epistemology 2.0
Published on Feb 05, 2016
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
epistemology 2.0
valeria pérez estrada 153
study of knowledge
BY EPISTEMOLOGISTS.
BRANCHES OF EPISTEMOLOGY
skepticism
no beliefs are justified, and you can't know something to be truth or not. You know nuthin'.
internalism
factors for knowledge are internal
externalism
factors for knowledge are external
rationalism
knowledge is acquired by reasoning
fallibilism
absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible, but we don't have to abandon our knowledge. we must revise it.
empiricism
THE VIEW THAT SENSORY EXPERIENCE IS THE SOURCE OF HUMAN IDEAS (OR CONCEPTS) AND/OR HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.
contrasts to rationalism.
contrasts to rationalism.
emperists
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
- Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
- Pierre Gassendi (1592-1679)
- Robert Boyle (1627-1704)
- John Locke (1632-1704) *
- Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
- George Berkeley (1685-1753)
- David Hume (1711-1776) *
they are the classical empiricists*
because they were the ones who started defending the empiricism movement, which were also brilliant and innovative thinkers.
GEORGE
BERKELEY
Photo by cliff1066™
12 march, 1685
(near) KILKENNY, IRELAND.
He wrote about:
philosophy,
economics,
medicine,
and theories of vision,
among others.
HE WAS AN ANGLICAN PRIEST.
philosophy,
economics,
medicine,
and theories of vision,
among others.
HE WAS AN ANGLICAN PRIEST.
best known for
- An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
- A treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)
- Three Dialogues between Hylas & Philonous (1713)
He gained fame not because of a general agreement with philosophy, but because is immaterialism was take as implausible.
He also made other thinkers re-think their own views.
He also made other thinkers re-think their own views.
He took Locke's theory and argued against some points of his theory, or agreed in others.
THE WORLD CONTAINS ONLY SOULS & IDEAS.
there's no such thing as an external world of bodies, & must not be confused as in "bodies does not exist"
His idealism was the way to avoid skepticism about ordinary objects.
His idealism was the way to avoid skepticism about ordinary objects.
""they're either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory or imagination... And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain color, taste, smell, figure, and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name 'apple'"".
(PRINCIPLES, BERKELEY)
He believed in a world of ordinary objects. Knowledge is concerned exclusively with ideas, rooted in sensory experience.
He, Locke, and other empiricists identify objects as a collection of sensory ideas.
He, Locke, and other empiricists identify objects as a collection of sensory ideas.
.
Photo by orangeacid
every ordinary object is a collection of ideas,
not an external world of matter.
against the
""STRANGELY PREVAILING OPINION""
BERKELEY'S worldview seems sharply at odds with common sense. There's no such thing as a mind-depended hunk of matter.
imagine a chair.
WHICH COLOUR IS IT? HEIGHT?
colour: but nobody has ever seen that colour...
height: there's no height because nobody is there observing it...
height: there's no height because nobody is there observing it...
does that chair exists
if it's in the other room?
NOOOOO. Unless if you were to go into the other room in which you'd perceive that object.
?
- we perceive sensible objects such as the chair, an apple, a tree...
- we only perceive sensible ideas, and they cannot exist outside the mind...
thus, that chair/apple/tree is a sensible idea and cannot exist outside of a mind.
BUT REMEBER
IT DOES NOT CEASES TO EXIST.
does your house ceases to exist when you leave it?
No. For it to exist in the first place, means that the object is perceived. Something that is not being observed, has zero properties.
Photo by Werner Kunz
primary
distinction
Qualities such as size, shape, and solidity are "inseparable"qualities of the bodies in the sense that the bodies retain these qualities throughout any changes to them. They are properties of objects as such.
secondary
distinction
They are not inherent to objects, for they are powers of the primary qualities to produce in us ideas of colours, sounds, tastes, heat, and so on. Or, on some accounts, the ideas themselves.
Mind-dependent.
Mind-dependent.
Berkeley argues
against by saying
"One cannot conceive of a primary quality such as extension without some secondary quality as well: one cannot 'frame an idea of a body extended and moved, but I must withal give it some colour or some other sensible quality which is acknoweledge to exist only in the mind'"
There's no strip down
of primary and secondary
We cannot even conceive of an extended body (primary) existing totally devoid of any colour (secondary). Thus, since colours are clearly mind-dependent, extension, shape and motion must be mind-dependent since these latter qualities cannot be conceived as "stripped down" of the secondary qualities, such as colour.
