Philosophical Concepts and Thinkers

Social Contract Theory

Hobbes

The instinct of self-preservation provokes fighting, which necessitates societal order. The social contract, as a mutual agreement, aims to mitigate this conflict. The first step is to “give up” the freedom to undermine others, and the second is to “transfer” individual rights that impede peace to the state.

Leviathan

Hobbes named his concept of the state after the Leviathan, a biblical sea monster. It is an “artificial man,” higher and stronger than any other, designed for protection and defense. Within it, sovereignty acts as an artificial soul, giving life and movement to the whole body. Judges and other officials of the judiciary and executive branches are its articulators.

Locke

Simple Ideas

Individual data from internal or external reality; these are the sensitive qualities that constantly stimulate our perception.

Complex Ideas

Represent objects, events, and the orderly world. The primary complex idea is that of substance, supporting the common sensitive qualities we perceive in any substance. It assumes the existence of something that sustains and produces the sensations we actually perceive.

Mode Ideas

How objects are presented, their location in space, and their relation to others. Ideas of surface, distance, or order are modes that the object takes.

Ideas Regarding

(Cause-effect, time-place-identity, diversity) These make the world a structured set of facts.

Social Contract

Locke viewed the social contract as a means to prevent the abuse of power, unlike Hobbes. He became the father of liberalism by advocating for a parliamentary monarchy to distribute power.

The State

The state of nature is a realm of equality and freedom, where natural rights—life, liberty, and property—originate. Humans possess these rights due to natural law, which makes them sociable by nature, contrary to Hobbes’s view.

Mind

The human mind has direct contact with ideas and indirectly with things themselves.

Empiricism

Empiricism relates to moral tolerance. From Locke’s perspective, the existence of innate ideas leads to dogmatic attitudes and fanaticism. Innate ideas are seen as absolute truths, reflecting only customs and individual experiences. Conversely, empiricism fosters tolerance.

Idealism

Berkeley

Idealism challenges not only reasoning but also common sense.

Reality

Berkeley describes a process of knowledge based on the perception of sensitive qualities. This is the origin of our ideas, but ideas can only exist in our minds, not outside them. Therefore, what we call reality is nothing more than a set of related ideas. Reality is a mental existence.

“To Be Is to Be Perceived”

Based on the empiricist claim that “to be is to be perceived,” Berkeley argues with interesting contributions. “The sensations of cold and heat are only in our minds,” but we never perceive sounds or smells as their causes. He concludes that “being consists in being perceived.” This becomes a universal statement, denying the existence of matter studied by science and the material objects around us daily.

Cartesianism and Other Concepts

Spinoza

Cartesianism

A philosophical movement influenced by Descartes in the 17th century. During Spinoza’s time (1632-1677), Cartesian thinking was widespread, using mathematics as a fundamental tool for knowledge and a mechanistic view of the universe. Spinoza aimed to build upon this foundation.

Subst. Divina (God)

Spinoza’s rationalism extends to all reality, encompassing the natural and human worlds within the concept of Subst. Divina. While Descartes reduced substance to three (thinking, extended, and divine), Spinoza sees only one: God or Nature.

Pantheism

All is part of a single divine reality; everything is God.

Divine Attributes and Ways of God

Spinoza concluded that extension and thinking are two divine attributes, and specific creatures (thinking spirits or extended bodies) are modes of God derived from these attributes.

Universal Necessitarianism

The necessity that governs all facts; nothing is casual.

Intellectual Love of God

Accessing the understanding of reality, its order, and its universal necessity is the intellectual love of God, where emotions are identified with understanding.

Leibniz

Monads

Leibniz defines reality as composed of an infinity of simple substances, a kind of atoms called monads. Unlike atoms, monads are immaterial but constitute the extension of material bodies due to their inherent dynamism. They are better described as souls, perceptions, or life forces that sustain material bodies. Without them, bodies would decompose and disappear. Humans have a dominant monad, the soul.

Pre-established Harmony

According to Leibniz, the action of one monad does not directly influence another. Instead, there is a pre-established harmony, like clocks set to the same time. Monads act and react according to this harmony, following a mechanistic view.

Sufficient Reason

Our world is ordered according to this pre-established harmony. Its existence owes to a sufficient reason for it to be this way and not any other.

Metaphysical Optimism

Pre-established harmony and sufficient reason point to a divinity that created the world as the best of all possible worlds. This view, called metaphysical optimism, can also be interpreted as legitimizing the established order.

Truths of Reason

Logical and necessary truths.

Truths of Fact

Empirical truths that explain facts and are contingent.