Philosophy the Power of Ideas - Assignment Example

Philosophy 27 Sept. Philosophy Questions Answers Question Answer. Rene Descartes’ theory of knowledge is based on his famous methodical method which involves doubting and subjecting all our beliefs to critical logical analysis to find out whether or not the beliefs are based on truth. Scepticism therefore was the main feature of Descartes’ Epistemology; Descartes argued that all our believes in life might have originated from an evil genius or an evil demon intent on deceiving us, this therefore means that there is a need of doubting everything and finding out the truth of things by ourselves. Rene Descartes, however, realized that although he could doubt everything else, he could not doubt his very own existence because existence is a sine qua non for doubting. His doubting self/existence therefore became the starting point of his theory of knowledge. Having proved his existence, Rene Descartes went on to prove the existence of God. Descartes argued that since doubting is less perfect than to know/knowledge, he was an imperfect being; Descartes realized that there must be a perfect being that does not doubt, a being that knows everything. Descartes concluded that the perfect being is God. Descartes, therefore, argued that God is the truth and all other things share in the truth of God. God therefore became the metaphysical basis of Descartes’ Epistemology. Descartes concluded that everything that we can conceive clearly and distinctly is true because it is a participation God, the truth itself. An evaluation of Descartes theory of knowledge shows that the theory was a phenomenal milestone in Philosophy, the theory challenged Philosophers to base their arguments only on logical truths, rather than, on believes and doctrines that have no logical basis. Question 2. Thomas Hobbes was a thorough going materialist. Hobbes argued that all reality is material, including thoughts, feelings and ideas. Hobbes argued that all reality in the universe can be explained in material form, i.e. in terms of the motions and the interactions of material bodies. For this reason, Hobbes denied existence of any immaterial reality. For this reason, Hobbes saw human beings as machines, operating solely according to the physical laws; For Hobbes therefore all human actions can be explained in terms of cause and effect. An evaluation of this theory reveals one glaring shortcoming: Hobbes did not give a sufficient and convincing account of how human thoughts and ideas are material in nature; Hobbes did not give a convincing argument on how the motions and interactions of material bodies can bring about an idea or a thought. This fact therefore shows that Thomas Hobbes’ materialist theory of reality is flawed. Question 3 Answer. John Locke’s theory of Representative Realism states that human beings do not perceive the external objects directly; rather it is the external objects, through sense- data or sense perceptions that cause us to have experiences of external objects. This, therefore, means that we do not perceive objects themselves, but we perceive the sense-data of objects which represents the objects themselves. For this reason, this theory gives a distinction between our experiences of external objects, and the actual objects. Locke held that objects in themselves have primary qualities; the primary qualities are the qualities which do not depend on our perception. These qualities include the size, the shape, and the location of an object. On the other hand, the secondary qualities of objects are the qualities that the perceiver brings to the object being perceived. For this reason, the secondary qualities of objects are subjective in nature. The secondary qualities include the colour, the smell, the sound, and the taste of objects. A critical evaluation of this theory of knowledge shows that the theory does not give an adequate account of how we perceive external objects. If the secondary qualities are as subjective as Lock argues, then people would have different perceptions of objects, but experience has shown us that generally people have the same or at least similar perceptions of objects. This fact, therefore, shows that Lock’s account of secondary qualities is incorrect. Question 4 Answer. Benedictus de Spinoza was of the view that God is all, or everything is God. For Spinoza, all reality is composed of one substance known as nature or God. Spinoza understood by substance as something that exists by itself, i.e. does not depend on anything else for its existence, and is conceived through itself. Spinoza argued there is only one substance, and the substance is called nature or God. To account for the corporeal and the incorporeal realities, Spinoza argued that the substance nature/God has infinite attributes, and human beings know only two attributes of God/nature, i.e. thought and extension. For Spinoza, therefore, the material and immaterial realities are not different substances, but rather, different attributes of the one substance, i.e. nature/God. For this reason, Spinoza argued that God is all, or everything is God. This means that all reality is part of the substance God or nature. A critical evaluation of this view shows that Benedictus Spinoza’s view of reality makes a lot of sense. This is because although reality seems to be divided into the material reality and the immaterial realities, the two aspects of reality, however, seem to be closely related. Spinoza therefore is right when he argues that ultimately, reality is one. Question 5 Answer. Benedictus de Spinoza was of the view that human beings are determined to be free. Spinoza