1. Socrates
1.1. what is knowledge? 'i know that i know nothing' --> scentenced to death because of corrupting the youth
2. Plato, rationalist
2.1. If Knowledge comes from perception, we cannot know anything for certain because the world is in constant flux
2.1.1. Truth is about how things really are, not about how they are perceived. To you the wind feels cold, to me it feels warm, but the wind is either one of those things
2.2. world of eternal forms: we cannot reach this world with our senses, we must use ratio. our senses will always deceive us + the world is in flux so we will always perceive it differently than how it actually is
2.2.1. Allegory of the cave
2.2.2. To learn is to remember --> innate ideas --> nativism
3. Aristotle, empiricist
3.1. not two worlds and not innate ideas. we are born a blank slate or tabula rasa
3.1.1. nothing is in the mind that was not first in the senses: Peripatetic Axiom
3.2. we must reason through causes and empirical data. all humans are mortal, socrates is human, socrates is mortal --> syllogism/inductive argument
3.3. NOT a radical empiricist because: no set of data is complete and we must use reason to come to truthful conclusions
3.3.1. 4 causes:Formal cause, Material cause, efficient cause, final cause. OR who/what, material, changeable factor, goal
4. Heraclites
4.1. Flux is the heart of existence, nothing IS. everything BECOMES. --> Panta rei. You cannot step in the same river twice
5. Parmenides
5.1. Things cannot just come from nothing. now can they dissolve into nothing. hence, everything changes into different things. nothing becomes. everything is. (when you die, your body doe not cease to exist. it merely shapeshifts into dust)
6. Protagorus
6.1. Homo Mensura. man is the measure of all things. The opinion is true to each person which he requires trough sensation
7. medieval times
7.1. worldview
7.1.1. Earth centered, human centered. earth is the centre of the universe
7.1.2. Aristotle and the Bible: most important authorities of knowledge
7.1.3. Aristotle: superlunary realm + sublunary realm OR celestial + terrestrial OR perfect versus not so perfect
7.1.3.1. Quinta Essential: heavenly sphere
7.2. Ptolemy
7.2.1. Almagest --> model of the solar system
7.2.2. Geocentric worldview --> planets circle the earth
7.3. Copernicus
7.3.1. Planets circle the sun biatch --> Heliocentric approach
7.3.1.1. changed the worldview completely
7.4. Francis Bacon
7.4.1. 4 distortions of our senses: Idols of the cave, Idols of the tribe, Idols of the theater, Idols of the market
7.4.2. theories have to be based on observations. deduction is not trustworthy because of the distortions that arise when you start with a theory
7.4.3. Ants: collecting data only. Bees: collecting data and using reason to reach conclusion. Spiders: using only what comes from within (reason)
8. scientific revolution
8.1. rejection of authority + using experiments to gather data + the world is seen as a clockwork (or mechanics) + these mechanics could be described in mathematical terms --> universal maths
8.2. Johannes Kepler: planets don't make perfect circles around each other
8.3. Gallileo Gallilei: The moon is not a perfect ball. it has craters and dents
8.4. Newton:
8.4.1. universal law: gravity. objects are no longer treaded as if they have a will. they are just subject to gravity and that's why they move around
9. Early modern time
9.1. Decartes, rationalist
9.1.1. Empiricism is not trustworthy because our senses can deceive us. Rational methods like maths are not trustworthy because humans are fallible and so are our creations. doubt remains
9.1.2. Cogito ergo sum
9.1.3. ideas that don't stem from experience (infinity and god) god has placed in us. God is perfect, therefore he exists. also he would not deceive us by letting us live a dream. so we exist. he is not an evil spirit or malin genie
9.1.4. malin génie: the source of all sense distortions
9.2. Berkely
9.2.1. Two-fold existence isn’t a thing since the ideas that we base of off material object requires these material objects to actually exist.
9.2.2. Everything that exists, exists in virtue of being perceived: esse est percipi
9.2.3. So if things disappear when you do not perceive them (to be is to be perceived), what stops us from disappearing into oblivion? God. He sees everything all the time.
