Modern Philosophy Notes

General Introduction

This General Introduction highlights the concept of the Term 'Modern'; the nature and
growth of Modern Philosophy. The introduction ends with explaining philosophy during the
Renaissance.

General Introduction - Notes

Modern Philosophy
Key Words:
Renaissance, Humanism, epistemology, rationalism, empiricism, knowledge.
Introduction
Philosophical movements are phenomena of effective history, says Habermas. (Habermas:

Postmetaphysical Thinking). Modern philosophy is thus the result of several historical and social
developments that had radical impacts in the lives of European people. The term modern comes
from the Latin word modo, which means what is current. In this sense the term modern only
suggests the separation of the contemporary age from the ancient. But when we speak about
modern philosophy, we refer to certain developments in the field of philosophy, as a result of the
impact of various other developments in culture and civilization happened during a specific
period of time in European history.
This specific period has certain definite features which make it stand out clearly in the history of
Europe. This period has witnessed a diminishing authority of the Church and an increasing
authority of science. Europe had begun to define itself more on political and national lines rather
than religious lines and States have started replacing the Church as authority that controls
culture. The French and American revolutions which had very momentous impacts occurred
during this time and nations were in the path of democratization.
From Ancient to Middle Ages
With the Barbarian invasion of the Roman Empire, an era of great ancient civilizations had come
to an end in Europe. By the 5th century, Christianity had become the official religion of the
Roman empire and the Church had become the most powerful organization in Europe [Lavine].
This has resulted in the complete domination of Christianity as an institution based on
unquestionable faith and rigid dogmas in the place of the free, rational, independent
philosophical thinking of the Greeks. Consequently, the Church had destroyed many writings
and works of art of the ancient civilization charging them for being pagan, un-Christian and
immoral and had given birth to a new civilization with redefined social, cultural, economic and
political domains all over the European continent.
The passage from the ancient Greek to Christian worldview was actually a retreat from the
rational to supernatural and from the logical to the revelational. This period had replaced critical
thinking with faith and loyalty to the doctrines of the Church. It therefore, replaced science by
superstition. Most of the philosophical contemplations of this age were confined to the problems
related to the rational justification of faith and God‟s existence.
Modern Philosophy
Bertrand Russell observes that the period of history which is commonly called "modern" has a
mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are
the most important: the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of
science. [A History of Western Philosophy].
An important historical event that has happened during this period in European cultural life was
the advent of the Renaissance [the French word for rebirth]. It is generally accepted that the
modern outlook began in Italy with Renaissance. The Renaissance actually consist in the revival
of the ancient wisdom of the Greek and Roman civilization in the modern age. The intellectuals
and creative artists of this period have recognized that the ancient wisdom of the Greeks and the
Romans is the source of valuable insights that have the potential to change the course of human
life in a drastic manner.
The term Renaissance stands for a period in European history spanning from the middle of the
14th century to the beginning of the 17th century. By 15th century the original Greek works were
read and appreciated. Thinkers have also read critically appreciated and St. Thomas‟
interpretations of Aristotle. The recovery of the classical languages, literature, art, history and
philosophical insights resulted in the revival of the spirit of Greek humanism, which considered
the recognition of the dignity and worth of human beings as central. Humanism acknowledges
the power of human reason to know the truths of nature and conceives humans as having the
capacity to determine, express, and achieve what is good for us.
The Idea of the Good remained a core concern of the Greek civilization. The participation in the
life of the city-states and the social and the political life that existed during that period
determined the conception of the Good held by the Greeks. An entirely different conception of
the good was prevalent during the Middle Ages, where to live according to the dictums of the
Church was considered as primordial.
Renaissance, on the other hand, as we have seen above, consists in the revival of the ancient
wisdom and humanistic spirit. It aimed at restoring to man the capacities, strengths and powers
of the individual person which the middle ages had ignored. It has recognized the dignity of man
in terms of his individual achievements, and not necessarily in terms of his divine allegiance.
The Renaissance thus considered the culture of the ancient world as superior to the present one
and had looked ahead to a new mode of life.
This period was also marked with the rise of modern science. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and
Newton were the pre-eminent scientists of this era. Copernicus‟ heliocentric view of the universe
has overthrown existing paradigms and Kepler came up with mathematical interpretations of the
heliocentric view. Galileo developed the observation method with mathematical interpretations
to new heights and with the emergence of modern science, the belief/faith-based world views
were increasingly replaced by the reason-based scientific outlook. Copernicus and Galileo
brought together the two important elements of scientific method: the empirical method that
emphasizes on observation and experiment and the rational approach that uses the principle
behind the mathematical deductive reasoning.
Philosophy during the Renaissance
Though Renaissance was a period that witnessed intense developments in many fields, it was not
a very rich period for philosophy. This period had witnessed a revived study of Plato, over
Aristotle. As Russell observes, Renaissance encouraged the habit of regarding intellectual
activity as a delightful social adventure, not a cloistered meditation aiming at the preservation of
a predetermined orthodoxy [A History of western Philosophy]
One major development happened during this period was the challenge Saint Thomas's
interpretation of Aristotle faced from different quarters. Aristotle was studied with more
emphasis on secular and scientific aspects, independent of the dominant Scholastic
interpretations. Platonism, Stoicism, Epicurianism and Skepticism were also reintroduced during
this period. The authority of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire
began to decline during this time and it encouraged having a new look at the philosophical
issues, ancient philosophy texts and approaches. As T.Z.Lavine observes:
With the coming of the Renaissance there occurs an expression of a humanistic faith in man, in
his power to direct his life and the life of his society toward freedom and justice, together with
the sense that this power, which had been a possession of the individual in the ancient Greek
world, had been lost in the world of medieval Christendom. [From Socrates to Sartre: The
Philosophical Quest.]
Cultural Impact
Art and literature played a crucial role in forming the cultural and intellectual environment of
this era. It was during this time both art and literature became independent of religious dogmas
and mythology and artists exhibited the courage in portraying human glory and not just suffering
and death as it used to be earlier. In other words, art and literature turned away from Christian
themes to nature as it is seen and perceived by man. Nature became an interesting object of study
and had been conceived not just as an expression of the supernatural. The human body has also
become an object of artistic imagination as a result of the overcoming of the body-negativism
that dominated European culture since the time of Plato and became strong during the middle
ages.
This was also an age of scientific and other discoveries that enabled man‟s understanding the
world with having better control over it. There were many new inventions and discoveries that
enabled men to dominate nature, which also include other people in far away continents. The
discovery of the New World by Columbus is an example. Along with such developments in the
scientific, economic and political realms, Europe also witnessed the rise and growth of the
Protestant reformation of Christian religion, sphereheaded by Martin Luther.
The philosophical temperament of this age was thus characterised by the scientific temper,
humanism and skepticism. It was predominantly concerned with epistemological questions,
which dealt with the sources, kinds and limits of human knowledge. In the ethical domain, it
sought to discover the criteria and the possibility of moral life without religious principles. The
modern age was thus characterised by an awakening of the reflective spirit and the critical
approaches that doubted and questioned all forms of authority particularly the authority of
tradition. It was visibly against absolutism and collectivism and asserted the importance of
freedom in thought, feeling and action.
In the political realm, states increasingly took the place of the Church and have moved more
towards constitutionalism and the creation of more and more democratic institutions. Another
important feature of this age was the emergence of individualism and an associated ideal of
liberalism. Modern philosophy has emerged in such a social and political environment.
Modern Philosophy
The most important feature of modern philosophy is the emergence of reason as the sole arbiter
in matters of knowledge and life. It becomes the only authority in philosophy and science and
consequently the concept of truth was associated with the notion of scientific observation. Truth
needs to be achieved through free and impartial inquiry and in this context theology, which
considers revealed knowledge as paramount lost its importance. This age emphasized the
practical applicability of knowledge.
In many respects, modern philosophy resembles ancient Greek thought. Like the latter modern
philosophy too emphasized on an independent search for truth and was thoroughly rationalistic,
as it considered human reason is the highest authority. It was naturalistic, as it attempted
explaining the inner and outer nature without supernatural presuppositions. It was scientific, as it
has very close ties with the new sciences that were emerging [Frank Thilly]
Modern Philosophy has also witnessed the emergence of two important epistemological schools
of thought—rationalism and Empiricism—as independent and opposing schools of philosophy.
The impact of modern scientific understanding on philosophy was quite visible, as both these
schools were preoccupied with the question of rational genuine knowledge. With these two
schools, philosophy regained its lost status as a foundational discipline. They have conceived and
equated philosophy with epistemology.
With its focus shifting to epistemology, philosophy's objectives too had changed. It now no
longer deals with the question of ultimate reality, as the ancient and medieval thinkers were
doing. According to these thinkers, philosophy deals with knowledge in a peculiar manner.
While scientific disciplines are concerned with knowledge of a particular aspect or domain of the
universe, philosophy deals with knowledge as such. Hence it is concerned with the nature, kinds,
limitations and sources of knowledge.
Empiricism and Rationalism

Being the two important schools of modern philosophy, rationalism and empiricism have
different and opposing conceptions of and views about the source of knowledge. Rationalism
holds the view that genuine knowledge consists of universal and necessary judgements.
According to them, the goal of thought is a system of truths in which the different propositions
are logically related to one another. They thus advocate a mathematical conception of knowledge
and hold that the origin of knowledge is not sense perception, but has foundation in thought or
reason. The rationalists believe that certain truths are natural or native—innate—to reason and
are a priori. They treat reason and intuition as the sources of genuine knowledge and not
sensation and experience. Further they consider all or most ideas as innate rather than
adventitious and hold that the goal of enquiry is certain knowledge and not something, which is
merely probable. The founder of the rationalistic school, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) raised the
question of knowledge in an unprecedented manner. He asked the question, “what do I really
know?” and to find an answer to this he relies on his own intellectual resources. His method thus
consists in the overcoming of skepticism and further aims at establishing the autonomy of
science.
Empiricism, on the other hand, considers sense perception as the fundamental source of all
knowledge, they intend to show that there are no inborn or innate truths and there are no
propositions that yield necessary or absolute knowledge. John Locke (1632-1704), for instance,
who is the founder of the British empiricist school, vehemently opposes the conception of innate
ideas and asserts that all knowledge starts with experience. He claims that the human mind is a
tabula rasa or an empty cabinet in the beginning and it is experience that will start writing on it.
Both rationalism and empiricism affirm that reason is a faculty of the mind through which truths
about reality are known. With regard to the question of the source of knowledge they disagree.
But neither of them affirms that all knowledge comes from sense experience. Even the
empiricists acknowledge that there is some knowledge that does not derive from experience.
Though the dominant philosophical schools in the modern age were rationalism and empiricism,
other tendencies were also prevalent during this age. With the radical empiricist philosophy
of David Hume, skepticism became prominent. Mysticism was another trend which dominated
this age. The Catholic scholars preserved the Scholastic philosophy.
It will be interesting to have an account of the development of philosophy from the Greek golden
age to the modern period. The decline of the Greek-Roman civilization was actually a decline of
freethinking. As we have seen in a previous chapter, the emergence of the Christian Church as
the highest authority that controls culture happened during the middle ages which are also called
the dark ages.
References and Further Reading
Books
1. Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy, vol.1: Greece and Rome, New York, Image
Books, 1993.
2. Durant, Will, A Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the Greater Philosophers of
the Western World, Pocket Books, 1991.
3. Rogers, Arthur Keyon, A Student‟s History of Philosophy, New York, The Macmillan
Company, 1935.
4. Russell, Bertrand: History of Western Philosophy, London, Routledge Classics, 2004.
5. Thilly, Frank: A History of Philosophy, New Delhi, SBE Publishers, 1983.
6. Zeller, Eduard, A History of Greek Philosophy, London, Longmans, green and Co., 1881.
Web Resources
1. http://wps.ablongman.com/long_stearns_wc_4/17/4389/1123706.cw/index.html
2. http://www.historyofmacedonia.org/AncientMacedonia/greeklie4.html
3. http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/110/7-rationalism.htm
Unit 1: Rene Descartes and the Foundation of Modern Philosophy

