Philosophy 1010 Class #8

Philosophy 1010 Class #8 Title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Paul Dickey E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu Today Discuss Mid-term Exam. Finish Discussion of Chapter 3 – Reality & Being Discussion of Chapter 4, Sections 4.1 thru 4.5. 10/30/03 . Discuss Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 6, Sections 6.1-6.3, pp. 394-428. – Make class discussion assignments.

Midterm Exam

Chapter 3 • Reality and Being, • Cont. • (a Metaphysical Study) • ***

The Metaphysical View: Idealism & Plato’s Theory of Forms (a refutation of Materialism)

Idealism & Plato’s 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 Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the world of shadows is representative of the material world and is not fully real.

Plato’s 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? (The Ethical Problem) • Indeed, how can the world appear to be both permanent and changing all the time. (The Metaphysical Problem) • 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…?

Plato’s 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 isand 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 Plato’s 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.

Plato’s 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.

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.

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.

Towards A Modern View: Cartesian Dualism

Descartes & Modern Philosophy René Descartes (1596–1650) was a creative mathematician of the first order, an important scientific thinker, and an original metaphysician. He offered a new vision of the natural world that continues to shape our thought today: a world of matter possessing a few fundamental properties and interacting according to a few universal laws. This natural world included an immaterial mind that, in human beings, was directly related to the brain. In many ways, Descartes established Philosophy as a modern endeavor and saw science and philosophy as intricately linked in their pursuit of knowledge.

Yet, Descartes embraced the Scientific Revolution fundamentally differently that Galileo. Descartes claimed to possess a special method, which was variously exhibited in mathematics, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, and which, in the latter part of his life, included, or was supplemented by, a method of doubt. He was still fundamentally too much of a Rationalist in the traditions of Plato. This method of conducting science is quite contrary to the approach that was gaining sway with Galileo. Galileo proposed a methodology which did not first engage in a metaphysical search for first principles on which to base his science.

Rationalism: Similarities Between Plato and Descartes Plato Descartes Justification is by reason rather than by the senses, not the world of the cave, which we find out about by sensory experience, and toward to world outside the cave, the world of Forms, which we discover by means of reason) Ditto. The skeptical arguments of the first meditation show that the senses cannot be trusted. Later meditations suggest that a scientific picture of the world will not appeal to sensory properties but to (primarily) mathematical ones. The objects of knowledge, namely the Forms, are eternal, necessary, and unchanging (we want to find the permanent order that underlies the flux) We can have knowledge of the physical world. But the most basic objects of knowledge are general principles (e.g. the basic laws of physics), so the goal is still to penetrate behind the veil of appearance. The most important and basic knowledge is a priori (that is, not based on sensory information): this is true of knowledge of mathematics, of goodness, of justice, etc. We can gain some knowledge by means of the senses, but only after establishing a priori that they are more or less trustworthy; the most basic knowledge is a priori. Mathematics is a kind of model for the rest of knowledge. (Think of the perfect circle.) Ditto: the metaphor of building knowledge up on firm foundations relies on a mathematical model.

For Descartes, Galileo erred by “without having considered the first causes of nature, [he] has merely looked for the explanations of a few particular effects, and he has thereby built without foundations” But ultimately, it was Galileo (not Descartes) that pushed the Scientific Revolution forward.

Galileo & The Scientific Revolution Galileo Galilei (1564 – 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. Thus, Galileo discovered many things: with his telescope, he first saw the moons of Jupiter and the mountains on the Moon; he determined the parabolic path of projectiles and calculated the law of free fall on the basis of experiment.

Galileo & The Scientific Revolution He is known for defending and making popular the Copernican system, using the telescope to examine the heavens, inventing the microscope, dropping stones from towers and masts, playing with pendula and clocks, being the first ‘real’ experimental scientist, advocating the relativity of motion, and creating a mathematical physics. His major claim to fame probably comes from his trial by the Catholic Inquisition and his purported role as heroic rational, modern man in the subsequent history of the ‘warfare’ between science and religion. 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.

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.

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 individual’s mind, they must be produced by God’s divine mind. • (9:00)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Chapter 4 • Philosophy and God • (a Metaphysical Study)

Does God Exist? • Theism is the belief in a personal God who is creator of the world and present in its processes and who is actively engaged in the affairs of humans. • Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole). God exists but is not personally involved in the lives of men. • Atheism is the denial of Theism. (Metaphysical View) It states that there is no God. • Agnosticism is the view that it cannot be known whether God exists or not. (Epistemological View) • According to Logical Positivism, the question Does God Exist? is meaningless.

