1.

Sixteenth-Century Philosophy

High point Renaissance

Henry VIII in England, Medici’s in Florence; Erasmus, Thomas More;
Humanism derived from 15th century Italy: educational value of studying literae humaniores; art of
printing; restoration of long-neglected arts and sciences in Europe, purer, more authentic understanding
of Christian truth;
Grammar, philology, rhetoric above technical philosophical studies; Plato rather than Aristotle
More’s Utopia (1516); Erasmus’ Praise of Folly (1511), Instruction to a Christian Prince (1516)
Erasmus: St. Jerome; Latin Bible translation (1516) with accompanying Greek text > served as base for
Luther’s German translation
Luther: study of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, questioning of Renaissance Catholicism; denunciation
of abuses of papal authority; concern shared by Erasmus (satire on Pope Julius II) and More (Utopia),
though not the denunciation of large parts of the Catholic sacramental system, Luther’s teaching of
faith, trust in merits of Christ; Pope Leo X’s condemnation of 41 articles by Luther, excommunication
after burning of the Bull of Condemnation; More’s Assertion of the Seven Sacraments, ‘Defender of the
Faith’
Erasmus’ attempts to have Luther reconsidered, questioning of authenticity of bull; eventually,
opposition to Luther

Sin, Grace, and Freedom

Point of contention: freedom of will

Erasmus’ Diatribe de Libero Arbitrio: defense of free will; scripture loses all point through necessity;
reference to Valla; the question of the necessity or contingency of God’s foreknowledge; according to
Erasmus, irreligious curiosity;
Luther: all happens of necessity; two senses of necessity: necessity of immutability, and compulsion;
Humans have free will in respect not of what is above them, but of what is below them;
Bible contains passages both implying free will and determinism through God; according to Luther, no
time should be wasting in trying to reconcile this contradiction
More’s defense of free will
Humanist debate

Authority and Conscience

Luther’s hostility to scholasticism and philosophical speculation (which was novel), denunciation of
Aristotle, in particular his Ethics; scepticism a continuation of a tendency already strong in late medieval
scholasticism, reluctancy to the idea that reason online could establish the nature of the divine, God,
immortality of the human soul; but, all of this with the counterweight of the acceptance of the authority
of the Church
Lutheran Reformation: authority of Bible (no liberty of scepticism), denial of Church; pessimism about
trained theologians, optimism about the untrained mind illumined by faith;
The true criterion for faithful Christendom?
Decline of Logic

Impatience of humanist scholars with regard to logic

Peter Ramus’ Dialectic concerning invention and judgement, builds heavily on Aristotle, even though
Ramus was an anti-Aristotelian

Scepticism, Sacred and Profane

Sebastian Castellio’s Whether Heretics are to be Persecuted, The Art of Doubting;

Scepticism in non-religious domains: the rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus (Pyrrhonism) by Michel de
Montaigne, Apology for Raimond Sebond; scepticism regarding reason combined with orthodoxy:
fideism

Counter-Reformation Philosophy

Catholic optimism regarding the unaided human intellect; Jesuit scholasticism, sharper distinction
between philosophy and theology; Francisco Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, De Legibus;
controversy with King James I about the divine right of kings; liberty of indifference

Giordano Bruno

On the Shadows of Ideas; world-soul, infinite nature; God as natura naturans, universe as natura
naturata;
Copernicus (earth-sun revolution) and the concept of multiple universes

Galileo

A Messenger from the Stars (Sidereus Nuncius), Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems

Bacon

--

2.

Meditations 1 & 2

Preface
Discourse; two objections:
- The fact the mind perceives itself as nothing other than thinking, doesn’t exclude it from being anything
else in nature or essence;
The exclusion wasn’t aimed to be a reflection of the truth of the matter, but at showing the order of his
perception;
- It does not follow from
Synopsis

Meditation 1

Descartes’ Method of Doubt

1. Doubting the senses

All judgements have either been received from the senses or through the senses
My senses seem to deceive me concerning certain things: but some things seem so evident, that they
couldn’t be doubted, unless I’d be insane
But, when I dream, I am like the insane; and am I actually certain to be awake?

2. The dream argument

The particulars we imagine in our dreams must have been produced in the likeness of certain
components that are true; things like numbers

3. God’s omnipotence
God could have created me thus that I be deceived in my experience of reality;
But if God is benevolent, he couldn’t have willed me to be deceived all the time; yet if he were
supremely good, it would be repugnant to his goodness to have me be deceived even occasionally; this
is clearly not the case

4. If not God, then fate or chance

If we suppose there is no God, then there is even greater likelihood of being deceived, since our
imperfect senses would not have been created by a perfect being.

5. God the evil genius/ demon

By doubting everything, he can at least be sure not to be misled into falsehood by this demon.

Meditation 2

Descartes’ Archimedean point: cogito ergo sum, et sum cogitans

- I have persuaded myself to think nothing exists; is it then the case that I also do not exist?
- If I persuade myself, doubtlessly I must exist
- But there is a deceiver who is always deceiving me; yet in order to be deceived, I must exist

Who am I exactly?
What did I formerly think I was? A man: that is, a body; that is, something capable of being bounded by
shape, being enclosed in a place and filling up a space
But the possibility of a deceiver withholds me from being certain of any of this; I am neither body, nor
soul, nor senses; there is but one thing of which I am certain; that thoughts exist; therefore, thoughts
cannot be separated from my being. I exist as long as I think
In the strict sense, I am but a thinking thing

Thinking includes thinking, understanding and willing, but also imagination and sensing.
Yet I can’t be sure that what I imagine and what I sense is true.

Why is it that he has such a distinct grasp of what his body is and has such a difficult time identifying
what is this "I" that thinks

Piece of wax:
When an object loses all its sensible properties, it remains yet the same to the intellect; therefore,
bodies are not perceived by the senses or the imagination, but by the mind, as spatial extension
The sensory qualities of an object are not relevant to its essence: neither imagination of it; the mental
grasping of it is > abstract thought and reasoning

The mental perception can either be imperfect and confused--as when he allowed herself to be led by
his senses and imagination-- or it can be clear and distinct--as it is when he applies only careful mental
scrutiny to his perception of it.

When he is perceiving the piece of wax, he cannot doubt that he is perceiving nor that he is judging
what he perceives to be a piece of wax, and both of these acts of thought imply that he exists.

If I judge that I perceive a body by anything other than the mind, from this fact follows more evidently
that I exist (for I think)

Therefore, because bodies are not perceived by the senses or the faculty of the imagination, but by the
intellect, and because they are perceived through being understood, I must conclude that nothing can
be perceived more easily than through the mind.

