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Bacon Preface to The great instauration; The new organon, Aphorisms
1-46; selections
from The advancement of learning (Works
IV: 13-17, 20-27, 47-57, and 294-98)
1. Over the
opening aphorisms of Book II of the New organon (not assigned as part of the reading for this
section) Bacon articulated what he meant by the form of a thing and took a
position on why it is that change occurs when “actives” and “passives” are
brought into contact with one another.
Obtain a copy of the complete New
organon and, proceeding from a study of the
opening aphorisms of Book II as well as of the assigned readings, attempt to
answer as many of the following questions as you can: What was the extent of Bacon’s commitment
to an atomistic or at least corpuscularian account of nature (one that
attributes all change to the mixture and separation of particles)? Is this commitment consistent with his inductivism, that is, can it plausibly be supposed to be
inductively well grounded? Is the
commitment, if there is any at all, only partial, that is, does Bacon think
that corpuscular accounts are correct only for certain phenomena but not
all? What hope did Bacon hold out for
our ever being able to reach an exact knowledge of the forms of things,
whatever their exact nature may be?
2. Kant famously
observed that while experience is able to tell us that something is now the
case, it is not able to tell us that is must always or everywhere be so. In light of this observation, is Bacon’s inductivist method feasible? Could any process of induction ever be
adequate to put us in a position to make a general assertion or would a leap
(i.e., a “hasty generalization” of some sort) always have to be involved if
we were to formulate any general theories of nature whatsoever? How rigorous was Bacon’s inductivism, that is, how much experiment and testing did
he think we must do before being entitled to make a generalization? Might he have thought that an inductive
leap becomes legitimate after a certain point? In answering this question, give careful attention
to the example Bacon gives of inductively discovering the cause of heat. This example is given in Book II of the New organon
(which you will have to obtain separately, since it is not included in the
readings for this course).
3. How
adequate is Bacon’s answer to scepticism?
Assess whether a committed sceptic might or might not be able to mount
a challenge to Bacon’s position. Boyle “On the
Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy” (Matthews,
109-118)
1. Consult a
number of recent histories of technology and invention to ascertain what were
the main technological innovations and inventions to be discovered in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Attempt to determine what led to these discoveries. Were the chief inventions and innovations
mechanical in nature (i.e., did they involve the invention of new types of
mechanical devices) or were they chemical or biological (e.g. smelting of new
alloys, breeding of new species, development of new agricultural techniques)? Did the inventor deduce how to build the
device or make the technological innovation ahead of time, by applying some
general theory (e.g. of mechanics) to the problem and only subsequently test
to see if the device would work; was the invention or innovation designed
only through a long process of trial and error; or was the invention or
innovation the product of happenstance?
Does your research support the claim, made at the outset of this
chapter, that interest in and acceptance of the mechanical philosophy was
spurred by the type of technological advances made in the 16th and 17th
centuries?
2. Boyle held
Bacon in high esteem, yet many of the reasons he offers for accepting the
corpuscular or mechanical philosophy make what Bacon ought consistently to
have condemned as an appeal to idols of the tribe and idols of the theatre,
and in other works he makes remarks that might be interpreted as saying that
he took the mechanical philosophy to be merely a hypothesis that had not yet
been adequately confirmed by the evidence.
This has led many scholars to question the extent of Boyle’s
commitment to the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy. In a classic paper, “Newton, Boyle, and the
Problem of ‘Transdiction’,” (in his Philosophy, Science, and Sense Perception
[Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964], 61-117, esp. 88-112) Maurice Mandelbaum responded to these scholars by arguing that
Boyle was able to reconcile a commitment to the corpuscular or mechanical
philosophy with a fundamentally Baconian position
on the need to justify a theory by induction from experience. Focusing on a reading of pp. 99-112 of Mandelbaum’s paper, reconstruct his position in your own
words. If you find his position to be
unclear or unpersuasive on certain points, say so and explain why.
3. Undertake
as extensive a survey of Boyle’s works as possible and attempt to answer the
following questions as best you can in the light of that survey: To what extent was Boyle committed to the
truth of the mechanical hypothesis?
Might his degree of commitment to that hypothesis have changed over
time? If he was committed to it to any
degree, what was the ground of his commitment to it? Be explicit about the influence (or lack of
influence) of the following factors on his thought: the development of
microscopy; the mechanistic (or non-mechanistic) character of important
technological innovations and inventions of his time; the extent to which it
really seemed to Boyle that all the phenomena of nature could be accounted
for mechanistically, including such recalcitrant phenomena as gravitation,
hardness, and cohesion.
4. Determine
to what extent a concern to justify a mechanical account of the spring of air
was foundational for Boyle’s discoveries about the relation between the
pressure, volume and temperature of a gas. Galileo,
“Il Saggiatore” (The Assayer) (Matthews,
53-61)
1. Galileo
supposed that sensible qualities “reside exclusively in our sensitive
body.” Consider what this might mean
and whether this is a plausible or consistent view. Would it have been possible for him to deny
that sensible qualities exist even in us?
If they exist in us, how do they exist in us? Did Galileo mean to endorse the
Aristotelian view that for me to sense a quality like red or hot is for me to
literally become red or hot? If he is
willing to allow that sensible qualities exist in our sensitive body, then why not allow that they exist in other bodies as
well?
2. Assess the
adequacy of Galileo’s argument against the objective existence of sensible
qualities. Are the considerations
Galileo advanced for his position really compelling? Are they too compelling, that is, might
they work just as well to prove that shape and motion have no objective
existence? Might Galileo have advanced
other, more compelling arguments against the objective existence of the
sensible qualities (think of the traditional sceptical modes or the reasons
advanced by Epicurus in the letter to Herodotus)? Would these arguments have been “too
compelling” (in the sense just mentioned) had he dared to use them? Could an Aristotelian mount an equally
compelling argument for the rival view that sensible qualities do inhere in
objects? Hobbes, Human nature I-III (Gaskin,
21-30)
1. Assess the
adequacy of the arguments that Hobbes used over HN II to prove that the sensible
qualities are unreal. How might
someone who is committed to the external existence of these qualities respond
to Hobbes’ arguments, and how effective would those responses be?
2. At HN I.2,
Hobbes said he would base his work on what people know by experience. At HN II.10 he said that, “whatsoever
accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they
are not there, but are seemings and apparitions
only.” He further claimed that “The
things that really are in the world without us, are
those motions by which these seemings are
caused.” But if all our knowledge is
supposed to be based on experience, and whatever our senses make us think
there is in the world is not there, how could Hobbes have claimed to know
anything about what really exists in the world without us, particularly that
what is real are “motions?”
3. Assess the
adequacy of Hobbes’ claim that sensible qualities are merely the way that
motions of the parts of our brains appear to us. Aside from problems of justification
(raised in the previous question) the claim poses the problem of how a motion
could even “appear” as a colour, sound, smell, taste or feeling, and the
problem of where colour, sound, smell, taste and feeling exist if they do not
exist in our bodies. What alternatives
did Hobbes have to making this claim, supposing that he wanted to insist that
sensible qualities do not exist outside of us and that the only effect that a
moving object can have on another object is to move it? Is the existence of sensible qualities an
irresolvable problem for Hobbes, or is there some way to reconcile the
apparent existence of sensible qualities with a mechanistic account of
sensation and sensations and a purely materialist account of the mind?
4. Hobbes’
problems defining memory are not unique.
