How can I know anything?!
[Music]
Hello, my dearest friends, and welcome to
Part 6 of my introduction to philosophy.
If you're here for the first time, I just
want to say that this is the 6th episode of
a larger series.
This series draws a very basic and accessible
outline of European philosophy through a number
of key themes and classical thinkers.
If you're interested in this topic, please
make sure to watch all videos in the right
order as each part builds on the previous
ones.
For your convenience, I have created a playlist
in which everything is properly organized.
You can find the link in the description below.
Moreover, to help you even further, on my
website, for every single topic of discussion
I included a list of suggested readings.
That said, if you like what I'm doing here,
please subscribe to this channel and allow
its notifications.
In this way, you will get my videos as soon
as I'm posting them.
I plan to share with you many more exciting
materials on Eastern and Western philosophy,
world religions,
literature, photography, film, political theory,
and history.
I hope to see you again.
In any event, I remain deeply grateful for
your time and interest.
In the last video, I have tried to give you
an idea as to what metaphysics is.
I have uncovered (or you could say, barely
covered) three separate definitions.
Namely, metaphysics as the study of being,
of final causes, and of reality.
I have ended the 5th episode of our series by
asking whether it is even possible to know
what being, cause, and reality are.
For that reason, we have to delve a little
bit deeper into the problem of knowledge or
what philosophers call, epistemology.
A few quick warnings before anything else.
I have divided this part into three separate
sections.
If you wish to get a fuller picture of epistemology,
please watch all three videos.
Also, since my purposes are purely introductory,
I will survey only some, very basic issues.
As a field of study, epistemology is overwhelmingly
vast and tackles problems
which I won't ever be able to cover in the
limited space of the current series.
Nevertheless, I still hope to give you a clue
or two as to what this distinct (and distinguished)
discipline of philosophy is all about.
So, on to epistemology.
You should know by now that I love to preface
my analyses with a short etymological discussion.
This is no exception.
This strange term, epistemology is a combination
of two ancient Greek words:
"epistêmê" which means “knowledge;”
and "logos" which means both "theory" and
"discourse".
Therefore, epistemology designates a large
body of philosophical theories which try to
clarify the nature, criteria, and limits of
human knowledge.
To be a bit more specific, some of the key
questions of epistemology are:
(1) Is knowledge possible at all?
If it is, how far can it get?
Can we know the whole truth or only a part
of it?
Might it also be the case that knowledge isn't
possible at all and if so, why?
In short, how do we know that our beliefs
about reality are actually and objectively
true,
that is to say, valid everywhere, at all times,
and independently of our existence?
(2) What are the criteria by which we could
declare something to be true knowledge and
something else, mere opinion?
By the same token, how is falsehood possible?
(3) What exactly, in our nature, allows us
to know anything for sure?
Which faculties are more conducive to knowledge
and which ones predispose us to illusion,
self-deception, and by implication, to being
wrong?
(4) What's the relation between what we can
know and what we can say?
Can human knowledge be thoroughly articulated?
Is there anything we know which completely
escapes or transcends our verbal capacities?
These are just a few of the basic questions.
Needless to say, epistemologists have addressed
many other important problems during the long
history of their discipline.
If you're interested in knowing more about
it, I just wanted to mention that in the books
recommended on my website, you will find other
key issues.
As to what I personally intend to do, I will
do my best to explain how five classical Western
thinkers have answered some of the questions
enumerated above.
And because I sometimes like to take things
in chronological order, I will start with
an ancient philosopher who never disappoints:
Plato.
In Part 5 of this series, I already alluded
to the fact that according to Plato, the highest
reality belongs forms or ideas.
I explained there that each individual form
is perfect, eternal, and unchanging;
and that all of these ideal forms make up
a world which is separate and fully independent
from ours.
Moreover, for Plato, the external world of
our everyday experience represents just an
imperfect copy or image of this divine kingdom
of ideas.
If you need to refresh your memory about Plato's
metaphysics, I'll include the link to Part 5 in this
video's description, so you can watch it again
at your leisure.
Now, even if we accept that Plato's metaphysics
is true, there are some important questions
that immediately arise.
These are: if forms dwell in a completely
separate realm, can we ever become aware of
them?
And admitting that this awareness is possible,
could we ever know anything besides the mere
fact that they exist, say,
something about their inner structure or relation
to each other?
Plato responds in the affirmative to both
questions.
His explanation as to why that is the case,
has to do with his distinct theory of knowledge,
otherwise known as the theory of recollection
(or anamnesis).
To understand this theory you have to remember
that, for reasons that cannot be elaborated
here,
Plato seemed to believe in reincarnation and
the immortality of the soul.