3.

Meditation 3

He is certain that he is a thinking thing and he clearly and distinctly perceives this fact. He could not be
certain unless all clear and distinct perceptions can be certain. Therefore, he concludes, whatever he
perceives clearly and distinctly must be true.

The things of which he used to be certain were all apprehended by the senses, and he must
acknowledge now that he did not perceive the things themselves, but only the ideas, or thoughts, of
those things, which appeared before his mind.
He was wrong in judging that ideas tell something about things themselves.

To be certain about the truth of arithmetic and geometry, he must prove that there isn’t a God (or
anything else) who is deceiving him.
Classes of thought:
- Idea: images of thing
- Volitions and judgments: ideas combined with something more, such as fear, will, affirmation or denial

Ideas and volitions aren’t prone to falsity. Judgments, however, can’t be said to be free of err.
The most common error in judgment is to judge that the ideas in one's mind conform to, or resemble,
things outside the mind; considering ideas in the mind only as modes of thought and not referring them
to anything outside the mind should render him immune from doubt.

Three sources for ideas: innate, adventitious (externally induced, such as sensory perception) or
invented
The Meditator concedes that he cannot yet be certain which ideas come from where, or even if perhaps
all of our ideas are innate, adventitious (not inherent but added extrinsically), or invented.
For the moment, he is concerned with adventitious ideas, and why he thinks they come from outside.
His will has no effect on adventitious ideas: he cannot prevent himself from feeling hot when it is hot
simply through the will, for instance. He has thus come to assume that whatever outside source
transmits these adventitious ideas transmits its own likeness rather than something else.

The Meditator then contrasts his natural assumption that adventitious ideas represent outside objects
with his knowledge that he exists. He cannot doubt that he exists or that this fact follows from the fact
that he doubts, because that truth is "revealed...by the natural light’’ (i.e.: is clear and distinct). Natural
assumptions, on the other hand, are far less certain than the natural light, and have misled him in the
past. Further, he has no reason to suppose that these ideas are adventitious at all. The will may have no
effect on them, but they still may be produced from within him. And if they do come from without,
there is no reason to think that they resemble the objects that they represent. For instance, the sun
looks very small according to our senses, but astronomical reasoning suggests that it is in fact very large.

(The reasoning here might seem a little circular. On one hand, the cogito is certain because it is clearly and distinctly perceived.
On the other hand, clear and distinct perceptions must be certain because they are the means by which the certainty of the
cogito is achieved. There is also the difficulty raised with the case of geometry and arithmetic. These truths seem clear and
distinct to us as well, but there is still the possibility that we are deceived with respect to them. And if God can deceive us of our
clear and distinct perceptions, perhaps even the cogito can be cast back into doubt.)

The Meditator reasons that all ideas are mere modes of thought, and in that sense they are all equal:
they all have the same amount of formal reality, that is, reality intrinsic to themselves. However, what
they represent differs greatly, and so their objective reality--the reality of the things they represent--also
differs greatly.

Meditation 4

---

Descartes ontology: substance, attribute, mode/accident. (They also form a hierarchy -> substance
1st, attributes depend on substances & modes on attributes and therefore also on the substance)
Substance - doesn’t depend on anything else for its existence (‘Matter; to be the thing extended in
space’),
Attributes - the specificities that make up the substance (the attribute of the matter ‘is to be extended’)
A mode - a certain way of being of substance/ thing (‘a way of being matter; a way of being extended:
being a pencil, or mug etc.’)

Substance = mind
Affections:
Attribute = thinking
Mode = what kind of thought? (slow, about clouds)

Three substances:
Mind, matter and God

Matter is the one substance from which all objects are made

Important to know is that Descartes is differentiating reality into different levels, he thinks it makes
sense to talk about different levels of reality when we are considering an ontological hierarchy
(substance are for example more real than modes, God is more real than a color, because it has more
objective reality)

> Formal reality/ intrinsic reality = the reality considering the categorical existence(belonging) of
something
- A thought/ idea is a ‘mode’ of the substance ‘thinking’ ; in the case of an idea, what kind of category is
it speaking of? (Substance or mode?)

> Objective reality/ representative reality = “The reality of that which is represented by an idea” (It is
really only ideas that ‘present’ things to us; be it the outside world or something else)

4.

Philosophy of Natural Science & Science

.
.
Aristotelian Natural Philosophy

Substance:
Essence vs accident (property)
Doesn’t suffice to explain all instances of change;
> Matter vs form
Potentiality vs act

The central phenomenon studied by science is motion/ change from potentiality to actuality
Two types of motion: natural vs forced
Natural motion: motion that proceeds from the essence of the subject
Forced motion: motion that proceeds from other causes

To understand a thing, we should understand its natural motion;

Furthermore, to understand motion, we should understand causes of motion
Four causes:
- Formal
- Material
- Efficient
- Final

Final/ teleological cause: the aim of a thing by virtue of its form/ essence
>> Active animating principle: for a human: to live a good life; for nature: to come as close to God as
possible

Perception
When perceiving an object, our soul takes on its form: we see an object as it truly is

Renaissance Neoplatonism

Plato, Pythagoras (Pythagorianism), Hermes Trismegistus

Mathematical vs mystical/magical

Plato’s mathematics: the world is mathematical (later: Galileo)

The one

Mystical/ animistic view of nature: nature as being an animated force/ occult powers, saturated with
life, intelligence, meaning
- William Gilbert on magnetism: occult power of sympathy and antipathy, love and hate; intrinsic
intelligence of magnets; compass as finger of God; Earth rotates because its soul perceives the sun’s
magnetic field, chooses to revolve to prevent to burn on one side

The Mechanical World

Strong opposition towards Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism

Descartes: mind and matter as two separate substances; matter is free of mind;
Matter = res extensa: extension: shape, size and motion; matter free from anima, telos
Universe: matter + motion
Motion: change of place; things move for they can’t occupy the same locus in space: they bump into
each other
No distinction between natural and forced movement: illegitimate application of ways of thought that
people use/ are of the ‘mind’: category mistake
Rejection of Aristotelian perception; matter has primary and secondary qualities (Locke);

Is the 17th century mechanism parsimonious, or impoverished? If there is solely matter, what about
meaning/ essence/ ethics/ etc.?

Descartes’ attempts to make mechanical models of the world/ stories, no emphasis on mathematics;
EC17: Newton: mathematical formulae

Science and Philosophy

New science requires review of philosophy; new science requires new philosophical bearings

--

Descartes to Berkeley

Descartes

Hobbes

Cambridge Platonists

Locke

Pascal

Malebranche

Spinoza

Leibniz

Berkeley

Natural Philosophy

Cartesian Physics

Gassendi’s Atomism

Newton

The Labyrinth of the Continuum

Kant’s Antinomies

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5.