Contents
1.0. Introduction
2.0. Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Rene Descartes
3.2. Theory of knowledge: The quest for certainty
3.3. A Search for Method
3.4. Methodic Doubt
3.5. Metaphysics: The Existence of God and Eternal Things
3.6. Substance: Mind-Body Relation
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
6.0. References/Further Studies
1.0 Introduction
In module 2, we studied about the empiricists who affirmed the power of the
senses as the source of our knowledge. However, standing in opposition to the
empiricists are the rationalists who maintain that our source of knowledge is reason.
Rationalism, headed by Descartes, was the most powerful doctrine of the 17th
century. In this unit, we shall discuss the ideas of Descartes, its founder.
2.0 Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
By the end of this unit, you will be able to:
1. Discuss Descartes method of investigation
2. Explain how he arrived at the cogito
3. Understand his metaphysics vis-a-vis his notion of substance and God
4. Discuss his mind-body dualism and the problem associated with it
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes was born in Touraine in 1596. His father was a councilor of the Parliament of
Brittany. From 1604 to 1612 Descartes studied in the Jesuit college of La Fleche, where his
curriculum included mathematics, logic, and philosophy. He was most impressed during these
years with the certainty and precision of mathematics, as compared with traditional philosophy;
which invariably produced doubts and disputes. After traveling widely throughout Europe, he
decided, in 1628, to settle in Holland, and it was here that Descartes wrote his principal
philosophical works, including his Discourse on Method (1637), Meditations on First Philosophy
(1641), Principles of Philosophy (1644), and The Passions of the Soul (1649). He went to
Sweden in 1649 at the invitation of Queen Christina, who wanted Descartes to instruct her in his
philosophy. As the queen could see him only at five o'clock in the morning, this unaccustomed
encounter with the bitter cold at that hour made him easy prey to illness. Within a few months he
suffered an attack of pneumonia and in February 1650, at the age of 54, he died.
3.2. Theory of knowledge: The quest for certainty
Descartes assumes that everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of being deceived by his
senses. One may see something at which turns out to be quite otherwise when seen close up, or
see things when they are in water from when they are out of it, example, when one is rowing, the
oar appears to be bent. Since this sometimes happens, Descartes suggests we cannot really be
certain that we are not always mistaken (Popkin and Stroll, 1996: 215). If one grants this is
sometimes the case, but objects that in most cases we can be quite certain that our senses are not
deceiving us, then Descartes presses: But perhaps, even though the senses do sometimes deceive
us when it is a question of very small and distant things, still there are many other matters
concerning which one simply cannot doubt, even though they are derived from the very same
senses: for example, that I am sitting here next to the fire, wearing my winter dressing gown, that
I am holding this sheet of paper in my hands, and the like. But on what grounds could one deny
that these hands and this entire body are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to the
insane, whose brains are impaired by such an unrelenting vapor of black bile that they steadfastly
insist that they are kings when they are utter paupers, or that they are arrayed in purple robes
when they are naked, or that they have heads made of clay, or that they are gourds, or that they
are made of glass. But such people are mad, and I would appear no less mad, were I to take their
behavior as an example for myself (Descartes, 1998: 60). Descartes, therefore, begins to question
the knowledge of whatever is givento us by experience. In fact, he raises another more troubling
problem when hereflects:
This would all be well and good, were I not a man who is accustomed to sleeping at night, and to
experiencing in my dreams the very same things, or now and then even less plausible ones, as
these insane people do when they are awake. How often does my evening slumber persuade me
of such ordinary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the
fireplace - when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! But right now my eyes are certainly wide
awake when I gaze upon this sheet of paper. This head which I am shaking is not heavy with
sleep. I extend this hand consciously and deliberately, and I feel it. Such things would not be so
distinct for someone who is asleep. As if I did not recall having been deceived on other occasions
even by similar thoughts in my dreams! As I consider these matters more carefully, I see so
plainly that there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being awake from being asleep
(1998: 60).
The fundamental aim of Descartes was, obviously enough, to attain philosophical truth by the
use of reason (Coplestone, 1994: 66). Descartes was chiefly concerned with the problem of
intellectual certainty. So he sought to construct the system of true knowledge upon the capacities
of human reason alone.
Descartes broke with the past and gave philosophy a fresh start. In particular, since his system of
truth would have to be derived from his own rational capacities, hewould no longer rely on
previous philosophers for his ideas, now would he acceptany idea as true simply because it was
expressed by someone with authority (Stumpf and Fieser, 2002: 207). He therefore gave
philosophy a fresh start by using only those truths he could know through his own powers as the
foundation for all other knowledge.
3.3. A Search for Method
Descartes's method consists of harnessing the abilities of the mind with a
special set of rules. He insisted on the necessity of method and on systematic and
orderly thinking. Descartes looked to mathematics for the best example of clear and
precise thinking. Indeed, he wanted to make all knowledge a sort of universal
mathematics. He was convinced that mathematical certainty and self-evidence of it
reasoning are results of a special way of thinking (Lawhead, 2002: 208). Descartes,
therefore, thought that if he could discover this way, he would have a method for
discovering true knowledge. In mathematics Descartes discovered something
fundamental about mental operations.
Descartes held on to the mind's ability to apprehend directly and clearly
certain basic truths. He placed the whole edifice of knowledge on the foundation of
intuition and deduction, and he believed that these two methods are the most certain
routes to knowledge adding that any other approach should be rejected as suspect of
error and dangerous. In a nutshell, intuition gives us foundational concepts, and
deduction draws more information from our intuitions (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012:
207). Descartes describes intuition as an intellectual activity or vision of such clarity
that it leaves no doubt in the mind. Descartes describes deduction as “all necessary
inference from facts that are known with certainty”. What makes intuition and
deduction similar is that both involve truth. By intuition we grasp a simple truth
completely and immediately, whereas by deduction we arrive at a truth by a process,
a continuous and uninterrupted action of the mind.
3.4. Methodic Doubt
Descartes used the method of doubt in order to find an absolutely certain
starting point for building up our knowledge. Two arguments persuaded Descartes
that he could doubt virtually all his normal beliefs. The first is the argument from
dreaming. I believe that I am sitting by the fire with a piece of paper in my hand.
Why? Because my senses tell me so. But could I not be dreaming? In dreams my
senses present me with information of the same kind as I receive waking. So how do
I know that I am not dreaming now? Having set out in his Rules that we should never
accept anything about which we can entertain any doubt, he now tries to doubt
everything. His intention is clear; for he wants to sweep away all his former opinions,
"so that they might later on be replaced, either by others which were better, or by the
same, when I had made them conform to the uniformity of a rational scheme"
(Stumpf and Fieser 2012:207). By this method of doubt, Descartes shows how
uncertain our knowledge is, even of what seems most obvious to us. While Descartes
was doubting everything, there was one thing which he could not doubt, and that is
the fact that he was doubting. In discovering this, Descartes makes his point as
expressed by Stumpf and Fieser thus:
But I was persuaded that there was nothing in all the world, that there was no
heaven, no earth, that there were no minds, nor any bodies: was not then
likewise persuaded that I did not exist? Not at all; of a surety I myself did exist
since I persuaded myself of something. But there is some deceiver or other,
very powerful and very cunning, whoever employs his ingenuity in deceiving
me. Then without doubt I exist also if he deceives me, and let him deceive me
as much as he will, he can never cause me to be nothing so long as I think that
I am something (2012: 211).
According to Descartes, even if God is deceiving him in every possible way;
he knows that he exists since; in the very mental act of doubting, he is affirming his
own existence. Descartes, therefore expresses this his popular dictum "I think,
therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum). Thought (reason) becomes the instrument of
which Descartes intend to use as the foundation of knowledge.
3.5. Metaphysics: The Existence of God and Eternal Things
The kind of ideas that Descartes believed must be innate are those of
mathematical objects, like the idea of a circle, and also, and most important, the idea
of a perfect being, God. These ideas have properties that do not appear in our
experience. No circle that we see is perfectly round. But the one that we can think
about, is. We ourselves are not perfect enough, Descartes claimed, to invent the sort
of perfection that appears in some of our ideas, especially that of God (Popkin and
Stroll, 1993: 236). We are merely finite, temporal creatures, and yet we have an idea
of an infinite and eternal God. How then, Descartes asked, can we create concepts
of properties, which we neither discover in our experience, nor in ourselves? From
such reasoning, he concluded that mathematical ideas and the idea of God must be
of a special category, called „innate‟, which must be implanted in us by some agency
other than ourselves and other than the events of our lives.
Developing the concept of a perfect being, Descartes concluded that this idea
can only be caused by something that had at least the same perfections as the idea
itself exhibited. The idea is that of „a substance that is infinite, eternal, immutable,
independent, all-knowing, all-powerful, and by which 1myself and everything else,
if anything else does exist, have been created‟. I do not have properties like these to
make use of in inventing an idea, and in my experience I never see anything with
such perfection (Popkin and Stroll, 1993: 237). Therefore, the idea of a perfect being
must come from something that is at least as perfect as the idea. Hence, Descartes
reasoned, there must be a God, who has created me, and who has implanted in me
the idea of a perfect being (Popkin and Stroll, 1993: 237).
3.6. Substance: Mind-Body Relation
Descartes defines substance as a thing which exists in such a way as to depend
on no other thing for its existence (Lawhead, 2002: 237). Descartes definition of
substance would only fit God‟s description, since everything else depends on him.
According to Descartes there are two main categories of substances: mental
substances and physical substances. This implies that the mind and body are two
completely different entities. You will recall that Descartes started out by being sure
of his own mental existence but in doubt as to whether or not his body existed. This
led him to conclude that the mind is a separate substance from the body because it
does not need the body in order to exist or to be understood.
Furthermore, the mind and the body are separate substances because they have
completely different attributes. Minds are capable of conscious acts such as thinking,
doubting, and willing. Bodies are not conscious and are simply moved by
mechanical forces acting on them. Minds are not extended and so do not take up
space. They are a kind of nonphysical or spiritual reality. Because they are not
extended, they are not made up of parts and cannot be divided. Bodies, of course,
are extended, occupy space, and can be divided into more elementary particles
(Lawhead, 2015: 256).
However, the problem so generated by this position is if the spiritual can
influence the physical, and if yes, where do they interact? While he tried to locate
the mind in the pineal gland, the technical problem of interaction remains. If there is
interaction, there would have to be contact, and so mind would have to be extended.
On this problem, his rules of method did not lead him to any clear and distinct
conclusion (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 215).
4.0 Conclusion
Descartes is the father of modern philosophy. Unlike the early modern
philosophers who did not develop any new system in their philosophy, Descartes
introduced the cogito (reason), as the foundation of human knowledge. His central
task was to establish science and philosophy in an unshakable foundation using the
method of mathematics. As a mathematician, Descartes discovered that the
knowledge of mathematics is certain, distinct and indubitable. So he devoted his
time into creating a new foundation for philosophy as the foundation of other
sciences. However, Descartes did not succeed in his quest as he found himself drown
in mind-body dualism. Notwithstanding the problem he later encountered, Descartes
projects truly opened up a new vista of investigating the nature of reality in
philosophy. He is the undisputed leader of the 17th century rationalist movement, a
school of thought which emphasizes the power of reason and not experience, as the
foundation of knowledge.
5.0 Summary
In this unit, you have learnt the following:
1. Knowledge, for Descartes, come from the faculty of reasoning and not
experience.
2. The method he adopted to carry out his investigation is the methodic doubt.
3. Human beings are born with some ideas or knowledge that are innate.
4. Descartes introduced the mind-body problem into philosophy and the problem
so generated is the problem of interaction between the mind and the body.
5. The idea of God is innate and cannot be known by experience.
Self-Assessment Exercise
Discuss Descartes Methodic Doubt?
Discuss Descartes mind body relationship?
Discuss the existence of God and external things according to Descartes?
Coplestone, F. (1994). A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy: From
Descartes to Leibniz Volume IV. Image books.
Lawhead, W. F. (2002). The voyage of discovery: a historical introduction to
philosophy, 2nd ed. Wadsworth and Thomson.
Lawhead, W. F. (2015). the Voyage of Discovery: A Historical Introduction to
Philosophy. Fourth edition. Cengage learning.
Popkin, R H. and Stroll, A. (1996). Philosophy. Third edition. Made simple books.
Stumpf, S. E. and Fieser, J. (2012). Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A History of
Philosophy. McGraw-Hill Education.
Benedict Spinoza
Module 3: Unit 2: Benedict Spinoza
Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Benedict Spinoza
3.2. Theory of Knowledge
3.3. Levels of Cognition
3.4. Metaphysics: Substance, God and Attribute
3.5. Ethics
3.6. Mind-Body Problem
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
2.0 Introduction
In our previous unit, we noted how Descartes attempt to establish knowledge
on a firm foundation led him into creating a problem of dualism. In this unit, we
shall consider Benedict Spinoza, another rationalist, and how he solved the problem
of dualism that was started by Descartes as well as his idea on the source and nature
of knowledge.
1. Discuss the pantheism of Spinoza.
2. Discuss his theory of knowledge.
3. Outline and distinguish the three levels of cognition
4. Discus his metaphysics vis-à-vis the notion of substance and God as different
from Descartes
3.0. Main Content
Baruch Spinoza (or Espinosa) was born in Amsterdam in 1632. He was among
the greatest of Jewish philosophers. His originality of mind is suggested by his
expulsion from the Synagogue of Amsterdam for his unorthodox views. His refusal
to accept the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg was further evidence of his desire to
preserve his freedom to pursue his ideas wherever the search for truth might lead
him. Though he was content to live in simplicity, to earn a modest living grinding
lenses, his fame as a thinker spread abroad and inspired both admiration and
condemnation. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632 in a family of Portuguese
Jews who had fled from persecution in Spain. He was trained in the study of the Old
Testament and the Talmud and was familiar with the writings of the Jewish
philosopher Maimonides. Forced to leave Amsterdam, in 1663 he went to The Hague,
where he carried on his literary career, of which his Ethics is the crowning work.
Spinoza died in 1677 aged of 45.
Spinoza's theory of knowledge is based on the principle of logical necessity.
In other words, Spinoza believes that the fabric of the universe is woven from the
warp and woof of logical necessity. “In Nature there is nothing contingent, but all
things are determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and act in a
certain manner” (Lawhead, 2015: 265). Why, then, do some events seem contingent
to us? Spinoza replies that “a thing cannot be called contingent unless with reference
to a deficiency in our knowledge.” When we fail to see that everything is necessary,
it is “because the order of causes is concealed from us” (qtd in Lawhead 2005: 265).
Hence, while we can deduce some truths apriori, only someone with the exhaustive
knowledge of the divine mind could deduce the existence and behavior of any
particular thing. The important point is that all truths are capable of demonstration,
though not for the human intellect.
3.3. Levels of Cognition
Spinoza holds that all human ideas fall into three categories, which range from
the most inadequate and confused to the highest possible level of human knowledge.
These categories are classified into:
1. Opinion or imagination: This is the source of inadequate ideas and false beliefs.
The most inadequate form of information is mere secondhand opinion (for example,
my belief that I was born on such and such a day). It also includes perception arising
from signs, such as the ideas and images I get from hearing or reading certain words.
The most common form of this low-grade cognition is what I receive from vague
experience.
2. Reason: This is the second level of cognition. Reason goes beyond fleeting sense
experience and searches out the underlying chain of reasons or causes that make
something what it is. it is of the nature of reason to perceive things under a certain
form of eternity
3. Intuition: The third and highest level of knowledge is intuition. Spinoza is not as
clear about this as we would like, for he describes its beneficial effects more than he
does its nature. It is best seen as an integrated vision of the whole that arises out of
the level of reason (Lawhead, 2015: 264-265).
3.4. Metaphysics: Substance, God and Attribute
Spinoza‟s metaphysics revolves around his position that there is only one
substance, "God or Nature" (Russell, 1945: 571). Spinoza offered a strikingly unique
conception of God, in which he identified God with the whole cosmos, a view that
we now call pantheism. His famous formula was "God or Nature" (Deus sive Natura),
as if to say that these two words are interchangeable (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 216).
The clue to Spinoza's unique conception of God is found in his definition: God I
understand to be a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of infinite
attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence (Stumpf and Fieser,
2012: 216). Spinoza's special thoughts revolve around the ideas of substance and its
attributes and for him, there is only one single substance with infinite attributes.
An attribute, Spinoza says, is that which an intellect perceives as constituting
the essence of substance. Since God is defined as a substance consisting of infinite
attributes, God thus possesses an infinite number of aspects to his essence. However,
as we examine God from our limited human perspective, we can comprehend only
two attributes of God's substance: thought and extension, that is, God's mind and
God's body. Descartes thought that these two attributes showed the existence of two
distinct substances, thereby leading him to affirm the dualism of mind and body.
Spinoza, though, saw these two attributes as different ways of expressing the activity
of a single substance. God is therefore substance perceived as infinite thought and
infinite extension. Being infinite, God contains everything (Stumpf and Fieser,2012:
217). Through an intricate sequence of arguments, Spinoza arrives at the conclusion

