1. 3 paragraphs. 1 expository (main claim+why, why, why). 2 evaluative: either two separate points or two different evaluations of one point/argument/assumption.
2. If you use quotes, explain the quotes.
3. Make your own arguments explicit. Don't leave your reader to make the inferences themselves.
4. Justify your evaluations. Answer the skeptic: "why should I believe you?"
Introduction
The Purpose s1, s2
1. "To enquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent [...]." and "to search the bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine buy what measures, in things whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent and moderate our persuasion" (last sentence from s3).
To figure out how it is we come to have knowledge; that is, how do we understand? For instance, via our senses we get a constant train of images. How is it that we come to recognize patterns in the train of sensory experiences and derive meaning?
2. How do we account for differences in opinion between people? Does it follow that humans are incapable of knowledge? Thus, we must "search out the bounds between opinion and knowledge ..."
3. Re: Descartes. [...] set down any measures of certainty of our knowledge... the resolution and eagerness wherewith they are maintained may perhaps have reason to suspect that either there is no such thing as truth at all or that mankind hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it".
The Method s3
1. Enquire into the origin of ideas. I.e., Figure out where ideas come from.
2. Show what knowledge we can have of our ideas. I.e., the certainty, evidence and extent of the knowledge of ideas we can have.
3. Enquire into the nature and grounds for assenting to proposition which we don't yet know to be true for certain. I.e., look into the reasons and degrees of assent.
The Practical Value s4, s5
1. If we can figure out the limits of human understanding then we can stop wasting our time disputing things which are beyond our capacity to understand and know.
2. We are able to access enough knowledge to lead us to knowledge of our maker and "have sight of our own duties."
Vs Descartes Method of Doubt
Read end of s5 from "The Candle that is set up in us shines..." and s6. Basically, Descartes' standard for knowledge is much too high. If we properly understand the various powers of our own minds we will understand the standards by which to measure if they give us knowledge. The standard for what counts as knowledge is relative to the particular faculty we are concerned with. For example, understanding the limits of our perceptual system informs my standards for what I could reasonably claim to know relative to that faculty.
Also, Descartes is setting the standard too high for what we could expect to know. Our faculties can only be reasonably expected to give us knowledge about things relevant to the way we live; i.e., "those [things] which concern our conduct."
s7: If we begin epistemology by considering the capacities of our understandings and the limits of what is knowable to us we are less likely to end up with Descartes radical skepticism.
Discussion: Who's right (Descartes vs Locke) in terms of method for approaching epistemology? Do we first figure out what the limits of our capacities are and define knowledge in terms of those limits or do we search for the indubitable, set those as axioms and proceed through rational reconstruction?
What Does Locke Mean by "Idea"? s8
Read the last sentence: "whatever it is which the mind can be employed about in thinking."
No Innate Speculative Principles
1. There's no reason to posit innate knowledge when it can be accounted for via other faculties. E.g., We don't need to say that people are born with the notion of color when we can explain their having those notions via their having eyes.
Discussion: Is he right? "Where" is the color? Capacities? Kant's view, Chomsky
What does Kant's view suggest about the objectivity of our representations?
Argument from Universal Consent for Innate Principles
P1. There are speculative (i.e., abstract) principles and practical (i.e., moral) principles that are universally agreed on.
A1. If something is universally consented then it must be innate.
C. There are innate principles "stamped into our souls."
Discussion: Is this convincing?
Reply:
1. A1 is false (s3). Abduction.
2. P1 is false. (s4, s5)
E.g., law of identity (p=p) and law of non-contradiction (A proposition cannot both be true and false at the same time). Children and idiots don't assent. Therefore, not everyone has them "imprinted on their souls" and so universal consent is false and so A1 doesn't kick in. Boom! How could it be imprinted on everyone's mind yet some fail to understand or perceive it? What would that even mean?
3. What about capacities/latent knowledge?
If this is the case then this view commits itself to the position that the mind begins with all the true propositions imprinted on it and as the individual goes through life they are "revealed" to him. But this is just to misdescribe learning. We don't begin with all the truths "hidden" to us in our heads then have them revealed to us. There's a much simpler explanation. We begin with nothing and through experience we learn. And again, it's loco to talk to "all the truths" being imprinted in the mind yet without the mind perceiving them. On this model, what does imprinted even mean? Imprinted in the mind, to mean anything, must mean "understood". So, if infants and children also have the law of non-contradiction and identity imprinted on their minds, they must understand them. But they don't and so, those laws are not innate knowledge.
Innate Ideas Counter-Reply: They come to know them when they come to use reason. s6, s7
Locke's reply: He sets up a dilemma
P1. The counter-reply means either (a) as soon as people come to the use of reason these supposed native inscriptions come to be known and observed by them (like magic) OR (b) the use and exercise of reason assists them in the discovery of the principles and makes them known to them.