Undertake a critical survey of attempts to explain the phenomenon of
memory in the early modern period. Hobbes, Human nature IV-VI (Gaskin,
31-43)
1. Explain in
detail how Hobbes could have taken the chain of thought involved in “ranging,”
“reminiscence,” “expectation,” “conjecture,” and “prudence” to be produced by
purely mechanical operations. Setting
aside all contemporary knowledge of the workings of the brain and central
nervous system and judging just from the perspective of the time, is this
enterprise successful, or do you see difficulties with explaining these
mental phenomena purely by appeal to motions occurring in the brain and
heart?
2. Can the
enterprise of explaining the sequence of our thoughts as a consequence of
purely mechanical operations be extended to account for our use of language
and for scientific “reckoning” involving names, or is there something about
language and scientific reasoning that resists reduction to the consequences
of colliding motions in the brain?
Does Hobbes’ project of giving a mechanical account of the workings of
the mind break down when it gets to these operations?
3. Consider,
by reference to Leviathan IV-V and De corpore
VI.11-19 whether Hobbes’ rejection of universals is consistent with his views
on simple natures. Are simple natures
a kind of universal?
4. Simple
natures figure importantly in the philosophies of Bacon, Hobbes, and the
early Descartes (in his Rules for the
direction of the mind). Attempt a
history of the development and employment of this notion by philosophers in
the early modern period. Hobbes, Human Nature VII.1-2, XII, XI (Gaskin,
43-44, 70-73, 64-70)
1. Drawing on
the notes, HN VI.5-9 and XI, and Leviathan
I.xi, III.xxxiii, xxxvii,
and xlii, describe Hobbes’ account of the basis for religious faith, being
careful to specify the role played by each of testimony, miracles, conformity
to scripture, and authority in that account.
Try to reach a verdict on the respective roles of reason (say in
authenticating miracle claims, adjudicating testimony, or drawing conclusions
from the design in nature) and revelation (whether accepted by a leap of
faith, on the evidence of reason, or as a result of irresistible Grace) in
that account. Outline some problems
with the account in addition to the one mentioned in the notes.
2. Did Hobbes
make a compelling case for denying freedom of the will?
3. Did Hobbes
make a compelling case for soft determinism?
4. Supposing
Hobbes was right in what he said about the will, does it still make sense to
praise, blame or punish people for their actions? Does it make any sense to
legislate moral rules? Even if it does
not make sense to legislate moral rules, might it still make sense legislate
civil laws and enforce them with punishments?
5. How would Hobbes have accounted for what is termed weakness of
the will? Descartes, Discourse on method I-II and V (AT VI 1-22
and 55-60)
1. Assess the
strength of Descartes’ arguments for the existence of a soul distinct from the body, as those arguments are laid out in Discourse V.
2. Assess the
strength of Descartes’ reasons for denying that animals have souls.
3. Speculate
on how Hobbes would reply to Descartes’ reasons for claiming that rational souls “can in no way be derived from the potentiality of matter,” drawing on his
account of the causes of the use of
signs and the basis for our reasoning as that account is laid out in Human nature IV-VI; De corpore
I.1-5, VI.1-6,11-18; and Leviathan IV-V.
4. Consider
which (if either) of the two, Hobbes or Descartes, had the best arguments for his position on
human nature. Was Hobbes’ attempt to come up with a mechanical account of
the workings of the mind any more compelling
than Descartes’ reasons for claiming that there can be no such account? Descartes, Meditations I
1. Was Descartes
entitled to claim that there is no way to distinguish waking from dreaming?
2. Was
Descartes entitled to claim that the truths of arithmetic and geometry are
not called into doubt by the dreaming argument?
3. Could a
deceiver who systematically deceives me, and ensures that I never come across
any evidence of my mistake, really be a deceiver?
4. Is there
anything that escapes the doubts cast on sense experience and reasoning by
the dreaming and the deceiver arguments? Descartes, Meditations II
1. What is the
basis for Descartes knowledge of his own existence?
Did he base it on a piece of reasoning or an argument, or did he come to know
it in some other way? If the former,
how is his knowledge compatible with the possible existence of an evil
genius? If the latter, how is his
knowledge to be understood?
2. Was
Descartes entitled to claim, at this stage in his argument, that he did not
need to have a body in order to be able to understand, affirm, deny, doubt,
will, etc.?
3. Could an
evil genius make me be mistaken about what it is that I am thinking? Would Descartes have allowed that
self-deception is possible?
4. Descartes
claimed to know that he is a thinking thing.
However, to say that what exists is a “thing” suggests that there is
something that bears properties (in this case, that there is something that
has thoughts) and that this thing endures over time, perhaps altering in
state (i.e., changing its thoughts) over time. Is there anything in Descartes’s
account in Meditations II that
might entitle him to affirm that, in addition to the thoughts that he knew
must exist, there must be some one substance in which they all inhere? Descartes, Meditations IIIa (AT VII
34-42)
subsequent debate
were Descartes’s younger contemporary and one-time
critic, Antoine Arnauld (left, one of the leaders
of the Jansenist movement in 17th century French
Catholicism), and the Oratarian priest, Nicholas
Malebranche (right), who developed a Neo-Cartesian philosophy of his
own. The chief point in dispute
between Malebranche and Arnauld was whether ideas
are objects of apprehension (the view of Malebranche), or acts whereby
objects are apprehended (the view of Arnauld). The Malebranche/Arnauld
dispute has been the subject of extensive scholarly study, but two early
papers on the topic are classics that should be read by any student of 17th
century philosophy: Robert McRae, “‘Idea’ as a Philosophical Term in the 17th
Century,” Journal of the history of
ideas 26 (1965): 175-184, and John Yolton,
“Ideas and Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy,” Journal of the history of philosophy 13 (1975): 145-166. Study
these two papers and report on the main results of each.
2. Does
Descartes have a principled way of distinguishing between what is known by
the “light of nature” and what is known by “natural impulse”?
3. Consider
whether Descartes is in any position to claim to be certain of either of the
causal principles he invokes in Meditations
III. Try to come up with the best
argument you can to defend his position and the best argument you can to
reject it. Determine which argument is
the strongest. Descartes, Meditations IIIb (AT VII
42-52, cf. Discourse IV, AT VI
33-36)
1. Descartes’s notion of
eminent causality is drawn from medieval philosophy. Undertake a research project to discover
just how this notion was understood by medieval philosophers. (Note that rather than speak of eminent
causality, the medievals might have instead
discussed eminent containment of a form, which they would have contrasted
with literal exhibition of a form.)
Determine whether the medievals managed to
articulate a clear, coherent sense in which it is possible for a thing to
contain a form it does not literally exhibit.
Then determine whether Descartes had any right to employ this notion
(note that, despite the doubts of Meditations
I, he only needed to make a case that it is possible that there might be
eminent causes). If he dids have a right to employ the notion, did he also have
a right to make the further claim that he could be the “eminent” cause of his
idea of extension?
2. Outline Descartes’s reasons for denying that we could have caused
our ideas of God. Comment on whether
these reasons are compelling. If not,
say why not. Consider whether there
might be other reasons for supposing that we cause our ideas of God
ourselves, in addition to the ones that Descartes considered.
