Descartes

Descartes (1596-1650), his main books are

Discourse on Method, Meditations on First
Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy.
Descartes thought that only knowledge of
external truth could be attained by reason alone.
Other knowledge, physics, required experience
of the world, aided by scientific knowledge.
Descartes deduced that a rational truth should
doubt every belief about reality
Descartes frequently sets his views apart from
those of his predecessors.
Cont.

Many elements of his philosophy have precedents

in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism in 16th
century, or in earlier philosophy of St. Augustine.
In his natural philosophy he differs from the schools
on two major points.
First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance
into matter and form.
Second, he rejects any appeal to ends – divine or
natural – in explaining natural phenomena.
In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of
God’s act of creation.
Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to
emphasize the use of reason to develop natural
science.
 COGITO ERGO SUM
For Descartes, the philosophy was a thinking system
that embodied all knowledge, and expressed it this
way.
In Discourse on the Method, he attempts to arrive at a
fundamental set of principles that one can know as true
without any doubt.
To achieve this, he employs a method called
hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt, also sometimes
referred to as methodological skepticism:
he rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then
reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation
for genuine knowledge.
Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single principle:
thought exists. Thought cannot be separated from me,
therefore, I exist. Most famously, this is known as
cogito ergo sum (English: "I think, therefore I am").
Cont.

The simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is

skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself proof that
he does exist.
He can doubted any part of his body that is perceived
by senses, but he cannot doubted that he is thinking.
So, the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a
thinking thing.
To further demonstrate the limitations of the senses,
Descartes proceeds with what is known as the Wax
Argument.
He considers a piece of wax; his senses inform him
that it has certain characteristics, such as shape,
texture, size, color, smell, and so forth.
When he brings the wax towards a flame, these
characteristics change completely.
However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is
still the same piece of wax, even though the senses
inform him that all of its characteristics are different.
 The Existence of God

Therefore, in order to properly grasp the nature of

the wax, he should put aside the senses. He must
use his mind.
Descartes concludes: “And so something which I
thought I was seeing with my eyes is in fact
grasped solely by the faculty of judgment which is
in my mind.”
In this manner, Descartes proceeds to construct a
system of knowledge, discarding perception as
unreliable and instead admitting only deduction as
a method.
In the third and fifth Meditation, he offers an
ontological proof of a benevolent God (through both
the ontological argument and trademark argument).
Cont.

Because God is benevolent, he can have some faith

in the account of reality his senses provide him, for
God has provided him with a working mind and
sensory system and does not desire to deceive him
From this supposition, however, he finally establishes
the possibility of acquiring knowledge about the world
based on deduction and perception.
In terms of epistemology therefore, he can be said to
have contributed such ideas as a rigorous conception
of foundationalism and the possibility that reason is
the only reliable method of attaining knowledge.
He, nevertheless, was very much aware that
experimentation was necessary in order to verify and
validate theories.
 Dualism
Descartes in his Passions of the Soul and
The Description of the Human Body suggested that
the body works like a machine, that it has material
properties.
The mind (or soul), on the other hand, was described
as a nonmaterial and does not follow the laws of
nature.
Descartes argued that the mind interacts with the
body at the pineal gland.
This form of dualism or duality proposes that the mind
controls the body, but that the body can also influence
the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act
out of passion.
Most of the previous accounts of the relationship
between mind and body had been uni-directional.
 Moral Philosophy

For Descartes, Morals was a science, the highest

and most perfect of them, and like the rest of
sciences had its roots in Metaphysics.
In this way he argues for the existence of God,
investigates the place of men in nature,
formulates the theory of mind-body dualism and
defends free will.
But, he being a convinced rationalist, clearly
estates that Reason suffices us in the search for
the goods we should seek, and for him, virtue
consists in the correct reasoning that should
guide our actions.
Nevertheless, the quality of this reasoning
depends on knowledge, as a well informed mind
will be more capable of making good choices, and
also on mental condition.
Cont.

For this reason he said that a complete moral

philosophy should include the study of the body.
Men should seek the sovereign good that
Descartes, following Zeno, identifies with virtue, as
this produces a solid blessedness or pleasure.
 IMMANUEL KANT
Before Kant, it was generally held that a priori knowledge
must be analytic,
What is stated in the predicate must already be present in
the subject and therefore be independent of experience
For example, "An intelligent man is intelligent" or "An
intelligent man is a man".
In either case, the judgment is analytic because it is
arrived at by analyzing the subject.
It was thought that all judgments of which we can be
certain a priori are of this kind: that in all of them there is a
predicate that is only part of the subject of which it is
asserted.
If this were so, attempting to deny anything that could be
known a priori (for example, "An intelligent man is not
intelligent" or "An intelligent man is not a man") would
involve a contradiction.
It was therefore thought that the Law of contradiction is
sufficient to establish all a priori knowledge
Lanjutan

