These are the take-home exam questions (remember to
put your section number and your name at the beginning of your paper; due Oct.
7 in your discussion section or Oct. 7).
Answer all questions (1-3); these answers combined should reach a
double-spaced page length of between 4 to 7 pages; do not write the questions
into your paper – just give question numbers):
1) How do professors Chomsky
(what say about language development; against behaviorism) and Kohlberg (give stages
in individuals and societies) exemplify the enduring insights of Plato?
2)
Indicate what the various items in the allegory of the cave stand for &
what the allegory explains in general about human cognition and science
(and in particular about Socrates' own
career). What are the four levels of cognition in Bk
6? Give examples of cognition at each level. Relate to the stages in the
education of the citizens in general and the guardians in particular. What role
could the dialogue itself play in the educational system?
3) Compare & contrast Plato's most general views with those of Democritus.
What crucial ingredient does modern biology add to the materialism of
Democritus?
Plato
and Democritus are extreme examples of two basic world views, Plato emphasizing
form (top – down), Democritus matter (bottom – up).
Aristotle
thought that philosophers in fact used four
causes or four ways of answering the question why?:
Aristotle. Physics Bk
2. We must explain then (1) that
Nature belongs to the class of causes which act for the sake of something; (2)
about the necessary and its place in physical problems, for all writers ascribe
things to this cause, arguing that since the hot and the cold, &c., are of
such and such a kind, therefore certain things necessarily are and come to
be-and if they mention any other cause (one his 'friendship and strife',
another his 'mind'), it is only to touch on it, and then good-bye to it.
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of
something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in order
to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up must cool, and what
has been cooled must become water and descend, the result of this being that
the corn grows. Similarly if a man's crop is spoiled on the threshing-floor,
the rain did not fall for the sake of this-in order that the crop might be
spoiled-but that result just followed. Why then should it not be the same with
the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth should come up of necessity-the front
teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down
the food-since they did not arise for this end, but it was merely a coincident
result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that there is purpose?
Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they
had come be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in
a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to
perish, as Empedocles says his 'man-faced ox-progeny' did.
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty on
this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth
and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a
given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true.
We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in
winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only
if we have it in winter. If then, it is agreed that things are either the
result of coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of
coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an end; and that
such things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is
before us would agree. Therefore action for an end is present in things which
come to be and are by nature.
FORMAL. Credited to Plato. Things are understood to
the degree that they participate in the forms. True knowledge is of the forms.
MATERIAL. Credited to the materialists, Democritus in
particular. A thing is understood by determining what atoms compose it.
Necessity.
EFFICIENT. Credited to the sophists. A thing is understood relative
to a human’s intentions for it. Opinion is king. Source, designer, intent.
FINAL. Credited to Aristotle himself. A thing is understood by
knowing what it is for, its function, its goal. Teleology. (Telos=Goal).
(The
Sophists recognized all four causes because they are all ways humans think but
efficient explanations are fundamental;
The
Aristotelians recognize all four causes because all come up in inquiries or
sciences, but since all inquiries or sciences aim at (often different) goals,
final causes organize them.
For
Platonists, since humans and inquiries or sciences have forms, they recognize
efficient and final causes as subordinate to the forms, while material causes
drop off the map.
Similarly,
since Materialists see opinions, or scientifically organized beliefs, as really
just individual or collective neurological brain states, they recognize
efficient and final causes as superficial, “seems as if” talk. The “forms,” on
the other hand, are simply non-existent.
[Important footnote. Historically, long after Aristotle
the term “efficient cause” was sometimes used to mean material causality,
causal necessity, one billiard ball hitting another. ]
Aristotle. Physics Bk 2. We must explain then (1) that Nature
belongs to the class of causes which act for the sake of something;
(2) about the necessary and its place in physical problems, for
all writers ascribe things to this cause, arguing that since
the hot and the cold, &c., are of such and such a kind, therefore certain things necessarily are and come to be-and if they mention
any other cause (one his 'friendship and strife', another his
'mind'), it is only to touch on it, and then good-bye to it.
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake of something, nor
because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in
order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up
must cool, and what has been cooled must become water and descend, the result of this being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man's
crop is spoiled on the threshing-floor, the rain did not fall
for the sake of this-in order that the crop might be
spoiled-but that result just followed. Why then should it not
be the same with the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth
should come up of necessity-the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food-since they
did not arise for this end, but it was merely a coincident
result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that
there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just
what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such
things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting
way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish,
as Empedocles says his 'man-faced ox-progeny' did.
