., A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, Urbaniana University Press, 1991, p. 88.
xiv
Gareth, B. M., Augustine Tradition, University of California Press, p. 222.
xv

xvi
Markus, R, A., Augustine; A Collection of Critical Essays, Doubleday and company, New York, 1972, p.162.
xvii
Ibid., p.90.
xviii
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 15.
xix
Nash, 1969, pp. 94-124.
xx
Markus, R, A., Augustine; A Collection of Critical Essays, opt.cit, p. 176.
xxi
Ibid., pp. 176/177.
xxii
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 14.
xxiii
Stump, E., Aquinas, Routledge, London, New York, 2005, pp. 1ff.
xxiv
Pieper, J., The Silence of St. Thomas; Three Essays, translated by Daniel O’Connor, Russell Square, London p. 15.
xxv
Pieper, J., Guide to Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius Press, San Francesco, 1962, pp. 16-18.
xxvi
Pasnau, R., The Philosophy of Aquinas, Westview Press, USA, 2004, p.175.
xxvii
Pasnau, R., The Philosophy of Aquinas, Westview press, UK, 2004, p.177.
xxviii
Ibid., p.184.
xxix
Ibid., p.186.
xxx
Stump, E., Aquinas, opt.cit, p. 258.
xxxi
Walsh, J.M., A History of Philosophy, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1989, p.134.
xxxii
Ibid., pp. 188-189.
xxxiii
Pieper, J., The Silence of St. Thomas; Three Essays, translated by Daniel O’Connor, Russell Square, London, p.60.
xxxiv
Narwath, O., Traditional Logic, An Introduction, consolata Institute Press, 2007, p. 41.
xxxv
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 15.
xxxvi
Narwath, O., Traditional Logic, An Introduction, consolata Institute Press, p. 43.
xxxvii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, Broadway books, New York, 1993, pp. 181ff.
xxxviii
Popkin, R. H., Filosofia per Tutti.,opt.cit. p.241.
xxxix
Edwards Paul., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 16.
xl
Ibid., p. 200.
xli
Corpleston, F., A History of Philosophy, vol.4, modern philosophy from Descartes to Leibniz, image books, New York,
1963, p. 125.
xlii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, opt.cit, p 201.
xliii
Wilhelm, G, F., The Rationalists, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, Anchor books, USA,1974, pp. 161ff.
xliv
Ibid., p. 161.
xlv
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, p. 204.
xlvi
Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, image books, New York, 1963, p. 236.
xlvii
http://www.iep.utm.edu/parmenid
xlviii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 7, p.536.
xlix
Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, p. 237.
l
Ibid., p. 238.
li
Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, pp.238-239.
lii
Ibid., p. 537.
liii
Ibid., p. 240.
liv
Ibid., p. 537.
lv
Ibid., p. 57.
lvi
Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, Vol. 4, p.237.
lvii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 7, p. 537.
lviii
Markie, P., "Rationalism vs. Empiricism"; The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Retrieved,
2012.
lix
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p.110.
lx
Ibid., p. 111.
lxi
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 217.
lxii
Sirtori, V., Le Grandi Opere della Filosofia, prima edizione, Garzanti Edittore, Italy, 1996., p. 47.
lxiii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 112.
lxiv
Ibid., p. 112.
lxv
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, p. 221.
lxvi
Ibid., p. 221.
lxvii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 221
lxviii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 113.
lxix
Collingwood, R.G., The Idea of Nature, New York, 1960, p. 117.
lxx
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, p. 113.
lxxi
Beiser, F.C.,The Enlightenment and idealism; The meta-critical campaign, page 28
lxxii
Sirtori, V., Le Grandi opera della Filosofia., Garzanti, Italia, 1996, pp.136ff.
lxxiii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, P. 31.
lxxiv
Kenny, A., The oxford history of Western philosophy, Oxford University pres, 1994, pp. 202ff.
lxxv
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 181.
lxxvi
Kenny, A., The oxford history of Western philosophy, p.203.
lxxvii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 398.
lxxviii
Sirtori, V., Le Grandi opera della Filosofia., Garzanti, Italia, 1996, pp163ff.
lxxix
Ibid., p. 163.
lxxx
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, P. 33.
lxxxi
Nkafu, M, K’s class lesson (on, his book., African Vitalogy, A step forward in African Thinking, Poulines publications,
Nairobi, 1999) at the Pontifical Lateran University of Rome, 2012.
lxxxii
Ibid.
lxxxiii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, p. 490.
lxxxiv
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 210.
lxxxv
Edwin, B.A., The English Philosophrs from Bacon to Mill, New York, 1939. P. 247-248.
lxxxvi
Sorley, W.R., A History of British Philosophy to 1900, Cambrigde University press, Cambridge, 1965, p. 111.
lxxxvii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, p. 490.
lxxxviii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, p.489.
lxxxix
Ibid., p. 490.
xc
Sorley, W.R., A History of British Philosophy to 1900, p. 115.
xci
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, p. 492
xcii
Idid, p. 491.
xciii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 222.
xciv
Ibid., p.223.
xcv
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 3, p. 76.
xcvi
Ibid., p. 78.
xcvii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition pp.225ff.
xcviii
Edwin, B.A., The English Philosophrs from Bacon to Mill, New York, 1939, PP. 633FF.
xcix
Edwin, B.A., The English Philosophrs from Bacon to Mill, New York, 1939, PP. 596FF.
c
Edwin, B.A., The English Philosophrs from Bacon to Mill, New York, 1939, PP 652FF.
ci
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 5 and 6. P.430.
cii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 275.
ciii
Ibidi., p.431.
civ
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p. 280.
cv
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p.275.
cvi
Ibid., p.278.
cvii
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 5 and 6. 427.
cviii
Popkin, R.H., Philosophy made Simple, 2rd edition, p.277.
cix
Edwards P., The encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 5 and 6, p.428.
JOSEPH MI