Knowledge

Montaigne’s skepticism
- Fallibility of the senses and the intellect: Pyrrhonian skepticism (nothing at all can be known)
- Draws on Sextus Empiricus, Lucretius
- Yields Epicurean and Stoic arguments:
Epicureans: senses are fallible, therefore knowledge is impossible (non-empirical knowledge is
impossible)
Stoics: senses are unreliable (therefore can’t be the source of knowledge)

Montaigne: senses are fallible, therefore reason is equally false; senses and reason produce only
falsehood; no criterion exists to distinguish between varying and conflicting impressions and beliefs

- Some animals have sharper senses than humans; possibility of other senses than those humans
possess: if so, our view of the universe might be as deficient as that of a short-sighted person

Descartes’ response
- Attempts to liberate epistemology from such skepticism:
1. Method of doubt
- Senses seem to deceive at times
- But some things seem to be undoubtable
- Dream argument: can I trust myself the perceiver?
- Objects in dreams are formed in the likeness real objects
- Perhaps these could be imaginary too: the simpler elements out of which these things are formed
(Extension, shape, size, number, place, time) must surely be real > therefore the category of these
elements, namely arithmetic and geometry, can be trusted
- But perhaps even these things could be objects of delusion: God is omnipotent and could deceive us all
he wants: God the evil demon
- Cogito ergo sum: to doubt is to think, to think is to be

The ‘I’ in ‘I am thinking’: the Cogito doesn’t prove the existence of the supposed thinking subject >

Cartesian Consciousness
- The contents of our minds are thoughts, for they are all items of consciousness (meditation, volition,
emotion, pain, pleasure, mental images, sensations); even if the objects of sense and imagination are
non-existent, the modes of thought named sensation and imagination do exist
 >>>>>> sense-data
- Class of thoughts: ideas: pictures of objects, mental counterpart of words
- Three prima facie classes of ideas: thing (supposedly of the external), truth, thought (supposedly of the
imagination)

One undisputable idea originating outside the mind: the idea of Go

- The attributes of infinity, independence, supreme intelligence, power can’t originate from a being so
imperfect as a human: the cause of that idea must be no less real than the idea itself; therefore, it can
only be caused by God himself
- God has no defects, therefore can’t be deceitful
- If God is no deceiver, then all things perceived clearly and distinctly, must be true; therefore, a priori
sciences such as arithmetic and geometry, and intuitions such that of our immediate existence, can be
trusted to be true, independent of whether we have a body or there exists an external world

Proof for a body:

- Difference between intellect and imagination: only the intellect is essential to the mind, imagination is
an optional extra; might originate from a bodily entity in close association with the mind;
Hypothesis: in understanding, mind turns to ideas contained in itself; in imagination, mind turns to body,
and contemplates something in it resembling and idea understood by the mind;
- The existence of bodies: the sense-impressions received by the passive power (consciousness) must be
produced by and active power; this is probably not God, for God makes us believe these ideas proceed
from corporeal objects; God doesn’t deceive, therefore corporeal objects must exist;
Whatever nature teaches us, must be true, for God is the author of nature, and God is no deceiver;
Nature teaches two principal things:
- The existence of the body
- The existence of an environment of other bodies (from the variety of sources of sensations, it can be
inferred that there is a corresponding, though not similar, variety of bodies (only that which is perceived
clearly and distinctly is taught by nature))

Two fundamental objections:

1. If God is no deceiver, how come I constantly fall into error?
Descartes: error is not the product of God’s deceitfulness, but of a improper application of the faculties
of intellect and will; if judgements of will restrict themselves to the clearly and distinctly perceived
objects of the intellect, no error is possible; error is the precipitate judgement in advance of clear and
distinct perception

2. Antoine Arnauld’s Cartesian Circle: one knows God exists, because we clearly and distinctly perceive
he does; therefore, prior to being certain God exists, we must be certain that whatever is perceived
clearly and evidently is true (and we are said to be certain of the clear and evident for God exists and is
no deceiver)
Descartes: distinction between clear and distinct perceptions, and the principle that the clearly and
distinctly perceived is true; before establishing God’s existence, I can be certain of what I perceive
clearly and distinctly (when it is momentarily before the mind); I can doubt the proposition that the
clearly and distinctly perceived is true; the veracity of the memory of the clearly and distinctly perceived
can be doubted, not that which I am now clearly and distinctly perceiving;
Therefore, God’s existence does only need to be verified in connection with the general principle, and in
connection with the retrospective doubt of particular perceptions

Empiricism of Hobbes
- All contents of the mind derive from the senses; memory, imagination and reasoning are whole
dependent on sense; memory and imagination are decaying sense; reasoning is the reckoning of
consequences of general names attributed to thoughts, which are mental images derived from sensation

- Two types of knowledge: knowledge of fact and consequence

What does sense-perception consist in?

- Aristotelians: the power to discriminate; an active role in experience
- Hobbes: the occurrence of an image in the mind: a passive affair; active role of projecting mental
images onto the world; similar to Descartes’ cogitations;
- Secondary qualities are subjective rather than objective
- No intrinsic difference between sensory experience and mental imagery

- Common error in Descartes and Hobbes: confusion between relativity and subjectivity; an object’s
sensory effect is relative to the perceiver’s sensory capacity; this doesn’t withhold an object from being
objective
- Difference between Descartes and Hobbes: Hobbes doesn’t differentiate intellect and imagination,
identifies the mind with Cartesian imagination

Locke’s Ideas
What does Locke mean by Idea? An object, or the act of thinking/perceiving?

