Introduction to Philosophy: What is it and why study it?

1. Philosophy 1010 Class #8 Title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Paul Dickey E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu Next Week: Read: Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 4, Sections 4.1 – 4.5 Watch Oxford University videos Get started on your class essays!!!

2. Science from Aristotle to Galileo (18:14) Peter Millican From Galileo to Descartes (10:49) Recap (5:50) Thomas Hobbes: The Monster of Malmesbury (11:35) Nicholas Malebranche and George Berkeley (9:31)

3. Class Essays Your Class “Essay” will consist of four separate Essay Questions. Your essay to answer to each question should range from 1 page to 1½ page in length. Each question is worth 20 points. Thus, your four mini essays will compose 20% of your class grade. The essays are due on the last day of class.

4. Question One: What is philosophy? What is the point? Should I study it? How is it different from science, common sense, and religious thought?

5. Question Two: What are the different “fields” or “disciplines” of philosophy? Describe the categorization given in your text and find (in a different source) and describe an alternate formulation of it that contrasts with what is described in the textbook. How do either or both help us in our attempt to achieve the goals of philosophy?

6. Question Three: Describe Hobbes’ Materialist, Berkeley’s Idealist, and James’ Pragmatist views of Reality. Make it clear what the views say accurately and distinguish them clearly from each other. Give a good argument (with at least three reasons or premises) for each and discuss one serious issue faced by each.

7. Question Four: Describe the Rationalist tradition in Western Philosophy. Discuss all of the following thinkers within the tradition: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Rene Descartes. Focus on the four fundamental tenets and show how each did agree with the general view but then describe in some detail what each contributed uniquely to the development of the tradition.

8. Online Philosophy Sources that you • might wish to use: • http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/ • http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/philo.htm • http://philosophy.hku.hk/psearch/ • http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/philosophy.htm • http://plato.stanford.edu/

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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?

12. 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.

13. 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.