February 17th GE Moore Direct Realism Representational Realism Presentational Realism Cannot look over the problem of direct realism what GE Moore does Bertrand Russell 1872 1970 born in to an old English family they were atheists parents died when he was young and raised by stern Victorian upbringing that made him miserable that his parents wouldn t approve of went to jail Divide between appearances and reality reality is the material word physical empiricists support this appearances data we gain from our senses He uses the idea of a table you know the appearance of it but what do you actually have Depending on where you are sitting the table looks different to people shape color etc Conclusion the real table is not what we immediately experience is there a real table at all Russell considers that George Berkeley might have the answer to this Berkley 1685 1753 if something is not in the senses then it cannot be trusted empiricist view He said reality in the external world is nothing we have access to he believes To be is to be perceived there needs to be someone else perceiving things when we aren t there to perceive it things just don t stop existing when we close our eyes God is still perceiving Berkeley thinks we can only perceive appearance not reality Russell thinks Descartes proved too much Russell thinks you can t prove a thinking thing because it could have been manipulated by an evil scientist Russell page 1114 we must not be frightened by absurdities what can we do simplest explanation in the most likely Russell thinks you can t ask others to discuss the table because our testimonies don t do any good According to Russell instead of having three complexly different cats there is really three of the same cats being perceived differently Russell thinks 1 Sometimes the simplest explanation isn t true 2 the external world hypothesis the simplest 3 February 19 David Hume 1771 1776 British but was from Scotland He was an Empiricist he believed in the tradition of other British Empiricists like John Locke George Berkeley He uses Sense Date Simple Ideas basic building blocks of all material the color brown of the door is a sense data like color figure movement texture Mind associates these ideas into a complex idea Simple ideas are found within conjunction with one another bundled to make complex ideas This is the Theory of Association There has been no human who has never been skeptic Hume then asks What if the door is an external object There are two ideas defining what it means to be external 1 Distinct Existence Space 2 Continued Existence Time For example 1 The door is in a different location than my ideas 2 The door is still over there when we leave the room Hume then questions if you agree with the two points above what is the source He says there are three possibilities 1 Sense sense data 2 Reason info comes to us in philosophical theories 3 Imagination Hume does not agree with sense being the source sense cannot prove continued existence we can only sense percept it at that very moment Hume does not agree with reason either we could just be plopped into the situation philosophers who usually use reason usually doubt external existence The only solution is imagination We imagine the image of the door still being there when we aren t Only source of distinct and continued existence Hume says we start out as direct realists the world just appears as it is Vulgar Because we are curious we continues this cycle Kant thinks he has the ultimate answer February 21st Direct Realism GE Moore Representational Realism Russell Hume doesn t agree with either he believes in the Vulgar we perceive the world in a philosophical way Immanuel Kant 1724 1804 For 30 years he was a rationalist he didn t mind it He started reading Hume s book it was a counterbalance to his rationalist view Empiricism is on the other spectrum of Rationalism Kant tried to integrate Empiricism and Rationalism the only other person to do this was Aristotle He produced The Critique of Pure Reason One of the most important readings in Western Philosophy If you re an Empiricist then you say mind conforms to objects The mind copies to the reality of the object It s the opposite for rationalist you believe objects conform to the mind Rationalist was laughed upon in the 18th century Problem of the External World Kant thinks the empiricism and rationalist connection is a scandal and makes no scientific sense Transcendental Idealism the way of countering what Metaphysical realism contents of the real physical world space universe transndental what is necessary for experience a Transcdental idea Metaphysics is the theory of reality Kant thinks sense is important Empiricist he thinks Plato and Descartes is wrong you have to be able to look at stuff and he also believes intellect is important rationalism He thinks objects do conform to mind If you think mind conforms to objects he thinks you are lost in Philosophy Kant thinks there are requirements to have knowledge of objects Mind the some of these conditions necessary for the experience of any object on handout Conditions time and space Space has to involve sense the space is being taken up by the marker Time you can t experience an object without time you are experiencing the marker in time Sensible conditions to sense an object are the two conditions above The shape space is in time Conditions of intellect what rationalist would think substance you need this to experience objects as objects relation would this be an object if you couldn t detect where the object ends and where the background begins it would be a mess of an object you re making sense of the object cause effect you know you are doing this because of this we understand the world operates how the world works because of cause and effect things just don t fall out of the sky Self isn t an object it is the place where all of these things come together Kant thinks you need these intellectual and sensible conditions The problem between direct realism and representational realism isn t solved it doesn t go away
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