Locke on innate ideas

- Children have an innate capacity of thought; what differentiates humans from animals is precisely this
- For Locke, assent to principles depends on experience, in that it provides the objects of those
principles which we can understand innately
- Denies that there exist any innately universal principles: universality doesn’t require innateness
(Descartes: if universality doesn’t require innateness, innateness also doesn’t require universality)
- Innate concepts without experience cannot account for the knowledge we have of the world
(Descartes: experience without innate element is insufficient basis for knowledge)
- Ideas of qualities such as colour and sound are subjective
- Two types of ideas: those which come into the mind by one sense, and those that come in by more
senses than one
- Ideas as perceptions in the mind (generated from inside); ideas as modificiations (or, rather: exact
images of) of matter in the bodies that cause these perceptions (generated from outside)
Qualities (power to produce ideas) of bodies: primary (perceptible by more than one sense) and
secondary (perceptible to only one sense); differs from Aristotle’s common-proper sensibles in
denying objectivity of secondary qualities
- Primary qualities are inseparable from bodies (secondary are)
Counter: some primary qualities may be lacked by a body
- the inessentiality of certain qualities doesn’t prove them to be ingenuine
- Locke confuses relativity for subjectivity: relative qualities (being poisonous) may be perfectly
objective)

Locke: secondary qualities are the power to cause sensations, but also when secondary qualities aren’t
perceived/sensed, they cease to exist;
Contradiction: powers don’t cease to exist when not being exercised

Locke: the ideas of secondary qualities are produced by the power of primary qualities

No likeness between ideas and qualities in objects

Analogy between perception and feeling

Sensations produced may vary with circumstances

Spinoza on Degrees of Knowledge

Four levels of perception (none are sense-perception) in his Improvement of the Understanding:
- Knowledge of hearsay
- Knowledge of crude experience (water puts out fire, someday I will die)
- Knowledge from inference from other essences
- Knowledge of essences

Later, in Ethics:
- Imagination (= crude experience + hearsay), reason (inference), intuition (essences)

Knowledge= ideas = concepts and propositions

Concepts and propositions are inseparable

Ambiguity concerning Spinoza’s usage of ‘idea of …’: idea belonging to X, or idea containing X?
Idea of God is God’s idea

Spinoza: true idea is not the same as object

To know, is to know that one knows; knowing: he who has a true idea knows eo ipso that he has a true
idea;
To know something corresponds to an object, we need to have an idea that corresponds to an object:
truth is its own criterion

The different properties of ideas (corresponds to degrees of knowledge):

Symbolic ideas > corresponds to imagination
General, adequate ideas > reason: linked by logical connections to each other
Intuition: immediate mental visions; graps the essence of things: the universal features and place in the
causal order of the universe;
Proceeds from an adequate idea of the essences of things

Ideas contain no positive element other than truth

- Then, if they contain no positive element on account of which they can be false, how is error possible?
Spinoza: error is nothing positive: occurs only at the level of imagination: consists not in the presence of
any idea, but in the absence of some other idea which should be presence;

Suspension of judgement is possible, but not through an act of free will: suspension of judgement is
merely not having an adequate perception of the thing in matter

The Epistemology of Leibniz

Berkeley on Qualities and Ideas

Hume on Ideas and Impressions

Kant’s Synthetic A Priori

Realism vs Idealism;

Idealist Epistemology

-----

Modern Epistemology

Rationalism vs empiricism

Rationalism: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz

Empiricism: Locke, Berkeley, Hume
Kant: synthesis of both

Descartes’ epistemology: external world skepticism

- No certainty of an external world: method of doubt

- How was Descartes the first to come up with external world skepticism?

Skepticism isn’t new: great movement within ancient philosophy (Sextus Empiricus); but no ancient
came with external world skepticism
- What changes?
Distinction between body and mind/ reason: also the distinction between the temporal/changing and
the eternal/unchanging

Descartes: body-mind distinction: not temporal-atemporal, but in terms of dubitability

- Mind’s contents are indubitable (they are clearly and distinctly, immediately perceived); external
reality is dubitable; sensation is purely within the mind
External and internal is gapped by the ‘veil of ideas’

The perceiving subject as the self-sufficient center of all knowledge; knowledge starts with self-
consciousness of the mind: and thus the mind functions as basis of all knowledge

Thus, reality can be sorted into subject and object, interceded by the veil of ideas

> Then, how can I know internal ideas correspond to an external world?

- Why did people take it seriously?

Bridging of subject and object (defining/ enabling knowledge) is the central task of philosophy, and
becomes the main project of modern philosophy
- Solution should be built starting from the subject

Descartes: bases his solution on the finding of God in himself

- The idea of God could only exists if an external God exists

Rationalism and empiricism

Rationalism: concepts/knowledge independent of sense experience: knowledge is purely rational: makes
sense of the world; world is a structure of rational thought
Empiricism: only empirical knowledge: senses the world; world is a structure of sensation

Thoughts have logical connections (can imply/ contradict each other), sensations do not; is the world a
logical structure (rational) or not (empirical)?

Problem:

Rationalism

Spinoza:
1. from the necessity of the divine nature follows an infinity of things- that is, all that can be object of
infinite intellect; therefore, God is the efficient cause of all that can fall within the sphere of an infinite
intellect

2. The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things (for the idea of
everything that is caused is an effect of a knowledge of a cause)
God’s power of thinking is equal to his realized power of action – that is, all that is objective, follows
from/ is equal to/ has the same order and connection of the idea of God
To know something is to know the logical relations between ideas; but it is also to know the relation of
cause and effect between things > structure of world and thought are thus the same

God is invoked to bridge the gap between mind and object;

Spinoza: world of objects and God’s thoughts are just the same: an expression of God’s nature
Descartes, Leibniz

If structure of thought and that of world are the same, are all thoughts real?
Leibniz: God has created the best of all possible worlds; doesn’t this introduce a distinction between
thought and reality?

• Here, Spinoza’s answer is again admirably clear: he simply tells is that everything that can be thought
is real. Now it may seem as if we can think many things that are not real. But that is because our
thoughts are unclear. We think we can think things that do not exist, but we cannot actually think them
clearly at all.

Anyway: why God? What is special about God that allows the rationalists to use Him to bridge the gap
between subject and object? His omnipotence/creator status, to be sure; but most importantly, the fact
that God has all of his attributes necessarily. The senses tell us about the contingent; reason tells us
about the necessary. The price for rationalism is that everything must become necessary, and God is the
tool for making this happen.

God is the object that determines everything; the object that I can know in advance; and thus the one
road to knowledge. But this means that everything depends on our philosophical knowledge of God…
which is highly problematic, as Kant, among others, would show. If it is problematic, it can’t be the
solution to the central question. And it crucially breaks the promise that we would recover the external
world from the subject.

Empiricism (the external world as the structure of sensation)

It may seem simple to state that the senses give us knowledge about the external world, and thereby
bridge the gap between subject and object. But here is what Descartes would object: how do you know
that the senses are reliable? It seems the senses could never prove that they themselves are reliable! At
least not unless we presuppose that they show us the external world as it is.
But, being a modern, he can't take the Aristotelian route – so he has to become an idealist.

