1. Rationalism
Focus: to be able to explain the claims of rationalism, looking in particular at Descartes
To begin to evaluate whether Descartes establishes any synthetic a priori knowledge

2. Knowledge Innatism
Knowledge innatism argues that there is at least some innate knowledge. Exactly what ‘innate’ means in this context is disputed. But the claim is that some knowledge is part of the mind, already ‘in’ the mind from birth, rather than gained from experience. If there is any innate knowledge, it cannot be a posteriori, but must be a priori.
Print this out
Read this and pick out the key words and phrases to help you remember what knowledge innatism is.

3. Knowledge Innatism: true or false?
If there is any innate knowledge, it cannot be a priori, but must be a posteriori.
Knowledge innatism claims that some knowledge is part of the mind, already ‘in’ the mind from birth.
1. Knowledge innatism claims that all knowledge is innate.
False – only some knowledge is innate
True – ask the boys how this is different to knowledge empiricism.
False – other way around.

4. What do you think so far? Can there be some innate knowledge?
What is this knowledge?

5. Need to demolish it because…
Wave 1
Wave 2
Wave 3
Can’t trust our senses because…
Can’t trust our senses because…
Can’t trust our senses because…
Old System of Beliefs
Need to demolish it because…
HOWEVER
HOWEVER
HOWEVER
Some beliefs remain because…
Some beliefs remain because…
There is still one thing we can be certain of…

6. Descartes – meditation 1
Read the meditation What are the three waves of doubt? Read the hand-out and complete your 3 waves of doubt sheet.

7. Descartes: A knowledge innatist (rationalist)
What is Descartes’ aim in his meditations?
What does he do in his first meditation?
What innate truth does he establish in the second?
Can the cogito be known a priori? It is synthetic (it’s not true by definition), so is it synthetic a priori as the rationalist says?

8. Descartes: A knowledge innatist (rationalist)
What is Descartes’ aim in his meditations? To find certain knowledge using reason alone (as his senses could deceive him)
What does he do in his first meditation? Method of radical doubt. He wanted to find a claim he could not doubt – that was indubitable.
What innate truth does he establish in the second? I think therefore I am (cogito ergo sum). This is knowable a priori but it not true by definition, he says. It is an example of synthetic a priori knowledge.
Can the cogito be known a priori? It is synthetic (it’s not true by definition), so is it synthetic a priori as the rationalist says?

9. Descartes wanted to arrive at intuitions that could not be doubted
Descartes wanted to arrive at intuitions that could not be doubted. He called these clear and distinct ideas. How did he develop further truths on top of the cogito? If he can prove the existence of a good God that would not deceive us, then he knows he can trust his senses as long as we proceed with careful attention.

10. Evaluate
Does Descartes establish any a priori synthetic knowledge in your opinion?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to finding certain knowledge?
Is the cogito a synthetic a priori truth in your view?

11. 9 mark questions
Explain how Descartes argues that we can gain a priori knowledge through intuition and deduction.
Outline Descartes’ ‘evil deceiver’ argument and explain what he then says about his knowledge of his own existence.

12. Rationalism
Focus: to be able to explain the claims of rationalism, looking in particular at Plato and Leibniz.
To evaluate whether rationalism can generate knowledge beyond the mathematical and analytic.

13. Homework Is synthetic a priori knowledge possible? Geometry Algebra
Read p in the blue book and make notes.

14. p. 167 blue book
Read 1.23 on p.375

15. Knowledge Innatism: Plato’s Meno
What problem does Socrates pose about knowledge?
For Plato, what is learning?
Outline and explain what happens when Socrates questions Meno’s slave boy. You can draw a diagram to help you.
4) What does the example of Socrates and the slave boy show about how we acquire knowledge according to Plato?
5) How do Socrates’ questions help the boy acquire knowledge?

16. Answers... What problem does Socrates pose about knowledge?
That men cannot enquire about both what they know and what they don’t know. This is because if they already know then they have no need to enquire and if they don’t know then they cannot enquire because the person does not know the very subject about which they are to enquire about.
2) For Plato, what is learning?
Remembering (this solves the above problem because if the person already has the knowledge in their mind then they can enquire about it).
3) Outline and explain what happens when Socrates questions Meno’s slave boy. You can draw a diagram to help you.
By drawing geometric figures in the ground Socrates demonstrates that the slave is initially unaware of how to find twice the area of a square. Socrates then draws a second square figure on the diagonal so that the slave can see that by adding vertical and horizontal lines touching the corners of the square, the double of its area is created. He gets the slave to agree that this is twice the size of the original square and says that he has "spontaneously recovered" knowledge he knew from a past life without having been taught.
Explain that in the exam they wouldn’t need to run through the whole slave boy example but simply say that Socrates gives the slave boy a geometry lesson which shows that the boy could access prior knowledge, not gained through experience.