3. Obtain a
complete copy of Descartes’s Meditations. (Complete copies
contain, in addition to the six meditations, six sets of objections together
with Descartes’s replies to those objections.) In the standard pagination of the Adam and
Tannery edition, Mersenne’s charge that Descartes
argued in a circle is to be found at pp.124-25, Arnauld’s
at p.214 and Descartes’s replies at pp.140-141,
144-46, and 245-46. Comment on whether
Descartes’s answer to Mersenne
and Arnauld is adequate. Descartes, Meditations IV
1. Compare Descartes’s position on the freedom of the will, as
presented in Meditations IV with
Hobbes’s, as presented in Human nature
XII, and determine which is more plausible and which provides a more thorough
and adequate account of the phenomena of the will. Note that Hobbes authored the third set of
comments on Descartes Meditations
(like Arnauld, mentioned in the previous chapter,
Hobbes was one of the individuals whose comments were solicited by Mersenne and were bound in with the complete editions of
the Meditations). In his twelfth objection, Hobbes charged
that Descartes had merely assumed the freedom of the will without proof and
that his position is not obviously true, as it is denied by many, notably
Calvinists (i.e., those who believe in predestination and the possibility of
doing good only through Grace). Assess the adequacy of Descartes’s
reply to Hobbes on this matter. Descartes, Meditations V
1. Do a
comparative study of the employment of the notions of clarity/obscurity and
distinctness/confusion by philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries (in
addition to Descartes, important figures to consider include Hobbes, Locke,
Spinoza, and Leibniz, as well as the authors of seventeenth century logic
textbooks that discuss these notions).
Attempt to identify any significant divergences in the way these
notions are understood. Look also at
accounts of immediate or intuitive knowledge as they appear in the works of
these authors and attempt to ascertain any connection there might be between
the notion of clear and distinct perception and the notion of intuitive
knowledge. Is it the case, for
example, that clear and distinct perception simply consists in seeing one
idea analytically contained inside of another and that it is this direct
perception of containment that constitutes intuitive knowledge?
2. Assess the
adequacy of Descartes’s attempt to defend his
ontological argument for the existence of God against the objections he
himself raises to that argument.
Consider whether there are any other, more serious objections he fails
to consider and then consider whether he could also answer those objections.
3. Based on a
survey of Descartes’s remarks in the Meditations, Replies to objections to the Meditations, Principles of philosophy Part I, and in his correspondence, try to
determine exactly what his position was on why we need to be assured of the
existence of God in order to know other things, and what those other things
are. Do I need to be assured of the
existence of God before I can know any of the things I clearly and distinctly
perceive, including my own existence, or just some of these things? Or is it rather the case that I need to be
assured of the existence of God before Ie can be
assured of the conclusion of a demonstration, but not of the truth of those
things that I clearly and distinctly perceive without the assistance of a
demonstration? Or is it just the case
that Ie only need to be assured of the existence of
God before I can be assured of the conclusions of demonstrations I am not now
contemplating, but only remember having performed and clearly and distinctly
perceived?
4. How serious
is the following objection: At the
close of Meditations V, Descartes
claimed that a proof of the existence of God puts us in a position to rely on
the memory of having clearly and distinctly perceived or demonstrated a
truth. But, unlike clear and distinct
perception, which is an act of the understanding that can arguably be
considered to be infallible, remembering is an act of memory, and we know
from experience that our memories are unreliable and can often perceive
us. Moreover, the argument of Meditations IV does nothing to
establish the reliability of memory (it only establishes the reliability of
clear and distinct perception). Since
we have good reason to doubt the reliability of memory, we still cannot rely
on the truth of demonstrations that we only remember having performed, Descartes’s proof of the existence of God
notwithstanding. Could Descartes have
replied to this objection? If so,
how? If not, might he still have been
able to go on to say everything he did in Meditations
VI or would his other conclusions be put in jeopardy?
5. Does
anything that Descartes had to say in Meditations
V help to answer the objection that there is a circularity
in his demonstration of the existence of God in Meditations III?
6. How does
the Meditations V argument for the
existence of God differ from the Meditations
III argument? Why is the Meditations V argument necessary? Might it just as well have been given in Meditations III or is there something
about the Meditations V argument
that makes it dependent on the results of Meditations
IV? Is the Meditations III argument any less dependent on the conclusions of
Meditations IV than the Meditations V argument? Descartes, Meditations VIa (AT
VII 71-80; cf. Discourse IV, AT VI 39-40)
1. Is
Descartes entitled to affirm the separability principle? That is, from the fact that I can clearly
and distinctly perceive one thing without another, does it have to follow
that the one thing must be capable of existing apart from one another?
2. Has
Descartes made a convincing case for the claim that minds could exist apart
from bodies and that thought and feeling do not have to involve any operation
of an extended thing?
3. According
to Descartes, I can be sure that external objects exist because I find in
myself a strong inclination to suppose that my ideas of sense are caused by
such objects, and God would be a deceiver for giving me such an inclination
were there no such objects in existence. But, by the same token, I find in
myself a strong inclination to suppose that bodies possess colour and other
sensible qualities. Yet Descartes
appears not to have wanted to conclude that external objects must therefore
be coloured and possessed of the other sensible qualities. How can this
be? Is Descartes’s
position on the demonstrability of the existence of extended objects but the undemonstrability of the existence of coloured objects
consistent? If so, say why. If not, say why not. Descartes, Meditations VIb
1. Over the
course of the Meditations, and
particularly over the second half of Meditations
VI, Descartes frequently invoked the term, “nature,” and discriminated a
number of different kinds of “nature” and senses in which he wanted the term,”nature” to be understood. “Nature taken generally” is defined at AT VII 80, but there is another definition of “nature
taken more narrowly” at AT VII 82. Descartes outlined correspondingly
different accounts of what is “taught by nature” in each of these senses and
what is taught to us by “a certain habit of making reckless judgments.” At AT VII he also
contrasted what has been “taught by nature” with what is known in the “light
of nature.” And over AT VII 84-85 “nature” is used again in a “latter” and a
“former” sense that do not bear any obvious relation to either the “general”
or the “narrow” definitions of “nature.”
Taking all of these passages into account, formulate a general account
of Descartes’s position on “nature” in all of its
senses. Determine whether he managed
to clearly separate the different senses of the term.
2. Did
Descartes have any principled way of distinguishing between what is “taught
to us by nature” and what is taught to us by “a certain habit of making
reckless judgments” or is this distinction irredeemably confused and
ambiguous?
3. Undertake a
study of Descartes’s correspondence and that of his
contemporaries in order to determine exactly what problems he got into over
the issue of the Eucharist and why.
4. One of Descartes’s most astute critics was Princess Elizabeth of
5. Undertake
this same project with reference to Descartes replies to the author of the
fifth set of the objections to the Meditations,
Pierre Gassendi.
6. Did
Descartes come up with an adequate response to the dreaming argument? Cartesian
Science (Discourse V, AT VI 40-45; Discourse VI, AT VI 63-65; Matthews,
99-108; Principles of Philosophy II.1-23 available in course packet or
in The Continental Rationalists
electronic database)
1. Descartes’s position
that there is no such thing as space, but just extended bodies in a plenum,
was challenged in his own day by Pierre Gassendi, and in the generation after by Isaac Newton. Both Gassendi and
Newton maintained that space is something in its own right, that would
continue to exist even if bodies were annihilated, and Newton maintained that
an “absolute space” (a space that is not defined relative to bodies but is
supposed to be separate from them and immovable) must be presupposed as an
ultimate reference frame for inertial motion.
2. Descartes’s position
that the essence of body consists just of extension, so that whatever other
real qualities a body might in fact have are ones that would have to be
merely accidental to it and that it could stand to lose without ceasing to be
a body, was in perfect accord with the mechanistic outlook of the early
seventeenth century, but it was challenged in the later part of the
century. Locke maintained, in
opposition to Descartes, that bodies must have a real quality of solidity in
addition to extension.
3. Leibniz’s
view that repulsive force is responsible for the transmission of motion upon
impact naturally led him to suppose that collisions would always have to be
elastic. This is turn
led him to attack Descartes’s account of the laws
of collision on the ground that they violate a fundamental metaphysical
principle, the law of continuity.
Outline Descartes’s account of the laws of
collision as stated over Part II, Articles 46-53 of his Principles of philosophy
and Leibniz’s critique, given over Part II, Articles 46-53 of his “Critical
remarks on Descartes’s principles.”
