...TOPIC 1: Do you really know anything? With reference to Descartes’ first meditation justify your answer in full and respond to possible objections. A belief is any opinion or any view whether you are committed to the view or not. Thus, if you know something, you are entitled to believe in it. The subjective nature of knowledge partly is based on the idea that beliefs are things that individuals have and those beliefs are either justified or not justified (Pardi, 2011). However, Descartes notices that over the course of his life, he has from time to time accepted false beliefs and the falsity of these beliefs have influenced other beliefs. Thus, Descartes aim in his first meditation is to find out if what we know is truly correct (Blackburn, 1999:15). Once we have figured out what beliefs are beyond any possible doubt, it is suggested that we can use reason to deduce the rest of what is knowable (Pardi, 2011). There are three conditions when one can say they know something is true (Pardi, 2011). Firstly, you believe in something, secondly, it is in fact true and lastly you are justified in believing a statement is true. Of course it is possible that there are no complete unshakeable truths, it is also possible that we might discover that our prejudices cannot be detached or that the beliefs we think are our grounds for all our other beliefs are not really ultimate at all. For this reason, it is why rationalist say that knowledge comes from within, the only beliefs we can...
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...and Possibility Without God: On Descartes Conceivability Argument In the sixth meditation of his Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes advances an argument for establishing a form of dualism. The argument, dubbed the ‘conceivability argument’, attempts to establish a ‘real distinction’ between the mind and the body by linking the conceivability of such a distinction with the possibility of said distinction. For Descartes, two things are ‘really distinct’ when they can exist separately. In this paper I will first outline Descartes argument, then question the place of God in the argument. I will next propose an argument for conceivability entailing possibility, consider an objection to the argument, and ultimately conclude that the ‘conceivability argument’ for the real distinction between the mind and body is viable without the necessity of God to providing a link between conceivability and possibility. Descartes begins his argument by stating ‘everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it’ (54). This seems to be the critical premise of his argument, and it functions in several ways in his argument. First, it seems to establish a connection between what is conceivable and what is possible. Descartes seems to believe that if he can conceive of something, then God can make it such that what he conceives can be the case in reality. So for Descartes, the connection between conceivability...
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...identity, while compatible with there being immaterial souls, does not depend on such entities existing. Instead, he connects personal identity to continuous consciousness, or memory, a position which does not rely on the soul to do any explanatory work. This paper will first explicate René Descartes's view of personal identity, and it will be argued that Locke's critique provides compelling reason to reject the argument that personal identity as tied to an individual soul. Locke's...
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...AS Philosophy Revision Pack Key topics Epistemology | Philosophy of religion | Perception | The concept of God | The definition of knowledge | Arguments for and against God’s existence | Where do our ideas and knowledge come from? | Religious language | Key info Exam date: Time: Revision sessions: Revision tasks * Make a revision timetable * Create revision topic summaries * Create flash cards * Test yourself – complete practice questions * Create 15 mark plans * Attend revision sessions Don’t leave it until the last minute…start NOW HOW TO REVISE Before you start revising * Make sure you have all your notes in order * Create a revision timetable - follow this link and sign up to help you do this. http://getrevising.co.uk/ The 10 step revision process 1. Pick a topic to revise (e.g. innate knowledge) 2. Read through your notes on that topic and summarise it onto one side of A4 3. Now summarise onto a revision card (about a quarter of an A4 piece of paper) 4. Now take a piece of A4 and begin writing everything you can remember about the topic. 5. Look back over your notes and write down all you missed out in a different colour. 6. Keep repeating the process until you are able to write down everything from that topic. 7. Now look at an exam question. 8. Complete a plan (5-10 mins) 9. Complete the timed essay in 30 mins / 15 min depending. 10. Hand...
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...Berkeley: to exist is to perceive or to be perceived 'To exist is either to perceive or to be perceived.' - How would you explain Bishop Berkeley's idealism to someone who knew nothing about philosophy? This is a good essay. Many students are very puzzled by Berkeley's claim that his theory is intended as a 'defence against scepticism'. I don't know what a 'real' tree is, because I have never met one, and never will. All I know is my perception of this tree and other trees like it. - This seems an open invitation to the most extreme scepticism which denies that the objects of our perception exist. Berkeley's answer is that there is no 'real' tree, in the sense of some object or entity that exists apart from perception. All there is, is the possibility of my perceiving the tree, of enjoying my tree-perception, vouchsafed by God's unwavering attention to all the objects of his creation, which exist as nothing more than perceptions in God's mind. This response differs from another possible anti-sceptical response which avoids the God-hypothesis altogether. Why not say that the 'possibility of my perceiving the tree' is just that and no more? There is a hypothetical statement - or list of hypothetical statements - whose truth is equivalent to the 'existence of the tree'. You know what a 'statement' is, and what 'truth' means. You know what it is for a statement to be hypothetical ('if A then B'). Why not stick with that? The clear advantage of this theory - also...
