Epistemology: The Phenomenology of David Abram David Abram: “The Ecology of Magic” is from The Spell of the Sensuous Recommended: • Brain Pickings: Ecologist and Philosopher David Abram on the Language of Nature and the Secret Wisdom of the More-Than-Human World • Podcast: CRASSH | Magic and Ecology Podcast with David Abram • Podcast: On the Peak of Mount Stupid: Intersubjectivity LINK TO PROMPT Debate: What is the best way to know the truth about reality (the real world)? David Abram: The “real world” in which we find ourselves, then — the very world our sciences strive to fathom — is not a sheer “object,” not a fixed and finished “datum” from which all subjects and subjective qualities could be pared away, but is rather an intertwined matrix of sensations and perceptions, a collective field of experience lived through from many different angles

Epistemology: The Phenomenology of David Abram David Abram: “The Ecology of Magic” is from The Spell of the Sensuous Recommended: • Brain Pickings: Ecologist and Philosopher David Abram on the Language of Nature and the Secret Wisdom of the More-Than-Human World • Podcast: CRASSH | Magic and Ecology Podcast with David Abram • Podcast: On the Peak of Mount Stupid: Intersubjectivity LINK TO PROMPT Debate: What is the best way to know the truth about reality (the real world)? David Abram: The “real world” in which we find ourselves, then — the very world our sciences strive to fathom — is not a sheer “object,” not a fixed and finished “datum” from which all subjects and subjective qualities could be pared away, but is rather an intertwined matrix of sensations and perceptions, a collective field of experience lived through from many different angles. FOR OBJECTIVITY: ? Descartes & Hume: Scientific Method ? Marx & Engels: Dialectical Method AGAINST OBJECTIVITY ? Nietzsche: Perspectivism ? Abram: Phenomenology A Objectivity: Science or Dialectical Logic Based on observational methods for curbing individual or ideological bias. Science or dialectical materialism are vehicles of truth. B C Subjectivity Perspectivism Inter-subjectivity Phenomenology Based on direct individual, first person perceptions; emotional component to perception. Art, poetry, music, and literature (creative endeavors) are vehicles of truth. Based on collective, or communal relation, or pragmatic agreement or consensus. Democratic decision making or communion with more-than-human world is way to truth. Climate change example: Intersubjectivity via collective democratic consensus. There is a consensus among world leaders that we must not allow the temperature on the planet to rise above 2 degrees Celsius. This agreement was reached at the Paris Climate Change Convention by all G-8 nations. PBS report: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-2-degrees-celsius-is-climatechanges-magic-number United Nations The Paris Agreement The Meaning of the G-8's '2 Degrees' Goal; Adequate? Realistic? Too Vague? A Distraction Maybe? Question: “Intersubjectivity” entails getting at the truth by consensus. A. True B. False Meet Philosopher David Abram: Short Course Description (start at 30 sec) From Introduction ? “Phenomenological Critique” seeks to understand the world as it is experienced in its first-person felt immediacy, before attempts to reflect on it or theorize it. Since we can never capture the world as it is “in itself,” we can at least apprehend what it is “for us.” This approach reveals how various conceptual constructions obscure or distort our attempts to grasp particular realities on the basis of our “lived experience” alone. > Does this philosophy correspond with my direct, sensorial experience? > If I “bracket” my socially constructed assumptions, what might I discover? METAPHYSICS Ecological Animism: Ants, spiders, trees = “spirits” Spirit = living matter; flesh One is only human in contact with nature. Nature = Web of Life Human and MoreThan-Human worlds; sacred, spirited, full of life force EPISTEMOLOGY PHENOMENOLOGY A way of getting at the truth through first person experience, in relation/communion with other subjectivities in the human and more-thanhuman world. Method of Bracketing the “known world” to access the truth of reality-initself/for us. Open doors of perception for epiphany: “spell” of the ETHICS Ecocentricism: Balance & Reciprocal relations w/ all Beings Biocentricism: Animals & ecosystems have Intrinsic Value Democracy: Vote to determine the “greatest good for greatest number” sensuous EXAMPLE: Baraka’s Phenomenological Critique of Civilized Reality What is the film’s method of getting at the truth about reality? ? “Bracket” your understanding, e.g. assumption of Enlightenment Progress ? Allow the film to affect you. Be open to the epiphany it offers via the “spell” of the sensuous? ? What is the conclusion/truth revealed through the film? Opening sequence: • How is it like Abram’s example with the fireflies or spiders in cave? • How is it different from Roquentin’s view of the tree root in Sartre’s Nausea, or Nietzsche’s Parable of the Madman? Before Civilization Pace & Rhythm of life is slower; symbolized by tribal drum beat Humans lived closer to and in sync with nature; 'Kecak' Balinese Monkey Chant After Civilization Pace & Rhythm of life is faster; symbolized by mechanical beat. Humans are alienated from nature; living in cells, processing animals thru factory process. Chicks Efforts to experience life fully/directly are at The experience of life is mediated by the center of life; Kecak has roots in various forms of containment and sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism mechanical processes: humans are dance. moved along like chicks. The Good Life is communal; communion Individuals are alienated from nature is way to truth about reality. and each other. So, what is the conclusion/truth revealed through the film? • • Civilization’s costs ought to be considered alongside it benefits for humanity and the more-than-human world. Intersubjective relationality holds potential to create different realities, and different paradigms of reality. “The Ecology of Magic” (excerpt from chapter one of The Spell of the Sensuous) ? What does Abram mean by the “the spell of the sensuous”? ? A “spell”: the influence of “magic” on one’s awareness; fascination ? He opens his book by sharing an experience in the rice paddies of Bali: “I felt myself at times falling through space, at other moments floating and drifting. I simply could not dispel the profound vertigo and giddiness; the paths of the fireflies, and their reflections in the water's surface, held me in a sustained trance. Even after I crawled back to my hut and shut the door on this whirling world, the little room in which I lay seemed itself to be floating free of the Earth.” ? What is the shaman’s ‘method’? “the ability to readily slip out of the perceptual boundaries that demarcate his or her particular culture-boundaries reinforced by social customs, taboos, and, most important, the common speech or language-in order to make contact with, and learn from, the other powers in the land.” ? Two Ways of Knowing Shaman Acts as an intermediary between the human collective and the larger ecological field. (ecocentric) Philosopher (Descartes) Works solely in the human world, for human ends. (anthropocentric) Uses lived experience (feeling, sensory) as a guide to reality; perception. Animistic view of nature as “subject” Uses logic and research as a guide to reality; cognition. Method: “magic”; communion; attention to relations Method: science; analysis of objects Truth is inter-subjective Truth is objective Dualist view of nature as “object” Phenomenology What is the nature of EXPERIENCE according to Abram? ? Necessarily subjective (not impartial, based on perception) ? Necessarily relative to our position or place, desires, tastes, concerns ? Indeterminate (not known exactly, vague, having no numerical meaning) ? We experience reality first in a preconceptual, ambiguous, untheorized, spontaneous way ? We experience the world as “a living field, an open and dynamic landscape subject to its own moods and metamorphoses.” ? Charged with emotional and intuitive content What is phenomenology? ? Edmund Husserl founded this “science of experience” in early 1900s; he shared with Descartes a desire to provide a firm foundation for the sciences. ? Goal: to describe “the things themselves” as they are experienced in their felt immediacy; “to describe as closely as possible the way the world makes itself evident to awareness, the way things first arise in our direct, sensorial experience.” ? The goal is not to explain it, or to capture and control directly experienced reality, but rather to engage it: “to give voice to its enigmatic and ever-shifting patterns” and to “articulate the ground of other sciences.” ? Investigation of the “field of appearances” ? METHOD: (epoche) BRACKET ordinary assumptions and tune in on the naked senses. [Recall Sartre’s epiphany] DEFINITION: Phenomenology – The study of the phenomena, things as they are perceived, as opposed to things as they are independent of perception; the philosophical investigation of conscious experience without reference to the question of whether the experience is objectively real. What is inter-subectivity? ? It emerged as the response to the criticism that phenomenology was solipsistic ? Solipsism = the belief that the only thing somebody can know for sure is that he or she exists, and that true knowledge of anything else is impossible. ? Question: “How does our subjective experience enable us to recognize the reality of other selves, other experiencing