Lecture notes on Liberal empiricism

• Sextus Empiricus said that thinking was pointless, he thought that everything you can think of has a counter argument or question. E.g. ' I think therefore I am' could counter into 'I am therefore I think'.
• Puritans lost the civil war and fled to America. They are very messianic and believe that the world is going to end. In fact when they were losing the civil war, many thought that it was part of the book of revelations and that it was the beginning of the apocalypse and that the world was going to end. They currently have influence over the U.S government. most live in Massachusetts and they also believe that the devil runs the world.
• The first Europeans to settle in the Americas were the Spanish. They went to south America and brought back gold to Europe. That's why most countries in the central Americas speak Spanish. E.g. Columbia, Ecuador and Costa Rica.
• The Dutch allowed anyone to publish anything they wanted in Holland. That's why most philosophers spent time in Holland because they were allowed to publish their books there. E.g. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.
• New York used to be called New Amsterdam because the Dutch founded New York. But eventually England became a more dominant nation than Holland and changed It's name to the New York as we know it as today.
• Adam Smith and the hidden hand of the market. He believed that the reason why one country would be richer than another was because the richer country traded with other countries whereas poorer countries didn't. Which effectively didn't allow their economies to grow. This is why China used to be a poor country, because they refused to trade with other countries.
• Hume quote ' ought from an is'
• Hume on causation- If you see a red ball hit a white ball, then the white ball moves, we think that the red ball caused the white ball to move. But Hume thinks that there is no proof that the red ball caused the white ball to move. It is only our mind that makes the assumption that it was the red ball that caused the white ball to move.
• Hume was an empiricist who believed in synthetic and analytic distinction. Synthetic distinction is when you build up an idea or ideas of something from something you have already seen. E.g. we see a bird and a human , then we put them together to make an angel. Another example would be to think of a fish then think of a human, which would make a Mermaid. Analytic distinction is when you strip an idea or a thought down instead of building it up like you would do with synthetic distinction.
• Hume also believed in induction, which basically means when you keep on adding more to the knowledge and ideas you already have.
• The triangle trade was when ships from the docks of cities such as Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow, would travel to Africa to collect slaves. They would then bring them to north America in exchange fro Tobacco and Cotton, then bring the Tobacco and Cotton back to Britain. Then just continually preform this triangle. This was also known as the transatlantic trade.
• The funny thing about the dutch was that when they allowed anything to be published in their country, the only rule was that it couldn't be published in Dutch. So the books could be read in any other language, apart from the language of the country that it was published in.
• The Dutch and the British fought against the Spanish for control over the waters. The British had no British flag on their ships so they couldn't be accused for fighting for their country. The only flag they had on their ships were ones with a skull with two bones made in a cross on it. this was known as a form of English Piracy.

Socrates

• Socrates seems to be one of the earliest Philosophers of importance. He was tried, sentenced to death & executed in 399 B.C in Athens. He was about 70 years old.
• Two of his main pupils who he taught where Xenophon and Plato. we only know what we know about Socrates because of these two pupils. Although most of the time, they both had completely different things to say about him. Plato especially wrote volumes about Socrates, as he had a big influence over Plato. Some people say the Plato could of even invented Socrates because Plato made him out to be an extraordinarily interesting character. It is thought that Socrates taught his findings to others, but he never asked for money, so he was never paid through teaching. 
• The reason why Socrates was prosecuted was because he was thought to be 'an evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heavens; and making the worse appear a better cause, teaching all this to others'. He was mainly accused of corrupting the youths of Athens.
• At his trial Socrates was found guilty by the majority and because of Athenian law, it was open to him to propose a lesser penalty than death, then the judge was choose which one was fairer between the one that was going to be given to him or the one that he had proposed. The penalty that Socrates suggested was to pay a fine of thirty Minae, for which some of his friends (including Plato) were willing to help pay. But the Judge was so offended & annoyed by the penalty that Socrates offered,  that he was sentenced to death. Socrates accused his prosecutors of making him out to be Eloquence (Persuasive or forcible), but he said that the only Eloquence of which he is capable, he says, is that of truth. Towards the end of his trial Socrates points out that good men are better to live among than bad men, therefore he cannot be so foolish as to corrupt his fellow citizens intentionally; but if unintentionally, then Meletus (who was one of or the judge) should instruct him, not prosecute him. To me that sounds like a fair point, because he is already seen as a bad man who did what he did intentionally, his point would have probably been dismissed. He was also accused by Meletus as being an atheist, because he thought Socrates introduced Gods of his own.
• It is thought that Socrates believed that the best way to gain knowledge was to do so by gaining it through asking others questions. So he often spent his days talking to a lot of people and asking them questions. It seems to me that many people found Socrates very annoying because he often asked questions that the person he was talking to could not answer, which often made them look stupid. In Russell's book he quotes ' He then went to the poets, and asked them to explain passages in their writings, but they were unable to do so. 'Then i knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration.' To me this is an example of him making other people look stupid. Because if I was asked a question about my profession & I didn't know the answer, I know i would feel embarrassed and stupid.  

