Victor Gijsbers is assistant professor of philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands, focusing on metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, and sometimes veering off into the history of modern European philosophy. On his channel, he posts lecture series about philosophical articles and books -- including Kant's Critique of Pure Reason -- as well as loose topics and more systematic courses.
what about sample spaces and vector spaces(also non-euclidean geometry and a lot more mathematical spaces)? Are they spaces other than the space that kant described, or derivatives of the space we are in, or completely not related to Kant's space, or an application of space as a concept? I feel like the last one, i.e. these mathematical spaces are derived from our abstraction of various experiences together with the abstraction of the space we are living in, would be a proper explanation for these spaces. But that makes space both an intuition and a concept.
also thank you so much for these explanations! I would never have been able to come up with these questions and misunderstand Kant in multiple ways if I had not watched the illustrations.
As a non initiate in this debate I'm following this serie along and wondering where it is going to go, but I do have a strong intuition that you can only ever know yourself. Meaning that which is a part of you, that which you can immediately experience. You can never say that you know what time it is, you can only say that you know that this clock is showing you that is is 2 AM, or that you remember such and such publications telling you that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. You know that you have seen a sheep (and this fact is still true even if the sheep was not real). Sometimes you will use the term believe for what is actually blurry or patchy knowledge, but even that is still knowledge. I have a feeling that picturing knowledge as an objective thing is a doomed endeavour. Also the idea that knowledge is a belief that happens to be true rubs me the wrong way as I see belief as being a bet on the nature of the unknown. In that sense The set of what you know and the set of what you believe do not seem to intersect at all.
Thank you for these videos. They're very helpful for someone like me who never went into education past highschool and wants to learn basic philosophy. I'm wondering if you have an opinion on the transcendental argument for God's existence?
Hello, wonderful video! do you have book suggestions to understand epistemology/metaphysics and authors like Kant, Foucault, Deleuze much better [for a university student(bachelor degree) in sociology]. Thanks for eventual responses, and thanks for this video.(they really keep me hooked.. the vids on Popper were the best).
Victor, I am so grateful for your videos! Due to extenuating family circumstances, I am having to undertake the second year of my degree as an exam-only student. This means I haven't had access to live lectures/seminars. As such, your youtube videos have truly been invaluable in assisting with my degree. Do you offer any additional courses for people? Outside of your university tuition
Wouldn’t a priori knowledge come from evolution - in a sense that is also empirical - knowledge learned through millions of generations and billions or years of experiences (interacting with nature) and hard wired into our brain/mind? How does a priori connect to the world? Well, in the above sense, it is part of the world - the brain/mind comes from the natural world and is shaped by the nature therefore it grasps the laws of nature. Then it would be understandable that the a prior knowledge we have could be wrong in a different world, e.g., the quantum world, which does not always fit our intuitions since our ancestors have never lived nor evolved from that world. Am I making sense here?
What a beautifully simple, elegant, but nevertheless critical, introduction to Kuhnian paradigms and incommensurability. Well Done! Can you comment on the idea that semantic incommensurability might just be the idea that language, mathematics, or the theoretical construct cannot be meaningfully used to express another paradigm? It could be argued that this is the case if we compare general relativity and Newtonian characterisations of gravity.
Your pronounciation of 'Schumpeter' (SHOOM-peh-ter) is perfectly correct - excellent, in-depth series on CI&S! Thank you very much for taking the considerable effort!
Jumping in to this series with the specialists approach, and the judges approach. To the extent that I already understand Kants work, I want to see how he augments my understanding of modern philosophy of science. Let's goo 🎉🎉 woo Kant
I think Kant was really worried about the foundation of Science, in general. He was solving the problem of it and at the same time, laying the foundation for doing 'science'. And also, if i do understand, like Husserl, i think what he was trying to achieve is to have Philosphy as a foundation of Science. I am not really quite sure of these but, based on the videos that i have watched already, and some secondary texts i've read, these were really the central issues he was solving. Well, of course he was also bothered by Hume's philosophy, as its relations to science. Hume destroyed the underlying presupositions that any scientist of his time seemed to regard as 'common sense'. I don't know. Maybe im just confused. Certainly these series i enjoy a lot. Too many new perspectives that we seem to forget. Thank you.
The twist Rorty takes in this chapter has always left me bewildered. This episode in the video series is the best explanation I have encountered of the direction of Rorty’s argument. Thank you!!
I do not think that you need to assume ordinality of standards in order to resist Khun’s as those standards of scientific goodness could be not transitive and progress would still be made. With respect to your example of “mass,” well Plato has already told us that we struggle to understand the true nature of a form in the world and that its various properties may be revealed to us over time. As a thought experiment, let us extend the analogy of the blind men touching an elephant. It is usually not the case that the blind men begin to touch the elephant all at different spots at different times. One blind man may touch the trunk and then introduce another blind man to the trunk who then reaches over to touch the tusk. The latter and the former can still discuss the elephant. If a seeing man looks at the elephant, they can all still discuss the elephant.
