• A MAGIC TRICK to illustrate the possibility of being misled by the deliverances of our senses.
• What can we doubt?
• You took notes on DESCARTES and his attempt to find CERTAINTY.
• COGITO ERGO SUM.

• BELIEF, TRUE BELIEF AND KNOWLEDGE.
• Belief as a model, in our minds, of the real world, composed of sensory representations, language and tacit expectations.
• True belief as belief corresponding, via the appropriate rules, to the real world.
• KNOWLEDGE as true belief obtained by a valid pathway.
• Scientific REALISM.
• The EPISTEMIC GAP between the real world and our representation of it.

• Definitions : A POSTERIORI and A PRIORI.
• What sort of things are known a posteriori and a priori?
• Descartes' proof he existed was an a priori proof.
• Bishop Anselm's a priori proof (the ontological proof) that God exists.

• The LIMITS of a priori knowledge.
• EMPIRICISM and RATIONALISM.
• DAVID HUME - the arch empiricist.
• The IMPOSSIBILITY of 100% certain empirical knowledge (particularly, of the LAWS OF NATURE).

This lesson was a summary of the first four lessons, so we could catch our breath!

• Introduction to PLATO.
• The allegory of the CAVE.
• SHADOWS OF ARTEFACTS, the ARTEFACTS THEMSELVES and the FIRE.
• IMAGES OF REAL THINGS, the REAL THINGS THEMSELVES and the SUN.
• The PERCEPTIBLE and INTELLIGIBLE worlds.

• George Cronk's Powerpoint Presentation.
• Especially : the allegory of the LINE.
• States of consciousness and objects of consciousness.
• Knowledge of what is (timeless)
• Opinion of what is and is not (time-bound, changing)
• Ignorance, with what is not as its object.

• How do you plan a philosophy essay?
• Introduction and conclusion.
• Brainstorming.
• Planning the body paragraphs.
• How to get help from this website!

The Tuesday class was able to get out in bright sunshine and look at the mountains, considering the world views of Descartes, Hume and Plato. The Wednesday class did the same thing inside. Remember :

• Imagining that the mountains might not be there... but convincing ourselves that we were there... (Descartes)
• Watching a stone drop through the air and asking where the 'laws' were that made it follow its path (Hume)
• Trying to reach from the beautiful scene to the Ideas of which it is an imperfect representation (Plato)

• The purpose of philosophy - salvation (liberation)
• Spirit and matter - purusha and prakriti
• The reflection of spirit in matter and bondage
• The three 'gunas' and the triangle of qualities (sattva, tamas and rajas)

• Words : proposition ; inference ; justification ; regress ; FOUNDATIONALISM.
• My home-made power point presentation.
• Alvin Goldman and RELIABILISM

In this lesson, we analysed different logical patterns that belief structures could take :

• The infinite regression (all beliefs inferred from other beliefs, in a linear sequence, ad infinitum)
• Some beliefs not inferred, but validated by some other external means (like reliability), leading to foundations
• Some beliefs not justified externally, but going round in self-justifying, consistent circles (coherence)

We went to the Cobra or stayed in, depending whether you were Wednesday or Tuesday, and analysed a string of beliefs we might hold to find out how, in fact, we justified them. We found that most of you are naturally correspondence theorists. We hinted at the possibility of a theory founded purely on internal constistency.

This lesson concentrated on a cup on the blue pouffe. We discussed :

• Distingushing the PERCEPTION of the cup from the 'real' cup.
• The different shapes the round top of the cup had, depending on what angle you looked at it from.
• How 'reality' could be defined in terms of families of related perceptions.
• The difference between reality and hallucination, without reference to anything beyond the perception.
• Bishop Berkeley and his idealism.
• Esse est percipi - to be is to be perceived.

We watched my home-made power point presentation on the Magritte picture, 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe'.

• Even though we, on the outside, could see that it was a picture of a pipe, the words were inside the picture.
• It was incorrect for the words to say, 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe'. It was a pipe, from that vantage point.
• There didn't need to be another real pipe, out here in the world, for the words 'Ceci est une pipe' to apply correctly inside the picture.
• There doesn't need to be a reality beyond this perceived reality for our ascription of reality to be correct - it is fine if there are only perceptions - if mind is all there is.

We took a diversion into modern physics to show that the way we would like to see the real world is not challenged only by 18th century weirdos, but also by hard-nosed 20th century scientists. You are not required to remember anything from this lesson, and it might endanger your mental stability if you do...

We began work on Immanuel Kant, getting as far as :

The distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. Hume's claim there was no such thing as a synthetic a priori proposition.

• Kant's conviction that synthetic a priori propositions must be possible, as so much he intuitively knew to be true (such as the reality of laws of nature) depended upon them.
• Kant's belief that, on his own terms, Hume was right.
• Kant's belief that there had to be a 'Copernican revolution' in the way we thought and his conviction that he had found this revolution.
• The Tuesday group got as far as studying the forms of space and time and the necessity for these as conditions of possible experience.