First, Can We Even Make Sense of the Question? • Surely before trying to answer the question, one needs to ask the following questions: • What does one mean by the word or concept of “God?” • What is the sense of existence that is being asserted when one says God exists. • Without being clear about these issues, the argument often becomes mostly subjective.

What Do We Mean by “God?” • If we say that God is the “creator of the universe,” do we mean: • 1) that there is a Being that is God that could or could not be the one who created the universe, but as a matter of factis the creator of the universe? Or • 2) that by definition that God is the Being that created the universe such that it would be a logical error to say that God did not create the universe. • Note that if we mean the first, we have still not said who (or what) God is, apart from what he has done. • If we mean the second, of course given the inherent assumptions, then God exists. But we have committed the logical fallacy of “begging the question.”

What is the Meaning of Existence that is Being Used to Say that God Exists? • Is existence a property of an entity? I say “This chair is black.” Blackness is a property of the chair. So that I would say that this chair has the property of “existing” and thus there could be chairs some of which have the property and some don’t. Then would I say that some chairs exist and some do not like I would say some chairs are black and some are not? • Or is existence of the chair identified in terms of its relationship to a real world, say Hobbes’ material world or Berkeley’s mental world? But then what sense does it make to say that God’s existence is dependent upon a world that He created and itself came into “existence” after Him? • If not, then what is this form of existence for God that we are asserting?

So, is Logical Positivism right after all? • Theism is so confused and the sentences in which 'God' appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible. • A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic • Wikipedia suggests A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) was an atheist. Ayer’s position on the existence of God should not be confused with atheism. Of course, claiming that God does not exist also lacks analytic or empirical verifiability and is thus also meaningless. • Many (perhaps most?) mid to late 20th century philosophers who abandoned strict logical positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein) still found Ayer’s response to this issue quite credible. • On the other hand, maybe the question is too obvious and important to give up on, so let’s stumble on ….

The Traditional “Proofs” • The Ontological Argument • Saint Anselm (c. 1033-1109)provided the classical ontological argument (”proof”) for the existence of God: • First of all, Anselm argues, God is that Being for which “none greater can be conceived.” • But if God did not exist, then we could conceive a greater Being, namely a God that does exist. • Thus, God must exist. • Note: This argument does not give evidence of God’s existence. It attempts to prove it. • Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that • Existence is a property of a thing, and • Non-existence is an imperfection.

The Ontological Argument: • Kant’s Objection • Immanuel Kant argued against Anselm’s Ontological Argument that it defines God into existence, that is, Anselm has formed a concept of God that itself requires existence as a property. • Nonexistence was an imperfection, thus God could not have that property since he by definition is perfect. • And thus, Anselm is begging the question. • Few philosophers or theologians today accept Anselm’s Ontological Argument.

The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)provided several cosmological arguments (”proofs”) for the existence of God that were of the following form: • First of all, Aquinas argues, “Some things move.” • What moves must be moved (caused) by something prior. • This movement (causation) can not have an infinite regression for it must have an origin. • The origin of the movement (the cause) cannot itself move (or be caused). • Thus, God (the original mover or first cause) must exist.

The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • After Newton, it is necessary to refine Aquinas’ first argument to refer to acceleration rather than motion. • More damaging to his argument however is an objection that questions the assumption that there can be no infinite regress in the causal sequences of the universe. How do we know that the universe is not infinite? • The “Big Bang” theory seems potentially to counter this objection. The universe (along with space and time) does appear to have had a beginning. • But the argument still does not preclude alternatives. Could our universe have come into existence from events in another universe and thus we could still have an infinity of events in multiple universes?

The Traditional “Proofs” • The Cosmological Argument • Aquinas believed that even if the universe existed forever, then there would still need to be a First Cause which would be God. • David Hume (1711-1776) disagreed. He claimed that if one had an explanation for all the parts of a thing (in particular, all individual causal links in the universe), it did not require an additional explanation for the whole. • Many analysts, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), have argued that the argument’s premise that every event must have a cause is actually inconsistent with his conclusion that God does not have a cause.

Philosophy 1010 Class #8