William Crathorn - Epistemology

Epistemology

Crathorn's philosophy focuses mainly upon epistemology and the problem of knowledge. His thoughts on knowledge resemble closely those of Roger Bacon, who held that knowledge of the external world comes from recognition of different "species" of objects. The species which is perceived is both a cause and a likeness in the eye of the perceiver. Crathorn asserts a somewhat Kantian view that we have no direct access to things in the external world and that we immediately perceive only their mental likenesses or representations (their species). Crathorn believed that since concepts can only belong to the category of quality, they must be mental qualities having the same nature as non-mental qualities and they must exist subjectively in the mind, which is to say that they exist in some part of the brain. To illuminate this theory, he offered theories of explaining brain function and how such relates to the philosophy of knowledge.

Crathorn affirms that whenever one is contemplating a certain concept, the mind of the person thinking it actually mirrors the concept. He thought that mental concepts cannot resemble substances but only qualities of substances because the species of substance would have to be a substance itself and our minds would turn into a new substance if we thought of it. It also cannot be a pure quantity because in thinking of infinite magnitudes, our minds would become infinite, and the same is true for the other categories besides quality. Crathorn held that one's ability to conceptualize is therefore limited to natural concepts of qualities, which in being conceived become qualities of the soul.

Crathorn also looked into the skeptical challenges which he anticipated in the problem of knowledge. To refute skeptical claims, he turned back to the cogito-argument to prove that we can at least be certain of our own mental activity, for if one were to doubt a proposition such as ‘I am’, it would follow that he exists, since he who does not exist does not doubt.