My mind is like a filing system.

Hello,

Back to Kant...

Have you ever wondered how we can get a grip on the world? We seem to experience so much of it in just once one glance, how do our minds cope? For Kant this ability to process everything is helped out with a little innate knowledge, known as the conceptual schemes. Kant supposes that if we did not have this innate understanding of these schemes/catorgeries our mind would be an unintelligible "buzz of sense data" = major confusion. So for Kant these schemes are examples of synthetic a priori knowledge as these schemes are innate = a priori - meaning knowledge which does not need to be checked against experience YET is still helpful to further our understanding of the world, not trivial.

Now: The Schemes, there are a vast amount but the most helpful (in my opinion) are that of time, space and causation...For Kant these are innate we just know them, they are very helpful in sorting out all the sense experience's we are exposed to. For example if you were to drop a mug of tea, you are bombarded with the sense experience of the spilt tea, the shattered china and the sodden carpet. How do we cope? What do we really know is happening with the sense experience? Well if we implement Kant and his schemes we can know for sure that whilst the mug is falling, time is passing and space is being occupied and it is you who caused the mug to fall (butter fingers).

So Kant can be used on a daily basis for causation in general, so we don't need to go pointing out every that blog had a cause - ie someone to write it, we just know innately/synthetic a priori that EVERY EVENT HAS A CAUSE - conceptual schemes.

However, there are objections to Kant and his scheming ways. Firstly the concept of innate knowledge in general can be criticised as innate means that everybody has the same concepts - however this is not the case, via the development of anthropology we can see other societies which do not have comparable ideas of time e.g. the Hopi Indians have nothing like the time we have.

So it is not truly innate - how can rely on a flawed foundation?

But to be fair to Kant, he had never heard of the Hopi Indians

A second more considerable objection comes from the Empiricist Hume and his idea of causation - this idea essentially illustrates that we can never see the cause of an action (only it's effect) meaning that we can NEVER have EXPERIENCE cause = no experience = no knowledge. Hume states that just because it seems like common sense doesn't mean it's true - and as Hume denies all innate ideas it's a big slap in the face for Kant.

"All ideas derive from sense experience which they copy". Discuss.

This was said by empiricist Hume. It means that we can never an idea which is not somehow based on sense experience. It is logical to agree with Hume that our significant knowledge does derive from our sense experience. However there are counter arguments for the origin of all our ideas being derived from sense experience, which this essay will aim to evaluate.

Empiricism is the theory that the origin of our ideas is experience. Our concepts are derived from our sensory experiences of sight, touch, smell, taste and sound - and our concepts are consequently copies of these sense experiences. So under empiricism we will point to sense experience to back up our beliefs and ideas. As a result we can never imagine a totally original idea, it will be a manipulation of the composition of and already existing thing. To illustrate when we have an idea of an angel this is not an original idea - in fact it is based on the sense experience of a birds wings and a body of a person.

This leads on to the other significant feature of empiricism, this is the use of simple and complex ideas. We learn simple concepts by associating them with experience, then the word/concept becomes meaningful. For example the word "horse" will only become meaningful to a child when the word has been associated to an experience at a petting zoo for example. We then can generate complex ideas from manipulating simple ideas, to illustrate Hume used the example of manipulating the simple ideas of "gold" and "mountain" to the complex idea of "gold mountain".

Locke is a second example of an empiricist who states that from birth we are a "tabula rasa" with no knowledge as we are yet to experience anything. Locke claimed that the rationalist suggestion of innate ideas as the origin of ideas is wrong, as Locke states that if they were to exist "children and idiots" would possess the same level of knowledge - which is untrue. He later states that if these idiots and children were to learn what is claimed to be innate such as the laws of logic, Locke would state this was an example of reasoning, which he claims is based on sense experience.

However, although it seems logical that empiricism is the best way to explain knowledge there are criticisms of the empirical theory. The first criticism concerns the issue of simple and complex ideas. As stated empiricists suggest that a complex idea can be broken down into simple ideas. To take the example of my shoe it can be broken down into the simple ideas of "laces", "eyelits", "fabric" and so on. This is where the objection arises. The empiricists do not make it clear when a simple idea stops and a complex one starts. This means the theory becomes less clear, how can one concept be based on so many sense impressions?

A second objection in regard to empiricism in relation to the origin of ideas is the missing shade of blue. According to the empiricists we cannot have concepts which have not been based on sense experience. But if we take a range of shades of blue with one shade missing it seems that we can imagine that missing colour with no sense experience of it. But to reply to this objection perhaps this illustration suggests that the missing colour is simply another complex idea made up of the other shades. However this still leaves us with the problem of when do simple ideas become complex ones? arguably from this example it is possible to suggest that all colours are complex ideas.