bodies? ? Merleau-Ponty: The solution seemed to implicate the body – one’s own as well as that of the other – as a singularly important structure within the phenomenal field.” Perception is participatory. ? Awareness is impossible without my body. ? But what about other bodies? ? “[There is] an inescapable affinity, or affiliation, between these other bodies and one’s own. The gestures and expressions of these other bodies, viewed from without, echo and resonate one’s own bodily movements, experienced from within. By an associative “empathy,” the embodied subject comes to recognize these other bodies as other centers of experience, other subjects.” ? “The field of appearances, while still a thoroughly subjective realm, was now seen to be inhabited by multiple subjectivities; the phenomenal field was no longer the isolated haunt of a solitary ego, but a collective landscape, constituted by other experiencing subjects as well as by oneself.” ? The realm of the subjective: my experience inside my body ? The realm of the intersubjective: my experience outside my body; phenomena experienced by a multiplicity of sensing subjects. ? For Husserl: intersubjectivity offers a new interpretation of ‘objectivity’ based on intersubjective agreement about reality. ? The criterion for truth = CONSENSUS, “greater agreement or consonance among a plurality of subjects, rather than an attempt to avoid subjectivity altogether.” POLL: The criterion for truth according to Perspectivism is intersubjective consensus. A. True B. False What is Abram’s critique of the objective sciences / Cartesian science? ? They overlook [take for granted] our ordinary everyday experience of the world. ? What is overlooked / unacknowledged? ? “Even the most detached scientist must begin and end her study in this indeterminate field of experience, where shifts in climate or mood may alter his experiment or her interpretation of ‘the data’ […] The scientist never completely succeeds in making himself into a pure spectator of the world, for he cannot cease to live in the world as a human among other humans…” ? Why doesn’t the scientist succeed? “[W]hatever we perceive is necessarily entwined with our own subjectivity, already blended with the dynamism of life and sentience.” ? Scientific Objectivity is an impossible ideal to achieve ? Scientific objectivity is a distorted perspective: “The fluid realm of direct experience has come to be seen as a secondary, derivative dimension, a mere consequence of events unfolding in the ‘realer world of quantifiable and measurable scientific ‘facts.’ It is a curious inversion of the actual demonstrable state of affairs.” ? Husserl’s critique: “The pure ‘objective reality’ commonly assumed by modern science, far from being the concrete basis underlying all experience, was … a theoretical construction, an unwarranted idealization of intersubjective experience.” EXAMPLE: How would each try to get at the truth about a child struggling to maintain attention in the classroom? EXAMPLE Thesis & Preview: In this essay I will argue that phenomenology provides a better path to truth than science using the example of attention deficit to make my case. Shaman (inter-subjectivity) Looks at the child as a subject in relation to other subjects. What is the RELATION between individual and larger ecological field? Overcome alienation & stagnation in the cell Nature Deficit Disorder Causes and effects Scientist (objectivity) Looks at the child as an object. What is the chemical imbalance causing the problem? Fix what’s broken in the individual Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD is the most commonly studied and diagnosed psychiatric disorder in children, affecting about 3 to 5 percent of children globally. DSM – IV symptoms EXAMPLE: Wit (6 min) Descartes Abram Metaphysics Dualism (Nature = body devoid of soul) Epistemology Scientist = Detached observer; objective. Uses experimental method. Ideal: Objectivity Nature = MoreThan-Human; sacred, spirited, full of life force Ideal: Intersubjectivity PHENOMENOLOGY Shaman = Intermediary Uses trance as a way of altering consciousness. Open to sensory experience; deep listening. Pluralist Animism: Ants = “spirits” Ethics Human progress Androcentricism: Animals & ecosystems = Instrumental Value Balance & Reciprocal relations w/ all Beings Ecocentricism; Biocentricism: Animals & ecosystems = Spirit = living matter; flesh One is only human in contact with nature. Perception is malleable. To know, one “mediates” between humans and the more-than-human world. Intrinsic Value QUESTIONS for Thought/Discussion: ? Have you ever experienced “the spell of the sensuous”? ? What kind of examples work best for revealing an intersubjective truth? POLL: Which position will you argue for? FOR OBJECTIVITY: A. Descartes & Hume: Scientific Method B. Marx & Engels: Dialectical Method AGAINST OBJECTIVITY C. Nietzsche: Perspectivism D. Abram: Phenomenology Examples Introduction To fully understand the rapidly evolving world around us we need to engage in a dialectic class critique; only through the lens of Marx’s historical materialism will we be able to unmask the objective truths that have been hidden by ruling class interests. I will prove to you that the phenomenologist epistemology is a path easily twisted by the ruling class; our easily manipulated human fear centers have the power to override everything else in our mind. I will prove that historical materialism is the only path to the truth by examining the current American situation where the rich and powerful have subverted democracy and our planet by manipulating the intersubjective experience. (Trenton Mear) Phenomenological Description: Example of War The sad truth to the reality of war can be found in the firsthand experiences of those who have lived it. Objective truth is too simple and neglects very real realities of living in hell. A soldier could be living in wretched conditions, have to survive on substandard food, endure the raw elements, and eventually forced to fight and kill someone that he has not even met before prior in his life. During his experiences of inevitable mortal combat, he sees many other people that he knew personally getting murdered in cruel and painful ways. Some get shot with a rifle, the bullet is a scorching hot piece of metal that enters the physical body and destroys the organs. There are explosions on the battlefield. The explosions are deafening and cause many to have permanent hearing damage, but if you’re unlucky enough to be too close to the blast it could take a limb. The sight of human bodies missing a limb that moments before was attached and well is sickening. These horrible acts are happening to comrades who just not that long ago were making wise cracks with you at the last chow break, have suffered mortal wounds and will never be the same. To have to live at times with death all around you, so much so that it is part of the environment and it is being experienced on more than one of the senses at a time. These actual experiences give a fuller truth about physical reality. (Christopher Scully) EPISTEMOLOGY: Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) Subjectivity: Existentialist Perspectivism Read: Nietzsche, Will to Power and Genealogy of Morals Watch: Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche (49 min) Recommended: 10 Life Lessons from Friedrich Nietzsche (Existentialism) (20 min) What’s Nietzsche’s story? School of life video on Nietzsche > On the morning of January 3, 1889, while in Turin, Nietzsche experienced a mental breakdown which left him an invalid for the rest of his life. Upon witnessing a horse being whipped by a coachman at the Piazza Carlo Alberto — although this episode with the horse could be anecdotal — he threw his arms around the horse's neck and collapsed in the plaza, never to return to full sanity. Some argue that Nietzsche was afflicted with a syphilitic infection (this was the original diagnosis of the doctors in Basel and Jena) contracted either while he was a student or while he was serving as a hospital attendant during the Franco-Prussian War; some claim that his use of chloral hydrate, a drug which he had been using as a sedative, undermined his already-weakened nervous system; some speculate that Nietzsche's collapse was due to a brain disease he inherited from his father; some maintain that a mental illness gradually drove him insane. The exact cause of Nietzsche's incapacitation remains unclear. That he had an extraordinarily sensitive nervous constitution and took an assortment of medications is well-documented as a more general fact. To complicate matters of interpretation, Nietzsche states in a letter from April 1888 that he never had any symptoms of a mental disorder. Taking the horse, the beating, and Nietzsche’s actions as symbols, how might this story be interpreted? Clue: He was a “Romantic” (What is Romanticism?) 