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty on this point. Yet it is
impossible that this should be the true view. For teeth and all
other natural things either invariably or normally come about
in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or
spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we
do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter.
If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of
coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of
coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an
end; and that such things are all due to nature even the
champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action
for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.
Digging deeper: the intelligible forms (allegory of the cave).
PLATONISM: What
makes beautiful things beautiful, good, good, true, true; square square? Participation
in the form (universal).
1)
Our senses give us a shadowy, changing, unreal and fuzzy world.
2)
Our reason can get us to the changeless, real, and knowable world of the forms.
Good is analogous to
the sun; it illuminates the intelligible world just as the sun, the visible.
All cognition is a
four fold hierarchy:
1)
Understanding. Grasp of ultimate principles.
2)
Deductive knowledge from axioms. Mathematics.
3)
Belief (based on sense). Animals, plants,etc.
4) Imagination: reflections,
illusions etc.
Bk VII. THE
CAVE ALLEGORY:
1)
Shadows = "real" world of sensed objects.
2)
Talk about shadows = belief & imagination.
3)
Objects that cast the shadows = the forms.
4)
Outside the cave = the intelligible world.
5)
Sunlight = the good, true, & beautiful.
The
true purpose of real education: to free the soul from the cave, to know oneself
(the intelligible within each of us).
The Education of the
Guardians (since you have read Republic,
this is for you as well):
1)
music, mythic poetry, gymnastics, simple math.
2)
physical/military service training.
3)
ten years of mathematics (the study of the eternal & unchanging:
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music
(quadrivium)); [trivium:
grammar, logic, rhetoric] This is also
the Medieval Christian church education
4)
five years dialectic; 15 yrs practical politics.
REPUBLIC’S
FINAL ARGUMENT:
1) Comparing the
five states, and five personality types, the just state & just human is the
happiest. (compare: knowledge professions)
2) With our tripart soul, the reason dominated person is the healthiest
psychologically.
3) Pleasures of the
rational human are superior; the pleasures of the appetites (the many) & of
honor (the few) are ultimately
competitive, unendingly hungry, disordering.
[cheap Platonic
broad sense paradox: the life of pleasure isn't the life of pleasure.
Not so cheap broad
sense paradox: since memes survive your death more than genes, identify with
them!]
Book 10. "a likely
story," the transmigration of souls. Probability only after demonstration.
Let’s
take a general look at Plato’s whole philosophy:
General Features of Plato's Philosophy:
1)
Metaphysics:
What
is real are the eternal, changeless FORMS. Bedness, triangularity, numbers, logical truths, etc.
Everyday
physical objects = shadows of forms.
Art
objects = imitations of imitations.
Ultimately,
the Good = the True = the Beautiful. (“Truth is beauty and beauty is truth; That is all you know and all you need
to know” P B Shelley) The
mind/soul is immortal because it grasps form
2)
Epistemology:
Certain
knowledge of the Forms (through dialectic). "Reminiscence" theory of
knowledge. [what we most deeply can know is build
into us]
Hard
science is deductive (arithmetic, logic, geometry, astronomy).
The
senses provide us at best only likely opinion.
Universal
method: seek the forms.
3)
Ethics (personal
& political):
Deductive
knowledge of statescraft & psychology, of ethics,
justice, and beauty.
Good
(inspired or real) art communicates truth.
Compare to Democritus' (?470--?380 BCE)
Materialism:
1)
Metaphysics:
Atoms and space are the only reality.
Form is just the actual atomic layout
[D:
the (physical) whole is just the sum of the parts: a line is composed of
points.
P:
the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: a line is NOT composed of
points.]
The
"soul/mind" is just the (physical) brain arrangement. Ideas are
ultimately just brain states.
[The
Plato/Democritus debate in present day terms: Are the generalizations of
psychological science
essentially reducible to those of natural
science (of physics and chemistry)?]
2)
Epistemology:
"Knowledge"
is the state of brain atoms produced by sensory input & brain structure.
[Why should our brain states have a useful
(or “true”) relationship to the external physical world? Without something
like evolutionary theory, it is very hard to believe that life arose from
arrangements of inorganic material and that "mind" belongs to
complicated biological organisms. Note Aristotle’s criticisms of
Empedocles in his Physics Book 2.]