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...Two Views of Soul: Aristotle and Descartes* THEODORE TRACY, SJ. What first attracted my interest to a possible comparison was the realization that, unlike Plato, both Aristotle and Descartes shared the view that, first, there is but a single soul and, second, that this soul operates principally through a single specific bodily organ. Given his own understanding, I believe Descartes could agree totally with Aristotle's statement that the soul's "essential nature cannot be * This paper was originally presented at the University of South Carolina in April 1981' as a contribution to a symposium on "Soul and Mind in Ancient Philosophy," organized by Professor Rosamond Kent Sprague. 248 Illinois Classical Studies, XI corporeal; yet it is also clear that soul is present in a particular bodily part, and this one of the parts having control over the rest":' dfiXou 6ri ovx oihv r' tivai adua rffv ovtriau ocvrfiq, aW 5fi(t)c, Sri 7' iv tlvl tov (TUifiaToq inrapxii^ nopiw (t>avtpbv, kcu iv tovtw tivi twv ixovruiv bvvafiiv eV roJq nopioic,. {Parva Naturalia 467b 13- 16) For Aristotle, as we know, that particular controlling organ is the heart. In his treatise On Memory, for example, Aristotle declares that in animals, including man, "the source and control center {otpxvY of both the sensitive and nutritive soul must be in the heart": apayKT) Koi rrfc, ataQr]TiKr\c, kou rriq dpeirTLKfic, ^vxri<i ^v ry Kapb'ux rffv otpxw etW. {PN 469a5-7) Again, in the De Partibus...
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...i) Examine the ontological argument as an a priori proof for the existence of God. (18) Ontology is the branch of philosophy that explores the whole concept of existence. Sometimes scientist have to assume that something exists in reality in the physical world even if they have never come across an example of it, because a combination of factors indicate that there must be X, even if we have not found it yet, in order to explain other things. The ontological argument for the existence of God is an a priori argument, working from first principles and a definition in an attempt to demonstrate the existence of God. It is also a deductive argument, using logic rather than depending on the evidence of sense experience. In this way, then the ontological argument is different from other attempts to argue for the existence of God. The ontological argument argues that almost everything, which exists, does so in a contingent way; it depends upon other factors. We as individuals are contingent beings; everything else apart from God exists contingently. God, however, it is argued by religious believers, is necessary rather than contingent, there was no time when God didn’t exist. There is nothing that could happen which would cause God to cease to exist. The ontological argument begins with assumptions about God, without any empirical evidence such as the characteristics of God: Omnipotent, omniscient and omnipotent. This is what makes the argument an a priori argument, as most of the...
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...is made up of two kinds of substances: physical matter and above all else, an immaterial force known as the mind, or soul. Materialism refutes dualism, asserting that man and matter are inseparable, and that there is no mysterious, supernatural force directing our actions. Both viewpoints were derived in an attempt to place philosophy on firmer, more scientific ground. The arguments of Descartes and Hobbes for substance dualism and materialism, respectively, are representative of this debate. Although materialism and dualism have their own internal problems and flaws, I will argue that many of the objections that have been leveled against materialism can be met and that, on the whole, materialism is a much more plausible theory than dualism. The Greek philosopher Socrates believed that nothing could be certain without divine knowledge, which no man possesses. However, René Descartes, a 16th century French philosopher believed that some things could be determined to be certain as long as they were deduced through the proper methods. This method, known as the method of doubt, led Descartes to the foundational beliefs that became the basis for Substance Dualism. Simply put, Substance Dualism is the belief that there are two types of substances: the material body, and the immaterial mind. The existence of the mind, and therefore of thought, cannot be doubted based on the premise of “I think, therefore I am”. The body however can be doubted because belief of its existence relies...
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...independent and if so, is society’s perceptions of independence even plausible? Well, in chapter 2 of “Philosophy”, Descartes and Charles Taylor discuss their opposing sides on this very issue. Descartes believes in “The Atomic Self”, meaning he believes that one is the only person who can truly label oneself. This also means that one’s self-being can be established separately from...
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...Meditation VI: The Conceivability and Divisibility Arguments The Argument Introduced The Conceivability Argument occurs in Meditation VI. It is Descartes’ most celebrated argument. It was criticised in its day and has been ever since. The argument purports to establish that minds are non-physical substances and hence that a mind is not identical to any bit of the body, such as the brain. A person is a special unity of two substances: physical substance (the body) and mental substance (the mind). Only humans are such special unities. Animals have bodies but lack minds and angels have minds but lack bodies. Here’s the passage: First, I know that everything which I clearly and distinctly understand is capable of being created by God so as to correspond exactly with my understanding of it. Hence the fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is enough to make me certain that the two things are distinct, since they are capable of being separated, at least by God. The question of what kind of power is required to bring about such a separation does not affect the judgment that they are distinct. Thus, simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing. It is true that I may have (or, to anticipate, that I certainly have) a body that is very...
