Fundamentals of Western Philosophy

FUNDAMENTALS OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

M. James Ziccardi

Copyright 2010 by M. James Ziccardi

Smashwords Edition

Section 1 - Preface

Whether political, economic, cultural, or religious, all aspects of our lives are grounded in some sort of philosophical belief (even the United States Constitution has its origin in the teachings of Aristotle). Philosophy is the discipline that deals with the foundation and nature of these beliefs. Unfortunately, whether by design or otherwise, philosophy is no longer seen as the valuable component to education that it once was. Today, education concerns itself more with what to know rather than how to know. Consequently, many of us have been conditioned to accept the world as it has been presented to us by others, and without any critical thought of our own.

M. James Ziccardi has written this book to help counter this dangerous trend. His objective is to provide a starting point for those who wish to have a better understanding of the beliefs that have shaped Western Society into what it is today. His hope is that by providing a better understanding of the origin of these beliefs, we will better be able to distinguish between those that have led to prosperity and those that have led to ruin.

Section 2 - Introduction

A good way to embark on a study of philosophy is to begin by looking at the word philosophy itself. The word philosophy translates directly from the Greek to mean "love (philo) of wisdom" (sophia). Since the love of portion of the word is pretty self-explanatory, we are left then with wisdom. When we think of wisdom, we think of knowledge, or to have knowledge. But to say that to have wisdom means to have knowledge is really nothing more than a circular definition, for all we are really doing is defining a word by a synonym, which in rhetoric is known as a tautology, and tautologies give us no more information than we had when we started. We could try again by saying that to have wisdom means to have understanding, but then again, we run into the same problem. After giving this a little thought, it becomes clear that providing a sufficient definition to words such as wisdom, knowledge, and understanding is not as straightforward as it would seem to be. This is where philosophy comes into the picture, for among other things, philosophy is where we attempt to gain knowledge of knowledge itself.

When we talk about knowledge, we are actually presupposing two very different things. First, we are implying that something exists that can be known; and secondly, we are implying that something else exists that has the ability to know. When we talk about the thing that is known, what we are referring to is the object of knowledge, and when we talk about the thing that knows, we are referring to the subject of knowledge. Therefore, we can see that in order for knowledge to exist, both an object of knowledge and a subject of knowledge must exist.

We now need to consider the objects of knowledge, which is to say, the kinds of objects can be known. To begin with, we know about sensible objects; and as the name implies, these are the objects that are known to us through our senses. These include all the tangible objects around us, such as trees, houses, and other people; and for this reason, we consider them to be real (although some philosophers would dispute this.) Another category of objects that are known to us are our intangible concepts. These include such things as the ideas of justice, courage, and beauty; and though these things are not known to us through our senses, we nonetheless consider them to be things that we know. To name a few of the other categories of things we know, we would include morals and moral judgments, such as what is right and what is wrong, and what is good and is bad; our emotions and feelings, such as love and hate, joy and sorrow, and pleasure and pain. Still another category would be relationships, such as those of space, time, and logic. For spatial relationships, we would include such concepts as, over, under, to the left of, etc.; for time relationships, we would include such concepts as before and after; and for logical relationships, we would include such things as greater than, less than, and equal to. These are just a few of the things that we can know; and when we add our thoughts, imaginations, and memories to the mix, there seems to be a virtually unlimited number of things we can know.

Now, with regard to these objects of knowledge, it is important to be able to differentiate how these objects exist as they are known by us, and how they exist in and of themselves, which is to say, how they exist without their being known by us; for with a little thought, it becomes clear that these are not necessarily one and the same. In philosophy, the discipline that deals with the nature of things as they are in and of themselves is what is known as metaphysics.

We now turn to the other component necessary for knowledge to exist, which is the thing that knows, or the subject of knowledge. When we say that something has knowledge, we mean that it has the faculty of reason, or that it is a rational being. As such, the only things that are capable of having knowledge are human beings, and possibly some of the other higher animals. These are the only beings that possess the faculty of reason, and therefore, they are the only beings that have the ability to think.

Furthermore, when we talk about rational beings, what is implied is more than just the ability to know things, for it is also the case with rational beings that they are aware that they know things. In other words, in order for a being to be rational it must not only possess the faculty of reason, but it must also be aware of this faculty. This awareness is what we call consciousness.