9.2.4. Immaterialism: ideas can only exist in a mental substance; all physical objects are determined by that substance.
9.2.5. Dualism: there is a material substance and a mental substance that can exist on their own, independently from each other
9.3. John Locke, empiricist
9.3.1. 3 qualities: primary, secondary and tertiary
9.3.2. no such thing as innate ideas. we create ideas that stem from experiences. also morals.
9.3.3. we can use reflection as this is an internal sense and not rationality
9.4. Michiel de Montagne
9.4.1. Scepticism. the existence of material reality must be doubted. also, how do we know if a thing resembles a perfect thing in a perfect realm (plato) for we have never been in contact with it. if what we see isn’t the real world, how do we know it resembles the real world at all?
9.5. David Hume, deluded empiricist and positivist
9.5.1. - Impressions --> we experience a thing at this moment - ideas --> we experience a thing trough memory at a later time
9.5.2. copy principle = ideas are copies of impressions
9.5.3. Every complex idea consists of simple ideas and those correspond to impressions
9.5.3.1. you can also form ideas trough blending. this creates an idea that does not derive from experience. Hume never reached this idea tho
9.5.4. we can only sense contiguity, priority and constant conjunction. not the actual cause/necessity.
9.5.4.1. hence, no universal laws. we cannot predict the future form past experience, yet we do. this is because of the human condition, without which, we would not be able to function (believe/act)
9.5.5. no free will. because of constant conjunction of motivation, situation and action, we are predictable.
9.5.5.1. The feeling of free will arises when we explicitly test our will. This is merely the result of ‘a fantastic desire’ to be free.
9.5.6. knowledge is a justified belief. We cannot predict the world, still we do a pretty good job at this. with the use of intuitive induction we are somewhat successful in guessing how things will go and making up laws.
9.6. Immanuel Kant
9.6.1. agrees that we can only see contiguity, priority and constant conjunction.
9.6.2. impossible to have knowledge about metaphysical elements (god, soul, free will)
9.6.3. phenomenal world: the world as it appears to us --> we can have knowledge about this
9.6.4. noumenal world: the world of things as they are --> no knowledge about this
9.6.5. Primordial nebula: the origin of planets. Kant wanted to reason why God existed
9.6.6. Transcendal question: under what circumstance can humans attain knowledge
9.6.7. maths embodies necessity and universality
9.6.8. A priori + Posteriori Analytic judgement + Synthetic judgement
9.7. synthetic aposteriori and analytic apriori --> the the candle is red and the bachelor is unmarried, in that order. the first adds infor and is sensory the second is a universal law and is through reason
10. Post scientific revolution
10.1. Positivists are methodological monists: only one method that should be used in all sciences
10.2. Positivism
10.2.1. social sciences same method as natural sciences
10.2.2. the world is a clockwork: mechanization of the worldview
10.2.3. Compte, bee (like bacon)
10.2.3.1. 3 stages of societal development: theological stage, metaphysical stage, positive stage
10.2.3.2. theological stage has animism: objects have a soul (mana) and polytheism: objects are under the control of deities/ monotheism
10.2.3.3. psychology is not a science (mental process cannot be observed)
10.2.3.4. encyclopedia formula: order of sciences. sociology is more complex than maths
10.3. Hermeneutics
10.3.1. Humans are motivated by inside forces; natural phenomena are moved by outside forces. they require different methods
10.4. Dilthy
10.4.1. people do things because they are goal-directed, and this is completely unpredictable
10.4.2. we can understand other people because we are able to understand ourselves
10.5. Windelband
10.6. Max Weber
10.6.1. Verstehen versus erklaren: trying to see people’s worlds from their perspective using imagination versus trying to explain things in terms of causes (natural sciences)
11. Logical Positivism, 1920 onwards
11.1. The Vienna circle (or Wiener Kreis)
11.1.1. divide: physicalism versus phenomenalism
11.1.1.1. Protocol sentences versus physical language
11.1.1.2. Neurath+Carnap : Physicalist
11.1.1.3. Schlick+Wittgenstein+ Ernest Mach : Phenomenalist
11.1.2. Question: how do we distinguish science and non-science? neo-positivist q
11.1.2.1. Compte: If you can use it to predict shit, it's legit.
11.1.2.2. throw rationalism overboard. give philosophers a new task: to look at language that scientists use.
