These are just some notes for the (example) HCJ test questions.
1: What are the main arguments in the Leviathan? To what extent are they comparable to Machiavelli?
The Leviathan is an all powerful ruler of the military and religion. It is metaphorically hired to stop chaos and to bring order to society. However, if he doesn't do this, he can be overthrown.
Hobbes argued that all men are naturally equal, but without a government, there would be an all v.s. all war. He describes life in this situation as "Nasty, brutish and short". He also says that the main motive for this war is 'self preservation'.
For this reason, we need the Leviathan.
This links to Machiavelli in the idea of 'self preservation', Machiavelli says that after a war, humans forget their father's death, but not their property's destruction. According to both Hobbes and Machiavelli, we are self centred.
2: Discuss Locke's theories of government. What philosophical trend underlies his political theory?
First treatise of government: It attacks the concept of 'The Divine Right of Kings' - the doctrine that said that kings got their power from God. Overall, Locke dislikes the concept of monarchy.
Second treatise of govt.: Everyone enjoys freedom but obey the natural laws, these are the laws that we know intuitively e.g. murder is wrong.
State of Nature: In Locke's opinion, your life and your property are the same, he believed that you could kill someone who you think poses significant danger to your life and/or property. Locke also believed that everyone is entitled to life, liberty and property. However, we have a problem with perceiving the danger that others pose.
Locke proposed the idea of a government by consent (his Social Contract), where laws keep the government at bay, but allow it to interfere when needed to e.g. when a law is broken.
In this system, taxes could be levied if the people didn't consent taxes.
Citizens could rebel if the government didn't follow the laws.
Also, the monarchy is kept separate from the government and law - this meant that the monarchy didn't have full power.
3: What evidence is there that the world is actually as it exists? Plato and Descartes.
Plato's cave/form theory explains the world's existence.
This is about prisoners being chained together in a cave, facing a wall unable to see the outside world and all they can see is their shadows. However, one prisoner decides to turn around and see what the outside world has to offer, he frees himself from his restraints to discover exactly what's outside.
Descartes' Cogito: "I think therefore I am". This theory says that because I think, I must exist. However, how do I know that anyone else exists, because I don't know whether anyone else exists because I can't think for them and don't know if they're thinking.
Descartes was sceptical about everything, because at one time or another, we have dreamt about what we are doing. Our thoughts and actions have no more status than dreams or hallucinations.
Our beliefs can be doubted whenever there is any sceptical alternative to suggest otherwise.
4: Discuss deduction, inducation, a priori and a posteriori, with reference to Hume.
Deduction: This starts with the effect and deduces the cause from it. The example Hume gives is the cannonball and cushion: the cushion has an indent in it, so we can deduce that the cannonball has caused it.
Induction: This is the opposite of deduction. It starts at the cause and induces the effect, it can be induced that the cannonball caused the indent when placed on the cushion.
A priori: This is something that can be derived from logic without any observed facts. Hume says that they give no information to the world and don't depend on anything else in the universe being in place. An example is mathematical logic.
A posteriori: Hume describes this as 'matters of fact'. They depend on certain things being in place and to doubt them would be inconcievable. An example is the sun rising: the sun must be aligned with the earth for it to rise. We can never know for sure whether it will or not because there is no logic to prove that it will happen for sure.
5: Rousseau is seen as the founder of the romantic movement. Describe his ideas and their impact on politics and culture.
Social Contract: This says "Man is born free and is everywhere in chains", this means that we are born free to do what we like, but laws and rules top us from having this freedom.
He criticised Locke by saying that the problems of inequality were caused by property ownership.
The main problem for Rousseau was finding a government that would uphold the powers/rights of the people, whilst uniting everyone. The answer to this problem was the General Will.
General Will: We all agree on what goes into the GW by giving our opinions on what should be made law - this supposedly gives more freedom to people.
It is clear that the GW influenced the French Revolution's 'Rights of Man' doctrine.
