The document discusses and compares the philosophical principles of Rene Descartes and David Hume. It summarizes Descartes' view that substances can exist independently without needing other things for support, and his argument that God's existence is necessary. It then discusses Hume's problem of induction, which argues that past experiences cannot logically justify beliefs about the future. The document analyzes how Descartes' view relies on God where Hume and Locke emphasize empirical evidence. It notes Hume's problem of induction poses difficulties for empiricist accounts of knowledge and cannot be fully justified through deductive or inductive means.
Classic and Modern Philosophy: Rationalism and EmpicismMusfera Nara Vadia
Rationalism and the rationalists, such as Plato, Descartes, and so on.
Empiricism and empiricists, such as Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, William James.
Descartes is a renowned name that is recognized by many as the father of current philosophy. He was also an accomplished mathematician and meta-physician. In his first meditation, he began with the method of distrust, questioning almost everything. In the beginning of his first meditation, Descartes tries to cast doubts on all his experimental views with a single stroke.
See more at: http://www.customwritingservice.org/blog/descartes-method-of-universal-doubt-in-the-first-meditation/
Classic and Modern Philosophy: Rationalism and EmpicismMusfera Nara Vadia
Rationalism and the rationalists, such as Plato, Descartes, and so on.
Empiricism and empiricists, such as Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, William James.
Descartes is a renowned name that is recognized by many as the father of current philosophy. He was also an accomplished mathematician and meta-physician. In his first meditation, he began with the method of distrust, questioning almost everything. In the beginning of his first meditation, Descartes tries to cast doubts on all his experimental views with a single stroke.
See more at: http://www.customwritingservice.org/blog/descartes-method-of-universal-doubt-in-the-first-meditation/
Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief Robert Adams [I have.docxmoirarandell
Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief
Robert Adams
[I have discussed the topics of this paper for several years in classes at the
University of Michigan and UCLA, with students and colleagues to whom I am
indebted in more ways than I can now remember. I am particularly grateful to
Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Bernard Kobes, and Barry Miller for their comments on the
penultimate draft.]
Moral arguments were the type of theistic argument most characteristic of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More recently they have become one of
philosophy's abandoned farms. The fields are still fertile, but they have not
been cultivated systematically since the latest methods came in. The rambling
Victorian farmhouse has not been kept up as well as similar structures, and
people have not been stripping the sentimental gingerbread off the porches to
reveal the clean lines of argument. This paper is intended to contribute to the
remedy of this neglect. It will deal with quite a number of arguments, because I
think we can understand them better if we place them in relation to each other.
This will not leave time to be as subtle, historically or philosophically, as I
would like to be, but I hope I will be able to prove something more than my own
taste for Victoriana.
I
Let us begin with one of the most obvious, though perhaps never the most
fashionable, arguments on the farm: an Argument from the Nature of Right and
Wrong. We believe quite firmly that certain things are morally right and others
are morally wrong (for example, that it is wrong to torture another person to
death just for fun). Questions may be raised about the nature of that which is
believed in these beliefs: what does the rightness or wrongness of an act
consist in? I believe that the most adequate answer is provided by a theory that
entails the existence of God--specifically, by the theory that moral rightness
and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will
or commands of a loving God. One of the most generally accepted reasons for
believing in the existence of anything is that its existence is implied by the
theory that seems to account most adequately for some subject matter. I take it,
therefore, that my metaethical views provide me with a reason of some weight for
believing in the existence of God.
Perhaps some will think it disreputably "tender-minded" to accept such a reason
where the subject matter is moral. It may be suggested that the epistemological
status of moral beliefs is so far inferior to that of physical beliefs, for
example, that any moral belief found to entail the existence of an otherwise
unknown object ought simply to be abandoned. But in spite of the general
uneasiness about morality that pervades our culture, most of us do hold many
moral beliefs with almost the highest degree of confidence. So long as we think
it reasonable to argue at all from grounds that are not absolutely certain,
...
In 1997 Driessen and Suarez edited a book (Springer) on: Mathematical Undecidability, Quentum Nonlocality and the Proof of the Existence of God. Contributors were among others John S. Bell and Paul Davies. This document presents the comments of the editors (introduction, preface and final remarks).
