1 00:00:04,630 --> 00:00:11,500 Metaphysics and epistemology, metaphysics is the study of reality. 2 00:00:11,500 --> 00:00:20,800 It deals with questions like what is there or what exists, if that's actually a branch of metaphysics called ontology. 3 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:25,570 I think you've probably heard me mention ontology for no ontology. 4 00:00:25,570 --> 00:00:29,890 Is your your ontology is your list of what exists. 5 00:00:29,890 --> 00:00:34,970 So who believes in ghosts? Couple of people. 6 00:00:34,970 --> 00:00:43,000 Okay, well, on your ontology, you have ghosts. If you believe in gods on your list of what exists, you have God. 7 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:47,430 If you don't believe in God, on your list of what exists, God doesn't feature. 8 00:00:47,430 --> 00:00:51,910 And if you don't believe in ghosts, ghosts won't feature on your list of what exists. 9 00:00:51,910 --> 00:00:58,900 But chairs probably would lecturer's probably would necklaces, things like that. 10 00:00:58,900 --> 00:01:09,610 Probably feature on your things list of things that exist. So metaphysics looks at what is there in the world and what is its nature. 11 00:01:09,610 --> 00:01:19,270 Because once you've postulated the existence of something or decided on the existence of something, you have a further question to ask. 12 00:01:19,270 --> 00:01:31,660 Well, what's it like? So, for example, I told you that Heraclitus postulated atoms more than 500 years B.C. 13 00:01:31,660 --> 00:01:39,670 Well, he didn't know what they were like, except that by definition, they were the unknown splitter balls. 14 00:01:39,670 --> 00:01:45,550 Okay. Because an atom was as far as you can get, an atom of water is as far as you can go. 15 00:01:45,550 --> 00:01:52,480 Sorry. No, I'll have the woolston here, please. I don't want them to drink it. 16 00:01:52,480 --> 00:02:01,720 That's it. Just stick it down on the floor. Are. 17 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:06,890 Yeah, exactly. Look, here they are quite a few atoms of water on my finger. 18 00:02:06,890 --> 00:02:16,750 But at some point you'll get down to something such that if you go below that, it won't be water, it'll be CO2, 19 00:02:16,750 --> 00:02:21,760 it'll be a molecule, but it won't be water itself because you'll have gone too far for it to be water. 20 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:28,540 So you postulate the existence of atoms for whatever reason, it could be as a theoretical entity. 21 00:02:28,540 --> 00:02:34,240 So some people postulate God as a theoretical entity. How do we explain all this? 22 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:40,210 We need something like this. Let's call it God. Okay, so how do we postulate this? 23 00:02:40,210 --> 00:02:44,140 We need something unstable. Let's call it an atom. 24 00:02:44,140 --> 00:02:51,220 And of course, you might when you actually because once you've postulated the existence of something and you have some idea of what it's like, 25 00:02:51,220 --> 00:02:56,770 you then want to find out more about it and you want to say if you're right to think it exists. 26 00:02:56,770 --> 00:03:01,690 So, for example, the Higgs bows on. We have reason to think it exists. 27 00:03:01,690 --> 00:03:08,140 We have various ideas of what it's like, which I won't go into because I don't know enough about them. 28 00:03:08,140 --> 00:03:16,090 We believe in its existence enough to spend millions on this Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. 29 00:03:16,090 --> 00:03:21,730 But when we actually find it, if we actually find it, then we're going to know more about it. 30 00:03:21,730 --> 00:03:29,440 And that's what we're doing. We've postulated it. We said this is on our list of things that exist, at least as a hypothesis. 31 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:37,200 Now we want to test that hypothesis and see whether it's true. So metaphysics ask questions like what is that and what is its nature? 32 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:43,300 Now, obviously, many of these questions are questions of science. 33 00:03:43,300 --> 00:03:47,140 So the Higgs goes on. Does it exist? What's it like? 34 00:03:47,140 --> 00:03:51,970 These are questions for science. But questions like causation. 35 00:03:51,970 --> 00:03:59,380 What is causation? Does causation exist? Causation, the relation between cause and effect? 36 00:03:59,380 --> 00:04:05,050 That's not a question for science. The scientists must assume that causation exists. 37 00:04:05,050 --> 00:04:09,430 Philosophers ask, does it? And what's the nature of causation? 38 00:04:09,430 --> 00:04:18,280 Could causation go backwards? For example, could there be a cause that happens after its effect? 39 00:04:18,280 --> 00:04:25,410 Is causation a relation between events or between objects or between facts? 40 00:04:25,410 --> 00:04:37,150 Or what are the relator of the causal relation? So these are all questions of metaphysics and epistemology, on the other hand. 41 00:04:37,150 --> 00:04:47,440 Is the study of knowledge. So there's a big difference between what is the case and what we know or can know to be the case. 42 00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:55,870 There may be things that are the case that we'll never know. And I've mentioned three consecutive sevens in the decimal expansion of PI before. 43 00:04:55,870 --> 00:05:02,050 So what do you know? And what is the case? You hope that's what two if you knows? 44 00:05:02,050 --> 00:05:06,490 Well, actually, if you know something, it must be the case. But what do you hope? 45 00:05:06,490 --> 00:05:10,450 Is that what you believe, you know, is actually the case? 46 00:05:10,450 --> 00:05:16,740 But the study of what is the case and what you know to be the case are two different questions. 47 00:05:16,740 --> 00:05:23,860 One is to do with metaphysics, the others to do with epistemology. So epistemology looks at what can we know? 48 00:05:23,860 --> 00:05:28,930 Can we, for example, know that the sun will rise tomorrow? Do you remember when we were doing logic? 49 00:05:28,930 --> 00:05:32,800 We looked at induction. Can we know it? 50 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:38,110 Well, we don't know for certain. Must knowledge be certain knowledge? 51 00:05:38,110 --> 00:05:44,140 Or could it be the case that we know something that we don't know we know. 52 00:05:44,140 --> 00:05:49,960 Do you see what I mean? What is knowledge like? So actually, I should put that here. 53 00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:54,700 What is knowledge? What can we know? And how can we know it? 54 00:05:54,700 --> 00:06:02,170 So, for example, if there are moral values and we do not know it by sensory perception. 55 00:06:02,170 --> 00:06:11,410 I never see. Right and wrong. Certainly not through my eyes or through tactile sense or anything like that. 56 00:06:11,410 --> 00:06:16,180 So there must be some other way. How do we know that two plus two equals four? 57 00:06:16,180 --> 00:06:21,670 Again, you don't see that that's the case. How do you know that all swans are white? 58 00:06:21,670 --> 00:06:26,140 I know they're not. Well, let's pretend for a minute. How do you know that all Ravens are black? 59 00:06:26,140 --> 00:06:30,160 That's a better one. Well, let's forget albino ones. 60 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:34,960 I know what you're like. I could see you thinking that. 61 00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:41,020 How do we know that, given that if you if you're going to say that all Ravens are white, you're talking about all Ravens, 62 00:06:41,020 --> 00:06:48,130 even the ones that you've never seen, even the ones that nobody has ever seen, even the ones on Mars. 63 00:06:48,130 --> 00:06:51,820 If there are Ravens on Mars, you're saying all Ravens are black. 64 00:06:51,820 --> 00:06:57,070 Includes those Ravens on Mars. Well, how can you know that? 65 00:06:57,070 --> 00:07:00,280 Do you see what I mean? So there are two different questions as what is. 66 00:07:00,280 --> 00:07:04,600 Knowledge in the first place. Must we know that we know something? 67 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:10,840 Or can we know something that we don't know that we know? What's it got to do with justification? 68 00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:15,510 What's it got to do with belief, cetera? And how can we know these things? 69 00:07:15,510 --> 00:07:24,280 So that's the distinction between metaphysics. Metaphysics is to do with truth and what is the case and what's its nature. 70 00:07:24,280 --> 00:07:33,460 Epistemology is to do with knowledge, justification, belief and how we can know whatever it is that we do know. 71 00:07:33,460 --> 00:07:42,870 So that's that's the main distinction, which is Paul myself, CMH to. 72 00:07:42,870 --> 00:07:50,290 What did I say? I said, remember that, right? 73 00:07:50,290 --> 00:07:55,310 I heard myself saying something false. Well, right, okay. 74 00:07:55,310 --> 00:07:59,330 Let's look at ontology. The study of what there is or what exists. 75 00:07:59,330 --> 00:08:08,130 Okay. One question I said earlier that there are many things that questions of what is the case and what is its nature that ask questions for science. 76 00:08:08,130 --> 00:08:14,990 But questions like, does God exist in the God delusion if any of you have read it? 77 00:08:14,990 --> 00:08:18,950 Richard Dawkins claims that this is a scientific heighth hypothesis. 78 00:08:18,950 --> 00:08:29,720 Like any other. Well, if that's true, it must be possible to conduct experiments, observations in order to determine the existence of God. 79 00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:36,530 I have no idea what experiments or observations he has in mind, but I actually don't think this is a question for science. 80 00:08:36,530 --> 00:08:43,700 I think Dawkins is wrong to think this is a straightforward scientific hypothesis. 81 00:08:43,700 --> 00:08:50,120 I think this question for philosophy, there are evidence are reasons for thinking God exists. 82 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:55,880 Take the form of arguments rather than evidence or observations. 83 00:08:55,880 --> 00:09:00,200 So, for example, the most obvious argument is, is the one I used earlier. 84 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:07,930 God is a theoretical entity. He's postulated to explain the existence of the universe. 85 00:09:07,930 --> 00:09:14,420 Okay. That's the simplest arguments. It's the argument that people have used from the beginning of time. 86 00:09:14,420 --> 00:09:22,050 Other people use different arguments. For example, the moral argument. You don't need God to explain the existence of the physical world. 87 00:09:22,050 --> 00:09:28,970 But how come there exist people like us who are capable of rationality, who reason, 88 00:09:28,970 --> 00:09:35,120 who have freewill, who make choices, and in particular make moral choices. 89 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:43,820 People like us who value things, who see right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly and things like that. 90 00:09:43,820 --> 00:09:50,450 Physics can't see right and wrong, good or bad, etc. 91 00:09:50,450 --> 00:09:56,780 This is not the sort of thing that physics or any physical science can investigate. 92 00:09:56,780 --> 00:10:02,840 But you might think that God is the explanation for the existence of things like that. 93 00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:07,340 Or you might deny that. You might say, no, you don't need God to explain right and wrong. 94 00:10:07,340 --> 00:10:11,600 You can easily explain right and wrong by appeal to evolutionary biology. 95 00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:21,080 So altruism is is a question of either kin's support or if I scratch your back, you'll scratch mine, etc. 96 00:10:21,080 --> 00:10:26,690 So if you look at Dawkins chapter, I think it's four, but I may be wrong about that. 97 00:10:26,690 --> 00:10:34,430 He offers four or five arguments for how you can explain morality without God. 98 00:10:34,430 --> 00:10:39,080 So does God exist. Lots of different arguments for the existence of God. 99 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:44,810 Lots of different rejections of those arguments. Lots of different comebacks or those rejections. 100 00:10:44,810 --> 00:10:48,350 And philosophers are going to have a job for at least a couple of hundred years. 