It can also be said that the General Will started the concept of democracy - everyone has a say and all the views are put together.
Showing posts with label Descartes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Descartes. Show all posts
Monday, 12 December 2011
Sunday, 13 November 2011
HCJ Seminar Paper
HCJ SEMINAR PAPER ON DESCARTES, SPINOZA AND LEIBNIZ...
Descartes
Descartes
Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) is considered to be the father of modern philosophy. His outlook was influenced by new physics and astronomy.
He published the book ‘Principia Philisophiae’ in 1644, this set out most of his scientific theories. He wrote others books including ‘Essais Philosophiques’ in which he wrote about optics and geometry.
He regarded the bodies of men and animals as machines; animals were ‘automata’ (or automated) and humans as soulful.
Mind and matter
He asked the question ‘If mind and matter can’t interact, why does the body behave as if the mind is controlling it? Geulincx (a follower of Descartes) came up with the theory of two clocks as the answer: Both clocks keep perfect time and when one points to the hour mark, the other will strike, so that if you saw one and heard the other, you would think that one caused the other to strike. Each clock is wound up by God (perfect timing) so that when you choose to, physical laws cause your arm to move even though your mind hasn’t really acted on your body.
There are of course problems with this theory, one being that the physical series is rigidly determined by natural laws and the mental series (which is parallel to it) must be equally deterministic. However the theory has certain merits; in a way it made the soul independent of the body because it was never acted upon by the body. The theory also allowed the principle ‘one substance can’t act on another’. There were two substances; mind and matter, interaction between the two seemed so inconceivable and Geulincx’s theory explained the appearance of interaction while denying its reality.
Doubt
Descartes most important books were ‘Discourses in Method’ (1637) and ‘Meditations’ (1642). In these he deals with ‘Cartesian Doubt’; this is where he tried to doubt everything he could possibly doubt, pushing away everything unknown to him and left the stuff he knew - the only thing he didn’t doubt was geometry because it is unchangeable. Descartes even doubted his own nationality/heritage. Whilst doing this, he regulated his conduct by following ‘common received rules’. He left his mind unhampered by the consequences of his doubt.
Descartes began with scepticism with regard to the senses. He says ‘Can I doubt it that I am sitting here?’ Yes, because sometimes I have dreamt it.
Beliefs can be doubted whenever there is sceptical alternative to suggest otherwise.
Your senses have deceived at least once in your life, so why not at any time? They have no more status than a dream or a hallucination.
A question raised from this is ‘What if it’s all a dream?’ this is where ‘The Matrix’ comes in. The film is based on Descartes’ main philosophical statement/idea ‘I think, therefore I am’ and the ability of think for yourself (intellectual autonomy). Descartes knew that his sensory experiences didn’t always match reality e.g. the opposite of lucid dreams?
In ‘The Matrix’ people live their lives in pods which feed them sensory information; this gives them the illusion of leading ordinary lives. Reality is a computer generated dreamworld called the Matrix.
Ideas (this includes sense perceptions).
According to Descartes, ideas seem to be of these sorts:
1: those that are innate
2: those that are foreign
3: those that are invented by me
The 2nd type of ideas are objects, we suppose this because nature teaches us think so and also because such ideas come independently of the mind e.g. sensation.
Spinoza
Spinoza (1632 - 1677) was “the most noblest and loveable of the great philosophers” according to Russell. He wasn’t as intellectual as a lot of the other great philosophers but he was ethically supreme.
Main works and ideas
His main work ‘Ethics’ was published after his death at the age of 43. The ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’ and the ‘Tractatus Politicus’ were his other works. ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus’ was a combination of criticism of the Bible and political theory. ‘Tractatus Politicus’ was only about political theory.
In his criticism of the Bible, he deals with anticipating modern views, in particular, assigning later dates to many of the books of the Bible in the Old Testament, rather than relying on tradition.
