Rational Rules

Moral systems, like normative systems more broadly, involve complex mental representations. Rational Rules offers an account of the acquisition of key aspects of normative systems in terms of general-purpose rational learning procedures. In particular, it offers statistical learning accounts of: (1) how people come to think that a rule is act-based, that is, the rule prohibits producing certain consequences but not allowing such consequences to occur or persist; (2) how people come to expect that a new rule will also be act-based; (3) how people come to believe a principle of liberty, according to which whatever is not expressly prohibited is permitted; and (4) how people come to think that some normative claims hold universally while others hold only relative to some group. This provides an empiricist theory of a key part of moral acquisition, since the learning procedures are domain general. It also entails that crucial parts of our moral system enjoy rational credentials since the learning procedures are forms of rational inference. There is another sense in which rules can be rational—they can be effective for achieving our ends, given our ecological settings. Rational Rules argues that at least some central components of our moral systems are indeed ecologically rational: they are good at helping us attain common goals. In addition, the book argues that a basic form of rule representation brings motivation along automatically. Thus, part of the explanation for why we follow moral rules is that we are built to follow rules quite generally.

Beyond Empiricism

Argentine Rolando García was one of the earliest world-leading specialists on climate change. Forced to leave his country after the 1966 military coup, García became a nomadic thinker, living in various countries and moving from the study of the atmosphere to addressing larger questions of epistemology. In collaboration with Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, García developed a “theory of complex systems” (TCS) to model and understand social behaviours in uncertain, nonlinear milieus. This chapter discusses García’s TCS as not just an epistemological but also an ontological turning point in the production of knowledge in Latin America. It also describes García’s role in the rise of socio-cybernetic research, an arguably post-humanist area of study and practice that effectively imagines new “modes of existence” on the basis of an ecological and non-empiricist theory of knowledge.

Aristotle’s Empiricist Theory of Doxastic Knowledge

Aristotle takes practical wisdom and arts or crafts to be forms of knowledge which, we argue, can usefully be thought of as ‘empiricist’. This empiricism has two key features: knowledge does not rest on grasping unobservable natures or essences; and knowledge does not rest on grasping logical relations that hold among propositions. Instead, knowledge rests on observation, memory, experience and everyday uses of reason. While Aristotle’s conception of theoretical knowledge does require grasping unobservable essences and logical relations that hold among suitable propositions, his conception of practical and productive knowledge avoids such requirements and is consistent with empiricism.

Is Empiricism Innate? Preference for Nurture Over Nature in People’s Beliefs About the Origins of Human Knowledge

The origins of human knowledge are an enduring puzzle: what parts of what we know require learning, and what depends on intrinsic structure? Although the nature-nurture debate has been a central question for millennia and has inspired much contemporary research in psychology and neuroscience, it remains unknown whether people share intuitive, prescientific theories about the answer. Here we report that people ( N = 1,188) explain fundamental perceptual and cognitive abilities by appeal to learning and instruction, rather than genes or innateness, even for abilities documented in the first days of life. U.S. adults, adults from a culture with a belief in reincarnation, children, and professional scientists—including psychologists and neuroscientists, all believed these basic abilities emerge significantly later than they actually do, and ascribed them to nurture over nature. These findings implicate a widespread intuitive empiricist theory about the human mind, present from early in life.

Why is Locke's Linguistic Theory Still Current and Interesting Today?

In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke set out to offer an analysis of the human mind and its acquisition of knowledge still very current and important today. Locke offered also an empiricist theory according to which we acquire ideas through our experience of the world. The article examines Locke’s views on language and his principal innovation in the field of linguistic theory, represented by the recognition of the power of language with respect to the classification of the world, and its relative independence from reality. In particular the following topics are discussed: a) the polemical contrast with Cartesian philosophy b) the criticism that Locke levels against innatism c) the function of abstraction of the mind d) the concept of semiotics as a theory of thought and its expression e) the radical concept of arbitrariness f) the pragmatic factor intrinsic to Locke’s linguistics described as “communicational scepticism”.

Is Empiricism Innate? Preference for Nurture over Nature in People’s Beliefs about the Origins of Human Knowledge

The origins of human knowledge are an enduring puzzle: what parts of what we know require learning, and what emerges regardless of experience? Despite nature-nurture defining debate for millennia and inspiring much contemporary research in psychology and neuroscience, it remains unknown whether people share intuitive, pre-scientific theories about the answer. Here in a series of experiments with 1188 participants, we find that people explain fundamental perceptual and cognitive abilities by appeal to learning and instruction, rather than genes or innateness. U.S. adults, adults from a culture with a belief in reincarnation, young children, and professional scientists-- including psychologists and neuroscientists, all believed these basic abilities to emerge significantly later than they actually do, and ascribed them to nurture rather than nature. These findings suggest that, regardless of age, culture, and education, people share an intuitive empiricist theory about the human mind.