101 00:10:48,350 --> 00:10:53,210 I think I think the God Delusion is far from the final word on it. 102 00:10:53,210 --> 00:10:58,100 But there are other questions like that. That's a biggie, obviously. But there are other beings. 103 00:10:58,100 --> 00:11:02,560 Do moral values exist? It's there right and wrong. 104 00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:08,870 Doug does. Right. It's a really a property of an actions being right or wrong. 105 00:11:08,870 --> 00:11:15,080 Or can we reduce the idea of being right to something? 106 00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:19,310 Some people would say natural like happiness. 107 00:11:19,310 --> 00:11:29,090 So the Utilitarians want to reduce happiness to the sorry that reduced right and wrong to the idea of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 108 00:11:29,090 --> 00:11:35,120 So there's no more to right or wrong than how many people you make happy by an action that you do. 109 00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:39,620 Now, what you're doing there is you're reducing one thing to another thing. 110 00:11:39,620 --> 00:11:44,900 So here's something we don't understand right and wrong. And we think that it needs an explanation. 111 00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:53,600 And we attempted to postulate God for it, maybe. But on the other hand, if if we can say, well, actually, we don't have an explanation for that, 112 00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:59,570 but there's actually no more to that than this in particular combinations. 113 00:11:59,570 --> 00:12:06,560 And we do have an explanation for this, or at least this is something for which we can think that there'd be a much easier explanation than God. 114 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:14,750 So on the grounds of Ockham's Razor, given two explanations, both of which work you always go for the simpler one. 115 00:12:14,750 --> 00:12:22,790 If you can explain happiness and you can reduce morality to happiness, then you haven't got a problem with morality. 116 00:12:22,790 --> 00:12:33,530 You don't need to postulate God. See what I mean? So you might I mean, some people try and reduce the idea of gods to. 117 00:12:33,530 --> 00:12:39,920 I mean, actually, Dawkins, again, does this. He thinks that God is the idea we all want for security for a. 118 00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:52,640 Father figure something to rely on. And so he's reducing gone to that the utilitarians try and reduce moral values to happiness. 119 00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:53,990 Count, on the other hand, 120 00:12:53,990 --> 00:13:03,500 isn't a as he thinks right and wrong exist that the moral law exists in and of itself and that it's quite different from anything else. 121 00:13:03,500 --> 00:13:13,250 So if you remember last week, for Kant, a moral action is an action that's carried out because of reverence for the moral law. 122 00:13:13,250 --> 00:13:15,530 It can't be said to be anything else. 123 00:13:15,530 --> 00:13:21,980 It can't be said to be something that just as a matter of fact, produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number. 124 00:13:21,980 --> 00:13:30,710 And reverence for the moral law, says Kant, is not something you can reduce to anything else, something easier to understand. 125 00:13:30,710 --> 00:13:33,890 Another example of this would be mental states. 126 00:13:33,890 --> 00:13:40,160 I thought I was going to come to mental states, but I say it's not on this or I'll put it in any way I do. 127 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:45,860 Mental states exist. Well, what our mental states? 128 00:13:45,860 --> 00:13:51,230 Well, mental states divide into two. There are the so-called prophets propositional attitudes. 129 00:13:51,230 --> 00:14:01,160 So attitudes to propositions, things like beliefs, you can't have a belief unless it's a belief about something, can you? 130 00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:07,880 So I believe that some is wearing sort in the room. 131 00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:11,060 Right. I believe and is wearing maroon. 132 00:14:11,060 --> 00:14:20,690 I believe when Ali's got a necklace on somebody who's got a lovely pink jumper on just in front Bhanot future sort of colour. 133 00:14:20,690 --> 00:14:26,970 Okay. All of those beliefs have a content. But there are other propositions, propositional attitudes. 134 00:14:26,970 --> 00:14:32,750 So I can have a desire towards the same content. Desire is a different attitude. 135 00:14:32,750 --> 00:14:41,000 But I could have the desire that Anna's wearing a necklace or I could wish that Clark and is wearing is also named. 136 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:46,970 That is wearing maroon. I could also intend that I was wearing maroon. 137 00:14:46,970 --> 00:14:52,940 I could set out to make sure she wears maroon today. So I want to use her as an example. 138 00:14:52,940 --> 00:14:57,740 So these are lots of different attitudes to contents and you can get the same 139 00:14:57,740 --> 00:15:03,860 match tude and different contents and the same content and different attitudes. 140 00:15:03,860 --> 00:15:08,240 So that's one type of mental state. The so-called propositional attitudes. 141 00:15:08,240 --> 00:15:19,650 The other type is the so-called qualitative states. So when I looked at this lady's lovely future coloured cardigan, I have a certain experience. 142 00:15:19,650 --> 00:15:23,900 Okay, there's something that it's like for me to see that cardigan. 143 00:15:23,900 --> 00:15:26,570 There's something that it's like for me to see these chairs. 144 00:15:26,570 --> 00:15:32,690 There's something it's like for me to be in pain or to feel a tickle or something like that. 145 00:15:32,690 --> 00:15:38,630 And these are qualitative states. There are states that have a quality to them. 146 00:15:38,630 --> 00:15:45,770 So I'm sure you can do your own rough and ready distinction now into states that have a certain raw feel to them. 147 00:15:45,770 --> 00:15:51,980 And states that are attitudes to propositions. Why do we think these exist? 148 00:15:51,980 --> 00:16:01,390 Well, how could I possibly explain your behaviour without citing desires, beliefs, intentions, hopes, fears? 149 00:16:01,390 --> 00:16:08,630 You know, why did she suddenly get up and leave the room? Answer because she suddenly realised it was the wrong lecture. 150 00:16:08,630 --> 00:16:14,150 She suddenly realised it was the wrong lecture. So she had a belief about what the right lecture was. 151 00:16:14,150 --> 00:16:20,720 She suddenly came to believe that this was the wrong lecture. So she formed an intention to leave the room. 152 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:25,820 So in order to explain your behaviour, I postulate all sorts of beliefs and desires. 153 00:16:25,820 --> 00:16:34,100 But there is another little story woodlice. Why did woodlice congregate under rocks and things? 154 00:16:34,100 --> 00:16:41,510 Tell me it's dark. Why? Why do woodlice congregate where it's dark? 155 00:16:41,510 --> 00:16:52,730 Because they want to be safe. Or something like that. Okay. And they believe it's safe under rocks. 156 00:16:52,730 --> 00:17:05,890 Okay. You're a bit reluctant to attribute beliefs, so you don't give my story. 157 00:17:05,890 --> 00:17:13,580 Yep, absolutely. Okay. When we first year last and certainly if we're speaking to a child or something like that, we would use belief, 158 00:17:13,580 --> 00:17:18,950 desire, psychology to explain woodlice behaviour because that's what comes very easily to us. 159 00:17:18,950 --> 00:17:23,750 So woodlice believe that it's safe under rocks and they want to be safe. 160 00:17:23,750 --> 00:17:26,330 So they intend to go under rocks. 161 00:17:26,330 --> 00:17:35,720 As a matter of fact, the correct explanation of woodlice behaviour is that they embody a mechanism such that when it's dry around them, 162 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:39,820 they move and they move in a speed that's determined by. 163 00:17:39,820 --> 00:17:49,240 How dry it is around them. And as it gets damper, they they come to a halt and instantly they move in whatever direction they happen to be pointed. 164 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:55,180 They don't sort of turn around and make for that rock. If they're standing in that direction, there's rock over. 165 00:17:55,180 --> 00:17:58,720 They'll they'll go for that one. Except they're not going for that one, are they? 166 00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:03,460 They're being pushed by the dryness. Now, once you know that explanation. 167 00:18:03,460 --> 00:18:09,580 I got it right. That's right. I wasn't going to use technical terminology, but they are. 168 00:18:09,580 --> 00:18:15,070 OK. So that's the proper explanation. Would last behaviour, once you know about Cannis, is like this. 169 00:18:15,070 --> 00:18:23,140 You can explain the behaviour of any woodlouse anywhere at all as long as it's a normal woodlouse, anywhere at all, at any time. 170 00:18:23,140 --> 00:18:31,450 Once you know that belief desires have been made redundant, suddenly, you know, why should you postulate woodlice, beliefs? 171 00:18:31,450 --> 00:18:39,000 Now, woodlice, desires. In fact, all their behaviour is explicable in terms of things like like kinases. 172 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:44,060 They're not all countries, but they're things like that. What about your behaviour? 173 00:18:44,060 --> 00:18:49,450 Can I explain your behaviour? Well, a lot of your behaviour, I can't explain. If I cheque my chalk at you. 174 00:18:49,450 --> 00:18:55,160 That shows how old I am. And if I cut my chalk, you're going to duck. 175 00:18:55,160 --> 00:18:59,050 That's not a desire or belief driven behaviour. 176 00:18:59,050 --> 00:19:03,940 That's just a hardwired response to the fact you see something coming towards you. 177 00:19:03,940 --> 00:19:09,130 If you put your hands on a hot plate, do the same thing. So lots of your behaviour and that's just one. 178 00:19:09,130 --> 00:19:14,500 If you hear an ambulance coming, you'll move out of the way. That's a classically conditioned response. 179 00:19:14,500 --> 00:19:19,660 Lot of your behaviour doesn't need to be explained by appeal to beliefs and desires. 180 00:19:19,660 --> 00:19:24,040 But much of it does. And this is why we postulate beliefs and desires. 181 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:29,530 This is why we say that beliefs and desires exist. But perhaps ethologists, 182 00:19:29,530 --> 00:19:38,500 people who study animal behaviour are going to find out one day that we can explain all our behaviour in terms of brain states. 183 00:19:38,500 --> 00:19:46,030 And it might be that we can one time in the future will be able to soar off the skull of newborn 184 00:19:46,030 --> 00:19:52,060 babies and fitter perspex dome instead so that we don't have to go in for all this interpretation, 185 00:19:52,060 --> 00:19:56,440 which we're actually not very good at, is trying to find out what we're all going to do instead. 186 00:19:56,440 --> 00:20:01,090 We can just look at somebodies brain and say, ha, okay, I know what you're going to do. 187 00:20:01,090 --> 00:20:05,980 Perhaps we'll all where woolly hats so we can surprise people or something like that. 188 00:20:05,980 --> 00:20:13,310 But do you see if we can explain all our behaviour without appealing to beliefs and desires? 189 00:20:13,310 --> 00:20:19,480 No more. Have reason to think you had a mind than we do to think woodlice do. 190 00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:25,900 So again, the question do mental state sexist is a huge question. 191 00:20:25,900 --> 00:20:35,080 Lots of people try and reduce mental states to physical states and then explain physical states that it's much easier to explain physical states, 192 00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:43,440 the mental states. But if you don't want to be a reductionist, if you want to say you cannot reduce mental states to physical states, 193 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:49,780 and there are all sorts of reasons to think you can't, then you're going to have to postulate mental states. 194 00:20:49,780 --> 00:20:53,830 You're going to have to postulate contents and qualia. 