Philosophy 1010

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Philosophy 1010 Class 7/25/13
Title Introduction to Philosophy Instructor P
aul Dickey E-mail Address pdickey2_at_mccneb.edu
Tonight Return Midterm Exams . Discuss
Class Final Essay Chapter Three - Reality
Being
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• Next Week
• Chapter Four Philosophy God
• 1) Read Chapter 4, Sections 4.1 4.2 (to p.
  240), 4.3, and 4.4 (to p.255)
• 2) Write 1-2 paragraph statement of your essay
  topic with brief summary of the argument you will
  give in your essay.
• Study Blue is both a phone app and a webpage.
  Use it as either, as you choose. Compose a set
  of Flash Cards in Study Blue over
• Chapters 3 4.
• http//www.studyblue.com/folder/7010893

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Discuss Class Essay
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Requirements for Class Essay

• You are writing a short 3-5-page essay
  (computer-printed or typed, double-spaced, 1
  margins, Times Romans 12-point font).
• The paper must demonstrate your understanding of
  a topic we discussed -- for example, the
  mind/body problem.
• You will need to identify two philosophers to
  discuss in your essay in regard to your topic.
• Your paper will show specific and detailed
  understanding of the two points of view on the
  issue by the two philosophers which raises an
  apparent conflict.
• The student will discuss this conflict and
  propose in his or her paper an argument to
  resolve the conflict. In doing this, you will
  rely on your own independent thinking.
• You will need to explicitly identify a narrow
  sub-topic on the issue that you choose that
  appropriately allows you to make an interesting
  claim of your own where the philosophers disagree
  on the issue.

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Requirements for Class Essay

• You are free to select from a broad availability
  of sources (but not Wikipedia). If you have a
  question about the appropriateness of a source
  you wish to use, please discuss this with
  instructor before you turn in your essay.
• You must use at least three sources, but not more
  than five (otherwise your research could get
  unwieldy).
• Topic to be selected with instructor approval by
  next week. By then, you should have a good idea
  what your general argument will be.
• Essay are due when you come to final exam on the
  last day of class. No essays will be accepted
  after that time!!!
• The essay will be 15 of your course grade.
• Any questions?

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Requirements for Class Essay
Choosing a Topic 1. Hopefully, something we
have talked about in class has interested you.
For example, when you read Chapter four, perhaps
you will be intrigued, by the third proof for
the existence of God the Argument from
Design. 2. Pick two philosophers who addressed
the question, say William Paley and David
Hume. 3. Focus your attention on one point
where they disagreed. For example, Paley and Hume
disagreed about the strength of the watchmaker
analogy. 4. Decide what you think about this
particular disagreement and make a statement (a
claim!) that summarizes your own view on it. For
example, a claim might be Paley based the
watchmaker analogy on strong scientific evidence
that David Hume did not recognize. Notice that
simply saying Paley was right and Hume was
wrong is not a good claim because it is
excessively vague. Now, have fun and lets hear
your argument for that conclusion !!!
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Requirements for Class Essay

• Your essay will be graded as an sum of five
  scores
• How correctly do you represent the view of the
  1st philosopher? NO STRAW MEN ALLOWED!
• How correctly do you represent the view of the
  2st philosopher? NO STRAW MEN ALLOWED!
• Is your claim reasonable and clearly stated?
• Do you give a good argument for your claim?,
  and
• Technical areas such as grammar, spelling. Did
  you follow the specified requirements?, did you
  provide a bibliography of your sources, etc.

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Online Philosophy Sources that you might wish to
use in your term paper http//www.utm.edu/resea
rch/iep/ http//www.earlham.edu/peters/gpi/philo
.htm http//philosophy.hku.hk/psearch/ http//w
ww.uni-giessen.de/gk1415/philosophy.htm http//p
lato.stanford.edu/
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Chapter 3 Reality and Being (a Metaphysical
Study)
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Realism

• Realism is the view that the real world exists
  independent of our language, our thoughts, our
  perceptions, or our beliefs about it.
• Our common sense demands of us that we believe in
  realism.
• But how can we know that our wonderful world is
  real? Can we prove it? Or alternately, do we
  have evidence? Can we provide reasons to
  believe without begging the question?
• And what does it even mean for our world to be
  real? If someone were to say that the world was
  NOT real, what would he mean? What we understand
  that he was saying?

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What Is Reality?

• For now, let us assume we are realists, that is,
  we believe in realism. So what is the reality we
  believe in?
• Some might argue that reality is what we
  experience through our senses.
• Or would you perhaps argue that reality consists
  of more than the material world? What about
  justice, mathematics, liberty, freedom, truth,
  beauty, space, time, and love?
• Is language real?
• Is God real?
• Or the sub-atomic theoretical entities that
  physics asserts? Are they real?

