Philosophy

1
Philosophy

2
Philosophy

• Philo (love) sophia (wisdom)
• Philosophy is the love (or pursuit) of wisdom
• Wisdom is good judgment
• So, philosophy is the love (or pursuit) of good
  judgment

3
Wonder

• Philosophy begins in wonder
• At the world
• At what we do
• At our nature
• Wonder gt reflection gt critical examination

4
Metaphysics

• The study of what there is
• What is the world made of?
• What kinds of things are there?
• What is real? What is merely apparent?
• What am I?

5
Epistemology

• The theory of knowledge
• How do I know?
• What is knowledge?
• Can I have knowledge of anything at all?
• If so, where do I get it?
• Can I know anything independently of experience,
  through philosophical reflection alone?

6
Ethics

• Ethics is practical pertains to action
• So, ethics is the pursuit of good judgment about
  action
• about what to do

7
Is philosophy practical?

• Philosophy asks questions
• What the world is like,
• How we know it, and
• What we ought to do about it,
• Which affect our lives every day
• Philosophy is the most practical of all
  disciplines

8
Socrates (-470 - -399)

• Contemporary of Sophocles, Euripides,
  Aristophanes, Herodotus, and Thucydides
• First in West to advance philosophical arguments
• Wrote nothing appears as character in dialogues
  of Plato (-427 - -347)

9
Socratic method (dialectic)

• Socrates asks what ___ is
• Someone answers
• Socrates analyzes the definition and asks
  questions to show that
• Its unclear
• Its too narrow
• Its too broad
• Someone proposes another definition, etc.

10
What is a chair?

• Chairs

11
Definitions and their problems
Chairs

• What is a chair?
• A kind of furniture
• Unclear What kind?
• A piece of furniture with four legs and a back

Too narrow
Too broad
Things satisfying the
definition
12
Definitions and their problems
Chairs

• What is a chair?
• A kind of furniture
• Unclear What kind?
• A piece of furniture with four legs and a back
• Too broad stools, divans, sofas, benches
• Too narrow bean bag chairs, chairs suspended
  from ceiling

Too narrow
Too broad
Things satisfying the
definition
13
The Apology

• And so he Meletus, the prosecutor proposes the
  death penalty. What shall I propose, O men of
  Athens? Clearly that which is my due. And what
  should I pay or receive? What should be done to a
  man who has never had the wit to be idle during
  his whole life?

14
What Socrates tried to do

• I have been careless of what the many care
  about-- wealth, family interests, military
  offices, speaking in the assembly, magistracies,
  plots, and parties. Reflecting that I was really
  too honest a man to live like this, I didn't go
  where I could do no good to you or to myself, but
  where I could do the greatest good privately to
  every one of you.

15
Seek Virtue and Wisdom

• I sought to persuade every one of you to look to
  himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he
  looks to his private interests, and look to the
  state before he looks to the interests of the
  state and that this should be the order which he
  observes in all his actions.

16
What do I deserve?

• What should be done to someone like me?
  Doubtless some good thing, O men of Athens, if he
  has what he deserves. The good thing should be
  suitable to him. What would be a reward suitable
  to a poor man who is your benefactor, who desires
  the leisure to instruct you?

17
A free lunch!

• There can be no more fitting reward than free
  meals in the Prytaneum, O men of Athens, a reward
  which he deserves far more than the citizen who
  has won the prize at Olympia in the horse or
  chariot race, whether the chariots were drawn by
  two horses or by many.

18
Why?

• For such a victor does not need free meals, but
  I do. He only gives you the appearance of
  happiness I give you the reality.

19
Divine Command

• Someone will say Yes, Socrates, but can't you
  hold your tongue? . . . Now I have great
  difficulty in making you understand my answer to
  this. For if I tell you that this would be a
  disobedience to a divine command, and therefore
  that I can't hold my tongue, you won't think I'm
  serious.

20
The Examined Life

• If I say again that the greatest thing a man can
  do is to converse about virtue every day, and
  that the unexamined life is not worth living--
  you are still less likely believe me.