195 00:20:53,830 --> 00:21:04,000 And the minute you do, you're going to have problems with with functionalism, with physics, being able ever to understand mental states. 196 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:09,010 And, my goodness, you might end up having to postulate God or something again, or maybe not. 197 00:21:09,010 --> 00:21:13,000 We don't know. So, again, the question is, what is this? 198 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,560 Does it exist at all? If it does exist, can we reduce it to something else? 199 00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:22,000 If we can't reduce it to something else? What is its nature? Here's another one. 200 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:27,340 What about possibilities? OK. I might have been wearing jeans, mightn't I? 201 00:21:27,340 --> 00:21:31,820 OK, that's a possibility. But what's more, it's a possibility. 202 00:21:31,820 --> 00:21:39,220 That's actual, isn't it? It's an actual possibility. Well, what is a possibility? 203 00:21:39,220 --> 00:21:47,840 What's the nature of a possibility? It's not something that actually exists, is it? 204 00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,400 OK, so maybe we've got to postulate a different sort of existence. 205 00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:57,970 Now, there are things that actually exist and there are things that possibly exist and there are things that don't even possibly exist. 206 00:21:57,970 --> 00:22:04,770 So there are square circles don't even possibly exist unicorns. 207 00:22:04,770 --> 00:22:12,160 Might they exist or not? Marianne's wearing jeans certainly is an existing possibility. 208 00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:17,260 Do you see what I mean? You're now getting layers of existence, different levels of existence. 209 00:22:17,260 --> 00:22:27,440 Well, in that little kitten on the floor down there, is it fat? You all looked you understood what my words were. 210 00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:33,760 Do you need to postulate a little kitten down there in order to give meaning to my words? 211 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,890 Some people have thought that if you do, then that little kitten exists. 212 00:22:37,890 --> 00:22:46,930 But it doesn't exist like. And does. So you need, again, another layer of existence. 213 00:22:46,930 --> 00:22:52,960 Well, some people have said that it's not really existence, let's call it persistence instead. 214 00:22:52,960 --> 00:23:01,900 But but the thing is, you've got to say, if you say that every day in order for you to understand the meaning of that little kitten is fat, 215 00:23:01,900 --> 00:23:05,470 there needs to be a concept of a kitten or a kitten or some. 216 00:23:05,470 --> 00:23:12,970 You know, there's a kitten that gives meaning to the words, but it's not an existing kitten like the kitten that some of you may have at home. 217 00:23:12,970 --> 00:23:19,240 So it's a persisting kitten or a an imaginary kitten is another way of thinking about it. 218 00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:25,600 But do imaginary kittens exist? Well, do they in imagination. 219 00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:30,670 There you are. There is another way of thinking of it. So its existence, different types of existence. 220 00:23:30,670 --> 00:23:36,220 There's existence in the real world and there's existence in your imagination. That's existence in novels. 221 00:23:36,220 --> 00:23:40,840 I mean, when when it comes to this little kitten down here, it could be black ginger or anything. 222 00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:46,110 Couldn't it? I haven't told you anything about what it's like, but we all know that Sherlock Holmes wore a door. 223 00:23:46,110 --> 00:23:50,000 I didn't mean to do something like that, wasn't it? 224 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:56,500 OK. So they've got, again, different levels of existence. We all know that unicorns have horns. 225 00:23:56,500 --> 00:24:02,920 Well, there aren't any unicorns. Well, how can unicorns have horns if there aren't any? 226 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:07,760 Do you see any way? So do possibilities exist? 227 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:14,350 It is a really difficult one. That's the sort of thing that leads people to postulate the existence of possible worlds. 228 00:24:14,350 --> 00:24:21,640 And I think I've mentioned possible worlds to before. Lots of people postulate possible worlds, but they're not realists about possible worlds. 229 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,600 Mathematicians, logicians, physicists, many of them all. 230 00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:30,940 All those disciplines postulate possible worlds. Not all people in those disciplines do. 231 00:24:30,940 --> 00:24:38,690 But if you postulate possible worlds, you can see possible worlds as reducing to possible situations in this world, 232 00:24:38,690 --> 00:24:47,950 or you can see possible worlds as real. And David Lewis, very famous philosopher, postulated the reality of possible worlds. 233 00:24:47,950 --> 00:24:51,970 And he said, well, I've never really had a very good argument against them. 234 00:24:51,970 --> 00:24:58,660 I look at blank astonishment. Doesn't count as a as an argument. 235 00:24:58,660 --> 00:25:02,620 What about physical objects? Well, you might say, well, obviously they exist. 236 00:25:02,620 --> 00:25:09,100 You know, how can I deny that that exists? Okay, well, let's do a Cartesian thought experiment. 237 00:25:09,100 --> 00:25:18,130 In fact, let's do the Cartesian thought experiment. And I have some water. 238 00:25:18,130 --> 00:25:26,950 Descartes was interested in the facts that we know that some of our beliefs are false. 239 00:25:26,950 --> 00:25:31,540 But in the very nature of things, we don't know which those beliefs are. 240 00:25:31,540 --> 00:25:42,410 You see what I mean? Would you like to tell me for sure that all your beliefs are true? 241 00:25:42,410 --> 00:25:49,490 Right. OK. What about you? Oh, no, it isn't. 242 00:25:49,490 --> 00:25:56,420 No, no. A lot of your beliefs are false. I guarantee if you believe it, you believe that it's true. 243 00:25:56,420 --> 00:26:00,500 That doesn't make it true, does it? 244 00:26:00,500 --> 00:26:04,100 No. I mean, you believe it's true. 245 00:26:04,100 --> 00:26:08,750 Exactly. But this is the problem with beliefs. Every belief you have, 246 00:26:08,750 --> 00:26:18,830 you believe it's true because that sort of belief is to have the attitude of belief towards a particular content is is to assent to, 247 00:26:18,830 --> 00:26:25,100 as philosophers would say, that content. So in believing that this chair is blue, there's the content. 248 00:26:25,100 --> 00:26:30,410 That chair is blue. And I assent to it. I say, that is true. 249 00:26:30,410 --> 00:26:40,370 That's what a belief is. But of course, I may be wrong. I may be colour-blind or something like that. 250 00:26:40,370 --> 00:26:43,880 Well, given the circumstances in this case, I probably would say I know. 251 00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,970 But the fact is, let's not bother about that. I was just offering that as a bit. 252 00:26:47,970 --> 00:26:53,390 But you have beliefs about a lot of things. The question is, you know that many of those beliefs are false. 253 00:26:53,390 --> 00:27:03,080 But you don't know which they are. And in the very nature of things, anything that you believe, you believe to be true, because that's what truth is. 254 00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:10,220 You cannot have a belief that you don't believe to be true. But you do know that not all your beliefs are true. 255 00:27:10,220 --> 00:27:17,420 Well, Descartes became very interested in this. And he said, well, what I need to do is I'm going to take myself away from the world in the world. 256 00:27:17,420 --> 00:27:21,680 We have to assume that our beliefs are true because we have to act on them. 257 00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:26,990 So in believing that she has blue, if I'm looking for something to match it, I'll go and look for something blue. 258 00:27:26,990 --> 00:27:34,210 OK. We have to act on our beliefs. He's going to put himself when think, OK, how do I know that my beliefs are true? 259 00:27:34,210 --> 00:27:40,610 What is it that justifies me in believing that my beliefs are true? 260 00:27:40,610 --> 00:27:52,760 And he thought the method I'm going to use to do this is to treat as if false, any belief I can entertain the slightest doubt about. 261 00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:57,140 So if the belief that I believe to be true could be false. 262 00:27:57,140 --> 00:28:03,470 I'm going to put it on one side as if it really is false. And by that means, hope to find something that I can. 263 00:28:03,470 --> 00:28:10,820 That is absolutely certain. And from that, maybe I can build up the rest of my knowledge. 264 00:28:10,820 --> 00:28:15,380 So it's a bit like, you know, some of the apples in your baskets are rotten, but you don't know which they are. 265 00:28:15,380 --> 00:28:20,690 So you take each one out. And I need that's a little bruised. You put on one side as being maybe that's rotten. 266 00:28:20,690 --> 00:28:24,440 And you hope to be left with only the good apples in the basket. 267 00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:32,990 So Descartes wanted to look at his beliefs and say, if there's any about which I can entertain the slightest doubt, I'm going to treat it as a false. 268 00:28:32,990 --> 00:28:37,950 OK. So he's not saying that his beliefs are false. He's saying it's as if they're false for this. 269 00:28:37,950 --> 00:28:52,440 So first, he went down three levels of doubt. The first one was the argument from illusion. 270 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:57,990 OK. The argument from illusion tells us that while our senses of deceived us. 271 00:28:57,990 --> 00:29:00,750 I expect all of you have been deceived by your senses. 272 00:29:00,750 --> 00:29:06,930 Sometimes you've got home that wonderful skirt that you thought would go so well with that blouse, and you've got the colour wrong. 273 00:29:06,930 --> 00:29:12,870 The lights in this shop were the wrong colour or something like that. We've all been deceived by our senses at some time. 274 00:29:12,870 --> 00:29:15,930 Well, if we've all been deceived by our senses at some sometime. 275 00:29:15,930 --> 00:29:22,260 Should we take all the beliefs that we base on our senses and put them in the doubting basket? 276 00:29:22,260 --> 00:29:27,330 Treat them as if they're false. Should we? If our senses has deceived us. 277 00:29:27,330 --> 00:29:32,860 Should we treat all our sensory beliefs as false? OK. 278 00:29:32,860 --> 00:29:37,850 Put your hands up if you think. Yes. OK. 279 00:29:37,850 --> 00:29:41,720 Put your hand up and think. No. OK. 280 00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:54,660 Now tell me why you think no. Why must I be that possibility? 281 00:29:54,660 --> 00:30:01,150 Oh, no. Well, hang on, we've got two lots of Carns no's here. 282 00:30:01,150 --> 00:30:05,890 That's what we're suggesting, is that your sensitive sometimes deceived you. 283 00:30:05,890 --> 00:30:10,450 Does that mean you can never be sure that your senses are not deceiving you? 284 00:30:10,450 --> 00:30:14,910 Now. No, you can't be sure. 285 00:30:14,910 --> 00:30:18,640 So sometimes we do trust our senses, don't we? 286 00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:27,550 I mean, as a matter of fact, how do you know that your senses have deceived you? 287 00:30:27,550 --> 00:30:33,340 Well, hang on, you experiment, you prove it, how how do you do this through your senses? 288 00:30:33,340 --> 00:30:40,250 Can you give me an example? Possibly not. Woo! 289 00:30:40,250 --> 00:30:45,760 Yes. Yes. Good one. Okay. So your belief that it was heavy. 290 00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:52,540 Although that's actually not a sensory belief properties. It is. 291 00:30:52,540 --> 00:31:01,030 No, no, but it's not. When your belief that the frying pan was heavy, you can't really look at a frying pan until it's going to be happy. 292 00:31:01,030 --> 00:31:06,380 Maybe you can. Maybe. Let me give you Descartes own example, because I think it's a it's a good one. 293 00:31:06,380 --> 00:31:11,230 Day, Descartes said if you put a stick in water and it looks bent. 294 00:31:11,230 --> 00:31:17,740 Okay. You've got reason for thinking that stick is bent. You take it out of water, move it straight. 