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  • hello and welcome to this online section of introduction to philosophy

  • this series of videos is recorded for my HUP 101 course

  • a class that I teach at laguardia community college

  • my name is doctor richard brown and i will be the instructor of this course

  • uh... this series of videos is, um, uh,

  • primarily intended for classes

  • uh... my online classes at laguardia colleges as I just mentioned uh... but

  • i've taught this course of for many years i taught it at brooklyn college

  • before i came to laguardia

  • and so uh... these slides these powerpoint slides also accompany

  • the Chaffee book

  • uh...the philosopher's way which is the book that students

  • in this course will be using

  • and so, um

  • uh... these slides then

  • represent what I kind of drew on the board, or whatever

  • a complete course in philosophy

  • and um...

  • in order to do that

  • the first question that we've got to start with

  • just by way of introducing the topic uh...is well, what is philosophy?

  • what is it that we're going to be studying in this series of lectures?

  • and answering this question is very difficult because if you ask

  • a hundred different philosophers what it is they do you're liable to get a hundred

  • different answers

  • um so it's not a very easy question to answer. Different people think

  • of philosophy as different things.

  • now, typically

  • uh...

  • sometimes people conceive of philosophy as asking certain kinds of questions

  • well you know very deep questions about the meaning of life and

  • what's real and those kinds of things and it's true that philosophers do ask those questions

  • and so one way of talking about philosophy is talking about those kinds

  • of questions that philosophers deal with and the kinds of answers that they give

  • and so we'll talk about that at the very end this lecture, talk about the

  • various branches philosophy

  • uh... another way of thinking about philosophy is

  • looking, well, sort of

  • what the word means and how people have thought about it historically

  • and so that's what I want to turn to first uh... i want to actually spend a little bit of

  • time

  • talking about what i call the pre philosophical way of thinking

  • uh... or

  • uh... the way that people thought about reality

  • before philosophy

  • uh... was discovered

  • and there was some characteristic differences

  • in this historical way and so one thing you'll notice uh... in these lectures is

  • that

  • I'm very historically orientated

  • and i think that it's very important

  • for us to put

  • the questions were interested in in this kind of historical perspective so we

  • will be going uh... historically in order

  • all right so

  • to start with then at the beginning

  • let's give a very brief introduction to the origins of society and all of this

  • should be taken with a grain of salt, of course

  • because when we're looking back on history we're doing our best to

  • reconstruct events

  • uh... that

  • uh... only uh... fragmentary evidence of which survives so we must always remember

  • that we're doing the best that we can

  • so we'll be referring to this timeline here

  • over the course of the class

  • and so here I'll mark where we are now the present-day CE

  • and those of you probably know that we used to use 'BC' and 'AD'

  • 'BC' for 'before christ' and 'AD' for 'Anno Domini'

  • which uh... means in latin 'the year of our lord' uh... and year one here is supposed to

  • mark the historical birth of uh... jesus of nazareth

  • not everybody is a christian and so having these christian-centric dates

  • uh...there is a movement away from naming them that way so we changed it to

  • 'CE' for

  • 'common era'

  • and 'BCE' for 'before the common era' and i use those prefixes here suffixes here (whatever)

  • but the turnaround date is still year one there where historically

  • many have thought

  • jesus was actually born. There is some debate about that, as i said earlier,

  • all of this is sort of piecemeal knowledge that we have

  • but there are...some scholars think well maybe he was born slightly earlier than year one

  • or slightly later than year one, by which I mean the actual historical jesus

  • uh...

  • uh... so we're not sure but that's the date that year one is set

  • uh... and that's why it's set at year one

  • now of course there are many cultures that don't

  • have uh...

  • their dating system this way so

  • there are cultures that don't start over when they think that jesus was born and so for

  • them

  • uh... they will number the year not 2011, like us, but five thousand something

  • but so roughly speaking then if this timeline were to extend

  • all the way to the left

  • a good space using this same kind of rough metric that I've had here

  • you'd have to go another

  • seven

  • to 10 thousand years in the past

  • uh... to find human beings

  • as we

  • think of ourselves now settling down

  • uh... so this is the invention of farming you may not think of farming

  • as an invention but it is an invention

  • there are certain technologies which are required

  • in order to farm; you need to be able to irrigate, you need to be able to

  • control water

  • um, by having

  • buckets for instance or uh...

  • irrigation channels, you need to be able to use a hoe

  • planting seeds in nice orderly rows, etc

  • so we have evidence and again none of this is hard and fast um

  • ten thousand

  • roughly or so

  • uh... years before year one

  • people started farming

  • so then for roughly seven thousand years people lived in this way

  • farming, settling down, domesticating animals no longer living

  • hunter-gatherer lifestyles

  • no longer being nomads

  • but nothing like a city developing there are still these tribal associations, it's still

  • very

  • family oriented, extended family

  • and etc

  • but around three thousand

  • five hundred years before year one

  • we find city life as we know it so what we call civilization

  • civilized life

  • developing

  • and cities back then of course would've been much smaller

  • a large city would comprise about a thousand, two thousand people

  • something that we don't consider to be very large but of course the population back then

  • would've been much smaller so there

  • would have been very large cities with a thousand to two thousand people

  • and of course

  • what corresponds with the origins of civilization are

  • the invention of writing

  • and human beings around this time

  • seemed to have developed

  • writing in various places

  • around the world so it's not just in the western world

  • that we find writing,

  • cuneiform tablets, etc, being developed uh... but also of course everyone knows about Egypt

  • and the hieroglyphs

  • and

  • lesser-known perhaps in the americas they were also developing forms of writing and in china and the east

  • as well

  • people are developing writing around this time and it's interesting to look back at some of

  • these

  • earliest

  • kinds of writings...um...they give us some kind evidence of what the people thought

  • at the time

  • and the way they viewed themselves in the in the grander scheme so I want to take a look at

  • that

  • but first i want to focus on the places that we're going to talk about so

  • here's some pictures this is the map of ancient Mesopotamia

  • uh... over on the right over there is where we're going to be focusing on

  • uh... babylon and sumer. Babylon is where the tigris and euphrates rivers meet

  • and those of you uh... who are aware of current...uh...

  • ...um...

  • nations and politics

  • will recognize

  • what is babylon there as modern day Iraq. So, there's Egypt there,

  • the Sinai peninsula

  • and of course the out of africa theory

  • which uh...

  • uh...

  • some scientists think describes the way

  • uh... we

  • human beings evolved

  • has it that human beings evolved in Africa

  • and then

  • migrated nomadically up and across the the peninsula there and then settled down

  • uh... started farming in babylon

  • uh... in areas in Egypt and so on where these cities later developed, and so,

  • uh...

  • what we find from these early areas are actually pieces of writing

  • which are very

  • illustrative so i want to look at one in particular

  • and this is, um...