3)
Ethics:
Live
to pleasurably fulfill biological needs, maximizing pleasure and minimizing
pain for everyone (utilitarianism).
Art,
whether from mimesis or “inspiration”) gives us pleasurable experience (not
“ultimate truth”).
Death
is not to be feared because you don't survive it. [“Who would not shuck off
this moral coil/ But for the fear of something after death/ That bourn from
which no traveler returns” Shakespeare]
A student asked the name of an article by Noam Chomsky. It is “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior” appearing originally as a short book and as an article in Language, Vol. 35, No. 1. I have also placed a short encyclopedia article about Chomsky below. The longer review has appeared in a large number of anthologies including The Structure of Language edited by J J Katz & J. A. Fodor. If you google Noam Chomsky or Lawrence Kohlberg you will find a wealth of material. Remember not to simple lift stuff off the net and present them as your own writing; it is very easy to google such quotes.
Notes on Kohlberg and link to Review of Review of Verbal Behavior
Modern comment:
Preconventional Level
Stage 1: The
Stage of Punishment and Obedience
Stage 2: The Stage of Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
Conventional
Level
Stage 3: The
Stage of Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships and Conformity
Stage 4: The Stage of Social System and Conscience Maintenance
Postconventional Level
Stage 5: The
Stage of Prior Rights and Social Contract or Utility [Utilitarianism and/or Social Contract]
Stage 6: The Stage of Universal Ethical Principles [Immanuel Kant; Kantianism]
No
preliterate society reaches beyond "help friends; hurt enemies"; law
is law.]
Article for the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd edition (Routledge 2008):
Noam Chomsky. (1551 words) by Justin Leiber
In linguistics, Noam Chomsky
occupies a position like
Born in Philadelphia in 1928, Chomsky studied linguistics as a University of Pennsylvania undergraduate with Zellig Harris, a structural linguist who saw linguistics as the compact description of a community’s time-bound finite corpus of utterances (literally, sonic sequences of supposed phonetic atoms). Chomsky completed his graduate work while a Junior Fellow at Harvard (1951-54) and became a professor at MIT in 1955, rapidly advancing to a series of distinguished professorships. Syntactic Structures (1957) and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), which have made him the most cited living author, soon revolutionized linguistics.
The opening three sentences of Syntactic Structures tersely render his formalized, mentalist, and nativist view:
Syntactical investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a device for producing the sentences of the language under investigation… The ultimate outcome of [such] investigations should be a theory of linguistic structures in which the descriptive devices utilized in particular grammars are presented and studied abstractly… One function of this theory is to provide a general method for selecting a grammar for each language, given a corpus of this language. (Chomsky 1957 p. x).
I shall unpack each of these three sentences and follow the unpacking with some important applications.
1) Formally speaking, you cannot describe a human language by listing its sentences because there are an infinite number of them; hence, you must describe a device that would generate these and only these sentences. This “device” would display the knowledge that a competent human speaker of this language has. Language is the device, the internal brain/mind device, not the finite behavioral outputs that this device, coupled with others, produces. Linguistics is a branch of psychology. Behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner thought that knowledge of language consisted of associations between particular words (heard sound sequences). Through repetition we learn the sound sequence How are you, I would like a red apple, I am fine, but not Are you how, Red a like would I apple, Am fine I, and so on. An associative grammar like this is called finite state; it fits well with the empiricist notion that we learn everything through (sequences of) sensory experience, and it makes no use of “dubious” abstractions such as noun, pronoun, verb, auxiliary verb, adjective, etc. Yet there is massive evidence that people routinely produce new sentences that they have never heard before and have never been produced in the history of their language. Even if we limit our sentences to fifteen words or less, there are literally trillions of different but perfectly grammatical sentences of English. In fact, Chomsky gave a decisive formal proof that no human language could be generated by a finite state grammar. We simply have to internalize at least a phrase structure grammar that must make use of rules that deal in abstract categories such as noun phrase, verb phrase, noun, pronoun, verb, auxiliary verb, adjective, etc. Indeed, Chomsky proved that even a phrase structure grammar is not all we will need, nor is the surface structure of a sentence a reliable guide to its deeper features.
