The real reason behind my new way of observing and leading my life comes from the seemingly misperception about what is philosophy, what is philosophical and what is critical thinking! Sometimes I just allow myself into the deep-thinking world and travel without boundaries! For me, this is freedom!
In my Book Yesterday And Today In Parallel Lines, I am an explorer of ideas and sensations. I let the words take over and pose themselves into the paper as I write it. Then, I look at them, feel and play with them until I start experiencing them as beings! In the end, I smile at them like a crazed woman! Yes, as if I was suddenly incapable of critical thinking and for me, this is freedom!
So far, let’s not get me wrong here! I love and live by philosophical means!
I have been analysing as many philosophical theories as I possibly can, that is, from The Dark Ages, right up to the idea that all knowledge comes from experience.
The later reaches an historical period known as the Age of Enlightenment. This was a period that although thought of as including the age of reason around 17th century, it refers to the 18th century in European philosophy.
Its term, `The Enlightenment`, applies to a historical intellectual movement, which advocated rationality as a way of establishing an authoritative system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge. At the time, people were living in the so-called period of `Dark Ages, ` ruled by irrationality, doubt, tradition and tyranny.
From this we can note that ` The Enlightenment`, came as a movement of thinkers who believed in the science as a means to explain everything in nature! These strong-minded theorists did it by encouraging people to be more exploratory as well as to question all of which they had submissively always accepted. Meanly, the implement was there in order to help them defeat their blinded fears as well as their beliefs.
For instance, the ideas of J.Locke, those of the Bishop Berkeley, and others were of utmost importance as enlightened philosophers. Let's say; Locke’s empiricism along with his idea of representative realism, brought us to the hypothesis that all of which we perceive, are mere representations of the world!
Well, that, at the time, came out, as it still is nowadays much of a thought provoking. Even though we all know the fact, that he never told us about the real world. From his point of view, size, shape and movement define primary quality or solidity. In addition, things such as colour, smell and taste are secondary quality. That is, he claims that our knowledge comes from experience and our reflection upon that experience, as we are born as `tabula-rasa` bearing but only the external world as our teacher. This is to say; his scientific method reveals him as an empiricist who solidified his focus on experience as the solo and only means of knowledge. Locke, (1632-1704, Philosophy the Basics)
However, the Bishop Berkeley, (1685-1753) came forward and although he was also an empiricist, one could easily see his views opposing those of Locke. He was an idealist, who believed everything that exists to be mental. Since sensations are ideas and ideas come from the mind, they are subsequently mental phenomena! As a result, all of which we actually know about our surroundings are but mere perceptions and sensations, as there are no other means for us to know our world. That is why things are there, because there is a perceiver, he infers.
What baffles me the most is; how would Berckley prove that things would still exist while not being perceived? His answer for that question was; “God always perceived us.” - Well, as he was an empiricist, whose arguments had to be tested and proved, the answer; “God always perceived us”- seemed out of order, to the same extent he could not prove God’s existence. His answer for that matter brings about some sort of tension between the empiricists.
Nevertheless, from this we can note that; although any philosophical debate is due to continue, endlessly without any straightforward answer, as I face the philosophers apparent antagonism, I do realise that they were using their empiricisms to question and rethink about their phenomenal world, and that seems to be what Enlightenment is all about.
I mean it made me cross the threshold into the real meaning of the word philosophy and love it even more! I really fell in love with it… period!
For instance, following this line of freedom, *David Hume, (1711- 1776). An empiricist and philosopher Who was considered a radical sceptic figure, began his search for knowledge by highlighting that awareness can be classified under two headings; impressions and ideas. Stating that the difference between these two is the “degree of force and liveliness, with which they strike upon the mind.”*
By saying that everything that we know about the physical world, are ideas and imaginations, he is reinforcing the theory that knowledge comes from sense experience alone. Then, impressions are more forceful and lively than ideas. In addition, he is saying that there are simple impressions and simple ideas as well as complex ones, differing on the idea that the simple ones, “admit of no distinction or separation”. (Contemporary Philosophy of Religion) This shows that the perception of the quality blue is simple, whereas the perception of a blue picture is complex, hence can be separated into parts.
Hume points out that, simple impressions always precede the simplest ideas, which resemble them in our experience, and this amounts to a denial that there are innate ideas. He also claims that ideas come from experience that can be thought of as, impressions manifested in the external world such as; books, people, etc. After gaining an impression of the book or person, the mind then has an idea of that, even when it is not sensing through it senses. That is, the mind has internalised it, hence Hume insists that knowledge comes from experience and carries on sceptically elaborating his theory to explain the unreliability of believing in miracles.
Herein, within his scepticism, Hume argued that it would always be better to believe in what would be the lesser miracle. He mentions psychological factors that can lead people to be self-deceived as a means to explain his views in regards to acclaimed miracles. He also showed that the amount of evidence of a similar type of miracles that almost every religion claims to have happened, cancel each other out, as it would prove the existence of too many gods against the Christian one God.
However, Immanuel Kant criticised Hume’s methodological scepticism as he went on making an important distinction between, what he called phenomena, which is that which we perceive with our senses, and noumena, which refers to things as they are in themselves. Kant argued that the reliability of space, time and causality was not the characteristics of the unknowable world of things as they are in themselves. They are instead the structures of our own perceptions. He believes that we have the ability to reason. As human beings, we have a moral duty and can choose through reason instead of experience. That one should always act on maxims, e.g. always tell the truth willing that to be a universal law. In his duty-based ethics, he emphasises universal reason over experience, in his theory, humans are moral beings in themselves.
As we reach conclusion, it is important to be aware that all the theories have an impact on the way we see or experience our surrounding world. Philosophical ideas do tend to oppose each other and there is a huge variety of ways of reasoning. The following words will probably shade some light on whether knowledge comes from experience alone or else.
“One way of appreciating this distinction is to consider yourself. The real `you` is a nominal reality, you exist in yourself, irrespective of other people’s perception of you. Yet, you are a phenomenal reality for everyone else – all they know about you is what you show them. Now ask yourself, `Am I really nothing but the sum total of what others can see of me? Is there something of me which I know, but which I cannot ever fully show to others?”
The words in the quotation above, bring to our awareness that somewhere deep within our being, there is a thinker, or a `noumena` that essence from which we all experience the phenomenal world. That thinker within, opposes Hume’s theory that all knowledge comes from experience and reaches beyond Kant’s duty based theory, allowing one to ask, perhaps, does it come from both? (http://enwikopedia.org/wiki/The Enlightenment, Berkeley ( 1685-1753).
Therefore, I shall end my page as I started it; the real reason behind my new way of observing and leading my life comes from the seemingly misperception about what is philosophy, what is philosophical and what is critical thinking!
It feels good to know the difference. I can think critically without being trapped in the middle of such wonderful variety of insights. I travel happily amongst them all and the more I learn from them, the greater is my ability to find and redefine my very own dry land!