  • famously known as the Epic of

  • Gilgamesh.

  • Now

  • if you haven't read the Epic of Gilgamesh you probably should

  • it's a great story and it used to be read n English 101 classes, I don't

  • know if they still do or not, or in English 102 or something like that

  • uh... but it's an epic in the sense of an epic adventure

  • and it tells the story of a king

  • named Gligamesh who was a great king of one of these ancient cities

  • and Gilgamesh wants to know

  • why people die, what the meaning of life is and how we can be immortal.

  • So, he really wants to know the answer to this question

  • and he decides that the way he's going to answer it is to

  • go on a journey

  • to where the gods live

  • and to demand of the gods that they tell him, Gilgamesh, the answers to these questions.

  • and so he does.

  • A lot of adventures ensue.

  • uh... and I won't rehash all of the stuff that happens

  • He eventually gets to the gods and asks them this question

  • and they set him a bunch of tasks. They say 'Gilgamesh, if you complete these tasks

  • we'll answer your questions, tell you everything you want to know'.

  • the tasks are very much like

  • the kinds of things you find in greek mythology, um he has to kill a certain beast, he has to climb a certain mountain, he has to divert a certain

  • river

  • uh... and etc. So, he does all of that stuff.

  • and finally he comes to the last task the gods

  • the gods tell Gilgamesh 'you must stay awake for three days and three nights'

  • and if he does this

  • they will tell him the answer

  • So he says 'no problem'

  • but of course he doesn't have red Bull

  • or caffeine or any of the other luxuries, No-Doze, that modern people use to do all nighters

  • so he stays awake for three days

  • and two nights

  • and on the third night

  • he falls asleep.

  • So, poor Gilgamesh wakes up in the morning

  • to see the gods saying,

  • 'oh well, you were so close but now you'll never know.'

  • they just...he does not complete the tasks and he does not get to know the answer

  • he becomes very angry

  • and then he finds out, uh, comes to a realization

  • that the way to be a immortal for a human

  • is to have your name remembered by doing great things. By building a great city, by being a fair ruler and so on

  • an so forth

  • this story, this very brief synopsis, a butchering, of a story

  • uh... illustrates two points that I want to make.

  • So, the first point is

  • that it's sort f wrong to think of philosophy as simply a group of questions

  • because notice the kind of question that Gilgamesh is asking here

  • are very deep questions

  • why do we die? What's the meaning of life? How do we

  • become immortal?

  • What's the right way to live?

  • It is not as though

  • only philosophers are interested in those questions

  • human beings are interested in

  • those kinds of questions

  • That seems to be

  • something

  • that afflicts us in a certain way. We want to know the answer to these questions

  • but of course there are different ways of answering

  • those questions

  • and gilgamesh

  • embodies a particular way of answering those questions

  • Notice he never once

  • entertains the idea

  • that he himself could figure out

  • the answer to these questions on his own.

  • Immediately from the beginning

  • the proposed solution to the problem is to fid out those who know, the gods

  • and to ask them

  • and this is the general theme of the pre philosophical way thinking

  • that human beings are

  • not capable knowing

  • the way the word is...only

  • ...they are like children

  • who can't understand the most simplest things

  • the world is filled with the supernatural personalities who really know.

  • The world of the gods

  • as you might be familiar

  • from uh...

  • retellings of these stories. Zeus, Athena and so on

  • um, that's who controls reality

  • and if you want to know

  • then you've got to ask. Now of course

  • uh... these would have been different gods for

  • Gilgamesh

  • and people like him

  • but the idea that this roughly the same

  • so there's a conception of human beings as supplicants

  • as not being able to know as uh...

  • having to be told by

  • divine revelation

  • the way reality really is

  • now there's another story that illustrates this point as well and this is

  • something that we can see from the Code of Hammurabi.

  • Now, the Code of Hammurabi is famous because it is one of the earliest

  • written

  • laws we have

  • and you can actually go to the website of the Louvre and read a translation of the

  • Code of Hammurabi. It's there on their website. It's extremely interesting

  • i recommend that you do it if you have the opportunity

  • if you do this you'll be struck by two things. So, one is

  • the thing I was mentioning earlier, namely that

  • they're dealing with the same kind of questions that

  • and problems that we deal with so their lives

  • are roughly

  • very similar to our lives. They live in a city. They're around people they don't know and

  • aren't related to

  • and there are various questions of how

  • you ought to interact with them. What obligations they owe to you, what obligations you owe to

  • them

  • and ways of coordinating behavior

  • such that

  • you can discourage certain kinds of behavior and

  • encourage other kinds of behavior. Very ordinary kinds of problems. So, that'll be the first thing you're struck by.

  • Now, of course

  • the way they discouraged behaviors was by a very eye for an eye type of justice

  • and uh... that will be something which is kind of a shock to modern people their

  • system of punishment was very, very, eye for an eye, very

  • brutal I guess we might say

  • but, uh,

  • So, I don't want to dwell on that, that's not really the main point.

  • so the other point is

  • the source of the justification of these laws

  • So, the laws were

  • written on a giant

  • pole

  • ascribed around it

  • which was

  • smack dead in the center of the

  • entering gate of the city that

  • Hammurabi controlled

  • so that any person who walked into the city would be faced first

  • with this inscription of all the laws. So that there was no excuse and everybody knew what the laws were

  • they were right there

  • you could check them.

  • But why should you obey those laws? Who was Hammurabi

  • to tell you these are the right laws? Why these ones as opposed to some other set?

  • or no set at all?

  • Well, the answer is contained in the

  • preamble

  • of the Code of Hammurabi and the answer is roughly this:

  • Hammurabi is the son of god

  • He is the slayer of Tiamat, the great dragon, the orderer of chaos etc, etc, blah, blah, blah

  • he built this, he did that, god is his father, etc, etc, and so who else

  • better to know

  • than Hammurabi?