Specifically, he supposed that before birth,
every soul had actually inhabited the eternal
world of ideas,
where it was able to endlessly and blissfully
contemplate all forms.
This is, you may say, the Platonic version
of paradise.
However, Plato went on to say that when assuming
a human body, the soul has forgotten its supernatural
knowledge of ideas.
But is this forgetting utterly hopeless?
Not at all.
Happily, says Plato, every time it comes into
contact with the things of this world, the
soul is reminded of the primordial forms,
and so, it can reach the truth again.
How come?
Well, that's because as we just said, the
things of this world are copies of the forms
themselves.
To take a couple of examples, every time I
see a straight object like a ruler and I say,
this object is straight,
what I'm actually saying is true because I
recollect the idea of straightness.
Or, if I pick up a ball and say, this object
is round,
my statement is true because that particular
object reminds me of the idea of roundness
- that my soul knew before acquiring a body.
Similarly, whenever I experience something
beautiful, for instance, a beautiful painting
or a beautiful landscape,
my soul glimpses for a moment the timeless
idea of beauty, which it contemplated before
being born.
Such recollections allow my soul to become
reacquainted with the truth of eternal forms,
and so to gain genuine knowledge.
This is, in a nutshell, Plato's theory of
knowledge as recollection.
There's something else you should know about
Plato's epistemology.
Namely, Plato insists that it is only through
reason that we reach the truth, i.e., knowledge
of forms.
The senses give us only opinions about reality
and opinions can never constitute absolute
knowledge.
Why?
Because, explains Plato, the objects of our
sensorial experience are always changing.
They never stay the same.
They appear and disappear at some point in
time.
Moreover, even during their existence, they
are in a perpetual state of flux.
And even if the changes they are subjected
to might be minuscule, external objects are
never self-identical.
Examples please!!
Look at our bodies, which, as any competent
medical doctor can tell you, are continuously
changing.
If anything, all human bodies are getting
older and older every single instant.
Moving to fruits and vegetables, they also
have a life cycle of their own:
they grow, get ripe, decay, and disappear.
If you think mountains or rocks are different,
think twice.
Every natural hard surface is continually
eroded by wind, water, ice and sand.
Consider also an enormous thing like our planet.
Does it have a life of its own, a date of
birth and an expected death?
All astrophysicists answer, yes.
Moreover, climatologists use every single opportunity
to remind us that the earth is a living entity
liable to endless changes.
Even if he didn't know as much as we do about
our planet, Plato did know that nothing is
permanent in the physical world.
He was confirmed in this by direct experience,
i.e., by his bodily senses.
What he saw, heard, smelled, touched, and
tasted, showed him that nothing stays the
same.
At the same time, whereas worldly things are
continually changing, forms remain essentially
changeless.
Thus, reasons Plato, the source of true knowledge
could never be sense experience.
Because visible things are constantly shifting,
the senses, which are in direct contact with
them, could never lead to certain knowledge.
Rather, since the changeless, everlasting
forms constitute the true reality, while reason
is the unique means to know them,
it logically follows that true knowledge comes
exclusively from reason.
Precisely because our senses are fallible
and could produce only opinions, the only
hope for knowledge we have lies in our mind.
In this way, Plato was able to argue that
we do have the capacity to discover the truth
because we can know (or recollect) the forms.
And we know the forms because we have a soul
endowed with reason,
whose immortality allowed it to contemplate
the eternal ideas before being born into a
human body.
In sum, how can we characterize Plato's epistemology?
I would say that it has three fundamental
features.
Plato's epistemology is, first, idealistic
because it regards incorporeal ideas as most
real
and in consequence, denies the significance
of the corporeal experience of the world.
The second feature consists of its rationalistic
core.
As he denies that knowledge could ever come
from our senses, Plato proclaims reason as
the unique source of infallible knowledge.
Rational critical thinking, which distrusts
all sensorial experience, is the only means
of knowing reality.
Thirdly, the Platonic epistemology is mystical
inasmuch as it postulates the existence of
a transcendent realm of forms,
which it considers the sole object worthy
of our knowledge and awe.
In general, Plato's theory of knowledge is
paramount for the period before the scientific
revolution in Western Europe.
But, you may wonder, how much did epistemology
actually change since Plato?
The answer is somewhat ambiguous.
That's because modern epistemology will have
become both a continuation of and a radical
departure from, its ancient ancestors.
Briefly stated, to the extent that it rejects
the existence of eternal independent forms,
modern epistemology is completely different
from Plato's philosophy.
At the same time, since a large part of it
continued to rely heavily upon the knowing
powers of reason without completely abandoning
religious references,
modern epistemology remained relatively Platonic.