Another characteristic of a rational being lies in its ability to direct or control its reasoning; for thinking is a voluntary process that we can either choose to engage in or not. What sets human beings apart from the other animals is the fact that human beings base their actions on how they choose to employ their reasoning; animals, on the other hand, are said to act on instinct alone.

A will is yet another attribute that rational beings are said to possess, and whether or not the will is free has been the subject of philosophic and religious debate for centuries. The will is nothing more than the faculty which allows rational beings to put their reasoning into action. The final attribute of a rational being is what is called a sense of self, and it is this sense of self that provides us with our identity. It is what lets us know that our consciousness, volition, and will belong specifically to ourselves as individuals.

Now that we have described the nature of the subjects of knowledge, namely, that they are rational beings possessed of consciousness, the ability to voluntarily direct their reasoning, a will, and a sense of self, the next question is how rational beings come to acquire knowledge. The philosophic discipline that deals with this specific question is called epistemology.

At a very fundamental level, philosophy is simply the study of how rational beings come to know, through epistemology, the metaphysics of the world they live in. Furthermore, the various branches of philosophy all deal with how we epistemologically come to an understanding of the metaphysics of the various aspects of the human experience. For instance, since the issues of right and wrong are things we feel we can know, then there must be a metaphysics that describes them; and the study of how we come to know this metaphysics is what we call moral philosophy, or ethics. Similarly, because we feel that we can know the ideas of how people should best live together in societies, then there must be a metaphysics for these ideas as well, the study of which we call political philosophy, or simply politics. The same holds true for art (which is the philosophy of aesthetics), science, mathematics, language, literature, and virtually everything else we can think of.

The final and most important aspect of philosophy, however, deals with whether or not the knowledge we have is valid; for knowledge is not only useless to us when it is invalid, but it is potentially quite harmful. This is because human beings can only survive through proper actions, and proper actions can only be made in accordance with proper judgments, and judgments can only be as proper as our knowledge is valid. This means that the more accurate (and extensive) our knowledge becomes, the better our judgments, and thus our actions, will be. And, assuming that rational beings do not intentionally act in the furtherance of their own destruction, the actions we consider to be good and proper are also the ones that will lead to happiness and the furtherance of life. (As for suicide, this seems to be a matter that has more to do with the ending of pain than it does with a desire for self-destruction.) When our reasoning concerning some object is such that it corresponds to that object’s metaphysics, our reasoning is epistemologically valid; and if we are able to keep our desires and passions in check, our judgments and actions will be proper. But when our reasoning about an object is epistemologically wrong, our judgments and actions will be wrong as well. This means that regardless of whether we succeed or error in any action, it is never because of anything metaphysical, but rather it is always due to our epistemological reasoning. For this reason, man is considered to be a rational animal, with reason being his only means of living. Unlike the other animals, nature did not bestow upon man any great physical means of survival, for, comparatively, man is neither very strong nor fast, nor does he possess any sharp claws, powerful fanged jaws, or a venomous strike. Instead, man has been given the faculty of reason, and because of this, man has not only been able to survive, but he has been able to flourish as well. But because man’s reasoning is not infallible, he has also all too frequently been the means to his own demise. Therefore, at its core, the fundamental aim of philosophy is nothing more than improvement of man’s reasoning, and thereby his happiness and well-being; not simply for the sake of his knowing, but for the sake of his own existence. In this sense, we may say that one possesses knowledge, or wisdom, when his reasoning corresponds to metaphysical existence in such a way that his judgments and actions lead him to happiness and to the furtherance of his own life.

Now that we have a better grasp of some of the general ideas concerning philosophy, it is time to delve into them in more detail, for many of these ideas have been the subject of heated debate and passionate discourse for some of the greatest minds ever to contribute to Western Philosophy. Before we do that, however, we should briefly mention a few things concerning the history and organization of Western Philosophy.