I don't see how this concept of incommensurability even gets off the ground. If our prime example of a paradigm shift is the shift from Newtonian mechanics to Relativity, then surely the fact that all the Newtonians became Relativists demonstrates that there really is a way to compare them. Clearly the physicists thought Relativity was better, even though they grew up in a Newtonian paradigm. I can see different fields being incommensurable with each other, but certainly not paradigms within the _same field._ We have historical evidence of those paradigms being compared successfully.
That's a very good question. I think Kuhn's best example is the shift from Aristotelian to modern science, where this idea of incommensurability makes a lot more sense. It's harder to see within the tradition coming from the 17th century. But there Kuhn suggests that if you look carefully at things like the shift from phlogiston to the caloric theory, of the chemical revolution of Lavoisier, it's rarely a case of the entire scientific community being convinced; and also rarely the case that the new theory is unproblematically better than the old one. Newton -> Einstein might actually be a fairly bad example of such a shift in standards, since the conversion of the community was relatively quick and painless. Obviously, this is not to say that Kuhn is right. I personally think incommensurability is at most a limited phenomenon, not a wholesale failure of comparability of two paradigms.
I think Kuhn confuses paradigm shifts with acceptance of new theories because they're demonstrably better (make more accurate predictions, describe a larger part of reality, or are simpler). We prefer Einstein's general relativity over Newton's laws because it's a more accurate description of a larger part of reality that does away with some of the inconsistenties in Newton's model (gravitational mass vs inertial mass and gravity as an unmediated force). The paradigm shift is our change in understanding of how (part of) the universe works by accepting the logical consequences of the new theory, by realizing what its predictive (mathematical) model implies about reality. A paradigm shift in science would mean another way of doing or thinking about science altogether (like Hume's empiricism caused).
@@JerehmiaBoaz I agree. I think we might even have a domain of philosophy examining the nature of knowing (i.e., “Epistemology”) that may be able to facilitate our comparison of theories. Furthermore, in order for people to make a decision to convert to the new paradigm, the two paradigms must be commensurable because how else would they make a decision or even notice that there is such a decision to be made in the first place? The very process of the paradigm change itself assumes that the two paradigms must be compared, and this implies that the two paradigms are commensurable.
Hi! the lectures are great! I have one query if you may answer . Kant definitely classified time and space a priori conditions that is the conditions necessary for any experience to occur at all. Now the question which I have is, if space and time according to Kant are not part of the experience, did Kant believe in the existence of their objective reality or to him were they a part of how human processing of knowledge works?
They're part of how our cognition works AND they are objectively real. Since space and time are the very conditions for objects appearing to us, they are quintessentially objective. (They are not things in themselves.)
I would say that a priori knowledge exists in the sense that certain aspects of the world clearly lead us to specific ideas. We live in a world where circles exist, are mathematically describable and easily identifiable to us. There is no other conclusion for us to reach than circles existing. In our reality, circles are logically undeniable. Try and you'll be called mad by anyone who studied this world to a certain degree. And by circle I do not mean a word, but a reference object that is obvious to any human that has experienced circles. This is not a platonic ideal, because for many things there isn't anything like that. There is no platonic ideal of "hammer"; because the form and exact functionality of a hammer is vague. There is nothing vague about circles. If our world were different, making circles vague or even impossible, things would be different. But as it stands, any proper understanding of this world will contain a version of circle, because it is relevant to this world.
Well there are clearly and distinctly two psychological ( mental ) actions going on here. One is perception which is neurobiological and the other is our identification or interpretation of what we perceive which is conceptual. Perception is indubitable ( foundational ). Otherwise you contradict yourself.
Isn’t the Gödel sentence true, but improvable? Is this why formalism, the idea that mathematical provability is mathematical truth, isn’t popular anymore?
It's certainly a problem for formalism! It's not necessarily a problem for anti-realism, since the Gödel sentence is provable -- just not in the particular formalism we are looking at. An anti-realist doesn't have to claim that mathematical truth is provability *in one particular formalism* or *relative to a formalism*. But the formalist is usually taken to claim precisely that, which means that they'll have to find a way to deal with Gödel... and it's not precisely obvious how to do that.
Thank you for your response. However, doesn’t this make truth relative? According to the method of trusting moral intuition, murder is wrong, according to the method of believing the negation of a ethically intuitive premise, murder is obligatory. According to ZFC, there are infinite prime numbers, but according to a finitist axiomatic system, which allows for no infinities, there are finite prime numbers. Any belief forming process can be a method, wishful thinking, biblical interpretation, etc. Does anti-realism about truth not collapse into relativism?