4. In Part II,
Article 36 of his Principles of philosophy Descartes maintained
that the same quantity of motion is present after collision as before, so
that quantity of motion is conserved through collision. Leibniz objected to this view, maintaining
that it is rather the quantity of moving force in bodies that is conserved
through collision. (The moving force
or “vis viva” is another of the forces
Leibniz attributed to bodies.)
Descartes considered the quantity of motion to be the product of the
quantity of matter and its speed, a formula very close to that Descartes (Principles I.1-23)
1. Was
Descartes entitled to claim that there is no way to distinguish waking from
dreaming?
2. Could a
deceiver who systematically deceives me, and ensures that I never come across
any evidence of my mistake, really be a deceiver?
3. Was
Descartes entitled to claim, at this stage in his argument, that he did not
need to have a body in order to be able to understand, affirm, deny, doubt,
will, etc.?
4. Could an
evil genius make me be mistaken about my intuitions?
5. Descartes
claimed to know that he is a thinking thing.
However, to say that what exists is a “thing” suggests that there is something
that bears properties (in this case, that there is something that has
thoughts) and that this thing endures over time, perhaps altering in state
(i.e., changing its thoughts) over time.
Is there anything in Descartes’s account
that might entitle him to affirm that, in addition to the thoughts that he
knew must exist, there must be some one substance in which they all inhere?
6. Assess the
adequacy of Descartes’s attempt to defend his
ontological argument for the existence of God against the objections he
himself raises to that argument.
Consider whether there are any other, more serious objections he fails
to consider and then consider whether he could also answer those objections.
philosophy of his
own. The chief point in dispute
between Malebranche and Arnauld was whether ideas
are objects of apprehension (the view of Malebranche), or acts whereby
objects are apprehended (the view of Arnauld). The Malebranche/Arnauld
dispute has been the subject of extensive scholarly study, but two early
papers on the topic are classics that should be read by any student of 17th
century philosophy: Robert McRae, “‘Idea’ as a Philosophical Term in the 17th
Century,” Journal of the history of
ideas 26 (1965): 175-184, and John Yolton,
“Ideas and Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy,” Journal of the history of philosophy 13 (1975): 145-166. Study
these two papers and report on the main results of each.
8. Does
Descartes have a principled way of distinguishing between what is known by
the “light of nature” and what is known by “natural impulse”?
9. Consider
whether Descartes is in any position to claim to be certain of any of the
causal principles he invokes in Principles
I.18. Try to come up with the best
argument you can to defend his position and the best argument you can to
reject it. Determine which argument is
the strongest. 10.
Descartes’s notion of
eminent causality is drawn from medieval philosophy. Undertake a research project to discover
just how this notion was understood by medieval philosophers. (Note that rather than speak of eminent
causality, the medievals might have instead
discussed eminent containment of a form, which they would have contrasted
with literal exhibition of a form.)
Determine whether the medievals managed to
articulate a clear, coherent sense in which it is possible for a thing to
contain a form it does not literally exhibit.
Then determine whether Descartes had any right to employ this notion
(note that, despite the doubts of Meditations
I, he only needed to make a case that it is possible that there might be
eminent causes). If he dids have a right to employ the notion, did he also have
a right to make the further claim that he could be the “eminent” cause of his
idea of extension? Descartes (Principles I.24-47)
1. Compare Descartes’s position on the freedom of the will, as
presented in Principles I.24-50
with Hobbes’s, as presented in Human
nature XII, and determine which is more plausible and which provides a
more thorough and adequate account of the phenomena of the will. Note that Hobbes authored a set of comments
on Descartes Meditations (the third
set in the so-called “objections and replies,” commonly in with the editions
of the Meditations). In his twelfth objection, Hobbes charged
that Descartes had merely assumed the freedom of the will without proof and
that his position is not obviously true, as it is denied by many, notably
Calvinists (i.e., those who believe in predestination and the possibility of
doing good only through Grace). Assess the adequacy of Descartes’s
reply to Hobbes on this matter. Descartes (Principles I.48-76)
1. How does Descartes’s position on the nature of universals fit in
with the traditional debate between realists, who take there to be universal things
existing in reality, nominalists, who maintain that
everything that exists is a particular and that the only things that are
universals are certain words that are used to stand for groups of
particulars, and conceptualists, who maintain that while there are no
universal things there may be abstract ideas in the mind that represent just
the common or general features of groups of things?
2. Outline Descartes’s account of real, modal, and conceptual
distinctions and explain to what extent the claims of Principles I.48-76
concerning mind, body, and sensation are grounded in that account.
3. Is Descartes’s
notion of conceptual distinctions ultimately intelligible? If two things cannot be separated from one
another, how can they be at all distinct?
If they are distinct, how can they be inseparable? How can an attribute such as thought or
extension be conceptually distinct from a substance such as mind or body if
the substance is inconceivable apart from the attribute? What are we conceiving when we conceive a
distinction in this case?
4. Is there
any way that Principles I might be
read as itself justifying the claim that the
qualities revealed to us by our senses do not exist outside of us in
bodies? If this claim is only
justified in later sections of the Principles,
is it appropriate that it be relied on so heavily in this section? Descartes (Principles II.1-23)
1. Is
Descartes entitled to affirm the separability principle? That is, from the fact that I can clearly
and distinctly perceive one thing without another, does it have to follow
that the one thing must be capable of existing apart from one another?
2. Has
Descartes made a convincing case for the claim that minds could exist apart
from bodies and that thought and feeling do not have to involve any operation
of an extended thing?
3. According
to Descartes, I can be sure that external objects exist because I find in
myself a strong inclination to suppose that my ideas of sense are caused by
such objects, and God would be a deceiver for giving me such an inclination
were there no such objects in existence. But, by the same token, I find in
myself a strong inclination to suppose that bodies possess colour and other
sensible qualities. Yet Descartes
appears not to have wanted to conclude that external objects must therefore
be coloured and possessed of the other sensible qualities. How can this
be? Is Descartes’s
position on the demonstrability of the existence of extended objects but the undemonstrability of the existence of coloured objects
consistent? If so, say why. If not, say why not.
4. One of Descartes’s most astute critics was Princess Elizabeth of
5. Descartes’s position
that there is no such thing as space, but just extended bodies in a plenum,
was challenged in his own day by Pierre Gassendi, and in the generation after by Isaac Newton. Both Gassendi and
Newton maintained that space is something in its own right, that would
continue to exist even if bodies were annihilated, and Newton maintained that
an “absolute space” (a space that is not defined relative to bodies but is
supposed to be separate from them and immovable) must be presupposed as an
ultimate reference frame for inertial motion.
6. Descartes’s position
that the essence of body consists just of extension, so that whatever other
real qualities a body might in fact have are ones that would have to be
merely accidental to it and that it could stand to lose without ceasing to be
a body, was in perfect accord with the mechanistic outlook of the early
seventeenth century, but it was challenged in the later part of the
century. Locke maintained, in
opposition to Descartes, that bodies must have a real quality of solidity in
addition to extension. Descartes (Principles II.33-40,
64; IV.189-99, 203-4; Discourse VI [AT VI: 63-65])
1. Leibniz’s
view that repulsive force is responsible for the transmission of motion upon
impact naturally led him to suppose that collisions would always have to be
elastic. This is turn
led him to attack Descartes’s account of the laws
of collision on the ground that they violate a fundamental metaphysical
principle, the law of continuity.
Outline Descartes’s account of the laws of
collision as stated over Part II, Articles 46-53 of his Principles of philosophy
and Leibniz’s critique, given over Part II, Articles 46-53 of his “Critical
remarks on Descartes’s principles.”