Western Philosophy is usually divided into three periods:

The Ancient Period (a.k.a. Classical Period), which began in Ancient Greece with the teachings of Thales of Miletus and lasted until the fall of the Roman Empire. (Thales of Miletus is the first known Greek philosopher and is said to have been able to predict solar eclipses; he is also considered to be among the several Ancients with whom the maxim, Know Thyself, is attributed.) This should by no means imply that the Ancient Period was the first period of philosophy, for indeed many different schools of thought existed prior to and concurrently with this period, Stoicism and Sophism to name but two. (Stoicism is the belief that man must live in harmony with nature, and because nature is inherently rational, man must learn to live rationally as well; and that for his own well-being, man must come to understand what is within his power to control and what is not. The other philosophy mentioned is Sophism, which deals primarily with man’s search for knowledge, especially in the areas of ethics and politics. The Ancient Greek philosophers Protagoras and Prodicus were the most famous of the sophists. It was Protagoras who made the famous assertion that man is the measure of all things.) The three most prominent philosophers of the Ancient Period were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

The Medieval Period, which lasted from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Renaissance. The two most influential philosophers of this period were St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

The Modern Period, which includes everything from the Renaissance up to present day. There were so many great philosophers from this period that it’s difficult to name the most influential, but any list would have to include Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Others from this period whose works were of great influence were John Locke, Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Bertrand Russell, to name but a few. And although her works are not always widely regarded among today’s philosophers (though I have no doubt that one day they will be), I must say that the works of Ayn Rand have had a great influence to me personally.

(The philosophic period since the end of World War II is often referred to as the Post-Modern Era.)

During the Modern Period, specifically during the Age of Enlightenment, Western Philosophy grew in many different directions, many of which had, and still have, a tremendous influence on our lives today. Although it is beyond the scope of this writing to try to describe these schools of thought in full detail, I would like to list some of the more dominant ones along with some of the philosophers that helped to establish them.

Materialism: the belief that all existence is composed only of matter, and that all consciousness is merely a consequence of matter. Prominent philosophers include: Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi.

Rationalism: The belief that the source of man’s knowledge is his reasoning. This was the dominant philosophical belief of Continental Europe during the early part of the Enlightenment. Prominent philosophers include: Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz.

Empiricism: the belief that the source of man’s knowledge is his experience, i.e., that which he acquires through his senses. This was the British counterpart and rival to Rationalism, and has its roots in the ideas of Aristotle. Prominent philosophers include: John Locke, David Hume, and Bishop George Berkeley, the namesake of the famous university in California.

Idealism: the belief the man cannot be sure of anything since he cannot be sure that what he takes in through his senses is a true representation of reality. Prominent philosophers include: Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Existentialism: the idea that the issues of philosophy should be centered on the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of man as they relate to the conditions of his existence. Prominent philosophers include: Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Pragmatism: a uniquely American school of thought that asserts that what works, or what is practical, should be accepted as truth; and that whatever does not work should be rejected. Prominent philosophers include: Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey.

Phenomenology: the belief that the source of man’s knowledge is derived from the objects, or the phenomena, that he experiences through his consciousness. Prominent philosophers include: Edmond Husserl and Marin Heidegger.

Skepticism: within Western Philosophy there are two fundamental types of skepticism: Pyrrhonism and Academical Skepticism. Pyrrhonism, which is based on the ideas of the Ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho of Elis (c.360–c.270 B.C.), is the idea that, because of the fallibility of man’s senses and reasoning, man is unable to assert with certainty any ideas as being truthful. This is not to say that truth does not exist, but only that man has yet to be able to determine what is true. Because of this adherence to absolute doubt, Pyrrhonism is considered to be the extreme form of skepticism. On the other hand, Academical Skepticism, which was the philosophy of the Greek Academy founded by Plato, holds that while man’s ability to reason may be in doubt, his experiences, i.e., what he perceives through his senses, are not. In this sense, even though an absolute certainty of the truth may be in doubt, it is at least possible for man to believe that some ideas are more likely to be true than others, and that therefore, man need not suspend all judgment. For this reason, Academical Skepticism is sometimes referred to as mitigated skepticism. Prominent philosophers of Academical Skepticism include: Plato and David Hume.

Analytic Philosophy: the belief that philosophy cannot establish absolute truths, and that the object of philosophy should be the logical clarification of thought. (The Logical Positivists, which was a movement borne out of the First Vienna Circle held this belief.) Prominent philosophers include: Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell.

Philosophy of Language: the study of meaning through language, and the relationship between language and reality. Prominent philosophers include: Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.V.O. Quine, and Donald Davidson.

Philosophy of Science: the study of the implications that metaphysics and epistemology have with respect to the natural sciences. Prominent philosopher: Karl Popper.

Objectivism: the philosophy of Ayn Rand that asserts that objective reality exists, and that man is a rational animal comprised of a rational self-interest. (Because I consider my own beliefs to be closely aligned with objectivism, throughout this work and where appropriate, I will try to point out how objectivism relates to the various subjects under discussion.)