A final empirical claim is Hume's objection to the idea that the action of one thing obviously causes the effect of the other. For example when we see a billiard ball strike another - which then moves, Hume suggests that all we know is that the first ball moved, heard a sound then the other ball moved off - so we have no sense experience of the cause. This leads Hume to suggest that when we talk about causation we actually me "constant cojoining" if events, and there is no necessary connection.

However a reply to Hume and causation is Kant's idea of conceptual schemes of causation. He suggests that innately we know that every event has a cause, whilst Kant agrees that we cannot directly experience "cause" we know that it exists a priori.

In conclusion the statement was suggesting that the origins of ideas are linked to experience. I agree with the empirical idea that all useful knowledge comes from direct sensory experience. However I think that Kant's account for "causation" and conceptual schemes is a good challenge to all knowledge being derived from sense experience.

But why should I? Because I said so!

Hello,

Why do we obey the government?

Are our obligations to the state founded on any sort of consent?

If we have no real choice is our consent meaningful?

How can we consent to something if we are ignorant to the topic?

If there is no god given ruler, why should we follow anyone other than ourselves?

Well philosophers have supposedly come up with the answers to these question by chiefly debating the types of consent which occur and the scenarios in which this consent presents its self. There are two types of consent, the first being EXPLICIT which is basically when you say: "I totally agree to that 100% - where do I sign?" the second being TACIT consent, an idea pioneered by John Locke, this type of consent is where you do not explicitly consent to anything but you are consenting in some way. For example if you use the roads or the NHS or anything else provided by the government then you are consenting to the laws of the government. Locke thinks that even just living in a country means you agree tacitly to every thing that country does, and the only way to dissent is to leave the country all together... this isn't fair is it? What if you couldn't afford to leave? It's essentially: my way or the highway! In my view this doesn't warrant an actual choice. This was Hume's objection, he didn't think that leaving a country was an acceptable form of dissent. Hume used this analogy:

"Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives from day to day by the small wages he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish, the moment he leaves"

- Hume, "Of the Original Contract"

So you have probably already realised that there are absolutely loads of objections to both types of consent, (I will get on to objections to explicit consent later on). Firstly it's very easy to slam Locke and his notion of tacit consent, we can just sate that consent needs to be meaningful to be of any value, so you need to be able to dissent if you wanted to. His consent is similar to a bully forcing people to write them christmas cards at school... the message of good will written inside wouldn't mean anything if you were just writing it to keep you pocket money.

Tussman has some objections regarding tacit consent, which focus on the fact that people are ignorant:

"If we do not explicitly consent we are mere political child-brides"

This quote means that if we are ignorant to what we are consenting to then we will simply not know what duties we are supposed to perform in society, as a small child will not know the duties she is supposed to perform as a wife.

So those are the main objections to tacit consent, and from these objections so far it seems that none of obligations are founded on consent... Any other ideas?

Well Rawls (pronounced rules), had a go and answering the question. John Rawls came up with a famous thought experiment that would create a 'fair' and 'just' society. This is it: imagine that you're setting up a society - but the catch is you don't know where you will slot in when you're done. Rawls calls this the "veil of ignorance".

He sates that IF society was orgainsed in this way THEN we would sign a contract explicitly consenting to the government, because society would be great and equal for every one (yay!). So with his "veil of ignorance" Rawls introduced the HYPOTHETICAL consent. So if we live in a liberal society then we have 'signed' a hypothetical contact. Just letting you know, there is a lot of objections to this one.

Firstly we would not all agree to equality as some people might gamble and choose to have an unequal society hoping they come out on top. This quality is evident in todays society, mainly by the presence of Stock Brokers. Rawls also assumes that a society is a product of negotiation between individuals who have interests before coming in to society (this means that the person behind the "veil of ignorance" knows what they want) but in fact we are born into a society, and our choices reflect our socially defined goals. So essentially Rawls ignores the glaring problem that the fact of the hierarchy of social class, i.e, a lawyer isn't going to swap their fancy wig, for a Sainsbury's hair net are they?

In the words of Dworkin: "Hypothetical consent isn't worth the paper it isn't written on"

This leaves us with the basis that our political consent is formed on explicit consent and this is essentially, voting. But this is not really a great answer to be honest as there are objections to voting as a form of consent too. If voting were the only form of political consent only 61% of over 18 year olds who are eligible to vote would be the only ones who consent as that was the voting turnout at the 2005 general election (that's rubbish). Not forgetting those who can't vote - I can't, but I don't go round breaking all the laws.