17. Answers...
4) What does the example of Socrates and the slave boy show about how we acquire knowledge according to Plato?
That not all knowledge can be gained from experience and so therefore, some knowledge must involve recovering knowledge from within our own minds. The mind must have existed before birth, to have gained this knowledge in a previous form of existence.
5) How do Socrates’ questions help the boy acquire knowledge?
Socrates’ questions triggered the knowledge the slave boy had before birth, but had forgotten – just as memories can be triggered by some event or question.

18. 5 mark question
Explain what Plato is trying to show about knowledge in his ‘slave boy’ argument

19. Was the sculpture uncovered from the solid block?

20. Knowledge Innatism: Leibniz
In his New Essays on Human Understanding.
Leibniz defends innate knowledge:
We can know things without being conscious of them
We should distinguish between necessary (a priori) and contingent (a posteriori) truths
It exists as ‘a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation’ in the mind towards developing and knowing certain things.

21. Knowledge Innatism: Leibniz
In his New Essays on Human Understanding.
(pp Lacewing)
Can you remember?
How does Leibniz respond to Locke’s claim that no knowledge is universal?
Which type of truth is innate for Leibniz and why does he argue this?
What claims does Leibniz make about our knowledge of God?
How does Leibniz respond to Locke’s comment that innate knowledge is merely a capacity for knowledge (that we are born with the capacity for knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that there is innate knowledge)?

22. Answers...
2) How does Leibniz respond to Locke’s claim that no knowledge is universal?
Leibniz claims that everyone uses the knowledge ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’ (the law of non-contradiction) all the time but ‘without explicitly attending to it’. Indeed, we can’t really think without it, since it is needed to distinguish the concept of one thing from the concept of something different. So, knowledge can be unconscious. However, while Locke can reply that we are simply recalling knowledge which was once conscious (memory), Leibniz argues there’s no reason to think that this knowledge was once conscious. Why think that we can know everything about our minds straightaway?

23. Answers...
3) Which type of truth is innate for Leibniz and why does he argue this?
Necessary truths – he argues that experience cannot give us knowledge of necessary truths.
As these truths are not conscious, we need to discover them.
Sense experience is necessary in order to help us discover this innate knowledge. But it is not sufficient.
4) What claims does Leibniz make about our knowledge of God?
He accepts that many aspects of the knowledge of God could be gained from teaching (sense experience). But, our experience of the universe doesn’t bring us ‘the whole way to the idea of God that we have and require.’ If nothing else, we have a prior inclination, a receptivity to the idea of God.

24. Answers
5) How does Leibniz respond to Locke’s comment that innate knowledge is merely a capacity for knowledge (that we are born with the capacity for knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that there is innate knowledge)?
- While innate knowledge does not exist ‘fully formed’ or explicitly in our minds, it is more than mere capacity. In gaining knowledge of necessary truths, the mind needs to actively engage with itself, albeit at the prompting of sense experience.
- ‘The actual knowledge of [necessary truths] isn’t innate. What is innate is what might be called the potential knowledge of them, as the veins of marble outline a shape that is in the marble before they are uncovered by the sculptor’.
- Because it takes work to uncover what is within us, we should say that innate knowledge is learned. But the point is that it is that we don’t learn is from sense experience.

25. Read lacewing p
How far do you think that experience ‘triggering’ knowledge is different from learning from experience?

26. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
1) For Plato, learning is...
Remembering.

27. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
2) What is the slave boy in Plato’s Meno initially unable to work out?
Twice the area of a square

28. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
3) How do Socrates’ questions help the boy acquire knowledge?
They help to trigger the knowledge the slave boy had before birth, but has forgotten.

29. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
4) Which truth does Locke say ‘children’ and ‘idiots’ do not know, but Leibniz says all humans know, but not necessarily consciously.
The Law of Non-Contradiction: ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’.

30. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
5) Which types of truth are innate for Leibniz?
Necessary truths

31. Write the correct answer on your whiteboards...
6) What analogy does Leibniz make in explaining the innate potential for knowledge?
The veins in the block of marble uncovered by the sculptor.

32. Arguments against knowledge innatism
To deny there is any innate knowledge, we need to argue that we don’t have that knowledge, or that we get it another way. It is unconvincing to say we know 2+2=4 from experience. So what would the empiricist say? Necessary truths are a priori but analytic. We acquire the concept from experience and then come to discover the necessary truth. To say this, the empiricist must show that necessary truths are in fact analytic And that we do acquire the concepts from experience. What do you think?

33. Recap – knowledge empiricism/innatism
Read the topic summary in lacewing p Is there anything that you don’t understand?

34. 15 mark question
Can reason alone provide us with any synthetic knowledge? 1st – Decide what you will conclude. What is your line of argument going to be? 2nd – mind map everything that could be relevant in answering this question. 3rd – highlight the points that you will include in your essay that will best support your argument.

35. Spinoza: A third knowledge innatist.
Page read and make notes.