2. In Part II,
Article 36 of his Principles of philosophy Descartes maintained
that the same quantity of motion is present after collision as before, so
that quantity of motion is conserved through collision. Leibniz objected to this view, maintaining
that it is rather the quantity of moving force in bodies that is conserved
through collision. (The moving force
or “vis viva” is another of the forces
Leibniz attributed to bodies.)
Descartes considered the quantity of motion to be the product of the
quantity of matter and its speed, a formula very close to that (Matthews
137-39, 146-158)
1. Do a study
of recent commentaries and papers on Newton’s Principia in order to come up with an full account of Newton’s objection
that, were vortices responsible for moving the planets, their parts would
have to move with two different speeds at once. That is, explain why the parts would have
to simultaneously move at a speed that is proportional to the square of their
distance from the sun and the 3/2 of their distance from the sun, and explain
what it is about
2. Newton
found a way of doing physics without talking about real causes (that is,
about what it is that makes events in nature occur as and when they do) or
about the nature of bodies (that is, about whether bodies are just solid,
extended particles, or something less or something more, such as centers of
repulsive or attractive force). Instead of talking about these things he
simply talked about nomological causes (that is,
about the laws in accord with one thing regularly happens after something
else), and about generally observed behaviours of bodies (for example, about
the fact that they all gravitate towards one another, or all push back
against bodies that push on them). But
he did commit himself to at least one metaphysical thesis: the existence of
absolute space. An earlier question,
in the Cartesian Science section, asked you to recount (Matthews
139-146)
1.
2. Another
critic of Newton’s account of absolute space and of his philosophy in general
was Leibniz, who engaged in a critical correspondence with Samuel Clarke that
is widely available in various independent editions and collections of
Leibniz’s works (usually under the title of “the Leibniz-Clarke
Correspondence”). Study the
correspondence and identify Leibniz’s main objections to
3. George
Berkeley considered absolute space and time to be “abstract ideas” that have
been invented by philosophers and that do not reflect anything that could
possibly exist. He was unpersuaded by Locke, Essay Epistle and I.i.1-4,6-8;
I.ii.1-9,12,14-16; I.iii.1-6,9,22,24-25; I.iv.1-5,8-9,24-25 (Innate
Ideas)
1. Locke’s
definition of “idea” as “whatever it is, which the Mind can be employ’d about in thinking,” (Essay I.i.8) has long puzzled commentators. According to one theory, Locke expressed
himself so vaguely because he wanted to include both images formed by the
imagination and concepts grasped by the intellect under the umbrella of the
term, “idea.” However, other
commentators have criticized Locke’s definition for failing to provide
adequate guidance on the question of whether ideas are acts whereby the mind
thinks of an object or “third things” (in addition to the mind and the
objects in the external world) that are produced in the mind as a consequence
of the activity of objects. These
questions have recently been judiciously reviewed by Michael Ayers, Locke, 2 vols. (London: Rougledge, 1991), vol. 1, chs. 5-7. Summarize and comment on Ayers’s
position.
2. The main
objection that Locke raised against innate knowledge in Essay I.ii-iii is that no good argument
has been offered for supposing that there is any such thing. However, Locke only ever considered one
argument for innate knowledge: the argument from universal consent, and it
might be objected that this is to attack a straw man, for there are better
and more convincing arguments for innate knowledge. Locke was attacked in just this way by
Leibniz, who wrote an extended commentary on Locke’s Essay, the New essays on human understanding. Leibniz’s New essays have been translated by Peter Remnant and Jonathan
Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Review Book I of Leibniz’s New essays (which comments on Book I of
Locke’s Essay) and write a paper
outlining Leibniz’s main objections to Locke.
Assess whether Leibniz or Locke has the better case. Locke, Essay II.i.1-8,20,23-25; ii, viii.1-6,
iii-vi; vii.1-2,7-10 (Sensation)
1. Critically
assess Locke’s argument for empirism, as presented
over Essay II.i.5-7, ii.2-3, iii.1
and III.iv.11.
2. In the
mid-eighteenth century the French philosopher, Etienne Bonnot,
Abbé de Condillac, argued that Locke had been too
moderate in his empirism insofar as he had allowed
that we might be innately capable of performing certain operations on our
ideas and obtaining “ideas of reflection” from reflecting on those
operations. According to the argument
of Condillac’s most famous work, the Treatise
on sensations, we learn to perform all mental operations through having
our attention focused in certain ways as a consequence of the experience of
pleasure and pain. Study Condillac’s
work and explain whether his “sensationist” reply
to Locke is ultimately successful.
3. Locke’s
position on the distinction between body and space was a controversial one,
and many philosophers in addition to Descartes found it difficult to
accept. He offered further arguments
for it in a chapter specifically devoted to space, Essay II.xiii. Some of the principal arguments against the
possibility of empty space were articulated by Pierre Bayle in note I of the
article on “Zeno of Elea” from his Historical
and critical dictionary (Richard H. Popkin,
trans. [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991], pp.377-385), with specific reference to
Locke’s inability to defend his position with anything more than objections
to the contrary position. Locke, Essay II.viii.7-26; ix.1-4,8-9; x.1-2;
xi,1,4,6,8,9.15,17 (Primary
and Secondary Qualities; Perception)
1. Critically assess
Locke’s argument for inferring that our type (i) ideas must be resemblances
of qualities in bodies.
2. Critically
assess Locke’s arguments for inferring that our type (ii) ideas are not
resemblances of any qualities actually inhering in bodies.
3. Locke’s
claim that there is a distinction to be drawn between type (i) and type (ii)
ideas was in part based on an appeal to the claim that type (ii) ideas are
relative (the same water can feel warm to one hand but cold to the other)
whereas our senses never give us conflicting information about the type (i)
qualities of objects (no object ever feels like a globe to one hand but a
cube to another — Essay
II.viii.21). However, this claim seems obviously false in a number of cases
(a pencil in a glass of water looks bent but feels straight, for
example). This is a point that was
made by Bayle in note H of his Zeno article (to be read later in this class),
by way of criticism of the Cartesian claim that a “blind impulse” leads us to
think that material things are coloured, but a clear and distinct perception
leads us to think that they must be extended.
However, it works just as well as a criticism of Locke, and both
Berkeley (Principles 14-15) and
Hume (Enquiry XII) used it as
such. Survey Bayle’s,
4. Locke’s
claim that there is a distinction to be drawn between type (i) and type (ii)
ideas was also attacked by Berkeley (Principles
10, drawing on the argument of his Introduction to the Principles) on the grounds that it is impossible to form a type
(i) idea without making use of a type (ii) idea. This is because we cannot think of a figure
without a boundary, and we cannot think of a boundary without employing
contrasting qualities to mark its presence.
5. In his New essays on human
understanding, Book II, Chapter 9, Section 8, Leibniz rejected Locke’s
and Molyneux’s answer to the Molyneux question,
writing that “the blind man whose sight is restored could distinguish [the
cube and the sphere] by applying rational principles to the sensory knowledge
he has already obtained by touch” (Remnant and Bennett, eds. [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1981], p.136).
Outline the reasons Leibniz gave for his view and the qualifications
he applied to his positive answer.
Assess whether Leibniz or Molyneux has the stronger case.
6. It has
occasionally been charged that Locke’s negative answer to the Molyneux
question is inconsistent with his own position on the distinction between
type (i) and type (ii) ideas.
