PHL 3305 Lecture 27

« previous | Friday, November 8, 2019 | next »

How do we start?

First premises (things that are known to be true) have to be known prior for syllogism to even work

Three "difficulties":

1. whether the knowledge of the immediate principles is the same or not
2. whether or not there is scientific knowledge of each
3. whether the knowledge is innate and, if so, this knowledge could go unnoticed

In answer to the third,

• we come to know things innately through experience
• senses are a stream of information; we extract universals from this stream through induction
  • process called abstraction

In answer to the first two,

• there are two types of science

Against Descartes

• Descartes gives primacy to doubht
• according to human nature, knowledge is prior to doubt
  • doubt isn't even a virtue
  • apparently, Descartes didn't start from doubt either... He had his childhood experiences, education, and resulting knowledge