Socrates

• Socrates believed that God only is wise, and by his answer he intends to prove that the wisdom that man holds means little to nothing. He also believes that the reason why he is wiser than everyone else is because he thinks that people think they know things, when really they don't, which doesn't make them wise. But the difference between them and him is that he knows he knows nothing, which makes him wiser and smarter than most.
• Socrates says that young men of the richer class have nothing better to do so they spend time watching him expose people, which make him a lot of enemies. But he says that they themselves do not like to admit that their pretence of knowledge has been detected.
• Before Socrates became a Philosopher, he was a soldier. he believed that God had instructed him to leave his old post as a soldier and take up his new post as a philosopher to go on a mission of searching into himself and other men. No one knew if Socrates actually believed that he was literally hearing voices from a divine being or if he just thought that God would want him to do these things.
• He thought that in Politics, no honest man could live long. He thought this because, at the time, politics were so corrupt that it would be impossible to be a politician and tell the truth all of the time.
• He was also known to be a strange man, some even thought that he was crazy, because whenever he couldn't figure something out, he would get lost in thought and just stop and stand where ever it was that he had got lost in thought, until he had figured out whatever it was that he was thinking about. In Russell's book he mentioned a time when two men made up a bed outside and watched him stand in the same place all night, in deep thought, until the next morning, without even moving or anything. There was also another time when he was attending a dinner party with one of his friends, when he stopped in the corridor and just stood there until the dinner party was almost over. When his friend realised that he was gone, he sent a slave to go and find him, once the slave had found him, Socrates was in such deep thought that he didn't even acknowledge the existence of the slave.
• Socrates was known to be a really ugly man with a snub nose (which you can tell from my picture). It was said that his endurance was fantastic and that one time when he was a soldier, he was seen with his fellow service men in the winter, with very few clothes on, on the ice and with barefoot, whilst his couterparts were wrapped up in many layers of clothes. It was said that he had a complete mastery of soul over body, because he had control over all bodily passion. It was said that when he drank wine no one could out drink him, but no one had ever seen him drunk and in love, he would never give in, even to the strongest of temptations.
• It is thought that Socrates believed in life after death. Just before he was executed, he said that in the next world he could go on and ask question forever, and could not be put to death, as then he would be immortal.

Why Is The 19th Century Described As “The Age Of Change”

The reason why the 19^th century can be described as “ the age of change “ is because the modern world and most importantly modern Britain and Europe, began to take shape in the 19^th century. Politically the changes could be seen across the pond in France, because of the French revolution, whilst most of the industrial changes were being made here in Britain. During the Napoleonic wars, Britain became dominant and powerful by sea. This was through there naval forces. The Navy took control of the waterways, which gave them the opportunity to block the ports to France, so that the French couldn’t export anything, which became a huge problem for the French as it caused a crash in their markets. Britain took this as an opportunity to step in and begin trading with other countries such as America, South America, India and the Far East, amongst others. It was at this point that the British Empire really started and became dominant throughout the world. Britain was growing rapidly, whilst other European countries suffered and struggled around the time of the Napoleonic war.

New markets began to rise, this was on the back of a something they called the trans Atlantic triangular trade. Which was the transporting of slave that were taken from Africa and brought to the south of America to pick Cotton. That cotton was then taken to growing Cities throughout England such as Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol and also London. Once the cotton had reached these cities, it was used to make clothes, which was then shipped back to Africa, Where the cycle would start all over again.

There was also political change going on in Britain to, as Scotland became part of the union and in 1801 Ireland became part of it to, which then came to form the United Kingdom.

During this 19th century the major cities in England such as London and Manchester, began to grow quite rapidly. This was because the Farmers and families from the country side were forced to give up their fields and land as all the new heavy machinery where brought in to do the same jobs that the farmers could do, but the machine were able to do it on a larger scale and also a lot quicker than the Farmers were able to do it. This effectively drove the Farmers out, so for those reason the farmers barley made enough money to live on, forcing them into the cities to find work.