Section 3 - Metaphysics

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the fundamental nature of existence, and since man is a part of that existence, any discussion of metaphysics should begin by describing the fundamental nature of man himself. Man consists of only two things, body and mind, both of which are required to sustain his life. Therefore, in this regard, they are of equal importance, since in order to sustain man’s life, each is required of the other, i.e., the mind cannot survive without body, and the body cannot last long without the mind. The union of man’s mind and body is what creates the identity, or the essence, of man.

This leads us to ask, what exactly is meant by the essence of man, and is it possible to determine whether this essence is either physical (of the body), or spiritual (of the mind)? But before we can answer this question, we will first need to have a better understanding of what exactly is meant by the terms body and mind.

Body

Obviously, the body is the physical aspect of man; but in philosophy, the body is especially important for the two key roles it plays vis-a-vis the mind. The first involves the receiving of sense data through the body’s sense organs, and the subsequent transmission of this data to the brain. Only after the sense data is received by the physical brain can it be interpreted by the non-physical mind. The second key role the body plays with respect to the mind deals with how physical bodies can come to be altered by non-physical minds. We are all used to the idea that an inanimate object cannot move according to its own volition (for indeed it has no volition) or by some non-physical force, and that the idea of telekinesis (or any other form of mental telepathy) is pure fantasy; however, when we think about what happens when we will ourselves to move about, we realize that something not too dissimilar to this is what is actually going on. When we volitionally move our physical bodies with our non-physical minds, as we do a thousand times a day, what can this be other than some sort of mind over matter? The question of how something that is physical, i.e., the body, can be altered by something that is non-physical, i.e., the mind, is what is in known in philosophy as the mind-body dichotomy, and it was first raised to prominence in the seventeenth century by French philosopher, Rene Descartes. Though the problems posed by the mind-body dichotomy have their origins in the philosophies of the Ancient Greece, and most notably with those of Plato and Aristotle, in modern times it is Descartes who has come to be most associated with them. For this reason, the mind-body dichotomy is sometimes referred to as Cartesian Dualism. (The problem of the mind-body dichotomy will be revisited later on in the section on Descartes.)

Mind

The mind is the spiritual, or conscious, aspect of man; and while its nature is non-physical, its existence is completely dependent upon the body. Man’s conscious mind is comprised three fundamental things: concepts, judgments, and emotions; and when the mind is engaged in any of these things, it is said to be conscious.

Consciousness

So what then is consciousness? Consciousness is simply man’s awareness of what his mind is engaged in. This leads to the question of whether or not man is conscious while he is dreaming, since a mind that is dreaming seems to be engaged. The question here seems to be one of volition. Actions of consciousness are volitional, which means that man has the ability to control how and when to engage his mind. Therefore, since man does not have control of his dreams, he cannot be considered to be conscious while he is dreaming. Man can only be conscious by a volitional act of consciousness, meaning that he must choose to engage his mind in something, and he can only perform such acts when there is something for him to be conscious of. In other words, man cannot be conscious when there is nothing to be conscious of. This does not mean that the objects of man’s consciousness have to be physical in nature. On the contrary, there is a wide array of non-physical things that man can be conscious of. These include such things as emotions, memories, and all the concepts that his knowledge is based on.

As previously mentioned, in order for man to be conscious, he must be conscious of something. Therefore, his concepts must be the concepts of something; his judgments must be the judgments of something, and so forth. It seems to follow then that these somethings have to have existed before they could have been the objects of consciousness. But are these things real, or are they merely mental images created either by the mind or by some other unknown source, and are therefore not derived from any external reality? If they are real (by which I mean separate and independent of man’s mind), how closely do they correspond to an external reality; and if they are not real, how is it ever possible to have an understanding of anything outside ourselves? These are some of the questions that have been asked, pondered, and debated by the greatest of philosophers, and for good reason, for these questions go to the root of man’s primary quest, which is the quest for knowledge. Man can only acquire knowledge through the volitional use his conscious mind, which we call his faculty of reason; and since man’s life depends on his ability to reason successfully, then the validity of his knowledge is indeed an issue of life or death.

