Innate Ideas and Mathematical Proof
Philosopher Ian Hacking observes that rationalists were fascinated by the possibility of mathematical proof, while empiricists were not. He notes that there is an enormous difference to this day among philosophers about this same subject. For those ...
What is Human Nature?: Biology's Challenge to Traditional Western View of Human Nature
In the 17th and 18th centuries, scientists are fascinated with collecting specimens and classifying species. However, It will be Charles Darwin who creates a new picture of nature. In the 1830s he travels to the Galapagos Islands to research both li...
Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Meno: Platonic Proof of Innate Ideas, The
Plato gives a simple mathematical proof for innate ideas in a dialogue called the Meno. A slave boy, who has had no training in geometry, is asked by Socrates to produce a square double the area of a given square. Socrates will put no thoughts into ...
Meaning of Life, The
Philosopher Ian Hacking confesses that he doesn't know what the meaning of life is, but adds that one way to live a full life is to live a life full of thought. Another way, he suggests, is to live a rich, emotional life.
Memory and the Soul
Philosopher Ian Hacking talks about efforts to make memory the subject of scientific inquiry. He discusses the argument that what it is to be a person is not the province of "the soul," but of the memories each of us has.
Locke and the Self
Philosopher Ian Hacking talks about John Locke's idea that the self--or the person one is--depends on what one remembers. Professor Hacking looks at the implications of this idea on jurisprudence, citing a Canadian example of two individuals who bas...
Making Up People
Philosopher Ian Hacking talks about the link between the way we classify and conceptualize actions and how we define those actions, as well as how we act. He notes that these methods of classifying and conceptualizing change over time, which means t...
Kant and the Distinction Between Scheme and Reality
Philosopher Ian Hacking talks about the distinction Immanuel Kant made between reality and scheme, a word used to describe "...the conceptual organization which we either socially or individually bring to raw sensation in order to organize it into s...
Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Reason, the Source of Knowledge
Seventeenth century rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz believe that knowledge comes from reason alone. It is not necessary to see examples in the physical world;truth can be grasped entirely in the mind. This is a period in which science is mak...
Classifying and Conceptualizing Human Life
Philosopher Ian Hacking expands on his remarks about the link between the classification of actions and the way actions are viewed and how that, in turn, can affect subsequent actions. As an example, he talks about the trend in recent years of encou...