that the ultimate nature of reality is a single substance. He defines substance as "that
which is in itself and is conceived through itself: I mean that the conception of which
does not depend on the conception of another thing from which it must be formed."
Everything, according to Spinoza, is ruled by an absolute logical necessity.
There is no such thing as free will in the mental sphere or chance in the physical
world. Everything that happens is a manifestation of God's inscrutable nature, and it
is logically impossible that events should be other than they are (Russell, 1945: 571).
If God is infinite, Spinoza reasoned, it must follow that there cannot be anything that
is not God. If you discover something in the universe that is not God, then God can‟t
be infinite, because God could have in principle been that thing as well as everything
else. We are all parts of God, but so are stones, ants, blades of grass, and windows.
All of it. It all fits together into an incredibly complex whole, but ultimately
everything that exists is part of this one thing: God (Warburton, 1962: 78).
3.5. Ethics
In his treatment of human behaviour, Spinoza believed that people are an
integral part of nature. His point is that human behavior can be explained just as
precisely in terms of causes, effects, and mathematics as any other natural
phenomenon. Spinoza argued for the unity of all Nature, with people as an intrinsic
part of it, he develops a naturalistic ethics whereby all human actions, both mental
and physical, are said to be determined by prior causes. All people possess as a part
of their nature the drive to continue or persist in their own being, and this drive
Spinoza calls conatus, that is, innate striving. When this conatus refers to the mind
and body; it is called appetite, and insofar as appetite is conscious, it is called desire.
As we become conscious of higher degrees of self-preservation and perfection, we
experience pleasure, and with a reduction of such perfection, we experience pain.
Our ideas of good and evil are related to our conceptions of pleasure and pain. He
cautions that we must study not only our emotions but the whole order of Nature,
for is only from the perspective of eternity that we can really understand our own
particular lives, for then we see all events through the idea of God as cause ((Stumpf
and Fieser, 2012: 220-221). According to him, Passions enslave us only when we
lack knowledge.
3.6. Mind-Body Problem
Contrary to Descartes‟s dualism, Spinoza replies that “the mind and the body
are one and the same thing, conceived at one time under the attribute of thought, and
at another under that of extension (Lawhead, 2015: 269). Spinoza‟s solution to the
problem of mind and body is ingenious, though complex to assimilate. The mind and
the body are one and the same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of
thought, now under the attribute of extension.‟ The theory of the attributes implies
not only that the one substance can be known in two ways, but that the same two
ways of knowing apply also to the modes of that substance.
4.0 Conclusion
In this unit, we have discussed that Spinoza accepted pantheism where he sees
God and nature as opposites sides of the same coin. For him, everything is a
manifestation of God, hence, all things are determined from the necessity of the
divine nature to exist and act in a certain manner. We have also noticed in his thought,
the mind-body problem is a pseudo-problem

5.0 Summary
1. There is only one substance and it is either God or nature.
2. There are three levels of cognition and the highest level is intuition.
3. All things are determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and
act in a certain manner
4. The mind and the body and one and the same thing.
According to Spinoza, what are the three levels of cognition?
Discuss the theory of knowledge according to Spinoza?
Discuss the mind-body problem according to Spinoza?
Russell, B. (1945). The History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster.
Warburton, N. (2011). A Little History of Philosophy. Yale university press
Tutor Marked Assignment
How would Spinoza respond to Descartes‟s view that the mind and body are
completely separate?
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Module 3: Unit 3: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.2. The nature of substance: monads
3.3. The Principle of Pre-Established Harmony
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
1.0 Introduction
Dissatisfied with the thoughts of Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz came up with his
theory of deterministic monism. In this unit, we shall discuss his notion of substance
his solution to the mind-body dichotomy of Descartes and also his theory of
knowledge.
By the end of this unit, you will learn the following:
1. Leinbniz‟s conception of reality
2. His theory of pre-established harmony as a solution to Descartes dichotomy
3. His theory of knowledge as necessity and contingency
4. The difference between truth of reason and truth of facts
5. Explain his philosophy as centred on his theory of monadology