This is probably clearest in Berkeley's slogan esse est percipii: that which is perceived, exists (and
therefore is the perceived: an idea)+

But it is equally the position of Hume's idealism and skepticism about the continued existence of
material objects. If epistemological primacy is given to the sensations of the subject, then the only way
to bridge the gap to the objects is by identifying the objects with the subjective sensations. Empiricism,
for all its seeming links to science, has a tendency to become a metaphysical idealism.
Understood this way, empiricism is an attempt to answer the central question by collapsing the object
into the subject. And since this subject is merely a series of sense impressions, the world we end up with
will be quite incoherent as well – it will be the world of Hume, in which there is no causation, and in
which the problem of induction reigns supreme. Unless of course one takes the route of Berkeley, and
brings God in to rescue empiricism! But that would seem to be the worst of both world.

To summarise: empiricism cannot do justice to the object, but has to identify it with sensation;
rationalism cannot stay with the subject, but has to appeal to something external, God. Neither solves
the central problem set out by Descartes.

Kant will attempt a synthesis between empiricism and rationalism. And as we already understand, this
must involve a new way of thinking about subject and object.
• Kant’s epistemology. Knowledge a priori (rationalism) versus a posteriori (empiricism). Kant adds a
distinction: analytic versus synthetic knowledge. “No dead person is alive.” A four-fold scheme; two are
unproblematic, one is certainly empty… what about synthetic knowledge a priori?
• Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. “A straight line is the shortest route between two points.” This is
not analytic; but it is not a posteriori either. According to Kant, it is synthetic a priori. (Most current
philosophers disagree, but that’s another story.)
• Our knowledge in this case is based on our intuition of space. Apart from any specific spatial
sensations, I can check my pure intuition of space and find out that indeed a straight line is always the
shortest route between two points.
• Now we come to the question that will generate Kant’s philosophy: how is such synthetic knowledge a
priori possible? If space is outside, how can my intuition, which is inside, be an infallible a priori guide to
it? Well, it can’t… unless the objects are constituted by the subject. An object is an object of knowledge
and must conform to the necessary conditions of experience. On the other hand, a subject is a knowing
subject and must be understood in relation to the objects that make up its world – e.g., this spatio-
temporal body.

6. Leibniz’ Monadology

Monad: simple substance; compound objects consist of smaller elements, therefore simple substances
must exist; unperishable;
no beginning, no end; can only begin or end all at once: can only begin by creation, only end by
annihilation (by God), as opposed to compounds, which begin or end through their parts;
Monads can’t change or be altered internally; have no windows through which something can enter or
leave;
What makes monads different from each other, i.e., what are their qualities?
Monads should be different from each other, otherwise they wouldn’t be indistinguishable; in nature
there are no two things perfectly alike (for, otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason for God to choose for
this particular universe over a universe in which two perfectly alike things are ‘swapped’);
Monads are too subject to change, this change is continual in each thing;
Therefore, monads natural changes are caused by something internal, for no external cause can
influence it internally (monads are ‘windowless’);
Besides an internal principle, there must be diversity in that which changes (for some things change,
some things remain); this involves a plurality of properties and relations in the simple substance (though
it is partless): this state which represents a plurality in the monad is called perception: monads consist
of perceptions
Departure from Descartes: distinction between perception and consciousness (of that perception);
monads don’t have apperception

The action of the internal principle which brings about change from one perception to another can be
called appetition; the appetite can never reach the whole perception towards which it tends, but always
obtains something of it
Perception, and that which depends on it is inexplicable in terms of mechanical reasons; we can’t
explain it in terms of parts of the compound; we should therefore seek it in the simple substance;
moreover, this is all one can find in the simple substance: perceptions and their changes; the internal
actions of simple substances can only consist in perceptions

Monads can be called entelechies, for they carry in themselves a certain perfection (as opposed to
mere potentiality); they have a sufficiency; they are the sources of their internal actions, therefore
automata
Souls are monads with perception and appetites, accompanied by memory
Souls don’t lose their memory, even though in the state of drowsiness or sleep, we don’t remember
anything; but this state doesn’t last; moreover, it does not follow that in such a state, the substance is
without any perception; for it cannot perish, and it can’t be without property, which is its perceptions;
stupefaction/unconsciousness is nothing but the indistinction of a multitude of perceptions (confused
perceptions)

The knowledge of eternal and necessary truths is what distinguishes us from simple animals, and
furnishes us with reason, by raising us to a knowledge of ourselves and of God; this is what we call the
rational soul or mind
This knowledge of necessary truths induces in us reflective acts, which enable us to consider the self,
the ‘I’; by thinking of ourselves, we think of being, substance, the simple and the composite, the
immaterial, the limited and unlimited, and God; these reflective acts furnish the principal objects of
our reasonings

Reasoning is based on the two principles of contradiction and sufficient reason;

There are two kinds of truth: those of reasoning and those of fact; truths of reasoning are necessary,
their opposites impossible (in this catergory falls mathematical theory); truth of fact are contingent,
their opposite possible;
Also exist simple ideas, which cannot be defined; there are also primitive principles (namely, axioms
and postulates), which cannot be proved and which need no proof; these are identical propositions,
whose opposites contains an explicit contradiction

Truths of fact, all the series of things distributed throughout the universe, require sufficient reason; an
infinity of past and present shapes and motions enter the efficient cause of a presence, which itself has
an infinity of inclinations and disposition which form its final cause;
All this detail involves nothing but other contingencies; the sufficient reason for its truth can’t be found
in this series of infinite contingencies, for that would require an analysis ad infinitum; the sufficient or
ultimate reason must therefore be outside the sequence of this multiplicity of contingencies; it must be
in a necessary substance; this is God

(Question: how is it that the universe is as it is, if monads can’t influence each other/interact)

The creature is perfect insofar it acts externally, and imperfect insofar it is acted upon; action is
attributed to monads which have clear perceptions, passion is attributed to monads which have
confused perceptions;
One creature is more perfect than another insofar as one finds in it that which provides an a priori
reason for what happens in the other
But in simple substances, the influence of one monad over the other is merely ideal; it can produce its
effect only through the intervention of God; God’s creates relations of actions and passions, makes
some things active, some things passions; therefore, monads are/ have been created in harmony

There must be sufficient reason for God to create this universe rather than another; this reason can be
found in fitness: the degree of perfection that these worlds contains; this is the cause of the existence
of the best;

The interconnection of all things to each other brings it about that each simple substance has relations
that express all the others , and consequently, that each simple substance is a mirror of the universe

This universe has as much variety as possible, with the greatest order possible;

Monads have to be a mirror of the entire universe, for the monads can only be particular to this
universe, i.e., it can only exist in this universe, and therefore be consistent with this universe, and thus
‘contain’ this universe; to understand one monad, is to understand the entire universe