First Enquiry David Hume 12 The sceptical philosophy‘But .docxAKHIL969626
First Enquiry David Hume 12: The sceptical philosophy
‘But with regard to your main line of thought’ (I continued)
‘there occurs to me a difficulty that I shall just propose to
you without insisting on it, lest it lead into reasonings of
too subtle and delicate a nature. Briefly, then, I very much
doubt that it’s possible for a cause to be known only by its
effect (as you have supposed all through) or to be so singular
and particular that it has no parallel or similarity with any
other cause or object we have ever observed. It is only when
two kinds of objects are found to be constantly conjoined
that we can infer one from the other; and if we encountered
an effect that was entirely singular, and couldn’t be placed
in any known kind, I don’t see that we could conjecture
or infer anything at all concerning its cause. If experience
and observation and analogy really are the only guides we
can reasonably follow in inferences of this sort, both the
effect and the cause must have some similarity to other
effects and causes that we already know and have found
often to be conjoined with each other. I leave it to you to
think through the consequences of this principle. I shall
merely remark that, as the antagonists of Epicurus always
suppose that the universe, an effect that is quite singular
and unparalleled, is proof of a god, a cause no less singular
and unparalleled, your reasonings about this seem at least
to merit our attention. There is, I admit, some difficulty in
grasping how we can ever return from the cause to the effect,
and by reasoning from our ideas of the cause infer anything
new about the effect.’
Section 12: The sceptical philosophy
Philosophical arguments proving the existence of a god and
refuting the fallacies of atheists outnumber the arguments
on any other topic. Yet most religious philosophers still
disagree about whether any man can be so blinded as to
be an atheist. How shall we reconcile these contradictions?
The knights-errant who wandered about to clear the world
of dragons and giants never had the least doubt that these
monsters existed!
The sceptic is another enemy of religion who naturally
arouses the indignation of all religious authorities and of
the more solemn philosophers; yet it’s certain that nobody
ever met such an absurd creature ·as a sceptic·, or talked
with a man who had no opinion on any subject, practical
or theoretical. So the question naturally arises: What is
meant by ‘sceptic’? And how far it is possible to push these
philosophical principles of doubt and uncertainty?
Descartes and others have strongly recommended one
kind of scepticism, to be practised in advance of philosophy
or any other studies. It preserves us, they say, against
error and rash judgment. It recommends that we should
doubt not only all our former opinions and principles but
also our very faculties. The reliability of our faculties, these
philosophers say, is something we must be assured of by a
chain of reasoning, deduced fr ...
Essay One: Skepticism
First
Then
Then
Then
At college, Descartes was taught a philosophy called “scholasticism,” the dominant philosophy of the medieval period. Describe some key theses of scholastic philosophy (like geocentrism) that Descartes rejected. (20 points.)
Because he rejects scholasticism, Descartes wants to tear down his entire worldview and start over with fresh foundations. Descartes therefore sets his standard for belief very high. How high – what does Descartes require of knowledge beyond justification and truth? How does Descartes decide whether or not he will keep believing something he believes? (20 points.)
Explain what it means to be certain of a belief, using the concept of “sentence competitors.” Use an example of something most people think they know that they can’t actually know because they can’t rule out all of that belief’s competitors. (20 points.)
Describe the reasons found in Descartes’s first meditation that lead to the skeptical conclusion that we can’t know that we inhabit a shared physical, 3-D world. Describe the idea of the malicious demon that is central to the skeptical argument. How does it supposedly demolish any hope of knowing anything about the world around us? Explain why this outlandish scenario need not actually be true, nor need we believe that it is true, for it to have this effect. (If you’d like you can compare the evil demon to a brain in a vat or The Matrix). (40 points.)
Whereas Descartes’s argument leads to the conclusion that our evidence is never good enough to know that an external world exists outside our mind, David Hume’s argument leads to the conclusion that, even if an external world exists, reason and observation can never tell us how the world works. This is not because we are just too dumb, it’s because there’s no way to justify our beliefs in the laws of nature.
So
Then
Finally
Describe what you’ve concluded about the possibility of a posteriori knowledge of the world, in light of Descartes and Hume’s arguments. Do you believe we can know anything about the world outside our own mind? If so, which of thier premises do you reject, and why? If you accept their skeptical conclusion, do you believe that you have taken this class? Does your acceptance of skepticism entail that every belief is just as good as any other belief, and you might as well believe whatever you want regardless of your evidence? Why or why not? (30 points.)
Essay Two: Personal Identity
First
Then
Explain what it means that laws of nature, if knowable, are knowable a posteriori. Since the laws of nature are not themselves directly observable, how is our purported knowledge of them based on observation? (20 points.)
Explain why Hume thinks we can’t justify our belief in the laws of nature. What assumption does our belief in the lawfulness of nature depend on that, according to Hume, cannot be justified a priori, by direct observation, or by induction? Why can’t any of these methods justify th.