So basically this consent would only apply to some people, not that effective then is it? Another objection is how many people are only voting for one party just to keep another one out, so this is not true consent. Furthermore - what are we actually voting for? Just because you voted for Labour and they went on an invaded Iraq, does that mean they have the consent to do that if they didn't tell the voters? Are you still bound to support them? Probably not, judging by the fact that the protest against it was the biggest ever.

So we can say, after looking at all the types of consent that our political obligations are NOT founded on consent. Voting comes close I think, but falls short as not that many people do compared to the amount who don't. I think that Hume got it right when he says that we do stuff as we know it's in our own self-interest. It doesn't shine a good light on the human race, but at least we consent to turning it on, because otherwise we wouldn't read philosophy would we?

John!... Locke over-there!

Hello,

John Locke’s essay was called The Essay on Human Understanding, first published in 1960s in which he describes the mind at birth as a blank slate; the essay is about the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It was hugely influential regarding empiricism in modern philosophy. Locke’s work influenced many enlightenment philosophers such as Hume and Berkeley. The Enlightenment or The Age of Enlightenment, is used to describe the time in Western Philosophy in the eighteenth century, when reason was put forward as the best, and the source of authority.

The essay is split up into four different books, most of the interesting ideas happen in book II. In the rest of this entry I will try to summarise each of the books.

Book II of the Essay tells us of Locke's theories, these include his distinction between ideas we just accept which he calls simple ideas, these could be things such as “red”, “sweet” or “round” compared to the complex ideas, which we have to work on such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also shows the differences between the primary qualities of bodies – which properly exist or as he says truly exist, like shape, motion and the arrangement of particles, and the secondary qualities that are "powers to produce various sensations in us" such as "red" and "sweet."

These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. So primary qualities exist, and these create the secondary qualities. For example if something’s primary qualities are: red, sweet and round. It’s secondary qualities will be it’s an apple which are "powers to produce various sensations in us".

Book I

Locke's big idea is that the mind of a newborn baby is a blank slate (or tabula rasa) this means he thinks that all ideas we have are from experience. Book I of the Essay is essentially an attack on the doctrine of innate ideas, this idea meant that we have ideas that we intrinsically know from birth. Locke said that some ideas are in the mind from an early age, but stated that these ideas still come from the senses when we were in the womb (differences between colors or tastes). This still goes against the doctrine of innate ideas as it still says that we still require empirical evidence. If we all have of a concept of ‘sweetness’, it is not because this is an innate idea, but because we were all exposed to sweet tastes at an early age.

Following from this line of thought, Locke also argued that people have no innate principles, this means that no one naturally knows from right or wrong. Locke did say that if we have innate principles they would have to rely upon our innate ideas, which he says does not exist. One of Locke's big arguments against innate ideas is the fact that there is no truth to which all people agree with. He argued against a number of propositions that rationalist offer as universally accepted truth, like the ‘principle of identity’, to which he said that young children are unaware of their own identity.

Book II

Whereas Book I was rejecting the doctrine of innate ideas first done by Descartes and the rationalists, Book II explains that every idea comes from experience either by sensation or reflection which Locke explains as:

"the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got".

Book III

Everything that exists is a particular thing. Frisky, Snowball, and Tiger are pets in the external world, but there is no cat. Most of our terms are general rather than particular i.e. a cat could be Frisky, Snowball, and Tiger. In book III Locke asks in How do we get these general terms? Since words refer to ideas, general terms, naturally, refer to general ideas. General ideas are produced through a process of abstraction. We take our ideas of Frisky, Tiger, Felix, and Snowball, and we attend to what is similar in all of these, discarding what is different. From what is common to all of them (fur, soft, meow, arched shape, etc.), we form a new idea.

Book IV

"Of Knowledge and Opinion," gives us the theory of knowledge. Locke begins with a strict definition of knowledge, one which says most sciences (apart from mathematics and morality) are pointless. Knowledge, according to Locke, is having strong internal relations that work, without any reference to the outside world. He lists the four sorts of relations between ideas that would count as knowledge identity/diversity, relation, coexistence, actual existence, he then goes on to distinguish between three grades of knowledge. The remainder of the book is discussing opinion or belief, which is the best we can expect to gain for our intellectual endeavors.

So essentially Locke's Essay on Human Understanding would get an A* from any Philosophy teacher as he totally influenced the Western Philosophers who agree with the idea of empiricism.

I challenge you to a Dual(ism)!