His political theory derives from Hobbes. In the state of nature, there is no right or wrong because wrong involves breaking the law. According to Spinoza, the Sovereign can do no wrong and agrees with Hobbes in that the church should be secondary to the state. Spinoza opposes rebellion, even against a bad Government. However, he disagrees with Hobbes in that ‘democracy is the most natural form of government’. He says that freedom of opinion is important, however he says that religious questions should be decided by the state and not the church.
His work ‘Ethics’ deals with metaphysics, psychology of the ‘passions’ of the human mind and will; it sets out an ethics based on metaphysics and psychology.
Metaphysics and psychology are from Descartes and Hobbes respectively, but ethics is Spinoza’s own work and of most value in his book.
Spinoza says that everything is ruled by an absolute logical necessity. There is no free will in the mental sphere or the concept of chance in the physical world. Everything that happens manifests from God’s instructionable nature.
Spinoza and the emotions
Spinoza suggests the idea that ‘the mind has an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God’.
The ‘passions’ of our minds distract us from our intellectual vision, he goes on to say that ‘everything endeavours to persevere in its own being’, therefore we get love and hate. According to Spinoza, self-preservation is the central motive of the ‘passions’.
The last two books of ‘Ethics’ were about human bondage (or ‘strength of emotions’) and the ‘power of understanding’ (or ‘human freedom’).
Leibniz
Leibniz (1646 - 1716) is one of the supreme intellects of all time.
There are two systems of philosophy that can be attributed to him; the first was optimistic and orthodox. The other was unearthed by more recent philosophers and is said to be ‘Spinoza-esque’, profound and coherent.
Substance(s)
His most popular philosophy can be found in ‘Monadology’ and ‘Principles of Nature and Grace’ - one of which he wrote for Prince Eugene of Savoy. His theoretical optimism is in the ‘Theodicee’ - written for Queen Charlotte of Prussia. Just like Descartes and Spinoza he based his philosophy on substance, but differed from Descartes and Spinoza in his theory of mind and matter and the number of substances. Descartes said there were 3: Mind, matter and God. Spinoza said there was 1 substance: God.
According to Descartes, extension is the centre of matter; Spinoza said that extension and thought are attributes of God, but Leibniz says that extension can’t be an attribute of a substance because extension involves plurality and can only be attributed to a number of substances and not just one, for this reason, each single substance must be unextended.
Monads (Very brief explanation)
Monads are an infinite number of substances; each monad is a soul, but only when viewed abstractly. No monad could be related to another.
Leibniz’s arguments for the existence of God
1: The Ontological argument: This deals with existence vs. essence. Any person or thing exists and also has certain qualities. The OA in 3 basic steps:
Definition: God is the greatest thing imaginable.
Premise: It is greater to (necessarily) exist than to not (necessarily) exist.
Conclusion: God (necessarily) exists.
Leibniz said that unless the coherence of a supremely perfect being could be demonstrated, the ontological argument fails.
2: The Cosmological Argument: This is a form of the ‘first cause’ argument. A basic version of the CA is this:
Every finite being has a cause or a meaning.
A causal loop can’t exist.
A causal chain can’t be an infinite length.
Therefore, a first cause (not an effect) must exist
Leibiniz said this: “There can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition, without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although we cannot know these reasons in most cases”.
3: The argument from eternal truths: This is hard to define properly, but roughly this is it: A statement such as ‘it is raining’ is sometimes true but sometimes false. The statement ‘two and four’ is always true. Statements that are always true are called eternal truths. Also, the truths that are part of the content of an eternal mind.
4: The argument from pre-established harmony: Leibniz says that the argument is this; all clocks keep time with each other without any causal interaction, there must have been a single outside cause that relates to all of the clocks. This links to the monads theory, if all the monads never have interaction, then how do any of them know that the other ones exist? Apparently, this argument has no logical fault because it is based on empiricism.
Every substance only affects itself, but all the substances in the world yet seem to causally interact with each other because they have been programmed by God in advance to ‘harmonize’ with each other.
The end?
Sources used:
Sources used:
‘A History of Western Philosophy’ - B. Russell.
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