Kant a priori and a posteriori

In Proglegomena, Kant discusses the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, being that a priori means that we know something independently of observation and a posteriori means that we know something through observation. These two forms of knowledge are the only ways in which humans can experience the world and learn things. His thinking of a priori knowledge is usually based upon mathematical truths that cannot be done in any other way.

Billiard Balls

Hume uses the example of the billiard ball to explain the process of cause and effect. He says if one sees one billiard ball rolling toward a second billiard ball, can it be predicted that the second billiard ball will move when hit? He says no since it has no indication that it should behave a certain way based on observation alone. Also, just because in the past you have seen the billiard balls bounce a certain way, it doesn't mean that you can infer that they will do the same action this time...

Locke's World...

How do we know that the world that all of our experience are based in actually exists? While I certainly feel attached to the outside world...if all of your experience is based on it, how do you know that it exists. Again I will use the Matrix as an example...how do you 'really' know that you are not just experiencing everything in your entire life inside your head or more accurately, your thoughts? Locke went to great pains to make sure we 'knew' that there are no innate ideas, so why is the world not something that is disproved as well?

Free Will - Locke

Locke in Book II, Chapter XXI talks a bit about will and its freedom. While we were discussing it in class...Dan brought up an interesting distinction between the two with regard to how there are options, but not really a choice. That the course of actions you took are the only ones you could have taken, because of the priorities that are there for yourself at the time. Once you disregard that, you are not yourself. Even choices that we make that appear to not be what we want to do or in our best interest are...like I might not want to write 24/48 blog posts, but if I dont I will not pass...so I bet I will take the action that pains me and write the posts, even though I would rather be asleep...

Induction

So why should the past causes and effects necessitate the future to behave the same way? Hume himself gives to the fact that these inductions of future performance have their uses in life but remains skeptical. Just because you observe an event occurring consistently, doest mean that given that the same circumstances will generate the same event...especially when you consider that there might be other variables in play that you cannot be aware of. Although even if we are not aware of them they would be a different playing field...in the end as annoying as it is, it would seem correct that you might happen upon the so called exception to the rule when dealing with an event. Heck, you might even be watching a miracle break the natural laws!

Humes Miracles

In section 10, Hume starts to discuss miracles and their improbability. The biggest issue I have found comes with his definition of miracles, basically that they go against the laws of nature. So what he is saying is that even though we have no reason to believe that the 'laws of nature' will hold true to anything, and might entirely reverse course on us at any given moment...because the past is no indication of the future effects...that we should believe them anyway and use them to debunk potential 'miracles'? Seems like he just doesn't want to believe them but doesn't have a very good reason so he pins it on something that he claims is not necessarily true...

Shades of Blue - Hume

The shades of Blue argument that Hume proposes seems like he goes against his own argument that he must have experienced something previously...and he doesn't care! What kind of philosopher is this guy, he pokes holes in his own beliefs and then walks away saying, 'Eh, that's not important'! If everything you have is supposed to have come from your impressions of the natural world, why can you sense the lacking of a color, taste, or musical note from a given scale of something that you haven't seen/heard/tasted before?

Hume's Matrix

Every time I start to read Hume, I start to think that this book and his thoughts had something to do with the Matrix. Something about the potential for the real world to not play out as we anticipate always has me thinking about the Matrix and a persons life existing almost exclusively within a computer system. This would then account for the fact that things can turn out differently than anticipated as the computer programmers might just come around and change the rules on you in mid sentence.

Causation - Hume

I think that Hume raises an strong point when he is talking about our knowledge on matters of fact, that they are tied to cause and effect. Just because an event has happened given a certain cause in the past doesn't mean that it needs to happened that way again or is necessary for the event to occur. Of course, logically it would certainly be a shock if something that has caused a given effect occurred without any difference for some extended stretch, would suddenly change, but it is possible. Of course the next part of the question needs to be...so? Knowing that there might be an unexpected effect instead of the intented effect, does it change the effect or the reason to take a certain action. I certainly don't think so...

Locke and Innate Ideas

Locke took a drastically different approach to the concept of innate ideas compared to his contemporaries. He argued that innate ideas could not exist, no matter how elemtary the idea may be. He said that many people were confusing universal concepts with innate concepts. He argued that, just because a triangle has three sides, doesn't mean that we are born knowing that, or with the ability to distinguish it. This was a very important theory, because it essentially pushed God to the sidelines, and instead thrust man into the role of creator of many ideas which, at the time, were thought to have been implanted in the minds of man prior to birth.

Locke Properties - Dye

So I think I understand the distinction that Locke is describing of primary and secondary properties that an object has. That these secondary properties are the things that the mind makes of the physical objects is fine, but I'm confused about how Locke would deal with something like orange dye. Down to its smallest piece, this dye retains the secondary property of orange, and is not dependent on the mind to see the color. Or does he still contend that because the mind sees the color and it can be different for everyone that it would still be a secondary property? But just because it is different to someone else, doesnt mean it can't be a property of the object, just that someone is incorrect in their perception...

Descartes Properties issue - aka.Beating a dead horse

But only if it exists...just touching upon how ridiculous Descartes ontological argument is with regard to God, like most others have pointed out. Just because I can envision a perfect weasel (credit to Steinhart) doesn't mean that because I see it as perfect that it has to exist BECAUSE its perfect. If anything, the fact that I can envision something as perfect, or lacking of any flaws makes its existence that much less likely to me. What in this universe could possible be 'perfect', most things we envision as perfect turn out to be wild and crazy when looked at closely. In addition, perfection of something God can be entirely different to different people, shown by countless suicide bombers who believe they assure themselves many virgins in the afterlife for doing their 'Gods' work in this life.