Next, I will draw in very crude strokes the
outline of modern epistemology between the
17th and 18th century.
Specifically, I will deal with modernity's
reigning theories of knowledge: rationalism
and empiricism.
We shall see that, just like Plato, modern
rationalism enshrines reason as the ultimate
criterion for determining the truth
and celebrates the fact that all human beings
are capable of rational thought.
Empiricism, on the other hand, argues that
the only source of genuine knowledge is our
sensorial experience,
i.e., what we know through our five senses.
Rationalism privileges sound logical arguments
based on deductions from universally accepted
premises.
By contrast, empiricism stresses the importance
of inference from concrete observations
and the necessity of empirical proof for every
theoretical statement about the world.
I will start with the founder of the rationalist
tradition and one of the most illustrious
figures in the history of epistemology: René
Descartes.
Considered the father of modern European philosophy,
René Descartes is a typical representative
of the emerging scientific worldview.
An independent spirit and brilliant mathematician,
he refused to defer to any intellectual authority
besides that of his own intellect.
He was not willing to admit anything as true
which could not be proved rationally evident.
To this day Descartes' epistemological project
sounds very bold, indeed,
as he decided to set aside all metaphysical
speculations and epistemological theories
before him.
What he wanted to find was:
(1) a reliable method for all branches of
human inquiry;
(2) indisputable principles to be used as
the basis for all sciences,
and so, for unerring knowledge.
But how did he manage to do that?
The answer is: through a radical doubt.
His strategy was to view everything as possibly
untrue.
Before proceeding any further, a quick clarification
is in order:
Descartes was never a skeptic.
He initiated this whole project being confident
that true knowledge was possible
and that he would discover propositions which
could no longer be doubted.
Basically, Descartes' skepticism was purely
instrumental.
Descartes strongly believed that the aforementioned
doubt would lead to something absolutely certain.
As we shall soon see, fully committed skeptics
do not think that's ever possible.
With that in mind, don't make the mistake
of counting Descartes as one of them.
Getting back to the main argument, Descartes
began by considering questionable whatever
knowledge he got from school and books.
Nothing he read or learned, he confessed,
was absolutely indisputable.
There was an enormous room for uncertainty
- and therefore, for error -
in the body of knowledge he inherited.
What about himself, his own experience of
the world?
Could he doubt that, too?
His potentially shocking answer was, yes.
His justification was that he couldn't be
sure at all whether he was dreaming or not.
When we dream, he explained, we don't know
we are dreaming.
Furthermore, in dreams we still have a sense
experience of some kind: we see, hear and
touch.
Some of us dream even of smells and tastes.
Whatever the case, Descartes insisted that
there was no fundamental difference between
dreaming and being awake in terms of what
we perceive at any moment in time.
As a result, he could reasonably doubt that
his bodily experience was true.
But what about his mental experience, could
he doubt that, too?
Here, Descartes was faced with a tremendous
difficulty.
That's because the mind seems to possess truths
which are seemingly impossible to doubt.
What kind of truths?
Mathematical truths, to take the most obvious
example.
Could anybody doubt that 2 plus 2 makes 4?
Yet, even in this instance Descartes found
reason to doubt but,
interestingly enough, only by showing his
religious inclinations.
He argued that an utterly demonic spirit (or
‘evil genius’) could have taken possession
of him
and instilled in his mind certainties like
the one which states that 2 plus 2 makes 4.
Could that be true?
The problem is, it could, although there's
no way to find out.
Thus, Descartes deemed the possibility, no
matter how minuscule,
that an evil genius may deceive him in this
manner,
sufficient enough to doubt even mathematical
truths.
But is this a completely hopeless situation?
Fortunately, Descartes does discover a way
out.
He realizes that insofar as he doubts, he
is engaged in a process of thinking or reflection.
Indeed, he could doubt absolutely everything
but he could not doubt that he was doubting,
and therefore, thinking.
Moreover, he observes that any thinking requires
somebody (or an agent) who thinks.
There's no such thing as incorporeal minds
floating in the air.
Minds exist only in individual human beings.
Let's rephrase the argument so far.
(1) No one can doubt that while doubting,
one is thinking.
(2) There's no such thing as thinking without
a thinker.
Ergo, the one who doubts cannot doubt that
he or she exists.
Descartes offered a brief formula for this
syllogism which became very famous.
It runs thus: dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo
sum
I doubt therefore I think, I think therefore
I am.
The wonderful thing is that, these two propositions
(or principles)
are not true just for Descartes.
They hold true for anyone capable of reasoning,
i.e., for all human beings.
