Robinson Crusoe

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Robinson Crusoe

• Materialism and Spiritualism Faith and Reason

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Def. of Viz. (courtesy of Wikipedia)

• Viz. (also rendered viz without a period) and
  videlicet are adverbs used as synonyms of
  namely, that is to say, as follows.
• Viz. is an abbreviation of videlicet, which is
  Latin for it is permitted to see. Both forms
  introduce a specification or description of
  something stated earlier this is often a list
  preceded by a colon (). Although both forms
  survive in English, viz. is far more common than
  videlicet.

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Materialism

• The philosophy of materialism holds that the
  only thing that can be truly proven to exist is
  matter, and is considered a form of physicalism.
  Fundamentally, all things are composed of
  material and all phenomena (including
  consciousness) are the result of material
  interactions therefore, matter is the only
  substance

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Inductive v. Deductive Reasoning

• Materialism marks a shift in scientific and
  philosophical thought from inductive to deductive
  reasoning
• Inductive reasoning works from general
  principles to the more specific
• Deductive reasoning moves from specific
  observations to broader generalizations and
  theories

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Francis Bacon, 1561-1626

• "Men have sought to make a world from their own
  conception and to draw from their own minds all
  the material which they employed, but if, instead
  of doing so, they had consulted experience and
  observation, they would have the facts and not
  opinions to reason about, and might have
  ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws
  which govern the material world."

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Bacon, contd

• Bacon is the forerunner of the scientific
  revolution in the 17th century. This
  intellectual watershed resulted in inventions and
  the creation of new fields of knowledge?telescope/
  microscope, anatomy, cartography
• Such sciences and instruments open up a gap
  between perceiver and perceived. How do we know
  what we know?

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Materialism v. Spiritualism

• Do you think that materialism is incompatible
  with spiritualism (the belief in a higher power.)
• Where in Robinson Crusoe do you see deductive
  reasoning (the scientific method) at work?

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• In the 18th c., materialism and rational
  thinking are not thought of as antithetical to
  religion but tools to strengthen faith in God.
• One method of using induction to strengthen ones
  faith was the spiritual autobiography.

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Spiritual Autobiography

• a non-fictional form which rose to prominence
  in seventeenth-century England, although its
  roots can be traced as far back as such works of
  the early Christian tradition as St. Augustines
  Confessions. The forms basic concern is to trace
  the progress of an individual believer from a
  state of sin to a state of grace, where the
  conviction takes hold that salvation has been
  guaranteed by God.

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• Enlightenment is man's emergence from his
  self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the
  inability to use one's understanding without
  guidance from another. This immaturity is
  self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of
  understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage
  to use it without guidance from another. Sapere
  Aude! dare to know "Have courage to use your
  own understanding!"--that is the motto of
  enlightenment.
• --Immanuel Kant, 1784
• Knowledge is power
• --Francis Bacon