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Metaphysics is the Study of What is Real

• The most fundamental question in metaphysics may
  be
• Is reality purely material or is there reality
  beyond the material?
• We already discussed this question to some degree
  in terms of the mind/body problem, but now we
  will begin to look at this issue in a much
  broader scope.
• We have already seen the materialism of Thomas
  Hobbes, particular in the context of the
  mind/body problem. Hobbes, however, argued for
  Materialism in a much broader sense.

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What is Real? Disk from The
Examined Life Video Series
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Descartes The Scientific Revolution In 1636, a
Hobbes travels to Italy where he may have met
with Galileo. With the influence of Galileo,
Hobbes develops his social philosophy on
principles of geometry and natural science.
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564  8 January
1642), was an Italian physicist, mathematician,
astronomer, and philosopher who played a major
role in the Scientific Revolution. Galileo has
been called the "father of modern observational
astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the
"father of science", and "the Father of Modern
Science Galileo proposes that physics should be
a new science based on methods of observation
not just on the methods of reason.
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Materialism

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) rejects Cartesian
  dualism claiming that Descartes Mind/Body problem
  itself refutes dualism.
• Since mind and body cannot interact, they cannot
  both exist within human nature.
• There can only be one realm of human nature and
  that is the material world.
• All human activities, including the mental, can
  be explained on the paradigm of a machine.

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Materialism

• Hobbes was reductionist in that he believed that
  one kind of purported reality (the mind) could be
  understood entirely in terms of another (matter).
  
• New scientific techniques of observation and
  measurement being used by Galileo, Kepler, and
  Copernicus were making giant strides in
  understanding the universe.
• The spirit of his century suggested to Hobbes
  that all reality would be explained in time in
  terms only of the observable and the measurable.
• Hobbes himself was unable to explain any mental
  processes in terms of the physical.
• Perhaps motivating Hobbes view was basically his
  passionate faith in the advancement of science at
  the time.

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The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for
Materialism

• The argument from common sense
• If there are other realities besides the
  material, can they causally interact with the
  material world?
• If so, how can this interaction happen? If they
  can not interact, what does it mean to say that
  such a reality exists?
• Please note this may be more difficult that even
  the mind/body problem where we do seem to have
  direct evidence to believe that our own
  consciousness exists.

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The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for
Materialism

• The argument from science
• Science seems to be our most developed and useful
  organized body of knowledge about the world by
  focusing on observation and measurement of the
  physical material world. In the history of
  science, discussion of any kinds of entities
  other than material entities largely have been
  blind alleys.
• The history of science is full of examples where
  entities once thought to be necessary to explain
  life and man have been replaced by fully causal
  explanations in terms of chemicals and biological
  processes. Doesnt it seem reasonable that this
  also may be the case with mental states? (458)
  

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Is There an Alternative to Materialism?
Idealism Platos Theory of Forms

• The view that reality is primarily composed of
  ideas or thought rather than a material world is
  the doctrine known as Idealism. That is, an
  Idealist would say that a world of material
  objects containing no thought either could not
  exist or at the least would not be fully "real."
• The earliest formulation of this view is given to
  us by Plato.
• In Platos Allegory of the Cave, the world of
  shadows is representative of the material world
  and is not fully real.

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Platos Theory of Forms

• What is the problem with which Plato is faced?
• How can one live a happy and satisfying life in a
  contingent, changing world without there being
  some permanence on which one can rely?
• Indeed, how can the world appear to be both
  permanent and changing all the time.
• Plato observed that the world of the mind, the
  world of ideas, seems relatively unchanging.
  Justice, for example, does not seem to change
  from day to day, year to year.
• On the other hand, the world of our perceptions
  change continuously. One rock is small, the next
  large, the next?

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Platos Theory of Forms

• To resolve this problem, Plato formalized the
  classic view of idealism in his doctrine of
  Forms.
• In everyday language, a form is how we recognize
  what something is and unify our knowledge of
  objects. (e.g How do we say two objects of
  different size, color, etc. are both cars?)
• Permanence comes from the world of forms or ideas
  with which we have access through reason.
• In Platos view, all the particular entities we
  see as material objects are shadows of that
  reality. Behind each entity is a perfect form or
  ideal. Ideal forms are eternal and everlasting.
  Individual beings are imperfect.
• e.g. Roundness is an ideal or form existing in a
  world different from physical basketballs.
  Individual basketballs participate or copy the
  form.