  • so again we see this appeal to divine

  • intervention

  • divine revelation

  • as the only

  • real way of knowing

  • what these laws are

  • so notice that nowhere in that

  • preamble is there anything like

  • well

  • we've thought about it carefully and these

  • appear to be the best way

  • to

  • achieve the goals that we've set for ourselves uh... Goal One:

  • Coordinated behavior, Goal 2

  • Commerce, etc

  • so nothing about

  • us discovering the truth but

  • a lot about

  • the truth being revealed by a greater source and that really is

  • what's contrasted with

  • the origin

  • of western philosophy

  • so, now, again, just before we move on I want to take a second to emphasize

  • that, um,

  • I'm talking here about western philosophy and

  • we could tell a different story talking about the origins of eastern philosophy

  • or american philosophy

  • so since we're talking about the sort of society of the west which has its

  • origins in

  • Ancient Greece

  • uh... that's where we're going to be focusing but that's not the say there's

  • anything overly specifically special

  • about the greek people at this time

  • uh... people

  • have been interested in these questions and people around the world

  • have developed answers to them

  • although people n Ancient Greece

  • uh, have one

  • really definitively

  • western ways of dealing with these problems

  • and questions which has influenced uh... the spread of our culture so we'll be

  • taking a look at that

  • so again here's our timeline

  • uh... now there remember farming invented about ten thousand years before

  • year one

  • civilization begins the invention of writing

  • uh... uh... about thirty five hundred years roughly again debatable but

  • roughly around that area

  • uh... before year one

  • and so when does philosophy start? Well

  • we date the origins of western philosophy to about six hundred years

  • before year one

  • notice that's roughly

  • three thousand years from the beginning of writing

  • to the origins of philosophy so during that time period

  • the pre philosophical way of thinking as i have characterized it

  • dominates

  • and we can think right around twelve hundred BCE

  • so that's right around the mark there where it says '1000'

  • uh... was where many scholars think that moses lived and of courses moses

  • gave us the ten commandments and that's prototypical of this pre philosophical way of

  • thinking

  • what's the right way to live your life? Well you can'y answer that question

  • moses goes to mountain, god reveals to him directly

  • the correct rules

  • for living

  • a good life and then moses comes back and says god told me this is the right way

  • to do it

  • so that's the uh... another way of thinking about and of course if you

  • don't do it god intervenes and punishes you

  • So these are kind of the twin ideas

  • of the pre philosophical way of thinking

  • when there's an earthquake god's punishing you for breaking some rule

  • when there's a nice bountiful harvest god's rewarding you for following the rules

  • and so it's important for us to know what the rules are and the way the world

  • works but we can't know for ourselves so we're dependent on

  • somebody else, the gods,

  • handing that down and then them handing that down to us

  • so that's roughly the pre philosophical way of thinking

  • and the philosophical way of thinking begins around six hundred years before year one

  • and i should caution um... just so that there's no misunderstanding

  • it's not as though once philosophy is discovered

  • this older way of thinking goes out of date. People still subscribe to this

  • view and people did at that time as well

  • it's just that

  • this is the earliest

  • that we know of where people start advocating

  • some other way of thinking about human beings

  • and our relation to

  • reality

  • so let's take a look

  • so this is where we're going to be spending uh... roughly one third of the

  • class is spent in ancient greece

  • almost uh...

  • over a third of the class actually so it's good to get familiar with it so

  • just look at the map for second you can see the aegean sea there

  • separating Greece on the left from Ionia

  • on the right

  • 'Ionia' was the ancient name for that land mass nowadays we

  • would call that that's where turkey is

  • uh... buts this is a

  • map of ancient greece

  • so the isle of crete down there at the bottom

  • the Cretans who lived on the Isle of Crete, even in the ancient period had a

  • reputation for being liars aristotle

  • famously wrote

  • that he was perplexed by the sentence 'all cretans are liars'

  • so i don't know what those ancient cretans were up to but uh...

  • they seem to have developed a bad rep

  • so then moving on up you can see

  • uh, Corinth there and Corinth is famous from the letters from the

  • Corinthians and to the Corinthians which are included in the Bible

  • Then up top there's the oracle at delphi

  • and delphi and the oracle will play an important part of the story of the life

  • of socrates and we'll talk about that

  • but you must know the oracle from

  • uh... delphi from

  • other sources

  • uh... more than likely you'd know it as the source of

  • the prophecy

  • uh... that a certain person would mary their mother

  • and killer father

  • and uh... I'll leave you to fill in the name of that famous person

  • but i'm sure you know who I'm talking about

  • uh... ok and then there's athens which is where a lot of the action will take place

  • because there is where socrates and plato and aristotle

  • socrates was an Athenian

  • uh... plato was the student of socrates and starts the Academy there and Aristotle

  • goes to study there so

  • with plato at the academy and then starts his own school

  • and so athens has always been an important part of

  • ancient philosophy

  • but actually the story starts over in Ionia in a city called 'Miletus'

  • and the earliest philosophers as far as we know and again remember history is

  • mostly a guessing game because we're always trying to figure out what

  • happened on the basis of incomplete evidence

  • so we don't really really know what happened

  • six hundred years before the birth

  • uh... jesus but we have some ideas and most of them come from historical

  • writers

  • uh...like aristotle

  • at for instance and Theophrastus and there are others

  • who are writing about this period and we have those writings

  • so a lot of it is pieced

  • together

  • and so we're not saying that no one ever had these ideas before it's quite

  • possible that there was a person

  • before this period of time who had a lot of similar ideas

  • but we don't have anything

  • written down which have survived

  • which indicate that this is so what we have now the best evidence suggests

  • what we're going to call philosophy

  • um... originated in Miletus

  • roughly six hundred years before year one

  • and in particular with a

  • individual named Thales and Thales

  • uh... was roughly born in this 620's

  • a six hundred and twenty

  • years before year one we don't really know

  • because the ancients didn't really

  • keep birth records they weren't interested in when someone was born

  • uh... there were more interested in when someone dies so we have really complete

  • death records

  • we know that he died in five forty six

  • now notice that these dates go backwards and that's because of course

  • we're counting down

  • to year one

  • whereas where we are now in the year two thousand eleven we're counting away from

  • year one so

  • uh... it's not weird to be born in six twenty and die in five forty six

  • uh... that's the way we date things back then

  • and thales is a real interesting person uh... there's a lot that can be said

  • about him

  • and i'll spend some time talking about thales

  • and the people around him other uh... greeks, Anaximander and

  • uh

  • Anaximenes

  • uh... those are the hard to say, wait until you see how there're spelled

  • okay so

  • And these are collectively are known as the 'pre-Socratic philosophers'

  • and there're some other ones we'll talk about

  • there is a whole section on pre socratic philosophy

  • don't worry about why it's called that for now but that's what

  • we'll talk about that later but that is what it's called

  • so these

  • thales for instance was interested in

  • questions about the makeup of

  • the physical world he wanted to know

  • whether or not there were some fundamental stuff

  • some thing out of which all of the other stuff

  • was made

  • and he also rejected

  • any kind of supernatural explanations for the things he was interested in

  • and these kinds of twin

  • interests and ideas here

  • came to dominate a lot what happened in early

  • Miletus uh... these...uh, excuse me

  • in early Miletus in other words

  • uh... the philosophers who were

  • uh... the earliest philosophers who came before Socrates plato

  • and aristotle

  • So let me give you some example of the kinds of things

  • thales was interested in

  • he was interested in the shape of the earth and this has been something that

  • people had been interested in for a very long time

  • and there were various theories about the shape of the earth

  • uh...but

  • the reasons given

  • for believing in the shape being this or that

  • were usually

  • uh...

  • uh...