295 00:31:17,740 --> 00:31:21,430 You've got reason for thinking the stick straight. Well, okay, there are two possibilities. 296 00:31:21,430 --> 00:31:25,810 Maybe when you put the stick in water, it bends it. 297 00:31:25,810 --> 00:31:29,530 Or maybe it just appears bent. So how do you test this? 298 00:31:29,530 --> 00:31:35,320 You put your hands in the water. You feel sick. When it's under water and low, it's straight. 299 00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:40,510 Okay, so you've now got two reasons for thinking the stick straight and only one. 300 00:31:40,510 --> 00:31:47,650 But the thing is, you couldn't even know that your senses were deceiving you unless you rely on your senses. 301 00:31:47,650 --> 00:31:56,440 So all we got to hear from the argument from illusion is that we know that not all our sensory beliefs are true. 302 00:31:56,440 --> 00:32:00,370 Not all our sensory beliefs are true. 303 00:32:00,370 --> 00:32:10,270 Sometimes usually in an unusual psycho optimal conditions or maybe not unusual, but not perfect. 304 00:32:10,270 --> 00:32:14,370 Psycho physical conditions or sensory beliefs deceive us. 305 00:32:14,370 --> 00:32:23,920 But you can't go from the universal possibility of illusion to the possibility of universal illusion. 306 00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:28,150 If you want me to say that again. No. Oh, I might say that. 307 00:32:28,150 --> 00:32:30,160 What did not you say? It's gone. Thank you. Thank you. 308 00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:40,450 You cannot go from the universal possibility of illusion to the possibility of universal illusion. 309 00:32:40,450 --> 00:32:46,540 You with me. Okay. So all those who said no, you're right. 310 00:32:46,540 --> 00:32:51,100 We do know that our senses sometimes deceive us. But that doesn't tell us that we. 311 00:32:51,100 --> 00:33:01,630 We can put all our sensory beliefs into the doubting basket because we would never know that our senses deceive us unless we rely on our senses. 312 00:33:01,630 --> 00:33:15,120 So that's the first and second argument. Descartes went to lose the arguments from the demon, the demon argument, rather the argument from the dean. 313 00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:21,400 The dean, sorry, a dream. And anyone who knows what they're talking about will know that I'm talking rubbish. 314 00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:30,220 Second one was the dream, the argument from dreaming. Okay, so you're sitting here, you're in the fire, you're the lights are on. 315 00:33:30,220 --> 00:33:36,640 Everything's fine. You're looking at your hands in front of you. How can you doubt that your senses aren't deceiving you now, are they? 316 00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:43,150 But on the other hand, says Descartes. Have you ever been in a situation where everything seems to you to be a certain 317 00:33:43,150 --> 00:33:48,400 way and then you've suddenly woken up and found it wasn't that way at all? 318 00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:54,730 So it looks as if all the sensory evidence is in. And yet you're still wrong. 319 00:33:54,730 --> 00:33:58,300 Your belief is false. So you believe that the hand is in front of you. 320 00:33:58,300 --> 00:34:05,020 It's exactly with you as it would be if your hand was in front of you, but your hands not in front of you. 321 00:34:05,020 --> 00:34:13,180 It's a matter of fact, you're dreaming. Okay. Does that mean we should put all our sensory beliefs in the doubting basket? 322 00:34:13,180 --> 00:34:17,960 Put your hands up if you think. Yes. Put your hand up if you think. 323 00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,440 No. You're beginning to get this now. 324 00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:34,320 You don't mean like some you sort of jump. 325 00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:42,250 Sorry, I've picked on you and you don't have to. OK. 326 00:34:42,250 --> 00:34:51,340 Would anyone else like to answer what? Why can we not put all of sensory beliefs in the doubting basket now? 327 00:34:51,340 --> 00:34:58,810 Because we wake up and what does that tell us? That we're not always asleep. 328 00:34:58,810 --> 00:35:02,640 Exactly. That sometimes our beliefs are true sometimes. 329 00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:07,270 And I've got my hand in front of me like that and I'm thinking my hands in front of me. I am awake. 330 00:35:07,270 --> 00:35:13,480 And the reason I know that is because if I didn't wake up, I couldn't know I was dreaming. 331 00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,680 So it's exactly the same structure of arguments as in the first one. 332 00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:25,980 But what if we got rid of all sensory beliefs that are formed in optimal psycho physical conditions here? 333 00:35:25,980 --> 00:35:35,380 Here we've got rid of a lot more, haven't we? Why do you got to. 334 00:35:35,380 --> 00:35:49,020 Well, it's a contrast, isn't it? Yeah, right. 335 00:35:49,020 --> 00:35:59,160 But but in order to know that they are like that, they must have woken up. 336 00:35:59,160 --> 00:36:06,940 Well, OK, but but with you, I'm quite sure you've had lucid dream once where you've had the dream and suddenly you're broken up and you thought, 337 00:36:06,940 --> 00:36:15,490 wow, you know, who could have believed that I was dreaming? Sometimes you can know your dream, but it's the lucid dream. 338 00:36:15,490 --> 00:36:19,420 That's that's good for this one. But what have we lost here? 339 00:36:19,420 --> 00:36:25,420 What's in the doubting basket now? Instantly. 340 00:36:25,420 --> 00:36:31,000 There's nothing I want you to notice that lots of people think. I mean, it's hell sheer hell. 341 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:40,030 Being a philosopher is a party because when people find out you're a philosopher, they're going for little games like, oh, good. 342 00:36:40,030 --> 00:36:45,400 Tell me that this exists. Does this exist? What? And you say something and they say, oh, no, it doesn't. 343 00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:51,460 Tell me how. Tell me how. And they're playing a sort of sceptic's game that's extremely irritating. 344 00:36:51,460 --> 00:36:57,640 I hope none of you ever played. Descartes found reasons for doubting everything. 345 00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:02,680 He didn't just doubt. He took beliefs he believed to be true. 346 00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:11,080 And he looked for a reason to doubt them. And it's only when he found a reason to doubt them that he put them on one side. 347 00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:17,020 So he wasn't just doubting. He wasn't playing the skip the sceptics game. 348 00:37:17,020 --> 00:37:21,430 He was actually looking for reasons to doubt. So what have we lost here? 349 00:37:21,430 --> 00:37:31,220 What's in the doubting basket? Once you've got the argument from dreaming. 350 00:37:31,220 --> 00:37:40,760 Well, no, because when you are, you know that sometimes your belief that a hand in front of you is correct is true. 351 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:44,930 So you don't you don't lose that. You do sometimes see your hands in front of me. 352 00:37:44,930 --> 00:37:49,960 But what do you lose? 353 00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:59,350 No, no, no, we're looking for certainty, we're wanting to know what isn't certain as a result of this, some things are left certain. 354 00:37:59,350 --> 00:38:03,070 I mean, it's left certain, for example. Well, okay, I'm asking you that. 355 00:38:03,070 --> 00:38:08,950 What is left certain? That's when you are awake. 356 00:38:08,950 --> 00:38:18,220 Your jury, your beliefs, your sensory beliefs, if they're formed in an optimal psycho physical conditions, are true. 357 00:38:18,220 --> 00:38:22,540 You still got no reason to doubt that. 358 00:38:22,540 --> 00:38:32,890 It's just that you can say that unless I know I'm awake, I cannot know for sure that there is a hand in front of me. 359 00:38:32,890 --> 00:38:36,070 Okay. Do I know that I'm really awake? Answer no, I do. 360 00:38:36,070 --> 00:38:45,630 Because I could be having a lucid dream, but I do know that hands exist and that I can see them and that chair's existence, that I can't see them. 361 00:38:45,630 --> 00:38:53,320 Or if you do not like that. Because I can. In our dreams, we sometimes put together things in strange ways. 362 00:38:53,320 --> 00:39:02,010 I can know that blue exists. So you can go to simple things horses, horns, whiteness, things like that. 363 00:39:02,010 --> 00:39:05,560 The simple things from which we build up complex things. 364 00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:12,340 I know that they exist. So we're losing something of the world here, but we haven't lost the whole world yet. 365 00:39:12,340 --> 00:39:20,290 There's still an awful lot that we know. I don't know anything to be true. Now that I do have reason to believe that it is true. 366 00:39:20,290 --> 00:39:26,820 If it is true, sometimes I went either way and I have these reasons to believe things, 367 00:39:26,820 --> 00:39:35,950 but that we get down to the demon argument and that the demon argument, Descartes says, okay, well, 368 00:39:35,950 --> 00:39:44,350 I'm assuming on time that these experiences that I have as of my hands and of blueness and so on, 369 00:39:44,350 --> 00:39:51,190 I'm assuming that these experiences are actually caused by something outside myself and that 370 00:39:51,190 --> 00:39:58,930 the experience that I have is is a guide to the nature of the cause of these experiences. 371 00:39:58,930 --> 00:40:09,940 So my experience of blueness as of a blue chair is causing me to think that that experience is being caused by a chair that's blue. 372 00:40:09,940 --> 00:40:25,080 And you've got a problem here because. In order to know that A causes B, you've got to be here, haven't you? 373 00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:30,000 You've got to see a correlation between A and B in the same way to know that A resembles B. 374 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:36,000 You've got to be able see both A and B. But are we ever in this position with result? 375 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:43,290 With respect to our experiences and the causes of our experience? 376 00:40:43,290 --> 00:40:50,340 Never. We're always here, aren't we? Leave enough room for my arrow. 377 00:40:50,340 --> 00:40:54,300 We experience the world, if you like, through our experiences. 378 00:40:54,300 --> 00:41:02,970 We can get outside experiences to see what the world is like, to see what's causing these experiences. 379 00:41:02,970 --> 00:41:11,700 So it could be that our experiences are caused by something completely other than we take them to be caused by. 380 00:41:11,700 --> 00:41:16,770 So here's the demon or I know it looks like a cat, but it's a demon. 381 00:41:16,770 --> 00:41:22,830 Okay. A demon opens up a gap between our experiences themselves and the causes of those experiences. 382 00:41:22,830 --> 00:41:27,870 And it's actually says, how do we even know these experiences are cause? 383 00:41:27,870 --> 00:41:34,290 Why aren't there just experiences, one following the other, following the other, following the other? 384 00:41:34,290 --> 00:41:39,480 And there's nothing out there at all. And actually, Descartes at that point says, I can't do this. 385 00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:46,950 I'm going to put the demon there because I can't. I find it impossible to believe there's nothing other than my experiences. 386 00:41:46,950 --> 00:41:54,600 But I can think that there's some cause of my experiences, which is completely other than I take it to be. 387 00:41:54,600 --> 00:42:03,300 And some people have tried putting evil scientists in here. But that doesn't work because an evil scientist isn't magic. 388 00:42:03,300 --> 00:42:11,580 What you're trying to do, the demon is just there because it's impossible to imagine that your experiences don't have causes at all. 389 00:42:11,580 --> 00:42:28,530 So you're putting something there so that there is a cause, but the cause is completely other than you take it to be. 390 00:42:28,530 --> 00:42:36,210 He didn't panic for that reason. No, he just literally couldn't wrap his mind around the idea that there's nothing outside causing your experiences. 