According to this objection, if type (i) are resemblances of qualities
in bodies, then the newly sighted person ought, on first seeing a globe or a
cube, to be able to suppose that the type (i) ideas they receive from vision
resemble qualities actually existing in bodies, and relate that information
to their tangible experience in order to be able to say which object is the
globe and which the cube. This objection is not supported by the
interpretation of Locke’s reasons for agreeing with Molyneux that was offered
in the reading notes. However, the
issue is not clear-cut. Accounts of
Locke’s position on the Molyneux question can be found both in works on Locke
(e.g., E.J. Lowe, Locke on human
understanding [
7. Locke was
not the only early modern philosopher to have problems accounting for the
phenomenon of memory. Do a comparative
and critical survey of attempts to account for the phenomenon of remembering
by major and minor figures in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Particularly worthy of study are, in
addition to Locke, Condillac, Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Reid. Locke, Essay II. xii; xiii.1-5; xxii.1-5,9;
xxiii.1-11,15-20 (Substance)
1. Do a study
of the correspondence between Locke and Stillingfleet
on the topic of substance. Outline the
course of the correspondence and assess the quality of the arguments on
either side. Do a review of what other
English critics of Locke’s views on substance were saying at this time.
2. In his
exchanges with Stillingfleet (see Winkler, 341-45)
Locke denied ever wanting to suggest that there is no such thing as substance
or even ever wanting to suggest that our idea of substance arises simply from
a sort of verbal illusion. He claimed
instead that the necessity of the existence of substance, and the consequent
legitimacy of our idea, is proven by the fact that none of our simple ideas,
including those of extension and solidity, can exist on their own. As he put it at II.xxiii.4, “because we
cannot conceive, how [the complication or collection of those several simple
ideas of sensible qualities that we find united in things such as those we
call horse or stone] should subsist alone, nor in one another, we suppose
them existing in, and supported by some common subject.” Was Locke right about this or might a
critic object that a simple idea could very well exist on its own or that two simple ideas might mutually support one another’s
existence without needing to inhere in some substance? If he was not right, is there some other
good reason for supposing that substance must exist? In answering these
questions, consult the views expressed by Hume in Book I, Part iv, Sections 2-4 of his Treatise of human nature. Locke, Essay II.xxi.1-5,7-11,13-15,22-25,29-33,40-48,51-53,56 (Power)
1. Was Locke
able to successfully distinguish the power of freedom from that of volition? Is his treatment of these notions
ultimately coherent?
2. Does
Locke’s account of volition differ from Descartes’s? If so, how?
If not, what is the common position of the two on the nature of the
will and what is the textual basis for attributing this position to each?
3. Assess the
adequacy of Locke’s reasons for denying freedom of the will.
4. Was Locke
ultimately able to reconcile determinism of the will with moral
responsibility and blameworthiness?
5. Compare
Locke’s and Hobbes’s views on the nature of the will and the possibility of
freedom of the will. Locke, Essay II.xxvii.1-14 (Identity)
1. Outline
Locke’s theory of personal identity and then comment on whether phenomenon of
false memory poses any problems for that theory. Supposing that someone can be
convinced (say by a skillful police interrogator)
that they remember committing a crime that they did not commit, would they in
fact become guilty of that crime?
2. Outline
Locke’s theory of personal identity and then comment on whether the
phenomenon of the transitivity of identity poses problems for that
theory. We think that identity is
transitive, that is, that if a=b and b=c then a=c. But, to cite a case popularized by Thomas
Reid, we can imagine a man who as a boy was beaten for stealing cherries, who
as a young adult seized a standard in battle, and who as an old man is a
general. The general remembers seizing
the standard, but not being beaten; the person who seized the standard
remembers being beaten. Yet Locke’s
account seems to entail that while the general is the same person as the
soldier who seized the standard, and the soldier is the same person as they
boy who was beaten, the general is not the same person as the boy.
3. According
to Locke’s theory of personal identity, a person who cannot remember having
committed a crime cannot be considered guilty of that crime, even if the
person happens to now inhabit the body that performed that crime. This claim was challenged by Molyneux, who
charged that we do take people who, say, get so drunk they cannot remember
what they are doing and who then commit crimes to be responsible for those
crimes. Locke’s correspondence with
Molyneux on this question is discussed by Henry Allison, “Locke’s Theory of
Personal Identity,” in Ian Tipton, ed., Locke
on human understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), P. Helm, “Did Locke Capitulate to Molyneux?” Journal of the history of ideas 42 (1981): 469-477, and Henry
Allison and Nicholas Jolley, “Locke’s Pyrrhic
Victory,” Journal of the history of
ideas 42 (1981): 672-74. Survey
this literature and comment on what it establishes.
4. Survey the
recent philosophical literature on identity and personal identity. Have recent philosophers improved
significantly on Locke’s account and if so how? Locke, Essay III.iii.1-4,6-13,15-18;
vi.1-9,12,14-19,23,25-26,28 (Abstract
Ideas, Essence)
1. In the
Introduction to his Principles of human
knowledge of 1710, George Berkeley attacked Locke’s account of abstract
ideas. Study
2. For Locke,
the meaning of a word is the idea it is used to name. Ideas are also private mental occurrences,
known only by the person who has them.
This means that everyone’s language is private, the words in it being
used to refer to things that only that person knows. The intelligibility of a private language
was famously attacked by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953),
p.269ff. Recount Wittgenstein’s
argument and determine (i) whether Locke’s account of language is ultimately
a “private language” account or rather an account that recognizes that
meaning is ultimately determined by factors external to the individual’s
mental states, and (ii) whether Locke’s account can be defended against
Wittgenstein’s attack.
3. At the
outset of the Investigations
Wittgenstein attacked the traditional Lockeian account of classification on
the basis of observed similarities and proposed an alternative account of how
it is that we group things like dogs together by appeal to the notions of a
language game and of family resemblance.
Outline Wittgenstein’s account and determine whether it is superior to
Locke’s. Does Locke’s view that we
might classify objects on the basis of their tertiary qualities or powers
provide him with a way of evading Wittgenstein’s criticisms of the
traditional account?
4. Has Locke’s
conventionalism about real essences been refuted by modern chemistry?
(That is, do modern definitions of the elements in terms of the numbers of protons in their nuclei constitute definitions in terms of
“real essences” that are not merely
conventional, but grounded in nature?)
In giving your answer, you
should consult the discussion of this issue in Michael Ayers, Locke,
epistemology and ontology, 2 vols. (London: Routledge, 1991), vol. II, ch. 7, pp. 78-90, drawing on earlier work by Saul Kripke, “Naming and
Necessity,” in Donald Davidson and
Gilbert Harman, eds., Semantics of
natural language (Dordrecht, 1972), and Hilary Putnam, Philosophical papers II: mind, language
and reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). Locke, Essay IV.i; ii.1-7,14; iii.1-14,17-18,21 (Knowledge)
1. According
to Locke, all ideas arise from experience.
But not all relations
between ideas are known by experience, that is, by having an experience in which
two or more ideas are simultaneously presented and exhibited as standing in a
certain relation to one another. Some
relations between ideas are discerned by remembering the related ideas,
comparing them with one another, and “intuiting” that they stand in a certain
relation, without ever having had an experience where all the related ideas
are simultaneously presented. It is
for this reason that Lockeian “intuitive” knowledge has been considered to be
a form of “a priori”
knowledge. (A priori knowledge is knowledge obtained independently of experience — in this case, knowledge of a relation
between two things obtained independently of having experienced those two
things together.) A priori knowledge is controversial. Many have doubted that there could be such
a thing, and those who accept it are not agreed on what makes it
possible. Do a survey of recent work
on what makes a priori knowledge
possible. Might any of the recently
advocated positions on a priori
knowledge be read back into Locke?
2. It has been
charged that Locke’s view of intuition involves a commitment to innate
knowledge of just the sort that he proposed to reject in Book I of the Essay.