  • related to religion or being revealed by a god or being revealed in a trance so

  • what thales did was to try to give arguments

  • that we could figure out what the shape of the earth was ourselves if we paid close

  • attention to our environment so for instance

  • he famously claimed that you would have different experiences of a ship

  • coming in from sea or going out to sea

  • depending on the shape of the earth so if the earth were round

  • you would expect the ship the disappeared gradually part by part

  • whereas if the ship were excuse me, if the earth were flat you would expect

  • the ship to just disappear altogether all at once as it faded away

  • uh... gradually

  • and that experience bore out the first claim that you would see the

  • first part, the lower parts of it disappear first and higher parts of it disappeared

  • later

  • because it's going around

  • a bend or a curve

  • so secondly also it had been known for a thousand years at least the babylonians

  • kept very, very

  • meticulous records of eclipses and the activities of the uh... stars and

  • planets and so on

  • and it had been known or thought that

  • uh... what happened during an eclipse was that the shadow of the earth was

  • being cast

  • on the thing being eclipsed, so when the moon is eclipsed that's earth's shadow that

  • you see

  • and thales argued that since this the

  • shape of the shadow of the earth

  • would give you some evidence to the shape of the actual earth itself since

  • that was the thing that was casting its shadow

  • and that the shape of the earth was circular

  • perhaps spherical

  • uh... and so that would give you some good reason to believe that that was the

  • shape that the earth actually had

  • so now notice again what's important, the point that's being made here is

  • that

  • thales is not the first person to ever suggest that the earth is round or spherical

  • people had suggested that before

  • for instance there are people who claim that the earth is the shape of an egg

  • and this is because

  • it was revealed to them that way. There was some mystical

  • divine source

  • to the idea. Whereas what thales is arguing is that

  • well even if that

  • is revealed to you

  • and so he is not particularly criticizing belief in gods here

  • even if that is the case we still ourselves

  • can determine it

  • so that we can tell what the shape of the earth is by by thinking about it by

  • looking carefully

  • now thales also thought that he had an answer to this idea

  • uh... the question was everything fundamentally unified some how

  • and though people debate about exactly what he meant by this

  • but he's famous for, or at least aristotle cites him as saying

  • that the fundamental principle of reality is water somehow

  • that the...that's taken to mean that the original state of the universe was water

  • or that things are somehow still composed of water so that

  • a piece of wood would be like

  • ice really really compactified

  • but the basic idea that thales had and that other pre socratic

  • Miletian

  • philosophers

  • these earliest philosophers had

  • was that there was some

  • fundamental stuff

  • which existed

  • sort of un formed and contained within it the essences of everything else and somehow

  • that stuff

  • was transformed into the many things

  • that we see around us

  • and that was a basic idea

  • that these guys had. That there was some basic fundamental stuff

  • out of which other things came and then they would debate about well,

  • what the fundamental stuff

  • uh... and they would give arguments so for instance some people would claim that, uh,

  • water is a better candidate than

  • uh... say for instance fire

  • because water uh... is frozen and turns into ice and can be in

  • uh... also

  • evaporated into

  • gas forms and so we can see already how it occupies different states

  • and then people would debate so that's just...

  • now to get into these debates, we'll touch on some of the pre socratic debates

  • in that section but just to give you a flavor

  • of the kinds of things that these guys were interested in and also

  • uh...

  • to try to show you that they weren't merely

  • saying that this was revealed to them

  • but we're trying to discover the fundamental nature of reality

  • on their own

  • okay and also

  • they give naturalistic answers

  • so whereas earlier

  • for instance an earthquake might have been thought of

  • as uh...

  • an expression of the wrath of god for not following some rule of theirs

  • thales argues

  • that these are not appropriate explanations

  • that the world around us is an orderly

  • system

  • which is constructed according to certain kinds of

  • rational principles

  • and that we as rational human beings can kind of try to figure out what those

  • rational principles are

  • for instance thales argued that what an earthquake was was on analogy to a

  • boat

  • in the water when the boat is floating and the wind blows the boat rocks back-and-forth

  • and someone on the boat would think of that as a quaking

  • and so an earthquake, thales hypothesized

  • must mean that the earth is floating on water

  • and rocking back-and-forth like a boat would

  • now of course we know that that's wrong

  • uh... we talk about

  • tectonic plates and pressures

  • um, causing earthquakes we don't talk about earth floating

  • on water in fact we don't think that islands technically

  • uh... float on water

  • so

  • uh... we know that thales is wrong in these instances but

  • notice the approach that he is taking

  • uh... is radically different

  • we can figure out what an earthquake is

  • and there's kind of evidence that it might be something like this given that there's a

  • similar phenomena

  • so thales is here thinking that we

  • ourselves

  • have the abilities

  • to figure out the way the world works and

  • uh... he's not necessarily criticizing religion

  • there can still be gods and there can still be divine revelation

  • uh... that can be one way of knowing

  • but thales is advocating another way of knowing

  • one that involves

  • use of human reason

  • so let's take a second to sum up the things that i've been talking about in

  • this first

  • part of the lecture

  • I've been trying to...

  • one theme I've been trying to emphasize

  • is that

  • philosophy isn't really distinguished

  • by the questions that it asks because

  • people've asked those questions all the time they've always ask them

  • really what makes uh...

  • so those questions are just common to human beings

  • what makes something philosophical is rather the approach one takes

  • to the questions themselves

  • rather than

  • the actual asking of the questions because i want to say that

  • Gilgamesh was asking the same question

  • about the meaning of life

  • and immortality that a philosopher might ask

  • but that he

  • his way of answering it is very different

  • whereas he wants to appeal the divine revelation

  • the philosopher says

  • that

  • we don't appeal to divine revelation

  • so the pre philosophical way of thinking

  • is really characterized by those

  • two claims there on the bullet points

  • the first is that

  • divine revelation is the only source of knowledge. Human beings

  • aren't capable of knowing

  • on their own

  • and secondly

  • that the physical world around us

  • is controlled by these supernatural personalities

  • and they can intervene at any point that they want to enforce their will

  • so it's up to to us to try to figure out

  • what they want

  • and uh...