391 00:42:36,210 --> 00:42:49,380 You try it. It's really very difficult to to get yourself to the point where you understand that there might be no physical world at all. 392 00:42:49,380 --> 00:42:57,510 Your experiences could be exactly as there are as they are, even though nothing else else exists. 393 00:42:57,510 --> 00:43:04,230 So all there is is Anne's experiences as of Marianne giving a lecture in philosophy. 394 00:43:04,230 --> 00:43:15,480 There's no Marianne, there's no philosophy, there's no lecture. There's no blue chair. 395 00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:22,010 It's it is a frightening experience. Yeah, but it's nothing to do with God. 396 00:43:22,010 --> 00:43:31,120 It's. Yeah. Yes. 397 00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:38,660 Okay. But but this is a different thing because it's it's not worrying about that sort of thing. 398 00:43:38,660 --> 00:43:44,570 But it is a worrying thought. I mean, we want our beliefs about the external world to be true, don't we? 399 00:43:44,570 --> 00:43:53,210 And yet what's happening is that we're discovering that what Descartes said was that actually once you've done this thought experiment, 400 00:43:53,210 --> 00:44:05,560 you realise that there's the world. And there's your picture of the world. 401 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:12,640 OK. All your beliefs that you've formed about the world and you go through the world updating your beliefs all the time. 402 00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:26,290 But once you've retreated into your picture of your picture of the world, which should be here, run out of room. 403 00:44:26,290 --> 00:44:37,390 The world actually becomes unnecessary because if all there was was this, you couldn't ever get outside to see whether this is there or not. 404 00:44:37,390 --> 00:44:42,550 So once you've pushed yourself back into a reflective position, 405 00:44:42,550 --> 00:44:48,640 you see that the world that you picture is quite different from your picture 406 00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:53,410 of the world and that your picture of the world could be exactly as it is. 407 00:44:53,410 --> 00:45:00,040 Even though the world was completely different. And that's the Cartesian thought experiment. 408 00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,440 That's hyperbolic. All doubt at this point. You. 409 00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:13,780 You've started the question of how could we know? I mean, we do take ourselves to know that there's an external world, a physical world out there. 410 00:45:13,780 --> 00:45:25,150 But what sort what possible justification could we have for this, given that all we can do is go and look for more experiences? 411 00:45:25,150 --> 00:45:29,710 And our experiences are exactly what we are asking. 412 00:45:29,710 --> 00:45:34,950 Are they caused by something? And if so, what? I can't step outside my thoughts. 413 00:45:34,950 --> 00:45:39,130 It's of course, no scientific experiment is going to tell you the answer. 414 00:45:39,130 --> 00:45:46,400 Between all my experiences caused by an external world or are they caused by an evil demon? 415 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:50,950 There's no I can't go down and say, oh, is it a chair? But yes, here we are. 416 00:45:50,950 --> 00:45:58,960 It's a chair. Why can't I do that? All I'm doing is giving myself more experiences on time. 417 00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:04,710 I'm now having a tactile experience as well as a visual experience, and there's an auditory one there as well. 418 00:46:04,710 --> 00:46:11,450 But I mean, they're only more experienced, aren't they? You. 419 00:46:11,450 --> 00:46:18,010 On. I'm having another experience at this moment. It's an auditory one, as you know. 420 00:46:18,010 --> 00:46:24,130 It's as all someone what they do. 421 00:46:24,130 --> 00:46:29,050 But no, no, hang on. You haven't got yourself into hyperbolic all doubt, Hashi. 422 00:46:29,050 --> 00:46:40,780 Why hasn't she got into hyperbolic out? Yes. 423 00:46:40,780 --> 00:46:49,060 She said no. She still thinks that I should think that she exists. 424 00:46:49,060 --> 00:46:57,700 I have not. I have very good reason to think I am having experiences as of a female wearing maroon sitting in front of me who is speaking to me. 425 00:46:57,700 --> 00:47:06,130 But these are just more of my experiences, aren't I? I can no more get outside my experiences to cheque whether ands really there and whether she's 426 00:47:06,130 --> 00:47:10,660 really telling me what I think she's telling me that I can to see whether the chair is there. 427 00:47:10,660 --> 00:47:20,220 All I've got is more experiences. So all I've got it is more of this here. 428 00:47:20,220 --> 00:47:24,670 And I still haven't got this. Which is what I need. 429 00:47:24,670 --> 00:47:31,960 So there's no point in looking for corroboration, which is why there can't be any scientific way of testing. 430 00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:39,270 Which hypothesis is true. So here I have my experience, the external world of those I can be certain. 431 00:47:39,270 --> 00:47:47,980 Okay, I aps I'm absolutely sure now that I am having experiences as of a lecture theatre, etc. 432 00:47:47,980 --> 00:47:53,290 What I want to know is all those experiences causing me to form beliefs that are true. 433 00:47:53,290 --> 00:48:03,340 I there is a lecture theatre. Now notice the difference between I believe there's a lecture theatre and there is a lecture theatre. 434 00:48:03,340 --> 00:48:07,870 The latter is metaphysics, isn't it. The former is this symbology. 435 00:48:07,870 --> 00:48:15,790 I can be certain of the former. I can be certain of my own beliefs, but I can't be certain that these beliefs are true. 436 00:48:15,790 --> 00:48:25,810 Can I? And it's at this level of hyperbolic all doubt, at the third level of doubt that you start to wonder. 437 00:48:25,810 --> 00:48:32,710 Do physical objects exist at all? Interestingly, Descartes thought that you could show that they did. 438 00:48:32,710 --> 00:48:36,040 Descartes wasn't a sceptic. Lots of people think he was. 439 00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:45,070 But in fact, he wasn't. He did this sceptical thought experiment in order to pre-empt scepticism. 440 00:48:45,070 --> 00:48:56,170 He ended up believing in the existence of a physical world, but he thought it was necessary to believe in God first. 441 00:48:56,170 --> 00:49:00,400 He did. That's right. Coquito ergo sum. 442 00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:05,360 And the reason he did that. Can anyone think why he did that? Thinking of what I told you. 443 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:13,080 What's that? Oh, yes, that's right. Once you've got yourself back into your picture of your picture of the world 444 00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:18,300 and your inability to determine the existence of the world that you picture, 445 00:49:18,300 --> 00:49:22,740 the only thing of which you can be certain is that your thinking, isn't it? 446 00:49:22,740 --> 00:49:28,110 So here's my belief. And that's the content. 447 00:49:28,110 --> 00:49:38,850 And my belief is. The chair is blue. 448 00:49:38,850 --> 00:49:48,620 I've got the attitude, a belief towards that. I've now got another attitude, which is that a doubt towards that belief? 449 00:49:48,620 --> 00:49:56,280 Do you see what I mean? You can't doubt your own beliefs without seeing that you have these beliefs. 450 00:49:56,280 --> 00:50:06,840 And that's what Descartes says. He said, the very act of doubting makes me see that I believe and if I believe I exist, 451 00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:14,940 I don't know what I am like, but I exist because I exist as a thinking thing, as a thing that thinks so. 452 00:50:14,940 --> 00:50:24,720 I think, therefore, I am is because that once you've been hyperbolic comes out, that is the only certainty you have. 453 00:50:24,720 --> 00:50:33,180 You actually have a few more about what you think. But but you don't need to. I think therefore it just encapsulates it rather neatly, I think. 454 00:50:33,180 --> 00:50:38,550 But you see, you cannot doubt your own beliefs without seeing that you do believe something or other. 455 00:50:38,550 --> 00:51:01,290 All you don't know is whether that belief is true. Just so let's do the rounds of Wednesday talking about all sex predators, sometimes to figure out. 456 00:51:01,290 --> 00:51:10,240 How sometimes sizeable foreign firms are true or or can you believe it? 457 00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:16,840 Evidence for this nature. 458 00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:23,300 Hey, way about what might for that kind of stuff. 459 00:51:23,300 --> 00:51:47,870 What we see is extremely distorted view of our perception of our great country needs to be more concerned about what's happening right now. 460 00:51:47,870 --> 00:51:59,090 So actually, you know what theory? 461 00:51:59,090 --> 00:52:07,700 I'm afraid that what you're saying, you'll make it clear that you haven't got into hyperbolic doubt either. 462 00:52:07,700 --> 00:52:15,770 Well, in that case, I'm going to pass on several decades. 463 00:52:15,770 --> 00:52:20,660 Personally, I don't think it is what you say. 464 00:52:20,660 --> 00:52:24,500 Well, we could, but we can agree with all that and unaccept. 465 00:52:24,500 --> 00:52:31,730 I mean, all day Kosofsky is can we be certain that our experiences of being caused by anything? 466 00:52:31,730 --> 00:52:36,770 Secondly, can we be certain that our experiences are a good guide to what there is? 467 00:52:36,770 --> 00:52:44,150 Now, what you're saying is that the second we know empirically that the answer to the second question is no. 468 00:52:44,150 --> 00:52:48,010 But of course, for him, the most important question is the first one, 469 00:52:48,010 --> 00:53:05,060 not the second one about the nature of consciousness, which is what we may see that actually again. 470 00:53:05,060 --> 00:53:12,050 Yes, sure. But I mean, this is more grist to Descartes. Well, I mean, it's either irrelevant scuse me. 471 00:53:12,050 --> 00:53:20,960 Or it's grist to Descartes smell. I mean, you can say you can add these in if you like, to the argument from illusion. 472 00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:24,810 But the argument for evolution is only the first step of Descartes argument. 473 00:53:24,810 --> 00:53:29,260 And the steps that really matters is this one. 474 00:53:29,260 --> 00:53:38,750 And that's the one that takes us to hyperbolic doubt. And that's very definitely a philosophical or metaphysical question, not her, an empirical one. 475 00:53:38,750 --> 00:53:45,750 There's no way science can show us that we might. 476 00:53:45,750 --> 00:53:46,880 Well, there still is. 477 00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:55,460 But the empiricism is nothing more than me testing out one experience against another, which is a bit like testing out one newspaper against another. 478 00:53:55,460 --> 00:54:17,110 It's not going to get you very far. Why? Well, dieting is a form of thinking. 479 00:54:17,110 --> 00:54:29,140 Well, you know, you can't bring in on the people, say you no, you can't you can't bring in other people at all. 480 00:54:29,140 --> 00:54:43,570 The doubting is not what you're certain of by doubting is that you believe because in order to doubt the thing that you doubt is a belief of your own. 481 00:54:43,570 --> 00:54:47,680 Well, exactly. A belief is a thought. It's a type of thought. 482 00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:51,940 So your your doubting that your thinking and interest, 483 00:54:51,940 --> 00:54:58,590 you try and doubt whether your thinking and you will become completely certain that your thinking. 484 00:54:58,590 --> 00:55:02,920 And so Descartes says, isn't it strange? 485 00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:09,490 Because I would have thought that the world was far more presence to me than my own thoughts. 486 00:55:09,490 --> 00:55:13,070 In fact, my own thoughts have always seemed to be rather shadowy. 