Question and Answers on Discourse on the Method Book.docxIvyPanda Study Hub
The "Discourse on the Method" is a book by René Descartes; it is a philosophical and scientific treatise written in the form of methodical meditation. In the book, Descartes argues that the only thing that can be known for certain is that he exists. Everything else, including physical objects and mathematical truths, is uncertain.
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Read| The latest issue of The Challenger is here! We are thrilled to announce that our school paper has qualified for the NATIONAL SCHOOLS PRESS CONFERENCE (NSPC) 2024. Thank you for your unwavering support and trust. Dive into the stories that made us stand out!
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
How to Split Bills in the Odoo 17 POS ModuleCeline George
Bills have a main role in point of sale procedure. It will help to track sales, handling payments and giving receipts to customers. Bill splitting also has an important role in POS. For example, If some friends come together for dinner and if they want to divide the bill then it is possible by POS bill splitting. This slide will show how to split bills in odoo 17 POS.
Students, digital devices and success - Andreas Schleicher - 27 May 2024..pptxEduSkills OECD
Andreas Schleicher presents at the OECD webinar ‘Digital devices in schools: detrimental distraction or secret to success?’ on 27 May 2024. The presentation was based on findings from PISA 2022 results and the webinar helped launch the PISA in Focus ‘Managing screen time: How to protect and equip students against distraction’ https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/managing-screen-time_7c225af4-en and the OECD Education Policy Perspective ‘Students, digital devices and success’ can be found here - https://oe.cd/il/5yV
This is a presentation by Dada Robert in a Your Skill Boost masterclass organised by the Excellence Foundation for South Sudan (EFSS) on Saturday, the 25th and Sunday, the 26th of May 2024.
He discussed the concept of quality improvement, emphasizing its applicability to various aspects of life, including personal, project, and program improvements. He defined quality as doing the right thing at the right time in the right way to achieve the best possible results and discussed the concept of the "gap" between what we know and what we do, and how this gap represents the areas we need to improve. He explained the scientific approach to quality improvement, which involves systematic performance analysis, testing and learning, and implementing change ideas. He also highlighted the importance of client focus and a team approach to quality improvement.
How to Create Map Views in the Odoo 17 ERPCeline George
The map views are useful for providing a geographical representation of data. They allow users to visualize and analyze the data in a more intuitive manner.
How libraries can support authors with open access requirements for UKRI fund...
Philosophy descartes and hume
1. Running Head: DESCARTES AND HUME 1
Philosophy
Name:
Course title:
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2. DESCARTES AND HUME 2
Philosophical Principle of Descartes Rene and David Hume
There are many principles of knowledge that have been postulated by various theorists.
Among the notable ones are those of Discartes Rene and David Hume who provides
contradictory views on the concept of Knowledge.
For Descartes René, the distinction between the relations of the mind occurs between two
and more elements. He articulated a substance as something, which does not require any support
for its survival or approval. In his opinion, a substance can survive on its own without requiring
any evidence. In his book principle, part I, section 5, Descartes, argues that a substance exhibits a
mode quality, which has a capability to have affection. It is this quality of mode, which enables a
substance to survive on its own. Further, the substances mode exhibits sphere shaped tendencies.
Being sphere shaped means that the object portrays three dimensions to exist. The survival of a
substance therefore is not depended upon on other elements. Descartes postulated that God
created objects or substances to exist independently and not be dependent upon each other. It is
only God who is depended upon by other creatures to survive. This is a basis for his rationale of
the distinction of the mind and the body as well as the theory o knowledge (Veitch, 2005).
From his ontological perspective, Descartes appears to be a firm believer of God. He does
not fear to speak his mind concerning things that could only be possible through God. For
instance, he has talked about the essential truths and eternal life, which were established by God
the almighty. Further, Descartes is also noted to stand firm in this belief by asserting that there
are things, which humans distinctly and clearly assume to be possible. He goes on to claim that
that there are beings who only exists through possibilities. Descartes also perceives that the
almighty God can come with anything, which he distinctly and clearly perceives to be right.
3. DESCARTES AND HUME 3
In one of the replies to his colleagues, he says that human beings ought to differentiate
between the necessary and possible existence. I this sense, they must note that the possible
existence is construed on the notion of all the things, which humans distinctly and clearly
understand. This necessary existence according to Descartes can only be possible through the
idea of the existence of an invisible force.
In his relation with God, Descartes is popularly known for his triangle argument to
explain this God theory. In this perspective, he says that imagining that God does not exist is the
same way as trying to figure out a triangle, which has only two angles or a squire that is a
triangle, an aspect that is practically not possible. Descartes also argues that imagining that God
does not exist is the same way as figuring a mountain with no valley.