1. What is your first impression of Nietzsche? A. Mostly positive B. Mostly negative OVERVIEW: Epistemology – Is Objectivity the best way to know the truth about reality? Kind of “truth” Objective truth Subjective truth Example “It is 73 degrees in this room,” or “Humans are causing climate change.” “This room is an ice box,” or “I love the warmer weather and storms are exciting.” [or anything you feel about climate change] A. Descartes & Hume: Yes, objectivity is achieved through the scientific method (combining deduction, induction, and skepticism). B. Marx: Yes, objectivity is achieved through dialectical materialism (distinguishing truth from ideology by considering human interests vs ruling class interests). ------------C. Nietzsche: No, objectivity is merely an expression of the will to power, and obscures the subjective truth known through the body, senses and emotions. Perspectivism. D. Abram: No, intersubjectivity (through perceptual communion and consensus, phenomenology) is the best and only way to the truth. “Objectivity” is really nothing more than intersubjective agreement. POLL: If you had to say where you are right now, which would you pick to argue for? NIETZSCHE is an EXISTENTIALIST Metaphysics Epistemology Nihilism “God is Dead” Perspectivism; An interpretative philosophy; Subjectivism; Genealogy Life (existence: chaos and flux) is “will to power”: interpret reality. There is no human nature: A man is what he wills himself to be. The way to (subjective) truth: first person sensory and emotional experiences, hence, mythos, art, poetry, music; not science Values: Beyond Good & Evil is Aesthetics Be Great! Be authentic! Create Reality! Make your life a work of art! Individuality, Autonomy, “Freedom of Spirit” Will to Truth = Will to Power What does Nietzsche mean when he says “God is dead”? THE MADMAN Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. "How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto." Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves. It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?" [Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.] EPISTEMOLOGY: How do we know what is true? [Convention: Capital “T” truth refers to truth that is universal, absolute, or objective, whereas small “t” truth refers to truth that is individual (opinion), relative, or subjective. What is a SUBJECTIVE moment of truth? Not the product of a scientific experiment, but something that comes from a lived experience (epiphany). Examples: The truth of “freedom”: Braveheart Subjective truth portrayed in “Baraka”: Trailer (Required for next class) ? The truth about modern civilization ? The truth about third world poverty Truth about the cause of the “Environmental Crisis”: Phillip Larkin’s “The Mower” The Mower BY PHILIP LARKIN The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time. Philip Larkin, "The Mower" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd. Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001) Defining Perspectivism: An Epistemological Position ? Truth is not a correspondence between a thought/idea and a thing/object out in the world, because the mind is not a mirror. ? Truth is always meditated: One’s understanding of the world is possible only through one's subjective perspective and interpretation; there is no neutral, unmediated, “perspective-free” or “interpretation-free” understanding of reality. ? Relativism: There can be radically different and incommensurable conceptual schemes or perspectives, one of which we must (consciously or unconsciously) adopt, but none of which is “more true” than its rivals. Example: “You were flirting!” ? Pluralism: While there is no perspective which is definitively "True," individuals may choose to value some perspectives over others, hence, it could be said there are many “truths” some of which may be contradictory. ? Contrast: Objectivity vs. Subjectivity Objective standpoint: “It” (3rd person) Subjective standpoint: “I” (1st person) The world is composed of objects, things, events, etc. that can be known by all “clearly and distinctly” i.e. measured and analyzed rationally and quantitatively. I experience the world mediated/filtered through my thoughts, emotions, memories, states of mind, perceptions and immediate sensations (smell, taste, sight, hearing, touch). Facts exist! There are no facts, only interpretations. Examples: Science, positivism, historical materialism. Examples: Existentialism, Solipsism, Phenomenology 2. Nietzsche claimed that the mind is a mirror of reality. A. True B. False Nietzsche’s Perspectivism: Subjectivity ? Metaphysics: Reality is not given; rather it is created out of the chaos & flux of existence by “will to power.” ? A perspective = an interpretation of the chaos & flux forged by an individual “will to power.” (contrast with Marx’s class perspectives) ? There are no given individuals/subjects (no “I”) at the helm of “self” – we create ourselves thru the perspectives we choose. Drives to interpret reality reflect different VALUES. Pluralism: Beyond the fictions of “subject” and “object,” there is experience, which is chaos & flux, calling out for interpretation. “My hypothesis: The subject as multiplicity.” [Contrast Descartes: Subject as Mind.] “There exists neither ‘spirit,’ nor reason, nor thinking, nor consciousness, nor soul, nor will, nor truth: all are fictions that are of no use. There is no question of ‘subject and object,’ but of a particular species of animal that can prosper only through a certain rightness; above all, regularity of its perceptions…” ? POWER = choice over values: “Every drive is a kind of lust to rule; each one has its perspective that it would like to compel all the other drives to accept as a norm.” ? A perspective = an interpretation of the chaos & flux forged by an individual “will to power.” (contrast with Marx’s class perspectives) ? “The only seeing we have is seeing from a perspective; the only knowledge we have is knowledge from a perspective. The more emotional affects we allow to be expressed in words concerning something, the more eyes, different eyes, we know how to train on the same thing, the more complete our ‘idea’ of this thing, our ‘objectivity,’ will be.” [The quote marks indicate he is talking about intersubjective consensus.] ? The ‘will to know’ is a manifestation of the will to power, i.e. the will to create reality using ‘truth’ as a tool. ? Some perspectives are better than others based on the values of each perspective; What values inform Nietzsche’s philosophical perspective? ? Psychological perspectives: Subjectivity is motivated: if you want to know the “truth” about someone, look at their subjective motives, at what their will is aimed at. ? He values aesthetic/artistic: Perceiving, sensing, interpreting is creative. The highest expression of the will to power = poetry/art/literature. ? He values LIFE (over death): “Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.” ? “The measure of the desire for knowledge depends upon the measure to which the will to power grows in a species: a species grasps a certain amount of reality in order to become master of it, in order to press it into service.” (317) Is Nietzsche a Darwinian? Nietzsche is not a Darwinian Darwin says reality is known by science. Nietzsche is a critic of science; Science is just another value-laden perspective. Darwin says reality is given/determined by laws of nature, evolutionary logic. Nietzsche is a Nihilist (there is no given metaphysical order) Nietzsche does not believe history has an evolutionary logic to it. He’s using “species” metaphorically Nietzsche’s Critique of Scientific Perspective ? “Objectivity castrates the intellect!” ? Traditional views of “knowledge” shun power; they say, “If power is involved in the knowledge-making process, that is bias!” Nietzsche replies: everything is bias. ? Science is not neutral: it aims to overcome/eliminate human suffering rather than to help people cope with it. Recall, Descartes’s ethics: Use science to relieve human suffering. Hence, Nietzsche calls it “the gay science.” ? Nietzsche does not claims science is WRONG; it’s just another perspective. Hence, his critique is about the values behind its perspective and its false selfpresentation. ? The scientific claim that knowledge is beyond power, bias, subjectivity = LIES, fictions; of course, Nietzsche says, science believes the lie it tells about itself = self-deception. ? Every “way of knowing” = a value-laden perspective including science; hence, scientific objectivity is one way of knowing among many. (Review: What are the values of the scientific method?) ? Nietzsche’s critique of Science’s values: It is death-affirming way of knowing: it reduces, it distorts, it obscures the will to power, e.g. mechanistic determinism obliterates freedom (will to power); it strives to eliminate suffering, hence, antilife. ? “Against positivism, which halts at phenomena – ‘There are only facts’ – I would say: No, facts is precisely what there is not, only interpretations.” Positivism: “Facts” are claims based on positive verification according to sensory evidence. Positivism refers to a set of epistemological perspectives and philosophies of science which hold that the scientific method is the best approach to uncovering the truth about material reality. Positivism asserts that the only real knowledge is that which is based on positive empirical verification. Critics say positivism is “ideology” for science. What is Nietzsche’s critique of Cartesian objectivity? ? Against Descartes: “Along the lines followed by Descartes one does not come upon something absolutely certain but only upon the fact of a very strong belief.” ? Recall Descartes’s cogito is the paradigmatic example of “clear and distinct”: But “I think, therefore I am” depends on there being an “I” (a unified subject) ? “’The subject’ is the fiction that many similar states in us are the effect of one substratum: but it is we who first created the ‘similarity’ of these states; our adjusting them and making them similar is the fact, not their similarity.” ? “Must all philosophy not ultimately bring to light the preconditions upon which the process of reason depends? […] But that a belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with truth, one knows from the fact that, e.g. we have to believe in time, space, and