2) Human languages have in common many principles and processes, word forms and structures, rules and features, so what the linguist describes belongs to human language as much as to a particular language (abstracting of course from the peculiarities of particular idiolects and dialects toward humanly universal cognition). Indeed, every one of the hundreds of human language that has been described makes use of the same phrase structural concepts of noun phrase, verb phrase, pronoun, verb, adjective, etc., etc. In recent linguistics it appears that a small number of principles and initial parameter settings determine every aspect of grammar that makes a human language and differentiates it from other human languages (a good thing too, because the human baby seems equally prepared to take on any human language to which it is exposed). Chomsky has speculated that a Martian anthropologist would regard all human languages as essentially the same language.
3) “A general method for selecting a grammar for each language” given a sample corpus would also be the knowledge a human child brings to the samples of a language to which the child is exposed. A vast body of evidence about child language development has persuaded nearly all linguists and cognitive scientists that the human child is pre-programmed with a “language acquisition device.” To give an example from personal experience that is familiar to investigators of language learning, my two year old daughter, Casey, exploded into using auxiliary verbs and tag negations over the space of two weeks, saying I am going, I can’t, Susan isn’t here. All of the auxiliary verbs came in at virtually the same time and Casey tag-negated only those verbs, no others; she never said I eatn’t, I gon’t, Susan walkn’t, The cat grabn’t the bird, etc. She also said I amn’t and I am going, amn’t I. No one around Casey ever said “amn’t” but she went on happily using the construction and it wasn’t until she started school two years later that she realized no one else talked that way. Of course, Casey was doing what comes naturally. In some sense, she (or some part of her brain/mind) knew what auxiliary verbs and regular verbs were and she knew that you could tag-negate (put n’t after) auxiliaries but not other verbs. She also never said I am going, aren’t I because she knew that am is a singular verb, that are is a plural verb and that I, being a singular pronoun could not take a plural verb (are).
Now, of course, Casey had never heard the English words “noun,” “verb,” “auxiliary verb,” “tag negate,” “pronoun,” “plural,” “singular,” etc. Nonetheless, she (or some part of her brain) perfectly well knew the word kinds that these English words name, just as a monolingual speaker of Urdu knows what nouns, pronouns, and verbs are, although he may have no idea what spoken label (in Urdu or English) to use for these perfectly familiar word kinds. It is this sense of knowing, of linguistic competence, that linguistics now clearly emphasizes.
But how did Casey know about these things that no one around her ever tried to explain to her? The linguist’s answer is that hearing something is an auxiliary verb or a pronoun is just like seeing that something is a red ball or a small animal. So Casey, just like any other human child whether in a literate or tribal community, identified the different word kinds present in her environment although no one was explicitly coaching her to do this, and she recognized that auxiliary verbs but not other verbs could be tag negated, so she said “I amn’t” just as she said “I can’t” or “He isn’t” because am was an auxiliary verb and so could be tagged with n’t. Speaking and hearing a natural language is a competence acquired naturally (in the first several years of life), while reading and writing requires – unfortunately -- years of effort and explicit instruction. Similarly, our basic visual/motor competencies come to us naturally in our first years. Our recently burgeoning “cognitive sciences” attend to this central aspect of being human, our characteristic competencies or faculties that make us homo sapiens.
Chomsky maintains that his work in
linguistics, and cognitive science generally, have virtually no connection with
his political and moral views, views indeed for which he claims no expertise,
although he has published countless articles and books, interviews and commentaries,
on political and moral matters. He claims no professional expertise in such
matters because he believes that no one really has such expertise: political
and moral matters can and must be understood by all citizens, not just by
elites or would be professional apologists for elites or, more particularly,
corporate wealth and power. Chomsky rose to public attention (and the Nixon
White House’s “enemies” list) for his opposition to the
Noam, Chomsky. Syntactic
Structures.
Noam, Chomsky. Aspects
of the Theory of Syntax.
Bk VI. "Philosophers as
we know them don't look like suitable rulers." (Trasymachus,
eg.)
S: our society corrupts potential philosophers (clever public speaking,
etc.); only someone ugly like myself, who
can't make it politically, could become a philosopher. [Nerds]
Digging deeper:
the intelligible forms (allegory of the cave).
PLATONISM: What makes beautiful things beautiful, good, good, true,
true; square square? Participation
in the form (universal).
1) Our senses give us a shadowy, changing, unreal
and fuzzy world.
2) Our reason can get us to the changeless, real,
and knowable world of the forms.
Good is analogous to the sun; it illuminates the intelligible world
just as the sun, the visible.
All cognition is a four fold hierarchy:
1) Understanding. Grasp of ultimate principles.
2) Deductive knowledge from axioms. Mathematics.
3) Belief (based on sense). Animals, plants,etc.
