HCJ: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz

Before we get started, there are two important words that must be known.

Metaphysics; meaning trying to figure out what reality really is.

Epistemology; meaning the theory of knowledge and how we know what we know.

Now on to Descartes; people look at Descartes as the beginning of modern philosophy. He follows from the scholastic/medieval period, where learning was simply about Aristotle and the Bible.

"I think, therefore, I am" is one of the most famous lines in philosophy, formed by Descartes. It forms the cogito, pronounced co-ji-toe.

Towards the end of 17th century and the beginning of 18th century a debate between was sparked between empiricists and the idealists  i.e. British empiricism and continental rationalism.

Empiricists' idea of knowledge was that 'we know what we know because we can see it'.

Locke, a famous empiricist philosophy, has no innate ideas, all his knowledge was gained through experience. He believed we only get knowledge through experience and it all comes from senses; sensory data. His philosophy insisted there are no innate ideas; when you are born, it is a blank slate, there is nothing in your mind and is absent of any ideas. He completely disagreed with Plato's metaphysics.

Rationalists'/Idealists' idea of knowledge was that 'you can learn about the world simply by thinking about it'. Sensory data is not needed for this. Logical answers can be formed in the mind;  the pre-eminence of the mind. Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza are all examples of idealists. 

Materialists' idea of knowledge is that only material exists. It is the idea that everything is either made of matter or is dependant on matter for existence. Hobbes is a well-known materialist philosopher.

Descartes

What is going on in the world outside my mind?

The issues he raised were right at the start of philosophy, at the same time as Locke, Shakespeare, Galileo. Despite being a man of God, he was very much in favour of science and was critical of the education he recieved at university such as Aristotleanism and traditional education. Artistotlean logic was circular as everything was based around two books and Descartes said: "I gained nothing but an increasing recognition of my ignorance". He felt all he knew and all his education was useless and a waste of time. 

After education, he took it back to basics and assumed everything he knew was wrong and decided to start all over again. This project was the method of doubt, known as 'Cartesian doubt'. A famous example of doubt is "If you have a barrel of apples and fear one of them is rotten, empty them all out and check if everyone one of them is rotten or not". This is what Descartes did with knowledge. He wanted to create a theory of knowledge that would stand the test of time.

You have to accept your almost certainities may be uncertain. It is at least possible your name may not be your name, your parents may not be your parents, your age may not be your age; after all, you could be hypnotised. It's very unlikely but it is possible. Senses have before deceived you, for instance, when drunk, when tired and when lost. If senses have even let you down once, you have to dismiss them, you can not trust them.

Descartes then comes to a moumental moment of accepting all may be untrue. However, he says 'I am thinking, this means that I exist'. It is from this thought the phrase cogito ergo sum was formed; I think, therefore, I am. Even if my thoughts are wrong, I am still thinking, therefore I still exist.

He identifies his thinking with his mind; the mind and the body are entirely seperate. This is Cartesian dualism. If someone was to cut off my hand, I'd still exist, therefore my existance depends on my mind, not my body, therefore, they are clearly two seperate things. He can still doubt everything except his mind.

Berkeley has a similar view to Descartes, that there was only one substance and that is mentality. Berkeley said "all we can be sure of is that my mind is telling me these things and it is real to me; it is impossible to prove anything out of this"

Decartes' epistemology sets off a tendency in European philosophy called idealism and included philosophers such as Kant and Hegel.

After getting to this point, he knows he needs to escape the Cogito. He needs to avoid collapsing into solipsism; only I exist for sure. His answer was God. He needs God to help him climb out and escape into the Cogito. In order to do this, he has to prove God exists, for which he came up with three arguments..

Trademark Argument

Descartes has the idea of God; so where did it come from? It can't have come from no where; God must have given it to him. God is a benevolent being and therefore wouldn't deceive us.

Ontological Argument

A priori argument for God's existence. God is a perfect being, so he must exist, if he didn't exist, he wouldn't be perfect.

Cosmological Argument

Everything has a cause, at some stage something must have triggered the first cause; the uncaused cause; this being God.