• The Aristotelean philosophers distinguished two kinds of

judgments:
• 1) Synthetic judgment.- Judgments that are based on a
synthesis or putting together of different facts of
experience and are therefore considered to be a
posteriori.
• For example, "... The phases of the moon are visible after
dark."
• 2) Analytic judgment.- Judgments that are based
exclusively upon an analysis of the subject without
recourse to experience and are therefore considered to
be a priori.
• For example, "... A right line is straight."
• Kant is not entirely satisfied with these conclusions and
argues that there are synthetic judgments a priori such as
those of mathematics.
• Aristoteleans would argue that such judgments are really
analytic.[2]
Lanjutan

• Before Kant (1724–1804), David Hume (1711–1776)

accepted the general view of rationalism about a priori
knowledge.
• However, upon closer examination of the subject, Hume
discovered that some judgments considered to be
analytic, especially those related to cause and effect,
were in fact synthetic (i. e. no analysis of the subject will
reveal the predicate).
• They thus depend exclusively upon experience and are
therefore a posteriori.
• Before Hume, rationalists had held that effect could be
deduced from cause;
• Hume argued that it could not and from this inferred that
nothing at all could be known a priori in relation to cause
and effect.
Lanjutan

• Kant, who was brought up under the auspices of

rationalism, was deeply disturbed by Hume's skepticism.
• "... Kant tells us that David Hume awakened him from his
dogmatic slumbers."[3]
• Kant decided to find an answer and spent at least twelve
years of meditation upon the subject.[4]
• However, Kant wrote the Critique of Pure Reason in a
period between four or five months. At the same time,
Kant was also lecturing and teaching.
• On the other hand, the Critique of Pure Reason
embodies Kant's thoughts during the various stages of
development of the entire period of meditation.[5]
• Kant's work was stimulated by his decision to take
seriously Hume's skeptical conclusions about such basic
principles as cause and effect, which had implications for
• Kant's grounding in rationalism. In Kant's view, Hume's
skepticism rested on the premise that all ideas are
presentations of sensory experience.
Lanjutan

• The problem that Hume identified was that basic principles

such as causality cannot be derived from
sense experience only:
• as Hume argued, we experience only that one event
regularly succeeds another, not that it is caused by it.
• Kant explains that Hume stopped short of considering that
a synthetic judgment could be made 'a priori'.
• Kant's goal, then, was to find some way to derive cause
and effect without relying on empirical knowledge.
• Kant rejects analytical methods for this, arguing that
analytic reasoning cannot tell us anything that is not
already self-evident (Bxvii).
• Instead, Kant argued that we would need to use synthetic
reasoning.
• However, this posed a new problem — how can one have
synthetic knowledge that is not based on empirical
observation — that is, how can we have synthetic a priori
truths?
Lanjutan

• Kant argues that there are synthetic judgments such as

the connection of cause and effect (e.g., "... Every effect
has a cause.") where no analysis of the subject will
produce the predicate.
• Kant reasons that statements such as those found in
geometry and Newtonian physics are synthetic
judgments.
• Kant uses the classical example of 7 + 5 = 12. No
amount of analysis will find 12 in either 7 or 5.
• Thus Kant arrives at the conclusion that all
pure mathematics is synthetic though a priori;
• the number 7 is seven and the number 5 is five and the
number 12 is twelve and the same principle applies to
other numerals;
• in other words, they are universal and necessary. For
Kant then, mathematics is synthetic judgement a priori.
Lanjutan

• This conclusion led Kant into a new problem as he

wanted to establish how this could be possible: How is
pure mathematics possible?[4]
• This also led him to inquire whether it could be possible
to ground synthetic a priori knowledge for a study of
metaphysics, because most of the principles of
metaphysics from Plato through to Kant's immediate
predecessors made assertions about the world or about
God or about the soul that were not self-evident but
which could not be derived from empirical observation
(B18-24).
• For Kant, all post-Cartesian metaphysics is mistaken
from its very beginning: the empiricists are mistaken
because they assert that we cannot go beyond
experience and the dogmatists are mistaken because
they assert that we can go beyond experience by using
theoretical reason exclusively.
Lanjutan

• Therefore, Kant proposes a new basis for a science of

metaphysics.
• How is a science of metaphysics possible, if at all?
• According to Kant, only practical reason, the faculty of
moral consciousness, the moral law of which we are
immediately aware, enables us to know things as they
are.[6]
• This led to his most influential contribution to
metaphysics: the abandonment of the quest to try to
know the world as it is "in itself" independent of our
sense experience.
• He demonstrated this with a thought experiment,
showing that we cannot meaningfully conceive of an
object that exists outside of time and has no spatial
components and is not structured in accordance with the
categories of the understanding, such as substance and
causality.
Lanjutan