Existence

Existence is everything we experience that is separate and outside of the mind. It is this existence, or external reality, that gives us our consciousness. If there were no existence, we could not be conscious. And since we are conscious, existence has to exist, although its form has always been a subject of debate. (Existence Exists is the first of the three axioms of Objectivism; the remaining two, both of which are derived from the first, are Existence is Identity and Consciousness is Identity)

But when we experience existence, how do we establish an order to it? Because if we were not able to provide some sort of order or meaning to existence, then the only thing we would be left with would be a sort of sensory chaos. Scottish philosopher David Hume, who was one of the leading empiricists of what is often called the Scottish Enlightenment, said that we do this by identifying causality. Causality is the idea that one event is the cause of another. According to Hume, we can never observe causality itself; we can only infer it. For instance, if one was to drop a glass vase onto a tile floor and the vase was to shatter, one could say that the dropping of the vase onto the tile floor caused it to shatter. But upon further reflection, we realize that causality itself was not observed, but only that one event was followed by another, i.e., the dropping of the vase was followed by its shattering. The point that Hume makes is that it is only after we have made repeated observations of similar events that we are able identify a necessary connection between them. In other words, we are only able to draw valid conclusions about causes after we have repeatedly experienced their effects. Therefore, in going back to our example, we see there is nothing that would allow us to believe with certainty that a glass vase would shatter on a tile floor unless we had already experienced such an incident. Hume referred to this connection as the constant conjunction, and that this is what provides us with the concept of causality; and that it is only through the concept of causality that we are able to assign any order to the world.

Armed with the concept of causality, philosophers such as David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz began to consider the idea of how man is able formulate valid propositions about the world. Since propositions are statements made by man with the intention of declaring a truth, the question then became, how can the truth of a proposition be validated? For Hume, the answer was either through reason or through experience. From this, Hume came to the conclusion that all propositions could either be classified as propositions of reason or what he called substantial propositions.

Propositions of Reason

Propositions of reason, which are otherwise known as analytic propositions, are statements that are true by definition. The truth of an analytic proposition is therefore considered to be known a priori, which is another way of saying without experience. Thus, the truth of analytic propositions is said to be necessary. For instance, the statements all circles are round and all children are young are two examples of analytic propositions. By simply understanding the terms of the propositions, we know them to be true, and that no experience on our part is necessary to validate their truthfulness.

Substantial Propositions

On the other hand, substantial propositions, or what the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant later referred to as synthetic propositions, are statements in which their truths cannot be determined without experience. In this sense, their truths are said to be contingent, and that their truthfulness can only be validated a posteriori, or through experience. Two examples of synthetic propositions would be some circles are red and some children go to school. Reason alone cannot tell us the truth of these propositions; empirical, i.e., experimental, evidence is therefore required to validate them. As such, the truthfulness of substantial propositions is always contingent on some sort of observation.

The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction

While this classification of propositions seemed to provide a generalized understanding of what could be considered to be true, it did cause some problems for both philosophy and science. It seemed to imply that philosophy was nothing more than an empirical science (a claim that philosophy had always rejected), and that furthermore, with respect to analytic propositions, philosophy was merely an exercise in tautology. (Because of their redundancies, analytic propositions are considered to be tautologies. For example, the statement that all women are females is a tautology, and as such, no real knowledge is gained by it.) As for science, the classification seemed inadequate as well. This is because there are some scientific propositions and theories that can neither be proven to be true analytically or empirically (such as the theories of gravity, evolution, and relativity), yet they are still somehow known to be true.

To resolve this problem, at least as it pertains to science, Immanuel Kant formulated the idea of the synthetic a priori proposition. He gave this name to propositions that could not be shown to be true either by reason or by experience, but nevertheless could be known to be true through argument; and that therefore, through argument science could be used as a method for determining truth. As for philosophy, in his famous work, the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant expanded on this classification of propositions and devised what came to be known as the analytic/synthetic distinction, which he used to justify his own ideas on consciousness and morality.

The analytic/synthetic distinction states that there are only two types of propositions: a priori propositions (analytic) and a posteriori propositions (synthetic), and that together, these propositions form the basis of man’s ability to validate metaphysical truths. But when Kant combined this dichotomy with his own ideas of consciousness, the result was nothing less than the complete rejection of the idea that man could have any knowledge of metaphysics at all. According to Kant, metaphysics itself became an invalid science. Why? Because both of these types of propositions involve concepts; and according to Kant, concepts are based only on what we experience through our senses, and not on the objects of experience themselves. And since we cannot experience these objects directly, but only indirectly through our senses, we cannot validate anything concerning metaphysics as being true. Furthermore, since we can never experience anything directly, which is to say we cannot step outside of ourselves to experience the true nature of something, we will never be able to validate any metaphysical truths. Therefore, it follows that since we cannot validate the truths of existence, we cannot validate our own knowledge. Later, in the twentieth century, the nominalists were able to expand on this idea to undermine logic as well. They did this by attacking the fundamentals of analytic propositions. They claimed that since these propositions are tautological by nature, nothing in the way of knowledge is really ever gained by them; they are essentially nothing more than restated concepts done through man-made and arbitrarily assigned words, which for them was more an issue of linguistics than of philosophy.