  • make them favor us as opposed to disfavor us so that's what i'm calling the pre

  • philosophical way of thinking

  • thales and his

  • contemporaries

  • deny

  • both of these claims

  • so rather then divine revelation thales says reason

  • argument and observation are

  • sources of knowledge about the world

  • so now notice combined in there are things we would call science, things

  • that we would call philosophy

  • uh... and part of the history of this is the

  • gradual separation of things which we called science

  • and things which we call philosophy

  • but at this time they're all wrapped up into one and people don't really

  • recognize

  • a distinction

  • between philosophy and science

  • except for

  • that they're different kinds of philosophy so natural philosophy would have been

  • the philosophical study of the natural world as opposed to...uh,

  • so the way that physical objects move

  • would have been thought of as a branch of philosophy and indeed

  • newton

  • who...who writes his book on gravity etc...publishes it

  • under the title

  • 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy' so newton call, referred to what

  • he was doing as natural philosophy

  • so we'll see a distinction get made eventually but doing it historically

  • these ideas are all wrapped up so reason argument and observation

  • are sources of knowledge

  • and that's a denial that revelation

  • is necessary for knowledge but again be careful

  • it's not a denial that revelation

  • can be a source of knowledge

  • so there is no conflict with religion

  • in the definition

  • of philosophy that we're talking about here

  • you can be a religious philosopher, you could be someone who thinks that reason and argument are sources of knowledge

  • and also someone who thinks that

  • God can reveal knowledge to us if

  • he, she, it so chooses

  • so there's no conflict between religion and philosophy

  • the only conflict here is between

  • views on which human beings are incapable of finding

  • answers to these questions on their own

  • and views on which they are capable of finding answers to these questions on their own.

  • Now of course

  • this doesn't mean that we'll like the answers that we find

  • we may find out the answers to be contrary to what we thought

  • hoped etc

  • but the idea is that by reason

  • observation and

  • careful reflection

  • we'll be able to discover the way things are and that was really what thales

  • and the other pre socratic philosophers

  • thought

  • distinguished them

  • from the other way of thinking about the world

  • where human beings are

  • supplicants always asking to be told but never

  • taking action

  • never figuring it out on their own

  • and what this amounts to for thales really is an emphasis on mathematics

  • and at this point in time in history of the universe

  • geometry in particular

  • so I want to stop for a second and say something about geometry because it

  • really is important for understanding

  • this whole period in

  • ancient philosophy

  • so it's hard for us modern contemporary people to think about geometry in the right way

  • geometry seems to us to be something you learn in 7th grade, some very basic, simple math

  • uh... something you memorize some formulas for squares and circles and area and

  • blah blah

  • and then later on you learn more interesting and important things like trigonometry

  • and

  • calculus

  • but of course

  • that's not the way the ancient

  • people thought about geometry

  • Geometry actually originated not in Greece

  • but in Egypt

  • for a very practical purpose

  • so if you think about the word 'geometry' you actually see its original purpose

  • encoded

  • so the words comes from 'geo metria'

  • 'geo' meaning Earth and 'metria' meaning measurement

  • and so 'geo metria' is literally the measurement of the earth

  • and the Egyptians needed this

  • very practical ability to measure areas on the ground

  • because of the flooding of the nile which was a regularly

  • scheduled event so to speak in Egypt

  • even to this day

  • so the ancient egyptians would set their calendar

  • by the flooding of the nile

  • they would say 'that's day one right there, when the nile floods, that new year's, that's month 1'

  • uh... so

  • but uh...this is a very reliably reoccurring

  • disastrous event

  • and of course if you own property

  • and you have a fence up

  • and the nile floods and your fence goes away then you

  • need a way to reestablish where the fence went

  • so you need a way to say how

  • wide five

  • hectares of land, five square hectares of land really is

  • you need a way to say

  • where that fence actually gets

  • reestablished

  • um, now thales gets the credit um for

  • introducing

  • geometry into greece

  • the story goes that he went to egypt, as was common

  • for greek men in their education to spend uh... the last year of it abroad

  • So thales goes to egypt and studies with egyptians

  • and sees them doing this, measuring the earth

  • and he brings geo metria back to greece

  • but instead of using it for this practical applied

  • purpose

  • thales becomes interested in proving theorems about geometry

  • he becomes interested shown for instance that

  • if you take two right triangles

  • who have a certain area and combine them you can always make them into a square

  • and the area of the square will have exactly the same area as the sum of both of the right right triangles

  • so, very basic facts about geometry...these are

  • things which are known by

  • reason

  • and this method

  • becomes something that the

  • ancient philosophers really become transfixed by and the history of philosophy is a

  • struggling with

  • whether this is really true or not

  • but its one of the very earliest ideas

  • uh... philosophical ideas that

  • people had

  • and that was that

  • there seems to be some things which can be known directly by reason

  • and that reason is a special sense in a way kind of like seeing

  • uh... but in a different way

  • it gives us access to the way things have to be the way things must be

  • and this becomes a very important theme

  • uh... at and it's all analogized to this idea that the in

  • geometry what do you is

  • you start of the set of axioms

  • which are indisputable

  • which are known directly by reason

  • and then you expand from those and prove

  • various other truths

  • about

  • reality

  • the way reality must be

  • which you didn't know before hand

  • so for instance

  • one of the axioms of geometry is the parallel postulate the idea that two

  • parallel lines will never meet

  • so if you look at these two lines of text on the bullet points here

  • those two lines are parallel to each other

  • and you don't need to walk the lines

  • and make sure they never cross you can kind of just tell by thinking about it

  • they'll never cross

  • the definition of a line on which all of geometry is founded in some sense

  • simply a line, a straight line

  • is the shortest distance between two points

  • you can't really prove that

  • there's no way that you can say

  • ah here's the argument for why that's the case it's just something that you

  • can kind of

  • see has to be true

  • but not see with your eyes

  • seeing with reason

  • this idea becomes extremely influential

  • that the way that

  • mathematics works is kind of a a guide

  • for how we'll discover the way reality works

  • by using reason to

  • reverse engineer

  • the principles

  • which govern

  • the way reality is that was in some sense,

  • i think a unifying theme

  • uh... all of ancient philosophy

  • and as will see, because we'll go through these periods of time in philosophy

  • we'll see this idea gets developed debated

  • refined and it's still a current theme of uh, uh

  • philosophers today

  • now of course

  • the other claim here is this commitment to the world being natural

  • and by natural what they mean is that it's explainable

  • assuming rational law like

  • relationships

  • you're not going to appeal to the

  • anger of Zeus to explain what lightning is

  • but rather you'll appeal to some natural phenomenon which generalizes

  • and gives a nice

  • universal explanation

  • for why things

  • work that way

  • so that's what i wanted to say, suggest really is at the heart of what philosophy is

  • philosophy is this commitment to the claim

  • that we're going to find out the way things are

  • that's how it begins that's how it sees itself

  • self-consciously

  • at its origin. It sees itself as a way of standing

  • against the idea

  • that human beings are incapable of achieving this kind of

  • knowledge

  • so let's turn now to our second way of thinking about

  • what philosophy is because remember that's the overarching goal of this first lecture

  • to give us a sense of what philosophy is what philosophers do

  • so the more traditional way of doing this is the start with the meaning of the

  • word 'philosophy'

  • there's an interesting history there

  • so this I think is probably well known and so we won't spend

  • overly

  • too much time on it but we will spend some time because its standard

  • and not everyone knows it perhaps.