• Although we cannot conceive of such an object, Kant

argues, there is no way of showing that such an object
does not exist.
• Therefore, Kant says, the science of metaphysics must
not attempt to reach beyond the limits of possible
experience but must discuss only those limits, thus
furthering the understanding of ourselves as thinking
beings.
• The human mind is incapable of going beyond
experience so as to obtain a knowledge of ultimate
reality, because no direct advance can be made from
pure ideas to objective existence.[7]
• Kant writes, "Since, then, the receptivity of the subject,
its capacity to be affected by objects, must necessarily
precede all intuitions of these objects, it can readily be
understood how the form of all appearances can be
given prior to all actual perceptions, and so exist in the
mind a priori" (A26/B42).
Lanjutan

• Appearance is then, via the faculty of transcendental

imagination, grounded systematically in accordance with
the categories of the understanding.
• Kant's metaphysical system, which focuses on the
operations of cognitive faculties, places substantial limits
on knowledge not founded in the forms of sensibility.
• Thus it sees the error of metaphysical systems prior to
the Critique as failing to first take into consideration the
limitations of our human capacity for knowledge.
• According to Martin Heidegger, transcendental
imagination is what Kant also refers to as the unknown
common root uniting sense and understanding, the two
component parts of experience.
• Transcendental imagination is described in the first
edition of the Critique of Pure Reason but Kant omits it
from the second edition of 1787.[8]
Lanjutan

• It is because he takes into account the role of our

cognitive faculties in structuring the known and knowable
world that in the second preface to the Critique of Pure
Reason Kant compares his critical philosophy to
Copernicus' revolution in astronomy.
• Kant writes: "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our
knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to
extend our knowledge of objects by establishing
something in regard to them a priori, by means of
concepts, have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We
must therefore make trial whether we may not have
more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose
that objects must conform to our knowledge" (Bxvi).
• Just as Copernicus revolutionized astronomy by taking
the position of the observer into account, Kant's critical
philosophy takes into account the position of the knower
of the world in general and reveals its impact on the
structure of his/her known world.
Lanjutan

• Kant's view is that in explaining the movement of

celestial bodies Copernicus rejected the idea that the
movement is in the stars and accepted it as a part of the
spectator. Knowledge does not depend so much on the
object of knowledge as on the capacity of the knower.[9]
• Kant's transcendental idealism should be distinguished
from idealistic systems such that of George Berkeley.
• While Kant claimed that phenomena depend upon the
conditions of sensibility, space and time, and on the
synthesizing activity of the mind manifested in the rule-
based structuring of perceptions into a world of objects,
this thesis is not equivalent to mind-dependence in the
sense of Berkeley's idealism.
• Kant defines transcendental idealism:
Lanjutan

• "I understand by the transcendental idealism of all

appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be
regarded as mere representations and not things in
themselves, and accordingly that time and space are only
sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations
given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in
themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental
realism, which regards space and time as something
given in themselves (independent of our sensibility)."
(CPR, A 369).
• Knowledge is always the result of experience and since it
is experienced by us, it is not and could never be,
according to Kant, knowledge independent of our minds.
• Since it is not independent of our minds it cannot be
considered real as reality is independent of the human
mind.
• For Kant, the only things that are independent of the
human mind are "Dinge an sich", things in themselves,
and these are intrinsically unknowable.[10]
Lanjutan

• In Kant's view, a priori intuitions and concepts provide us

with some a priori knowledge, which also provides the
framework for our a posteriori knowledge.
• Kant also believed that causality is a conceptual
organizing principle that we impose upon nature, albeit
nature understood as the sum of appearances that can
be synthesized according to our a priori concepts.
• In other words, space and time are a form of perceiving
and causality is a form of knowing.
• Both space and time and our conceptual principles and
processes pre-structure our experience.
• Things as they are "in themselves" — the thing in itself or
das Ding an sich — are unknowable.
• For something to become an object of knowledge, it must
be experienced, and experience is structured by our
minds.
Lanjutan

• These aspects of mind turn things-in-themselves into the

world of experience. We are never passive observers or
knowers.
• According to Kant, the transcendental ego — the
"Transcendental Unity of Apperception" — is similarly
unknowable.
• Kant contrasts the transcendental ego to the empirical
ego, the active individual self subject to immediate
introspection.
• One is aware that there is an "I," a subject or self that
accompanies one's experience and consciousness.
• Since one experiences it as it manifests itself in time,
which Kant proposes is a subjective form of perception,
one can know it only indirectly: as object, rather than
subject.
• It is the empirical ego that distinguishes one person from
another providing each with a definite character.[12]