3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Gottfried Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in 1646 in Leipzig, Germany. His father
was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Leipzig. Leibniz was
considered an intellectual genius. As a young boy, he learned to read the Greek and
Latin classics in their original languages. At the age fifteen, Leibniz was admitted
into the University of Leipzig and graduated at age seventeen. After a brief stint at
Jena, where he studied mathematics, he returned to Leipzig to study for a degree in
law. However, academic politics intervened and a committee of faculty and students
voted against giving him a doctorate, a situation which been attributed to his young
age. This painful experience drove him to the University of Altdorf, near Nuremberg,
where he was readily accepted (Lawhead, 2015: 277-278). At the completion of his
dissertation there, he not only received his doctoral degree in law at twenty-one years
of age, but was also offered a professorship. Although Leibniz had enjoyed a fruitful
public life, his popularity declined at the end of his life and he died in obscurity in
1716 at the age of seventy (Minimah, 2016: 104). His major works are Discourse on
Metaphysics (1690), Monadology (1714), New System of Nature (1695), On
Individuation (1663), among others.
3.2. The nature of substance: monads
Leibniz was not satisfied with Descartes and Spinoza‟s description of the
nature of substance, because for him, their view of substance affects our
understanding of human nature, the nature of freedom, and God. He considered the
explanations inadequate and sets out to offer a more useful explanation. Whether he
succeeded or not is a case for philosophical ratiocination. But first, what does he
think of substance?
Descartes assumed that extension referred to a material substance that is
extended in space and is not divisible into something more primary. For Spinoza,
extension was an irreducible material attribute of God or nature. However, Leibniz
maintained that extension are aggregates of compounds, composing of simple
substances called monads (Essien, 2011: 205). Monads are simple substances, but
unlike the atoms of Democritus and Epicurus which were inert and only derive their
motions from something external to them, Leibniz‟s monads were described as
dynamic force capable of action. Every individual monad is different from the others,
and possesses its own force which is the principle of action. For Leibniz, substance
must contain life or force.
3.3. The Principle of Pre-Established Harmony
Monads introduced the principle of established harmony to describe how
monads interacts in nature. For him, the fact that underlies the appearance of
universal interaction between finite substances is that the total state of each monad
at each moment is infinitely complex and each different factor in it represents the
contemporary total state of a different one of the remaining monads (Essien, 2011:
216). In other words, every organism possesses a „dominant monad‟, distinct by the
clarity of its perceptions of all the others; and this dominant monad is the source of
the unity within the organism (Scruton, 1984: 73). This means that the universe is
well ordered in a way so as to avoid interference

Leibniz‟s deterministic conception of reality also reflected in this theory of
knowledge. Leibniz believes that some ideas (such as those we find in logic and
mathematics) could not be derived from the senses. He argues for the weakness of
sense experience to lead us to truths that are certain and necessary. Leibniz claims
that if some items of our knowledge possess these qualities of necessity and certainty,
then they must be innate ideas that the mind discovers within itself (Lawhead, 2015:
279).
Central to his theory of knowledge is his approach to the notion of truth.
Leibniz distinguished between truths of reason and truths of fact. According to him,
truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible. Because they are
knowable only by reason, Leibniz says that they are necessary, analytic and selfevident
truths. Their denial will lead to a contradiction and it is the principle of
sufficient reason that attests to their facts. He expresses this thus:
When truth is necessary, the reason for it can be found by analysis, that is by
resolving it into simpler ideas and truths until the primary ones are reached. It
is in this way that mathematics, speculative theorems and practical canons are
reduced by analysis to definitions, axioms and postulates (Leibniz, 1956: 184).
Truths of reason, therefore are tautologies such that they cannot be denied
without one getting into self-contradiction. These truths need no empirical proof.
For instance, the assertion “A bachelor is an unmarried man” is a truth of reason and
it is not possible for it to be denied without one getting into self-contradiction. A
truth of reason, therefore, is a necessary truth because the very meaning of the terms
used and the type of human understanding require that certain things be true (Stumpf
and Fieser, 2012: 228). If the truth of reason are necessary truths, truths of facts,
therefore, are contingent truth and can be denied without one engaging in self85
contradiction. Truth of facts are not known apriori but aposteriori, and unlike the
truth of reason, their subjects are not contained in their predicates.
We live in the world of facts, because of this, knowledge requires that we
verify what is given to us by the senses. Accordingly, Leibniz made a distinction of
two ways by which we derive knowledge from facts. These are perception and
apperception. Perception is the sense data while apperception is the workings of
consciousness or the internal workings of the mind on the data. Through this
reflective acts, the principal objects of our reasoning is being furnished (Copleston,
1994: 312). To derive knowledge from truth of fact, therefore, calls for our synthetic
faculty.
4.0 Conclusion
Our investigation into Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz (the rationalists) reveal
that knowledge is based on the rational capacity of human minds to arrive at certain
systems of truths which are innate in them. Though they all believe in reason as the
source of knowledge, they however, differ as to what constitute the nature of reality.
Descartes conceives of it as thought and extension. For Spinoza, it is God or nature.
For Leibniz, reality consists of just one substance. This means that among the
rationalists, we have a dualist, a pantheist and a monist.
5.0 Summary
Leibniz conceives of substance as an aggregate force capable of actions.

Extension are aggregates of compounds, composing of simple substances called
monads.
There is necessity and contingency in knowledge.
The universe is well ordered in a way so as to avoid interference.
Every individual monad is different from the others, and possesses its own force
which is the principle of action.
What does Leibniz mean by “pre-established harmony”? What problems is he
trying to solve with this notion?
What does theory of knowledge mean according to Leibniz?
What does the nature of substance mean according to Leibniz?
Coplestone, F. (1994). A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy: From
Descartes to Leibniz Volume IV. Image books.
Essien, E. S. (2011). Summa philosophica: an introduction to philosophy and logic.
Lulu press.
Leibniz, G.W. (1956). Discourse on Metaphysics. Garber, D. and Ariew, R. (Trans.).
Hackett publishing.
Scruton, R. (1984). A Short History of Modern Philosophy: from Descartes to
Wittgenstein. 2nd edition.

What is Leibniz‟s distinction between truths of fact and truths of reason?
Thomas Hobbes
Module : Unit : Thomas Hobbes and Early Empiricism
Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Thomas Hobbes
3.2. Hobbes Empiricism/Theory of Knowledge
3.3. Metaphysics
3.4. Ethics
3.5. Socio-Political Philosophy
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
6.0. References/Further Readings
1.0. Introduction
Thomas Hobbes is a philosopher whom it is difficult to classify (Russell, 1945:
546). He belongs to the empiricist tradition. However, unlike other empiricists like
Locke, Berkeley and Hume, Hobbes admired the methods of mathematics. He is
more relevant in his political philosophy important ideas which, of course, is the
centerpiece of his philosophical endeavor. In this unit, you shall be learning about
some of his important ideas, not limited to his view on empiricism as a method, but
his thought on metaphysics, morality, society and politics.
1. Identify the empirical tradition in Thomas Hobbes philosophy.
2. Have an insight into his thought on the nature of reality.
3. Pinpoint his position on morality.
4. Have knowledge of Hobbes‟ political thoughts, especially his social contract
theory.
3.0. Main Content
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in England to an uneducated vicar. He
was brought up by his uncle when the father finally lost his job. Hobbes acquired a
good knowledge of classics at a tender age, and at just fourteen, he translated the
ancient classic of Euripides, The Medea, into Latin. Hobbes attended Oxford
university at age fifteen. He would later confess that he profited little in his years at
Oxford, in 1610, aged twenty-two years old, he became a personal tutor to Lord
Hardwick, the second Earl of Devonshire. While in France, Mersenne introduced
him into the philosophical and scientific circles. In 1636, Hobbes travelled to Italy
where he visited Galileo Galilei in Florence.
Following the build-up to the Civil War in England in 1640, Hobbes feared
that his safety was not guaranteed in England because of his royalist convictions, so
he travelled to Paris. While in France, he served as the tutor to the Prince of Wales
was in exile. He returned to England after the Restoration and made peace with the
commonwealth in 1652. Hobbes died in the winter of 1679 aged Ninety-one years.
His major works are, The Elements of Law, Natural and politic (1640), Leviathan
(1651), Form and power of Commonwealth (1651), De Corpore (1655), De Homine
(1658), among others.
In the introduction, you learnt that Hobbes belongs to the empiricist, but he
admired the way of mathematics. Thomas Hobbes assumed that empirical facts
correspond to geometric axioms, or that the axioms that the mind formulates
correspond to the actual characteristics of observable moving bodies (Essien, 2011:
195). As an empiricist, Hobbes begins his philosophy with the given, with senseimpressions
made on us by external bodies, and with our memories of such
impressions (Coplestone, 1994: 3). For him, therefore, philosophy is knowledge of
effects or appearances as we acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we
have first of their causes or generation.
Hobbes divided knowledge into two kinds. The first is knowledge of facts and
the second is the knowledge of consequence. Knowledge of fact is when one sees
something done or remember seeing it done, then such knowledge is knowledge of
fact. Knowledge of fact is an absolute knowledge. It is a kind of knowledge that a
witness offers in a court of law. On the other hand, knowledge of consequence is a
conditional or hypothetical knowledge. It is knowledge of relations or cause and
effects, example, if A is true, then B will be true. Hobbes maintained that knowledge
of consequence is scientific knowledge, the kind of knowledge which is required of

