Reason

• reason is the "natural light" 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.
  ...
• what is the difference b/t reason & thinking?
  • what is thinking?
    • processing information?
      • in this case, can an animal think?
  • what is reason?
    • a type of thinking?
• can you only accept what has been proven by reason?
• reason is like a telescope: it lets us see things clearer; but it must have something to point at (analogy loosely taken from Reid, Inquiry & Essays, pg 58)

• Descartes makes heavy use of reason in his Descartes, Meditations of First Philosophy

• what is reason?
  • knowing something w/o experience
  • not just logic
  • can you allow for probabilities in reasoning?

Foundationalism Coherentism

can reason be used to resolve disputes?

• because everyone has different starting points, do arguments have to be intuitive/inductive, as opposed to deductive?

when does Reason override Common SenseCommon Sense
Common Sense

What is the nature of common sense?
Is it the same thing as [[Intuition]]?

can common sense contradict itself? ContradictionsCommon Sense
Common Sense

What is the nature of common sense?
Is it the same thing as [[Intuition]]?

can common sense contradict itself? ContradictionsCommon Sense
Common Sense

What is the nature of common sense?
Is it the same thing as [[Intuition]]?

can common sense contradict itself? [[Common Sense#Contradictions|Contradictions]]


Reid

Common Sense precedes [[Reason]]
principles of common sense: "certain principles…which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them." ([[Reid, Inquiry & Essays]], pg 2...


Reid

Common Sense precedes [[Reason]]
principles of common sense: "certain principles…which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them." ([[Reid, Inquiry & Essays]], pg 2...


Reid

Common Sense precedes ReasonReason
Reason

reason is the "natural light" 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.
...
what is the difference b/t reason & thinking?

what is thinking?

processing information?

in this case, can an animal think?




what is reason?

a type of thinking?




can you only accept what has been proven by reason?
reason is like a telescope: it lets us see things clearer; but it must have ...
principles of common sense: "certain principles…which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them." (Reid, Inquiry & Essays, pg 2...?? (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...)

• According to Boyle?, vacuum is contrary to common sense

what is the end of reason?

Diff types of Reasoning

• induction (invented by BoyleBoyle
  Robert Boyle
  
  Summary of Mechanical Principles
  Boyle wrote about mechanical principles, and the ways we make sense of mechanics. He says that the most basic principles of everything are matter and motion. Everything that can be said mechanically about an object boils down to these two. And any changes that happen to a body can only happen physically through mechanical principles.
  )
• deduction (pioneered by AristotleAristotle
  Aristotle
  
  Books
  
  [[Aristotle, Poetics|Poetics]]
  [[Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics|Nicomachean Ethics]]
  [[Aristotle, Categories|Categories]]
  among many others
  
  
  Aristotle's Paradigm (Middle Ages bkgrd)
  
  Matter is eternal and exists w/o forms
  Forms only exist with matter
  No sensations, no imagination, no intellect w/o forms, phantasms, or species in the mind
  Impressions on a passive mind
  
  impressions are the things we see, sense
  
  
  Active intellect perceives pas...)
• abduction

Is man essentially a rational animal?

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... places less emphasis on man's rationality, and more on intuitive custom.

Speaking of intuitive custom (Enquiry, Sec 6, Para 22):

This operation of the mind, by which we infer like effects from like causes, and vice versa, is so essential to the subsistence of all human creatures, it is not probably, that it could be trusted to the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations; appears not, in any degree, during the first years of infancy; and at best is, in every age and period of human life, extremely liable to error and mistake.

Does Reason actually lead toward truth?

• When independent reason in Europe became more accepted in the Enlightenment, Europe moved to become atheistic.