Spinoza

He argues that if the world is seperate from God then he has boundaries, so for God to be infinite he has to be part of the world. Therefore there was only one substance, not two like Descartes says, this was God. This was monism or pantheism; there is one thing and that thing is God - as opposed to dualism. All our thinking is embodied and has a physical manifestation.

Leibniz

Leibniz thought the world was made out of one type of thing called a Monad; a simple, non divisible, soul like entity that is everything" His philosophy cuts everything down to the minimal. As long as something still has an extension, it can still be divided. The smallest thing something can be before physical being is a Monad; it is the building block of everything. It is similar to Plato's forms.

Huxley

Huxley was a believer in epiphenomenalism - the idea that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events; physical beings, closed causality, physical brains. He believed our inner lives were just the hum of the machine but doesn't move the machine; it's just a by product. He compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive.

HCJ: An Overview

This post will give a quick overview of the key points of each section/philosopher covered in semester one during HCJ.

Socrates (400 BC) is important to show the dedication to the State. He was a classical Greek philospher and strongly believed in the State and even when he was sentenced to commit suicide for corrupting the minds of the young, he did it, because he benefited from living in civilisation and believed in abiding by the law.

Plato (400-300 BC) was a classical Greek philosopher. His most important book was The Republic which defines Utopia, defines what is meant by philosopher and looks at actual constitutions; defining the pros and cons. He was the creator of 'The Royal Lie'; God created all people and each person was made of gold (guardians), silver (soldiers) or brass and iron (common man). The soul is split into three areas and it's called the tripartite theory of the soul. The way Plato symbolises it is that two horses are pulling a chariot; one of the horses is spirit (soldiers), one of the horses is desire (common man) and the carriage itself is reason (guardians). The purpose of this was to aim to stop revolt and keep society in a natural order. Most areas in life were censored to ensure man remained pure and of the best form.  Emotion and any feeling of ownership were to be removed from life and men and women were seen as equal. If Plato's Utopia was to come into being, it is doubtful there would be any movements in art, science or literature.

Aristotle (300 BC) was also a Greek philosopher. His most important book was Politics in which he made it clear he didn't believe in equality and that he thought all power belonged to the State. Although some unusual rules were set out in the book, some can still be applied to modern day such as 'there must be a careful avoidance of indecency as shameful words lead to shameful acts'. He believed everyone should try and fulfil their natural purpose in life (eudamonia). He believed women were naturally inferior to men as a slave is naturally inferior to his master. A large part of the book is concerned with trade. There are two uses of a thing; it's proper use and it's improper use. A t-shirt, for example, has the proper use of being worn and the improper use of being worn. The natural way of gaining wealth is through skilful management of house and land and the most unnatural way is through usury. He believes there are three things needed to prevent a revolution; government propaganda in education, respect for law and justice in law and administration. Aristotelian logic is where you can make a conclusion based on one or more suggested propositions. The axiom is the premise, for example, all men are mortal, Socrates was a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.

Renaissance to Descartes (14th century to 17th century) saw the rise of science against the diminishing power of the church. Men were divided between the aristocracy and the barbarians. Aristocracy means the highest class in society and barbarian means someone considered to be uncivilised. The word comes from the Greeks seeing barbarians to 'bark like dogs'. 

The Italian Renaissance (beginning 14th century, ending 16th century), meaning rebirth, saw much growth in the arts; particularly in art and architecture and saw the culture change from idealistic to realistic. It saw the revival of the work of intellectuality with Plato and Aristotle. There was a lot of corruption amongst those in powers; religious leaders and the Medici family. People started to lose faith in religion and political leaders and started living more by Plato's logic and became independent.