In other words, they contain a truth that
can never be disputed.
Now that he showed that true knowledge is
possible,
Descartes has to explain how we come about
it.
Here, he turns to another introspective reflection.
He says that he could not conceive himself
except as thinking.
However hard he tried, he could find no other
property besides thought,
which belonged to him more intimately.
Thereby, he decided that he was human only
insofar as he was a thinking thing,
and nothing else.
So, what could he say about the proposition,
"I, Rene Descartes, am by definition a thinking
thing"?
First, that its truth is universal:
it is obvious to everybody and applies to
all human beings.
Second, that it is always and unambiguously
true;
therefore, it is clear and distinct.
Third, that he has reached its truth only
by using his reason and without any help from
the senses.
Consequently, the same proposition is rational.
Hence Descartes' conclusion that true knowledge
must meet four criteria:
universality, clarity, distinctness, and rationality.
If a proposition does not have all of these
qualities,
it is open to doubt or prone to error.
Instead of genuine knowledge, it is either
a mere opinion or, worse, an illusion.
However, Descartes still has to explain whether
we can know anything about objects or entities
outside us.
Given his previous statement that we cannot
rely at all on our senses,
how is knowledge about the material world
even possible?
The example Descartes uses in this context,
is a piece of wax.
The wax he refers to is, to quote the Merriam-Webster
dictionary,
"a substance that is secreted by bees and
is used by them for constructing the honeycomb;
[a substance] that is a dull yellow solid
plastic when warm;
and that is composed primarily of a mixture
of esters, hydrocarbons, and fatty acids."
You can forget the exact chemical composition
of wax.
That's not what interests us here.
What interests us is that wax has a certain
density, texture, shape, and size,
as well as a yellowish colour, a pretty flat
taste, and,
as far as I'm concerned, a wonderful perfume.
According to Descartes, we perceive all of
these qualities by coming into direct contact
with the wax,
more exactly, through our sight, touch, smell,
and taste.
If you imagine a piece of wax, by simply looking
at it, you should be able to describe, without
any problem,
its colour, shape, and size.
If you're close enough and the wax is natural,
you could even feel its scent.
But now, pretend that you have a fireplace
in the house.
Were you to throw the wax in the fire, you
would see that its hardness, size, and shape
changed,
and that it even smelled differently.
Please don't try this at home since hot wax
can burn or damage your skin,
not to mention the danger of fire.
I'm sure you can find a video on youtube about
the different properties of wax when heated.
At the end of our little imaginary experiment,
it seems that the senses tell us that wax
can be
both hard and liquid, yellow and almost transparent,
with a definite shape and shapeless.
But that can't be right, realized Descartes.
This is why he concludes that the senses reveal
only the "accidental qualities" of objects.
Descartes uses the word "accidental" to convey
the changing character of wax and any other
object for that matter.
Implicitly, this means that the senses cannot
tell us anything about the essence of wax,
what wax truly is.
But do objects have an essence and if so,
who or what could give us access to it?
Yes, answers Descartes, all entities in the
world do have an essence,
which we could grasp through our reason.
Why reason?
Because, when asking what is common and indispensable to all objects,
the rational answer is that they all exist
in space.
No one can conceive a worldly object as having
no dimension or taking no room in space.
As a result, reason tells me that what is
essential to every entity in the visible world
consists of its dimension
or, to use Descartes' own terminology, its
"extension."
Hence Descartes' conclusion that only the
mind can know the essence of physical things,
that is to say, their extension,
whereas the senses provide only knowledge
of their accidental properties.
Now, let's look more closely at the proposition,
"the essence of physical objects is their
existence in space, their extension."
We should easily see that this statement is
universally valid
to the extent that all objects appear like
this to all people.
Next, the statement is unambiguous, i.e.,
both clear and distinct.
The meaning of this proposition cannot be
interpreted in more than one way.
Also, the proposition is rational, because,
Descartes thought,
it can be reached at as the conclusion of
an abstract, logical deduction and not thanks
to sensorial experience.
That said, according to Descartes' own criteria,
the proposition,
"the essence of physical objects is their
extension" cannot be doubted under any circumstance.
It deserves the title of true knowledge.
It is now time to summarize Descartes' epistemology.
Herein, knowledge of the truth:
(1) can be acquired by humankind;
(2) targets the essence of things;
(3) is obtained only through reason;
and (4) consists exclusively of clear and distinct
ideas.
At bottom, Descartes refuses to grant senses
any say in the acquisition of indubitable
knowledge.
This particular aspect of his epistemological
theory was something that the English philosopher,
John Locke, took issue with.
Please join me in the next video to see why.
Thanks so much for watching.
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