Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy: Ethics and Knowledge
For Kant, the true philosophy is that which asks questions that concern everyone and whose answers we need everyone. These are: What can I know? What should I do? And what may I expect? These questions can be summarized as: What is man? Kant claims philosophy should begin from these questions and, depending on them, the different areas of philosophy can be divided. His work can be divided into two stages: the pre-critical and the critical period.
Ethics
Kant examines ethics in his Critique of Practical
Read MoreKant’s Philosophy: Reason, Morality, and the Structure of Knowledge
I. Critique of Pure Reason
Kant’s philosophy is based on the coexistence of science and morality. Science operates under determinism (necessity), while morality requires freedom. Humans are subject to both physical laws (necessity) and moral law (freedom). We possess theoretical reason for scientific knowledge and practical reason for moral action.
The Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) explores two main ideas:
- Philosophy as a Science: Can philosophy be a rigorous science?
- Conditions for Science: What
Descartes’ Epistemology: Certainty, Doubt, and the Search for Truth
In this text, Descartes addresses an epistemological problem that responds to the question: Is there any principle of true philosophy? Descartes argues that it is reprehensible to find things in doubt, and that the senses can deceive us via demonstration, which is indistinguishable from waking from sleep. In conclusion, all doubt is the constancy of knowing myself, wondering, and while doubting, thinking, and therefore being indubitable. The author means a necessary, universal principle to learn.
Read MoreSaint Thomas Aquinas: Philosophy and Theology
**Saint Thomas Aquinas**
Introduction
Until the 18th century, the prevalence of Platonic inspiration characterized this dominance. The work of St. Augustine contributed to the total ignorance of Aristotle’s philosophy. Only parts of his logic were known.
Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle
Aquinas never accepted these Averroist theses:
- a) The Eternity of the World: God has revealed that the temporal world has a beginning, and we believe this. The truth about the creation of the world is a credible but unprovable
Causality, Chance, and Order in the Universe
Difference Between Operational Randomness and Chance
Monod’s concept of *incausality* can be confusing when discussing technical unpredictability. For example, genetic mutations are totally unpredictable today, but we cannot say they are without cause.
In the example of randomness, Monod argues that the fall of a hammer is unpredictable. However, one can verify that it has a cause: the carelessness of a person and the law of gravity. This is operational randomness. So, both have a cause, whether known
Read MorePlato’s Theory of Ideas: A Dualistic Perspective
Plato’s Theory of Ideas
The Theory of Ideas affirms the existence of certain intangible realities: conceptual, immutable, innate, and everlasting (eternal). These are absolute, transcendent, not accessible to the senses but to intelligence, separate and independent of the physical world of sensible things and human views. Ideas are also ideal paradigms or models that are the essences of things, and are imitated by them more or less imperfectly, the way a shadow copies or imitates the object that
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