motion, without feeling compelled to grant them absolute reality.” ? For Nietzsche: “The phenomenon of the body is the richer, clearer, more tangible phenomenon: to be discussed first, methodologically, without coming to any decision about its ultimate significance.” ? Bodies = sensual, emotional, instinctual organisms are best guide to “truth” that is life-affirming. The body knows. ? Beyond the fictions of “subject” and “object,” there is experience, which is chaos & flux, calling out for interpretation. “My hypothesis: The subject as multiplicity.” (320) ? “Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.” ? The question is not true/false, but is the belief life-affirming/death-affirming? ? “The joy in shaping and reshaping – a primeval joy! We can comprehend only a world that we ourselves have made.” How does Nietzsche characterize the conception of “objectivity” that is the target of his criticisms? What criticisms does he aim at this “customary perspective”? ? “But to eliminate the will in general, to suspend all our emotions without exception – even if we were capable of that – what would that be? Wouldn’t we call that castrating the intellect?” (Genealogy of Morals, 1887) In what sense is Descartes’ conception of objectivity guilty of “castrating the intellect”? What is the nature of the “objectivity” Nietzsche advocates? Why does he call it “objectivity” instead of “subjectivity”, or “inter-subjectivity”? Using Nietzsche’s “objective” view, how would you explain each of the following: a tree, a spider, the statue of liberty, a television and a human being? Compare and contrast Nietzsche’s “objectivity” with a traditional scientific conception of “objectivity”? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each as a basis for advocating ecologically sound policies and practices? Genealogy of Morals Sec. 12 ? “The only seeing we have is seeing from a perspective; the only knowledge we have is knowledge from a perspective. The more emotional affects we allow to be expressed in words concerning something, the more eyes, different eyes, we know how to train on the same thing, the more complete our ‘idea’ of this thing, our ‘objectivity,’ will be.” Critique of Science: ? Death of God = teleological explanations (purpose/plan) are obsolete; i.e. Science killed God by eliminating the need for Final Cause in pursuit of Truth. Logos triumphed over mythos. ? Science aims to overcome/eliminate human suffering rather than to help people cope with it. Recall, Descartes’s ethics: Use science to relieve human suffering. Hence, Nietzsche calls it “the gay science.” ? For Nietzsche, suffering is part of human existence. There is no denying it. In fact, it is essential to life. To eliminate it would be to eliminate life. In Twilight of the Idols he offers this aphorism: “Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” ? For Nietzsche, life is war. But the highest expression of the will to power is not brute force. It is a creative exercise of will power, as is found in poetry & art. Hence, the imperative, make your life a work of art. ? Hint: Every work of art is ORIGINAL ? In order to show why Modernity is (psychologically) sick (“decadent”) he returns to the Ancient Greeks and offers them as an example of what we are not. The Greeks were healthy, strong, creative, because they the demands of existence. ? Conclusion: modern science is nihilistic. ? Example: “Wit” trailer The film makes a case for (inter)subjectivity over objectivity as a way to “know the truth” about reality. Nietzsche’s Critique of Marx and Engels ? Like Marx, Nietzsche is a philosopher of “power” Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Many of [Nietzsche’s] criticisms rely on psychological diagnoses that expose false consciousness infecting people’s received ideas; for that reason, he is often associated with a group of late modern thinkers (including Marx and Freud) who advanced a “hermeneutics of suspicion” against traditional values (see Foucault [1964] 1990, Ricoeur [1965] 1970, Leiter 2004). ? Unlike Marx, he does not believe the way power works in the fabric of reality can be known objectively. Marx’s historical materialism reveals that power works through the “logic” of class struggle (thesis-antithesis-synthesis). The agents of power are classes. The struggle is revolution for a class-less society. ? In contrast with Marx, Nietzsche believes that individuals are the agents of power and the struggle is to exercise the will to create reality. ? Contrast “will to power” (which is individual) with Marx’s class power/consciousness (which is collective); the latter might be seen by Nietzsche as “herd mentality” akin to religious affiliation. How might an advocate of OBJECTIVITY critique Nietzsche? ? Subjectivity is Solipsist. What is solipsism? EPISTEMOLOGY DEBATE: Where do you stand at this point: What is the best way to know the truth about reality? A. Science (deduction + induction) B. Historical Materialism (Marx) C. Perspectivism (Nietzsche’s) Karl Marx: Historical Materialism & Ideology Video: Karl Marx Read: Marx & Engels, “The German Ideology” (1846) How do you know what’s true? TODAY: Truth claims require justification: dialectical logic Why are we reading Marx? He is a communist! Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists Is communism in the cave or, are you in the cave of Anti-Communist Ideology? 1. What is your first impression of Marx’s philosophy? A. Mostly positive B. Mostly negative Philosopher: Karl Marx (1818 - 1883) was a German, Jewish philosopher, political economist, sociologist, humanist, political theorist, revolutionary, and communist icon. In 1844 Marx began collaborating with the affluent industrialist Friedrich Engels, fresh from working as a mill manager in Manchester where he had been much affected by the poverty of the workers. The result of their collaboration was first The Holy Family and then in 1846 The German Ideology. Real World Event behind this philosophy: Industrial Revolution 1780s – 1860s Marx: Religion is the opiate of the masses. What is the most pervasive opiate/ideology promoting false consciousness TODAY? Advertising and the End of the World: A sociologist on advertising as ideology (5 min) What is the objective truth behind the ideology? Manufactured Landscapes opening scene What is threatening “human interests”? “We the People 2.0” Marx is a philosopher: METAPHYSICS EPISTEMOLOGY VALUES Human interests and universal: what is necessary to sustain our lives: food, water, shelter, clothing, social relations, etc. Homo Faber (man the worker) is made into a laborer (an object) who can be bought and sold for wages. History unfolds in according to a LOGIC. (Teleology) Monist Materialism: History is determined by Class Struggle: ? Tribal ? Slavery & Property ? Feudalism ? Mercantilism ? Capitalism ? Communism Truth = Reflects the reality universal human interests Ideology = dominant, hegemonic ideas that serve ruling class interests Religion is the opiate of the masses. Morality = ideological tool of ruling classes To overcome “false consciousness,” alienation & exploitation (Oppression): Q: How do you know Join the class struggle to that you are not overthrow class society “brainwashed” by and create a class-less the ruling class, i.e. society based on how do you know universal human interests. that you are not suffering “false consciousness”? A: Dialectical Logic leads to an OBJECTIVE view Base (material/economic mode of reality. of production) & Superstructure (ideology) Ideology: Religion, schools, arts, “cultural” stuff [Material] Reality determines consciousness, not vice versa. Classes, not individuals are the change agents in history. 2. Marx offers a method for getting at the OBJECTIVE truth about reality. A. True B. False Allegory of the Cave: A Marxist Interpretation SYMBOL INTERPRETATION Sun: OBJECTIVE TRUTH aimed at realizing universal human interests Outside the cave: Base: Mode of Production, e.g. capitalism or slavery, and ultimately classless society (communism) Escapee: Revolutionary Pathway out: METHOD: Dialectical Historical Materialism (class struggle; ideology critique) Inside the cave: Superstructure: Religion, Ethics, Art Prisoners: Proletariat (Working class, wage labor) Shadow-casters: Bourgeoisie (Ruling class, Owners of capital) Shadows on the wall: IDEOLOGY 3. Marx agrees with Descartes that the scientific method is the best way to get at the objective truth about reality. A. True B. False How do Marx & Engels make their case? Objective Method: Dialectical Logic of History – Hegel’s theory of Truth 1. Identify thesis, antithesis, synthesis 2. In the conflict look for conflicts of interest 3. Use ideology critique to unmask ruling economic class interests 4. Seek truth in human or species-interests: what serves interests in life? Dialectics: The Other Logic of Objectivity ? Deductive Logic + Inductive Logic = Scientific Method ? Marx: Social Science is based on a different method: Historical Materialism (inductive logic) ? Critique of idealists (rationalists) & empiricists: “As soon as the active life-process is described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts, as it is with the empiricists (themselves abstract), or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists.” ? Real, Positive Science / Knowledge (aka Historical Materialism): “Where speculation ends, where real life starts, there consequently begins real, positive science, the expounding of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men.” (91) ? To see what empirical science misses use dialectical logic. DIALECTICAL LOGIC: Thesis (A) >> Anti-thesis (not A) >> Synthesis (A & not A) Dialectical logic is a logic capable of explaining change. Formal logic and mathematical logic study the forms of thought in abstraction from its content and from the historical development of cognition in all its contradictions. Dialectical logic can analyze the change-making contradictions inherent in concrete, material, historical, economic events and phenomena. What is IDEOLOGY? [Shadows on the wall of the cave] • TWO WAYS OF CONCEPTUALIZING "Ideology" (1) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels definition, in The German Ideology (written 1846; published 1932), as ruling class ideas (illusions, mystifications, false beliefs) designed to obscure the reality of universal human interests. According to their materialist account, ideas are determined by underlying economic power relations. "The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behavior. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process." -- The German Ideology (1845) This conceptual understanding emphasizes the misguided departure from fact, logic, reason, or truth. "Ideology" on this definition, refers to motivated representations (ideas, images, stories) which support unjust economic power relations. From this perspective, the shadows on the wall of the cave are "ideology." Ideology is the myth that obscures the truth of reality. Examples of ideology in this sense include: • • Religion is an ideology or "opiate" in that it calms and comforts the masses with hopes of justice in the afterlife, preventing them from revolting against the injustices of economic exploitation faced in this life. The American Dream is an ideology that motivates the working class with unrealistic rags-to-riches stories of economic uplift. (2) Relativist Definition: In popular and political discourse, "ideology" is used to refer to any political belief system, worldview, or values system used to inform or guide social or political action, whether it is for or against prevailing inequalities, and it is not seen as truth-distorting, but rather as emphasizing some values over others, e.g. libertarianism vs egalitarianism. From this perspective, you might say, it's all shadows; there is no Sun outside the cave by which we might judge their truth. On this view, every perspective is ideological. NOT MARX’s VIEW Marx’s Epistemological Position: Truth can be distinguished from ideology. "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social existence that determines their consciousness." What does Marx mean by claiming that our consciousness is determined by the material conditions of our lives? Identify and evaluate the causal claim: “Material conditions of life determine consciousness.” History of Modes of Production & Class Struggle Slavery = masters vs. slaves Feudalism = lords vs. vassals Mercantilism Capitalism = owners vs. wage laborers Communism = end of class struggle, i.e. classless society 4. According to Marx, “false consciousness” about reality is created by ruling class which promotes religion, which works like an “opiate for the masses.” A. True B. False The prevailing ideology depends on the dominant paradigm (mode of production): DOMINANT MATERIAL RELATIONS IDEOLOGY: Give examples Ruling Class Interests Under Slavery Slavery is a Godly and noble institution that supports and protects people who otherwise could not take care of themselves. Under Capitalism Greed is good; the free market is the highest social value; Rich people deserve their wealth; poor people are lazy. Under Patriarchy The man should be the head of the house; men are natural leaders; women should be their helpmates. Under Race Supremacy Whites are smarter than blacks. The “German” Ideology Marx & Engels are critiquing = Judeo-Christianity Ideology: Opiate of the Masses Truth: Determined by your material interests The meek will inherit the earth; the good are the long suffering; to ensure your salvation in the AFTER-life, do not resist; trust in God’s plan. Resist your suffering by forming unions and rising up against industrialist exploitation; join the revolution to change this world for the better. Recall from Introduction ? “Class Critique” is a socio-political framework inspired by Karl Marx. It works to reveal the economic investments or class interests motivating the development of particular concepts and arguments. Review: IPCC Climate Change Science (example from last class) Now watch this: The Great Global Warming Swindle (Climate Change Denial) OPINION POLL: Which is the “real” ideology? A. This film claims that the climate change science is ideology against capitalism, economic development, globalization, industrialization, and the United States. [The relativist view of ideology] Vs. B. The critics claim that the film is ideology for the fossil fuel industry against sustainability and environmental justice. [The Marxist view of ideology] TRUTH/KNOWLEDGE IDEOLOGY (False consciousness) Determined by human interests; unbiased. Determined by ruling class interests; biased. Criterion: Is it determined by practical human interest in meeting our material needs? Criterion: Is it an illusion designed by the ruling class to maintain their dominance? 5. According to a Marx’s analysis, “climate change denial” is ideology obscuring the truth about the threat capitalism poses for sustainable life on the planet. A. True B. False Critical Thinking Challenge: How do you know you are not in the cave of ideology? How do you know what you are believing is the truth? KNOW THYSELF What do you think? 6. Marx is right that ideology obscures the objective truth. A. I agree. B. I disagree. Compare Natural Science & Social Science: Objectivity is the way to the truth… Epistemology Natural Science Social Science: Historical Materialism How do you know the truth about reality? Scientific Method (4 steps) Study the dialectical logic of economic change embedded in historical progress What distorts/challenges efforts to know the truth? Ideas biased by emotional attachment, personal interest, or subjective sensory perception. Ideology; ideas biased by class interest What is the nature of “objective” knowledge? Formal (governed by logic & math), abstract, analytic Historical (governed by dialectical logic), concrete, material Example That climate change is caused Climate change deniers are by humans is virtually certain. ideologues working in the (IPCC report) interest of the fossil fuel industry. RESOURCES: History of Ideas: Capitalism (11 min) THE STORY OF STUFF - Consumerism, Capitalism, & Environment in America (21 min) RSA ANIMATE: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce “We the People 2.0” for insight on human interests Which is the best theory of objectivity for getting at the truth about reality? A. Scientific Objectivity (inductive and deductive reasoning) B. Dialectical Logic (Logic of history, truth via argument) DESCARTES’s EPISTEMOLOGY Read: Chapter 1 & 2 in Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences Recommended: Epistemology, Descartes’ Epistemology Intro to Epistemology: The You Tube Professor Stephen Hicks (2 min) INTRODUCTION TO MODERN EPISTEMOLOGY Real World Relevance: The Diminishing Role of Facts in American Public Life (2018) Michael D. Rich @michaeldrich, Jennifer Kavanagh @jekavanagh Without agreement about objective facts and a common understanding of and respect for data and analytical interpretations of those data, it becomes nearly impossible to have the types of meaningful policy debates that form the foundation of democracy. “Post-truth” POLL: In democratic life, do facts matter? A. Yes B. No Cartesian Epistemology Three Great Theories of Truth Descartes’s Philosophy offers the first Modern Correspondence Theory Recommended: The Useful Idea of the Truth (source of image below) Correspondence Theory has been criticized by Coherence and Pragmatic Theories, and by “post-modern” philosophers, e.g. Richard Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979) Metaphysics paper: Challenge of determining why/how one view is better than another view, i.e. what is the criteria for truth? Epistemology paper: What is the best way to know the truth about (material/physical/bodily) reality? Science’s answer: Objectivity, what’s that? (Contrast subjectivity) Instead of “objectivity” Descartes’ refers to what we can apprehend “clearly and distinctly,” e.g. the law/intuition that states: Not (A and not-A) i.e. Logic is basis of objectivity. Preview: Rationalism claims “objectivity” is based on Deductive Reasoning (formal logic) Empiricism claims “objectivity” is based on Inductive Reasoning (informal logic) Scientific Method employs both. Review from intro: ? “Logical Critique” ferrets out contradictions through a close examination of a text’s main argument. An argument is a line of reasoning composed to demonstrate that something is, or is not, the case. Philosophical literature is most often evaluated by the strength of its arguments, specifically by the validity of its logic. Knowing the rules of logic provides a reader with a powerful set of tools for analyzing a text. And, conversely, reading philosophy is a good way to become acquainted with the most common logical moves. The first and most fundamental principle of logic, according to Aristotle, states that it cannot be the case that both A and not-A are both true at the same time. > Are there contradictions in the philosophers reasoning process? > Does the conclusion follow logically from the reasons given to support it? > What counter-examples challenge the argument’s main claims or conclusion? Descartes presents his concept of “objectivity” in the terms of “clear and distinct” ideas, e.g. the law of non-contradiction. A. True B. False Two kinds of logic: Deductive & Inductive Deductive reasoning, aka deductive logic or logical deduction Method Reason from one principle to another by means of rules of inference (logic). Argument Characteristics The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. If the premises are true and the form valid then the conclusion is certain, aka, the argument is sound. A valid argument can have a false conclusion (if the premises are false). Rules: Begin with a valid logical form. Examples: > Law of Non-contradiction: - ( A & - A) >Syllogism: All A’s are B’s C is an A. Therefore, C is a B. Example: A Valid Form: Syllogism All A’s are B’s C is an A. Therefore, C is a B. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. All men are good. Donald is a man. Therefore, Donald is good. Another valid argument form Modus Ponens If A (antecedent), then B (consequent). A is true. Therefore, B is true. If rising CO2 causes the temperature to rise exponentially, then humans are causing climate change. CO2 levels and temperatures are rising. Humans are causing climate change. Example of an invalid (fallacious) argument form, which may have a true or false conclusion. Fallacy: Affirming the Consequent If A, then B. B is true. Therefore, A is true. If you study for exams, you will earn an A. You earn an A. Therefore, you studied for exams. This is the foundation for the Sciences which Descartes sought: Belief in science is justified by deductive logic which is INNATE (integral to human “disposition”) = Rationalism HISTORICAL CONTEXT: The Birth of Science out of Rationalism 17th Century = shift/revolution in the Western way of thinking about thinking Convergence of crises in European thought spurring paradigm-shift: 1. The Protestant Reformation – So long as Europe was unified by Catholicism, there was one final court / ultimate authority; Reformation = no given authority capable of transcending and settling religious debate. 2. Renaissance Skepticism – From the Greeks, humans do not have the power of knowing anything for CERTAIN. Ancient skeptic Sextus Empiricus was republished in 17th c. Both Catholic and Protestant apologists appropriated skepticism to make their case: the senses are deceptive, reason is weak and fallible, and hence, there is no criterion/standard for Truth. 3. Enhanced confidence in math spurred by ship building and astronomy. 4. “Discovery” of “New World” upsets Euro-centricism. Descartes’ Vision of Certain Knowledge ? HOW to get out of the cave: “On the METHOD of Rightly Conducting Reason & Seeking Truth in the Science” ? Revolt against Aristotelian Scholasticism ? Pedagogical Model: The “disputation” [e.g. Aquinas’ Summa Theologica] ? FOUNDATION (for knowledge claims before science) AUTHORITY, e.g. scripture or ancient authority especially Aristotle. Given premise A (Aristotle says so) Given premise B (Aristotle says so) Then conclusion C (is true) ? The Ancient Paradigm of “Knowledge” that Descartes sought to overthrow. Four Causes are necessary to understand a thing objectively: Examples: Statue, soul/mind 1. Material cause – out of what material is the thing made, e.g. bronze, spiritual substance 2. Formal cause – what is the essential nature? E.g. the goodness or freedom of a soul, the statue “David” is in the form of a human 3. Efficient – The immediate reason the thing exists, e.g. the sculptor’s tool, or your parents are the efficient cause of you, 4. Final – End served, purpose, e.g. the statue was made to honor the gods, the purpose of a human is to fulfill God’s purpose. (Teleology) If you understand the four causes you have KNOWLEDGE or TRUTH of a thing. Descartes comes to these converging crises in a nightmare that reveals the resolution lies in mathematics. He was struck by how arbitrary everything seemed in philosophy in contrast with necessity of math. Hence, he sought to model the scientific method on the model of deduction (math): “On the METHOD of Rightly Conducting Reason & Seeking Truth in the Science” The Method: The Modern Paradigm of “Knowledge” How do you know if the correct answer to this problem: [(3x^2-27) divided by 4)] times [(8x^2) divided by (9-3x)] divided by [(x^2+3x) divided by 6]? 1. Do not accept anything for true that you do not have clear and distinct evidence for. 2. Divide difficulties into parts (analytic mode: break it down) Invert the third fraction then multiply straight across like this (3x^2-27)(8x^2) 6 ------------------------------------4(9-3x) (x^2+3x) but first factor and cross cancel… (3(x-3)(x+3)(8x^2) 6 --------------------------------------12(x-3) x (x+3) after cross canceling… =-12x 3. Be systematic: work from the simplest to the most complex 4. Be so complete that you insure nothing is omitted from your consideration. THE BIG BREAKTHROUGH: The END of TELEOLOGY (God = foundation) THE NEW CHALLENGE: What is the foundation for knowledge? ? Rationalism: innate ideas ? Empiricism: experience ? Scientific Method = both Epistemology: What is “Knowledge”? Propositional Knowledge = “Justified True Belief” (JTB) Proposition = ‘S knows that p’ ‘S’ stands for the subject who has knowledge. ‘p’ for the proposition that is known. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S to know that p? (1) TRUTH: False propositions cannot be known. Therefore, knowledge requires truth. Philosopher’s differ in views about truth… Socrates Aquinas Descartes Hume Nietzsche Soul-searching & Dialoguing with others Authorities discerning God’s will Reasoning inherent within human nature (Rationalist) Matters of fact are based on experience (Empiricist) Subjective experience (2) BELIEF: A proposition S doesn't even believe can't be a proposition that S knows. Therefore, knowledge requires belief. (3) JUSTIFICATION: S's being correct in believing that p might merely be a matter of luck. Therefore, knowledge requires a reason or validation, i.e. justification. Philosophers differ over what counts as justification… Rationalism -- Descartes Empiricism – Hume Knowledge is founded on innate ideas, i.e. ideas that are immanent in the mind. Mind is a mirror of reality. Knowledge is founded on experience, i.e. ideas “written on blank slate of the mind” by the senses. “Dispositional” Account of Knowledge Examples of innate ideas: There are no innate ideas God, Substance, Numbers, Space, Time, etc. Principle of noncontradiction –(A & -A) Given moral order Rationalist use Deductive Methods which promise absolute certainty. Empiricists use Inductive Methods which provide only probability, not certainty. Hence, empiricists tend to be skeptics. Deduction: ? Reason from one principle to another by means of rules of inference (logic). ? The conclusion follows necessarily from the truth of the premises and the validity of form. ? How do you know if the form is valid? It is presented to the mind clearly & distinctly. ? If the premises are true and the form valid then the conclusion is certain (sound). ? But a valid argument can have a false conclusion (if the premises are false). Valid Argument Form: Example: Either A or B. Either the Earth is moving or it is not moving Not A Every appearance suggests the Earth is not Therefore, B. moving. Therefore, the Earth is not moving. Hence, the need for Inductive reasoning. HUME Metaphysics Epistemology Ethics Naturalism: Humans are habitual creatures acting on same principles as animals; character is influenced by environment. Empiricism: All knowledge claims about “matters of fact” are based on experience/observation. Justice is artifice (social convention) that arises out the circumstances of human nature and the external reality. Materialist Monism: nature is amoral. Problem of Induction: matters of fact can never be absolutely certainty. Atheism? Anticipated Darwin: “There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.” Skepticism: Reason is the “slave of the passions” Humans should be studied as animals are studied; hence, rejected Descartes’ division of labor in the study of subjects and objects. Emotivism: Moral distinctions are not derived from reason; but from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action; While some virtues and vices are natural, others, including justice, are artificial conventions. What kind of skeptic was Hume? Strategic Skepticism Doubting as a manner of generating indubitable truth. (Descartes) Scientific Skepticism Truth claims must be evaluated on the basis of supporting data, i.e. probabilities. Strong/Radical Skepticism “Knowledge” is impossible; truth is the outcome of a power game. All truth claims are subjective interpretations. Epistemology: The classic question – What is the foundation for knowledge? What is “Knowledge”? Propositional Knowledge = “Justified True Belief” What justifies a belief? Are you more of a (A) rationalist or an (B) empiricist? Rationalism -- Descartes Empiricism – Locke & Hume Knowledge is founded on innate ideas, i.e. ideas that are immanent in the mind. Knowledge is founded on experience, i.e. ideas “written on blank slate of the mind” by the senses. “Dispositional” Account of Knowledge Examples: Self or “I” Substance, Identity, God, Numbers, Space, Time, etc. Principle of noncontradiction –(A & -A) Given moral order Rationalist use Deductive Methods which Empiricists use Inductive Methods which promise absolute certainty. Analogous to provide only probability, not certainty. math problem. Hence, empiricists tend to be skeptics. Descartes’ method of rightly using reason and seeking truth in the sciences is bases on model of math: 1. Do not accept anything for true that you do not have clear and distinct evidence for. 2. Divide difficulties into parts (analytic mode: break it down) 3. Be systematic: work from the simplest to the most complex 4. Be so complete that you insure nothing is omitted from your consideration. Hume’s Problem of Induction Problem of induction: conclusions of fact always state more than the evidence can justify. The truth of the premises is based on observation. Observation is based on the senses. We cannot have sensory evidence of everything, so our fact claims are always just probable. 