(are you an envatted brain?)
scepticism: how do we know what we know?
the philosophical skeptic doesn't claim that we know nothing--not least because to do so would be obviously self-defeating (one thing we could not know is that we know nothing). Rather the skeptic's position is to challenge our right to make claims to knowledge. We think we know lots of things, but how can we defend those claims? What grounds can we produce to justify any particular claim of knowledge? Our supposed knowledge of the world is based on perceptions gained via our senses, usually mediated by our use of reason. But are not such perceptions always open to error? Can we ever be sure we're not hallucinating or dreaing, or that our memory isn't playing tricks? [Epistemology]
(earthly knowledge's but a shadow)
the cave represents 'the realm of becoming'--the visible world of our everyday experience, where everything is imperfect and constantly changing. The chained captives (us) live in a world of conjecture and illusion, while the former prisoner, free to roam within the cave, attains the most accurate view of reality possible, within the ever-changing world of perception and experience. By contrast, the world outside the cave represents the 'realm of being'--the intelligible world of truth populated by the objects of knowledge, which are perfect, eternal and unchanging.
what is known must not only be true but also perfect and unchanging. Nothing in the empirical world (represented by life within the cave) fits this description: a tall person is short next to a tree; an apple that appears red at noon looks black at dusk; and so on. As nothing in the empirical world is an object of knowledge, Plato proposed that there must be another ream (the world outside the cave) of perfect and unchanging ideas which he called 'Forms' or Ideas.
the problem of universals: realists/Platonists believe that universals such as redness and tallness exist independently of particular red and tall things; and the anti-realists/nominalists hold that they are mere names or labels that are attached to objects to highlight particular similarities between them. Modern debate continues: realists hold that there are entities 'out there' in the world--physical things or ethical facts or mathematical properties--that exist independently of our knowing/experiencing them. Anti-realists there must be a necessary and internal link or relation between what is known and our knowledge of it.
(what lies beyond the veil?)
most of us uncritically suppose that physical objects around us are more or less what we perceive them to be, but some question that--in their view we have direct access to inner 'ideas', 'impressions' or 'sense data'; human understanding is like a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or ideas of things without. Our ideas, which are all that we have direct access to, form an impenetrable 'veil of perception' between us and the outside world. 'Representational' models of perception: any such model that involves intermediate ideas or sense data drives a wedge between us and the external world, and it is in the fissure so formed that skepticism about our claims to knowledge really exist. It is only by re-establishing a direct link between observer and external object that the veil can be torn and the skeptic vanquished. So, given that the model causes such problems, why adopt it in the first place? Locke hoped that by distinguishing between 'primary' and 'secondary' characteristics (one being intrinsic, the other perceptionally-influenced) he could disarm the skeptic.
Berkeley refuted it by saying that Locke could never actually check whether his supposed resemblances actually resembled the external things themselves, then took it to its conclusion and said that reality consists in the 'ideas' or sensations themselves; with these, we are already fully and properly connected, so the dangers of skepticism are evaded, but only at the price of the denial of an external, physical world. Berkeley's idealist (or immaterialist) theory states "to exist is to be perceived", and since God perceives all things, it remains in existence even when passing out of human perception.
(I am thinking therefore I exist)
(How do we know?)
(When do we really know?)
(Mind boggles)
(Inside a bat's mind?)
("Did you ever take that test yourself?")
(What makes you, you?)
(Is there anybody there?)
(The is-ought gap)
(Is it all relative?)
(Because God says so)
(Expressing moral judgements)
(The least bad option)
(Is happiness enough?)
(Duty at any cost)
(Do as you would be done by)
(To do or not to do?)
(If you give an inch...)
(Should we all be heroes?)
(Does Fortune favor the good?)
(Who you are, not what you do)
(Animal cruelty)
(Human wrongs?)
(Infallible reasoning?)
(If it is, it isn't)
(Against the odds)
(How many grains make a heap?)
(Language and logic)
(Language games)
(Evidence falsifying hypothesis)
(science--evolution and revolution)
(Keep it simple)
(Aesthetic values)
(Meanings in art)
(The divine watchmaker)
(The first and uncaused cause)
(The greatest imaginable being)
(Why does God let bad things happen?)
(Freedom to do wrong)
(The leap of faith)
(Divided loyalties)
(Justice as fairness)
(The social contract)
(Playing the game)
(Does the punishment fit the crime?)
(Is there more room in the boat?)
(Fight the good fight)
Last modified 16 December 2024