Empiricism, Rationalism, and

Kant
Really Good Noodles
 Really Good Noodles
• Neo: “I used to eat there. Really good noodles.
I have these memories from my life. None of
them happened. What does that mean?”
• Trinity: “That the Matrix can’t tell you who
you are.”
 Empiricism
• Knowledge is based on sense experience
– Aristotle: we abstract the essence or “form” from
the sense impression
– Locke:
• all knowledge begins with sense impressions: sweet
food
• We build up our science from simple ideas to complex
ones: sweet, plus purple, plus oval = plum
• But we are still a long way from knowing the substance
of the plum: a specific configuration of atoms
 Hume’s radical empiricism
• All we know sensuous “impressions” and the
ideas we base on them
• We never know things outside of us
• Perhaps our ideas are caused
– By the external world
– By ourselves
– by God (Berkeley)
• But we can never answer such “metaphysical”
questions that go beyond the data of sense
experience
Is it possible that we live in a “Matrix”?
• Recall previous slides: what is reality?
– If you mean what we sense, this is only electrical
signals interpreted by the brain
• Note: Morpheus first defines reality as an
empiricist: reality = what we sense
– He is talking to Neo and supposing what Neo believes:
reality = what we sense
• But this is false: do you think that is really air that
you are breathing?
– Morpheus is not an empiricist: there is reality beyond
what we sense
 The Matrix refutes Empiricism
• But if the Matrix is possible, and empiricism is
correct, we can never know what is really real
• Hence Neo’s perplexity: really good noodles!
What does this mean?
– Neo as an empiricist is confused
• What does this mean?
– That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.
– I.e., your reality, who you are, does not consist of
sense impressions
If not empiricism, then rationalism
• Descartes: if all our sense impressions are
false, illusory, there is still a reality:
– The person who has the sense experiences, or the
dream
• I think, therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum)
– Even if I am dreaming now, and everything I
experience is false, it remains true that I the
dreamer am real
– What then am “I”?
 Who/what am I?
• A butterfly dreaming he is a man?
 “I” = self-consciousness
• 1) the sun rising in the morning
• 2) the consciousness of the sun rising in the
morning
• 2a) The consciousness of X (sense impression,
dream object, etc)
– An illusion
• 2b) The consciousness of being conscious of X
– Self-consciousness: a reality
 Matter and spirit
• Physical things are
– Extended in space
– Divisible into parts
• Self-consciousness is
– A unity with itself
– Indivisible: no left and right side of my self-
consciousness
– Hence: I am not material
 First steps of Knowledge
• 0) Perhaps it’s all a dream
• 1) I really exist.
– What am I?
• 2) I am a self-conscious being
• 3) I am not a material being; I am a spirit
• 4) States of spirit:
– Capable of living in an illusion, a dream
– Capable of living in, animating, a physical body
– Other possible states? As a Butterfly? Existence
without a body?
 Implications of first steps
• We begin in ignorance
• We move from ignorance to truths about
ourselves
– Steps: from simple to complex
• How is this possible?
– We have within us an idea of perfection:
• Ideal perfect (complete, total) knowledge;
• perfect existence—ideal of becoming a better person
• Hence: next step: examining this a priori idea of
perfection
 Idea of perfection
• We find within ourselves an idea of perfection
that drives us, like a splinter in our minds, to
search for the truth
• We are in ignorance and are impelled by a
duty to perfect ourselves
– Contrast with a cow contentedly chewing its cud
– Does the cow care if the cud is real or not?
 What is the source of this idea/duty?
• 1) Does it come from the external world?
– No, because our senses can deceive us
– We need an internal basis for evaluating the truth of sense
experience
• 2) Does it come from ourselves?
– No, because I, by myself, am ignorant
– I am driven to find the truth by the idea of the truth which
comes from within myself, but is not created by me
• 3) Hence the idea of perfection must come from a
Perfect Being, not from an imperfect one like myself
 Does the Perfect Being exist?
• I have an idea of perfection
• I have an idea of a perfect being – which is what I
am striving to become.
• But perhaps this is only a subjective illusion, a
fanciful invention of myself
• But if Perfection does not exist, if it is only an
idea and not a reality, such an unreal idea would
be imperfect!
• Hence it is necessary to think of the Perfect Being
as real, as existing
 Method of reason (rationalism)
• The above argument is a chain of truths,
– starting with a simple sense of my existence
– and moving to more complex ideas and implications
• = Method of reason
– 1) Analysis: break down one’s initial beliefs into their
basic components (method of doubt)
– 2) Synthesis: build up from simple truths to more
complex ones in steps
• An internal process of my own thinking
– Not a build up of complex ideas derived from simple
sensations (empiricism)
 How do I know the method of reason
is reliable?
• Perhaps I am being deceived by an evil
demon?
• But I have within me an idea of Perfection
• And this can only have been put in me by a
Perfect Being
• So the method of thinking that I am following
is guided by a Perfect Being, not a deceiving
(imperfect) demon
 Next step: the external world
• I am conscious of X… beings other than myself.