Places such as Manchester and London grew almost over night, with the population going from around 1500 to 150’000. This made the cities way to overcrowded, furthermore they became terribly polluted. Charles Dickens spoke about one side of this situation, that being urbanisation, whilst William Cobbett looked at the other side of this, which was how the countryside was affected by Industrialisation and the Industrial revolution on a whole. First we shall briefly look at the latter of the two men and see what Cobbett’s views and opinions were on this “ age of change “. Cobbett was a political journalist in the mid to late 19^th century. He grew up in the countryside of Farnham, surrey, so he was very passionate about farming and he was scared that the rapid growth of industrialisation would ruin the countryside and the farming culture. It was known that Cobbett hated London, because he thought that Londoners got paid for doing nothing and got fed by the sweat of rural labourers through taxes. His views of industrialisation were made most public through his book called Rural Rides. On the other hand Charles Dickens wrote books focusing mostly on situations that would be happening in the densely populated cities throughout the 19^th century, but mostly in London, because Dickens moved to London in 1822 from Portsmouth. You could argue that his books mostly focused on the poverty that the people in these cities had to face. Books that were written by Dickens such as Great Expectations, Hard Times and the more well known Oliver Twist, are all sort of similar as they all show two sides of these cities in the industrial revolution period. One side being the poor side, through characters such as Pip, Oliver Twist and Sissy and the other being the more wealthy through characters such as Miss Havisham, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind and Mr Brownlow. You could suggest that the stories that Dickens tells in his books of the Hardship that the poor go through are just a reflection of his own childhood, as he came to London as a poor boy and also his father did spend some time in prison when Dickens was a boy.

Others that contributed to making this period  “ The age of change “ were John Stewart Mill and Charles Darwin. Mill was best known for his ideas on Utilitarianism and Liberty. He received his ideas on utilitarianism from his mentor Jeremy Bentham, but he developed on these ideas and made his own slightly more complex ones because he disagreed on parts of Benthams initial ones. Utilitarianism in its simplest form means when a person wants to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. Mill believed that there were different levels of happiness E.G. It would be better to be a unhappy wealthy man than it would be to be a happy poor man. You could also argue that Mill’s views on happiness are a bit vague and simplistic because he would be against someone going through hardships and pain to reach there eventual goal that would bring them happiness.

Mill’s views on liberty were he believed in individual freedom and that people should have the right to do whatever they wanted to do, as long as they weren’t affecting anyone else with their actions. He also thought that there was no difference between a man and a woman, so he thought that women should be able to vote just like men. He also believed in freedom of speech and that everybody should be entitled to there own opinion.

Lastly, Charles Darwin was very influential in the 19^th century because of his views mainly on evolution. From travelling and seeing fossils, Darwin believed that humans evolved and that there was no Adam and Eve like the bible suggests. He believed that groups of organisms undergo genetic change over a long period of time through the process known as natural selection. He also came up with the theory that members of the same species compete for survival and that the one who adapt best to the environment have the best chance to survive. He called this survival of the fittest.

Given all that had taken place in the 19^th century, along with all the influential and opinionated minds that lived through this period of time, it’s not hard to see why this era was labelled “ The age of change “.

Willaim Cobbett & Rural Rides

• William Cobbett was a political Journalist in the early to mid 19th century.
• He was writing and living in the times when Britain (mainly England) was changing dramatically, due to the Industrial revolution. new cities and towns where popping up all over the  country.
• William Cobbett grew up in the country side in Farnham surrey.
• He grew up in a farming family and from a young age he was a farmer. He was very passionate about farming and he was scarred that the rapid growth of industrialisation would ruin the country side and the farming culture.
• He was born in 1763 and had to older brothers
• In 1784 he joined the army and spent time in America. Once he returned to England from the army, he had found out the wages had almost halved.
• Cobbett had some weird views on Potatoes, he believed that they were unfit for human consumption.




William Cobbett


• He despised the government for taxes that ruined Farmers and fed the lazy, he had no time for the church and thought that the Army were freeloaders.
• He also hated London, he thought that Londoners got payed for doing nothing and got fed by the sweat of rural laborers. He also thought London was unhealthy.
• He loved Pigs and he believed that Pigs were the animal of the working class because he believed that if you had Pigs, you couldn't starve.
• In the later years of his life, Cobbett joined parliament.
• He liked machines, because he believed it showed the growth of man, but also believed that the machines and the industrial revolution on a whole would take the farmers and rural workers away from the country side and to the city to work in factories. This is what he was against.
• Check out the videos below as I found it helpfull for me to understand William Cobbett's radical Journalism.