487 00:55:13,070 --> 00:55:19,330 We know things that I'm not really certain of at all that, you know, I can't hold them or see them or touch them or song. 488 00:55:19,330 --> 00:55:28,630 But having done this, I now see that my thoughts are far more certain to me the next in the world, which could be nothing. 489 00:55:28,630 --> 00:55:34,800 So he's, you know, he thinks he's gone from something or he's found something really surprising. 490 00:55:34,800 --> 00:55:40,690 Once you move from the perspective of picturing your world. 491 00:55:40,690 --> 00:55:46,690 So I'm I'm thinking of the world that I picture, not my picture of the world. 492 00:55:46,690 --> 00:55:51,930 Usually the only time I'm thinking of my picture of the world is when something's gone wrong. 493 00:55:51,930 --> 00:55:55,480 You know, I thought I had I hung my coat here, okay. 494 00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:59,680 I believed I hung my coat here. I now have reason to believe it isn't there. 495 00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:09,580 What's gone wrong? So I've been pushed back into my picture of my picture of the world in order to question whether my belief is true or false. 496 00:56:09,580 --> 00:56:13,750 But of course, usually I come back almost immediately. Oh, there it is. 497 00:56:13,750 --> 00:56:18,700 And so I immediately move back into my picture of the world, looking at the world. 498 00:56:18,700 --> 00:56:23,760 But what Descartes did is he forced himself to stay here, 499 00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:29,170 where what he was reflecting on was his picture of the world rather than the world that he pictured. 500 00:56:29,170 --> 00:56:34,450 So he's looking at his beliefs and thinking of a true or false. 501 00:56:34,450 --> 00:56:38,350 Are they justified or are they not? Instead of looking at the chair and think he. 502 00:56:38,350 --> 00:56:44,140 Is it blue? Is it hard? Is it okay? Do you see why people are out here? 503 00:56:44,140 --> 00:56:52,370 Not in here and isn't a belief. My belief about art is a belief and is here. 504 00:56:52,370 --> 00:57:00,550 And Marion's belief about heaven is what I am certain of. 505 00:57:00,550 --> 00:57:04,420 But I'm certain of it. Until I doubt it. And the minutes. 506 00:57:04,420 --> 00:57:10,060 I doubt it. I can be certain of that belief, but I can't be certain that it's true. 507 00:57:10,060 --> 00:57:18,740 So whatever I says is just more of my experiences. 508 00:57:18,740 --> 00:57:24,460 I can say that's right. I believe that and says it's blue. 509 00:57:24,460 --> 00:57:30,130 And I know that my belief that answers it's true does not make it true. 510 00:57:30,130 --> 00:57:36,970 That and says it's true. And as I can tell you, to be able to do this when you become philosophers. 511 00:57:36,970 --> 00:57:41,920 Do you see what I mean? Once you understand what you're saying, it becomes easy to set. 512 00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:46,570 Although I can't say it again. But I'll have to get the flow of it back. 513 00:57:46,570 --> 00:58:16,810 Okay. Do you see why people are outside? Well, I hope my cat thinks we have two houses and she has adaptively. 514 00:58:16,810 --> 00:58:30,630 Oh, definitely. Well, there's a very interesting between three and five children actually acquire the context, the contest concept of a belief. 515 00:58:30,630 --> 00:58:35,670 And until that point, there is evidence to think that they do not properly form beliefs of their own. 516 00:58:35,670 --> 00:58:44,310 But this is a an experiment that goes Maxcy, the puppet, whoever it is who's looking after Maxcy, 517 00:58:44,310 --> 00:58:51,240 I can't remember, puts a chocolate in a box and then Maxcy goes out to play and the children are watching this. 518 00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:58,020 And Max's mum comes and takes the chocolate from the box and puts it into a cupboard or something like that. 519 00:58:58,020 --> 00:59:04,440 Then Maxey comes in from playing and the children are asked, where is Maxcy going to look for the chocolate? 520 00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:09,690 Now, all the three year olds say in the cupboard because that's where they believe the chocolate is. 521 00:59:09,690 --> 00:59:14,670 They know the chocolate is in the cupboard. Okay, so that's where they think maxilla, 522 00:59:14,670 --> 00:59:24,410 the five year olds will all say she'll look in the drawer because they've understood that the difference between appearance and reality. 523 00:59:24,410 --> 00:59:30,510 Okay. The world can appear to you to be other than the way the world is and what your daughter did, 524 00:59:30,510 --> 00:59:34,230 she she linked up her to beliefs and saw, oh, that house. 525 00:59:34,230 --> 00:59:40,850 Is that house. How old was she? 526 00:59:40,850 --> 00:59:44,880 Yeah, she she probably wasn't really. Yeah, I mean, beliefs at that point. 527 00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:49,520 Yeah. The thought is you don't really have a belief until you have the concept of belief, 528 00:59:49,520 --> 00:59:53,210 because once it's only when you've got the concept of belief that you have the difference 529 00:59:53,210 --> 00:59:58,250 between appearance and reality and you see that beliefs can be either true or false. 530 00:59:58,250 --> 01:00:04,070 So you can grasp the content concept of conditions of truth and falsehood. 531 01:00:04,070 --> 01:00:07,700 And at that point, you can really actually believe something, 532 01:00:07,700 --> 01:00:12,950 whereas up until then it's just that you're just responding to a world because the world is 533 01:00:12,950 --> 01:00:18,590 you don't make any distinction between the worlds being one way and its appearing one way. 534 01:00:18,590 --> 01:00:23,450 You don't see that those can come apart. No. 535 01:00:23,450 --> 01:00:29,370 No. Except, I mean, we'd call it one. When we're speaking loosely, but no. 536 01:00:29,370 --> 01:00:37,960 Okay. Right. Let's move on a bit because, I mean, we've we've been doing a lot of epistemology here under the heading of metaphysics. 537 01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:45,060 But, of course, actually, there's the metaphysics of epistemology just to confuse you, because, of course, 538 01:00:45,060 --> 01:00:53,400 if you want to know the truth about knowledge, then you're doing the metaphysics of knowledge and therefore the metaphysics of epistemology. 539 01:00:53,400 --> 01:00:59,930 So we were looking at ontology before we got onto scepticism. 540 01:00:59,930 --> 01:01:06,280 But so we asked ourselves whether these things exist. But we can then go on and ask, well, what are they like? 541 01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:12,210 You know, if we believe that God exists. Is he all these things? How can he be all these things? 542 01:01:12,210 --> 01:01:18,300 Because surely there's contradiction here, isn't there? If he's on the evidence, he can do anything at all. 543 01:01:18,300 --> 01:01:21,180 If he's omniscient, he knows everything at all. 544 01:01:21,180 --> 01:01:29,880 And if he's benevolent or good, then how can he see the suffering in the world and not do something about it? 545 01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:33,510 So can God be all those things? What about moral values? 546 01:01:33,510 --> 01:01:36,930 If they exist, are they absolute or relative? 547 01:01:36,930 --> 01:01:45,120 Do we all have our own moral values or is there a moral law that's objective and that exists for all of us? 548 01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:50,670 Are there different possible worlds or any different possible states of this world? 549 01:01:50,670 --> 01:01:54,780 And what's the difference between those two? And what about physical objects? 550 01:01:54,780 --> 01:01:59,390 Are they independent of us or bundles of our ideas? 551 01:01:59,390 --> 01:02:09,780 Barclay Bishop Berkeley thoughts that scepticism was so threatening the idea that we couldn't be sure we had knowledge 552 01:02:09,780 --> 01:02:17,490 of the external world that what he thought is we had to build the external world from what we could be sure about. 553 01:02:17,490 --> 01:02:21,990 So the only thing we can be sure about is our own experiences. 554 01:02:21,990 --> 01:02:27,840 So what is the external world other than bundles of our own experiences? 555 01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:32,010 Now, this may sound daft, you know, I mean, there's more to and than my experience. 556 01:02:32,010 --> 01:02:36,990 If I touch her, she'll say outport scuse me or something like that. 557 01:02:36,990 --> 01:02:45,270 But actually, there again, what if I got other than my own experiences, auditory experiences, etc. 558 01:02:45,270 --> 01:02:52,020 So what Berkely was saying was actually, if you think of all your experiences, Morial counterfactual experiences, 559 01:02:52,020 --> 01:02:58,060 in other words, if I came into this room at midnight, that blue chair would still be there. 560 01:02:58,060 --> 01:03:04,620 Do you see that's a counterfactual experience. I would still see that blue chair. 561 01:03:04,620 --> 01:03:09,690 There is no more to an object than our experience or counterfactual experiences. 562 01:03:09,690 --> 01:03:16,890 And actually, you try and convince me that you have any reason to believe that the physical world exists. 563 01:03:16,890 --> 01:03:24,510 That doesn't appeal to either an experience of yours or a counterfactual experience of yours. 564 01:03:24,510 --> 01:03:32,920 And you'll fail counterfactual. 565 01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:39,240 Yes, it is. If I came into this room last night at midnight, that's that's not true. 566 01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:43,260 I didn't come into this room at midnight. I was forced to sleep in bed. 567 01:03:43,260 --> 01:03:48,360 But had I come into this room at midnight last night, I would have seen that blue chair. 568 01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:54,060 And that's part of my reason for thinking that that blue chair exists independently of me. 569 01:03:54,060 --> 01:04:02,070 Is that it was here all the time. It would still be here if I came back tomorrow, but it might. 570 01:04:02,070 --> 01:04:07,080 Well, exactly. And so what is saying is, is that there is no reason I can give. 571 01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:13,440 For believing that that chair exists. That doesn't depend on either an actual experience of mine here. 572 01:04:13,440 --> 01:04:17,250 It exists, you know. And you're having experiences of this chair now as well. 573 01:04:17,250 --> 01:04:23,730 If you exist or counterfactual ones, if I came in tonight, it would still be here. 574 01:04:23,730 --> 01:04:30,420 I would still see it. That's true. 575 01:04:30,420 --> 01:04:38,940 But I would still. Okay. But that's if I had come in last night, it would have been there. 576 01:04:38,940 --> 01:04:48,220 Yeah, but I should be able to answer that. And I can't because I'm tired. If somebody had moved it, I wouldn't see. 577 01:04:48,220 --> 01:04:51,320 Have seen it. Okay. I might not be able to follow. 578 01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:59,340 But it's certainly true that I have reason to believe that this chair would have been here simply because it's tied to the floor. 579 01:04:59,340 --> 01:05:05,220 I mean, that's not conclusive. And that's not a very good response to what you're saying. 580 01:05:05,220 --> 01:05:10,410 I've no reason to think it won't be a lie. What's more important to you? 581 01:05:10,410 --> 01:05:18,930 You try. This is a thought experiment for yourself. Try and give yourself reason to believe that something that you believe exists exists. 582 01:05:18,930 --> 01:05:23,140 Okay. So you believe this exists. What are your reasons for believing it exists? 583 01:05:23,140 --> 01:05:29,350 And see if you can find one that doesn't depend upon your own experiences, either, 584 01:05:29,350 --> 01:05:35,740 your actual experiences, I can see it, feel it, touch it, hear it, or your counterfactual experiences. 585 01:05:35,740 --> 01:05:42,940 If I was there, then if I did this, then if you see what I mean, then I would. 586 01:05:42,940 --> 01:05:47,830 So you won't be able to do it. Markley was much cleverer than people think. 587 01:05:47,830 --> 01:05:51,850 People tend to think that he thought the external world as a ghostly sort of thing. 588 01:05:51,850 --> 01:06:00,430 But he's just offering another explanation for our experiences and the fact that we go from these experiences to thinking this next to the world. 