According to this objection, our ability to simply intuit that there
is a relation between certain ideas is a function of our innate
constitution. Some propositions, such
as that cubes have six faces, may appear intuitively obvious to us, but not
to other creatures, and things that we are only able to know through a
complicated demonstration, such as that there are only five Platonic solids,
may be intuitively obvious to others beings.
Worse, some of our intuitions may be deceptive. Do a survey of recent work on Locke’s
account of intuition and assess the strength of this objection in light of how
recent commentators on Locke have dealt with it.
3. The
difficulties created by our need to rely on memory in giving demonstrations
are among the reasons that motivated Hume to declare that the conclusions of
a demonstration are merely probable and so cannot constitute knowledge. In Book I, Part iv,
Section 1 of his Treatise of human
nature Hume appealed to this fact to mount a notorious argument against
reasoning. Outline Hume’s argument and
assess its adequacy.
4. One problem
with Locke’s account of demonstration is that it breaks down in cases where
ideas stand in intransitive relations to one another. (A transitive relation has the following
property: for any three things, A, B, and C, if A stands in the relation to
B, and B stands in the relation to C, then A stands in the relation to C.
Equality is such a relation.) For
example, I can intuit that A closely resembles B and that B closely resembles
C, but I might be wrong to take this to constitute a demonstration that A
must closely resemble C. How might
Locke have dealt with this problem?
5. Assess the
adequacy of Locke’s attempt to prove that sensation gives us knowledge (as opposed to mere belief) in the existence of external
objects. (Consider what he has to say
on this topic in Essay IV.xi as well as IV.ii.14.) Has he even established that sensation
gives us belief? Identify and study the main contributions to the late 17th
and early 18th century English debate over thinking matter. Identify the most compelling arguments
formulated for and against the possibility that matter might think. Note that Locke adopted something of a
half-way position on this debate insofar as he maintained that thought could
not originally pertain to matter, though it could be added to it by an act of
God (see, for instance, Essay
IV.x.10). Determine whether Locke’s
half-way position is at all consistent. Locke, Essay IV.iv.1-12;
ix.2-3; x.1-7; xi (Knowledge
of Real Existence)
1. Locke’s
claim that it is intuitively evident that every event must have a cause was
attacked by Hume in Book I, Part iii, Chapter 3 of his Treatise concerning human understanding. Recount and assess Hume’s argument.
2. It is
surprisingly difficult to prove that there are other minds. Survey some of
the recent literature on this topic and explain why the standard arguments
for this conclusion have proven to be less than convincing.
3. Locke
maintained that while we cannot know
that objects continue to exist while not perceived, we can have grounds to believe that this is the case. Hume followed Locke in this respect, but
unlike Locke he did not think that we have good or reasonable grounds to believe that objects continue to
exist unperceived; instead, our belief is a fiction of the imagination, based
on certain propensities that, in other circumstances, are condemned by
philosophers and logicians as producing fallacious opinions. Hume’s argument for this startling
conclusion is offered over Treatise
I.iv.2. Recount this argument, giving
particular attention both to why Hume said that the belief in the unperceived
existence of bodies is not based on any good reason, and what he identified
as the illegitimate operations of the imagination that cause us to have this
belief anyway. Locke, Essay IV.xiv-xv; xvi.1,3-14 (Probability)
1. In Essay II.xxxiii,
entitled “Of the Association of Ideas,” Locke identified “custom,” i.e., the
past experience of a regularity in how ideas are
conjoined, as a “degree of madness” and a “disorder of the mind” which exerts
a baleful influence on our intellectual habits. But in Essay
IV.xvi he treated “analogy to our own or other’s
experience” as an important determinant of the degree of confidence or
assurance we ought to place in a belief.
Study these chapters and determine whether there is a contradiction in
Locke’s account. (Thanks to Ted Morris
for suggesting this problem.) Locke, Essay IV.xviii.1-10; xix (Reason,
Faith, and Enthusiasm)
1. Enthusiasm
was much discussed by writers on philosophy and religion in the early modern period,
when it was employed as a technical term with specific,
and generally pejorative connotations that are no longer present in modern
usage. However different writers,
e.g., Locke, Shaftesbury, Hume, understood enthusiasm in importantly
different ways. Undertake a comparative study of how these and other writers
in the period understood “enthusiasm.” Bayle Dictionnaire, “Pyrrho B”
1. Was Bayle
right that no good argument can be found for treating the primary qualities
differently from the sensible qualities?
2. Might
Locke’s account of personal identity to used to offer a reply to Bayle’s
argument for scepticism regarding my own past existence?
3. To what
extent, if any, might Locke’s account of personal identity be used to offer a
reply to Bayle’s attack on the rationality of the Christian mysteries?
4. Only three
of Bayle’s five appeals to metaphysical Christian mysteries (the first,
third, and fourth) were discussed in the notes. Give an account of his point
in the remaining ones, informed by a study of 17th century views on the
nature of the Trinity and Transsubstantiation.
5. One of the
most notorious responses to the view that the Christian mysteries are
irrational was offered by a group of English thinkers collectively referred
to as the Deists. Notable figures in
this group include Herbert of Cherbury, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Matthew Tindal, and Lord
Bolingbroke. The Deists claimed that
if the mysteries were irrational then they should be rejected and they
strived to formulate and justify a religion stripped of all mysterious
elements. Do a study of the principal Deist tracts and determine to what
extent Locke might be considered to be a member of their group. (Abstract
Ideas)
1. Did
2. Does
3. Is (Immaterialism)
1. Was
2. Was
3. Was
4. Review some
of the recent literature on (Realism)
1. As
described in the notes on the reading, Berkeley’s doctrine of notions raises
a number of difficult questions about what it means for an idea or a notion
to represent an object and about whether Berkeley is within his rights to
treat our knowledge of ourselves so differently from our knowledge of
sensible things.
2. Hume, Enquiry IV (Sceptical
doubts about our powers of knowledge)
1. Hume’s
distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact has been heralded
as one of the first statements of what was later to emerge as the
analytic/synthetic distinction.
However, Hume’s distinction, which is based on appeal to intuitively
obvious relations between ideas, is importantly distinct from later versions
of the distinction, which involve appeals to definitions of terms and the
analysis of concepts. Arguably, Hume’s
“relations of ideas” include things that other philosophers would have
identified as “synthetic a priori” or even purely empirical truths (e.g.,
“orange is more like red than like green”).
Do a more detailed study of differences between Hume’s account of the
distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact and more recent
formulations of an analytic/synthetic distinction.