God has created this universe thus, that each portion of matter is not only divisible to infinity, but is
actually subdivided without end; otherwise it would be impossible for each portion of matter to express
the whole universe; there is a world of creatures in the least part of matter

Mind and body

The soul and the body follow their own laws, and they agree in virtue of the harmony of all
substances;
Soul act according to laws of final causes, through appetitions, end, means;
Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes/ motions;
These two causes are in harmony with each other
Souls and bodies act as if they aren’t influenced by their counterpart, as if their counterpart doesn’t
exist, as if they themselves influence the other

7.
Hume to Hegel

Hume

Smith and Reid

Enlightenment

Rousseau

Wolff and Lessing

Kant

Fichte and Schelling

Hegel

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College: the way of ideas – British empiricists

The mind for British empiricists: a receptacle that receives through the senses

British empiricists: Hobbes Ec17, Locke lc18, Berkeley Ec18, Hume e/Mc18

* Ideas are empirical

Hobbes

All conceptions of the mind come through the senses, totally or by part

* Yet not every idea can be traced back to sensation; or rather, there are certain things that we seem to
think about, and don’t seem to have a basis in sensation; substance? Causation?
* Those ideas that don’t have their basis in sensation, don’t have any meaning; if so, metaphysicians
have been engaging in a nonsensical project

* So, what are these ideas?

Descartes’ idea of God? Hobbes objected to this:

- Common conceptions of angels (flame, boy with wings) don’t correspond to the image of an angel,
and therefore aren’t the idea of an angel; yet we ascribe the term angel to these things we believe to be
angels; nevertheless, the idea of an angel [of Hobbes] is composed of the ideas of visible things
- Similarly, we have neither an image of God, nor an idea, and therefore can’t worship him in this
capacity, unless we worship him as the inconceivable;

> Descartes: his conception of an idea is not of that of an image

Empiricism becoming a critique of the metaphysical project; giving birth to forms of scepticism;

Also a criticism of itself; is the idea that all ideas are based in sensation, in itself derived from sensation
(although, this is more of an exercise of the 20 th century)

Hobbes on the imagination

* Imagination is decaying sense (Hume: imagination is perception with less force)

* Memory is imagination that represents what we have perceived in the past
* Thinking forms consists of trains of thought, that can be unguided or guided by fear or desire

Locke’s Empiricism in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Idea: whatsoever is the object of the understanding, when a man thinks;

Broad definition

Concerning the innateness of ideas:

* Innate ideas are said to be recognized by universal consent;

Locke: there are no universal ideas; ask a 3-year-old about any universal idea
The same goes for universal principles of morality;
Ideas need to be learned through experience

Even if there were universal ideas, this doesn’t imply these are innate

Plato’s theory of anamnesis: all of our learning is actually remembrance: ‘innate’ ideas are ‘activated’
through experience
Locke, similarly: we do have the capacity to learn ideas; but that shows that ideas are not innate

Plato: what is the relation between experience, which is particular, to conception, which is general? >>
theory of ideas

.
.
.
.
.
* Sensation and reflection (external and internal experience)
* Experience: necessary and sufficient

Is experience sufficient? What about convention, language..?

* Simple (immediate) and complex ideas (through imagination)

Hume’s missing shade of blue: the possibility of simple ideas not through immediate experience?

* Four types of idea

One-sense ideas: secondary properties

Multi-sense ideas: motion, size, shape: primary properties (things as themselves)

Ideas from reflection

Ideas from sense or reflection

Combination > complex ideas

Juxtaposition > ideas of relation
Abstraction

* Abstraction: the process of deriving the general from particulars

Again, Plato’s problem: how do we know that the mind is able to recognize general ideas?
What is the difference between combination and ‘abstraction’?

Is abstraction possible? What about the abstraction of a simple idea such as existence, or whiteness?
Does abstraction make sense in the empiricist scheme?

Not according to Berkeley: it’s not possible to have a conception of any thing that doesn’t bear
resemblance to a particular thing (an ‘abstract’ notion of a triangle can’t be equilateral, isosceles or
scalene; but you can’t think of a triangle that isn’t one of these three)

Berkeley: we don’t need abstract ideas; when we think something, we always think of a particular
example thereof

Hume: abstraction is really association of language with particular ideas as is needed

Still, there is the notion of generality, and therefore Plato’s problem

Kant: concepts as rules, implied correctly or incorrectly; experience can’t give rules (plights)
Mind need built-in rules/concepts, in order to get to the level of thought
Therefore, we need, apart from experience, understanding
Locke’s primary and secondary qualities; essential (mind-independent) and contingent qualities
P: Solidity, extension, figure, motion, number
S: Powers of the body to generate certain sensations and powers that they have in virtue of their
primary qualities

S: discoverable by one sense

P: discoverable by at least two senses

Objective reality/matter is mind-independent

Berkeley’s criticism of Locke’s P-S distinction: try to think of an object that has primary qualities but no
secondary qualities; there is no sensory grasp of extension without a secondary quality
And for this, if it is so that secondary qualities exist only in the mind, primary qualities must too

Does Locke even prove that primary qualities exist outside of the mind at all?

Berkeley: both primary and secondary qualities are ideas; ideas are so different from matter, that they
can’t resemble each other
If primary qualities therefore resemble bodies, bodies must be ideas
If bodies aren’t ideas, ideas can never resemble a body

Thus, Berkeley concludes: the material world is actually the content of the mind; it can’t be empirically
proven to be anything else…
To be is to be perceived

God perceives the world all the time, which gives the world its order and stability; everything exists as
the thought of God; I am thinking God’s thoughts

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8.

Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Section II – On the Origin of Ideas

* Contents of the mind: impressions: from immediate sensation, vivid, direct; and thoughts/ideas: less
vivid/forceful, not direct;
- Ideas are copies of impressions, and therefore fainter and less vivid
* Though thought seems unbounded by the limits of nature and reality, it is actually confined within the
domain of impressions; make use of compounding, transposing, augmenting and diminishing the
materials afforded us by the senses
Two arguments:
- All ideas, when analysed, seem to be derived from simple ideas, copied from impressions
- A person that is lacking in sense perception, is as lacking in corresponding idea;
One contradictory phenomenon: shades of blue: proves simple ideas are not always derived from
correspondent impressions; but of scarce importance

There is one method to counter this argument, namely, to give an idea that is such that it is not derived
from impressions; the way to counter this in turn, is to produce the impression which corresponds to it
- Taken the burden of proof on him
Yet: ideas that seem to have not been derived from an impression, are empty, meaningless

Paradoxical?