• I am a self-conscious, spiritual being, not an extended
material being– the source of sensations in me
• Which I can accept as directly given to me, or evaluate
according to my rationalist, scientific method
• Scientific reasoning involves a choice:
– allow the external impression to determine my thought
(empiricism)
– Or put this impression in its proper place according to
rational method of analysis and synthesis (rationalism)
 Method and Content
• Rationalist method of thought: step by step
movement from simple to complex
• Content of world:
– 1) already existing complexity? (The world created
in six days)
– 2) also a process of movement from an initial
simple state, to the present complexity that we
find now (an evolution from initial simple
elements)
 Theology and science
• The Church, relying on the Bible, says that the
world that exists now always existed as it
presently is
• But this contradicts the (rationalist) method of
science
• God is free to create as he chooses: irrationally or
rationally
• The Bible/Church says he created irrationally: all
at once without any process. Believers must
accept that
 A rationalist universe?
• But a scientist is free to speculate: what if God
created the world according to a rational
method? How would that happen?
• Answer: an evolutionary process beginning
with the simplest elements (Descartes’ The
World).
• Planets circling suns: the outcome of this
process (Copernican worldview)
 Descartes’ conception of Physics
• Recall: Initial concept of matter:
– Spatial extension
– Divisibility
– Add: External causality: nothing moves unless
something else moves it.
• Motion in a straight line
• Principle of inertia from Galileo
• Contrast with Aristotle’s theory of the
elements, and different forms of motion
 Duality of spirit and matter
• Spirit: free self-determined movement of
consciousness following a rational method
• Matter: deterministic movement from the
outside, going from simple to complex
– Evolution of the universe from simple elements,
acting and reacting on each other
 What is a human being?
• A (temporary) unity of body and soul
• As embodied spirits, we are moved by our passions
• As spirits in a body, we are also able to direct our passions
through awareness of truth
• 1) I desire to eat cream-puffs:
– I see a cream puff and want it.
• 2) I know that too many are not good for me (science of
health)
• 3) I can redirect my attention to things that are good for
me:
– stay away from cream puffs; don’t buy them
– prepare healthful means with tasty sauces instead
 Two views of life
• 1) taking matter, bodies as primary: individuals fight
over limited material resources
– The more people who eat the pie, the smaller each piece:
win/lose
– Conflict of egos
• 2) taking spirit, pursuit of truth, as primary
– When I share my ideas with others, I do not lose anything
– Pursuit of truth should be a cooperative, not a competitive
process: win/win
• 3) Pursuit of material goods should be subordinate to
pursuit of spiritual ones
 Problem of Descartes’ dualism
• Spirit is free, self-moving
• Matter is unfree, externally determined by
other material causes
• How then can spirit move matter (as we seem
to experience ourselves to do?)
 Two metaphysical responses: 1)
Hobbes’ Materialism
• All reality is deterministic: follows from
principle of inertia: all bodies move as a result
of the action on them of other bodies
• Free will, spirit, is an illusion
• But then how is science itself possible?
Modern science breaks from the determinism
of sensations
 2) Leibniz’ Spiritualism
• Consider action and reaction: I press on the stone, and
the stone equally presses on me
• > Nothing is moved by outside forces
• Everything has within itself an internal living force.
• Externally determined matter is an illusion
• Only spiritual beings, moving themselves, exist, even
on the simplest level of the basic elements: “monads”
(primitive “I thinks”) not “atoms”
• How could purposefully acting, self-determining
human beings evolve from the natural world if the
natural world consists of externally determined
beings?
 Hume’s empiricist scepticism
• 1) rationalism leads to conflicting
metaphysical positions
• 2) Pure reason cannot determine which is
correct
• 3) Therefore we must be content with
empiricist sense experience
• We can never know the nature of ultimate
reality: materialism, spiritualism, dualism???
 Kant’s reply
• 1) Empiricism makes science impossible; but
science is real
• 2) Rationalism follows from modern science: the
Copernican revolution:
• “Viewed from earth, the planets sometimes
move backwards, sometimes forward, and
sometimes not at all. But if the standpoint
selected is the sun, an act which only reason can
perform, according to the Copernican hypothesis
they move constantly in their regular course.”
 But Descartes’ carries rationalism too
far
• 1) The concept of spirit is reflects our own
internal experience of thinking, and our own
pursuit of the ideal of perfection (idea of God)
• 2) But scientific knowledge adopts an external
point of view both on ourselves and on the world
– We impose our concept of matter as spatially
extended, temporally evolving, and externally caused,
on everything, including ourselves
– But we should be aware that this is our concept and
our scientific practice
 We deceive ourselves
• As long as we take the results of scientific explanation as
objectively true, we deceive ourselves
• But such explanations in terms of causal determinism are
our way of organizing our own experience
– It is practically useful, and so not the operation of a deceiving
demon
• These fundamental concepts are a priori structures of
experiencing, not empirically derived generalizations
– = subjective rationalism
• Awareness of this subjectivity of our basic concept of
matter frees us from the prison of determinism
• And allows us to believe in (not know) the primacy of our
self-moving spirit (and community of spirits)
What’s wrong with the ontological
argument?
• Kant agrees that we have an idea of perfection (idea
of God)
– Driving us to know the truth
– Driving us to become better people
• But this idea does not by itself prove the existence of a
Perfect Being
• Existence is not a concept
– I have a conception an nice apple
– When I find this very apple, this does not add some new
feature to my conception of it