Petrik Philosophy Cheat Sheet by skyefawn

Ration­alism- The theory that fundam­ental nature of reality can be known a priori (knowledge that is not grounded from sense experi­ence, knowledge that is innate.).

Descar­tes’s Aim: Defeat Skepti­cism… Put Philosophy on a Foundation of Certainty ○ Method of Systematic Doubt § Method of Doubt: Resolves to accept as true only those beliefs he can find no reason to doubt. § System­atic: Calls into doubt the foundation of his former beliefs. § His strategy is to turn skepticism on itself. He wants to find his Archim­edean Point, to build his entire philos­ophy. § The doubt is hyperbolic or exagge­rated. (Reasons for doubt just have to be consis­tent) § Legitimate Reason to Doubt: □ Need not known to be true □ Need not known to be likely □ Need only be a consistent suppos­ition that would render the belief doubtful.

Meditation Two: Descar­tes’s Archim­edean Point in Episte­mology § Sum res cogitans = I exist as a thinking thing. § Even a deceiving god could not deceive Descartes about this belief. § Justif­ica­tion: in order to have any beliefs, including false ones, one must exist as a thinking thing. § The Cogito: This argument is commonly referred to as the “Cogito”. □ Limitation on the conclusion of the Cogito: Descartes has proven only his existence as a thinking thing, but does not yet know with certainty that he has a body. (The existence of matter is still in doubt at this point in the Medita­tions.)

Meditation Four: Descar­tes's solution to the problem of error

Meditation Six: Two Arguments: § The proof of the real distin­ction between the Mind and the body. The proof of the existence of the external material world.

Descartes' Argument for Gods Existence 1) The cause of an idea must have at least as much formal reality as the objective reality contained by the idea. 2) I have an idea of God; that is, an idea of a being that is supremely perfect. From 1) and 2) 3) The cause of my idea of God must have at least as much formal reality as the objective reality contained in the idea. From 2) and the definition of formal reality: 4) A being with at least as much formal reality as the objective reality contained in the idea of God would be God. From 3) & 4): 5) God must be the cause of my idea of God. From 5): 6) God exists.

a. David Hume- Working in the 18th Century otherwise known as the Age of Enligh­ten­ment. Charac­ter­istics: i. Optimism about human progress in science and technology ii. A call to each individual to trust her or his ability to use reason to understand reality and morality. iii. This force is Libera­ting: Human beings are liberated from the "­bon­ds" of unreasoned faith in authority, supers­tition, and prejudice b. The figure respon­sible for this attitude is Isaac Newton (1642-­1727) i. Offered a unified system of mechanics: a set of simple and compre­hensive principles that governed the behavior of both celestial and terres­trial motions of bodies. c. Alexander Pope on Newton's Achiev­ement- "­Natures and Natures laws lay hid in night. God said "Let Newton be!", and all was light."­

e. A Science of the Human Unders­tanding i. Twofold Classi­fic­ation of Percep­tions (Perce­ption = Any Mental Repres­ent­ation) 1) Impres­sions: Actual (Occur­rent) sensat­ions, emotions and desires. Tend to be very forceful and lively. 2) Ideas: Recoll­ected or imagined sensat­ions, emotions and desires. Less forceful and lively than impres­sions, but otherwise qualit­atively similar to them. ii. The Copy Principle… "all our ideas or more feeble percep­tions are copies of our impres­sions or more lively ones" (Enquiry, Section II)' iii. The content of all our thinking ultimately is derived from experi­ence. iv. Qualif­ica­tion: We can have compound ideas that did not previously occur as impres­sions v. Once we have derived various ideas from impres­sions we can arrange those ides in ways that were never experi­enced as impres­sions. vi. An Exception to the Copy Principle: The Missing Shade of Blue 1) The mind can supply a simple idea that did not occur previously as impression

2) Judgments expressing matters of the fact: a) They're contingent judgments in that their truth and falsity are both concei­vable and possible b) Their negation does not result in an internally contra­dictory statement c) Two kinds: i) Reports of direct experience One. Example: there are over three people in this room Two. I am wearing shoes ii) Claims about states of affairs not directly observed One. Example: claims about the future: this pen will fall when released Two. Claims about the past and the present can also fall in to this category: all bachelors are happy, there was a lightning strike iii) What is our justif­ication for claims of type 2? iv) Hume's initial answer: our belief in casual relations v) What is our justif­ication for belief in casual relations? Not a priori: negating a casual relation does not result in an internal contra­dic­tion. Studying a cause on its own will never reveal its effect vi) Hume's answer­: e­xpe­rience of constant conjun­ction - one kind of event is said to be the cause of a second kind of event because the first kind of event is repeatedly followed by the second kind in our existence vii) This means we are justifying judgements of type 2 B with t 2 A

4) Possible rational justif­ica­tion: a) Principle of the uniformity of nature (PUN):  state of affairs that resemble eachother in all respects except spatial and temporal location will exhibit the same properties or charac­ter­istics b) The future will resemble the past c) Hume's question: what is your justif­ication for PUN? i) Not known a priori: the negation does not lead to an internal contra­diction ii) PUN has been repeatedly confirmed in our experience iii) Because that is an inductive inference and would amount to a circular justif­ication iv) There is no rational justif­ication for PUN - Hume

6) Important clarif­ication of Hume's position a) Hume does not think we should stop making inductive inferences b) Hume does not think inductive inferences are bad c) Hume believes that inductive inferences are reliable d) He simply thinks it is an intere­sting fact about how the human mind works that our inductive practices are grounded in habit and not reason

iii. Epistemic distin­ction, two kinds of judgments 1) A priori: known to be true indepe­ndently of experi­ence. (no possible experience would ever falsify the judgment) Necess­arily true. a) 5+7=12, all bachelors are unmarried 2)  A poster­iori: known to be true on the basis of experience (exper­ience might possibly falsify them) Contin­gently true. a) All humans are under 12 ft fall, all swans are white

v. Kant's fourfold classi­fic­ation of judgments 1) Analytic A priori judgments a) Examples: all bachelors are unmarried, a red ball is colored, a triangle has three angles 2) Analytic A posteriori judgments a) THERE ARE NO EXAMPLES OF ANALYTIC A POSTERIORI JUDGMENTS b) THESE JUDGMENTS WOULD BE SUCH THAT EXPERIENCE MIGHT POSSIBLY FALSIFY THEM; HOWEVER, TO DO SO EXPERIENCE WOULD HAVE TO EMBODY A CONTRA­DICTION c)  This will be a question on the test, the answer is none of the above 3) Synthetic A posteriori judgments a) Examples: all humans are under 12 ft tall, swans are white