1. Major Periods of Western Philosophy
1. Ancient: 500 BCE – 500 CE (Greece and Rome). Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus 2. Medieval/Renaissance: 500 CE – 1600 CE (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). Augustine, Aquinas 3. Modern: 1600 CE – 1800 CE. Descartes, Hume, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant

2. Rene Descartes
Father of Modern Philosophy b. March in La Haye France wrote Meditations in 1641 d. February

3. Background Galileo and the Copernican system
The Protestant Reformation

4. Epistemology How do I know anything?
What does it mean to know something?

5. The Skeptics Knowledge = A belief that cannot be doubted at all
Knowledge is Impossible. We can only have beliefs

6. Hyperbolic Doubt

8. Am I really dreaming?

9. The Evil Genius

10. The Brain in a Vat

12. The Ego-Centric Predicament/ Problem of the External world
How can I know if the world outside of my mind really exists?
All I ever can know is what my mind perceives, not what really exists

13. The Truth I cannot Doubt
Cogito; ergo sum
I think; therefore I am
The Truth I cannot Doubt

14. But What is this “I” who thinks?

15. I am a Thinking Thing!

16. Theories of Perception
Direct Realism – The World is exactly as it appears to our senses
Indirect Realism – Our primary experience is of ideas in our minds. These ideas are representations of objects in the world
Idealism – Physical objects are not real. Only minds and their ideas exist

17. Where do we get our knowledge?
Empiricism
Rationalism
All knowledge comes from the senses
Science is the best kind of knowledge we can have
All knowledge comes from self-evident truths grasped by the mind alone
Logic and math are the best kind of knowledge we can have

18. Immanuel Kant
Rationalism is wrong, because you cannot think unless you have sense experiences
But equally Empiricism is wrong because you cannot have valid sense experience unless you first have concepts by which you can interpret your sense experience

19. Kant’s Core Concepts
Ket Terms – Set 1) Analytic and Synthetic. Set 2) A Priori and A Posteriori
Analytic concepts = True by definitions of the terms. “All Bachelors are unmarried men.”
Synthetic concepts = not true by definition; rather, they had information to our concept. For example, “Baboons can dance.”
A Priori truths = true prior to experience
A Posteriori truths = true based on experience

20. Kant’s Synthetic A Priori
Space & Time – Not an object of experience. Rather, it’s a “precondition of experience.”
We MUST think this way! So it makes no sense to consider whether there is some “reality in itself” that is different.