Skepticism in the Ancient - Assignment Example

Set 1

Question 1

Locke does not back the idea that human beings think and perceive according to their innate ideas. According to him, no principles or concepts are inherent in the human mind. He views innate ideas as those that a person is said to possess independent of prior interaction. He believes that, for a human being to think or perceive something, they must interact with the object in mind before through what he terms as experience. Locke denies the idea we are born with a native mind.

Question 2

Locke states that experience, or what he commonly refers to as sensation, brings ideas. The ideas in a human being's mind are not independent of experience. According to him, experience enables one to have feelings and reflection (Soles, 341). Sensations relay into the account different opinions depending on how they affect a person. Reflection is a source of ideas that surfaces as a result of experience. We reflect, or instead, we remember what we have gone through. In short, the sensation is a result of external objects, background, whereas reflection is a result of the mind's operation due to experiences. According to his principle, the brain's process may mean a sense of being satisfied, uneasy, or worried. All these feelings can arise from any thought. He declares the idea of innate ideas as false. A man cannot think if the mind is blank. One must have seen or experienced something to have the images or the senses relay in their minds as a replay of the memory.

An example is a bunch of apples. When a person sights a bunch of apples, he or she does not think about their different color, shape, size, or taste. All they visualize in mind is the state of the apple remaining an apple. The idea is that the mind removes all the abstracts surrounding their thinking and sees the object for what it commonly is. However, that is not to say that the apples do not have distinct shapes, sizes, and colors.

Question 3

Locke refers to the mind as a white paper. His point is that if one writes nothing on the paper, then it will remain blank. Similarly, if a person does not go through experiences, then his mind is empty; therefore, there is nothing to think. He says that it is by way of experiencing different occurrences that we begin to fill our blank paper. Locke uses the white paper explanation to insist on his belief that one is born with a clear mind and that what we see, hear, touch and much more helps us form ideas through memory. He also intends to make us understand that a man cannot have ideas of things he has never seen, felt, or heard.

Question 4

According to Locke, a man's knowledge cannot go beyond his experiences. Self-knowledge refers to a person's realization of his or her sensations, reflections, and other operations of the mind. Locke claims that no one can perceive without self-realizing that they understood. That in itself is enough to say that we are aware of ourselves immediately after we can perceive our surroundings. He further claims that a person's identity is as a result of the continuity of psychology. We cannot stop to think or understand. Neither can we order ourselves to stop using our common sense. Locke defines self as an enlightened being that has memory and reason and can relate to itself, when at different places and when thinking differently. Therefore, he emphasizes the continued rationality of a man as what makes a man a man. However, Descartes separates knowledge of self from knowledge from senses. His point is that other factors can easily deceive our minds. Therefore, feelings cannot be a valid basis for self-awareness. According to him, how can one know that they are seeing, hearing, touching, or dreaming all the same? Descartes claims that true self-knowledge comes from reason. On the contrary, Locke would not agree with Descartes' argument because, according to him, we can know who we are at any given time.

Set 2

Question 1

Charles Darwin's theory, the Origin of species, has adverse effects on all branches of Philosophy. They include the social philosophy, philosophy of the mind, and the philosophy of science (Dewey, 55). According to Darwin, all living things arise, develop, and survive through a natural selection phenomenon. It contradicted the philosophy of religion that ascertains the existence of a supreme being, God, who created everything. The theory also confuses social philosophers who believe in ethics as the theory dictates that survival is for the fittest, thus accrediting selfishness.

On the other hand, it contradicts the philosophy of science that claims that things existed or came into being as a consequence of chemical and physical interactions. The most affected is the philosophy of mind. We expect Mental philosophers to work for hand I hand with the scientists to understand the human brain from a biological point of view.

Question 2

I find the idea of skepticism rather interesting. However, I find it hard to establish in my day to day life. At no particular moment have I ever thought that whom I perceive to be me could be a total lie. Neither have I ever imagined that I could have been dreaming all along. For instance, how am I even sure I am doing this assignment? It is contradictory how I can doubt the feelings I have right now or my existence, for that matter.

Question 3

The term, Origin of species confuses the Philosophers' sense of the world at large, especially because different philosophers have different views of the world. For example, how would one define the term species? Darwin generalizes every living thing as a species. There is no clear distinction as to what kinds of species. For philosophers, there is a line between humans and beasts, but Darwin refers to them as all the same.

Set 3

Question 1

Instead of using the notion of ideas like Locke, Hume uses the idea of perception. He splits perception into impressions and ideas, and between the two, he says there is a distinction. Impressions are more vivid than ideas. Impressions appeal directly to our physical self, while ideas appeal indirectly. Humes gives an example of consuming an apple. During the real act, a person creates the first impression of that particular apple. However, the ideas about that experience come later and, therefore, do not directly press the physical body.

Question 2

Hume confirms that the idea of God can be both innate and empirical, depending on whether a person is empiricist or skeptical. No one has ever seen God, and yet many believe his existence. Benevolence and power of such a being are founded on our impressions to certain limits as we cannot see or touch the being (Laursen, V.35). On the other hand, it can be innate in the sense that we use our imagination about God. According to Hume, every idea has its roots in sensation.

Question 3

Firstly, the relation of ideas has a method of proving, whereas facts have no way of showing. For example, we can demonstrate mathematical formulas and ascertain its workability, but we can never determine factual occurrences such as dawning. Secondly, the relation of ideas can be established with no need for experience while facts require experience. Facts can only be observed so that they can be found, for instance, we know that the sunsets because we hear it does and some of us see it set. Also, facts are not absolute, whereas the relation of ideas is specific. We cannot negate facts, but we can create contradicting arguments for the relation of ideas.

Set 4

Question 1

Philosophical problems are conceptions of the philosophers themselves. He also claims that in the process of fashioning solutions to a particular philosophical problem, some philosophers end up creating more questions instead. For instance, he blames Locke for failing to develop a solution for the skeptical problem and creating another version of the original problem.

Question 2

Abstract ideas are the ideas that do not conform to this world, and we can only feel them. Berkeley defines abstract ideas as lacking sense and that they are a hitch in philosophy. He argues that they do not represent the logic and prefers to use the term imagination instead.

Question 3

Universal ideas refer to the ideas that have a metaphysical notion for things that look alike and fall under a similar category of items. On the other hand, abstract concepts are formed in mind, and there is no necessity for evidence that the objects in those ideas exist. Also, abstract ideas are not of this world; they are as a result of idealizing thoughts.

Question 4

Berkeley accuses Lockey to have a minimal view of the language. Locke misuses language in the sense that he misinterprets the theory of reference. According to Berkeley, a word must not always point to a thing. He further claims that Locke tries to force a reference in every word to produce an item with no particular qualities. His emphasis is that, when we think of something, we do not visualize the general things but one thing in particular. For instance, when one thinks of a cat, they imagine a specific cat with exact color and size. Locke argues that if he were to think of a bunch of apples, he would concentrate on the idea of the apples being apples and the contentment he would derive from them, but not see them in their colors and sizes. Those, to him, are irrelevant projections of the mind.