2. Hume’s
charge that there is no rational justification for causal inference continues
to be hotly debated today. Do a study
of the current debate and determine how well Hume’s position has stood up to
criticism. Hume
Enquiry V.i, IX (Naturalism)
1. In Section
X of the Enquiry Hume seems to have
wanted to condemn those who believe in miracles on the basis of the testimony
of others. Yet in Section V.i of the Enquiry he claimed that belief we form
in anything we have not ourselves observed is “the necessary result of
placing the mind in [particular] circumstances” (e.g., the circumstances of
hearing testimony to the occurrence of miracles), and that it is “an
operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the
passion of love, when we receive benefits; or hatred, when we meet with
injuries,” and that it is “a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning
or process of the thought and understanding is able, either to produce, or to
prevent.” But it is a maxim that no
one ought to be blamed for doing something they were necessitated to do, and
that no one ought to be criticized for forming beliefs which they could not
have altered by any reasoning or process of the thought and
understanding. Was Hume therefore
being inconsistent when he condemned those who believe in miracles? Does his account of belief in unperceived
existence imply that no one has any right to criticize anyone else for any
belief that they might form in matters of fact neither of them has observed? Hume,
Enquiry
II-III, V.ii (Belief)
1. Was Hume
right to claim that the difference between impressions and ideas (as well as
the nature of belief) consists in the force and vivacity of the sentiment
involved in having the experience? In
considering this question, note that Hume himself expressed some ambivalence
about this matter in both the Appendix and the Abstract to his earlier Treatise of human nature. Note also that Hume’s view was sharply
criticized by Reid, who maintained that the difference between a sensation of
pain and a memory or idea of pain is one of kind and
not one of degree of vivacity. On
Reid’s view, to remember or have an idea is to perform an act whereby one
thinks of some past sensation (so
that the past sensation is, as it were, the intentional object of the act of
thought), whereas to actually have a pain is not to think of anything but to simply be a certain way (to be in pain). Hume’s Abstract and Appendix to his Treatise are to be found in all good
editions of the Treatise. Reid’s
views can be found in his Inquiry into
the human mind, Chapter 2, sections 3-5 and Chapter 6, section 20, as
well as in his Essays on the
intellectual powers, Essay II, sections 1-5, 12, 16, Essay III, sections
1-2, and Essay IV, sections 1-3.
2. Hume’s
claim that all ideas are copies of impressions is constitutive of his
particular brand of empiricism. His
arguments for this claim have frequently been criticized as inadequate. A good survey of some of the problems that
have been raised on this score has been provided by Don Garrett, Cognition and commitment (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997), Chapter 2.
Starting from this source and consulting more recent literature,
determine what can be said against and on behalf of Hume’s empiricism.
3. As Tom
Beauchamp has observed in the introduction to his edition of Hume’s Enquiry, there are some who believe
that Hume’s remarks in Enquiry II
concerning the missing shade of blue undermine his empiricism. Do a survey of the recent literature on the
“missing shade of blue” and determine whether this charge is justified. Hume Enquiry VI (Probability;
Necessary Connection)
1. According
to Hume, our belief in an outcome is stronger or weaker depending on the
number of times that outcome has been observed in the total number of
trials. In the Enquiry Hume attributed the fact that our belief is stronger or
weaker in this way to “an inexplicable contrivance of nature.” However, in his earlier Treatise of human nature he
offered a very detailed explanation of how the belief arises. How can he have said something is
inexplicable in one work, when he had himself explained it in another? Did Hume change his mind about the
soundness of his earlier explanation?
If so, why did he continue to invoke it to the extent that he did in Enquiry X?
2. It has
often been charged that Hume’s account of causality is defective insofar as
it treats causes as nothing more than events that regularly precede certain
other events and denies that they have any productive power. According to authors of this objection,
Hume’s account confuses accidental correlations with causes. Just prior to crossing a road, a train blows
its whistle. But though a whistle blow
regularly occurs prior to a train crossing the road, we do not think that the
former event is the cause of the latter.
It does, however, seem to satisfy Hume’s
definition of “cause.” Consider
whether this objection is a good one, in the light of some of the recent
literature discussing Hume’s views on causality.
3. Do a survey
of the recent literature on Hume’s two definitions of cause. Critically assess the positions taken by
recent scholars on this issue in comparison to the position taken in the
notes. Hume,
Enquiry VIII (Liberty
& Necessity)
1. Hume
claimed that “the conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as
regular and uniform, as that between the cause and effect in any part of
nature.” He claimed, further, that
“this regular conjunction has been universally acknowledged … and has never
been the subject of dispute, either in philosophy or common life.” Identify his reasons for making this claim
and assess their strength.
2. Hume
claimed that the notion of liberty only makes sense if it is understood as
the ability to act or not act according to how one is motivated. Is it true that there is no other way to
make sense of the term?
3. Hume
claimed that, considered in themselves, actions are morally indifferent and
are only made good or bad by a consideration of the reasons people have for
performing them. Was he right about
this? Supposing he was, was he right
to draw the conclusion that this means that actions cannot be morally good or
bad unless they are determined by motives?
Would he have an adequate response to someone who said that what makes
actions good or bad is not that they are determined by good or bad motives,
but that the person who performs them always has some motives to act one way
and other motives to act the opposite way and freely chooses to act on the one
sort of motive rather than the other?
4. Hume
claimed that we are forced by our nature to feel sentiments of moral
approbation and disapproval when we contemplate characters, dispositions, and
actions, that are useful or harmful to selves or society, and that we will
feel these sentiments whether or not we think the people involved were
determined to have the characters and dispositions they have. But we also think that it is illegitimate
to blame people for things they were forced to do and could not avoid, even
if we are psychologically compelled to do so.
Is any legitimate praise or
blame of people still possible if Hume is right? Are praise and blame, or rewards and
punishments, still legitimate?
5. Compare the
views of Hobbes, Locke, and Hume on the freedom of the will. Hume, Enquiry X (Miracles)
1. In Enquiry V Hume
claimed that belief has natural causes that are outside of anyone’s
control. As he put it, “belief is the
necessary result of placing the mind in [certain] circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are
so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive
benefits; or hatred, when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a species of
natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and
understanding is able, either to produce, or to prevent” (Enquiry 5.8) But if belief cannot be
produced by reasoning, how can Hume claim that certain beliefs are
unreasonable, as he appears to do in the essay on miracles, when he condemns
those who believe in miracles? And how
can he justly condemn these people for their beliefs if no one has any
control over what they believe, and all of us are irresistibly compelled by
our circumstances to believe what we do? 2. In Enquiry 10.36-37: Steinberg p.88-89, Hume described two cases, one of a supposed darkness over the earth for eight days, the other of the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth. He claimed that the former could be believed, but the latter could not. What is the difference between these cases that would justify treating them differently? What, exactly, was Hume’s point in even discussing them? 3. It has frequently been objected that Hume’s argument against miracles unfairly “double counts” the evidence against testimony. According to this objection, the likelihood of the occurrence of the event being reported is just one factor involved in the assessment of the reliability of testimony. We also consider the number of witnesses, their interest in the case, the likelihood they could have been deceived, and so on. But rather than weigh the intrinsic likelihood of the event being reported along with all of these other factors, Hume made it a distinct factor, of equal weight on its own with all the other considerations combined. In effect, he considered 50% of the credibility of testimony to come from the intrinsic likelihood of the event, and the remaining 50% to be due to the credibility of the witnesses. (This is what is implied by his claim that the most credible witness could not do any more than counterbalance our intrinsic disbelief in the occurrence of an event that violates a law of nature, and so lead us to a suspension of belief on either side.) But it just does not follow that the intrinsic likelihood of the event ought to be ascribed so much weight. Review and assess the recent literature discussing this objection. Hume, Enquiry XII (Scepticism)
1. Critically
assess Hume’s reasons for denying that our senses give us knowledge of an
external world.
2. In Part I
of his Dialogues on natural religion
Hume has one of his characters, Cleanthes, reproach another, Philo, for
maintaining that we ought to limit ourselves to matters of everyday life and
common experience, and not attempt to engage in distant and remote inquires
concerning whether the world had a divine cause or whether there will be a
final judgment. Cleanthes’s charge was
that, if we refrain from inquiries of this sort, then by parity of argument
we ought to refrain from doing theoretical physics, chemistry, or biology,
since in all of these sciences we carry our researches far beyond the bounds
of everyday experience. Does Hume have
a way of replying to this objection?
Can he allow for the validity of scientific inferences concerning
small or remote things, or things in the distant past or future, while
denying that we have any justification for drawing inferences from the
evidence of design in nature to the existence of a designer, or from the
apparent goodness of creation to the creator’s determination to institute a
just distribution of rewards and punishments in an afterlife? |