  • so, the word 'philosophy' again come from greek and that's the interesting thing about

  • English is that

  • the more latin and greek you know the more english you know because

  • most of our

  • important words

  • uh... come from

  • those sources

  • so now as you probably know like I said

  • uh...the source of this word is

  • 'phila sophia'

  • 'phila' meaning love and 'sophia'

  • meaning wisdom so this is rather famous

  • now what may be is less famous is who

  • coins this term

  • it was actually originated by Pythagorus

  • and Pythagorus was alive in five seventy bce

  • uh... so now remember thales was alive in six twenty

  • so you might ask yourself well was that before or after pythagorus?

  • and of course the answer is that thales came

  • before pythagorus since six twenty is further away

  • from year one

  • than five seventy is uh... and we don't know a lot about the Pythagoreans although

  • they're very interesting and we will talk

  • briefly about

  • pythagorus and his followers when we talk about

  • pre socratic philosophy

  • more fully instead of just this introductory way

  • Pythagorus is more famous for his theorem A squared plus B squared equals C squared which is a

  • theorem of geometry

  • and it describes the behavior of a right triangle and the relationships of its sides to each other

  • so that's basic

  • uh... geometry but pythagorus suggested that

  • we should be called philosophers

  • as a way to distinguish

  • what they were interested in from

  • another group

  • of people

  • which they called the 'sophists'

  • this really is uh... the way that socrates

  • and plato saw the line up

  • so the sophists

  • were a loose group of philosophers

  • uh... who were united

  • by a couple of themes

  • and these are the themes here

  • excuse me, these are the themes here. So 'sophist' of course means 'wise people'

  • from sofia there

  • and in english we still use this word so that's where we say 'sophisticated' means sort of

  • wise/intelligent

  • but also as sophisticated has a kind of negative connotation if you

  • in certain uses something can be too sophisticated

  • and that's retaining some of this older

  • use of the world; 'sophistry'

  • so sophists were often skeptics

  • a skeptic is someone who thinks

  • that we can't know what the truth is

  • uh... or more radically someone who thinks there is no such thing as the truth

  • and so they would often argue that look you know whatever you think it's true

  • that's just true for you

  • and there's no such thing as The Truth of the matter, or anything like that

  • uh... so famously uh...

  • a sophist named

  • Protagerous

  • proclaimed

  • that man was the measure of all things

  • people took that to mean that look, whatever you think is true, is true (for you)

  • philosophy in this sense of the word was opposed

  • to that kind of view

  • philosophy stood for

  • the search for

  • the truth

  • wisdom being kind of the idea that

  • we are looking for the truth here

  • so a philosopher was someone who wanted to know

  • the way

  • things really were they had a...uh,

  • they didn't know

  • so it wasn't as though they

  • actually had that knowledge

  • but they wanted to know

  • uh... and so they saw themselves more in line

  • with the early Miletians namely

  • in the sense of thinking there is a truth and that

  • we're able to discover it

  • we haven't discovered it yet but we want to discover it

  • we're sort of

  • wounded

  • and that's where the word 'wonder' has its roots from this kind of wounding

  • by these intellectual questions

  • you just are burnt up with

  • curiosity over whether there is a fundamental stuff out of which everything else is made or

  • what the real nature of reality is

  • uh... uh... is movement possible these kinds of questions eat you up at night

  • uh...so that's the idea of the philosopher as the seeker of truth as opposed

  • to the sophists

  • who don't really care about the truth

  • and instead are interested in

  • power

  • and rhetoric

  • where rhetoric is simply the idea that you convince the other person that you are right

  • and so we'll see some of this get played out when we look at socrates

  • and the Platonic dialogues

  • where socrates talks to a famous

  • sophist whose name is Thrasymacus

  • and we'll see this idea that

  • well he'll only talk if he's paid he doesn't really love it he's just doing it for

  • the money

  • and he's only interested in power

  • uh... who's controlling other people as opposed to

  • the philosopher

  • who's really interested in the truth, is a seeker of knowledge and of wisdom

  • so now

  • this adds to

  • the previous way of thinking so it's still a way of saying well look

  • we can figure out what's going on but it adds a deeper dimension

  • of commitment

  • to finding out the way things really are

  • and merely convincing other people that you're right

  • okay so finally now coming to our third and final part of the lecture

  • we can talk about the various traditional branches of philosophy

  • and the

  • questions that philosophers deal with or some of them anyway

  • the first branch of philosophy

  • perhaps the most fundamental although we can debate about that

  • often thought to be the most fundamental is the branch known as metaphysics

  • which is defined as the study of the ultimate nature of

  • reality

  • now where the word 'metaphysics' comes from uh... it just comes from the name

  • of the book aristotle wrote on this so there's no real special meaning attached

  • to

  • uh... metaphysics

  • uh... aristotle wrote a book on physics where he talked about how objects move

  • and then he wrote a second book on what it meant to be an object at all and on what kinds

  • of objects could exist and so on

  • and that simply became known as the book after the physics

  • 'after the physics' you say in greek 'ta meta ta physica' after, meta, physics

  • so it became shortened

  • through history

  • simply referred to as metaphysics and that's where the word comes from

  • often students are disappointed that there is no special hidden meaning to the term 'metaphysics'

  • but even so you can see that that

  • that it's an appropriate title because meta means something that comes before uh...

  • in physics uh... the study of physical world so often metaphysicians think that

  • what they're interested in comes prior

  • or is at a somehow higher level of abstraction

  • than what physicists

  • are interested in physicists are interested in describing the actual laws

  • of nature

  • and metaphysics are interested in describing the

  • way things could be the way things have to be the way

  • they must be

  • so what kind of questions then do the discuss

  • well we've already looked at one of the basic questions in metaphysics

  • excuse me

  • which is

  • whether

  • there are fundamental parts out of which everything else is made

  • or

  • whether as the famous story goes

  • it's turtles all the way down

  • Now if you don't know this story let me just tell you really quickly

  • uh... it used to be wondered what the earth rested on

  • and of course uh... atlas

  • was thought to hold the earth on his shoulders in greek mythology

  • and when people asked 'well, what does atlas stand on?'

  • and then someone says he stands on a giant turtle

  • and then someone says, well what does that turtle stand on?

  • and then someone says,

  • that turtle stands on another turtle

  • and someone says, well what does that turtle stand one?

  • and the teacher replied,

  • 'son it's turtles all the way down'

  • so it's a turtle on a turtle on a turtle

  • and so that's a joke of course but you can see what the point is supposed to be

  • is there an infinite series of smaller parts and smaller parts and smaller parts

  • and smaller parts?

  • or is there some fundamental level

  • at which parts stop?

  • and there is a basic set perhaps of things

  • out of which

  • uh... other things are constructed

  • that's a basic question in metaphysics and and there are various answers to it

  • uh...