Kant rejected the claim that man could ever come to a valid understanding of metaphysics, and therefore asserted that a science of metaphysics was not possible. So how could he account for man’s survival in the world? Wouldn’t the notion of man’s inability to validate anything prevent him from making any advances at all? And why wouldn’t man be doomed to forever make immediate and fatal mistakes? His answer is empiricism. Kant saw the world as an object of common experience; and that by observing the successes and failures of our actions, as well as the results of the actions of others, we could gain enough of an understanding of the world to get by, and that therefore, science could carry on in an empirical sort of way. The problem with this is that it places man’s understanding of the world in the hands of a majority; and that whatever is seen by the majority as being correct, is in fact correct. This line of thinking is a complete rejection of the individual’s faculty of reason, and is rooted in the rejection of the Law of Identity. (It should be noted that the analytic/synthetic distinction was later discredited, at least for many, by the twentieth-century American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine in his 1951 article, Two Dogmas of Empiricism.)

The Law of Identity

The Law of Identity simply states that something is equal to itself and nothing else, or that A=A. (A=A is one of the three axioms of objectivism.) An axiom is a fundamental truth that cannot be broken down into further parts; and that in order to refute it, one has to employ it. Therefore, to refute A = A, we would have to say that A is not equal to A, but that A is equal to something else, say B; but to say this, we would have to know the identities of both A and B, which implies A=A and B=B.) When we state A=A, we imply an understanding of what A is, i.e., A’s identity. To have an understanding of something’s identity means to have an understanding of its attributes and actions. And when we understand the attributes and actions of something, we acquire a valid knowledge of it. This implies that man may indeed have a validated understanding of metaphysics.

We apply the Law of Identity to entities, or existents. Entities are objects of consciousness that have their own ontological existence. Ontology is the philosophic study of the nature of entities, and is one of the oldest disciplines of philosophic thought. In addition to dealing with the issue of the existence (or the non-existence) of entities, ontology deals with issues related to the classification, or grouping, of entities. Entities are classified, or grouped, according to their similarities.

So how shall we determine similarity? The answer is though abstractions. Abstractions are not concretes, but rather concepts of concretes. When we experience an entity, what we are really experiencing are its attributes and actions, i.e., its abstractions. For example, when we see a pencil, what we really see is a concrete that has certain observable attributes, such as long’, thin, yellow, pointed on one end, and dull on the other. All of these attributes, which are taken from a concrete, are abstractions, and are not themselves concretes. In other words, we can see a pencil, but we cannot see a long or a yellow". We identify an entity by its set of abstract attributes. When two or more entities share the same attribute, we say that they are similar, but that they are not necessarily of the same class. For instance, even though pencils and lemons are both yellow, we obviously do not consider pencils and lemons to be the same thing. This is because color is not an essential, or distinguishing, attribute of either pencils or lemons. Entities that share the same essential attributes (there is often more than one) are said to belong to the same class. A class is a group of entities that have at least one shared essential attribute, but may have many different non-essential attributes. Concepts are based on classes, and classes define the identity of all the entities that belong to them.

Realism, Nominalism, and the Problem of Universals

If abstractions are the non-concrete attributes of entities, what can be said about the nature of these attributes? Since the same attribute may contribute to the identity of many different entities, regardless of class, does this mean that its essence is the same across all entities? In other words, can the nature of attributes be said to be universal? And if so, do they exist as independent entities in and of themselves, which is to say, separate and apart from the entities that exhibit them? For instance, since grass and limes are both green, we say that they share the same common attribute of greenness. But while this seems to tell us that the attribute greenness is a universal attribute, it does not tell us whether it actually exits metaphysically in and of itself, or whether it is only a construct of the mind. The question of whether or not universals exist metaphysically is one of the oldest questions in Western Philosophy. It is known as the problem of universals, and its two opposing schools of thought are realism and nominalism.