P2. If (b) then it doesn't follow automatically that the principles must be innate. First (b) suggests that all truths arrived at through reason (both axioms and deductions) will be innate--i.e., (b) isn't able to distinguish between either. But if deduced (derivative) truths are innate, then why do we need reason to discover them? It doesn't make sense to say that an idea is innate yet reason is required to deduce it.
P2* Reply: The difference between the two is that one requires deductive proof to gain assent while the general principles (e.g., law of non-contradiction, identity) don't require reasoning at all to gain assent. And so the original counter-reply fails because the proponent of innate ideas has contradicted themselves: Now they say we don't come to know the general principles through reason. So which is it?
P3. If (a) then the counter-reply is false. A child's use reason and their assent to the general principles don't occur concurrently. The use of reason comes first. We observe children using reason plenty before they assent to general principles of reason. Reason is a necessary condition for assenting to the general principles, but not sufficient. Nevertheless, this doesn't show that they are innate.
P3*. Even if upon using reason children spontaneously assented to the general principles it wouldn't follow that a the principles are innate knowledge. In order to assent to the principles and understand the concepts involved you'd have to be able to reason. And so, understanding and assenting to the general principles would require reasoning about particulars first and generalizing from them. Assent, therefore, can be explained without appeal to innate ideas.
Discussion: Does understanding require verbal expression or can it also be demonstrated merely though behavior?
How We Get General Principles--It's not Innate s15
Via the senses particular ideas enter our minds. As we become more familiar with them, we ascribe names to the particular ideas. Our mind then "operates" on the particulars and abstracts more general properties and patterns (i.e., categories). We create general names and categories. These give us the ideas and language which are the materials for the "discursive" faculty (i.e., the faculty of rational discourse). As the materials for rational discourse grow, so does rational discourse. I.e., more words and principles=greater capacity to reason. There's no need to invoke innate ideas.
Discussion:
1. Is this a plausible account? Plato on similarity, difference, oneness, multitude, existence, change, rest, justice.
2. Do we "create" the general principles, properties, and categories? Or are we discovering something about the world? Are there constraints?
Of Ideas In General.
2 fountains of knowledge: Sense and Reflection (internal sense)
S2. Read.
Discussion: Conventionalism? Can we come up with any patterns? Or does our mind “force” particular ones. If so, in what way are our ideas about the words “matching” the world?
S3: Read.
Discussion: Problem of idealism/veil of ignorance.
Plato: Need to know “the good” before you can know what things are. Bring 2 cups. One with a whole. Or draw an continuum.
Problem of poverty of stimulus for concepts. E.g., justice. Show monkey video. Did it experience it with only grapes? What if other fruits? Doesn't it need the concept of “sameness”? Where does that come from?
Of Simple Ideas
Discussion: S1 “the ideas they produce in the mind enter by the senses simple and unmixed.”
Main Objections to Empiricism
1. Math and Logic are Innate: Doesn’t it seem that mathematical and logical truths are true not because of our five senses, but because of reason’s ability to connect ideas?
2. Morality is Innate: How do we get a sense of what right and wrong are with our five senses? Since we cannot experience things like justice, human rights, moral duties, moral good and evil with our five senses, what can the empiricist’s ethical theory like? Hume (an empiricist) says morality is based solely on emotions; Locke says experience can provide us with data to show what is morally right and wrong, but does it seem that way to you?
3. Verifying Empiricism: Locke (an empiricist) says that our experiences tell us about the nature of reality, but how can we ever check our experience with what reality really is, in order to know that? Rationalists do not think we can, so we have to rely on reason.
4. Poverty of Stimulus Problem: Three year olds use language in ways that they are not explicitly taught. For example, they form original sentences from words that they haven’t heard put together in precisely that way before. Also, they start to understand grammatical rules before they even know what a noun or a verb is. If we can only say what we’ve heard said by others, how can three year olds speak as well as they do? This is known as the poverty of stimulus problem. You may think that Rationalism is strange, but it does a better job of explaining this problem than Empiricism. One way of choosing which of two theories is better (in addition to or instead of Ockham’s Razor – see Empiricism point #1 above) is asking, “Which theory explains the phenomena better?”1
5. Empiricism Undermines Creativity? According to Empiricism, you can combine things, separate them, and nothing else. With Rationalism, we come to experience with ready-made tools for creativity. E.g., Plato would say that we’re in touch with abstract, immutable realities, which provide lots of material with which to create.
6. Controllable Humans? According to Empiricism, human beings can be controlled and manipulated exceptionally easily. If we are nothing other than what we experience, then we should be able to be made to do whatever we’re taught. Rationalism has it that there is an invariable core (call it “human nature”) that refuses to be manipulated, which is what makes us unique.
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