PHIL10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Foundationalism, Scholasticism
15 Jun 2018
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Lecture 11: Confronting skepticism
Why start w the self?
• As opposed to god / the natural world / the world
Relationship betw epistemology and metaphysics
• Interrelated
Discourse on method
• You can have reason but that by itself isnt going to be v helpful, has to be trained -> math
bc of the certainty and evidence of its reasoning -> use math to answer metaphysical qns
-> that’s hat akes it reliale
• Appeal of math -> certainty, absolute -> starts w the personal but studies relationships ->
does’t ake the lais of the ojets it studies -> it is independent of how you sense it
• 4 rules to follow
o "eer aept aythig as true I did’t plaily ko as suh" -> skeptical challenge
o decide each of the difficulties I would examine into as many parts as possible -> get
everything down into its constituent parts -> look for relations -> corpuscular ethos
o Conduct thoughts in an orderly fashion -> legacy od scholasticism, methodical,
governed by order
o I was assured of having omitted nothing -> comprehensive metaphysics,
foundationalist
• Animals not rational beings bc we can predict what theyre going to do -> do’t hae a soul
• Soul separate from the body
• Criteria of math should inform metaphysical inquiry -> ertaity that does’t hae
anything to do w sense experiences
Meditations
• If u a deo soethig through reaso, you do’t eed faith ayore -> if u knew
soethig as deostraly ertai, you do’t eed faith ayore
o "natural reason" as stronger than faith, more certain
• Aim to prove existence of God + interdependence and immortality of the soul
• Application of "method" for the sciences to these fundamental metaphysical science
Meditation 1
• Raze and rebuild foundations, bc when foundations undermined, everything collapses on
its own accord
• Senses arent reliable
• Madness and dreaming -> can't trust senses
• Physical nature in general and its extension
• How do i know that what I know is true ?
o How do I know for certain that you are not a brain in a vat?
o How do I know that I am not in the matrix / inception dreaming type thing / being
dreamt by someone else?
o Every single sense perception is put out of play -> radical doubt
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