THERE IS NO BASIS FOR A DISTINCTION BETWEEN PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES: IF ONE OF THEM IS MIND-DEPENDENT, SO IS THE OTHER.
WHo perceives this ideas?
""But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and excersise diverse operations, as willing imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call 'mind, spirit, soul' or 'myself'"".
(PRINCIPLES - BERKELEY)
.
Those are the things that perceive ideas. Souls or spirits, or minds. Humans, for example.
Photo by VinothChandar
DUALISM
1) mind 2)ideas
Ideas are the passive objects of perception, and souls are the active entities that perceive ideas & will themselves to do thingss.
WHERE DOES IDEAS COME FROM?
THERE'S no external world for objects...
given this idealism, there are only 3 candidates.
given this idealism, there are only 3 candidates.
candidates
- other ideas
- myself
- other spirit which is not me
*ask who thinks who*
OTHER IDEAS:
""all our ideas, sensations, or the things which we perceive, by whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly inactive, there is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that one idea or object of thought cannot produce, or make any alteration in another""
(PRINCIPLES - BERKELEY)
FALSE:
An idea is "visibly inactive", therefore is unable of triggering other ideas
ex: in order to move something, you need a force to move it. they can't move from themselves in rest if they are not autonomous.
An idea is "visibly inactive", therefore is unable of triggering other ideas
ex: in order to move something, you need a force to move it. they can't move from themselves in rest if they are not autonomous.
Close your eyes
Imagine you are somewhere nice. Now, open your eyes. You could hear everything I said, and you can't determine which particular objects you were going to see when you opened your eyes.
MYSELF:
"When in broad light I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or not, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses, the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will. There is therefore some other will or spirit that produces them"
(PRINCIPLES - BERKELEY)
OUR SENSORY IDEAS COME AGAINST OUR WILL.
THEREFORE, IT IS
ANOTHER SPIRIT WHICH PRODUCES MY IDEAS.
not that it is god.
OUR SENSORY IDEAS COME TO US IN A LAW-LIKE FASHION.
MEANING THAT we can anticipate nature & organize our affairs.
but why does it
comes to us that way?
there's a benevolent, powerful and wise spirit, according to Berkeley, which produces this ideas.
two types of entities
ideas & spirits.
how do we perceive knowledege?
There's a geometrical account which is based on the angles between perceived objects and the yes or angles of rays that fall upon the eye.
.
Imagine that point is a house. You can think that that house is round, paler, bigger, or taller, etc.
Photo by blmiers2
.
But, how could you tell that he is red, and geometrically talking, can know that someone is blushing because of something? There's no way.
Photo by snigl3t
.
The way to know this by sight is:
1) Focusing. What does it require? Kinesthetic sensations.
2) The closer without focusing, the blurries.
3) You can still focus, by kinesthetic sensations.
1) Focusing. What does it require? Kinesthetic sensations.
2) The closer without focusing, the blurries.
3) You can still focus, by kinesthetic sensations.
Photo by ModernDope (old account)
THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IDEAS & DISTANCE.
"A costumary relation is found in experience in which one type of idea followed by another."
like when you hit a billiard ball. That one ball will push the other ball into another point.
Photo by ghismary
IDEAS OF TOUCH & SIGHT ARE MERELY CUSTOMARILY, NOT NECESSARILY CONNECTED
HETEROGENEITY THESIS
FOLLOWING MOLYNEUX'S MAN-born-blind-to-see. How can he know from a sphere or a cube, if can't see it?
"If a person were blind and had learned to distinguish a cube from a sphere by touch, he would not immediately be able to distinguish a visual cube from a sphere if he were given sight"
So, since one perceive everything by sight mediately through the correlation of visual ideas with nonvisual, he who has NO notion of visual distance: even the most remote objects would "seem to be in his eye, or rather his mind".
Untitled Slide
Therefore, touch provides immediate access to the world.
berkeley claims that visual ideas are merely signs of tactile ideas.
There is no resemblance between visual & tactile ideas.
The way we played blind of B-action-B when we were kids.
berkeley claims that visual ideas are merely signs of tactile ideas.
There is no resemblance between visual & tactile ideas.
The way we played blind of B-action-B when we were kids.
Photo by just.Luc
Berkeley's arguments are sometimes taken as "weak".
sources
- Flage, Daniel E. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. James Madison University, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2015.
- Bettcher, Talia Mae. "Berkeley. A Guide for the Perplexed". Continuum. Continuum Books, n.d. 29 Sept. 2015
lol, viel spaß.
thanks.