Section III – On the Association of Ideas

Simple ideas are connected by three principles:

- Resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect

Section IV – Skeptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding

The objects of reason:

- Relations of ideas: of which the truth is discoverable by the mere operation of thought: truth is implied
by contradiction
- Matters of fact (regarding existence): can never imply a contradiction: opposite is possible, no
contradiction in conceiving the opposite

What then proves the veracity of matters of fact beyond the present testimony of our senses or the
records of our memory;

1. Matters of fact are based on a relation of cause and effect;

How do we arrive at knowledge from cause and effect?

2. Causes and effects are only discoverable through experience: an object never infers from the sensible
qualities its causes or its effects; nor can our reason tell us anything a priori about it;
- The fact that we think we can discover the workings of a certain object through our reason alone, is a
product of custom
- A priori, one effect isn’t less conceivable than another; we can’t discover an effect in a cause; any a
priori conception is absolutely arbitrary; they are distinct events, and not necessarily connected; we can
conceive anything can follow from a certain cause, therefore, a priori reasoning can’t conceive effects
from a cause; moreover, we can’t assume general causes and effects;

How then, do we get knowledge from experience?

3. Hume’s negative argument: Our conclusions from experience are not based on reasoning or any
process of understanding
The sensible qualities of an object don’t betray us the inner workings of that object;
Yet, when we see an object which has a similar sensible disposition to another, we assume their
workings to be alike as well;

Two distincts propositions:

- An object has always been attended with a certain effect
- A similar object will be attended with a similar effect

The second proposition is inferred from the first. If this inference is one of reason, then, by what kind of
reasoning?

Two types of reasoning:

- Demonstrative (certain) reasoning (concerning relations of ideas): based on the principle of non-
contradiction
- Moral (probable) reasoning (concerning matters of fact and existence/experience)

Demonstrative reasoning cannot prove matters of fact, because matters of fact don’t imply a
contradiction and can thus never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning
a priori

Our argument can therefore only be a probable one, one concerning matters of fact and existence;

Yet, to prove an argument of existence with an argument regarding existence, is going in circles
‘’It is impossible, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the
future, since all these argument are founded on the supposition of that resemblance’’

Then, our inference of present experiences from past experiences, can be proved neither by a
demonstrative argument, or a moral argument; the inference from past events to future events doesn’t
have a rational basis

Conclusion: even if the past has been ever so regular, that doesn’t prove that it will continue to be so for
the future

Matters of fact are founded on a relation of cause and effect

Relations of cause and effect are based on experience
Arguments from experience are based on the supposition that the future will conform to the past
The proof of this inference from past to future can only be based on a moral (probable) argument…
A probable argument, however, can’t function as proof, for it presupposes cause and effect itself (which
is based on the inference that the future will conform to the past), and doesn’t answer the problem of
experience

You can’t prove induction can work through deduction (absence of contradiction), but you neither can
prove induction by induction (for it presupposes that induction will work)
>>> Matters of fact can’t be proven rationally; we can’t learn anything through experience

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Section V – Skeptical Solutions to these Doubts

We’ll stay applying induction;

It is custom/habit that drives the faculty of induction; not reason, but custom is the guide to human life

Reason is incompetent and not trustworthy;

---
The distinction between: fiction and belief:
- Belief is incited by sentiment, feeling, not by will
- The distinction lies not in the nature of the ideas, but in the manner of their conception

Problem: the strength of feeling and the rational decision to believe are not the same; if they were,
someone experiencing an illusion can’t choose to disbelief

Section VII – Of The Idea of Necessary Connection

Instinct and reason

Necessary connection/force in body-body interaction is not perceived; two events may seem conjoined,
but don’t imply connection

The idea of necessity/force is therefore meaningless

The idea arises from similar instances of events, which occur conjoined;
The mind is moved into habit after the repetition of events; from this, we form the idea of power

Three definitions of causation:

- Event A is always followed by event B;
- Where if A hadn’t existed, B wouldn’t too
- The appearance of A conveys the mind to the thought of B

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Metaphysics
The Metaphysics of Suarez

* Introduces metaphysics of scholastics to early modern philosophers

* Starts from Aristotle’s definition of metaphysics as the study of being qua being;
* Offers a classification of different types of being proceeding by a series of dichotomies:
- The division between infinite being and finite being (between ens a se, and ens ab alio)
- Finite being divided into substance (that which subsists on its own) and accident (that which exists by
inhering in substances)
- Divides substances into living and non-living; living substances into animal and vegetable, etc.; we can
identify at least nine different kinds of accidents correspondin yo aristotle’s categories;
- Metaphysics is interested in all items that are being, but only qua beings

* Suarez adds qualification: the subject matter of metaphysics is real being; as distinguished from
creations of the reason (entia rationis): they have being only in the mind, not in reality; they aren’t a
positive reality, but an absence of such a positive reality (such as blindness is the absence of the power
of sight)
- Creations of the imagination:
- Creations of the reason from relations
- Three kinds of entia rationis: negations, relations, and fictions;

* Is there a single, univocal concept of being that applies in the same sense to all the varied kinds of
being? Suarez: there is a single abstract concept of being which applies to everything alike; but this is
not a concept that tells us anything real or new about the objects to which it applies;
- The predicate ‘’…is a being’’ can never tell something that is distinct or distinct from its subject
* Is there then a real distinction between essence and esse?
- Depends on: 1. Do we take essence as generic essence or individual essence? 2. Do we take esse as
equivalent to existence, or to ‘being’
- Suarez denies that there is a real distinction between essence and esse; the distinction is only mental
(tantum ratione); by essence he means individual essence; by esse he means the all-embracing
predicate ‘being’; in other words, there is no real difference in Peter between being, and being Peter

- Principle of individuation according to Suarez: matter and form in union, form being the chief principle;
a differentia individualis;
- Suarez adds an extra metaphysical item to the apparatus employed by Aquinas and Scotus: apart from
matter (Aquinas) and form/thisness (Scotus), there is a thing that makes Peter a substance and not an
accident: subsistence (the form of existence peculiar to susbstance as opposed to accident), adds to an
individuated essence a mode, which results in a composition of mode-plus-thing-modified; Suarez uses
this notion of mode to illuminate the difference between a soul existing embodied and existing in
separation after death

Descartes on Eternal Truths

* Doctrine of the creation of eternal truth; the truths of logic and mathematics depended upon the will
of God, instead of his essence; they are not true independently of him;
- They are not truths about material objects, so they have their being neither in the material world nor
in the mind of anyone, divine or human; they are prior to and independent of any human minds, though
they were dependent on the mind of God; they belong to a third realm of their own (just as the Ideas of
Plato)