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...Simon Blackburn’s “Think” Are experiences through senses and experiences in the mind independent? Simon Blackburn attempts to answer this question by first explaining the “Zombie and Mutant Possibilities.”(pg. 52) The Zombie Possibility proposes that people may look and behave like ones-self but are not conscious. The Mutant Possibility proposes that there are people who look and behave like oneself and are conscious, but do not interpret feelings or senses the same way that you do. The idea being proposed is that if the mind can live on without the body then the body can live on without a mind. The body would still respond to things the way one with a conscious mind would but it would not be aware of its own existence. This idea is called Cartesian...
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...The column you’re reading is at least in part the result of an accident – a happy one, I hasten to add. A few weeks ago, I was sitting on a panel with the philosopher Christopher Hamilton, discussing the question of whether a world without pain is an appropriate goal for mankind or whether pain serves some additional positive purpose other than the obvious biological one of directing us away from things that might harm us (a topic, perhaps, for a future column). Meeting Christopher after a long interval reminded me of his excellent book Living Philosophy: Reflections on Life, Meaning and Morality (2001). The volume includes a fascinating essay entitled ‘The Need to Sleep’, where he notes that philosophers have not paid sufficient attention to this extraordinary phenomenon. Well, a decade on, this is the beginning of a response to Christopher’s wake-up call. For sleep is rather extraordinary. If I told you that I had a neurological disease which meant that for eight or more hours a day I lost control of my faculties, bade farewell to the outside world, and was subject to complex hallucinations and delusions – such as being chased by a grizzly bear at Stockport Railway Station – you would think I was in a pretty bad way. If I also claimed that the condition was infectious, you would wish me luck in coping with such a terrible disease, and bid me a hasty farewell. Of course, sleep is not a disease at all, but the condition of daily (nightly) life for the vast majority of us...
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...Specification: - The strengths and weaknesses of the view that all ideas are derived from sense experience - The strengths and weaknesses of the view that claims about what exists must ultimately be grounded in and justified by sense experience. This is an analysis of the "empiricist" view: both Hume and Locke are empiricists as they argue that all knowledge depends on experience. Note that the first item asks us to evaluate empiricism as an explanation of the origin of ideas, and the second asks us to evaluate the claim that knowledge must be justified with reference to experience. Locke on the origin of Ideas AO1 Position and its implications: The mind is a tabula rasa or "blank slate" at birth, empty of all ideas and knowledge; it is gradually filled through experience AO1 Detail, Illustration: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.1 Locke's definition of "idea" = "the object of thinking" He gives examples: "such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others" We might say concepts rather than ideas, the basic mental building blocks of propositions or declarative sentences Ideas are acquired through two processes, sensation or reflection; each is a type of perception, the first of external objects, the second an inward perception of mental processes. Sensation The senses "convey" perceptions into the mind, or rather "they convey...
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...Khalia Mone’t Brenson, @02577445 Introduction to Philosophy, Dr. Verharen Fall 2009 What are the differences between the philosophies of sociology and psychology toward mental illness? Table of Contents I. Introduction P.1 II. What is Philosophy? P.2-14 i. An Introduction to Philosophyby George S. Fullerton ii. Principles of Philosophyby Rene Descartes iii. The Gift of Fire by Richard Mitchell iv. I and Thou by Martin Buber v. Philosophy: Who needs it? by Ayn Rand III. Sociology P.15-19 i. The philosophy of sociology ii. Sociology towards mental illness IV. Psychology P...
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...(Hummel, p. 106). Contrary to popular belief, the cause for the diversion between Christianity and science originated not with the Church but with the university professors who were threatened by Galileo’s revolutionary ideas. These professors were steeped in the Greek scientific method, which included observation to a small extent, but mostly explained the workings of nature through rational deduction from first principles, or assumptions, an entire view of the universe had been built up. Consequently, the professors embraced such misconceptions as the sun having no imperfections, the moon being a perfectly smooth sphere that shone with its own light, and the earth alone having a moon since the earth was at the center of the universe. Galileo’s recently invented telescope quickly demonstrated the incorrectness of such assumptions (Hummel, pp. 91-94). Not willing to be thwarted by Galileo, the professors decided to make the controversy religious rather than academic (Hummel, p. 92). They argued that the heliocentric (sun-centered) view contradicted scripture (e.g., Psalm 104:22 says, “The sun rises.” Therefore, the...
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