  • uh... it was thought for long time that there was a basic stopping point which was known as the atom

  • and the greeks

  • came up with that word. In greek atom means 'a tomos' or unsplittable

  • a basic element which couldn't get any smaller. We'll look at some early greek versions

  • of atomism

  • uh...but

  • modern physics suggests that the atom has parts

  • quarks, electrons, protons. Those things have parts

  • quarks

  • some suggest that those are composed of strings

  • so it's a open question right now still unresolved whether there is a smallest

  • part or whether it's turtles all the way down

  • so we'll look at some of the

  • historical

  • positions on this which are very interesting

  • so a related question is one about whether reality is completely physical or

  • whether there are non physical elements to reality

  • this a very deep and vexing question which has a long history so uh all kinds

  • of things have been thought at one point

  • were candidates for being non physical these range from

  • everyday objects like numbers

  • one two three five seven 100

  • some philosophers have argued those are non physical objects

  • things like god

  • being perfect unchangeable

  • existing at all times

  • uh... some have argued that um...

  • uh... moral facts that it's wrong to kill innocent

  • people

  • for no reason is

  • a non physical fact about reality which can't be captured by any physical

  • thing out there

  • and um...

  • uh...these transcend from simple things like ghosts and ectoplasm

  • all the way to the

  • perfect

  • divine unity so that there are of course excuse me I almost forgot

  • another main

  • candidate for being non physical is the human mind or whatever makes humans

  • human

  • so we'll look at

  • various proposed

  • metaphysical schemes where

  • things are physical or not physical

  • uh...

  • very deep and perplexing questions here

  • now of course another deep and perplexing question

  • which we'll look at is what the nature of causation how does

  • one thing cause another. It seems to be commonplace in our ordinary experience

  • we know that changes are brought about through cause and effect and so the concept

  • of change the concept of cause and effects what they are in the world

  • is going to be something that philosophers are very concerned about metaphysicians

  • another very large branch of metaphysics

  • is uh... questions about whether the will is free whether uh... my actions are

  • determined

  • uh... by laws of physics for instance or by god's foreknowledge are the traditional

  • ways of putting it

  • now in this class we won't be focusing too much on these issues

  • although they are central and deserve to be focused on

  • i usually focus on them in my ethics class

  • where issues of freedom and moral responsibility arise and

  • in my philosophy of religion class where issues of freedom and the problem of

  • evil and god's foreknowledge come up

  • so uh... although and there's just not enough time to cover everything so free

  • will gets sort of

  • left on the side in this class

  • although uh...

  • i've always felt guilty about that and maybe now in this new online format

  • might include some

  • lectures on it

  • but uh...

  • because i have them from the other courses so I'm not sure

  • but i'd be interested to hear what people thought about that

  • so then concluding this is um question about what exists

  • what does it mean to exist?

  • uh...

  • Do numbers exist? If so how, what does it mean to say that something exists

  • physically or something exists non physically what's the difference there?

  • so when you're talking about these kinds of questions which focus narrowly on

  • existence

  • people have uh... often referred to it under the term 'ontology'

  • and 'ontology'

  • comes from

  • the greek word 'ontos' meaning being

  • and 'ology' meaning

  • study of

  • so ontology is the study of being or what it means to have being

  • and uh... these kinds of questions are inherently metaphysical

  • although sometimes you will use ontology you will hear the word 'ontology' being

  • used to talk about

  • what a particular person thinks is real

  • so in your ontology you might include things like numbers ghosts god

  • persons tables chairs dogs cats electrons quarks

  • you might exclude things like numbers gods cats etc

  • so

  • debates about ontology are debates about what has existence what does it mean to

  • have existence

  • and we'll see some of these ancient people were very interested in this question

  • but it's also one that we still are dealing with

  • in are contemporary times

  • okay so on the flip side of that so on the one hand we have questions about the

  • nature of reality what is really real if that makes any sense and how is that

  • reality

  • on the other hand we have questions about how we come into contact with that

  • reality how we know about

  • so the greek word for one kind of knowledge is 'episteme'

  • therefore epistemology is the study of

  • knowledge

  • now there are various questions epistemologists addressed one of the

  • more fundamental questions is

  • what is truth what does it mean for a sentence to be true

  • the traditional answer the one which seems commonsensical that somehow

  • our language describes reality and sentences are true when it describes it

  • correctly

  • leads to all sorts of interesting results

  • in metaphysics namely

  • that there must be something out there correctly described

  • by the things

  • that we say and talk about

  • and as you'll see this is what starts a lot of trouble

  • uh...

  • maybe therefore it even leads us to believe that numbers have to exist

  • or even possibly that all things have to exist because we can talk about

  • things

  • which don't seemingly exist

  • so there all sorts of questions about

  • uh... the relationship between things we say and think and the way the world is and

  • those

  • are epistemological questions

  • so now of course the big question in epistemology is what knowledge it is

  • what does it mean to know something?

  • and we'll look at various accounts of what that means uh... plato theory

  • of knowledge which is

  • fairly well developed

  • and this is still in the area of contemporary debate

  • so now of course

  • we want to know what the difference from

  • is between belief and knowledge so one thing the you can say is what seems like

  • you can believe things that are false

  • but it doesn't seem like you can know something that is false

  • well, so these are different states then

  • what's the relationship?

  • uh... traditionally people have thought knowledges belief plus something else

  • and have wondered what that something else is

  • more contemporary issues

  • take a knowledge...

  • knowledge first view and say well knowledge is

  • we know we know things

  • and then belief must be

  • somehow less than knowledge and then they look for what's missing so there

  • are various views about what this relationship is and we're not going to

  • really

  • talk about them in the class but for people who are interested later these are going to be

  • be very

  • important questions

  • and of course as i just said we want to know how

  • this thing is related to truth

  • merely having a true belief doesn't mean you know it

  • for instance

  • it could be

  • that you have a belief that's true but it's accidentally true a famous case of

  • something like this would be

  • for instance maybe looking at a clock which is broken

  • it's on the wall it's says four o'clock

  • as it happens it turns out it really is four o'clock when you look at the clock

  • so you form a belief that it's four o'clock

  • it's true that it's four o'clock

  • you have some reason to believe that it's four o'clock o'clock the clock has been

  • reliable in the past

  • but it doesn't seem like you really know it and then people debate

  • this issue. Do you know it?

  • do you not know it? if so why not

  • so there are interesting questions about what the

  • general concept of knowledge is

  • now here's one that the history of philosophy

  • uh...

  • has struggled with

  • and one that we'll be looking at a lot in this class

  • assuming we do know things

  • where do we get it?