@@davidzuilhof2272 It doesn't have to. Antirealists can believe that there is a single correct method (in a particular domain), and their arguments to privilege one method over others can be identical to those of realists. It may help to see that there's a symmetric danger for realists. If you're an antirealist and you don't think one method can be argued to be the best, you collapse into relativism. If you're a realist and you don't think one method can be argued to be the best, you collapse into skepticism (for there's a reality, but you don't know how to get there).
I appreciate your answer, thanks!!! That makes sense, I’m going to think about this a bit more. Is your personal view on scepticism similar to Robert Stern’s? You seem sympathetic to his (Kantian) direction, but I might misinterpret you
I don’t understand the idea of the standards of reality/thought. You seem to refer to the epistemic norms of thought, e.g. if you realise you have a set of beliefs that entail a contradiction you ought to give one of these beliefs up. However, it makes no sense to think of reality as having norms, sure, reality might have, but laws cannot be violated, they are not norms. I doubt this interpretation of you is correct since this also does not solve scepticism. For, the sceptic says that by our own standards of thought cannot be met by our capacities, that we violate our own norms in believing in the external world, e.g. that we violate the norm that ‘if you do not know that you are not a handless BIV then you don’t know (and thus shouldn’t believe) that you have hand’ (on the assumption that we don’t know that we are not a BIV). This is not a standard of reality, but of our own thought, thus no progress has been made with respect to skepticism. I probably just misunderstood your explanation…
With a standard of reality, I mean, the standard that determines what it is to be real. It's the answer to the question: "What is it for something to be real?" Some philosophers might say that to be real is to be in space and time; or to be real is to have causal connections to us; or to be real is to be in the mind of God; or to be real is an unanalysable primitive, so there is in that sense to standard except it itself. The anti-realist says that there is no distinction between our ideal standards of cognitive acceptability and the standards of reality; to be real *is* to... and then there should follow some description which can no doubt depend on the kind of object we are thinking of. To be real *is* to be part of the best theory making sense of all possible experience, for instance. To be real *is* to be provable (in the case of mathematics). Different anti-realist could have very different stories here.
An objection immediately arises which seems born with philosophy itself: the perception of an external reality can be an illusion, just as a stick dipped in water appears crooked when it is not. Louis-Ferdinand Céline even recommends breaking the stick before putting it in the water! All right, it is quite obvious that we can make a mistake or be deceived by an illusory sensory perception, but it is precisely through a permanent back and forth between reality and what we experience of it that it is possible to approach truth, thus an adequacy between intelligence which questions and reality.
Thank you! Thank you! (I am a complete novice in academic philosophy -- However I have thought much about philosophical aspects of language and life and politics. Can I suggest that despite the severe "scrutiny" which academic writing -- or the writing of the most senior academic philosophers -- is subjected to -- that there is great scope for "smuggling-in" what we might describe as "psychological" bias or "aesthetic" bias in published academic writing on philosophy. I hesitate to say this but I seriously wonder whether the bulk of what passes for academic debate about philosophical ideas is really at cross purposes : There is perhaps very little serious intellectual conflict of 'interpretation' of 'positions' or 'ideas' : I suggest that perhaps much of what is termed 'philosophical debate' is NOT really debate about philosophical questions -- but is rather a personality conflict or a conflict of psychological interests -- dressed-up in non-personality-related terminology -- i.e. a personality conflict dressed-up in overtly 'philosophical' language. On one side is the sort of personality which might be described as 'benign', or 'non-pragmatic' or 'creative' -- which can of course include not only the great artists and poets and composers, but even the illiterate man who is simply 'sentimental', 'naive', 'romantic'; that is the sort of personality which takes as its principal criterion of human worth the capacity to inspire and to stimulate one's fellows - not necessarily by talking about momentous or dramatic subjects -- but simply by his presence. I suggest that in opposition to this is the personality which is pragmatic, cynical, hierarchical, authoritarian, pompous, adversarial, industrious -- the personality which looks to a peripatetic way of life -- the pragmatist's criterion of human worth being nothing else but success in scoring personal 'moral' points -- constantly striving to 'out-do' ones fellows in obtaining some practical advantage -- such as religious law points (pietism; being more pious according to the letter of some religious law text), or alternatively making more money than other men or winning the patronage or the approval of one's employer -- trying to demonstrate that one is able to work harder or faster or that one is able top put-up with more adverse conditions of employment without complaining. I particularly suggest that the class of most 'pragmatic' / 'emotionally immature' /cynical personality -- finds it only too easy to make formally telling criticisms of the non-pragmatic way of looking at life. At the same time, being pragmatic -- being a drudge -- the cynical academic man is well equipped to 'dress up' his cynicism as not only 'rational' but even as an anti-dote to the prejudice of the romantic / non-pragmatic. It is very easy to make strong formal criticisms of the benign way of life -- the non-pragmatic criterion of human worth -- very easy to imbue a cynical attitude with artificial 'academic' respectability -- in the form of elaborate, circumspect, antiseptic 'academic' phrasing -- cynical slogans dressed-up as serious 'intellectual' positions -- which serve to give respectability to the style of life or attitude of an authoritarian personality type. In particular a conflict between the shallow/ ascetic/ emotionally immature/ authoritarian/ pragmatic personality type -- (such as W.V.O. Quine, and other such cynical, authoritarian "intellectuals" or "scholars", including say Milton Friedman the Nobel Prize winning economist, Gilbert Ryle, G.E. Moore, Norman Malcolm) -- and on the other side, there is the romantic, idealistic, creative, poetic, sentimental class of man, such as Grice and Strawson and Johan Huizinga, J-J Rousseau, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare, Lionel Trilling, F.H. Bradley, R.G. Collingwood, Charles Lamb, Jack London, F.R. Leavis.
