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7/27/2019 10_10__HumeKant
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David Hume Immanuel Kant
In Edinburgh... … in Königsberg
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Late Rationalism & Empiricism Empiricism won for now but Rationalism won't go down without a fight!
The successes and leaps in science were seen
as “evidence” for the validity of empiricism
Science had developed and the need for
reason seems reserved for math + logic
(analytic and/or demonstrative reasoning)
Metaphysics takes a hard blow (Hume)
– Kant tries to “resuscitate” it
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
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David Hume 1711 – 1776
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“HUME'S FORK”
All knowledge falls amongst the categories of:
Relations of Ideas
- analytic, necessary, a priori
e.g. “all bachelors are unmarried”
Matters of Fact
- synthetic, contingent, a posteriori
e.g. “there is a cat on the mat”
- are always in principle subject to doubt or revision
The skeptical results of this division...
- Certainty cannot exist in science
- Ethical positions “appear” arbitrary
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Problem of Causality
- we never experience causality as suche.g. billiard balls knocking into one another
e.g. two clocks in theory could appear to be
causing one another's ticks
Problem of Induction (i.e. inductive logic/reasoning)
- future observations are always open to alteration
- the “regularity of nature” - scientific theories + “laws” challenged
- will the sun rise again?
- are there black swans if we've never seen one?
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A Treat ise o f Human Nature , Bk 1, Sec 6
The problem of the Self - emotions, sensations, impressions
- no direct impression given to us via consciousness as
an object or intuition
- vs. Descartes' Cogito- No obvious unchangeable soul
- Analogy to theater (many roles being played, “chaotic”)
Bundle Theory
- All that can be known are the properties of things
- things are their properties (can't exist otherwise)
- Our identity is a “fluid” bundle with no single form
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A Treat ise of Human Nature , Bk 1, Sec 7
The Reliance on the Senses
Hume sees it as natural and proper that we operate
automatically based on our natural faculties – philosophy
has a way of complicating what is already in order to our
functioning in the world
The Value of Tradition
Tradition (or “custom”) is our only real guide in matters of
both science and ethics
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Hume's Ethics
The is – ought distinction: you cannot derive an ethical imperative from any given
observation of the world
One has no reason to prefer one way or the other the destruction of one's pinky
finger to the destruction of the world (insofar as one can use proof as a kind of
real support for the position)
“Reason is and ought to be the slave to the passions”
You reasonably act in order to serve the guidance of your natural attitude...e.g. torture is not wrong based on any rational principle, for no principle
exists (since it cannot be located or verified in the world given an empiricist
framework)... it just makes you want to vomit
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Immanuel Kant1724 - 1804
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Hume’s Influence on Kant
Awoke him from his “dogmatic slumbers”
Kant considered Hume's empiricism to be valid insofar as we
were not aware with any kind of a priori intuition or concept
which established the very possibility of our intuitions and
concepts of the observable world
The Result (and Subsequent Goal): Kant wants to find a way to
overcome Hume's extreme form of skepticism through reconsidering
the forms of our experience (i.e. what makes sensation possible),
without appealing to notions which had nothing to do with our
experience
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Kant's Synthesis of Epistemological Traditions
Plato → Rationalists → Kant
Aristotle → Empiricists → Kant
Kant inherits an idealism which maintains that our
reason contributes to the world as we perceive it
Kant inherits a skepticism which maintains a suspicionabout knowing things outside experience
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“Transcendental” - new meaning of the term for Kant
"I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with
objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even
before we experience them."
Transcendental Idealism
- there are at least certain intuitions of the mind which area priori
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Proof of the existence of the external world
I must reference myself in time every time I say that “I exist”
I can only make reference to time by the use of considering
outside objects (like clocks)
Therefore, each time I say that I exist, I am referencing the external
world as grounds for my being in it
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Intuitions proper to a priori knowledge
- space
- time
Concepts proper to a priori knowledge
- substance
Sensibility: Intuitions
Understanding: Concepts
Intuitions proper to a posteriori knowledge
- objects of extension
- e.g. books, chairs, tables, apples
Concepts proper to a posteriori knowledge
- substance
“Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are
blind...
...only from their union can cognition arise.”
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KANT'S PROPOSITIONAL DISTINCTIONS
– Review of terms: A priori & A posteriori
– Analytic / Synthetic Distinction
– Four types of propositions (his answer to Hume's Fork)• Analytic a priori (true by definition and prior to experience)
• Synthetic a priori (not true by definition, and priori to experience)
• Analytic a posteriori (not intelligible to our experience)*
• Synthetic a posteriori (not true by definition and after the fact of experience)
*Belonging to the “Noumenal Realm” (Things in themselves)
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Hypothetical Imperative:
Non-universal, pragmatic imperatives (non-ethical, or “amoral”)
The Categorical Imperative:
Universal, bound by duty
[Morally] act only according to a maxim which you could will as a
universal law
Moral du ty:
As rational agents, we each have an obligation to each other...
“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not
use them as means to your end.”
Kant ian Ethics
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