Machiavelli (late 15th century, early 16th century) was a man of political philosophy and focused mainly on power and was a realist rather than a idealist. He was concerned with results and didn't care to much for how the results were achieved. He saw the rise and fall of Savonarola which clearly influenced his philosophy, he remarks that 'all armed prophets have conquered and unarmed ones failed'; placing Savonarola in the latter category.  Machiavelli also says ''The nearer people are to the Church of Rome, which is the head of our religion, the less religious they are' which, in our opinion, could be compared to Rousseau's philosophy of 'the closer man is to society, the more corrupt man is'. This is an unusual comparison, as Rousseau is closely related to romanticism whereas Machiavelli is quite the opposite. The two books he is famous for are The Discourses and The Prince. The Prince is basically Political Power for Dummies.

Desiderius Erasmus (late 15th century, early 16th century) was an exemplar of the Northern Renaissance. He despised scholastics and didn't care for the teachings of Aristotle and Plato. He thought Plato should be studied, but not the subjects Plato thought worth studying. The most read book by Erasmus is The Praise of Folly. The book strongly voices Erasmus's opinions through Folly particularly on abuses of power by the ecclesiastics and suggests that all religion is a form of folly. He was high influential in the educational system, believing everyone should be literate with a strong grounding in Greek and Latin. This remained until the 20th century.

Thomas More (late 15th century, early 16th century) is most well known for his book, Utopia. It is similar to Plato's Republic, in that all things are held common and it is thought that society can not flourish with private property. The rough idea is that everyone and everything is equal and the importance of communism is greatly stressed. He was forcibly friends with Henry VIII and knew the friendship was for nothing but convenience on Henry's part. Henry later sentenced More to death after he voiced his opinions on Henry being made head of the church.

The Reformation (16th century) was basically a movement away from faith/belief in the church and religious leader lead by Martin Luther and John Calvin due to the corruption. The Counter-Reformation (late 16th century) saw a movement back towards faith in religion and religious leaders.

The rise of science (17th century) was a huge movement away from the Ancient Period and the Medieval Ages. The four most influential men in this period were Copernicus, Newton, Kelper and Galileo. It increased man's freedom to explore the world in a scientific way and increased the learning in the fields of science, maths and general secular learning. 

Thomas Hobbes (17th century) was a contract theorist. His most famous book is the Leviathan; it received negative reviews at the time and tended to focus on Royalism and aimed to diminish democracy. He believes you should give up all of your rights to the State except the right to live and self-defense and if the State didn't exist then society couldn't exist. Without the State, life would be 'nasty, brutish and short'. This is the only way that it would be possible to end war and have a peaceful society. He helped establish political philosophy. He believes people are governed out of necessity to feel safe and protected and that it is a large burden to have to think for oneself so to let the State think for you is easier. His ideas are mainly based on man being amoral and selfish, believing a man's selfish wants will always outweigh his loyalty to another.

René Descartes (17th century) was a mathematician, a scientist yet still a man of God. He adopted the cogito and wanted to learn how to doubt the universe. He believed ideas were in three sorts; those that are innate, those that are foreign and those that are created by me. His basic idea was 'How can I believe that what I'm seeing is true?' to which he answered the sense. Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore, I am. There is the question of how you can trust your sense but Descartes said God is good, God created senses, therefore senses are real.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th century) was considered the founder of romanticism and wrote The Social Contract. He believed the further away man was from society, the closer to being the true meaning of what it is to be human being man was. He thought society was corrupt and would only have a negative effect on a person. He was against the Newtonian way of life and thought it was unnatural. He believed cognitive thinking and thoughts were entirely different from instinct; man was born just the same as any other animal. Rousseau, it is thought, inspired the French Revolution. The State at the time was oppressed and a totalitarian state, run by people who thought their power was given to them directly by God. He is still influential today and is thought to be the father of many movements including the hippie movement, the green movement and communism.

Romanticism (late 18th century) is the push forward in art, literature, music and architecture. It stems from the phrase 'la sensibilité' which means prone to feeling emotion and sympathy. Nature, abnormality and danger were all very important to romantics, with the symbolism of the sea, the mountains and metaphorical chains constantly being referred to. They believed solitary confinement was best. Important works from the romantic period/inspired by the romantic period are Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Daffodils by William Wordsworth. Beethoven is the talismanic character of romanticism.