My Favorite Philosophers

Today's blog will be a bit lighter of a read. I will return to the God Hypothesis series in due time, but have decided to take a break (I actually wrote all of that in the span of about two days). I will present 4 of my favorite philosophers and why I consider them particularly interesting. All information is pulled from either the writings of these men themselves, or from the articles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE) was a student of Plato's who founded his own school, the Lyceum. Plato believed that something called forms or ideas existed in a perfect realm apart from this one. These forms represent the perfect version of everything. For example, all the different trees on Earth are actually imperfect representations of the perfect form of a tree. Aristotle thought this was absurd, and thought instead that forms exist in the objects. Aristotle also disagreed with Plato's political ideas, which were totalitarian, and thought that it is better when the people are ruled by a constitutional government (what today we might call a constitutional republic). He also found monarchy and aristocracy to be acceptable. He thought that when a constitutional government becomes corrupt, it becomes a democracy. When a monarchy becomes corrupt, it becomes a tyranny. When an aristocracy becomes corrupt, it becomes an oligarchy. 

He also developed the first theory of causation. They are the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. The material cause is the substance out of which something is made. The formal cause is the shape or form of an object. The efficient cause is what made it happen or come into being, and the formal cause is the reason why it exists or happened. The efficient cause is the closest of these to the modern concept of causation. Aristotle also was interested in science, and wrote extensively on physics. Of course, his physics is long outdated, but he was the first person to try and formulate actual laws of nature.

His ethical theory is called virtue ethics. Virtue ethics takes the virtuous act to be that which is in between two extremes. This is called the golden mean. For instance, if one has too little bravery, one is a coward. If one has too much bravery, one is impulsive. But in between those two is courage, which is facing one's fears. The goal of attaining the virtues is eudamonia, or happiness.

I admire Aristotle because he essentially founded science, and took the initiative to formulate his systems of thought in reaction to the perceived flaws in Plato's theories. I largely agree with his approach to ethical theory as well, and virtue ethics plays a large role in my own work in ethical philosophy.

 

David Hume (May 7, 1711 - August 25, 1776) was one of the Scottish philosophers of the later Enlightenment era in the Empiricist tradition, which meant he believed knowledge came from sensory experience. He was largely influenced by John Locke in his thought. Hume is perhaps most well known for his book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In it he explained his version of John Locke's epistemological views [theory of knowledge]. Hume made several important observations. One was that if the theory of ideas is true (which is the idea that sensory experience leaves behind mental representations behind called ideas, and that it is through the combination of these ideas that knowledge originates), then we have no direct contact with the real world. If we have no direct contact with the real world, then our knowledge of external things is not certain. He also realized that the concept of causation is not one that can be derived from sense experience in a certain manner because it is built on the principle of induction - which yields less certain knowledge than deduction. Hume's conclusion was that we have little true knowledge, and that most of what we consider true is merely belief. He realized that extreme skepticism is impractical however, and merely advocated being a skeptic in the sense of being aware that what you believe may be false.

Hume also wrote important things on theology. The most important of them is the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, in which three characters discuss the divine. Cleanthes is a theist and a philosophical empiricist, and believes that the universe displays clear signs of intelligent design and that the existence of God can be inferred from this. Demea is also a theist, but believes the existence of God can be demonstrated through arguments from reason alone [a priori arguments], and that the nature of God can only be known through revelation. The character of Philo best represents the views of David Hume himself, and advocates a position that is at best deist, and at least agnostic. Philo does not believe that human reason is capable of discovering truths about the nature of the divine, let alone know of the existence. 

Hume also wrote the Natural History of Religion, which speculates as to the origins and nature of religious belief, and the famous essay On Miracles, which itself is a chapter in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. In it, he explains why it is best to be skeptical of stories of miracles. Hume also wrote on ethics, aesthetics, political theory, economics, and other topics, but is primarily his work in epistemology and theology that impresses me. While I do not accept his skeptical conclusions, his work demonstrates the absurd consequences of the theory of ideas and raises many other important questions about the accuracy of human knowledge. 