1. We naturally reason inductively: We use experience (or evidence from the senses) to ground beliefs we have about things we haven’t observed. Hume asks whether this evidence is actually good evidence: can we rationally justify our actual practice of coming to belief unobserved things about the world? Three forms of inductive arguments: 1) Inductive generalizations infer that all the members of a certain class will be similar to those we’ve actually observed. 2) There are also inductive predictions (assumptions about future events, based upon our experience with past events). 3) There are also causal generalizations. Hume says that we can’t determine the hidden causal powers of particular things (e.g. the nourishing power of bread) simply by scrutinizing them carefully. Instead, we infer these capacities from our experience with those kinds of things. 2. But note that the inductive argument above from the sensory evidence to the general conclusion isn’t logically guaranteed. It isn’t a “demonstrative” [deductive] argument. It’s possible for the conclusion to be false, even if the premises are true. Still inductive reasoning is pretty good – while not guaranteed to be true, the conclusion still seems supported by the evidence, and so seems at least likely to be true. 3. In order to turn the inductive argument into one that’s clearly acceptable, it appears that tacitly rely upon some inductive principle – to the effect that similar effects come from similar causes or that there is a uniformity in nature. But how, then, can we justify this principle of the uniformity of nature? Is it either (1) a relation of ideas or (2) a matter of fact? 1) If it is true by definition (what Hume calls a “relation of ideas” DEDUCTIVE), then its negation will imply a logical contradiction. But there is no contradiction in the claim that the future will not be similar to the past. 2) So if it’s to be true, it must be what Hume terms a “matter of fact.” (induction) Our knowledge of such contingent truths could only be grounded in our experience. But the principle of the uniformity of nature isn’t something that we can just “see” to be true. As a result, it appears that we could only have inductive evidence to support it. So it seems that the only way we could justify anything like the inductive principle is through induction. [That is, inductive reasoning works because it’s always worked.] But this just seems “flagrantly circular.” 4. In the end, Hume despairs. He sees no way to rationally justify inductive reasoning. This is a form of skepticism (about inductively acquired beliefs): We don’t have knowledge that we are tempted to think that we do. Our beliefs that come to us through inductive reasoning are in reality not rationally justifiable. 5. The significance of the problem: Many of our everyday beliefs about how the world works, including virtually all of our scientific reasoning, are based upon induction. Hume shows that all of this so-called “knowledge” is ultimately without foundation (and so possibly not knowledge at all). This should be somewhat disconcerting, for after all, we would like to think that faith in science and its methods is more than mere speculation. 6. Hume’s “Skeptical Solution:” We can’t really help but reason inductively. A being that was “purely rational” would never form any beliefs based upon induction, and so would never draw any generalizations or make any predictions about the future. But of course such a being couldn’t possibly make its way around in the world. So nature, through the operation of custom and habit, has determined that we draw inductive inferences. Thus while we cannot really know the true causal powers of things or the course of the future, we can know the customs or habits that our mind has formed through its experiences. So statements about the causal powers of things really should be reconceived as statements about the connections in our minds between the ideas of those things. Hume is famous for discussing what he took to be the limitations or challenges to reason and for providing skeptical solutions to these challenges. Another example of this is Hume’s “emotivism”: While we cannot know objective moral facts, what we can know are our reactions to situations. Thus statements about morality should really be recast as statements about our reactions. PRESCRIPTION for avoiding error: “Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quality or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact or existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.” Whose epistemology is preferable to you? A. Descartes’ rationalism B. Hume’s empiricism SCIENCE requires BOTH! FORM: Modus Ponens Premise 1 -- If A, then B Premise 2 -- A is true Conclusion -- Therefore, B Premise 1 -- If the climate is changing dramatically, then climate change is caused by humans. [Does data indicate dramatic changes are correlated with industrial revolution?] Evidence: WIKI graph The climate is changing dramatically. [What does the data indicate?] Therefore, Climate change is caused by humans. Deductively Valid because it is modus ponens. But, is it inductively strong/probable? Example: Global Climate 2007 Report EPISTEMOLOLGY: Hume’s Empiricism >> Scientific Method How do you know what is true? [Complete Notes on Hume’s Problem of Induction] The Metaphysics paper… Challenge of determining why/how one view is better than another view, i.e. what is the criteria for truth? Motivates… Epistemology paper: What is the best way to know the truth about (material/physical/bodily) reality? REALITY CHECK: Is climate change caused by humans? NO: Great Global Warming Swindle YES: Sarah Cooper on Science of Climate Change POLL: (A) Agree or (B) Disagree: The science on climate change indicates the CO2 rates & global temperatures are rising due to human activity. ESSAY #3 - How do you know what the truth is about reality? Example: Climate Change EPISTEMOLOGY – The branch of philosophy concerned with the criteria, nature, and possibility of knowledge. (253) 1. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the justification for knowledge claims. A. True B. False “Knowledge” = Justified True Belief (JTB) Criteria for claim to count as knowledge: ? It must be a belief ? It must be true ? It must be justified 2. Some false beliefs can count as “knowledge.” A. True B. False Pseudo Science – Does it count as justification for truth? No. Truth = Justified Belief … what counts as justification? (Hint: Descartes claims that truth must be apprehended “clearly and distinctly”) Philosophers have proposed different models: Philosopher “Objectivity” = Source of justification Aristotle Deductive Logic; Knowing the Four Causes Descartes Rationalism (mind) -- Deduction Hume Empiricism (senses) – Induction Marx Universal human interests (vs. ruling class ideology) Epistemological Question: What is the foundation/justification for knowledge? Rationalism – Descartes Empiricism – Locke & Hume (aka Dispositional Account) Knowledge is founded on innate ideas, i.e. ideas that are immanent in the mind. “Dispositional” Account of Knowledge Knowledge is founded on experience, i.e. ideas “written on blank slate of the mind” by experience (the 5 senses). Examples: Substance, Identity, God, Numbers, Space, Time, etc. Principle of noncontradiction –(A & -A) Given moral order Rationalist use Deductive Methods which promise absolute certainty. Empiricists use Inductive Methods which provide only probability, not certainty. Hence, empiricists tend to be skeptics. 3. Empiricists claim that the justification for knowledge is innate ideas. A. True B. False Empiricists do not deny the power of deductive logic, but emphasize its limits: Logic is “tautological,” i.e. it does not reveal anything about “matters of fact.” Tautology for the ancient Greeks referred a statement that was true merely by virtue of saying the same thing twice; A = A is tautological, as is, 1 + 1 = 2. Tautologies are “relations of ideas” like definitions, e.g. “A bachelor is an unmarried man.” 4. “A triangle has 3 sides” is a tautology. A. True B. False 5. “The sun will rise tomorrow,” is a tautology. A. True B. False Hence, Hume distinguishes: Relations of Ideas (Deduction/Tautology) Matters of Fact (Induction) Geometry, Algebra, Arithmetic The sun will rise tomorrow. “Discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe.” Discovery is dependent on what happens in the external world beyond the realm of thought, which entails experience. TEST: The contrary of a claim reached deductively implies a contradiction. The contrary of a claim reached inductively can never imply a contradiction. Example: Contradiction Example: No contradiction A bachelor is an unmarried man. Bachelors are unhappy men. A bachelor is not an unmarried man. Bachelors are not unhappy men. Which is the claim “climate change is caused by humans”? POLL: (A) Relation of Ideas or (B) Matter of Fact How would you prove it? POLL: Matters of Fact are discoverable by the mere operation of thought. A. True B. False The PROBLEM of INDUCTION [COMPLETE NOTES] Hume’s Problem of Induction: “Skeptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding” (Enquiry, Section IV, Part 1) 1. All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds: Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact. 2. Relations of Ideas: Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. The negation of these propositions implies a contradiction. Examples: a. 3 X 5 = 15 and it is a contradiction to deny it. b. A = A (Law of Identity) and –(A & -A) (Law of Noncontradiction) c. Triangle has 3 sides Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would forever retain their certainty and evidence. 