a philosopher, who, according to him, only pretends to reason (Coplestone, 1994: 4).
Hobbes described scientific or philosophical knowledge as knowledge of
consequence because he considered them to be conditional or hypothetical. They are
concerned with the causes and properties of bodies in motion. He is a materialist
who maintains that philosophy only takes account of bodies. For him, authentic
knowledge is knowledge of facts.
3.3. Metaphysics
Hobbes‟ metaphysics is seen in his materialism. For him, reality is simply
bodies in motion. The goal of philosophy, according to him, is the discovery of
causes. But what does Hobbes mean by causes? A cause, for him, is the sum or
aggregate of all accidents. His metaphysics is concerned with causal explanation.
And by causal explanation, Hobbes has in mind, an account of the generative process
by which some effect comes into being (Coplestone, 1994: 5). This implies that
whatever that fails to come into existence through generative process cannot be part
of the subject matter of metaphysics.
For him, therefore, metaphysics is concerned with the causes and properties
of bodies. However, all motions, according to him, is determined, which also follows
that human actions and behaviours are determined. But how does Hobbes account
for our internal actions? He accounts for it by maintaining that motions are of two
kinds; vital and voluntary motions. Vital motions are such automatic activities as the
circulation of blood, breathing, digestion etc. while voluntary motions are the aspects
of our behaviours that show freewill (Lawhead, 2002: 220). Voluntary motions
begin with our individual endeavours such as desire or aversion. Hobbes‟ vital
motions have no problems at all, but the problem rests on the voluntary motions. He
maintains that voluntary motions correlate with our experiences either as pleasurable
or painful. However, if we take Hobbes materialism too far, the result will be the
mechanical outcome of forces acting on every reality.
3.4. Ethics
Hobbes‟ moral philosophy is enshrined in his theory of motion and also in his
political philosophy. According to Asukwo (2016: 39), his moral and ethical
perception hinges on the human nature which manifests in man‟s interaction in a
political society; it is also in line with the law of nature, which is the natural law.
Hobbes conceived of the goal of morality as justice in the society. Justice for him,
then, is “keeping of covenant which is a rule of reason, by which we are forbidden
anything destructive to our life and consequently a law of nature” (Hobbes, 1988:
374).
Hobbes contended that the society rules are ordered by natural law, the law of
reason, which also governs the state. He ascribed “good” to the object of desire,
whereas evil is the object of aversion. Hence, like the Epicureans, he conceived of
good and evil as terms derived from pleasure and pain (Lawhead, 2002: 220).
However, since good and evil are subjective, Hobbes believes that we are guided by
subjective pursuit of pleasure. This position depicts both psychological hedonism
and psychological egoism. On the critical perspective, Hobbes sees good as what
gives an individual pleasure. The implication of this is that morality. But how can
we can control people‟s pleasure in the face of subjectivity? This became the central
task of his political thought which we shall explore in the next section.
Thomas Hobbes had experienced a turbulent period in English history
following the civil war of 1642. From this experience, he came to the conclusion
that chaos is inevitable where there is no stable government to prevent it. He also
believes that for any government to control chaos, it must possess an absolute power.
With these conclusions, Hobbes set out to solve the problem of political society
where, as exemplified in his moral theory, he presents the political states also as
moving bodies.
Thomas Hobbes political theory is also his theory of social contract. Hobbes
began with a hypothetical position of men before the formation of the civil state.
According to him, people had lived in a natural state or state of nature prior to the
formation of a civil state. The word, right, in the bare state of nature is a person's
freedom "to do what he would, and against whom he thought fit, and to possess, use
and enjoy all that he would, or could get." The driving force in a person is the will
to survive, and the psychological attitude pervading all people is fear—the fear of
death, and particularly violent death. In the state of nature all people are relentlessly
pursuing whatever acts they think will secure their safety. The picture we get of this
state of nature is of people moving against each other, bodies in motion, or the
anarchic condition Hobbes called the war of all against all (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012:
200).
Hobbes analyzes human motivation by saying that everyone possesses a
twofold drive, namely; appetite and aversion. These two drives account for our
motions to and from other people or objects, and they have the same meanings as
the words love and hate. People are attracted to what they think will help them
survive, and they hate whatever they judge to be a threat to them. The words good
and evil have whatever meaning each individual gives them, and people call good
whatever they love and evil whatever they hate, there being nothing simply and
absolutely so." We are fundamentally egotistical in that we are concerned chiefly
with our own survival, and we identify goodness with our own appetites. It would
appear; therefore, that in the state of nature there is no obligation for people to
respect others and there is no morality in the traditional sense of goodness and justice
(Stumpf and Fieser, 2012).
In the state of nature, there was no government and no laws to guide the
activities of people. However, there was a law of nature or the natural law which
directed man to choose between good and evil. Recall that in his moral theory
Hobbes had suggested that we are guided by subjective pursuit of pleasure. Because
of this, there was bound to be crises in the state of nature. Hence, he presents the
state of nature as a state of chaos. Because of this, the condition life in the state of
nature was poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short. People became wolves unto
themselves and everyone lived in a state of perpetual fear because even the strongest
where also weak.
However, the natural law, which is the law of reason suggested to people that
they should create for themselves a fearful being (The Leviathan) and hand over all
their power to it. This being will then control the people, wielding all the powers to
punish, protect and adjudicate laws. This is how the civil state came into existence.
For Locke, the state is more powerful than the individual and exist to control the
affairs of people. For the state to be able to perform its function, Hobbes advocates
for an absolute state. Hence, the objective morality of the state supersedes the
subjective morality of individuals. The state, for him, therefore, is an instrument of
control which limit the power of people.
4.0. Conclusion
In the introduction, you learnt that Thomas Hobbes belong to the empiricist
tradition, although he admired the method of mathematics. Thomas Hobbes assumed
that empirical facts correspond to geometric axioms, or that the axioms that the mind
formulates correspond to the actual characterization of observable moving bodies
(Essien, 2011: 195). As an empiricist, Hobbes began his philosophy with the given,
with sense-impressions made on us by external bodies, and with our memories of
such impressions (Coplestone, 1994:3). For him, therefore, philosophy is a
knowledge of effects or appearances that we acquire by true ratiocination from the
knowledge we have first of their causes or generation.
5.0. Summary
1. Hobbes begins his philosophy with the given, with sense-impressions made
on us by external bodies, and with our memories of such impressions
2. He divided knowledge into two kinds. The first is knowledge of facts and the
second is the knowledge of consequence.
3. A cause, for him, is the sum or aggregate of all accidents.
4. Hobbes conceived of the goal of morality as justice in the society.
5. Metaphysics is concerned with the causes and properties of bodies.

What makes Hobbes an empiricist philosopher?
Hobbes divides knowledge into two list and briefly explain?
Briefly explain Hobbes Metaphysics and Ethics?
Asukwo, O. O. (2016). “Thomas Hobbes” in A.F. Uduigwomen, M.E. Uka and E.
C. Uduma. (Eds.). A Critical History of Philosophy, Vol. 2. Ultimate index
books. Pp 289-303
Coplestone, F. (1994). A History of Philosophy: Modern Philosophy, The British
Philosophers from Hobbes to Hume. Volume V. Image books.
Lulu press.
What is the difference between knowledge of facts and knowledge of
consequence, according to Hobbes?
Answer: Knowledge of fact is when one sees something done or remember seeing
it done, then such knowledge is knowledge of fact. Knowledge of fact is an absolute
knowledge. It is a kind of knowledge that a witness offers in a court of law. On the
other hand, knowledge of consequence is a conditional or hypothetical knowledge.
It is knowledge of relations or cause and effects, example, if A is true, then B will
be true.
Thomas Hobbes
Module : Unit : Thomas Hobbes and Early Empiricism
Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.3. Metaphysics
3.4. Ethics
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
1.0. Introduction
Thomas Hobbes is a philosopher whom it is difficult to classify (Russell, 1945:
546). He belongs to the empiricist tradition. However, unlike other empiricists like
Locke, Berkeley and Hume, Hobbes admired the methods of mathematics. He is
more relevant in his political philosophy important ideas which, of course, is the
centerpiece of his philosophical endeavor. In this unit, you shall be learning about
some of his important ideas, not limited to his view on empiricism as a method, but
his thought on metaphysics, morality, society and politics.

1. Identify the empirical tradition in Thomas Hobbes philosophy.
2. Have an insight into his thought on the nature of reality.
3. Pinpoint his position on morality.
4. Have knowledge of Hobbes‟ political thoughts, especially his social contract
theory.
3.0. Main Content
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was born in England to an uneducated vicar. He
was brought up by his uncle when the father finally lost his job. Hobbes acquired a
good knowledge of classics at a tender age, and at just fourteen, he translated the
ancient classic of Euripides, The Medea, into Latin. Hobbes attended Oxford
university at age fifteen. He would later confess that he profited little in his years at
Oxford, in 1610, aged twenty-two years old, he became a personal tutor to Lord
Hardwick, the second Earl of Devonshire. While in France, Mersenne introduced
him into the philosophical and scientific circles. In 1636, Hobbes travelled to Italy
where he visited Galileo Galilei in Florence.
Following the build-up to the Civil War in England in 1640, Hobbes feared
that his safety was not guaranteed in England because of his royalist convictions, so
he travelled to Paris. While in France, he served as the tutor to the Prince of Wales
was in exile. He returned to England after the Restoration and made peace with the
commonwealth in 1652. Hobbes died in the winter of 1679 aged Ninety-one years.
His major works are, The Elements of Law, Natural and politic (1640), Leviathan
(1651), Form and power of Commonwealth (1651), De Corpore (1655), De Homine
(1658), among others.
In the introduction, you learnt that Hobbes belongs to the empiricist, but he
admired the way of mathematics. Thomas Hobbes assumed that empirical facts
correspond to geometric axioms, or that the axioms that the mind formulates
correspond to the actual characteristics of observable moving bodies (Essien, 2011:
195). As an empiricist, Hobbes begins his philosophy with the given, with senseimpressions
made on us by external bodies, and with our memories of such
impressions (Coplestone, 1994: 3). For him, therefore, philosophy is knowledge of
effects or appearances as we acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we
have first of their causes or generation.
Hobbes divided knowledge into two kinds. The first is knowledge of facts and
the second is the knowledge of consequence. Knowledge of fact is when one sees
something done or remember seeing it done, then such knowledge is knowledge of
fact. Knowledge of fact is an absolute knowledge. It is a kind of knowledge that a
witness offers in a court of law. On the other hand, knowledge of consequence is a
conditional or hypothetical knowledge. It is knowledge of relations or cause and
effects, example, if A is true, then B will be true. Hobbes maintained that knowledge
of consequence is scientific knowledge, the kind of knowledge which is required of
a philosopher, who, according to him, only pretends to reason (Coplestone, 1994: 4).
Hobbes described scientific or philosophical knowledge as knowledge of
consequence because he considered them to be conditional or hypothetical. They are

concerned with the causes and properties of bodies in motion. He is a materialist
who maintains that philosophy only takes account of bodies. For him, authentic
knowledge is knowledge of facts.
3.3. Metaphysics
Hobbes‟ metaphysics is seen in his materialism. For him, reality is simply
bodies in motion. The goal of philosophy, according to him, is the discovery of
causes. But what does Hobbes mean by causes? A cause, for him, is the sum or
aggregate of all accidents. His metaphysics is concerned with causal explanation.
And by causal explanation, Hobbes has in mind, an account of the generative process
by which some effect comes into being (Coplestone, 1994: 5). This implies that
whatever that fails to come into existence through generative process cannot be part
of the subject matter of metaphysics.
For him, therefore, metaphysics is concerned with the causes and properties
of bodies. However, all motions, according to him, is determined, which also follows
that human actions and behaviours are determined. But how does Hobbes account
for our internal actions? He accounts for it by maintaining that motions are of two
kinds; vital and voluntary motions. Vital motions are such automatic activities as the
circulation of blood, breathing, digestion etc. while voluntary motions are the aspects
of our behaviours that show freewill (Lawhead, 2002: 220). Voluntary motions
begin with our individual endeavours such as desire or aversion. Hobbes‟ vital
motions have no problems at all, but the problem rests on the voluntary motions. He
maintains that voluntary motions correlate with our experiences either as pleasurable
or painful. However, if we take Hobbes materialism too far, the result will be the
mechanical outcome of forces acting on every reality.
3.4. Ethics
Hobbes‟ moral philosophy is enshrined in his theory of motion and also in his
political philosophy. According to Asukwo (2016: 39), his moral and ethical
perception hinges on the human nature which manifests in man‟s interaction in a
political society; it is also in line with the law of nature, which is the natural law.
Hobbes conceived of the goal of morality as justice in the society. Justice for him,
then, is “keeping of covenant which is a rule of reason, by which we are forbidden
anything destructive to our life and consequently a law of nature” (Hobbes, 1988:
374).
Hobbes contended that the society rules are ordered by natural law, the law of
reason, which also governs the state. He ascribed “good” to the object of desire,
whereas evil is the object of aversion. Hence, like the Epicureans, he conceived of
good and evil as terms derived from pleasure and pain (Lawhead, 2002: 220).
However, since good and evil are subjective, Hobbes believes that we are guided by
subjective pursuit of pleasure. This position depicts both psychological hedonism
and psychological egoism. On the critical perspective, Hobbes sees good as what
gives an individual pleasure. The implication of this is that morality. But how can
we can control people‟s pleasure in the face of subjectivity? This became the central
task of his political thought which we shall explore in the next section.
Thomas Hobbes had experienced a turbulent period in English history
following the civil war of 1642. From this experience, he came to the conclusion
that chaos is inevitable where there is no stable government to prevent it. He also
believes that for any government to control chaos, it must possess an absolute power.
With these conclusions, Hobbes set out to solve the problem of political society
where, as exemplified in his moral theory, he presents the political states also as
moving bodies.
Thomas Hobbes political theory is also his theory of social contract. Hobbes
began with a hypothetical position of men before the formation of the civil state.
According to him, people had lived in a natural state or state of nature prior to the
formation of a civil state. The word, right, in the bare state of nature is a person's
freedom "to do what he would, and against whom he thought fit, and to possess, use
and enjoy all that he would, or could get." The driving force in a person is the will
to survive, and the psychological attitude pervading all people is fear—the fear of
death, and particularly violent death. In the state of nature all people are relentlessly
pursuing whatever acts they think will secure their safety. The picture we get of this
state of nature is of people moving against each other, bodies in motion, or the
anarchic condition Hobbes called the war of all against all (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012:
200).
Hobbes analyzes human motivation by saying that everyone possesses a
twofold drive, namely; appetite and aversion. These two drives account for our
motions to and from other people or objects, and they have the same meanings as
the words love and hate. People are attracted to what they think will help them
survive, and they hate whatever they judge to be a threat to them. The words good
and evil have whatever meaning each individual gives them, and people call good
whatever they love and evil whatever they hate, there being nothing simply and
absolutely so." We are fundamentally egotistical in that we are concerned chiefly
with our own survival, and we identify goodness with our own appetites. It would
appear; therefore, that in the state of nature there is no obligation for people to
respect others and there is no morality in the traditional sense of goodness and justice
(Stumpf and Fieser, 2012).
In the state of nature, there was no government and no laws to guide the
activities of people. However, there was a law of nature or the natural law which
directed man to choose between good and evil. Recall that in his moral theory
Hobbes had suggested that we are guided by subjective pursuit of pleasure. Because
of this, there was bound to be crises in the state of nature. Hence, he presents the
state of nature as a state of chaos. Because of this, the condition life in the state of
nature was poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short. People became wolves unto
themselves and everyone lived in a state of perpetual fear because even the strongest
where also weak.
However, the natural law, which is the law of reason suggested to people that
they should create for themselves a fearful being (The Leviathan) and hand over all
their power to it. This being will then control the people, wielding all the powers to
punish, protect and adjudicate laws. This is how the civil state came into existence.
For Locke, the state is more powerful than the individual and exist to control the
affairs of people. For the state to be able to perform its function, Hobbes advocates
for an absolute state. Hence, the objective morality of the state supersedes the
subjective morality of individuals. The state, for him, therefore, is an instrument of