denied the notion of free will and argued that, human beings are subject to natural laws just like the other elements of the universe. According to Spinoza, a thing is said to be free when it acts according to the necessity of its nature, and is not determined by any other external factors in its actions. For this reason, Spinoza contends that human beings are determined by the laws of nature to act in accordance with their nature, without being influenced or determined by any other external factors. Spinoza, therefore, concludes that human beings are determined to be free. A critical look at this view shows that Spinoza is wrong on this issue. This is because studies in social sciences have shown that human behaviour is influenced or determined by the environment in which they grow up or live in; this is a perfect example of an external factor that influences human actions contrary to Spinoza’s view of human freedom. Question 6 Answer. According to Ann Conway, the created reality is composed of one substance. The one substance that the created reality is made up of contains both thought and extension, or matter and spirit. Although Conway’s metaphysics of created reality is monistic in nature because Conway held that reality is made up of one substance as we have just seen, Conway, however, believed in the existence of two distinct substances, i.e. matter and spirit. The two distinct substances, however, belong to one absolute substance which all reality is comprised of; for Conway, thought and extension are more or less two different modes/attributes of the one substance that make up the created reality. Conway held that matter and spirit cannot exist in isolation; this therefore means that all created things have both spirit and matter. An evaluation of this metaphysics of created reality by Conway shows that Conway is right in her claim that reality is comprised of one substance. Conway, however, could not account how matter and spirit compose the created reality- i.e. how does unextended spirit combine with the extended matter to form the created reality? This is the same challenge that Rene Descartes faced in his dualistic view of human beings. Question 7 Answer. The two versions of epiphenomenalism are the occasionalism and the parallelism. Occasionalism theory of the relationship between the mind and the body seeks to account how the states of the body and mental states happen to coincide. According to this theory, God is the co-ordinator between the series of the bodily processes and the series of mental processes. For instance, when one wills to do something, God moves the body, at that particular occasion, to do what the mind has willed. Parallelism theory, on the other hand, seeks to explain how the immaterial mind and the material body interact. According to this theory, the mind does not cause the body to move. When, for instance, I will to walk, my mind only appears to cause my legs to move, but in actual fact my mind does not cause my legs to move. An evaluation of these two versions of epiphenomenalism shows that the two versions do not give a rational explanation of how body and mind interact; the two versions of epiphenomenalism are merely speculative, and are not based on any rational ground. Question 8 Answer. Olivia Sabuco de Nantes was of the view that the body and the mind are causally connected in the brain. Although Nantes held the view that the body and the mind are of completely different natures, she, however, was of the view that the mind and the body are connected in the human brain. Olivia Sabuco de Nantes is credited for her novel idea that it is the brain, and not the heart, that controls human body functions. For this reason, therefore, Nantes saw human brain as the point of connection between the mind and the body. A critical evaluation of this view shows that, although, Nantes doesn’t give a rational explanation of how mind and body interact, her theory however makes a lot of sense because human brain and human mind are closely related and seem to interact quite closely, despite the fact that, it is quite difficult to explain this interaction scientifically. Question 9 Answer. Bishop George Berkeley was a British empiricist who held the controversial idea that material things do not exist. For George Berkeley, all that exists is our ideas and not material things. George Berkeley, therefore, concluded that “to be is to be perceived”. In other words, Berkeley meant by this statement that all that exists is our ideas, and that we are able to perceive and to know all ideas; there is no idea that we can’t perceive and know. This view by George Berkeley is obviously wrong because, contrary to what he claims, knowledge begins with perception of physical things as John Locke had earlier noted. Without sensual perception of physical things, we cannot have knowledge. Question 10 Answer. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is known for his theory of monads. According to this theory, monads are the basic constituent elements of reality. By monads, Leibniz meant the non-physical souls which constitute the reality. By souls Leibniz meant the indivisible units of force or of energy that are the basic units of reality. By referring monads as souls, therefore, Leibniz did not use the term soul in its conventional sense. Leibniz monads are akin to atoms, although monads are non-physical. An evaluation of Leibniz’s theory of monads shows that Leibniz was right in his claim that physical reality is made up of indivisible units of energy or force. Leibniz, however, does not explain how the non-physical monads constitute a physical body. Question 11 Answer. According to Sir David Hume, all ideas are derived from the impressions of sense, or inner feelings; in other words, Hume was of the view that all ideas are derivatives of perceptions. David Hume was particularly against induction. The main reason why Hume was opposed to induction was that he could not experience induction sensually. Hume gave an example of causality to show how induction is false. He said that when we say that something causes another thing, for instance when we say that X causes Y, we are merely expressing what constantly happens when X and Y are put together, but we are not expressing what we actually experience sensually. This is because we cannot have sense impressions of X causing why. For this reason, Hume dismissed cause and effect as an illusion. Hume said that the principle of uniformity in nature is what makes people to think that induction is a reality, while it is false. For instance, because the son has been rising daily, we conclude that the son will rise tomorrow; for Hume, this is a wrong conclusion because there is no necessary connection between cause and effect. By saying that the sun will rise tomorrow simply because it has always been rising, we are merely assuming that the future will always be like the past. An evaluation of this view shows that as Hume noted, there is indeed no necessary connection between cause and effect. Hume, however, was wrong in his view that all that we can know is sense impressions. This view doesn’t take into account the contribution that our minds make in the process of acquiring knowledge. Question 12 Answer. In his Epistemology, Emmanuel Kant categorized reality into noumenal and phenomenal. Kant agreed with Sir David Hume that knowledge begins with experience, but he, however, differed with Hume’s idea that sense impressions constitute knowledge. Kant argued that human mind has a critical role to play in the acquisition of knowledge; Kant was of the view that human mind unifies and processes sense perceptions to produce knowledge- sense perceptions must conform to the categories of the mind. For this reason, Kant contended that the knowledge of things that we have is “our knowledge” and not the knowledge of things in themselves (the noumenal); this is because the knowledge that we have has been formed according to the categories of our minds. Kant therefore argued that reality is divided into the noumenal and the phenomenal. The noumenal refers to the “things in themselves”. The human mind is not capable of knowing the noumenal, this is because the human mind is not capable of knowing anything without imposing it’s categories, as it were, on the sense data of the thing to be known. The phenomenal aspect of reality, on the other hand, refers to the knowable aspect of reality; we know the phenomenal when our minds unify and process the sense data. An evaluation of Kant’s Epistemology shows that Kant was right in his claim that human mind has a role to play in the formation of knowledge; this is because without human mind knowledge is not possible. Question 13 Answer. Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, however, differed sharply with Emmanuel Kant on Kant’s view of the noumenal. Hegel argued that everything that exists is knowable. Hegel reasoned that if noumenal is unknowable as Kant had argued, the human mind would not be able to think about it; Hegel went on to argue that as long as human mind is able to think about the noumenal, then the noumenal is knowable. In his absolute idealism, Hegel argued that reality is mind or idea, and that everything that exist is rational and, therefore, knowable. Hegel was of the view that anything that is not knowable does not exist. A critical evaluation of Hegel’s rebuttal of Kant’s noumenal shows that Hegel was right in his argument that if noumenal was unknowable as Kant had postulated, then the mind would not be capable of thinking about it, the human mind would not be able to know about even the existence of the noumenal. Question 14 Answer. In his Pessimism, Schopenhauer argued against the existence of matter. To support his view, Schopenhauer argued that if we conceive matter as being composed of tiny particles, the tiny particles can further be divided into other smaller particles, and the smaller particles can further be divided into other smaller particles, and the process of subdividing particles would go on ad infinitum. For this reason, Schopenhauer argued that matter does not exist. Schopenhauer argued that the only thing that exists is energy or force. Schopenhauer went on to argue that we know the energy or the force through the will, the human will constantly desires or will things and through this willing we get knowledge of things. A critical look at Schopenhauer’s epistemological theory shows that the theory is flawed. This is because will only cannot account for human knowledge. This is because without human senses that connect us to the external world together with the human mind, we cannot know anything. Schopenhauer’s epistemological theory, therefore, is flawed. Question 15. Among the various Philosophers that we have looked at in this paper, I find Spinoza’s Metaphysics quite reasonable. This is because, although, reality seems to be divided into corporeal and incorporeal realities, the two aspects of reality, however, seems closely related and inter-dependent. This fact shows that reality is ultimately one as Spinoza had conceived it, reality seems to be one nature or God as Spinoza argues in his Metaphysics. Work Cited Moore, B.N., and Bruder, K. Philosophy: The Power of Ideas.Eighth Edtn. New York: McGraw, 2011. Read More