Hello,

Dualism is a theory about the link between mind and matter. It starts by saying the events in the mind (ie when we think) are not physical, this means the mind exists outside of the body, giving the mind a soul like quality. Dualism theories apparently started as far back as Plato and Aristotle, which is a key reason why to many, this theory as wrong. They think this due to the incorrect understanding of the anatomy. Because of there lack of understanding Plato and Aristotle argued, that humans intelligence (to them the 'mind is the seat of all knowledge') could not be explained with the physical body.

The most well known example of dualism came from Descartes, he also like P&A stated that the mind is nonphysical. Descartes was the first to show the mind was connected with awareness of our own existence; because of this he was able to formulate the Cogito ergo sum this was a huge breakthrough, but he sort of spoiled when he then said the mind was different to the brain. Dualism is the biggest problem with Descartes and since his work was published it is often the starting point of philosophers picking holes in his work.

One argument against Dualism is called Causal Interaction, this states that how come if the mind is non-physical we can have memories from touching physical objects, for example: "you never forget how to ride a bike" or muscle memory; when a song you used to know on the piano comes back to you, even if you haven't played in a while. So for Dualism work in these situations it must therefore must still be capable to effect the physical world - despite not being apart of it. The main answer to this solution was provided by Arnold Geulincx was that Causal Interaction was simply that it's a miracle. To be honest I'm not that convinced.

I think that the reason Dualism was so popular when Aristotle and Plato were around was simply they did not have the knowledge of anatomy to have any better ideas. The picture below is an illustration by Descartes, in which he explains how the body reacts to pain...

The fire (no, it's not a cabbage) moves the skin, this action then opens a pore causing the 'animal spirit' of the fire flow through the tube in the diagram this tube then inflates, causing swelling in the leg muscle this results in the moving of the foot out of danger. Nothing to do with nerve endings or pain receptors.

A more modern argument for Dualism is the Zombie Argument, yes that's it's name. It was a thought experiment by (psychologist) David Chalmers, in which he says that zombies can act as humans, by for example saying 'ouch!' if they bang their knee even if they don't feel the pain. It's a long shot but I could be a zombie, you wouldn't know, because I act exactly like you. This experiment aimed to show how things can still be human with out a mind. Similar to the brian in the vat; accept the negligible possibility but then move on.

Dualism is the opposite of Monism where the mind is the brain, it's what most people think know as dualism is generally accepted as a big mistake, by Plato, Aristotle and Descartes, apart from that they were all right.

Sign on the dotted line...

Hello,

The Social Contact - what we sacrifice in order to be looked after by the sate. We give up some of our rights to maintain order as in the long-run it seems better than the alternative (we've all seen Mad Max).

The heart of the idea of the social contract may be stated simply: Each of us places his person and authority under the supreme direction of the general will, and the group receives each individual as an indivisible part of the whole... Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The Social Contract (1762) is the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in which Rousseau ponders the ideal setup for our political communities, he wrote the book in order to solve all the problems which he listed in the Discourse on Inqualilty (1754). In his first book he attempted to answer question: What is the origin of equality among men, and is it authorized by natural law? He answered this by looking at the natuaral, physical, ethical, political problems. So the Social Contact is the sequel.

Rousseau thinks that for the government to work effectively it must be sanctioned by the people, this is when the King/Queen step in to act as the public voice. If their people don't like the political leader the monarch can say no, you can't lead on the publics behalf... In England Gordon Brown would ask the Queen for permission to take charge, it's very unlikely she would refuse - what's her alternative? 

Rousseau says that a perfect society would work best if it were to be run by the general will of it's population. He doesn't specify how this would be done... it would take a long time, especially in a big country. Although he does suggest regular meetings in which citizens can have a say in the general will - achievable in a small town, but much harder to accommodate the whole of London.

He goes on to say that without the viewpoint of the people the government isn't viable, he says the views of the public can not be shown via a representative as this is no the true voice of the people. So according to these ideas a School Council doesn't even make the grade, so how could a whole country achieve it?

The following are from the Social Contract, and are what Rousseau tries to answer;

1) The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, act by only means of the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will. 

2)Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is in fact, not law.

3) The legislative power belongs to the people, and can belong to it alone.

The social contract was pivotal in the reformations of in Europe but especially in France. One theme in the social contract was the idea that the monarch did not have the divine right to rule, Rousseau says that it's the people in the form if the Sovereign which have that right, hence the revolution in France. King Louis XVI said he had the divine right to rule - which the French had enough with (along with other things). 

The aim of the social contract is to find out if we can have a viable political presence. Rousseau says yes we can, as long as the people remove themselves from a state of nature, ie not just doing what we want all the time but entering a social contract with our fellow man. The Contact would create new laws, which would mean giving up rights in order for us to be the same and free. This may have annoyed people, but Rousseau says you can exit the contact by leaving the society you are living in. According to Rousseau; liking the Sex Pistols is not true rebellion. Being truly rebellious would be living  in a cave, as a consequence retuning to our state of nature.