Inate Ideas Descartes - Locke

In looking at Locke, it seems that his view on innate ideas make much more sense to me than those that Descartes explained. They both reason that these ideas are basically placed there by 'God', and are hence fully integrated into everyones mind as part of their existence. However, Locke then goes on to say that for these ideas to be integrated into everyones mind they would have to be universally applicable. This is crazy which is basically what he finds when he goes though examples of why that is not every truly the case. Because of that, he seems to say there is no such thing as an 'Innate' idea which makes much more sense to me than Descartes need to have God be an innate idea caused by a perfect being.

Descartes Will and Errors

Though our Will is given to us and is a 'perfect' form of this ability, it is still tempered by the minds intellect and ability to reason. That the source of some of our errors can be our ability to make concrete decisions according to our free will, even when presented inaccurate or incomplete knowledge. But what is to say that even if a person were to have full and complete knowledge of a situation that they would make the 'correct' choice? Many people make decisions that are not necessarily the right choice, but it is the one that they want to make. According to reason they are making an incorrect choice, but what if their goals are different than those we generally consider right and good?

does descartes faith conflict with discourse?

I feel that it does. In Descartes' Discourse, he emphasizes the need for a strict scientific method which can be applied to almost all things. However, when one tries to compare Descartes' arguments to the method laid out in his discourse, there certainly is a conflict, which suggests that either his method or his arguments are flawed.
For example, his first rule of Method is to: "never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt." Yet, there certainly is still doubt surrounding his argument. His statement that God exists is not accepted as common fact, like the law of gravity or the Pythagorean theorem. There is no definitive evidence of God's existence, so Descartes' relies on conjecture instead, violating the first law. Some would argue that faith and scientific method do not go together, but I would disagree, at least in the case of Descartes, since he specifically attempts to prove the existence of god not as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact.

Innate Idea of God?

I'm not sure I fully agree with the statement that God is an Innate idea that I was aware of as part of my own existence. I can much more readily see God as an idea that would have been either invented by the individual or by coming from another person. Going to Church as a boy was the first time that I learned of this all powerful being, not from me thinking to myself that something all powerful must exist who gave human beings their existence, ability to think, and able to make rational decisions. That he understands 'God' to be a substance that is, among other things, infinite seem odd that shows his own ignorance to even think to apply such a misunderstood property to something.

God's Trustworthiness

I think Descartes is a little quick to decide that God has no reason to deceive him in Meditations. As our 'creator', I think it would be naive to think that we would be exposed to the whole truth of 'God'. Judging my our own meager attempts to become the 'creator' of various entities and life forms, we are especially concerned about fully revealing our imperfections to our creations with the fear that someday these creations might decide to cause us harm. One (of many) ways to prevent such a thing is to not tell our creations the whole truth of any situation but to have such a thing become distorted to our advantage. Something important to keep control of such situations as a creator would be to install rules to ensure you stay in control, Asimov's 3 Rules of Robotics, the 10 Commandments, etc...

Discourse Part 1

I really thought Descartes was clever calling his work a 'fable', telling everyone that this was not a how to guide that should be followed by everyone, but a story of how he came to certain conclusions. It seems like a very nice way to distance himself from a lot of the upcoming statements of fact that he was going to be making that might have angered some of the 'authorities' at the time, aka. church, governments, etc.

meditations part five

Descartes just can't get off the subject of god. In his fifth meditation, he argues that, much like a mountain cannot exist without a valley, man cannot exist without god. He goes on to say that, much like it is impossible to visualize a triangle with two right angles, it is impossible to visualize the absence of god. I honestly feel like he makes a weak argument in this chapter. I don't think that it's possible to use logic in order to determine the existence of god. You can construe convincing arguments for both sides, but in the end, there really is no way to ever truly find the answer. The existence of god can never be demonstrated, but it can also never be completely refuted either.

discourse part two

Part two of Descartes' Discourse primarily deals with explaining the actual method that he feels should be used when trying to logically examine anything, and divides the process into four steps.

His first step is, in my opinion, his most important one - which is essentially to be skeptical of all things. He says that when arriving to conclusions, one should "never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such". In other words, don't believe anything without sufficient backing - question everything. He emphasizes the need to be able to "exclude all ground of doubt". If there is even one anomaly, then according to Descartes, it is not a truth.

The other three rules deal with splitting the problem into smaller, more manageable parts, figuring out the easiest parts first, and finally producing a detailed and complete report (I felt like this was more common sense type stuff, whereas the first rule was more of a critique on ignorance and blind acceptance).

The greatest part about this seemingly simple method is that it is so broad and general, that it can be applied almost universally, anything from science to politics to history, etc.

One viewpoint that I disagreed with Descartes on was his suggestion that an isolated mind produced better results than collaborative efforts. He says, comparing it to architecture - "there is not usually so much perfection in works composed of several parts and produced by various different craftsmen as in the works of one man." To me, the saying 'two heads are better than one' holds more water than his argument. He says that multiple people tend to cloud each other's vision and judgment, but I would argue that perhaps many or all of those people would not have arrived at the correct judgment on their own, but instead by working together and bouncing ideas off one another.

In fact, Descartes goes on to contradict his own statement when he uses Sparta as an example. He says, "I believe that if one time Sparta was very flourishing, this was not because each of its laws in particular was good (seeing that some were very strange and contrary to good morals) but because they were devised by a single man and hence all tended to the same end". In essence, he is saying that, even though Sparta lived in a cruel, martial society, it was for the better because one man thought it up. This is why I think that his argument for the sole mind is flawed - what happens when that mind belongs to a despot, or worse?