3. Matters of fact: The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction. a. “The sun will not rise tomorrow” implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, “the sun will rise tomorrow." b. If it were a Relation of Ideas the negation would imply a contradiction. 4. Question/Enquiry: What is the nature of the evidence which assures us of any matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory? 5. Causal Reasoning: All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. a. If you were to ask a man, why he believes any matter of fact; for instance, that his friend is in France; he would give you a reason; and this reason would be some other fact; as a letter received from him. b. A man finding a watch or any other machine in a desert island, would conclude that there had once been men in that island. c. It is constantly supposed that there is a connection between the present fact and that which is inferred from it. d. Were there nothing to bind them together, the inference would be entirely precarious. 6. If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of that evidence, which assures us of matters of fact, we must enquire: how did we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect? 7. Question: Is the knowledge of this relation a Relation of Ideas or Matter of Fact? 8. The knowledge of this relation arises entirely from experience of observing particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other. a. Let an object be presented to a man of ever so strong natural reason and abilities; if that object be entirely new to him, he will not be able, by the most accurate examination of its sensible qualities, to discover any of its causes or effects. Adam, though his rational faculties be supposed, at the very first, entirely perfect, could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it would consume him. b. Present two smooth pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy; he will never discover that they will adhere together in such a manner as to require great force to separate them in a direct line, while they make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. c. Nor does any man imagine that the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a loadstone, could ever be discovered by arguments a priori. d. Who will assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why milk or bread is DEDUCTION: [Based on operation of thought alone.] Deductive reasoning, aka deductive logic or logical deduction Method Reason from one principle to another by means of rules of inference (logic). Argument Characteristics The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. If the premises are true and the form valid then the conclusion is certain, aka, the argument is sound. But a valid argument can have a false conclusion (if the premises are false). Rules: Begin with a valid logical form. Examples: > Law of Non-contradiction: - ( A & - A) > Modes Ponens: If A, then B A Therefore, B > Syllogism: All A’s are B’s C is an A. Therefore, C is a B. Example: A Valid Form: Syllogism All A’s are B’s C is an A. Therefore, C is a B. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. All men are good. Donald is a man. Therefore, Donald is good. Example If A, then B A_________ Therefore, B If the climate is changing dramatically, then climate change is caused by humans. The climate is changing dramatically. Climate change is caused by humans. 6. A valid argument may have a false conclusion. A. True B. False 7. A sound argument may have a false conclusion. A. True B. False Criticism of Deduction: Tautological reasoning can never tell us about what is happening in the world. INDUCTION INDUCTION [Based on what can be observed out in the world] Method Reason from particulars to generalizations or from generalizations to particulars. Argument Characteristics The conclusion may be supported by the premises, but it is not guaranteed by them because it always states more than them. Arguments are stronger or weaker, but never certain beyond doubt. Conclusions are hypotheses. Rules: Different rules apply to different forms, e.g. analogies, generalizations, causal claims. Use counter-examples to check conclusions; but counterexamples may weaken, but not undermine conclusions. Example: Form of Causal Claim: Observations indicate A and B are correlated. Therefore, A causes B. Increases of global temperature and PPM of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere are correlated. Therefore, Carbon Dioxide is causing global warming. 8. The conclusions of inductive arguments are guaranteed by the truth of the premises. A. True B. False The Modern Paradigm of “Knowledge” is based on Modern Scientific Method developed by Descartes using a mathematical analogy to develop the process. How do you know if the correct answer to this problem: [(3x^2-27) divided by 4)] times [(8x^2) divided by (9-3x)] divided by [(x^2+3x) divided by 6]? 1. Do not accept anything for true that you do not have clear and distinct evidence for. 2. Divide difficulties into parts (analytic mode: break it down) Invert the third fraction then multiply straight across like this (3x^2-27)(8x^2) 6 ------------------------------------4(9-3x) (x^2+3x) but first factor and cross cancel… (3(x-3)(x+3)(8x^2) 6 --------------------------------------12(x-3) x (x+3) after cross canceling… =-12x 3. Be systematic: work from the simplest to the most complex 4. Be so complete that you insure nothing is omitted from your consideration. Empiricism leads to “scientific skepticism” – Contrast w/ other skepticisms: Strategic Skepticism Scientific Skepticism Doubting as a manner of generating indubitable truth. (Descartes) Truth claims must be evaluated on the basis of logic and evidence. Radical Skepticism (Existentialism) “Knowledge” is impossible; truth is the outcome of a power game. Is this form valid? A>B If you study for the exam, then you will get an A. B You got an A. Therefore, A You studied for the exam. No, this is called affirming the consequent. FALLACY DEDUCTION (Formal Reasoning, based on logical thinking) INDUCTION (Informal Reasoning, based on sensory observation) PHILOS 9 -- Logic PHILOS 7 -- Critical Thinking Method Reason from one principle to another by means of rules of inference (logic). Reason from particulars to generalizations or from generalizations to particulars. Argument Characteristic s The conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. If the premises are true and the form valid then the conclusion is certain. But a valid argument can have a false conclusion (if the premises are false). The conclusion may be supported by the premises, but it is not guaranteed by them because it always states more than them. Arguments are stronger or weaker, but never certain beyond doubt. Conclusions are hypotheses. Rules: Begin with a valid logical form, e.g. Different rules apply to different forms, e.g. analogies, generalizations, causal claims. - ( A & - A) or a syllogism Be sure the premises are true. Example: There many Deductive Forms: Use counter-examples to check conclusions. Inductive Argument Forms: A Valid Form: Modus Ponens • If A, then B. A is true. Therefore, B is true. • If you vote, then you are a good citizen. You vote. Therefore, you are a good citizen. If you don’t vote, then you are a good citizen. You don’t vote. Therefore, you are a good citizen. Is the argument valid? Both valid and true premises = sound argument Is this form valid? • Generalization: Voting is a sign of good citizenship. Analogy: Mandatory voting is like mandatory jury duty. Causal Claim: Voting makes you a good citizen. Is the claim true? A>B If you study for the exam, then you will get an A. B You got an A. Therefore, A You studied for the exam. No, this is called affirming the consequent. FALLACY Scientific Method = Deduction + Induction + Skepticism = OBJECTIVITY (justified true belief, knowledge) Objectivity is not a guarantee of ABSOLUTE TRUTH Science is FALLIBLE & SELF-CORRECTING How does Science incorporate BOTH deductive and inductive reasoning? ? Sound arguments require a valid logical form. ? Sound arguments require true premises. Question: What makes a justified true belief? Answer: Objectivity “Real Life” EXAMPLE: IPCC’s Global Climate 2007: Summary for Policy Makers The IPCC research was presented in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. The IPCC’s scientific research earned the Nobel Peace Prize, and Al Gore won for communicating it successfully to the public. Example If A, then B A_________ Therefore, B If the climate is changing dramatically, then climate change is caused by humans. The climate is changing dramatically. Climate change is caused by humans. POLL: The justification for “knowledge” is the scientific method, based on deductive and inductive reasoning. A. True B. False In your opinion today, is scientific objectivity the best way to know the truth about reality? A. Yes B. No (Both answers will be marked as correct.)