4) Imagination: reflections, illusions etc.
Bk VII. THE
CAVE ALLEGORY:
1) Shadows = "real" world of sensed
objects.
2) Talk about shadows = belief & imagination.
3) Objects that cast the shadows = the forms.
4) Outside the cave = the intelligible world.
5) Sunlight = the good, true, & beautiful.
The true purpose of real education: to free the soul
from the cave, to know oneself (the intelligible within each of us).
The Education of the Guardians (since you have read Republic, this is for you as well):
1) music, mythic poetry, gymnastics, simple math.
2) physical/military service training.
3) ten years of mathematics (the study of the
eternal & unchanging: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music (quadrivium)); [trivium: grammar,
logic, rhetoric] This is also the
Medieval Christian church education
4) five years dialectic; 15 yrs practical politics.
REPUBLIC’S FINAL ARGUMENT:
1) Comparing the five states, and five personality types, the just
state & just human is the happiest. (compare:
knowledge professions)
2) With our tripart soul, the reason
dominated person is the healthiest psychologically.
3) Pleasures of the rational human are superior; the pleasures of the
appetites (the many) & of honor (the few) are ultimately competitive,
unendingly hungry, disordering.
[cheap Platonic broad sense paradox: the life of pleasure isn't the
life of pleasure.
Not so cheap broad sense paradox: since memes survive your death more
than genes, identify with them!]
Book 10. "a likely story," the transmigration of souls.
Probability only after demonstration. Let’s take a general look at Plato’s whole
philosophy:
General Features of
Plato's Philosophy:
4) Metaphysics:
What is real are the eternal, changeless FORMS. Bedness, triangularity, numbers,
logical truths, etc.
Everyday physical objects = shadows of forms.
Art objects = imitations of imitations.
Ultimately, the Good = the True = the Beautiful.
(“Truth is beauty and beauty is truth; That is all you know and all you need
to know” P B Shelley) The mind/soul is
immortal because it grasps form
5) Epistemology:
Certain knowledge of the Forms (through dialectic).
"Reminiscence" theory of knowledge. [what we most deeply can know is build
into us]
Hard science is deductive (arithmetic, logic,
geometry, astronomy).
The senses provide us at best only likely opinion.
Universal method: seek the forms.
6) Ethics (personal & political):
Deductive
knowledge of statescraft & psychology, of ethics,
justice, and beauty.
Good (inspired or real) art communicates truth.
Compare to
Democritus' (?470--?380 BCE) Materialism:
4) Metaphysics:
Atoms and space are the
only reality. Form is just the actual atomic layout
[D: the (physical) whole is just the sum of the
parts: a line is composed of points.
P: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts: a
line is NOT composed of points.]
The "soul/mind" is just the (physical)
brain arrangement. Ideas are ultimately just brain states.
[The Plato/Democritus debate in present day terms: Are the generalizations of psychological
science essentially reducible to those of natural science (of physics and chemistry)?]
5) Epistemology:
"Knowledge" is the state of brain atoms
produced by sensory input & brain structure.
[Why should our brain states have
a useful (or “true”) relationship to the external physical world? Without
something like evolutionary theory, it is very hard to believe that life arose
from arrangements of inorganic material and that "mind" belongs to
complicated biological organisms. Note Aristotle’s criticisms of
Empedocles in his Physics Book 2.]
6) Ethics:
Live to pleasurably fulfill biological needs,
maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain for everyone (utilitarianism).
Art, whether from mimesis or “inspiration”) gives us
pleasurable experience (not “ultimate truth”).
Death is not to be feared because you don't survive
it. [“Who would not shuck off this moral coil/ But
for the fear of something after death/ That bourn from which no traveler
returns” Shakespeare]
TRANSITION
TO THE MODERN ERA. (400 BCE--1600 ACE)
Greek
Science/philosophy spread & maintained by Alexander and his successors over
450 AD Fall of
the
Beginning of the
Dark Ages in
Islamic empires
dominate
[[Notes for G K Chesterton’s poem Lepanto.
Note Chesterton’s hated for not only Islam but
also the Protestants of northern
the meaning of
the word CRUSADE (from “cross”).
Crusades
periodically and partially challenge Islam, motivated by loot more than
religion.
ARichard, Raymond,
Godfrey,@ etc.: 10th,
11th century crusaders.
Christians
generally more intolerant than Islam in these battles, although both sides
capable of great violence (Europeans see Ottomans as advanced).