589 01:06:00,430 --> 01:06:05,030 We do that immediately. Why do we do this? Okay, so. 590 01:06:05,030 --> 01:06:09,940 So this is that's metaphysics then moving to epistemology. 591 01:06:09,940 --> 01:06:14,260 What is knowledge? Okay. Do we have knowledge? 592 01:06:14,260 --> 01:06:18,220 We've looked at that in some depth already. Do we have knowledge? 593 01:06:18,220 --> 01:06:27,040 Descartes would say we can't claim to have knowledge of the external world unless we can get over his thought experiment, which he thinks we can. 594 01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:31,300 What is knowledge, though? Some people believe that it's okay. 595 01:06:31,300 --> 01:06:38,540 Let me ask you this. What what is knowledge? We've been talking about knowledge for the last hour and a half or something. 596 01:06:38,540 --> 01:06:48,560 What is it? That's very optimistic. 597 01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:53,120 I'll be launching out like that. Good for you. 598 01:06:53,120 --> 01:07:01,980 Go on. See you. Yeah. 599 01:07:01,980 --> 01:07:11,770 What do you mean my gathered? But we have knowledge of things that don't involve sensors, don't we? 600 01:07:11,770 --> 01:07:19,840 Two plus two equals four is not sensory knowledge. So what is knowledge? 601 01:07:19,840 --> 01:07:31,960 We collect it and put it in our brains. How do you put something in your brain? Well, actually, you don't. 602 01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:35,110 I'm not sure you intentionally acquire knowledge anyway. 603 01:07:35,110 --> 01:07:43,510 Most of the time the knowledge you acquire isn't acquired intentionally just so it's somebody else's. 604 01:07:43,510 --> 01:07:52,810 It's certainly a Quad's, but what is it we acquire? Memory is involved, but there's a difference between memory and knowledge, isn't there? 605 01:07:52,810 --> 01:07:58,380 I mean that in order to remember something, that something has to have happened. 606 01:07:58,380 --> 01:08:09,310 So you only have so much memory is important, but memory is different from knowledge is not the same thing. 607 01:08:09,310 --> 01:08:14,440 Memory is essentially time related, whereas knowledge isn't essentially time related. 608 01:08:14,440 --> 01:08:21,980 It can be time related. But it's not essentially so in the way that memory is. 609 01:08:21,980 --> 01:08:28,780 Yep, well, and I mean, they're different sorts of knowledge, aren't there, as well. 610 01:08:28,780 --> 01:08:32,860 I mean, I know how to ride a bike. Well, I do. I remember it well. 611 01:08:32,860 --> 01:08:37,960 It's not propositional knowledge. 612 01:08:37,960 --> 01:08:44,920 OK, let me tell you what one answer the classical answer to the question of what knowledge is, is that it's justified. 613 01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:55,150 True belief. OK, if you're going to have knowledge, you must have a belief that belief must be justified and that belief must be true. 614 01:08:55,150 --> 01:09:03,040 So you believe of you you know that I'm wearing an aubergine dress, don't you? 615 01:09:03,040 --> 01:09:09,800 You will know that. Very good colour concepts. You have a belief that I'm wearing an aubergine dress. 616 01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:16,960 Do you? Yeah. Okay. Is that belief justified how you can see it. 617 01:09:16,960 --> 01:09:21,160 Yeah. Okay. You're justified in believing that. And let me tell you that it's true. 618 01:09:21,160 --> 01:09:25,420 Okay. So, you know, I'm wearing an aubergine dress. So that's the idea. 619 01:09:25,420 --> 01:09:29,680 That is. So if a student comes to me and says, well, I Descartes said such and such. 620 01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:36,620 And I say, why do you think that? And he says, the I don't know. 621 01:09:36,620 --> 01:09:45,210 And I said, okay, well, what what follows from that belief? And he says, I don't know. 622 01:09:45,210 --> 01:09:50,920 And I said, well, why do you think that? And he says, no, he doesn't know. 623 01:09:50,920 --> 01:09:55,310 It does. It does. He may have a belief about that, but it's. 624 01:09:55,310 --> 01:10:00,340 And what's what may be a true belief, but it's not justified. Therefore, it doesn't count as knowledge. 625 01:10:00,340 --> 01:10:07,120 He doesn't know it at all. If you don't have a belief about something, you certainly can't know it. 626 01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:14,190 But the other one is the one that most people get more worried about is that you cannot know something false. 627 01:10:14,190 --> 01:10:22,780 If you cannot know that I'm wearing a yellow dress, for example, you couldn't believe that you know something false. 628 01:10:22,780 --> 01:10:27,350 But your belief that you know it is itself false. 629 01:10:27,350 --> 01:10:34,330 Are you with me? So if you actually know something, that thing must be true. 630 01:10:34,330 --> 01:10:41,680 So Maxi comes in from playing and she does. She knows that the chocolate is in the drawer. 631 01:10:41,680 --> 01:10:47,920 No, she believes she knows the chocolate is in the drawer. But what she doesn't know is that her mum took it out and put it somewhere else. 632 01:10:47,920 --> 01:10:54,190 So if she has what she thinks is knowledge, but it's not knowledge because it's not true, 633 01:10:54,190 --> 01:10:59,710 she's got the belief she's justified in the belief, but the belief isn't true. Therefore, it cannot be counted as knowledge. 634 01:10:59,710 --> 01:11:06,400 So you've got to, again, make that distinction between what you believe to be the case and what actually is the case, 635 01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:14,940 because you can believe, you know, something that's false, but you cannot actually know something false. 636 01:11:14,940 --> 01:11:28,780 The more data you have in your house, those things which you need to be useful, which you know. 637 01:11:28,780 --> 01:11:34,900 Yes. I'm not sure it's the crux of that, but it certainly comes into it. Absolutely. 638 01:11:34,900 --> 01:11:38,540 Yeah. Okay. So but here's a little problem for you. 639 01:11:38,540 --> 01:11:42,730 Getting a came up with this little problem. It's called and it's been called ever since. 640 01:11:42,730 --> 01:11:54,040 Get your problems. You have seen me driving a golf DTI around Oxford. 641 01:11:54,040 --> 01:12:00,370 You've come to believe that I own a golf GDI. As a matter of fact, there is a golf GDI that I own. 642 01:12:00,370 --> 01:12:05,080 But it's in my garage. And the one that you've seen me driving around belongs to a friend. 643 01:12:05,080 --> 01:12:12,520 Okay. Do you know that I own a golf GCI, I believe. 644 01:12:12,520 --> 01:12:18,490 No, sorry. You believe that. You know. But do you know. No, you don't. 645 01:12:18,490 --> 01:12:23,100 No. Why not? Well, is this justified? 646 01:12:23,100 --> 01:12:28,210 No. You've seen me driving around in it. You're perfectly justified. It is true. 647 01:12:28,210 --> 01:12:34,360 I've got one in the garage. No, you don't do that. 648 01:12:34,360 --> 01:12:44,780 You don't know. But you don't know. That's not the point. 649 01:12:44,780 --> 01:12:50,970 Why not? Because we haven't seen or. 650 01:12:50,970 --> 01:12:57,700 Oh. Happened to you all. There's no reason. 651 01:12:57,700 --> 01:13:03,550 But we do usually claim about claim to have knowledge without having certainty. 652 01:13:03,550 --> 01:13:11,740 Don't we? I mean, you've seen me driving this car often. So, you know, you think you're justified in claiming to know that. 653 01:13:11,740 --> 01:13:17,390 I know. I'll tell you what's happened here is the conditions that make your belief true, 654 01:13:17,390 --> 01:13:21,230 i.e., the car that's sitting in my garage that you've never seen me in. 655 01:13:21,230 --> 01:13:28,520 Apart from the conditions that justify your belief, the Gulf TTR, you've seen me driving around it, 656 01:13:28,520 --> 01:13:36,200 and it's only if the conditions that make true your belief are the same as the conditions that justify your belief that you can have 657 01:13:36,200 --> 01:13:44,570 knowledge that what you have counsel's knowledge so well getting showed is that it cannot be the case that knowledge is justified, 658 01:13:44,570 --> 01:13:50,810 true belief justified. True belief may be necessary for knowledge, but it is not sufficient. 659 01:13:50,810 --> 01:14:00,080 You need some other claim that makes it impossible for the truth conditions to come apart from the conditions of justification. 660 01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:01,700 What is that other thing? 661 01:14:01,700 --> 01:14:13,550 Well, it's a very big question and it's one that we're still looking at and lots of answers, but no consensus on on what the answer is. 662 01:14:13,550 --> 01:14:19,970 Do we have knowledge of all the things that we think we have knowledge of? 663 01:14:19,970 --> 01:14:29,080 What was I thinking of here? Well, I mean, the example of the external world, again, the example of other mines is another one here. 664 01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:35,160 How do I know that you have a mines and you might be just an automaton? 665 01:14:35,160 --> 01:14:40,870 I do. I think that, you know, I've got a mind. You will like me in all sorts of ways. 666 01:14:40,870 --> 01:14:47,530 Therefore, you have a mind. Is it some sort of argument from analogy or is there more to it than that? 667 01:14:47,530 --> 01:14:51,460 Is there is this instead that your mind is a theoretical entity? 668 01:14:51,460 --> 01:14:58,210 That I'm postulating an explanation of your behaviour? I suggested something like that earlier. 669 01:14:58,210 --> 01:15:00,850 And of course, are there different sorts of knowledge? 670 01:15:00,850 --> 01:15:06,460 I mean, I mentioned earlier the type my knowledge of how to ride a bike is propositional knowledge. 671 01:15:06,460 --> 01:15:10,990 It isn't knowledge that I can explicate in any way. 672 01:15:10,990 --> 01:15:15,280 I have no idea how to ride a bike, but I still know how to ride one. 673 01:15:15,280 --> 01:15:22,990 So this is knowledge how rather than knowledge that I'm not quite sure a lot about tacit knowledge. 674 01:15:22,990 --> 01:15:29,620 You've probably heard of Chomsky and his tacit knowledge of grammar. 675 01:15:29,620 --> 01:15:36,430 Some people think there's no such thing as tacit knowledge because it is that far down 676 01:15:36,430 --> 01:15:43,060 in your psyche that it doesn't count as knowledge because knowledge is a mental state, 677 01:15:43,060 --> 01:15:50,230 not a physical structure in the brain, which is what people think tacit knowledge is. 678 01:15:50,230 --> 01:15:58,960 So lots of different questions in epistemology, including the sceptical one that we were looking at earlier. 679 01:15:58,960 --> 01:16:08,710 Hugely easy to confuse metaphysics and possible epistemology in the first year of an undergraduates philosophical life. 680 01:16:08,710 --> 01:16:17,740 There are two things I find really hard. One is to get him or her behind the veil of perception down into hyperbolic all doubt. 681 01:16:17,740 --> 01:16:20,320 That takes me about the whole of the first term. 682 01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:27,600 And then I spend the rest of his his undergraduate existence trying to get him out behind out from there again. 683 01:16:27,600 --> 01:16:36,220 And the other one other thing that's most difficult is, is to get them to distinguish between epistemology and metaphysics. 684 01:16:36,220 --> 01:16:42,040 People say things like there's no evidence for the truth of homoeopathy. Therefore, home homoeopathy must be false. 685 01:16:42,040 --> 01:16:47,530 Well, if you're doing science, that's probably a very reasonable claim. 686 01:16:47,530 --> 01:17:00,280 If you do philosophy, it's not really because something can be true, even though there's no evidence for it and it's not entirely true inside. 687 01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:06,550 But if there's absolutely no evidence for something, the fact is no evidence for something doesn't mean that that something isn't true. 688 01:17:06,550 --> 01:17:10,450 Of course. Good. Well, I'm glad to hear it. 689 01:17:10,450 --> 01:17:22,240 Yeah. Because that's. But on the other hand, if you tried everything to produce evidence and there's still no evidence, so no, it would be a rush. 690 01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:32,060 Scientists, though, who claimed that something was the case, even though. 