Gassendi, Pierre (1592–1655)

Pierre Gassendi, a French Catholic priest, introduced the philosophy of the ancient atomist Epicurus into the mainstream of European thought. Like many of his contemporaries in the first half of the seventeenth century, he sought to articulate a new philosophy of nature to replace the Aristotelianism that had traditionally provided foundations for natural philosophy. Before European intellectuals could accept the philosophy of Epicurus, it had to be purged of various heterodox notions. Accordingly, Gassendi modified the philosophy of his ancient model to make it conform to the demands of Christian theology. Like Epicurus, Gassendi claimed that the physical world consists of indivisible atoms moving in void space. Unlike the ancient atomist, Gassendi argued that there exists only a finite, though very large number of atoms, that these atoms were created by God, and that the resulting world is ruled by divine providence rather than blind chance. In contrast to Epicurus’ materialism, Gassendi enriched his atomism by arguing for the existence of an immaterial, immortal soul. He also believed in the existence of angels and demons. His theology was voluntarist, emphasizing God’s freedom to impose his will on the Creation. Gassendi’s empiricist theory of knowledge was an outgrowth of his response to scepticism. Accepting the sceptical critique of sensory knowledge, he denied that we can have certain knowledge of the real essences of things. Rather than falling into sceptical despair, however, he argued that we can acquire knowledge of the way things appear to us. This ‘science of appearances’ is based on sensory experience and can only attain probability. It can, none the less, provide knowledge useful for living in the world. Gassendi denied the existence of essences in either the Platonic or Aristotelian sense and numbered himself among the nominalists. Adopting the hedonistic ethics of Epicurus, which sought to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, Gassendi reinterpreted the concept of pleasure in a distinctly Christian way. He believed that God endowed humans with free will and an innate desire for pleasure. Thus, by utilizing the calculus of pleasure and pain and by exercising their ability to make free choices, they participate in God’s providential plans for the Creation. The greatest pleasure humans can attain is the beatific vision of God after death. Based on his hedonistic ethics, Gassendi’s political philosophy was a theory of social contract, a view which influenced the writings of Hobbes and Locke. Gassendi was an active participant in the philosophical and natural philosophical communities of his day. He corresponded with Hobbes and Descartes, and conducted experiments on various topics, wrote about astronomy, corresponded with important natural philosophers, and wrote a treatise defending Galileo’s new science of motion. His philosophy was very influential, particularly on the development of British empiricism and liberalism.

Meaning and verification

The verifiability theory of meaning says that meaning is evidence. It is anticipated in, for example, Hume’s empiricist doctrine of impressions and ideas, but it emerges into full notoriety in twentieth-century logical positivism. The positivists used the theory in a critique of metaphysics to show that the problems of philosophy, such as the problem of the external world and the problem of other minds, are not real problems at all but only pseudoproblems. Their publicists used the doctrine to argue that religion, ethics and fiction are meaningless, which is how verificationism became notorious among the general public. Seminal criticism of verification from around 1950 argues that no division between sense and nonsense coincides tidily with a division between science and metaphysics, as the positivists had claimed. Quine later developed verificationism into a sort of semantic holism in which metaphysics is continuous with science. In contrast, Dummett argues from a reading of Wittgenstein’s claim that meaning is use to a rejection of any sort of truth surpassing the possibility of knowledge, and thence to a defence of intuitionistic logic. But the claim that all truths can be known yields in an otherwise innocuous setting the preposterous consequence that all truths actually are known. There are ways to tinker with the setting so as to avoid this consequence, but it is best to conclude by reductio that some truths cannot be known and that verificationism is false. That in turn seems to show that the prospects for an empiricist theory of meaning are dim, which might well shake a complacent confidence in meaning.

Locke and Malebranche

This chapter addresses the issue of whether Locke’s own empiricist theory of ideas offers, as Locke often suggested, a more intelligible way of explaining human understanding than Malebranche’s doctrine of Vision in God. Drawing on Locke’s statements about the corpuscularian hypothesis, it argues that although the empiricist theory may satisfy some criteria of intelligibility, it is forced to recognize the existence of processes that are ‘incomprehensible’; to that extent, Locke’s theory of ideas runs parallel with his mature philosophy of matter. The epistemic status of the empiricist theory of ideas is thus more problematic than it is often taken to be.