Lepanto. Galley battle 1571. G K Chesterton (Bigoted, racist,
Catholic Medievalist; his Father Brown mystery stories
feature the “Atheist” as Brown’s greatest
opponent.)
Protestants
(North) despised. AHateth Mary, whom
Christ kissed in
ACool Queen of
ALord upon the Golden
Horn@ ---
Abrown, black bearded
chiefs@ Ayellow faces@
King Philip:
suicide.]]
Early Modern
1) Christian aristocratic states; Protestant rebellions
(Henry VIII & Elizabeth (Armada), Luther, Calvin); Lepanto
(1571) ends the now weakened Islamic control of
2) Persecution of heretics, "witches," free
thinkers; unending religious wars. Malius malifacarem. Hysteria. [
3) Vigorous increases in trade and technology. Rise of
4) Heart & circulation understood. Brain. Dissections (for the
first time since Roman times). Anatomical studies and growth of modern medicine
(
Big Problem: IF universe a
smoothly running machine (clock), IF scientific determinism: everything in
principle predictable, following from previous conditions, THEN,
1) Doesn't seem to
be a place for God & prayer. The world is a gigantic machine, running by
and completely explained by scientific laws; miracles do not happen and are
unneeded (God got it right first time around; Deism [even
2) If humans are machines like animals in general, then nothing survives death.
3) If humans deterministic machines and all human action
determined by mechanical causality, then no moral praise or blame (any more
than we praise a computer for correct operation or morally censure it for
erroneous operation (we fix the computer)).
Descartes'
solution in MEDITATIONS:
1) I doubt the existence of material objects: I can't be
sure whether I am awake or asleep.
2) But I am certain that I, as doubter & thinker,
exist; I think; therefore I am (a mind).
3) Therefore, minds and bodies distinctly different
substances: dualism
Mind: not sensed, unextended,
indivisible.
Body: sensed, extended, divisible
[Rationalism:
high road of science through our innate clear & distinct ideas, not our
senses.]
4) THEREFORE: I am certain I have (am) a mind, which may
well survive death; while my body is a machine, my mind (somehow) interacts
with it, causing my voluntary actions, which can be truly praised or blamed
because I have free will and I am not a machine but
rather essentially a mind.
[Note that Meditations was dedicated to the Sacred Faculty
of Theology at
Note also that there seem to be two Descartes:
1) The dualist of cogito ergo sum: the primacy of mind
("the ghost in the machine")
2) The neurophysiologist. As we will see, La Mettrie thought Descartes a closet materialist
1) More Rationalists:
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). In Ethics, he "deduces" the nature of the world from
self-evident axioms; the physical
& mental are two attributes of God.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716). Nature full of
"monads" (souls) which reflect the entire universe, past, present
& future. All truths
necessary. Calculus. This must be the best of all possible worlds. Mocked by
Voltaire in Candide
(Leibniz’s argument: God is all-powerful, all-knowing,
perfectly good, and he created the world; therefore
this must be the best of all possible worlds, for otherwise God would have
lacked power, or
foresight, or goodness.) Problem of
evil. This problem exists for all monotheist religions.
2) Empiricists (all knowledge from sense experience; mind a blank
tablet at birth)
John Locke (1632-1704). Dualist. [Voltaire & La Mettrie thought him a closet materialist] Locke’s Treatise on Government formed the
intellectual basis of the
Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753). Since all we ever have is (mental)
experience, matter is unknowable. God essentially provides the glue which our
mental experience in harmony.
David Hume (1711-1776). Since all I have is my own
experience, I can't know about bodies or other minds. Causality is a secondary
impression or mental habit that arises because A (the cause) precedes, is close to, and is constantly conjoined with B (the
effect). Pavlov’s dog. Skepticism reigneth.
7)
20th Century Rationalists and Empiricists. (God
generally disappears from the account; immortality not presumed.)
A)
Behaviorism. “Mind” is just the disposition to behave in
various ways. Behavioral Blank Tablet. B. F. Skinner. Beyond Freedom and Dignity
B)
Chomsky/Fodor Nativism. Human born with “language acquisition device”
or language faculty, with visual faculty, etc. Mental “software” can be
described at an abstract level which is not directly reducible (may never be
reducible) to neurological states. E.g. You, me, and a super computer may
“compute” or “think” in radically different neurological circuits.
C)
Straight physicalism. “Mind” is
reducible to neurological states.