 

Thomas Reid (May 7, 1710 - October 7, 1796) was another Scottish philosopher in the empiricist tradition, and was both an admirer and critic of David Hume. Reid differed from the three famous British empiricists (Locke, Hume, and Berkeley) in that he rejected the theory of ideas common to the three. Reid believed the theory of ideas held by the three major empiricists as well as René Descartes led to absurdly skeptical conclusions. He became a founding member of a particular tradition within Empiricism called the Scottish School of Common Sense. 

Reid was originally trained as a Presbyterian minister, beginning his ministry at a church in New Machar in 1737. He attained a professorship at King's College Aberdeen in 1752, where he wrote An Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. After its publication in 1764, he was offered a job at the University of Glasgow for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy, a position held previously by Adam Smith. He worked there until he retired in 1781. After his retirement, he wrote Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man in 1785 and Essays on the Active Powers of Man in 1788.

As interesting as the questions that David Hume raised were, the implications were unsettling, if not downright disturbing. After all, if induction is invalid, then science is built on a major flaw. If we have no direct contact with the real world, one can never be sure that he or she is not being deceived, as in Descartes's thought experiment with the evil demon. Reid in particular was perturbed by these implications for science, as in his free time he was quite interested in chemistry and physics. Just as well, as a man of faith he was naturally unsettled by the implications Hume's writings had on theology. Reid thought Hume was a great thinker, and found now flaw in his arguments. However, Reid realized that though the arguments of Hume are right they are predicated on the truth of the theory of ideas. Reid did not think there was any real basis to this epistemological theory, and posited his own alternative theory often referred to as "common sense realism." 

 Reid was a philosopher of great prestige in his time, but sadly is somewhat obscure today. Due to Hume inspiring Immanuel Kant's theories, and Kant's attempts to synthesize the empiricism of Locke, Hume, and Berkely with the rationalism of the continental philosophers, it seems as if Reid and the Scottish School of Common Sense has been largely ignored in histories of philosophy. Reid's answers to Hume are worth considering, and are well thought out. They are not without flaws, however, and those flaws might be examined in a future post.

Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was one of the United States of America's most brilliant philosophers. He worked in the fields of logic, mathematics, statistics, economics, philosophy, chemistry and other fields. In The Wisdom of The West, Bertrand Russell said of him ""Beyond doubt [...] he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century, and certainly the greatest American thinker ever." Paul Weiss called him "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician". 

His contributions to philosophy primarily came out of his epistemology and writings on the scientific method, and logic. He became the father of the philosophical tradition called pragmatism, characterized by the pragmatic maxim; "Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object." In other words, only limit your speculations to those things which are observable. This was designed to clean up metaphysics from too much unnecessary speculation. His pupil William James would later take this maxim to heart, but in a different way to mean that truth is what works. Peirce disagreed with this version of pragmatism, and began to call himself a pragmaticist in order to differentiate himself from that worldview. 

In epistemology, he advocated a view called fallibilism. Falliblism is a recognition that our scientific knowledge is imperfect, and is essentially a moderate skepticism. He also phrased this world view in terms of critical common-sensism, and was heavily inspired by Thomas Reid's writings on common sense. Peirce thought that our natural faculties of common sense were reliable, but that the things taken for granted in common sense may turn out to be wrong. 

Peirce identified a particular type of reasoning called abductive logic, which is a type of inductive reasoning used in the early stages of the scientific method. It is essentially a method of hypothesis generation. After the abductive phase of the scientific method comes the deductive phase, where the consequences of the hypothesis are deduced, and the inductive phase, where data is collected and experiments conducted. Peirce wrote that, "Facts cannot be explained by a hypothesis more extraordinary than these facts themselves; and of various hypotheses the least extraordinary must be adopted." This is essentially the pragmatic maxim applied to science, and is more or less the principle of Ockham's razor, that the simplest explanation is often the best. 

I admire Peirce because of his rather common sense and practical views in epistemology. His fallibilism and critical common sensism are a good compromise between the skepticism of Hume and the Common Sense Realism of Reid. His analysis of the scientific method is an accurate and useful one. As a psychologist, it is important to be aware of the scientific method, as the history of psychology is filled with unscientific ideas (read: Freud, Jung) and even today there are many competing ideas in the fields of personality psychology, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology. Applying the pragmatic maxim to such situations is an excellent way to look for the best explanation.