691 01:17:32,060 --> 01:17:38,000 Right. But scientists presumably. 692 01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:39,010 Yeah. Yeah. 693 01:17:39,010 --> 01:18:00,690 But I mean, I don't I often hear scientists saying things like homeopathy is is not scientifically respectable because there's no evidence for it. 694 01:18:00,690 --> 01:18:07,040 And it's not the case. 695 01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:13,480 Yeah, well, it certainly is true that because the fact is, truth outstrips evidence. 696 01:18:13,480 --> 01:18:17,080 Truth is independent of us. Or is it? 697 01:18:17,080 --> 01:18:22,750 I mean, that's another one thing. The second thing I've got here, truth is something different for each of us. 698 01:18:22,750 --> 01:18:31,570 We've got to be a bit careful of this because it's saying that. 699 01:18:31,570 --> 01:18:45,620 Here's a I can't remember whether I did this with you last week and believes Marianne is wearing O'Bagy. 700 01:18:45,620 --> 01:18:51,970 OK, I notice that there's one belief here and another belief here. 701 01:18:51,970 --> 01:18:56,290 Is that right? Okay, so there's one sorry, one sentence. 702 01:18:56,290 --> 01:19:02,230 Marianne is wearing aubergine invented in another sentence and believes Marianne is wearing aubergine. 703 01:19:02,230 --> 01:19:08,560 Can that be true and not be false? Yeah, and it was a false belief. 704 01:19:08,560 --> 01:19:13,930 Can they both be false? Yes. 705 01:19:13,930 --> 01:19:20,010 Yes. It is so maybe false, Marianne's wearing aubergine and false that and believes it. 706 01:19:20,010 --> 01:19:25,010 Maybe she wouldn't believe it if I wasn't. Could they both be true? 707 01:19:25,010 --> 01:19:34,840 Yes. And could that be false and not true? 708 01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:42,250 Yes, it could be because I might be wearing aubergine, but I didn't come today, she hasn't formed any belief about what I'm wearing. 709 01:19:42,250 --> 01:19:48,700 OK. Or maybe she's colour-blind or something like that. Maybe she doesn't cut colours as finally as aubergine. 710 01:19:48,700 --> 01:19:52,300 So she's never formed that belief. 711 01:19:52,300 --> 01:20:00,490 The fact is that the facts that make true, the belief that unbelieve something is a quite different fact from the facts. 712 01:20:00,490 --> 01:20:06,280 That makes true the belief, the thing that she believes, isn't it? 713 01:20:06,280 --> 01:20:12,970 People don't realise that. I mean, if I've got Freds believes that mugging the elderly is okay. 714 01:20:12,970 --> 01:20:20,410 Some people think that therefore mugging the elderly is okay for Fred and moral relativism must be true. 715 01:20:20,410 --> 01:20:25,730 But of course, actually, all that means is that Fred believes that mugging the elderly is OK. 716 01:20:25,730 --> 01:20:30,150 Doesn't mean that mugging the elderly is okay for Fred. 717 01:20:30,150 --> 01:20:35,530 Okay. It just means Fred believes that it's just a way we have speaking. 718 01:20:35,530 --> 01:20:50,560 So usually here's the world that we picture and here's each of us picturing the world. 719 01:20:50,560 --> 01:20:57,280 So it's true that each of you has a different belief about my wearing aubergine, 720 01:20:57,280 --> 01:21:03,940 but there is the fact of my wearing aubergine in addition to your beliefs about it. 721 01:21:03,940 --> 01:21:11,530 At least that's what we usually think. Truth is, I mean, as you've seen, there are there are big questions about whether that's true. 722 01:21:11,530 --> 01:21:17,050 But what we shouldn't do is, is say, you know, 723 01:21:17,050 --> 01:21:23,290 truth is something different for each of us when actually all we mean is that our beliefs are different. 724 01:21:23,290 --> 01:21:25,370 Each of us has different beliefs. 725 01:21:25,370 --> 01:21:33,460 You see, that's confusing claims about people's beliefs or understanding or knowledge from claims about how the world is. 726 01:21:33,460 --> 01:21:41,800 You cannot go from each of us believes something different about truth to truth is different for each of us. 727 01:21:41,800 --> 01:21:55,570 And in the same way, you can't go from Freds beliefs P to therefore P is true for Fred or anyone else, because all it means is Fred believes it. 728 01:21:55,570 --> 01:22:03,940 So it's very, very easy to confuse metaphysics and epistemology. And and I think in your first year of studying philosophy, 729 01:22:03,940 --> 01:22:10,700 it's almost always the case that when you're stumbling, it's because of a confusion of this kind. 730 01:22:10,700 --> 01:22:16,540 A very common confusion, very easy to to make. And it takes quite a while to get out of it. 731 01:22:16,540 --> 01:22:29,680 Very important to distinguish three levels. The level of the world, the level of thought and the level of language. 732 01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:35,330 So here you've got redness, the property, here you've got redness, the concept. 733 01:22:35,330 --> 01:22:42,070 And here you've got red. The word. 734 01:22:42,070 --> 01:22:53,020 And if you confuse those three, you're going to have great difficulty sorting out your thoughts and you will confuse those three for you, 735 01:22:53,020 --> 01:23:16,240 because everyone does that one or that one redness the property. 736 01:23:16,240 --> 01:23:21,730 Well, you understood it, didn't you? You all did. Whereas if you'd all gone. 737 01:23:21,730 --> 01:23:29,440 I mean, when I said aubergine, you went out of line. 738 01:23:29,440 --> 01:23:32,110 I think we might be talking about this next week. I'm not sure. 739 01:23:32,110 --> 01:23:41,890 But the question of whether it's absolutely, definitely true that we might all look at that chair and see something completely different. 740 01:23:41,890 --> 01:23:46,220 So you might look at this chair and see the colours that I see when I look at your cardigan. 741 01:23:46,220 --> 01:23:51,430 That doesn't matter because you call it blue. And so do I. 742 01:23:51,430 --> 01:23:58,030 So actually, blue does not mean the private experience you have when you look at that chair. 743 01:23:58,030 --> 01:24:04,210 Blue means the colour of that chair. No, because we may not have a common experience. 744 01:24:04,210 --> 01:24:05,750 I can't get at your experience. 745 01:24:05,750 --> 01:24:14,170 If if I if in order to teach my child the word blue, I had to get my child to look at my experience and make sure she was having the same one. 746 01:24:14,170 --> 01:24:21,460 It would be impossible and I wouldn't ever be able to test whether she was having the same one. 747 01:24:21,460 --> 01:24:30,100 Exactly. I point to the chair and other things that are blue and she whatever she experiences, she learns to call those things blue. 748 01:24:30,100 --> 01:24:36,310 So even if what she experiences is the future of your lovely cardigan, there she is. 749 01:24:36,310 --> 01:24:50,220 She will call it blue. Demi Moore. 750 01:24:50,220 --> 01:24:57,210 But that's that's a red is the colour that normal people see. 751 01:24:57,210 --> 01:25:02,370 Well, red is the colour that red objects appear to normal people under normal circumstances. 752 01:25:02,370 --> 01:25:07,230 That's a circular definition because actually you can't get closer than that. 753 01:25:07,230 --> 01:25:12,660 But that's another topic. Let me just say, I think we've come to the end. 754 01:25:12,660 --> 01:25:18,480 Let's see. Oh, yes. I just wanted to ask. We will have a couple of minutes for questions, but I just. 755 01:25:18,480 --> 01:25:25,320 Next week is the last week. Would anyone be interested in a short demonstration off to the lecture? 756 01:25:25,320 --> 01:25:28,950 So the lecture will be from two to three, 30, as usual. 757 01:25:28,950 --> 01:25:34,980 But then I if you like, I'll stay on for half an hour and give you a short romp through the online courses. 758 01:25:34,980 --> 01:25:38,700 Put your hands up if you're interested. Quite a few of you. 759 01:25:38,700 --> 01:25:42,870 OK. So I'll do that. So the rest of you can go on for coffee if you're not interested in that. 760 01:25:42,870 --> 01:25:47,280 But I'll do a short thing on the online courses afterwards. OK. 761 01:25:47,280 --> 01:25:57,950 We've got a couple of minutes for questions if anyone wants one. So. 762 01:25:57,950 --> 01:26:08,060 Yeah. This language fought in the world, so I can be talking about the property of redness or I can be talking about the concept, 763 01:26:08,060 --> 01:26:14,950 which a constituent of your thoughts? Content. Or I could be talking about the word red notice. 764 01:26:14,950 --> 01:26:26,920 I need quotes if I'm talking about that, because if he was speaking French, it would be a different word, but the same meaning. 765 01:26:26,920 --> 01:26:32,740 I don't know any more than you do. I mean, that's what philosophers have spent there. 766 01:26:32,740 --> 01:26:36,700 But you used it all the time. There's a sense in which you know the meaning of that word. 767 01:26:36,700 --> 01:26:42,760 You know, for example, the truth is a property of sentences or beliefs. 768 01:26:42,760 --> 01:26:47,650 You know, you'll talk about corresponds to the facts. Maybe you'll talk about coherence. 769 01:26:47,650 --> 01:26:53,470 But what what truth is and therefore what's truth is. 770 01:26:53,470 --> 01:27:05,770 And therefore, the definition of true or the explication of our concept true is a huge mystery. 771 01:27:05,770 --> 01:27:11,290 So very difficult to define. I don't know the answer. 772 01:27:11,290 --> 01:27:14,790 If I knew the answer would arise together. 773 01:27:14,790 --> 01:27:31,720 Make a fortune on a couple of other questions. Just as for the world. 774 01:27:31,720 --> 01:27:38,710 All our beliefs about the external world, by the time you got to the demon one, the external world is gone completely. 775 01:27:38,710 --> 01:27:47,110 All your beliefs about the external world may be false standee beliefs that you can be sure of or your beliefs, but your own mind. 776 01:27:47,110 --> 01:27:53,120 That was the demon. You lose all your beliefs. 777 01:27:53,120 --> 01:27:58,780 Well, I mean, you can do this for yourself under if you just think about what would be false if you were dreaming. 778 01:27:58,780 --> 01:28:04,900 So if I'm dreaming, Bluenose exists, that's still true. 779 01:28:04,900 --> 01:28:11,560 But if I'm dreaming, that's blue chairs in front of me. It's probably false. 780 01:28:11,560 --> 01:28:15,390 Do you see what I mean? Whatever it is that you could be dreaming it destroy. 781 01:28:15,390 --> 01:28:20,710 That would be false. If you were dreaming. Goes into the dark thousand basket. 782 01:28:20,710 --> 01:28:36,210 And one final question here. Well, that I mean, then philosophy and science merge into each other. 783 01:28:36,210 --> 01:28:43,590 I mean, a lot of scientists must use logic, for example, so they must use philosophical techniques. 784 01:28:43,590 --> 01:28:54,690 And any scientist, sorry, any philosopher who is completely uninterested in what's going on in science is probably a bad philosopher as well. 785 01:28:54,690 --> 01:28:58,190 So they do overlap, but but they are completely different. 786 01:28:58,190 --> 01:29:05,280 They're interested in completely different questions, really. So scientists must assume causation, for example. 787 01:29:05,280 --> 01:29:11,520 He wouldn't want to waste his time spending it on the causation unless he was half a philosopher as well. 788 01:29:11,520 --> 01:29:21,110 But a philosopher is interested in causation. Well, it's the same worlds that we're interested in. 789 01:29:21,110 --> 01:29:25,380 So it's not surprising that there is a lot of overlap. 790 01:29:25,380 --> 01:29:33,230 Yeah. Oh, no. 791 01:29:33,230 --> 01:29:38,120 Oh, yeah. Yes, they do. Yeah. Yeah. 792 01:29:38,120 --> 01:29:48,460 Yeah. Well, I just think they do it on the somewhat philosophise. Yeah. 793 01:29:48,460 --> 01:29:54,020 If they. Well I don't go to study their subjects. 794 01:29:54,020 --> 01:29:58,520 Why should they study. But like I said, I did go to study their subject. 795 01:29:58,520 --> 01:30:02,510 Why should they come and study mine. I mean some people are interested in philosophy. 796 01:30:02,510 --> 01:30:06,290 Other people don't. And you can dissuade some. 797 01:30:06,290 --> 01:30:10,530 But there are some people who are not the world's philosophers. 798 01:30:10,530 --> 01:30:14,160 Anyway, I'm sorry I can't come to coffee today because I'm going straight off to London. 799 01:30:14,160 --> 01:30:18,817 So.