I certainly think that personality or aesthetics can play a role. Quine himself famously recommends a particular position to those who share his aesthetic predilection for 'desert landscapes'. But your classification of thinkers into two personality types, the mature and the immature, seems to me *far* too simplistic!
@@VictorGijsbers Good of you to reply -- (I am not an anti-academic or an anti-intellectual -- my 'idols' are all scholars -- Plato/ Shakespeare / Johan Huizinga/ F.R. Leavis, (viz 'The Two Cultures Debate') -- However I suggest that there is a natural 'bias' in the academic system of 'merit' -- which promotes the 'ascetic' or the 'anti-affective' and makes life very difficult for the idealist or the romantic or the simply 'sentimental' fellow.)
@@VictorGijsbers (The so-called 'cancel culture' or the 'woke' movement may even be judged to be worse than simply 'platitudinous' -- I regard it as a calculated attempt to disguise the complete and utter shocking failure of the academic community in the U.S. to seriously and conscientiously expound such very simple 'the left' or 'meaningful left' policies as a U.K.-style of 'National Health Service. Why not a F.D.R. style 'New Deal' -- with (almost) government-guaranteed full (100 p.c.) employment for all who are willing to work, but paid at the rate of pay known as 'minimum award rate' of terms and conditions of employment? Why not have nationalisation of industry and agriculture to ensure supply of essentials -- and with government-owned industry there could be no incentive for productive industries to fail to pay the full amount of tax.
Thank you for that excellent video and arguments. The rationalist argument claims that a priori principles are necessary for empirical investigation and cannot be derived empirically. However, to me it seems this view may conflate a priori knowledge with learned preferences shaped by empirical experiences. The preference for hypotheses that fit the evidence seems to stem from natural behaviours, such as pattern recognition and survival strategies, which are learned over time. For instance, creatures learn to find water by recognizing environmental cues like the smell of water or sight of vegetation. These behaviours are refined through experience, not necessarily a priori knowledge. Could the rationalist stance exhibit circular reasoning by insisting on the impossibility of empirical investigation without a priori principles? When in fact these principles themselves could be empirical generalizations codified from practical experience. Therefore, I believe the preference for evidence-supported hypotheses likely arises from accumulated empirical knowledge rather than innate a priori principles, which supports the view that all knowledge, including guiding principles, is ultimately inseparable from experience.
I think the best option of how we treat the idea of 'truth' for the sake of politics, is to create via consensus, a standard of evidence and rightness (a standard of truth). And then define truth as 'that which is aligned with the standard of truth', which is simply a decision by us for us. The only reason we don't do this is it's too computationally expensive to even gather any good data because you'd have to circumvent our ability to deceive, joke, exaggerate etc...
Post truth politics is a co-conspiracy between politician and citizen that truth doesn’t really matter. - Vlad Vexler ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pdS-lwb58KU.htmlsi=Iea9yi1dGIm5-qt0
What had impressed me most when I first read the paper (as an undergrad) was Quine's attack on the idea that individual empirical propositions could be verified/disproven in an isolated manner. I had never thought that idea could be challenged.
6:35 The video is heplful, but (I don’t want to be THAT guy but I think it’s important) you made some mistakes about the chemistry: the representation you talked about for the atom is called lewis notation and a free oxygen atom wouldn’t be represented with two lines but rather with with two single points around (representing electrons) from which you can draw the two lines to make the bonds. That’s not the important thing though, and the analogy still holds perfectly anyways, what is really important is that it’s not called an ion, an ion is a charged coumpound, but a free oxygen atom is neutral even if it’s free.
