Locke on Substance, Spirit, and the Idea of God

This chapter considers Locke’s discussion of ideas of substance in Essay 2.23. Locke’s discussion is examined in the light of More’s discussions in The Immortality of the Soul. The chapter first argues that Locke is proposing a view about how one thinks about substances (not a view about their metaphysical structure) and that this view involves the idea of a so-called bare substratum. An argument against bare substratum readings (given by Michael Ayers and Robert Pasnau) is opposed, using evidence from the comparison with More. The chapter then considers arguments about the ideas of matter and spirit, arguing that Locke gives basically the same argument for the coherence of the idea of spirit that More gave against Hobbes. Finally, the chapter considers Locke’s account of the origin of the idea of God.

Hobbes against Descartes

This chapter looks at Hobbes’s objections to Descartes’s Meditations, focusing on issues connected to materialism. It considers Hobbes’s argument that we have no idea of God, and his associated view that ideas are images which represent by resembling. In the Third Objections, Hobbes does not deny the existence of God, but he does deny that we have an idea of God, and thus undercuts Descartes’s arguments for God’s existence. He thinks we cannot prove the immateriality of the mind, and even suggests that the mind is purely material. The chapter also considers Hobbes’s claim that we have no idea of substance, asking where exactly Hobbes differs from Descartes on this issue.

Locke against Descartes

This chapter considers Locke’s criticisms of Descartes’s views about the mind. Although Locke grants that dualism might be true (i.e., that human beings might have an immaterial mind), he thinks the Cartesian version of that view is false. The chapter focuses on two topics within Locke’s discussion of Descartes’s views: whether we have an innate idea of God, and whether the mind is always thinking. On the first issue, Locke rejects the view of Descartes (and More, Cudworth, and others) that we have an innate idea of God, but also rejects Hobbes’s view that we have no idea of God. On the second issue, Locke opposes Descartes’s view that the mind is always thinking, as well as his related view that thinking is the principal attribute of the mind, and indeed his metaphysical scheme of substance, principal attribute, and mode.

Science and the Necessity of Faith: Notes on “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic”

Apropos Kant’s discussion of scientific practice in the section of the first Critique entitled “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic,” there has long been a tendency in Anglophone Kant scholarship to downplay the role of God or quickly brush aside the centrality of the idea in the Kantian system. As a way of setting the stage for evaluating the place of God in Kant’s philosophy, this paper, in a concise and straightforward manner, attempts to make the connection between science and the idea of God as it appears in the first Critique explicit and explain why Kant is driven to make that connection. In the first half of the paper, I summarize Kant’s discussion of scientific practice as presented in the first part of the Appendix, followed by a brief discussion of a problem his account raises. In the second half of the paper, I elaborate the connection between science and God as a response to that problem.

The Cartesian evil demon and the impossibility of the monstrous lie

In this paper, I address the issue of whether the evil demon could have caused the idea of God. In order to determine the capabilities of the evil demon, I perform a thought experiment in which I reaffirm the conclusion that an imperfect being could have never caused an idea of perfection and infinitude, i.e., the idea of God. The article is divided into five sections and a conclusion. While the first section is introductory, the second looks at the problem of God and knowledge certainty. Elucidating how reality is gradual according to Descartes, in the third section I address the distinction between objective, formal and eminent reality. In turn, in the fourth section, I argue that if the objective reality of God exists, that is, an idea of perfection, the imperfect evil demon could have never caused it. The last section examines the reverse argument of the fourth section, viz, whether God could have caused the existence of evil and imperfection. Keywords: God, evil demon, imperfection.

The Significance of N. N. Strakhov’s Ideas in the Context of Dostoevsky’s Novel The Idiot

The article deals with the question of the significance of N.N.Strakhov’s works for Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot. In particular, excerpts from the History of New Philosophy by Kuno Fischer are analyzed. Passages from this work were published by Strakhov in the journals “Vremia” and “Svetoch” for 1861. Parts of Fischer’s History are important for understanding the philosophical ideas of Strakhov, and their significance for Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot. Research shows that in terms of ideological content, Dostoevsky’s novel is polemically directed against Strakhov’s “idea of God”.

Metaphysical Foundations of Theistic Argumentation

The proofs of God's existence is the subject matter of the article. Four main types of proofs are analyzed: cosmological, teleological, ontological and moral. It is argued that there is a general scheme of theistic reasoning present in all four types of proving. The principal feature of this scheme lies in recognizing a ground of everything existing which goes beyond the material (or natural) world. Possible naturalistic arguments excluding a non-material, super-natural foundation of the world are also analyzed. The objections to naturalistic arguments are formulated, making it possible to assert that the natural world cannot be explained from itself. Nor it can be explained from its physical (or natural) part. At the same time, the material world needs an explanation. To meet this need, the extended direct theistic arguments are formulated in the article. They begin with the fact of there being something and include two aspects of theistic argumentation: one is to establish the existence of immaterial foundation of the natural world; another is to demonstrate that this immaterial foundation may be identified with the world subject – omnipotent, omniscient, all-good, immaterial rational being which mainly corresponds to God of theistic religions. The conclusion is made that the thinkability and rationality of the idea of God is provable. One can argue that the idea of God more rationally explains the world. Moreover, it is evident that theism is rational, naturalism (as the principle of the general explanation of everything) is irrational. But the question remains how rational the world is.

Idea Boga w późnych pismach Immanuela Kanta

Kant’s position on the problem of God is radicalized under the influence of transcendental philosophy’s evolving project. The weakening position of physico-theology and the growing importance of moral theology are possible ways of describing the shift in perspective between the pre-critical period writings and the critical period writings. The separation of the area of cognition and action excludes the possibility of formulating theodicy in a classical form. God, as only a conceived idea, and its meaning is firmly grounded in practical philosophy, in which the presentation of the law is a sufficient condition for moral behaviour. In such a model, God is only an idea, but a fully functional one. This could be noticed mostly in the Opus postumum, where in analogy to God’s practical idea, Kant deduces the transcendental ether’s existence. Ether is not just a hypothesis for Kant; it is not just a ‘temporary’ or ‘contingent’ assumption made ad hoc to explain a particular experience. Still, it is a fundamental and indelible condition, a conditio sine qua non of experience in general. The non-hypothetical matter of heat (ether) is the transcendental condition of all experience, though it does not cease to be an ‘intelligible thing’, an ‘idea’. The status of this idea is entirely ‘non-theoretical’. Kant writes about the ether similarly as he writes about the idea of God, which is only conceivable but at the same time it maintains a strong ‘non-theoretical’ status. The Kantian idea of God is strongly objectified. It is not a ‘product’ of reason, but rather something ‘perceived’ by reason, a strictly theistic idea (as Erich Adickes claims). Kant’s statements, characteristic for the Opus postumum, in which God is identified with moral law, of course give grounds to suppose that the deification of practical reason can be understood as a final stage in the long process of anthropologizing God. However, these statements also allow us to consider practical reason as a new source of what is given.