control which limit the power of people.
4.0. Conclusion
In the introduction, you learnt that Thomas Hobbes belong to the empiricist
tradition, although he admired the method of mathematics. Thomas Hobbes assumed
that empirical facts correspond to geometric axioms, or that the axioms that the mind
formulates correspond to the actual characterization of observable moving bodies
(Essien, 2011: 195). As an empiricist, Hobbes began his philosophy with the given,
with sense-impressions made on us by external bodies, and with our memories of
such impressions (Coplestone, 1994:3). For him, therefore, philosophy is a
knowledge of effects or appearances that we acquire by true ratiocination from the
knowledge we have first of their causes or generation.
5.0. Summary
1. Hobbes begins his philosophy with the given, with sense-impressions made
on us by external bodies, and with our memories of such impressions
2. He divided knowledge into two kinds. The first is knowledge of facts and the
second is the knowledge of consequence.
3. A cause, for him, is the sum or aggregate of all accidents.
4. Hobbes conceived of the goal of morality as justice in the society.
5. Metaphysics is concerned with the causes and properties of bodies.
What makes Hobbes an empiricist philosopher?
Hobbes divides knowledge into two list and briefly explain?

Briefly explain Hobbes Metaphysics and Ethics?
Asukwo, O. O. (2016). “Thomas Hobbes” in A.F. Uduigwomen, M.E. Uka and E.
C. Uduma. (Eds.). A Critical History of Philosophy, Vol. 2. Ultimate index
books. Pp 289-303
Lulu press.
What is the difference between knowledge of facts and knowledge of
consequence, according to Hobbes?
Answer: Knowledge of fact is when one sees something done or remember seeing
it done, then such knowledge is knowledge of fact. Knowledge of fact is an absolute
knowledge. It is a kind of knowledge that a witness offers in a court of law. On the
other hand, knowledge of consequence is a conditional or hypothetical knowledge.
It is knowledge of relations or cause and effects, example, if A is true, then B will
be true.
George Berkeley
Module 2: Unit 4: George Berkeley
Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of George Berkeley
3.2. The Nature of Existence
3.3. Matter and Substance
3.4. God and the Existence of Things
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
1.0. Introduction
In unit 3, you learnt about the empiricism of Locke and how he limits the data
of knowledge to ideas. Locke sees substance as the objects of our ideas. In this unit,
you shall be introduced into the thought of George Berkeley and how it led to
idealism. You shall also learn about his conception of matter and substance and the
disparity between his thought and that of other British empiricists.
1. Discuss Berkeley‟s empiricism and the nature of reality.
2. Discuss his notion matter and substance and how it differs from that of Locke.
3. Explain his notion of God and the existence of things.
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of George Berkeley

George Berkeley was born in Ireland in 1685. At the age of 15, he entered
Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied mathematics, logic, languages, and
philosophy. He became a Fellow of the College a few years after he earned his B.A.
degree and was also ordained a clergyman in the Church of England, becoming a
bishop in 1734. George Berkeley died in 1753 and was buried in Christ Church
Chapel in Oxford. His major works includes, Essay Towards a New Theory of
Vision (1709), A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710),
and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonus (1713).
3.2. The Nature of Existence
Influenced by Locke, George Berkeley began his philosophy by denying the
existence of matter. His philosophy is summed up by the popular dictum accredited
him, "to be is to be perceived." Clearly, this would mean that if something were not
perceived, it would not exist. Berkeley speaks of sensible things as collections or
combinations of 'sensations or ideas' and draws the conclusion that they 'cannot exist
otherwise than in a mind perceiving them'. In his New Theory of Vision, he argues
that all our knowledge depends on actual vision and other sensory experiences. In
particular, he argues that we never sense space or magnitude; we only have different
visions or perceptions of things when we see them from different perspectives.
According to him, all that we ever see are the qualities of an object that our faculty
of vision is capable of sensing (Stumpf and Fieser, 240). We do not see the closeness
of an object; we only have a different vision of it when we move toward or away
from it. The more Berkeley considered the workings of his own mind and wondered
how his ideas were related to objects outside of his mind, the more certain he was
that he could never discover any object independent of his ideas (Stumpf and Fieser,
240).
3.3. Matter and Substance
Berkeley denies the independent existence of things other than that which is
given by perception in the mind. Berkeley's contention, therefore, is that to say of a
sensible thing or body that it exists is to say that it is perceived or perceivable: in his
opinion, there is nothing else that it can mean. This analysis, he maintains, does not
affect the reality of things. 'Existence is percipi or percipere (Coplestone, 1994: 219).
He described matter as an unthinking substance. Going further, Berkeley says that
If, then, I try to describe or interpret reality in terms of my experience, I first come
to the conclusion that there are other people like myself who have minds. From this
it can be assumed that, just as I have ideas, other people likewise have ideas.
Apart from my finite mind and the finite minds of others, there is a greater
Mind analogous to mine, and this is God's Mind (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 243).
God's ideas constitute the regular order of nature. The ideas that exist in our minds
are God's ideas, which he communicates to us so that the objects or things that we
perceive in daily experience are caused not by matter or substance but by God. It is
God, too, who coordinates all experiences of finite minds, assuring regularity and
dependability in experience, which in turn enables us to think in terms of the "laws
of nature.” Thus, the orderly arrangement of ideas in God's Mind is communicated
to the finite minds or spirits of people, with allowance made for the differences in
competence between the divine and finite minds. The ultimate reality, then, is
spiritual (God) and not material, and the continued existence of objects when we are
not perceiving them is explained by God's continuous perception of them (Stumpf
and Fieser, 2012: 244).
3.4. God and the Existence of Things
Berkeley claims that every individual mind exist exterior to other minds. And
so also, human minds are diverted from things. There is therefore some other mind
wherein they exist, during the intervals between the time of our perceiving them.
And because all human minds are intermittently diverted from things, "there is an
omnipresent eternal Mind, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits
them to our view in such a manner and according to such rules as he himself has
ordained, and are by us termed the Laws of Nature" (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 243).
Berkeley, therefore, concluded that the existence of things depends on the existence
of God, and God is the cause of the orderliness of things in nature
4.0. Conclusion
In this unit, we discussed the empiricism of George. We noticed that Berkeley
gave us an empiricist impression which holds that reality consists of perception.
However, he landed himself in contradiction when he claimed that whatever exists
is either an idea in the mind or perceiving mind. This is an idealist position, which
is a theory in Metaphysics. His philosophy, therefore, is criticized of mixing up
perception with being.
5.0. Summary
In this unit, you have learnt that:
1. The crux of Berkeley‟s empiricism is perception.
2. There is no independent existence other than that which is given by the

perception of the mind.
3. God is the cause of the orderliness of things in nature.
4. The ultimate reality is spiritual and not material.
What does Berkeley mean when he says “to be is to be perceived”?
What does matter and substance mean to Berkeley?
Briefly discuss God and the existence of things by George Berkeley?
Philosophy. Fourth edition. Cengage learning
Russell, B. (1945). The History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster
What is Berkeley‟s argument for the existence of God?
Answer: Berkeley's argument for the existence of God is that all human minds are
intermittently diverted from things, therefore, there is an omnipresent eternal Mind,
which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a
manner and according to such rules as he himself has ordained, and are by us termed
the Laws of Nature. The existence of things, therefore, depends on the existence of
God, and God is the cause of the orderliness of things in nature.

David Hume
Module 2: Unit 5: David Hume
Contents
1.0. Introduction
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of David Hume
3.2. Hume's Empiricism
3.3. Hume on Substance and his Denial of Metaphysics
3.4. The Notion of Causality
3.5. Ethics
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
1.0. Introduction
David Hume took the genuinely empirical elements in the philosophy of
Locke and Berkeley, purged them from the lingering metaphysics in their thought,
and gave empiricism its clearest and most rigorous formulation. In fact, he has been
described as the most consistent of the British empiricists. In his skepticism, Hume
denied the idea of substance and causality for lack of impressions producing them.
In this unit, therefore, you shall be learning about the skepticism of Hume. We shall
discuss his theory of knowledge, view on causality and also his denial of
metaphysical realities.
1. Identify and discuss the empirical thought in Hume‟s Philosophy.
2. Differentiate between impressions and ideas
3. Give reason(s) for Hume‟s rejection of causality and metaphysics
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of David Hume
David Hume was born in 1711 in Edinburgh, Scotland, into a Calvinist family
of modest means. He attended Edinburgh University, where he studied Classics,
Mathematics, Science, and Philosophy. In 1763 he went to Paris to serve as an
assistant to the English ambassador. His reputation as a historian and man of letters
preceded him, and his three years in France were spent living the life of a celebrity
and being the idol of all the leading social circles. He lived out the last years of his
life in his hometown of Edinburgh where he was the leading light in Scottish
intellectual and literary circles. Hume died in 1776. His major works are, A Treatise
of Human Nature, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals, Natural History of Religion and Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion.
3.2. Theory of Knowledge: Impressions and Ideas as the Origin of Our
Knowledge
Hume begins his philosophy with an analysis of our perceptions. By
Perceptions, he simply means the contents of consciousness (Lawhead, 2015: 336).
Consequently, Hume divides perceptions into impressions and ideas. Impressions