Rousseau sates that any society must have two parts. The first being a Sovereign acting on behalf of the people and the second being the government, these two are very separate. They must be due to the fact the Monarch can't deal with every matter, therefore is not united and will be destroyed (similar if people pick a choose what laws to follow will result in  a collapse of the law). The government must be separate so it can continue when the monarchy collapses.

Rousseau says that the larger the territory, then the more power the government has over it's population. He says this as the government is only as powerful as it's people (more people = more power). Rousseau would say that a large country with a monarch has the most power as it there is lots of people with little civil servants between the people and the monarch. Where as in a large bureaucratic government there is more power to be delegated amongst it's self so it has less power. 

Due to this theory Rousseau sates that countries with small sates are where freedom flourishes best (such as Geneva, where Rousseau came from, so no bias there then). Rousseau argues it's the most effective as there is less steps between people and the rulersand due to a smaller population makes it easier to find the general will of the people. (The postman handing out a survey about free school meals for children along with the bills, for example)

I Kant do that! It's immoral

Hello, 

Immanuel Kant is an 18th century German philosopher and is seen as one of the most influential philosopher of modern Europe. One of his main interest was Ethics. Ethics is a branch of Philosophy which is not so much concerned with knowledge etc, but of human behavior. It's the branch which is most likely to spill out into politics and culture. 

Ethics is a place just out side London where people wear white socks

- Kelvin MacKenzie 

Why do we do things? I don't mean eat or sleep etc, but 'good deeds'. Is it to make ourselves feel good? To make others like us? To get our Duke of Edinburgh award? If so; according to Immanuel Kant those acts would be immoral. 

Kant's theory of Ethics are considered to be deontological, which means we do things out of a sense of duty (deon), another is that the 'goodness' of the act is only decided on the motives of the person and never the consequences. Kant thinks this because nothing in the world is intrinsically good or good with out qualification - meaning something has caused the 'good'. For example pleasure is good, but if that that pleasure is gained from watching a clip on 'You've Been Framed' the pleasure you feel from watching someone suffer (no matter how funny it may be) is bad as it seems to make the situation ethically worse - the pleasure is with qualification. 

Now it is very hard to think of something that is just intrinsically good, and this is were Kant and the deontological argument try to give an answer which is:

Nothing in the world - indeed nothing even beyond the world - can possibly be conceived which could be called good with out qualification except a good will

Kant argues that the best way to see how ethical the act you are performing is your motive. If the motive of your action is not out of a 'sense of duty' - it's not moral. I think, according to Kant most people have done more immoral deeds with good intentions than just purely out of  sense of duty. So a completely moral deed would be not because you feel sorry for some one (I'll bake her a cake because she is sad = immoral) or the possibility of a reward. 

So this is how Kantian ethics would work in real life... You are at a zebra crossing, an old lady is struggling with her bags, you feel sorry for her. What would Kant do? Nothing it's not a moral act. Nor would it be if you only did it to make people think highly of you as that would be a reward (a psychological one). But if you felt a strong moral duty to help then that would be a moral act. To me it seems difficult to separate pity and compassion from acts such as helping old ladies - if I felt only a sense of duty help, regardless of age or bags etc - then I would be helping every one as a sense of duty to make the zebra crossing more effective. 

As we know in Kantian ethics motive is the most important thing, so it is possible for an action to have bad consequences whilst still being moral. For example if because of a sense of duty you attempted to save some one drowning but in the process you drowned them it would still be moral as you acted out of 'a sense of duty'.

Kantian ethics have been criticized as they don't take into consideration our circumstances. For example, you felt a sense of duty to 1) telling the truth. 2) protect your friends. So far, so good, but what would happen if an axe murder came up to you and wanted to know where you friends were so they could murder them? According to Kant you have a conflict of morals . Do you tell the truth? Or do you lie in order to save your friends life? (It's pretty obvious what you should do to me). So is lying always wrong? What if you feel a sense of duty to lie? According to Kant telling lies is worst thing to do - even if it could avoid murder.

Some say Kantian ethics don't take the consequences seriously enough - what if a well intentioned person with a good motive caused several deaths? In Kantian ethics they would be blameless. It's a bit like a baby smearing it's lunch on their face, whilst trying to be more grown up, it's good motive, but creates even more work than being fed by some one else, (if I did, it would just be weird). 

This blog is immoral. I'm not writing it out of a sense of duty, I'm writing it to show off.