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Theistic Enlightenment
Atheistic Enlightenment
French Enlightenment
Likeable guy, life of the party, witty Not atheist, but biggest attacker of Christianity
Radical skeptic
Writings
Wrote An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding
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Certainty is possible at the scientific level in math, logic, and hard empiricism Certainty is not possible at the metaphysical level in ethics and theology
Talking Points
1). Impressions and Ideas
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Impressions
Original experience of senses Lively and vivacious, uncontrollable, called first order experience They are real, but the cause of them is unknown Leads to impressionistic painting and music
Ideas
What are left after impressions Images of impressions, memory images in the imagination
We dont know if there is a cause Our impressions come together in a particular fashion to give us the sense that two things are happening simultaneously, when they aren't
Movie at a theater.
3). Induction
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Induction argues from the particular to the universal. Can only give probability, not certainty 2 justifications for it
1. logical necessity, but we can't know that for sure 2. Possibility, high, but fails due to lack of certainty, like flipping a coin ;)
We have no way to be sure that we are the same person as we were 10 years ago, are real, and are self-conscious
We cannot know for sure that there is God Reason can't tell me that he exists because it depends on non-demonstrable proofs like causation
Reason is not the method by which the mind reaches conclusions, but the method by which the mind defends convictions already reached (arbitrary).
7). Morality
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No absolute morality We use reason to defend our moral convictions, not to discover them Leads to utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham
Ought versus is
Hume says we cannot know what we ought to do, seeing as we can barely know what is
"I see reports in the Bible and elsewhere that miracles happen, but as a reasonable man, I haven't experienced them, nor has anyone else, so the writers of the Bible were either deceived or lying. (Hint, hint Hume theyre called miracles for a reason. Just saying)
Immanuel Kant
Background
Grew up in a Lutheran Pietistic Home
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Synthesizer
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British Empiricism and Continental Rationalism Driving apart faith and reason All philosophy since Kant has its roots in him
Biography
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Born in 1724 Really boring, kind of OCD (remember the detail about the neighbors setting their clocks by his actions).
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Philosophy professor in Prussia Read Hume, and then spent 10 years writing The Critique of Pure Reason.
Books
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The Critique of Pure Reason Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics The Critique of Practical Reason Critique of Judgment
Metaphysics
Took the mind from outside of philosophy and made it central, as Copernicus had done with the sun
Subjectivism is born.
Instead of their being an objective standard that we look at, we only look at what is going on in the mind.
There are all sorts of different sized and shaped jars in the kitchen with various contents
The mind is the grinder Information comes in through pure intuitions, the first of two channels, part of the mind
Order the percepts coming in and puts them in context Innate sorting mechanism
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Modality
We can fully know the phenomenal world, but we can never get to the noumenal world.
"Percepts without concepts are blind. Concepts without percepts are empty." Kant
4). Transcendental Apperception of the Ego because consciousness is the output of the sausage grinder (And regardless of what you all say, were abbreviating it as TAE)
Transcendental
That which underlies human knowledge, but which itself is unknowable. We are immediately aware of our own existence, but are not able to perceive what is perceiving.
Apperception
The ground of perception. It cannot be perceived, but without it, perception would be impossible
Ego
Same line of argumentation used for God and the noumenal world
Noumenal
Objective order outside of sausage grinder Feeds percepts into grinder Essences- cannot be studied phenomenally
God
We must then get rid of theology, as God cannot be studied phenomenally. Replace with religion.
Self
Get rid of ethics, as there can be no freedom. Man becomes a machine. Morality takes its place.
Get rid of the laws of nature, as they cannot be verified empirically. Sociology takes its place.
We must get rid of the Laws of Nature, Ethics, and Theology because they cannot be part of the phenomenal world.
6). Practical reason We need God, self, and the thing in itself to be there as a practical necessity.
We must presuppose them, take it on faith that they are there Moral Argument for the Existence of God
As humans, we all have a sense of duty That sense of duty is critical to our existence; strategic That sense of duty is derived from ethics In order for ethics to be there, there must be justice
Afterlife Judge
Fully righteous All powerful All knowing (All the characteristics of the Christian God)
Other Details
Categorical Imperative
We have a sense of obligation This sense of oughtness is something we share in common and is in conflict Solution: assume that there is a standard "Act according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law."
Four Observations/Criticisms
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Skepticism
Categories
Causation
At the end of the day, with this philosophy, we Kant apply reason to God, the Self, or the ThingIn-Itself (you can laugh now).
Georg Hegel
Basic Philosophical Background:
Along with Kant, created 19th century philosophy
History
Revelation
Dialectic
Hegel denies that there is an individual, private self. Hegel denies that there is an eternal, transcendent being called God God becomes:
God is inside us
Absolute Ego
Kant's Categories
We all share the same categories because we are all part of this Great Mind
Kant's antinomies
If you take reason across the wall, you will hit contradictions, meet unresolvable antinomies
Dialectical Triad
Hegel starts with a thesis, countered by an antithesis, resolved in a synthesis.
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The new synthesis becomes a new thesis, and the cycle continues Each synthesis is a little progress, a little step in evolution You can have multiple syntheses from a set of thesis vs. antithesis
Thesis Synthesis Antithesis
Engine of process
Therefore, ethnic cleansings, the Holocaust, Planned Parenthood, and eugenics are allowed and should be promoted
Aufheben
Literally means "Lifting out of" Happens the moment the synthesis is produced.
Hegel brings a utopia and an interest in history to the table, while Spinoza doesnt.
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"The plain of history is the unfolding (making concrete) of the Absolute Spirit."
Aftermath
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Two streams
Hegelian
Marx
Darwin
Dialectical Biologist On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.
Freud
Dialectical Psychologist Conflict between the Id (the it) and the Super-ego that is resolved in the Ego.
The Id is sexual, base instincts The super-ego is kind of like your conscience
Spencer
Popularized the phrase "Survival of the Fittest" (racist) His student was Walter Bagehot, who taught Heinrich Himmler, the Head of the SS for Hitler.
Christian Liberalism
Anti-Hegelian branches
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