Spinoza

Pantheism- everything is God.

1 substance = God; God is everywhere so God is experienced everywhere. Spinoza was not taken seriously and was quickly forgotten

Immanuel Kant 1724-1806

Idealist- Thought that any philosophy after his could only talk about our experiences

Everything happens in our mind. Something we see is experienced in our mind. No two experiences are the same and this is why we can argue about things; our experiences are different

Our eyes are like video cameras and our ears like microphones. Everything we see and hear is experienced in our brain but it seems like it’s outside. The world is a sensation.

Hegel

The world is “MIND”

Wanted to look at how minds struggle at understanding

The world evolves through something. Triads: Thesis and Antithesis become Synthesis (Thesis)

Knowledge

Epistemology- a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

When does a belief become knowledge? When it is TRUE

Belief- something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.

Knowledge- acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.

For a belief to be knowledge, it must be justifiable. There needs to be evidence to back it up.

Phill will be late for the meeting. (Because his car is broken down)

That statement has evidence to back it up.

23-6=17 (Get 23 things, remove 6, and you have 17 left. Therefore it is justified and proven)

A necessary truth cannot be false unless it’s a contradiction. An Empirical truth can exist as being false.

2 kinds of truth

-          Necessary Truths

23-6=17 (NO experience necessary)

Necessary truths need no experience and are universally accepted                                                        

All Bachelors are married (false because a bachelor is not married, if they get married they are no longer a bachelor)

-          Empirical Truths

From Experiences

Can be false and not contradict itself.

Rationalism- Through reason (mind)

è Possibility of certain knowledge

Empiricism- Through experience

è At best high probability (mind is born blank and we must live off of experiences)

Skepticism- Beliefs are mostly unjustifiable. No certenty

Descartes (1596-1650)

Denied all of his experiences to see what he could find out was true.

Came up with the statement “I think therefore I am”

2 world hypothesis: A world mind, and a shadowy world of experience

The lazy night watchman watches the rooms on his watch route with cameras from his room. He lives in the room and that is his world but so are the rooms that he see’s on the cameras. They show that there can be a real world and a world of senses.

Hume (1711-1776)

If there is such a thing as knowledge, he will collect what he can from his senses.

If something is not a truth of reason (2+2=4) or a Matter of Fact (Experience) then it is not knowledge at all! Just forget about it!

Causality (every cause has an effect) is neither a matter of Truth of Reason or a Matter of Fact

It is 100% possible that what we perceive to be reality is actually different.

Kant

Denies the two world hypothesis

All we have is our senses and we create the world outside of our minds. There is no other world out there

We are born with a knowledge of Causation, Time, Space…

What is time other than the linking of one image to the next? Since our eyes take in images and we simply catalogue them in our minds.

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