Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment? Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
- came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
- Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
- reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
- so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
- believes ethics to be duty to rules
- enamored with Liebniz until he read HumeHume
David Hume
Wrote Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Wrote a History of England
Bkgrd Info
1711-1776
Scottish
studied law at 15, did not like it
self-taught in philosophy
published "Treatise of Human Understanding" at age 28
thought it would make him a rock star like Newton.
received little attention
ReidReid
Thomas Reid
Reid, Inquiry & Essays
Bkgrd info (copied fr. Kate)
important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment (18th century)
Presbyterian Minister
age 16, MA from University of Aberdeen
age 21, licensed preacher for Church of Scotland
age 27, entered Ministry
age 54, wrote Inquiry into the Human Mind
he was called to the University of Glasgow to replace Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy
Common sense = “The most important use of the term “common sense” in R... & KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
... were the only philosophers who took him seriously
His Philosophy
What was in the air
the rationalism and dedu...; found Liebniz to be incomplete - what is the nature of reason & what can/can not be done w/ it
- Trying to defend science
- If NewtonNewton
Newton
came up with a limited small number of principles & explained everything with it
he was all the rage at the time of Reid, Hume; everyone wanted to be the new Newton
this is a code block
is right, then everything is determined. So there must be some underlying noumena below the phenomena - but we also can't talk a/b noumena
- if we don't assume the existence of a rational GodGod
God
Christian God
Epistemology of God
Ockham warned that rational philosophy cannot presume to define a being that transcends the empirically based intellect
DescartesDescartes
Rene Descartes
Background Info
1596-1650
educated at Univ of Paris
Catholic Christian
not an academic
wrote Descartes, Meditations of First Philosophy from a [[Rationalism
rationalistic]] perspective
claims he is making a whole new start in philosophy
D. arrived at a certain and evident knowledge of the truth. He wants to see if he can persuade others by the same method that he himself used.
... affirmed God's existence through reason, but was unconvincing to HumeHume
David Hume
Wrote Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Wrote a History of England
Bkgrd Info
1711-1776
Scottish
studied law at 15, did not like it
self-taught in philosophy
published "Treatise of Human Understanding" at age 28
thought it would make him a rock star like Newton.
received little attention
ReidReid
Thomas Reid
Reid, Inquiry & Essays
Bkgrd info (copied fr. Kate)
important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment (18th century)
Presbyterian Minister
age 16, MA from University of Aberdeen
age 21, licensed preacher for Church of Scotland
age 27, entered Ministry
age 54, wrote Inquiry into the Human Mind
he was called to the University of Glasgow to replace Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy
Common sense = “The most important use of the term “common sense” in R... & KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
... were the only philosophers who took him seriously
His Philosophy
What was in the air
the rationalism and dedu... and KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
...
can God be known through experience and/or reason, or can we only know (about) him through faith?
maybe God is thinkable, but not knowable KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
...
Greek Deities
based in myth
myth crossed over into histo... who made a rational universe, why would we assume that our mind can coorespond to reality? All we can know is that it works for us.
- If NewtonNewton
- developed transcendental realism
- experience is understood through & affected by reason
- key player in EnlightenmentEnlightenment
Enlightenment
17th & 18th century
church authorities challenged
free gov, free religion
key players: [[Bacon]], [[Descartes]], [[Kant]], many others
challenged monarchical structure, who gets to be king
leads to "enlightened despots"
those who rule in spirit of enlightenment (not divine right of kings, but are authoritarean)
includes Napoleon, Peter the Great, Catherine
don't assume anything; prove everything
Major Works
- Epistemology & Metaphysics
- Critique of Pure Reason (First Critique) (1781)
- Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)
- Ethics
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)
- Critique of Practical Reason (Second Critique) (1788)
- Aesthetics & Teleology
- Critique of the Power of Judgement (Third Critique) (1790)
Transcendental Idealism
- understand the world through structures in your mind
- German IdealismGerman Idealism
German Idealism
Members
Fichte
HegelHegel
Hegel
Wrote: Intro to Philosophy of HistoryHegel, Intro to Philosophy of History
Intro to Philosophy of History
Written by [[Hegel]]
Themes
Spirit:
consciousness
self-consciousness
freedom
progress of history
Class Notes
![[Hegel, Intro to Philosophy of History.pdf]]
Summary
Hegel wrote about Spirit, and how it is realized. He explained that the essence of Spirit is Freedom, so then he had to talk about Freedom; and that led to a discussion of consciousness (specifically self-consciousness) and existence. You see, Spirit exists in itself, meaning that it is...
Notes
absolute idealist
key member of German IdealismGerman Idealism
German Idealism
Members
Fichte
[[Hegel]]
Schelling
Spinoza
Schleiermacher
[[Schopenhauer]]
Map of 19th Century Philosophers
![[Map of 19th c. philosophers.png]]
Class Notes
speculative massive encompassing system
everything is idea
grew out of trying to complete KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
... (Transcendental Idealism)
Kant's epistemology of the phenomena & noumena (the thing in itself); the noumena is unknowable
Fichte combines the phenomena & noumena; everything th...
student of Fichte & relied on him in his work
the great intellect is not personal & is accessible to man b/c man's intellect is an extension of its intellect
view of history
teleological development - development in a direction (Darwin takes this and runs w/ it)
history recognizes internal contradictions and s...
Schelling
Spinoza
Schleiermacher
[[Schopenhauer]]
Map of 19th Century Philosophers
![[Map of 19th c. philosophers.png]]
Class Notes
speculative massive encompassing system
everything is idea
grew out of trying to complete KantKant
Kant
Wrote Kant, What is Enlightenment?
Man's primary problem isn't sin; it's that he doesn't have the freedom to reason & be enlightened (??)
Background
came from Prussia, wrote under Frederick the Great
Kant - a rationalist who wants to confine reason to the bounds of experience
reason is bound by the condition of possible experience; cannot reason about unexperienced things
so, we can't reason a/b God crating the world because we didn't experience it
... (Transcendental Idealism)
Kant's epistemology of the phenomena & noumena (the thing in itself); the noumena is unknowable
Fichte combines the phenomena & noumena; everything th... grew out of this project
Some terms
- A posteriori - based in experience
- A priori - not based in experience
- Analytic statement - predicate is logically contained in the subject (primarily definitions & tautologies; e.g. a bachelor is an unmarried man)
- Synthetic statement - predicate adds to the knowledge of the subject (most statements; e.g. cats have 4 legs)
- Transcendental Argument:
- Establish X as the necessary conditions for the possibility of Y
- Then, since Y exists, X must be the case
- Phenomena - things as I experience them, appearances of things
- Noumena - things as they are in themselves (we cannot know noumena, we can only say that they exist)
- but if we can't experience these, why should we say they exist?
- The Categorical Imperative - Kant's moral principle (internal reason; not external authority)
- Act only in ways that everyone could act, ways that don't make exceptions for yourself
- Or, respect the rationality or others, their ability to set their own goals
Questions
- can we make synthetic, a priori statements?
- we can, so our mind has to be filling in / providing experience on its own (e.g. causation)
Kant's "Copernican Revolution"
"Previously it has been assumed that all of our cognition must conform itself to objects… Let us now, therefore, test whether we do not make better progress on the problems of metaphysics by assuming that objects must conform themselves to our cognition… Matters stand here just as they did for the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when things did not go well for explaining the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire host of stars rotates about the observer, sought to find whether things might not go better if the had the observer rotate, and by contrast left the stars at rest."" (Critique of Pure Reason)