Locke: primary & secondary qualities, Wittgenstein and Truth!

We saw how Locke’s views on ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ qualities emphasise his belief in the physical world as grounding the sense data that empiricism relies on.

Locke’s famous snowball has primary qualities of ‘solidity, extension, figure and mobility’, in other words it takes up a certain round space in the world, you can see it and if it hits you, you’ll feel it! These qualities are in the snowball itself and will not vary according to the circumstances of the person experiencing it: they are what we might call (although I don’t think Locke does) objective qualities.

On the other hand the secondary qualities such as colours sounds and tastes vary as the circumstances of the person experiencing the snowball vary: the first snowball to hit you feels colder that than the fifth, the colour and sound it presents to your senses varies according to when, where and how you experience it.

So, if Locke thinks that the objects in the real world have primary qualities that are independent of observers then he is a ‘realist’. He thinks that our perceptions of the world, our sense impressions, are directly given by the real world. 

This might seem obvious, but it is important in terms of empiricist epistemology: for empiricism, as for science, knowledge is grounded (guaranteed, given by) a 'real' world. For empiricists (and scientists) the truth is out there waiting to be discovered. Whereas for many modern philosophers who have followed Wittgenstein's lead on how language works the truth is created through language use. 

This fundamental difference about the nature of truth is at the heart of modern philosophical (and scientific) debate. 

This is a question of metaphysics: do you think that the fundamental nature of being is knowable? 

Kant Podcasts!

The Kant podcasts are here (and on iTunes)

Kant (advanced! :)

The first one we listened to in class.
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Revision questions.

The point of these questions is to get you working out what they are really asking you to say: what is relevant? how can you link to the various ideas and thinkers we've looked at. They are all inter-related and you could write one long essay covering them all, but the exam has two short short essay questions and two long essay questions so it makes sense to try to write in 'sections' - if you see what I mean.

1. Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the view that all ideas are derived from sense experience.

2. Outline the strengths and weaknesses of the view that the mind contains innate ideas.

3. Is certainty confined to ‘introspection’ and the tautological (analytical)? 

4. Outline and discuss the view that experience is only intelligible through a conceptual scheme.

Kant & Shopping

Don't panic! Kant is notoriously difficult, so don't worry if you don't entirely get him. All the confusing terms will fall into place before long - it's a bit like learning a foreign language, but you'll soon be fluent!

Try to remember what the point of all this is: you're learning the 'basics' (not that basic) of epistemology which is, as you know, the study of knowledge: what knowledge is, where it comes from, what we can know and how we can know it.

We have seen how there are two competing theories: empiricism and rationalism. If you think we can account for everything we know through our sensual experience of the world - if you think there's nothing in your head that didn't get there through your senses - you saw it, you heard it, you tasted it, you smelt, you, felt it then you are an empiricist. If you think the total amount of stuff in your head is greater than you can account for by your experience then you are probably a rationalist.

A SHOPPING ANALOGY
Imagine you go on a long and extravagant shopping spree buying lots of nice things like slippers and philosophy books!! Anyway, you get home and get all the stuff out of the bags and check it off against your receipts. Now, an empiricist would be able to match all the new things to the receipts, but the rationalist would find things that she had no receipt for!!  Rationalists claim that we have stuff (knowledge) in our heads that cannot be accounted for - cannot be explained by experience.

So whereas Hume thinks that it is obvious (analytic) that if we 'bought' '7' and we 'bought' '5' we would have '12' in our shopping bags, Kant thinks having '7' and '5' in our shopping bags doesn't explain how  we have '12'. He thinks we have '12' by a rational intuition - by the power of rational thought. He thinks that rational thought - the power of reason is a capacity that humans have that allows them know things that experience doesn't give them.

For Hume, saying that 7+5=12 is no more clever than saying all kangaroos are animals, but Kant thinks it is. Kant agrees that if you 'bought' a kangaroo you would have an animal in your shopping bag, but he doesn't think 'buying' a '7' and a '5' would mean you automatically had a '12' in your bag. He thinks you have to 'do' something to a '7' and a '5' to get a '12', but you don't have to do anything to a kangaroo to get an animal!!

Descartes, another rationalist, didn't come up with the maths thing, but is a rationalist because, like Kant, he thinks we can know things that we couldn't get from experience.

I hope this is helping, please don't despair if it isn't - chocolate biscuits next week. And think how smart you are that you are even doing this stuff compared to the fools doing ... other subjects, and ow big your brain muscle will be after all this exercise!! And you only have to have fairly basic grasp to do well in the exam. Honest!! :)

bIG rEVISION PLAn ThinG

Revision Plan / Diagram List

Epistemology

Empiricism

Rationalism

Kant Corner

Locke

- tabula rasa

- Sensations - reflection

Hume

- Impressions - ideas

- Induction - deduction

- Hume’s ‘copy method’

Hume’s fork

Analytic / synthetic - relations of ideas - matters of fact

A priori / a posteriori knowledge / propositions

Locke on language - role of words

Carruthers -

Sapir - Whorf

Chomsky

Descartes

Primacy of reason - rational intuition

Wittgenstein - Beetle in box - language

Solipsism

R.F Holland (criticisms of Empiricism)