and ideas make up the total content of the mind. The original stuff of thought is an
impression (a sensation or feeling), and an idea is merely a copy of an impression.
According to Hume, the difference between an impression and an idea is only the
degree of their vividness. The original perception is an impression, as when we hear,
see, feel, love, hate, desire, or will. These impressions are "lively” and clear when
we have them. When we reflect on these impressions, we have ideas of them, and
those ideas are less lively versions of the original impressions. To feel pain is an
impression, whereas the memory of this sensation is an idea. In every particular,
impressions and their corresponding ideas are alike, differing only in their degree of
vividness with which they strike upon the mind and make their way into our thoughts
or consciousness (Coplestone, 1994: 265).
Besides distinguishing between impressions and ideas, Hume argues that
without impressions there can be no ideas. This is because if a particular idea is
simply a copy of an impression, it means for every idea there must be a prior
impression. Nevertheless, it is not every idea, however, that reflects an exact
corresponding impression, for instance when we talk about a flying horse or a golden
mountain even though we have ideas of them. But Hume explains such ideas as
being the product of the mind's "faculty of compounding, transposing, or
diminishing the materials afforded us by the senses and experience"(Stumpf and
Fieser, 2012: 247).
3.3. Association of Ideas.
Hume argues that it is not by mere chance that our ideas are related to each
other. There must be, Hume says, some bond of union, some associating quality; by
which one idea naturally introduces another. His explanation was that, whenever
there are certain qualities in ideas, these ideas are associated with each other (Stumpf
and Fieser 247). These qualities are, resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and
cause and effect. As resemblance, Hume says that when we see a picture, our
attention is often drawn to the original. Contiguity with time or place has to do with
an idea that a part indicates a whole, like when we mention a room and someone
thinks about other parts and the building as a whole. Finally, the quality of cause and
effects has to do with succession of events, where when one event is preceded by
another.
3.4. On Causality
Hume's most original and influential ideas deal with the problem of causality
(Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 247). For Hume the very idea of causality cannot be
proven. But Hume intend to investigate it a little, so he asked "What is the origin of
the idea of causality?" Since ideas are copies of impressions, Hume asks what
impression gives us the idea of causality. His answer is that there is no impression
corresponding to this idea. How, then, does the idea of causality arise in the mind?
His response is that the idea of causality is a wrong idea that has no corresponding
impressions but only arises in the mind when we experience certain relations
between objects. For him, when we speak of cause and effect, we mean to say that
A Causes B. But what kind of a relation does this show between A and B? in his
response, Hume claims that in our experience, we are being furnished by two
relations, namely, (1) contiguity, for A and B are always close together, and (2)
priority in time, where event A (cause) always precedes B, the effect. But how do
we tell if at very point A happens that B will follow? Hume argued that there is no
such necessary connection. According to him, while we do have impressions of
contiguity in space and priority in time, we do not have any impression of necessary
connection. Thus, causality is not a quality in the objects we observe but is rather a
mental habit of association" produced by the repetition of instances A and B (Stumpf
and Fieser, 2012: 248).
3.5. Rejection of Metaphysics
Hume denied that substance in any form exists or has any coherent meaning.
If what is meant by the self is some form of substance, Hume argued that no such
substance can be derived from our impressions of sensation (Stumpf and Fieser, 249).
Hume, therefore, submit that notions like substance, reality, mind, matter, etc, are
actually meaningless and unintelligible. He also says that questions that
metaphysicians seek to answer, like what is the nature of reality, what is the cause
of the world, what is the relationship between matter and mind, etc, are all
meaningless. They are meaningless because when we analyze these questions in
terms of our empirical meaning criteria, these questions dissolve into nothingness
(Essien, 2011: 231). For him, any material containing metaphysical knowledge of
realities should be discarded as containing sophistry and illusion. He asserts:
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must
we make? If we take in our hand any volume, of divinity or school of metaphysics,
for instance; let us ask: "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity
and number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of
fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames, for it can contain nothing but
Sophistry and illusion (Hume, 1748: 132)
Hume also denied the existence of self. He questions if we have any one
impression that is invariably associated with our idea of self. Finding none, he argues
that the human mind is a kind of theatre where several perceptions successively make
their appearance and then disappear. Hume denies the existence of a continuous selfidentity
and sees the self as nothing but a bundle or collection of different
perceptions.
3.6. the Notion of God
Hume emphasizes that the order of the universe is simply an empirical fact
and that we cannot infer from it the existence of God. He points out that from a finite
effect you cannot conclude an infinite cause (Lawhead, 2015: 349). However, this is
not purely indicative that Hume denied the existence of God.
4.0. Conclusion
Hume‟s philosophy leads to skepticism. However, no skeptical thought
remains unchallenged for; little wonder that his skepticism awoke Kant from his
dogmatic slumber, who responded with his critical philosophy as we shall see later
5.0. Summary
1. Hume was the most consistent of the empiricists.
2. He denied the existence of matter and substance.
3. He denied causality.
4. Impressions and ideas are the origin of our knowledge.
What are the three ways in which one idea becomes associated with another
idea?
Briefly discuss the notion of causality according to Hume‟s?
How is David Hume an empiricist?
Lulu press.
What is the distinction Hume makes between impressions and ideas?
Answer: The original stuff of thought is an impression (a sensation or feeling), and
an idea is merely a copy of an impression. According to Hume, the difference
between an impression and an idea is only the degree of their vividness.
Immanuel Kant
Module 4: Unit 1: Immanuel Kant: Synthesizing Rationalism and Empiricism
Contents
1.0. Introduction

3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Immanuel Kant
3.2. Forms of Judgment: Analytic and synthetic Judgment
3.3. Kant's Copernican Revolution
3.4. Metaphysics: The Noumena and the Phenomenal
3.5. Ethics
3.6. Space and Time
3.7. The Existence of God
4.0. Conclusion
5.0. Summary
1.0 Introduction
The debate between the empiricists and the rationalists and their response to
the nature and source of human knowledge provided the ground through which the
thought of Kant flourished. While the empiricists rooted for experience as the nature
and source of human knowledge, the rationalists were of the claim that knowledge
comes from reason and that the human mind is crowned with ideas that are innate to
their existence. Immanuel Kant toed the middle ground by attempting a
reconciliation between these two opposing traditions. This gave birth to a revolution
in epistemology in the same manner that Copernicus did in Astronomy. In this unit,
you will learn about Kant‟s attempt at synthesizing rationalism and empiricism.

1. Explain Kant‟s Copernican Revolution in epistemology.
2. Differentiate between the two types of judgment.
3. Differentiate between the noumena and the phenomena
4. Discuss Kant‟s ethics.
5. Understand Kant‟s position on the existence of God.
3.0. Main Content
3.1. A Brief Biography of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, East Prussia, on April 22, 1724. His
parents were Pietists, a sect of Protestants who lived severe, puritanical lives and
emphasized faith and religious feelings over reason and theological doctrines
(Lawhead, 2015: 355). Although Kant‟s later religious thought was hardly orthodox,
he was always sensitive to the longings of the heart that cannot be met by the cold
dictates of theoretical reason. He attended the University of Konigsberg and later
ended up becoming a professor there himself. Kant retired from public life and
lecturing in 1797. He died on February 12, 1804 after a period of illness. His major
works are, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
(1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Critique of Judgment (1790),
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786), Religion Within the
Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), Perpetual Peace (1795), Groundwork of
Metaphysics of Morals (1797), among others.
3.2. Forms of Judgment: Analytic and synthetic Judgment
As earlier stated in our introduction, Kant‟s task was to reconcile empiricism
and rationalism. His epistemological quest, therefore, became the quest for a kind of
knowledge that is synthetic-apriori. He was able to locate synthetic or aposteriori
propositions in the empiricist programme, and apriori propositions in the rationalists
programme. The synthetic-apriori judgments synthesized rationalism with
empiricism, since it contains aspects of both doctrine (Essien, 2011: 239).
It is the believe of Kant that knowledge always appears in the form of
judgments in which something is affirmed or denied (Lawhead, 2015:360).
Therefore, to have a clear knowledge, he thought it was necessary to begin with the
examination of the kinds of judgments that we make. Accordingly, he maintains that
there are two categories of Judgments: analytic and synthetic.
Analytic judgments are based on the principle of contradiction. For example,
“all bachelors are unmarried” is a true analytic judgment because the contradiction
of this statement is necessarily false. We can confirm the truth of this judgment not
by going out and gathering facts but merely by analyzing the meaning of the terms.
The predicate “unmarried” is already contained within the subject “bachelors.”
Furthermore, because the truth of this judgment is independent of any particular facts,
it does not give us any new knowledge about the world. Synthetic judgments,
however, do give us new information about the world. For example, “All the
bachelors in this class are six feet tall” is a synthetic judgment. Judgments of this
sort synthesize or bring together the subject (“bachelors in this class”) with the
predicate (“six feet tall”). It would not be a logical contradiction to deny this
statement about bachelors (Lawhead, 2015:360).
Kant makes a further distinction, this time between judgments that are apriori
and judgments that are aposteriori. According to him, all analytic judgments are
apriori: Their meaning does not depend on our experience of any particular cases or
events since they are independent of any observations, as in the case of mathematics.
Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, are for the most part aposteriori, that is, they
occur after an experience of observation ((Stumpf and Fieser 276). Besides the
analytic-apriori and the synthetic-aposteriori, Kant locates another form of
judgments called the synthetic-apriori. The synthetic judgment is located in
empiricism while the apriori judgment is rooted in rationalism
3.3. Kant's Copernican Revolution
In the first line of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant asserts that, “There can
be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience…but though all our
knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of
experience.” From this position, it is evidenced that in the first part of the statement,
Kant supported empiricism, but in the second part, we also cite with the rationalists.
Kant rejected either absolute empiricism or rationalism. As a result, he struck a
synthesis between these two opposing epistemological schools. Taking clue from
the revolution in astronomy initiated by Copernicus, Kant proposes a “Copernican
revolution” in epistemology. The empiricists thought that the mind is passive when
confronting the world and simply records impressions. In this picture, knowledge
conforms to its objects.
However, Kant proposes a different view to this believe. He reverses this
picture asks us to consider the possibility that objects conform to our knowledge
(Kant, CPR Bxvi). In other words, for sense data to be experienced as objects by us,
the mind must impose a certain rational structure on them (Lawhead, 2015: 258).
This means that in the process of acquiring knowledge, it is not the human mind that
conforms to objects, instead, it is rather the objects that conform to the structure of
the human mind so that we can only know things as they appear to us. This new
hypothesis is what is called Kant‟s Copernican revolution.
3.4. Metaphysics: The Noumena and the Phenomenal
Kant claims that there are two nature of reality; reality as they are in
themselves and as they appear to us. Things are they are in themselves are called
noumena while things as they appear to us are called phenomena. Kant maintain that
the noumena are beyond the scope of human knowledge while the phenomena are
the product of the human mind (Omoregbe, 1998:13). The conclusion of this is that
for Kant, we cannot know reality as they are in themselves, but only the way they
appear.
Kant maintains that there are certain aspects of reality that human
understanding could not access. Therefore, any attempt to explore these areas by our
pure concepts of understanding is considered as going “beyond all possible
experience” and this is certainly a misleading attempt. In other word, all objects of
understanding which are beyond the possible experience, are impossible; at least
with regard to our available abilities (Abdullah, 2008). This is due to the fact that
the noumenal world, including the concept of substance, force, action etc., has
certain characteristics that differentiated and distanced it from experience or the
phenomenon. The characteristics of the noumenal world which were described as 1)
independent of experience; 2) contain no appearance of the senses; and 3) hold a
necessity of determination, had veiled it from being known or perceived by human

