Epistemology - Two eloquent empiricists

Epistemology two eloquent empiricists

Empiricists break down how you know and understand something., it is the opposite of rationalism and says that all we know is through our senses and observation (a posterior).

Stuart Mill described his system of logic as a textbook of the doctrine that derives all knowledge from experience.  He was one of the resolute empiricists there have ever been. He decided that it wasn’t only Science that derived from experience but also mathematics. His physical phenomena described that a physical property was evident and that for instance 2 connotes all pairs of things whereas 12 is a dozen. However critics observed that it was mercy that not everything in the world is nailed down and that we aren’t able to separate parts e.g. 2+1 makes 3.

His inductive truths are generalisations based on individual experiences. The principle is ‘never accurately true’ as one pound in weight is not exactly equal to another. Critics said Mill was confusing arithmetic here with it’s applications and therefore it cant necessarily be true.

Henry Newman was the same empiricist tradition as Mill and said that the only direct acquaintance we have with things outside ourselves comes through our senses. We have to be near to things to touch them and we can never see, nor hear, nor touch things in the past/ future. Two different operations of the intellect that are exercised when we reason are inference (from premises) and assent (to a conclusion). Locke maintained that there can be no demonstrable truth in concrete matters and that assent to a concrete position must be conditional and fall short of certitude.

Our own self is not the only being existing as there is an external world, a universe that is carried on by laws where the future is affected by the past. A simple assent is unconscious and is more than fancy. Whereas a complex assent is 3 elements: follow on proof, accompanied by a specific sense of intellectual contentment, must be irreversible and distinguish certainty from infallibility as memory is not infallible. If I remember for certain what I did yesterday, this doesn’t mean that I never misremember. We can’t always be certain as even clocks can be wrong and thoughts can also be wrong. Aristotle in this Ethics told us no codes/laws can map out in advance the path of individual virtue, we need a virtue of practical wisdom.

Whereas Kant also had an opinion on this where he believed that we never know anything for certain but we can give an honest opinion that will never be a fact. He also used the Copernicus idea to come up with the astrology that the sun is at the centre of the universe. Although his idea appears to be correct at this moment in time it couldn’t be proved.

Gailieo had a good relationship with the church but was told to stop teaching people his ideas such as his idea of the telescope. He was put on trial and admitted being guilty of taking ideas and publishing them in a book where he was told to not publish anymore.  ‘And yet it moves.’  Newton came up with the idea of gravity and based his own ideas on developing those of Kant and Gailieo’s ideas. He came up with the tide idea and discovery. Determinism is that although something all runs by itself, God put it altogether its place. The planets move around by themselves but it cannot be explained. Berkeley established a system of values where he said you gain good values from the community as you learn everything about the world. Whereas religious values weren’t seen as important for him as they aren’t helping anyone.

Peirce on methods of Science

Peirce wrote a series of articles about popular science monthly his most famous was ‘The fixation of belief’ (how to make our ideas clear).

In order to settle our opinions and fix our beliefs there are 4 methods commonly used: the method of tenacity (provides comfort and peace of mind), the method of authority (institution teaches correct doctrines to the young from being taught advocated or expressed.  The problems with this was that it’s accompanied with cruelty as there will always be independent thinkers outside their own culture. A priori meditation is about producing a fixation of beliefs and the method of Science is an existence of a reality that is independent from our minds.

Belief has 3 properties:

1.     Something we are aware of

2.     Appeases imitation of doubt

3.     Involves establishment in our nature of a rule of action- a habit.

Frege on logic, psychology and Epistemology

He thought that knowledge is belief that is both true and justified whereas psychology is interested in the cause of our thinking, mathematics in proof of our thoughts. Frege accepts the Cartesian distinction between matter (the world of things) and mind (the world of ideas), but like Descartes accepted there needed to be a provided answer to idealist scepticism – the thesis that nothing exists except ideas.  If there is to be a thing as Science the third realm must be recognised. The third realm is the realm of objective thought. We are not owners of our thoughts as our ideas are thoughts that don’t change or come and go. They are not casually active or passive the way objects are in the physical world. Appealing to the third world is the ‘divine mind’ as stated by Descartes or the ‘world of thoughts’ Frege. They said that there aren’t 2 worlds there is in fact only one and this is inert with physical objects and conscious rational animals.

Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description

The sense data are the only things of which can be certain. Descartes ‘I think therefore I am’. Sense data are private and personal, our whole life is just a dream cannot be proved so there is no right or wrong. Memory gives us acquaintance by past data that is derived through our inner or outer senses.

Husserl’s Epoche

Husserl’s was the last great philosopher in the Cartesian tradition. His ideas were phenomenological reduction and the programme of Epoche. Along with Descartes he saw epistemology as the basic discipline. Prior to philosophy and all empirical sciences Husserl never doubted mental state (his own) and the language he uses to report these phenomena. The line of argument drove Husserl to become an transcendental idealist where consciousness is part of the world with physical causes and the physical world is itself is a creation of consciousness.

Wittgenstein on certainty

The transcendental idealism is the last of long series of unsuccessful attempts to respond to the Cartesian scepticism about the external world whilst accepting the Cartesian picture of the internal world. The first meditation is that doubt needs grounds and a genuine doubt must make a difference in someone’s behaviour. With madness there no real judgement made and mistake involves false judgement. ‘How can there be an understanding if we doubt everything.’