21
To philosophize is to

• Seek wisdom and virtue
• Lead an examined life
• Reflect on what life is and ought to be
• Put your life in perspective
• To see and reflect on the big picture

22
Confucius (-551 - -479)

• Kong Fuzi (Kung Fu-Tzu) grand master Kong
• Contemporary of Laozi, Buddha, Thales, Aesop,
  Biblical prophets
• Superior person (junzi)

23
To philosophize is to

• Try to understand the world with an open mind
• Seek the truth wherever it leads
• 214. The Master said, "The superior person is
  open-minded and not partisan. The mean person is
  partisan and not open-minded. J

24
Look Within

• Look within ourselves
• 1520. The Master said, "What the superior person
  seeks is in himself. What the inferior person
  seeks is in others."

25
To philosophize is to

• Seek clarity
• 1610. Confucius said, "The superior person
  thoughtfully considers nine things With his
  eyes, he wants to see clearly. With his ears, he
  wants to hear distinctly. In countenance, he
  wants to be warm. In demeanor, he wants to be
  respectful. In speech, he wants to be sincere. In
  business, he wants to be careful. When in doubt,
  he wants to ask others. When angry, he thinks of
  difficulties that might result. When he sees
  opportunity for gain, he thinks of righteousness."

26
To philosophize is to

• Get to the bottom of things
• 12. . . . The superior person attends to the
  root of things. From the root grows the Way.

27
To philosophize is to

• Know yourself
• 217. The Master said, "Yu, shall I teach you
  what knowledge is? When you know something, to
  maintain that you know it when you don't know
  something, to admit that you don't know it-- this
  is knowledge."

28
Two Philosophical Issues

• 1. Is the world independent of us, or do we in
  some sense construct it?
• 2. Can we know anything about the world
  independently of experience?

29
Realism and Idealism

• 1. Is the world independent of us, or do we in
  some sense construct it?
• Realism Some things are independent of mind
• Idealism Everything depends on mind things are
  constructions or projections of the mind

30
What difference does it make?
31
Rationalism and Empiricism

• 2. Can we know anything about the world
  independently of experience?
• Rationalism Yes Some knowledge of the world is
  independent of our own experience
• Empiricism No All knowledge of the world comes
  from experience

32
What difference does it make?
33
Four Kinds of Philosophers
34
Classifying philosophers

• Realist Idealist
• Rationalist Explorer Dreamer
• (Platonist) (Kantian)
• Empiricist Scientist Skeptic
• (Aristotelian) (Humean)

35
Explorers (Platonists)

• Rationalism We can know something about the
  world independently of experience
• Realism Some things are independent of mind

36
Explorers (Platonists)

• We can know something about the world as it
  is, independently of mind, through reflection
  alone

37
Explorers (Platonists)

• How?
• The structure of the mind matches, in some
  respects, the structure of the world
• Mind and world harmonize

38
Architects (Platonists) tend to be

• gt Internalists Knowledge is justified true
  belief
• gt Correspondence theorists truth is
  correspondence with reality
• Plato, Origen, Augustine, Avicenna, Descartes,
  Leibniz

39
Dreamers (Kantians)

• Rationalists We can know something about the
  world independently of experience
• Idealists Everything is mind-dependent

40
Dreamers (Kantians)

• We can know something about the world through
  reflection alone
• How?
• Our minds construct the world

41
Dreamers (Kantians) tend to be

• gt Internalists Knowledge is justified true
  belief
• gt Coherence theorists Truth is maximally
  comprehensive coherence
• Buddha, Laozi, Kant, Hegel

42
Scientists (Aristotelians)

• Empiricists All knowledge of the world comes
  from experience
• Realists Some things are mind-independent

43
Scientists (Aristotelians)

• We can gain knowledge of the world, but only
  through experience

44
Scientists (Aristotelians) tend to be

• gt Externalists Knowledge true belief from a
  reliable process
• gt Correspondence theorists truth
  correspondence with reality
• Aristotle, Confucius, Nyayayikas, Aquinas, Locke,
  Mill, Russell

45
Skeptic (Humean)

• Empiricists All knowledge of the world comes
  from experience
• Idealists Everything is mind-dependent

46
Skeptic (Humean)

• We know at most our own ideas, and those only
  through experience
• We have no better insight into the workings of
  our minds than into the world itself

47
Humeans tend to be

• gt Internalists Knowledge justified true belief
  (or would be, if we had any)
• gt Skeptics We know nothing at all
• Sextus, Nagarjuna, Berkeley, Hume