experience (Neujhar, 1995).
3.4. Ethics
The foundation of Kantian ethics is the will. In his Groundwork of
Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states: “Nothing can possibly be conceived in the
world, or even out of it, which can be called „good‟ without qualification, except a
good will” (Kant, 2008: 12). This implies is that, for Kant, the seat of moral worth
is in the will, and the good will is one that acts out of a sense of duty. Popkin and
Stroll (1996: 41), notes that the main question which Kant‟s moral theory was
designed to answer is: „What is the nature of morality?‟ This question, they reason,
can also be put in different ways such as: „What is a moral action as contrasted with
a non-moral one?‟ or again, „What is the difference between a person who acts
morally and one who does not? For Kant, a person is acting morally only when he
suppresses his/her feelings and inclinations, and does that which he/she is obliged to
do. Kant stresses that the essence of morality is to be found in the Will from which
the act is done. All those Wills reduced to one that a person is moral when he acts
from a sense of duty (Popkin and Stroll, 1996: 44).
According to Kant, the moral law is presented to us as a categorical imperative.
It tells you what you ought, should, or must do, but it does not depend on any prior
conditions, or subjective wants and wishes, and it contains no qualifications
(Lawhead, 2015: 372). A major test of a morally good act is, therefore, whether its
principle can be applied to all rational beings and applied consistently. Moral
philosophy is the quest for these principles that apply to all rational beings and that
lead to behavior that we call good (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 287).
3.5. Space and Time
A discussion on the doctrine of space and time is the most important part of
Kant‟s Critique of Pure Reason (Russell, 1945: 712). His thesis in the discourse is
that space and time are not mysterious sorts of “things” within experience but are
fundamental frames of reference in terms of which objects, which he calls the “forms
of intuition," appear to us (Lawhead, 2015: 361). In Kantian perspective, space is a
form of all appearance of outer sense. It is the necessary condition of all outer objects
as they appear to us but does not necessary underlie things as they are in themselves
(Essien, 2011: 241). Time, on the other hand is closely related to space. However,
the difference is that time is a form of intuition or perception of ourselves and our
inner state, not of our intuition of objects outside us.
3.6. The Existence of God
Kant‟s argument for the existence/non-existence of God is quite simple.
Following from his critical remarks, Kant claims that we cannot demonstrate God's
existence, neither can we demonstrate that God does not exist by pure reason alone.
If, therefore, the existence of God cannot be effectively dealt with by the theoretical
reason, then some other aspect of reason must be considered as the source of the idea
of God (Stumpf and Fieser, 2012: 283). Kant's argument for the existence of God,
therefore, is that we cannot use transcendental ideas or theoretical principles to
demonstrate the existence of God.
4.0 Conclusion
Kant attempted to put to rest, the struggle between rationalism and empiricism
on the source and nature of human knowledge. His thought has even been described
by some scholars as the last of man struggle with skepticism. However, it is not
without criticism. As a matter of fact, it has been argued that Kant was not successful
in his revolution as he failed to establish any truth about objective reality.
5.0 Summary
1. Kant made an attempt to reconcile empiricism and rationalism
2. There are two natures of reality which are the noumena and the phenomena.
3. We can only have knowledge of phenomenal realities because the noumena
are unknowable
4. Space and time are apriori form of intuitions
5. Synthetic-apriori judgments contain both reason and experience
6. Moral laws are presented as categorical imperative.
Discuss Kant‟s Copernican revolution
Differentiate between the two types of judgment.
Differentiate between the noumena and the phenomena
Popkin, R H. and Stroll, A. (1996). Philosophy. Third edition. Made simple books.
Russell, B. (1945). The History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster.

Lulu press
Kant, I. (2008). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. T. K. Abott (trans.).
Wilder Publications.
Kant, I. (1781). Critique of Pure Reason. N. Kemp (trans.). Merchant Books.
Omoregbe, J. (1990). Metaphysics Without Tears. JERP
Where can we find the essence of morality in Kant's ethics?
Answer: In Kant's ethics, the essence of morality is to be found in the motive from
which the act is done. All those motives reduced to one that a person is moral when
he acts from a sense of duty.
German Idealism
German Idealism German Idealism is a philosophical movement centered in Germany during the
Age of Enlightenment of the late 18th and early 19th Century. It developed out of the work of
Immanuel Kant and is closely linked with the Romanticism movement. It is sometimes referred
to as Kantianism (although that more correctly also involves acceptance of Kant's ethical and
epistemological views). Other than Kant himself, the main contributors (who all had their own
versions of Kant's theory, some close in nature and some quite distinct) were Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and (arguably) Arthur
Schopenhauer, and additionally Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743 - 1819), Gottlob Ernst Schulze
(1761 - 1833), Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757 - 1823) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 -
1834). Although essentially a German movement, the Swiss-French writer and philosopher
Madame de Staël (1766 - 1817) introduced (in her famous book "De l'Allemagne") the works of
Kant and the German Idealists to French thinkers, who were still largely under the influence
of John Locke at that time. In general terms, Idealism is the theory that fundamental reality is
made up of ideas or thoughts. It holds that the only thing actually knowable is consciousness (or
mental entities), and that we can never really be sure that matter or anything in the outside world
actually exists. The concept of Idealism arguably dates back to Plato, and reached a peak with
the pure Idealism of Bishop George Berkeley in the early 18th Century. See the section on the
doctrine of Idealism for more details. The German Idealists, however, were dissatisfied with
Berkeley's rather naive formulation. In the 1780s and 1790s, Immanuel Kant tried to bridge the
two dominant philosophical schools of the 18th Century: Rationalism (which held that
knowledge could be attained by reason alone, a priori), and Empiricism (which held that
knowledge could be arrived at only through the senses, a posteriori). Kant's Transcendental
Idealism claims that we know more than Berkeley's ideas in our minds, in that we also directly
know of at least the possibility of "noumena"("things-in-themselves"), which are both
empirically and transcendentally real even if they cannot be directly and immediately known.
The actual "phenomena" which we perceive and which we think we know are really just the way
things appear to us and not necessarily real. Other German philosophers of the time used Kant's
work as a starting point, adding in their own interpretations and biases. As a movement, it was
not one of agreement (although there was some common ground), and each successive
contributor rejected at least some of the theories of their predecessors. Many of the German
Idealists who followed Kant, effectively tried to reverse Kant's refutation of all speculative
theology and reinstate notions of faith and belief in their explanations of what exists beyond
experience, a trend which was continued later in the 19th Century by the American
Transcendentalists. Jacobi, although in agreement with Kant that the objective thing-in-itself
cannot be directly known, tried to legitimized belief and its theological associations by
presenting the external world as an object of faith, even if logically unproven. Schulze tried to
use Kant's's own reasoning to disprove the existence of the "thing-in-itself", arguing that it
cannot be the cause of an idea or image of a thing in the mind. Following from Schulze's
criticism of the notion of a "thing-in-itself", Fichte asserted that there is no external thing-in-
itself that produces the ideas, but our representations, ideas or mental images are merely the
productions of our ego, or "knowing subject". Schelling's view was that the ideas or mental
images in the mind are identical to the extended objects which are external to the mind
("absolute identity"), so that there is no difference between the subjective and the objective.
Schleiermacher's variation was that the ideal and the real do not have a productive or causal
effect on each other, but are united and manifested in the transcendental entity which is God.
Another German Idealist, G. W. F. Hegel, claimed that pure abstract thought (as in Kant's
formulations) is limited and leads to unsolvable contradictions. In order to overcome these
shortcomings, Hegel introduced the integral importance of history and of the "Other" person in
the awakening of self-consciousness. In the process, he established a whole new movement of
Hegelianism, which in turn was hugely influential in the later development of Continental
Philosophy, Marxism and (by virtue of its opposition to Hegel) Analytic Philosophy.
Schopenhauer claimed that Kant's noumenon is the same as Will, or at least that Will is the most
immediate manifestation of the noumenon that we can experience. He saw the "will-to-life" (a
fundamental drive intertwined with desire) as the driving force of the world, prior to thought and
even prior to being. Schopenhauer's criticisms of the later German Idealists is seen by some as a
sort of "back to Kant" movement, giving impetus to a Neo-Kantianism movement in the mid-
19th and into the 20th Century, which yielded the Kantian analyses of such German philosophers
as Kuno Fischer (1824 - 1907), Friedrich Lange (1828 - 1875), Hermann Cohen (1842 - 1918),
Paul Natorp (1854 - 1924), Nicolai Hartmann (1882 - 1950), Ernst Cassirer (1874 - 1945),
Wilhelm Windelband(1848 - 1915), Heinrich Rickert (1863 - 1936) and Ernst Troeltsch (1865 -
1923). Also in the mid-19th Century to the early 20th Century, a movement which became
known as British Idealism revived interest in the works of Kant and Hegel. The leading figures
in the movement were T. H. Green (1836 - 1882), F. H. Bradley(1846 - 1924), Bernard
Bosanquet (1848 - 1923), J. M. E. McTaggart (1866 - 1925), H. H. Joachim (1868 - 1938) and J.
H. Muirhead (1855 - 1940).

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General Introduction

General Introduction - Notes

Renaissance, Humanism, epistemology, rationalism, empiricism, knowledge.

Philosophical movements are phenomena of effective history, says Habermas. (Habermas:

From Ancient to Middle Ages

Philosophy during the Renaissance

Empiricism and Rationalism

References and Further Reading

4. Russell, Bertrand: History of Western Philosophy, London, Routledge Classics, 2004.

5. Thilly, Frank: A History of Philosophy, New Delhi, SBE Publishers, 1983.

Unit 1: Rene Descartes and the Foundation of Modern Philosophy

Module 3: Unit 2: Benedict Spinoza

3.0. Main Content

3.1. A Brief Biography of Benedict Spinoza

3.2. Theory of Knowledge

3.3. Levels of Cognition

3.4. Metaphysics: Substance, God and Attribute

3.6. Mind-Body Problem

6.0. References/Further Studies

In our previous unit, we noted how Descartes attempt to establish knowledge

2.0 Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

By the end of this unit, you will be able to:

1. Discuss the pantheism of Spinoza.

2. Discuss his theory of knowledge.

3. Outline and distinguish the three levels of cognition

3.0. Main Content

3.1. A Brief Biography of Benedict Spinoza

the greatest of Jewish philosophers. His originality of mind is suggested by his

condemnation. Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632 in a family of Portuguese

philosopher Maimonides. Forced to leave Amsterdam, in 1663 he went to The Hague,

Spinoza died in 1677 aged of 45.

3.2. Theory of Knowledge

Spinoza's theory of knowledge is based on the principle of logical necessity.

though not for the human intellect.

3.3. Levels of Cognition

These categories are classified into:

3.4. Metaphysics: Substance, God and Attribute

understand to be a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of infinite

An attribute, Spinoza says, is that which an intellect perceives as constituting

the essence of substance. Since God is defined as a substance consisting of infinite

of a single substance. God is therefore substance perceived as infinite thought and

217). Through an intricate sequence of arguments, Spinoza arrives at the conclusion

Everything, according to Spinoza, is ruled by an absolute logical necessity.

world. Everything that happens is a manifestation of God's inscrutable nature, and it

In his treatment of human behaviour, Spinoza believed that people are an

precisely in terms of causes, effects, and mathematics as any other natural

experience pleasure, and with a reduction of such perfection, we experience pain.

3.6. Mind-Body Problem

ways of knowing apply also to the modes of that substance.

the mind-body problem is a pseudo-problem

In this unit, you have learnt the following:

1. There is only one substance and it is either God or nature.

act in a certain manner

According to Spinoza, what are the three levels of cognition?

Discuss the theory of knowledge according to Spinoza?

Discuss the mind-body problem according to Spinoza?

6.0. References/Further Studies

Russell, B. (1945). The History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster.

Warburton, N. (2011). A Little History of Philosophy. Yale university press