Lecture 25 Notes
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The Enduring Problem of Perception
From Rationalism to Empiricism
- The Representational Theory of Perception
- According to the representational theory of perception, we have no direct perception of anything except inner representations.
- Naive View: Inner Representations Fully "Resemble" That Which They Represent. For example, my inner representation of an apple is of a round, red object. According to the naive view, the object represented is also round and red.
- Key Problem: What Justifies Resemblance Assumption??? Note: Direct Comparison Between Representation and Represented is NOT Possible!
From Rationalism to Empiricism
- The Rationalists: Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Chomsky
- The Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Skinner
- Rationalists vs. Empiricists
- Innate Knowledge vs. Knowledge Through Experience--The Rationalists believe that we have innate knowledge; the Empiricists believe that we are born with a blank slate and we gain knowledge through experience of the world.
- Competing Paradigms of Knowledge--Euclid vs. Newton
- Euclidean Paradigm--First principles and axioms are used to prove other principles. The goal is certainty. This is the Rationalist paradigm.
- Newtonian Paradigm--Observation is the source of knowledge. The goal is not certainty but predictive power or explanatory power. This is the Empiricist paradigm.
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administrator. (2006, September 19). Lecture 25 Notes. Retrieved August 20, 2008, from Notre Dame OpenCourseWare Web site: http://ocw.nd.edu/philosophy/introduction-to-philosophy-2/Lecture%2025%20Notes.html.
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