11.1.2.2.1. If we can't put it into words, it doesn't exist
11.2. positivism: Based on sensory input, we come up with hypothesis
11.3. Logical positivism: adding maths and logical analyses to make hypothesis more technical.
11.4. Ludwig Wittgenstein
11.4.1. Formal
11.4.1.1. Logical statements. tell you nothing new. analytic. tool for building models. a bachelor is unmarried. 2+2=4
11.4.1.2. Unchangeable
11.4.2. Factual
11.4.2.1. new info. sensory experience needed. synthetic statements. 200 people in this room
11.4.2.2. changeable
11.4.3. Fictional
11.4.3.1. cannot be verified, undefined words. my soul is immaterial.
11.5. Methodological monotheists
11.5.1. Hermeneutics referred to their social science with words like, desire, feeling, intention. Which is metaphysical as shit.
12. Critical Rationalism
12.1. Opposing Logical Positivism
12.2. Karl Popper
12.2.1. We cannot get all the data in the world. therefore we cannot make statements based on the empirical data that we do have.
12.2.2. We should not look for evidence or verification
12.2.3. Method of falsification: hypothesis - deducting predictions - testing predictions - true? =corroboration, does not add to the probability of the hypothesis. false? = falsification. now we have learned something about the world
12.2.4. no tabula rasa: you start with reason (hypothesis)
12.2.5. searchlight theory: we observe in light of expectations
12.2.6. falsification does not make a hypothesis unscientific
12.2.7. paradigm shifts happen gradually
13. Language games
13.1. Thomas Kuhn, relativist
13.1.1. Paradigm: the sum of accepted metaphysical assumptions, theories, methodologies annuals and techniques within a community of scientists
13.1.1.1. Which makes education a friendly form of indoctrination
13.1.2. An indicator of a period of normal science is the unquestioned idea that the paradigm is basically correct. Otherwise, you wouldn’t try to solve problems within this realm
13.1.3. an outdated paradigm is not unscientific. it is just different from ours.
13.1.4. paradigm shifts happen adruptly
13.1.4.1. gestalt shift
13.1.4.1.1. a scientific is like a political revolution: crisis; change from within is in both cases impossible; both contain characters that live in a different world and can’t communicate with each other. both cases the solution comes from outside
13.1.5. Pre-scientific period → normal science→ crisis→ scientific revolution/paradigm shift→ new period of normal science
13.1.5.1. Abnormal science: a totally new paradigm presents itself.
13.1.5.2. different paradigms are incommensurable (impossible to compare)
13.1.5.2.1. 1) the terms of the old paradigm are used in the new one, however they have a completely new relationship to each other. 2) communication between scientists of different paradigms is highly problematic; there is no neutral or objective language. 3) the proponents of the different paradigms work in different worlds
13.2. Ludwig Wittgenstein
13.2.1. new publication, new me --> the meaning of words, lies in the use of those words
13.2.1.1. Language is not a representation of reality
13.2.2. language game: Any factual claim about the world is only true or false relative to the language game.
13.2.3. private language argument: other players are requiered
13.3. Relativism
13.3.1. the view that the truth of a claim depends on a framework in which the claim has its proper place.
13.3.2. We observe everything in the light of what we expect to observe, and what we expect is determined by the framework of our culture. Anything that does not fit the framework is left out of the field of observation. theory ladenness
13.4. Norwood Russel Hanson
13.4.1. we see through spectacles of our past experience, knowledge and the logical forms of our languages
13.5. constructivism
13.5.1. through relativism and theory-ladeness and different frameworks, reality becomes our own construction
13.6. Franz Boas
13.6.1. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
13.6.1.1. what one can think about and what one can perceive is relative to the language one speaks. Language is a way of classifying experiences