Everything On Marx That I May Have Forgotten

Marx believed that money was the dominant factor in determining ones social class. Marx came to England in 1849, which was the height of the industrial revolution and at that time, most English men were either jobless or worked in factories. The Bourgeoisie ran the factories, which was the first problem for Marx because he believe this is where power became an issue. The Bourgeoisie had power and control over the proletariat (working class), which means they controlled how many hours they would work in a day and also, their pay –which was often very little when the amount of hard labour they did was taken in to consideration. Marx believed that the factory workers were alienated from the Bourgeoisie and from each other. He believed this because in the factories, each worker was told to work at a station on an assembly line, for example, if ones job was to put a wheel on the product, one would come to work every day and all one would do for the whole day, would be screwing the wheel on, then most likely never see the product again. Marx believed this would lead to ‘Alienation’, because one would be alienated from their co-workers at other stations and also from the final product.

In the time of Karl Marx, England was (and still is) a capitalist society, run by the Bourgeoisie. This was what Marx was against. He wanted England to become a communist society. He believed that in order for this to happen, the proletariats would have to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. He thought that this would happen by way of the factory workers finally getting frustrated with their working conditions enough to form trade unions, eventually growing large enough to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. He believed that once this had been achieved, we would finally have a communist society and that the power and social class issues would be eradicated. 

The Dreyfus Affair and J' accuse

• Dreyfus was sent to Devil's Island, he was a French soldier.
• Bismark attempted to unify Germany (the Prussian and German states)
• The French got defeated by Germany but France couldn't handle the defeat so they invented a conspiracy theory. They thought there were French soldiers acting on behalf of the Germans.
• The Germans took over Paris and all the French, rich people fled to the countryside. The only people who remained were the poor people. The poor were so desperate for food that they went to the zoo and ate all the animals apart from the lions.
• The French were made to pay for the damages of the war by the Germans.
• Also, the Germans wanted to have a parade through Paris to celebrate the war victory. Once the Germans left, the rich came back to Paris and demanded rent money from the poor for staying in Paris during their absence.
• The French Commune
• The right wing is the military and the Catholics, also the people who want to bring back the King.
• The left wing was the socialists and intellectuals.
• Drayfus was from Alsace, which was taken over by the Germans. He was also a Jew.
• He was patriotic towards the French because he hated the Germans for taking over Alsace. He went to military school and was very smart and wealthy.
• The information that was found in the waste paper basket was blamed on Dreyfus because he was a Jew and from Alsac, which meant he was considered a German.



Dreyfus

• The information that was found in the waste paper basket was information on the French army that was given to the Germans.
• Dreyfus was innocent, the person who really did it, was a Frenchman who was in the army, but a spy for the Germans. His name was Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy.
• After the cba ge of government, Dreyfus was brought back for another trial, but even with all the new evidence, he was still found guilty.
• Before the trial, the barrister was shot by gunmen because he was said to be on Dreyfus' side. The barrister still attended the trial.
• The final irony, was that Dreyfus' granddaughter was killed in Auschwitz.
• At Zola's funeral, Dreyfus was the guest of honour and he was approached by a gunman.
• Zola was the journalist who stood up for Dreyfus and wrote a letter to the President of the republic to accuse the people were currupt in the French Ministry of War. And also Esterhazy. His Article was published on the front page of the Paris Daily.

Seminar Paper on Emile Zola's, J' accuse



This article was published on January 13th, 1898 on the front page of the Paris Daily. It was written by Emile Zola in regards to the Dreyfus Affair. In this article, Zola is writing to the president of the French republic, who was Mr Felix Faure, to accuse the government of Anti- Semitism in the Dreyfus affair.

At the start of his letter to the president, it is almost as if Zola is trying to praise the president for all that he has done up until this point, because he says ' You have passed healthy and safe through base calumnies; you have conquered hearts. You appear radiant in the apotheosis of this patriotic festival that the Russian alliance was for France, and you prepare to preside over the solemn triumph of our world fair, which will crown our great work, truth and freedom. But what a spot of mud on your name-I was going to say on your reign-is this abominable Dreyfus affair!' From this, you could say Zola starts off by acknowledging all of the presidents past achievements because he wants him to see that after all the great things he has done in the past, the Dreyfus affair could tarnish his reputation, which would ultimately ruin his reign as President. You can see a more clear indication of this by when Zola writes 'History will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could be committed'.

In the next paragraph, Zola says ' I do not want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the specter of innocence that suffer there, through the most dreadful of tortures, for a crime it did not commit'. By Zola saying this, it is like he is saying to the President; I don't know how you can sleep at night, knowing that a man is in jail for a crime that he did not commit.