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Platos Theory of Forms

• Forms are transcendent, that is they do not exist
  in space and time. That is why they are
  unchanging.
• Forms are pure. They only represent a single
  character and are the perfect model of that
  property.
• Material objects are a complex conglomeration of
  copies of multiple forms located in space and
  time.
• Forms are the cause of all that exists in the
  world.
• Forms exist in a hierarchy with the Form of The
  Good being the highest form.
• Forms are the ultimate reality because they are
  more objective than material things which are
  subjective and vary in our perception of them.

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What is the Essence of the Form of the Good?

• Forms are the cause of all that exists in the
  world. Forms exist in a hierarchy with the Form
  of The Good being the highest form and thus is
  the first cause of all that exists.
• Forms are the ultimate reality because they are
  more objective than material things which are
  subjective and vary in our perception of them.
• For Socrates and Plato, the question What is a
  thing? is the question what is the essence of
  the thing? That is, the attempt is to identify
  what (presumably one) characteristic or property
  makes that thing what it is.

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What is the Essence of the Form of the Good?

• Further, Plato compares the power of the Good to
  the power of the sun. The sun illuminates things
  and makes them visible to the eye. The absolute
  or perfect Good illuminates the things of the
  mind (forms) and makes them intelligible.
• The Good sheds light on ideas but, the vision of
  the idea of the Good is, according to Plato, too
  much for human minds.
• When Plato emphasizes The Good as the cause (I.e.
  an active agent) of essences, structures, and
  forms, as well as of knowledge, he seems to be
  invoking the idea of the Good as God. The Good as
  absolute order makes all intermediate forms or
  structures possible.

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Modern Idealism

• The founder of modern Idealism is Bishop George
  Berkeley (1685-1753).
• Berkeley argued against Hobbes Materialism that
  the conscious mind and its ideas and perceptions
  are the basic reality.
• Berkeley believed that the world we perceive does
  exist. However that world is not external to and
  independent of the mind.
• The external world is derived from the mind.
• However, there is a further reality beyond our
  own minds. Since we have ordered perceptions of
  the world which are not controlled by an
  individuals mind, they must be produced by Gods
  divine mind.
• (900)

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Pragmatism

• The major pragmatist philosophers are Charles S.
  Pierce (1839-1914) and William James (1842-1910).
• To the American Pragmatists, the debate between
  materialism and idealism had become a pointless
  philosophical exercise.
• They wanted philosophy to get real (as we might
  say today.)
• The Pragmatists argued that philosophy loses its
  way when it loses sight of the social problems of
  its day. Thus, the Pragmatists focused on issues
  of practical consequence. For them, asking even
  what is real in the complete sense is not an
  abstract matter.

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Pragmatism

• In terms of Metaphysics, James argued against
  both sense observation and scientific method and
  reason as the determinants of reality.
• Reality is determined by its relation to our
  emotional and active life. In that sense, a man
  determines his own reality. What is real is what
  works for us.
• Pragmatism was refreshing and offered new
  insights to various disciplines, particularly
  psychology as a developing science.
• Ultimately to most philosophers, pragmatism
  failed to give a systematic response to the
  traditional philosophical issues that Materialism
  and Idealism were struggling with.

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Logical Positivism

• Similar somewhat to the American Pragmatists, the
  Logical Positivists also viewed the debate
  between materialism and idealism as a pointless
  philosophical exercise.
• Unlike the Pragmatists however, they identified
  the problem with the metaphysical debate as a
  problem in understanding language and meaning.
• The Logical Positivists proclaimed that
  Metaphysics was meaningless and both Materialists
  and Idealists were making claims that amounted to
  nonsense. They might be proposing theories that
  seemed to be different but had no consequences to
  our understanding of the world.
• A.J. Ayer (1910 1989) proposed a criterion by
  which it could be determined what was a
  meaningful statement to make about reality.

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The Logical Positivist Criteria of Meaning

• Metaphysical statements such as God exists or
  Man has a mind and body or ethical statements
  such as Lying is wrong are meaningless for
  Ayer.
• Such statements do not make assertions about the
  world, but in fact only express emotions and
  feelings like poetry.
• A statement can only be meaningful if it is
  verifiable by means of shared experience.

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Anti-Realism

• Anti-realism rejects the notion that there is a
  single reality. Rather, there is multiple
  realities that are dependent upon how they are
  described, perceived, or thought about.
• Notice that whereas Berkeley emphasized
  consciousness as the basis of the world, the
  modern anti-realists focus on the pervasiveness
  of language.
• Is Realism a condition of sanity? Can it
• be challenged?
• How can you even know about reality without
  language? Thus, what sense does it make to say
  reality exists beyond language?
• Is reality dependent on our contextualization
  of things. Does this mean reality is just
  whatever you think it is? Is this different than
  subjectivity? Or is it an objective, shareable
  cultural phenomena?