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The Making of Science in The Age of Reason: Revianto B. Santosa

1) The document discusses the epistemological views of philosophers during the Enlightenment period such as Rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz who believed knowledge comes from reason alone, and Empiricists like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume who believed knowledge comes from experience. 2) It provides an overview of the views of several philosophers, including Locke's view of tabula rasa and that innate ideas don't exist, Leibniz's distinction between necessary truths of reason and contingent truths of fact, and Hume's skepticism about necessary connections between events. 3) Kant argued that in order for experience to be possible, the mind must impose categories like time and space onto sensory data

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60 views

The Making of Science in The Age of Reason: Revianto B. Santosa

1) The document discusses the epistemological views of philosophers during the Enlightenment period such as Rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz who believed knowledge comes from reason alone, and Empiricists like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume who believed knowledge comes from experience. 2) It provides an overview of the views of several philosophers, including Locke's view of tabula rasa and that innate ideas don't exist, Leibniz's distinction between necessary truths of reason and contingent truths of fact, and Hume's skepticism about necessary connections between events. 3) Kant argued that in order for experience to be possible, the mind must impose categories like time and space onto sensory data

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putra15
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CHAPTER 9

ANALYSES OF THE IMPLICATIONS


OF THE NEW SCIENCE FOR A THEORY
OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD

The Making of
Science in the
Age of Reason
REVIANTO B. SANTOSA

Epistemology
of the Enlightened
Many philosophers in The Enlightenment
preoccupied with science, are presented
divided into two epistemological schools:

The RATIONALISTS, holding the principle


that knowledge can be gained through
rational reflection alone (including Ren
Descartes, Leibniz, Benedictus Spinoza,
and Immanuel Kant); a nd

The EMPIRICISTS, holding the principles


that knowledge is derived from
experience (including John Locke,
George Berkeley, and David Hume).

In fact, the various philosophers did not


easily fall into two clear groups, each
being like and unlike each of the others in
complex and overlapping ways.

John LOCKE

Necessary
Knowledge of
Nature
John Locke, who like Newton
was committed to atomism,
specified the conditions that would
have to be fulfilled to achieve a
necessary knowledge of nature.
According to Locke, we would
have to know both the
configurations and motions of
atoms and the ways in which the
motions of atoms produce ideas of
primary and secondary qualities in
the observer.

Innate Knowledge &


Tabula Rasa
Locke was against the idea that
human beings possess any kind of
innate knowledge. He takes the view
that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa
a blank tablet or a new sheet of
paper upon which experience writes,
in the same way that light can create
images on photographic film.
According to Locke, we bring
nothing to the process except the
basic human ability to apply reason
to the information that we gather
through our senses.
In order for something to be an
idea at all, he states that it has to
have been present at some point in
somebodys mind. But, as Locke
points out, any idea that claims to be

Gottfried LEIBNIZ

Science and
Metaphysics
Leibniz was a rationalist, and his
distinction between truths of
reasoning and truths of fact marks
an interesting twist in the debate
between rationalism and
empiricism.
The trouble for Leibniz is that he
holds that truths of reasoning are
necessary, meaning that it is
impossible to contradict them, while
truths of fact are contingent;
they can be denied without logical
contradiction.
Leibnizs distinction between
truths of reasoning and truths of
fact is not simply an
epistemological one (about the

Leibniz's best known contribution to


metaphysics is his theory of monads, as
exposited in Monadologie. Underlying
Monadologie is the notion that in principle
all knowledge can be accessed by rational
reflection. However, due to shortcomings in
our rational faculties, human beings must
also rely on experience as a means of
acquiring knowledge.
In order to obtain knowledge of the
internal consitutions or real essences of
things, Leibniz formulated a general
metaphysical principles being the
necessary truths. Of necessity, individual
substances (monads) unfold in accordance
with a principle of perfection that ensures
their harmonious interrelation. According
to Leibniz, monads are:

The
Metaphysics
of Monadology

the ultimate elements of the universe


and "substantial forms of being"

eternal, indecomposable, individual,


subject to their own laws, un-interacting,
and each reflecting the entire universe
in a pre-established harmony

centers of force (substance is force,

David HUME

Scepticism
David Hume was born at a time when
European philosophy was dominated by a
debate about the nature of knowledge.
He extended and made consistent Lockes
sceptical approach to the possibility of a
necessary knowledge of nature.
Hume denies of the possibility of a
necessary knowledge of naturee bsed on
three explicitly stated premisses:
all knowledge may be subdivided into
the mutually exclusive categories
relations of ideas and matters of
fact;
all knowledge of matters of fact is
given in, and arises from, sense
impressions; and

a necessary knowledge of nature


would presuppose knowledge of the
necessary connectedness of events.

Hume maintained that statements about relations of ideas


and statements about matters of fact differ in two respects.
The first respect is the type of truth-claim that can be made
for the two types of statements. Certain statements about
relations of ideas are necessary truths.
The second point of difference is the method followed to
ascertain the truth or falsity of the respective types of
statements. The truth or falsity of statements about
relations of ideas is established independently of any
appeal to empirical evidence.

as far as the laws of


mathematics refer to reality,
they are not certain; and as far
as they are certain, they do not
refer to reality. {Einstein on
Hume]

Immanuel KANT

Principles in
Science
Kant demonstrate that there is an
external, material world, and that
its existence cannot be doubted.
In order for something to exist, it
must be determinable in time and
space being the a priori existence of
the external world.
Our experience of the world
involves
sensibilityour ability to be
directly acquainted with
particular things ,
understanding, our ability to
have and use concepts

KANTS VIEW OF COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE

Reflective Judgment
and the
Empirical Observation
the reflective
judgment, which is
obliged to ascend from
the particular in
nature to the
universal, requires on
that account a
principle that it cannot
borrow from
experience, because
its function is to
establish the unity of
all empirical principles
under higher ones,
and hence to establish
the possibility of their
systematic
subordination.

General regulative principle which the reflective


judgement prescribes to itself is the Purposiveness
of Nature.
Kant formulates the Principle of Purposiveness
based on these principles:
1. that nature takes the shortest way (lex
parsimoniae);
2. that nature makes no leaps either in the course
of its changes or in the
3. juxtaposition of specifically different forms (lex
continui in natura);
4. that there exists in nature only a small number
of types of causal interaction;
5. that there exists in nature a subordination of
species and genera comprehensible by us; and
6. that it is possible to incorporate species under
progressively higher genera.

REFERENCES
Buckingham, Will (et. al.) (2011) The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained.
New York: DK Publishing.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (2008) The Ideas that Made the Modern World: The people,
philosophy and history of the Enlightenment, London: Robinson.
Losee, John (2001) A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Rosenberg, Alex (2005) Philosophy of Science: A contemporary introduction, Oxon:
Routledge.
Shanker, Stuart G. (1996) Routledge History of Philosophy, Volume IX: Philosophy of
Science, Logic and Mathematics in the Twentieth Century, London: Routledge.

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