Epistemology: Introduction to Rationalism

[Music] hey welcome to today's lecture where we introduce rationalism so we are looking at this branch of philosophy referred to as epistemology it's the branch where we look at questions about knowledge and in particular last week we started asking this question well how can we justify knowing something the solution or the approach we looked at last week was referred to as empiricism we can justify what we know because we experience it how do we know that there is a computer in front of us right now i see it in front of me right now how do you know that you are listening to a a lecture on empiricism because i heard the instructor just say that we're talking about empiricism this justification of knowledge based upon sense experience seems pretty intuitive for a lot of us and it's how we often justify knowing something however we noted last week that there are some problems that you'd have to address if you're an empiricist one is that our perceptions can be misleading we often experience things that are not necessarily true of reality whether it's hearing you know intruders in the house when it's just a creaking floor or um seeing mirages in the desert or seeing pencils or straws that look bent into cups of water our sense perceptions seem to deceive us and beyond that an idealist philosophy you know another branch of empiricism brings to light the question of whether or not we're actually experiencing some sort of external material reality so while you're staring at this computer screen and you believe you are sensing a computer that is in front of you do you ever really experience a computer that's in front of you bishop barkley notes that well mean you really only experience the ideas in your own mind you only really experience the sensations in your own head so how can we ever make a claim about some sort of external object of reality and therefore how can we ever say we ever know something about objective reality another problem is that if we take a look at something like science which seemingly is founded on empiricism well science uses inductive sorts of analysis they do tests and then based upon the tests they come to generalized statements about reality this is referred to as induction however we notice that empiricism has an issue or can be a is problematic when it comes to induction because inductive statements make generalized statements about reality because of the few tests we ran on this vaccine we can come to the conclusion that this vaccine will be useful or will work for a majority of people well unless you test it on the majority of people we can't really justify that statement empirically right this is the problem of induction we can't make any generalized statements because we don't experience all of something third problem what's the problem of causation many of us have this intuitive sense that events have causes in them and we take a look at scientific knowledge it's kind of based upon the idea that events have causes to them hence the scientific endeavor is about well looking for the causes of certain events so that when you have an ailment we try to find out what the cause is so that we can give a solution when there is an issue with with the environment well what's the cause of it so we can find a way to solve the issues with the environment so the scientific endeavor seems to also rely on the belief in the law of cause and effect but if you're an empiricist this could be problematic because you never really see causes and effects you just see events followed by events so how else can we justify knowledge how else can we justify knowing something if there are so many problems with empiricism well recall we learned about plato's cave way back in week one and plato back then warned us that our lives are like being trapped in a cave where we believe our experience of shadows on the wall of a cave and the stake of those shadows for the reality that those shadows represent here we already see plato telling us to doubt our senses to doubt our experience and he says that there's something beyond this cave that there is a more real world outside and it's in this real world that exists real truths that exists reality so refer to this as a divided line right where beyond our world of form i'm sorry beyond our world of of material experience sensory experience which is always changing there exists something beyond that there exists forms which are the most real which are the most true which are never changing and they exist in this immaterial realm beyond the one we believe we are living in beyond this physical realm so how do we access that realm of forms how do we access experiencing these truths if not in our caves well if you remember we have a similar sort of story with descartes and how he tried to pursue certainties descartes wanted to find out things that he could know for sure so he began to tear down what he thought he knew anytime he came to a belief that he thought could be doubted he would throw it away the hope is that after demolishing all that of all that he could doubt he would only be left with those truths that he knew for sure and it is based upon those certainties that you could slowly then build up your house of knowledge because then you have it set on a solid foundation and not one that can crumble notice here too that the cart gave us a reason to doubt our sensory experiences he tells us that even when we dream right we are fooled by our senses so why even believe them when we are awake so how did he come to a certainties how did he come to his first truth well the answer to both questions are the same when we ask how do we experience this ideal realm of forms how do we access that how do we get to certainties that we can know for sure well we use reason we think rationalism is the approach to justifying knowledge justifying knowledge where we use our intellect to rationally logically think about what can and cannot be true now classically speaking or i'm sorry before that knowledge in this case can be gained then a priori knowledge in this case can be gained prior to experience so we take a look at that term a priori prior before rationalism has this belief then that you don't have to experience the world first in order to fill up your blank slate in order to gain knowledge that knowledge can be gained prior to you having the experience of reality by reflection by the intellect classically as we take a look at what plato showed us and what we see with the cart classically rationalism then often is seen as having these characteristics one is that there is a belief that true knowledge that any sort of true knowledge is something that must be certain that something that doesn't change otherwise you can't really say you know it right the definition of knowing something here for the rationalists is that you know something that isn't doesn't change it's just it's how it is two that appearances and sensor perception is inherently untrustworthy and then three that reason may be the best and maybe only real true path to knowledge so this week we'll take a look at why why do rationalists believe this how does rationalism solve some of the issues we saw with empiricism and then later on after that we'll discuss some issues with rationalism as well but what i'd like to think about for this flipgrid assignment is you know when have people or you been fooled by what you've seen can you think of examples where you've been fooled by your experience and if you just had thought about it or if your friends had just thought about it they would have realized that their belief was false think about the election coming up think about the pandemic we're in can you find any examples there take a look at people's behaviors and reactions to both the election season and the pandemic is there any way that they or you know people you've seen in response to these things were fooled by their sensory experience and if they just have thought about something carefully they would have came to a better conclusion okay that's what i'd like you to think about and submit for your flipgrid assignment for this coming week

Channel: Prof G

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Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020