The first person who Zola accuses about the Dreyfus affair is Lieutenant Colonel Du Paty de Clam, who he claims is the one who was building up a misleading and scandalous case against Dreyfus and was the first culprit in the appalling miscarriage of justice committed. However, there are three other people who he mentions in the next paragraph, whom he believes turned a blind eye to the case and who did not investigate the case as well as they could have. The three people were the Minister of war, General Mercier, the assistant manager of high command, General Gonse and lastly the head of high command, General De Boisdeffre.

Zola thinks that it is well and truly a hoax and very foolish that Dreyfus was initially arrested in private by Colonel Du Paty de Clam based on his imaginary and false reasons for doing so. Colonel Du Paty de Clam told Dreyfus's wife that if she speaks, her husband is lost.

 Emile Zola

When Dreyfus was brought to court Zola reminds us that the twenty three officers whose testimonies overpowered Dreyfus, all belonged to the war office, which is run by the four culprits that Zola has already accused. He also reminds us that it was the high command who wanted to file a lawsuit against Dreyfus.

Zola then moves on to discuss the new information that the French ministry of War had received on Commander Esterhazy. They received information that Esterhazy had received a letter telegram from an agent of a foreign high power in 1896. Zola states that the French Ministry of War opened an investigation on this from May till September of 1896. Once the investigation was closed they did not want to accuse Esterhazy because that would mean the revision of Dreyfus's trial and the High Command wanted to avoid that at any cost.

The reason why The French High Command hated Dreyfus so much was because he was known to be of German origin and also a Jew. So, because of the recent embarrassing defeat that the French took at the hands of the Germans in the war, which was not to long before the Dreyfus affair, Dreyfus was considered to be almost like an enemy because the French hated the Germans and Jews.

Zola then goes on to say in the next two paragraphs how he believes that General Billot is the most guilty of them all, because he succeeded General Mercier ministry of  war. Therefore, when General Billot took his position he came in knowing that Dreyfus was innocent and that Esterhazy was the real culprit, but even with all the new evidence he had, he still decided to side with Colonel Du Paty de Clam, General Gonse and  General De Boisdeffre. Zola says that General Billot could have been ' the master of justice '.

Zola then tells the President that Major Picquart had fulfilled his duty as an honest man, because he insisted to his superiors that in the name of justice, Dreyfus should not be wrongly accused, but because the High Command did not want Major Picquart to be involved any further, they sent him on a mission to Tunisia, just to get him out of the picture. Zola, in addition, tells the President that Mr. Scheurer-Kestner believed that the truth should come out before the situation gets worse and becomes a public disaster.

Subsequently, Zola clearly states that the memo was written by Commander Esterhazy, not Dreyfus. ‘Mr. Mathieu Dreyfus denounced Commander Esterhazy as the true author of the memo just as Mr. Scheurer-Kestner demanded a revision of the case to the Minister of Justice. Zola then says how just before the trial of Esterhazy, the evidence against him was taken away and given to the high command which Zola believes was the work of Colonel Du Paty de Clam. So because of the lack of evidence against Esterhazy, he was not found guilty. Also, Zola says that the judges were brought to their seats.

Zola proceeds to mock the French army by saying 'It cannot restore his (Dreyfus’) innocence without all the High Command being guilty' and ' what of people I know who, faced the possibility of war, tremble of anguish knowing in what hands lies national defence!'

In the last part of the letter, Zola tries to make the President realise how wrong everyone involved in this is, he describes it as the truth is locked away and needs to come out. This is clear from what we can see Zola says here ' and he repeats it here: ‘when one locks up the truth underground, it piles up there, it takes there a force such of explosion, that, the day when it bursts, it makes everything leap out with it. We will see, if we do not prepare for later, the most resounding of disasters.’

Then lastly, comes Zola's ‘I accuse’. He finally says that he accuses Colonel Du Paty de Clam, General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse , General Billot, General Mercier, General De Pellieux for their part in covering up the truth. Also, the three handwriting experts, sirs Belhomme Varinard and Couard, of submitting untrue and fraudulent reports. Finally Zola accuses the first council of war for violating the law by condemning a defendant with unrevealed evidence.

In the time that this was happening in France, I can imagine that a letter like this being published on the front page of the Paris daily was probably really big and shocking news, especially when the author is blatantly accusing people who are suppose to be honourable members of the French society. To my knowledge I cannot remember anything like this happening since I've been alive, but I would imagine that if it was to happen, there would be a big buzz around the letter and it would probably be headline news in the papers and on TV. Lastly I would like to find out where Zola got all of his information from because he does not say in his letter and it would have been unethical for him to falsify information. It would be interesting to know if the French general public took this letter seriously or even the president, for that matter.