Descartes classifies some kind of ideas that are in his mind in an attempt to evaluate the
ones that are proper bearers of truth and those that are not. Some of these ideas include images of
objects, ideas, sky, God, volitions, judgments, and his emotions. In his own volition, Descartes
says that ideas cannot be false. He elaborates this by giving an example that whether he is
imagining a chimera, or goat, he is in both of these cases imagining these aspects. In the same
way, when one desires something which may not exist, he or she still desires them anyway
whether they are in existence of not. Hence, Descartes only worries in making wrongful
judgments. As he articulates, among a major mistake, which be located, includes his judgment
that the ideas that are in him conform or are similar to those elements that were outside him.
A correlation of Descartes Ideas with those of Locke
In essence, Descarte’s conception is a direct contradiction of Locke’s theory. This is
because while Descartes considers the possibility of God’s existence in explaining some things
4. DESCARTES AND HUME 4
that may not be easily perceived, Locker centers his believe on finding evidence to explain truth
or knowledge. In particular, Locke argues that human knowledge can only come from
experience. In addition, individuals are born with practically empty minds until they begin to
perceive the environment around them. In accordance to Locke, individuals are born with no
instinctive ideas and that the minds are subsequently filled as they acquire experience in their
lives.
In other words, all knowledge must be based on some kind of evidence. The primary
qualities of an object according to Locke are those that can be easily identified through
experience while the secondary qualities are those are not necessarily acquired through
experience but by way of education. Locke goes on to articulate that the original state of nature
could are featured by tolerance and reason.
In essence, Descarte’s argument could withstand those of Locke since there are many
things that cannot be perceived by a human being. In particular, it may be hard to explain most of
the things with disregard to the existence of the invisible being. Although Locke has relied on
empiricism to ascertain elements, there are many elements, which cannot be ascertained by use
of this method.
While pondering on Locker’s idea, we are forced to consider man as being a product of
the universe. This fact cannot be doubted and is certain for many people. However, it is also true
that individuals have capabilities of fabricating ideas and thoughts that are completely abstract
and fictitious. In light of this, we are forced to ask ourselves how man who is derived from the
universe that is non-fictional and concrete is able to fabricate fictional and abstract thoughts. It
therefore, becomes strange that a human mind, which is derived from the universe, is capable of
5. DESCARTES AND HUME 5
conceptualizing things that may appear unworkable. However, we might as well ask ourselves
other questions like why individuals have capabilities of thinking beyond factual things despite
the fact that they are indeed born out of the factual? In essence, this idea cannot be better
explained without reconsidering the existence of an unseen force. This basically means that the
Descartes idea may be better believed in comparison to Locke’s empiricism.
The Problem of Induction by David Hume
The problem of induction is a theory that was postulated by David Hume. Typically, the
theory centers on the validation or support of the inductive techniques that infer or predict.
According to Hume, instances where people did not harbor experience may be related to those
where people had experience. These techniques are particularly critical in scientific evaluation
and the operation of the day-to-day life. Hume’s theory could be interpreted as purporting to
portray that individuals opinions in regard to what they have not yet observed cannot be justified.
The author asserts that this obstacle cannot be remedied, irrespective of the number of
observations, which people might make; they could still not be entitled to any opinions in regard
to what they had not yet observed. In particular, Hume argues that individuals cannot be entitled
to any level of confidence, no matter how slight the predictions are in regard to what they have
not yet observed. For instance, there cannot be justification for having a 90% confidence that the
sun is likely to rise the next day, or more confidence that it will raise than it than that it will not
rise.
However, this theory is particularly problematic for empiricist accounts of knowledge
due to a number of factors. The problem with this theory is that we may not fully articulate
how to justify or support it and this in most cases leads to a dilemma. Moreover, there is no
6. DESCARTES AND HUME 6
deductive proof of applicability of this principle. This is because its necessary and contingent
truths could only be proved by deductive means. Moreover, this principle can neither be
supported inductively through assuming that the principle has usually and always been relied
upon in the past. Otherwise, this would beg the question of assuming of what has to be proved.
This principle therefore presents a serious problem in the sense that inductive methods
have not only multiplied but also fissured in recent perspective. This aspect has made the
definition of induction to be harder that rewarding.
7. DESCARTES AND HUME 7
Reference
Veitch, J (2005). Descartes Meditations. Available from
http://www.wright.edu/~charles.taylor/descartes/mede.html