Realism holds that universals do in fact exist metaphysically as individual entities. However, the nature of this existence has been debated among realists ever since the days of Ancient Greece. Plato believed that universals exist, and that they exist independently of the concretes that exhibit them. Therefore, according to Plato, ideas (or forms, as he called them) such as green, small, round, or any other universal, exists in nature just as much as any other existent does. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that while universals do exist, their existence is dependent upon the concretes that exhibit them.

Nominalism is the school of thought that asserts that while concretes do in fact exist, their universals do not. As with realism, nominalism has its variations, but the central idea to each of these variations is that universals are not real. But if universals are not real, what are they? According to nominalism, they are merely abstract ideas created by the mind in response to sensory awareness, and that they have no correlation to reality. In fact, according to the nominalists they are of no more importance to man’s understanding than the names we assigns to them. (The term nominalism comes from the Latin word nomen, meaning name.)

So what do these two views of universals have to say about our understanding of the world? Everything. This is because in order to have a valid understanding of the world, we must first be able to formulate valid concepts about the world, and furthermore, about all the entities that are contained within it. And we cannot form valid concepts of anything if we cannot first know its identity. The Law of Identity states that A=A, which means that A has to exist and that it has to have an identity; and furthermore, that this identity is not arbitrary, but is instead based on attributes that are grounded in reality. Because nominalism does not permit reality vis-a-vis universals, it cannot permit identity. Therefore, with respect to nominalism, it makes sense to say that we can have no knowledge of metaphysics, but only after we have first denied the Law of Identity. Only when we understand and accept the identity of entities can we form any valid concepts of them. This is because the formulation of valid concepts is the sole foundation of all of man’s knowledge.

Skepticism

Skepticism, which has its origins in Ancient Greece, is the belief that we can have no certainty regarding our ideas of existence. While there has always been skepticism in one form or another, the dominance of religion during medieval times did much to subdue it throughout that era. This was because, for the most part, all knowledge was based on religious dogma, and not on reason. It wasn’t until the Modern Period that a revival of skepticism took place. This revival came about through the debates between rationalism and empiricism, and realism and nominalism. Even though the various sides held to their arguments, some felt that these arguments provided no certainty with regard to ideas of existence. While empiricism saw man as acquiring knowledge through his experience, and while rationalism saw him as acquiring it through his reason, skepticism held that neither side was able to provide any real understanding of what that knowledge was based on, which is to say, the reality that exists separately and independently of man’s mind, and especially with regard to the physical objects that are contained within that existence. The skeptics believed that all objects of existence, regardless of how man acquires his knowledge of them, are experienced merely as concepts of the mind, or in other words, as objects of consciousness, and not as objects of existence; therefore, we can never know for sure how these concepts correspond to the objects themselves. Which is to say, man does not experience physical objects directly; he experiences them indirectly as objects of consciousness, and that because of this indirect experience, he can never know their true nature.

David Hume, who was one of the leading proponents of empiricism, also became one of the leading voices of skepticism. He felt that neither experience nor reasoning, whether done deductively or inductively (or what Hume called demonstrative and probable), could ever provide man with any real understanding of the true nature of the physical world. Hume felt that man’s only alternative was to simply accept this as fact and move on. And that by doing so, despite the fact that man could never assert any statements of truth regarding existence, man could still gather a general understanding of the world through his own experiences.

Materialism

Materialism is the philosophy that holds that everything that exists, exists as matter, and that all substance consists of matter. It further holds that all our ideas are derived from the existence of matter. The philosophy that lies in direct opposition to materialism is idealism.

During the Enlightenment, Thomas Hobbes came to be known as one of the leading proponents of materialism. Later on, it was Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who branded their own version of materialism, and established what came to be known as social materialism. The following are some of the ideas concerning materialism that were put forth by the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes.

Thomas Hobbes

(1588-1679)

While it is certainly true that Thomas Hobbes is best known for his ideas concerning social contract theory, he also had much to say concerning the nature of human understanding and knowledge. The following are his views on these subjects, and have been taken from the first few chapters of his masterpiece, the Leviathan. (A full review of this work is provided in the section on Politics.)

First of all, Hobbes believed that everything that comes to man, comes to him through his sense. He further believed that the sensible qualities of the objects we experience are actually contained within the objects