* Descartes rejects essences and forms: essences are nothing but eternal truth;
- Descartes bases his physics on eternal truths; what connects one moment of a thing’s history to
another is nothing but the immutable will of God;

* If the laws of physics depend on God’s will, how do we know that they will not change?
- According to Descartes, God is no deceiver; the veracity of God is necessary to establish the permanent
validity of these clearly and distinctly perceived truths

Three Notions of Substance

- Nothing has no qualities or properties, so that where we perceive some there must necessarily be aa
thing or substance on which they depend;
- A substance is a thing which needs no other thing in order to exist; strictly speaking, only God counts as
substance by this definitions; yet created substances could be said to be things which need only the
concurrence of God in order to exist;

- No Aristotelian substantial forms according to Descartes; only two substances: mind, or thinking
substance, and body, or extended substance; these do not have ‘substantial forms’, but do have
essence; the essence of mind being thought, the essence of body being extension;

- No immediate understanding of substances (when we look at an object, we do not have and

immediate awareness of subsistence); rather, from the mere fact that we perceive certain forms or
attributes, which must inhere in something in order to have existence, we name the thing in which they
exist a substance; substances and their underlying nature are something to be established only by
intellectual inference
- Locke: the notion of substance arises from our observation that certain ideas constantly go together;
the operative part of our idea of a distinct kind of substance is a complex idea made up of a number of
simple ones, an aggregate of several simples ideas; an idea of substance is called a sortal idea;

- Substances of different sorts have essences; for Locke, two kinds of essence: real and nominal;
- The real essence is the unknown constitution of things, whereon their discoverable Qualities depend;
- The nominal essence is the collection of simple ideas that have been assembled and attached to names
in order to rank things into sorts or species, that which gives the right to bear a particular name; these
are largely the arbitrary creation of human language;
- In some cases, the real and nominal essence are the same; not in the case of substances, however;
- Individuals have neither real nor nominal essences; nothing an individual has, is essential to him; the
real individual is the substratum of various properties; something quite other than a human being;

- Substance is indescribable because it is propertyless;

Single Necessary Substance (Spinoza)

* Substance is that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself; that of which a concept can be
formed independently of the concept of anything else
* Attribute is a property conceived to be essential to substance
* A mode is a property only conceivable by reference to a substance

* There can be at most one substance of a given kind; if there are two or more distinct substances, they
must be distinguished from each other either by their attributes or by their modes; they cannot be
distinguished by their modes, because substance is prior to mode, and therefore any distinction
between modes must follow, and cannot create a distinction between substance
- They must therefore be distinguished by their attributes, which they could not be if there were two
substances having an attribute in common;
- Moreover, no substance can cause any other substance, because an effect must have something in
common with its cause, and we have just shown that two substances would have to be totally different
in kind;

* It belongs to the nature of substance to exist; for a substance cannot be produced by anything other
than itself; it must therefore be its own cause,, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or it
belongs to its nature to exist

* Moreover, substance is necessarily infinite;

* All together, (at most/at least) one substance exists, namely, God

* Mind and matter are not substances, for they would present limitations on God and God would then
not be infinite;
* Everything that there is, is in God; without God, nothing else can exist or be conceived; thought and
extension are attributes of God himself; God is both mentally and physically; individual minds and
bodies are modes, or particular configurations, of the divine attributes of thought and extension;
- No cause and effect relation between God and finite substances, but a subject-predicate relation; any
apparent statement about a finite substance is in reality a predication about God; the proper way of
referring to creatures like is to use not a noun but an adjective; no distinction exists between creator
and what he creates; there is no distinction between God and nature

* Not so much the doctrine that there is only one substance, but the collapsing of any distinction
between entailment and causation; any effect follows necessarily from its cause; everything is ruled by
absolute logical necessity;
* Analogy: finite being is a part of God; when a part changes, each individual retains its nature and
identity; the whole nature seen as one individual (God); nothing is contingent in nature; everything is
determined by the necessity of the divine nature to exist and operate in a certain manner;

Making Room for Contingency

* Malebranche: the connection between a cause and an effect must be a necessary one;
* Spinoza and Malebranche treat the following of an effect from a cause as being on a par with the
following of a conclusion from a premiss; but for them, the necessary connection is a conceptual one; in
fact, there is only one genuine cause operating in the physical world, and that is God;

* For Malebranche, however, God is not the only substance; there exist finite spirts, yet these do not
cause any effect; the internal act of willing provides the occasion for God to cause the object of the will
* Therefore, contingency exists in the physical universe, but it derives only from the eternal free decree
of God;

* For Leibniz, there should be divine and human freedom, and therefore contingency throughout the
universe; he makes a distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact;
- Truths of reason are necessary, and their opposite impossible;
- Truths of fact are contingent and their opposite possible;

- Truths of fact are based on the principle that nothing is the case without there being a sufficient reason
why it should be thus rather than otherwise

* Every predicate which is as a matter of fact true of a particular subject, is in some way part of its
essence;

* Necessary truths are analytic, and demonstrable

* Truths of facts are not capable of being demonstrated; they can only be discovered empirical
investigation
* Yet statements of fact include the predicate covertly in the subject; thus, statements of facts are in a
sense analytic; yet the analysis necessary too exhibit this would be an infinite one, which only God could
complete
- Then how can they be contingent? The demonstration that their predicates belong to their subjects is
not as absolute as those of numbers, but that it supposes the sequence of things that God has freely
chosen and which is founded on the first free decree of God, the import of which is always to do what is
most perfect; in other words: there is no internal contradiction in the opposite of a truth of fact, and
secondly, the inclusion of the predicate in the notion is the result of a free decree of God to create such
a fact

Leibniz’s law: if A is identical with B, then whatever is true of A is true of B, and vice versa
The principle of the identity of indiscernibles: If whatever s tre of A is true of B, and vice versa, then A is
identical with B;
* Notable paradox: it is not possible for two substances to resemble each other entirely and differ only
numerically
- Akin to the principle of individuation: what distinguishes one individual from another, is matter

- Rational idealism

A
A
A
A
A

Berkeley’s Idealism

* The idea that reality consists ultimately of mental entities (immaterial perceivers along with their
perceptions)

Hume on Causation

The Response of Kant

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Mind and Soul

Descartes on Mind

Dualism and its Discontents

Determinism, Freedom, and Compatibilism

Locke on Personal Identity

The Soul as the Idea of the Body in Spinoza

Leibniz’s Monadology

Berkeley and Hume on Spirits and Selves

Kant’s Anatomy of the Mind

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College week 9
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10. Selections from Cavendish and Shepherd

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11. Kant Prolegomena

12. God

13. Ch. 10, Locke?