  • and as we've seen already the early philosophers had this mixed

  • idea

  • that there are some things which are knowable by reason

  • like that parallel lines don't cross and that the shortest distance between two

  • points is a straight line

  • and then there are other things which you know by the senses

  • like that the shape of the

  • shadow of the earth is spherical

  • or gives us reason to believe that the earth is spherical etc

  • so

  • uh... there's a uh... large dispute about what the real sources of knowledge

  • are

  • and we'll see

  • um... that uh... one popular interpretation of the history of philosophy

  • this actually was made

  • popular by kant who looked

  • back at the history of philosophy and said look here's what you see and lots of people have agreed

  • with him

  • is namely

  • a struggle between what are known as rationalists who think that knowledge come

  • from reason

  • and is all based on mathematics and logic and stuff like that

  • and those were called empiricists

  • who believe that science and empirical observation are the real sources of

  • knowledge

  • so there is a way of looking at the history of philosophy where these views

  • are fighting

  • and the earliest view as you might have guessed is a kind of rationalist

  • view

  • where the senses are downplayed

  • and science comes in later as a challenge to this kind of view and so

  • that's one way of looking at the history of philosophy

  • and we'll roughly approach things that way although I'll point along the way

  • where people disagree

  • here's another question about epistemology how you know that you know

  • something when you in fact do know it so for instance rationalists like to

  • think that there's a way of

  • telling that you know something

  • it it there's a certain kind of experience

  • uh... a rational

  • kind of

  • compelling

  • a forcing, a feeling of forced to believe something

  • when reason tells you it has to be that way

  • like for instance

  • when you think about the parallel postulate that

  • parallel lines cannot meet

  • you know that that's gotta be true you know that you know it you have knowledge that

  • that's true and you know it because it

  • feels special in a sense

  • now of course there's been a debate about that

  • and we'll look at the various counter examples in fact it turns out maybe

  • the parallel postulate is itself

  • one of these counter examples although people have responded that it can be

  • interpreted in a way that's consistent so we'll look at those kind of questions

  • now of course is another big question uh... what about the skeptic? is a

  • possible know anything at all?

  • the skeptic says look you don't know

  • that the laws of nature are necessary and universal you don't know that the

  • physical world exists you don't know

  • that the world wasn't created five minutes ago and that all your memories

  • aren't false

  • so there's a real serious challenge here

  • uh... how do we

  • how can we be sure that what we have is really knowledge

  • uh... as opposed to something else and we'll look at that there are some

  • serious arguments for skepticism

  • we'll look at the way that people tried to deal with those arguments

  • okay now

  • metaphysics and epistemology are clearly related to each other as

  • two sides of a coin are

  • so

  • as soon as you say what's real you're telling me that you know what's real

  • so you're already talking about

  • you must have some way to know that

  • the things your talking about are that way

  • now of course as soon as you start talking abut what knowledge is

  • you talk about which things can be known and so which things are real

  • and so

  • the two are

  • intimate related... intimately related

  • and we cross back and forth from talking about epistemology to talking about

  • metaphysics

  • but it's extremely important to keep them clear

  • no matter how related they are they are different

  • types of questions one

  • a question about what is real, what is out there

  • the other a question of what we know

  • a question about us

  • and we'll see a gradually a separating at these

  • uh... as we move through this stuff

  • now uh...

  • apart from these two major branches we can also see the branch of uh...

  • the branch of philosophy known as ethics

  • ethics can be

  • informally defined as the study of right and wrong or good and bad

  • where what do we mean right

  • actions good persons

  • which things should we not do which things should we do

  • it's in general the study of which things have value

  • what is the nature of value that's a question

  • uh... which uh... ethicists wanna know what does it mean, are there

  • objective values that are things which all persons have to value?

  • or there're really only relative values?

  • so

  • now if you think about sort of value theory in this broad sense that's going

  • to include the branches of philosophy traditionally known as aesthetics and

  • political philosophy

  • so aesthetics is the

  • study of the beautiful

  • what's the nature of art?

  • uh... but really it's a question about what's valuable

  • uh... whether art is valuable what's

  • the the relation of beauty to value

  • and of course

  • political philosophy questions about what the best form of government is

  • these are all value judgments and there's relationships between these three

  • although ethics

  • aesthetics, the study of art and beauty and political philosophy

  • uh... are separate they can all be branched under one

  • major category known as the study of values

  • so now ethics more traditionally construed as the subject of the study of

  • right and wrong, good and bad, um, what we're interested in there what actions are

  • moral

  • is abortion immoral?

  • uh... is abortion moral? or is suicide immoral? is suicide moral? lying? etc

  • now of course the big question in ethics is the skeptical one the

  • one about whether we can know the moral truths or whether there are any such

  • things as moral truths in the first place

  • the relativist thinks there's no such thing as real truth its relative to you or this

  • or the other thing

  • whereas relativism about mathematics has never been very popular

  • relativism about ethics

  • remains extremely popular and so there's a serious question

  • about whether it's true or not uh... and uh... a large part of an ethics class is

  • is spent

  • dealing with the arguments for and against

  • relativism

  • now another question which it falls under this category but which is not so much

  • addressed by contemporary persons as it used to be by ancient persons

  • this is the question of what kind of life one should live

  • is it better to live a life of seeking money or of seeking intellect?

  • or seeking pleasure?

  • and there are various answers to that question in history of philosophy

  • we're not going to be talking too much about ethical questions

  • although we will talk about

  • uh... briefly

  • some of the issues

  • because socrates was interested in them you can talk about socrates without

  • bringing these questions out

  • okay

  • but this is primarily a class on metaphysics epistemology

  • and primarily the history of that

  • uh...and the way it interacts with what we think currently

  • okay so finally then the last branch bringing this all to a close the study of

  • logic

  • which can be defined as the art of good and bad reasoning

  • or of good and bad

  • arguments

  • and so notice that this is extremely important because um... earlier i was

  • talking about philosophy as

  • the use of reason and argument

  • to discover what is true or what can be known

  • if that's the case logic is extremely important because it's our science of

  • determining which arguments are good and which reasoning is bad

  • and so it occupies a very central place

  • and we will touch on some logic in fact I'll give a brief introduction to

  • syllogistic logic, the logic of aristotle

  • and extend it sort of

  • to truth-functional logic, contemporary logic, just briefly enough

  • to uh... hopefully interest one in taking a logic class uh... because logic is

  • something

  • that improves

  • one's ability to reason

  • and uh...

  • even though it's related to mathematics in a certain sense

  • it's more fundamental perhaps than mathematics

  • and hopefully

  • uh... mathematical truths are expressible in terms of logical truths or at

  • least

  • that was the hope of one group of philosophers and maybe by the end of the

  • class

  • uh... we'll be position say something about that

  • uh... although i'm not sure

  • so that concludes

hello and welcome to this online section of introduction to philosophy

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哲学とは何か? (What is Philosophy?)

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    Kevin Lu に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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