His final thoughts on the subject are that he is having difficulty completely letting go of the idea that the body is known better than the mind, but he knows that it cannot be correct because there is no rationale that allows him to know something which is doubtful such as the body, better than the mind which has survived his skepticism. In Descartes’ mind, the self is something that thinks and exists, but he cannot say the same for the body which he claims does not
These arguments are the argument of gradation to being and argument from design but they are not of as much interest to philosophers as the First, Second and Third Way. I feel this is a major point of criticism as it suggests perhaps Aquinas is attempting to lengthen his argument or is struggling to create more evidence to back up his argument. I think they do not help his cosmological argument for the existence of God but rather they impede it. Particularly as the Fifth Way appears to make more reference to the design argument. It is important to remember when critically evaluating Aquinas’ cosmological argument on the existence of God that his work is not the sole argument.
Mackie’s argument from queerness is founded upon a naturalistic account of the world. The main idea of the argument from queerness seems to imply that we should not believe in the existence of objective values because they would not fit in with a naturalistic world. He is convinced that there are no moral facts and properties, and we cannot possibly have moral knowledge. There are two parts in Mackie’s argument from queerness, one metaphysical and the other epistemological. The metaphysical component
This established as the foundations upon which certain knowledge can be built. Doubting everything’s existence entails there is a doubter which must exist for the doubting to arise. If all that is usually known as true is a trick of an ‘evil genius’, there must be something existing that can be deceived, and this is what is using scepticism: the mind. To deny one’s own existence requires a contradiction of the mind as it is thinking, consequently it cannot think if it does not exist. This supposed incorrigible idea is dependent on the occurrent existence of thoughts.
Though they share no common properties, substance dualists maintain that the mind and body causally interact and influence one another. One of Descartes’ most established arguments for substance dualism relies on the assertion that conceivability entails possibility. He maintains that if he can clearly and distinctly conceive of one thing as separate from another, then it is possible that the two are distinct; and, since he can conceptually separate the mind from the body, it is possible for the former to exist without the latter. If the mind can exist without the body, then the two cannot be identical substances. I find that the following considerations provide a convincing argument against dualism, as both the empirical and logical conceivability of the mind existing without the body can be called
Berkeley referred to himself as the defender of common sense, though some of his ideas are absurd and hard to digest to begin with. He denies the existence of matter or material substratum, as used by Descartes and Locke. In his denial, he is heavily influenced by Thomas Hobbes, in terms of the importance he gives to linguistics. His denial of material substratum is what forms the grounds for Locke calling out
With this argument, Descartes is presenting himself as a skeptic of all empirical, a posteriori knowledge we have. However, he does clarify that his scepticism is potentially temporary - as his aim is to find a way he can ground his knowledge (in this case, a posteriori knowledge) with certainty. Nevertheless, in this argument, Descartes is calling for a mistrust of the senses. Senses are sometimes deceiving, so we cannot trust that all (or anything) we learn from them are
Such Geometry is one example of a situation that not possible to observation. The paradigm of Positivism seem to be combine of Rationalism and Empiricism. Positivism focus on A priori knowledge same Rationalism but in difference point, Positivist beliefs in nature of reality that can be verified by science process but don’t belief in the innate. They’re trying to explanation about the reality for warranted beliefs and Empricism is rejected the innate knowledge but emphasize truth-reliable process. It’s look like the one of science process, Such measurement which needs to be reliability and generalize outcomes.
He argues that man first arrives at the question of God’s existence when his Reason “inspired by its paradoxical passion”, the force that drives man’s questioning, runs to the limits of what it can understand— Reason attempts to grapple with the Unknown (also sounds like Kant). Kierkegaard terms this Unknown “the God”, and begins to unpack explore whether any sort of proof with respect to the God are possible. He asserts from the outset that he cannot try to prove the existence of the Unknown, as his proof would hold existence as a presupposition and fail to be more than a tautology. {check that! }He also cannot argue that the existing Unknown concept is the God because this too is not a proof rather simply a development of the
Malebranche developed an internal critique of Descartes theory of the mind. It embodies the insight that there is a serious muddle at the centre of the whole of Descartes theory of knowledge. He says that we do not hold a clear idea of the mind to make out much. ‘He thinks that although we have knowledge through the idea of body, we know the mind “only through consciousness, and because of this, our knowledge of it is imperfect” (3–2.7, OCM 1:451; LO 237). Knowledge through ideas is superior because it involves direct access to the “blueprints” for creation in the divine understanding, whereas in consciousness we are employing our own weak cognitive resources that