10_10__HumeKant

7/27/2019 10_10__HumeKant

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David Hume Immanuel Kant

In Edinburgh... … in Königsberg

7/27/2019 10_10__HumeKant


Late Rationalism & Empiricism Empiricism won for now but Rationalism won't go down without a fight!

The successes and leaps in science were seen

as “evidence” for the validity of empiricism

Science had developed and the need for

reason seems reserved for math + logic

(analytic and/or demonstrative reasoning)

Metaphysics takes a hard blow (Hume)

– Kant tries to “resuscitate” it

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

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David Hume 1711 – 1776

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“HUME'S FORK”

All knowledge falls amongst the categories of:

Relations of Ideas

- analytic, necessary, a priori

e.g. “all bachelors are unmarried”

Matters of Fact

- synthetic, contingent, a posteriori

e.g. “there is a cat on the mat”

- are always in principle subject to doubt or revision

The skeptical results of this division...

- Certainty cannot exist in science

- Ethical positions “appear” arbitrary

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Problem of Causality

- we never experience causality as suche.g. billiard balls knocking into one another

e.g. two clocks in theory could appear to be

causing one another's ticks

Problem of Induction (i.e. inductive logic/reasoning)

- future observations are always open to alteration

- the “regularity of nature” - scientific theories + “laws” challenged

- will the sun rise again?

- are there black swans if we've never seen one?

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A Treat ise o f Human Nature , Bk 1, Sec 6

The problem of the Self - emotions, sensations, impressions

- no direct impression given to us via consciousness as

an object or intuition

- vs. Descartes' Cogito- No obvious unchangeable soul

- Analogy to theater (many roles being played, “chaotic”)

Bundle Theory

- All that can be known are the properties of things

- things are their properties (can't exist otherwise)

- Our identity is a “fluid” bundle with no single form

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A Treat ise of Human Nature , Bk 1, Sec 7

The Reliance on the Senses

Hume sees it as natural and proper that we operate

automatically based on our natural faculties – philosophy

has a way of complicating what is already in order to our

functioning in the world

The Value of Tradition

Tradition (or “custom”) is our only real guide in matters of

both science and ethics

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Hume's Ethics

The is – ought distinction: you cannot derive an ethical imperative from any given

observation of the world

One has no reason to prefer one way or the other the destruction of one's pinky

finger to the destruction of the world (insofar as one can use proof as a kind of

real support for the position)

“Reason is and ought to be the slave to the passions”

You reasonably act in order to serve the guidance of your natural attitude...e.g. torture is not wrong based on any rational principle, for no principle

exists (since it cannot be located or verified in the world given an empiricist

framework)... it just makes you want to vomit

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Immanuel Kant1724 - 1804

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Hume’s Influence on Kant

Awoke him from his “dogmatic slumbers”

Kant considered Hume's empiricism to be valid insofar as we

were not aware with any kind of a priori intuition or concept

which established the very possibility of our intuitions and

concepts of the observable world

The Result (and Subsequent Goal): Kant wants to find a way to

overcome Hume's extreme form of skepticism through reconsidering

the forms of our experience (i.e. what makes sensation possible),

without appealing to notions which had nothing to do with our

experience

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Kant's Synthesis of Epistemological Traditions

Plato → Rationalists → Kant

Aristotle → Empiricists → Kant

Kant inherits an idealism which maintains that our

reason contributes to the world as we perceive it

Kant inherits a skepticism which maintains a suspicionabout knowing things outside experience

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“Transcendental” - new meaning of the term for Kant

"I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with

objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even

before we experience them."

Transcendental Idealism

- there are at least certain intuitions of the mind which area priori

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Proof of the existence of the external world

I must reference myself in time every time I say that “I exist”

I can only make reference to time by the use of considering

outside objects (like clocks)

Therefore, each time I say that I exist, I am referencing the external

world as grounds for my being in it

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Intuitions proper to a priori knowledge

- space

- time

Concepts proper to a priori knowledge

- substance

Sensibility: Intuitions

Understanding: Concepts

Intuitions proper to a posteriori knowledge

- objects of extension

- e.g. books, chairs, tables, apples

Concepts proper to a posteriori knowledge

- substance

“Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are

blind...

...only from their union can cognition arise.”

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KANT'S PROPOSITIONAL DISTINCTIONS

– Review of terms: A priori & A posteriori

– Analytic / Synthetic Distinction

– Four types of propositions (his answer to Hume's Fork)• Analytic a priori (true by definition and prior to experience)

• Synthetic a priori (not true by definition, and priori to experience)

• Analytic a posteriori (not intelligible to our experience)*

• Synthetic a posteriori (not true by definition and after the fact of experience)

*Belonging to the “Noumenal Realm” (Things in themselves)

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Hypothetical Imperative:

Non-universal, pragmatic imperatives (non-ethical, or “amoral”)

The Categorical Imperative:

Universal, bound by duty

[Morally] act only according to a maxim which you could will as a

universal law

Moral du ty:

As rational agents, we each have an obligation to each other...

“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not

use them as means to your end.”

Kant ian Ethics

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