|
Rationalism Descartes Spinoza Leibnitz
|
| Date | 21.04.2016 | | Size | 46.62 Kb. |
| Rationalism -
Spinoza Leibnitz Kant Descartes (1596-1650) Obsessed with questions of truth and doubt How could one be certain in the absence of religious guidance and trustworthy senses Typical rationalist program of finding clarity in thought Find clear first principles that could act as a bedrock or foundation for thought Could doubt everything except his own existence Cogito ergo sum Even the act of doubting presupposes a thinking entity From such a clear first principle one could deduce all the rest – deductive reason was seen to be largely infallible. Descartes’s dualism Introduced dualism into modern philosophy and psychology He was certainly not the first to see a sharp distinction between mind and body Aristotle And all the Christian, Medieval thinkers. Medieval dualism Dualism between that which perishes and that which survives death Based on Aristotle’s division into three parts vegetative sensitive -
The first two were vital forces that allow for movement and evidence of life Only active to the extent that they were directed by the intellect or rational soul. The body is a husk that gave evidence of life only when animated by a soul Descartes’s distinction Descartes made a sharper distinction between components Assigned the vital forces solely to the body with the rational soul entirely separate Body is extended whereas the mind is not, “unextended substance” And the body obeys mechanical laws because it is a part of the mechanical universe, whereas the mind does not Cartesian Problems Some claim this is a false distinction and has caused mischief Issues Camouflaged in the wooly Medieval conception How do the mind and body interact? How can something without mass and weight, something that is unobservable, influence something that has mass? Descartes’s Solution – Interactionism The mind and body interact at the pineal gland which takes care of all the translation work Mind influences body through the agency of will Not novel -
Influence of the body on the mind is more complex. The body is subject to passions created by sensation These passions affect the mind When all goes well, passions induce will to control the body, but they can also interfere with clear thought. Descartes’s Theory of Mind Also Influential Distrusted sensory data which are too unreliable to produce clear truths. Assumed that we have innate ideas Ideas are literally innate We have the capacity to form certain ideas. Intellectual faculties such as memory, intuition, and will. Had enormous influence Led to much second and third rate philosophy Retarded French thought Spinoza (1632-1677) Middle class Jewish family in Amsterdam Cherem (excommunication) for radical views Seemed happy to leave religion behind Cartesian and Stoic influences -
“Rediscovered” toward the end of the last century Partially because he was Jewish and thus had a different kind of background And partially because he was geographically isolated Spinoza’s Solution to Mind-Body Parallelism God and his creations are not separable Therefore there can be no radical separation between mind and body They are really two sides to the same coin – different language systems in contemporary thought One important implication in terms of causality The body is part of the physical world that obeys immutable laws Mind (other side of the coin) must also be determined Our mental lives are fully determined. Theory of Emotion & Passion Largely influenced by the Stoics Emotions vs. passions Emotions were directed at clear objects Passions merely generalized disruptions Those we share with God are perfect and are emotions -
Emotions are agents of the intellect Help to channel thought Commit us to reasoned action Whereas the passions will disrupt Truth and Emotion Truth known most clearly when accompanied by emotion We grasp truth as a kind of intuition Our searching for ultimate truth will be guided by emotion And we will experience pleasure when we get there Spinoza’s Influence Very little immediate Rediscovered in 19th Now seen as forerunner of emotion/motivation Leibniz (1646-1716) Well educated Also traveled widely The usual non-academic jobs For last 30 years studied science and most everything else Important views of science, religion, and politics Co-inventor of calculus Contemporary of Locke Much of his philosophy is an attempt to refute him “Nothing is in the intellect which is not first in the senses” To which he replied: Nothing except the intellect itself Leibnitz’s Dualism and Monadology Being consists of monads Basically ideal points of psychic energy However, when concentrated in one place they take on extension and give the impression of body Mind and body obey different laws Adjusted by God to show perfect agreement Pre-established harmony Thus a parallelism account of dualism His theory of consciousness Each monad has mental activity However, the mental activity of an individual monad is so small that it is not conscious Distinction between mental activity and consciousness – first to do so -
Consciousness results when monads are combined Consciousness exists on a continuum A threshold as to what is conscious Early psychological research issue Mind forms thoughts Conscious mental thought is not merely a result of sensation It must be guided by higher mental structures through a process he called apperception A kind of cognitive schema that guided thought. A modern version of Platonic Forms or Aristotlean categories. Leibnitz’s Influence Great influence on the development of psychology in the 19th century. .Psychophysics and thresholds of consciousness Apperception and schematic thinking – Wundt Conflict between ideas – Freud and others Greater immediate influence than Kant, the greater thinker Kant (1724-1804) Academic life at Königsburg Boring life Great importance for all aspects of philosophy Epistemology Aesthetics Moral -
The Major Rationalist Response to Hume Bothered by Hume’s skepticism for religion and morality If nothing could be known with certainty then theology and morality were on shaky grounds So there must be a way of finding certainty Importance of sense data Did not deny the importance Did deny that they were sufficient Empiricists would say we know because we perceive, but the rationalists would say that we perceive because we know. Top down vs. bottom up processing Kant’s Analytic vs Synthetic Propositions An old distinction Analytic propositions are those that are true more or less by definition Linguistic in nature Predicate is logically implied by the subject .Bodies have extension .Bachelors are unmarried males -
Not obviously but probalistically true Empirical Can be assessed only a posteriori Can Synthetic Propositions Have A Priori Validity? Critique of Pure Reason (1781) Even the building blocks of Hume’s analysis of causality are not given in experience Requires that we understand there are actually two objects which requires a notion of extended space And that one follows the other, which requires time One must have implicit categories of space and time Categories must be innate because logically they must precede all experience. Kantian Categories There are 12 categories of thought -- Negation Plurality Causality Necessary for any thought Kant’s Moral Theory Similar arguments for morality -
And logically necessary The famous categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that the maxim of your action could serve as a universal law of nature” Positive Influences on Psychology A sensible rationalism that takes account of experience Most sophisticated version of how mind shapes experiences Notion of categories indirectly influential Implied nativism Negative Influences on History of Psychology Could be no science of psychology Mental processes were fleeting and are of but not in the mind. Mental processes could not be measured, This served as a challenge for subsequent thinkers Herbart and measurement Fechner and psychophysics
Share with your friends: |
|
|
