The Donut Eater’s
Overview of Philosophy
Democritus: Reality is composed of
donut atoms.
Socrates: But what is a donut?
Plato: All donuts share in the form of
“donut-ness.”
Aristotle: The purpose of a donut is to
achieve their excellence.
St. Augustine: It is grace that allows a
donut to be fully a donut.
Descartes: The donut hole is the soul of
the donut and proves its existence.
Hobbes: What Descartes calls “the taste
of a donut” does not exist, only the
machine of its flour and sugar.
Philosophy 1010
Title:
Introduction to Philosophy
Instructor:
Paul Dickey
E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu
Website:http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/dickey.htm
Hand Back Exams
Tonight:
Mid-term Exam Discussion / Retake
Finish Class Discussion on Chapter 3
Reading Assignment for Next Week
Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With
Readings, Chapter 4, Sections 4.1 – 4.4
(to page 275)
Mid-term Retake Due!
2
Midterm Exam Essay Question
Propose an inductive argument that you should
pass this class. Is this claim clear? Is it too vague?
Is it ambiguous? (Remember, almost every issue is
somewhat vague and ambiguous, Make sure your
argument resolves them satisfactorily. What is the
issue? Is it factual or normative?)
Be sure your argument has relevant premises (of
course!). Justify why your argument is strong,
depending on the nature of the required support for
an inductive argument (logical form, evidence,
both, or something else?)
3
Chapter 3
Reality and Being
(a Metaphysical Study)
***
Objective Idealism &
Plato’s Theory of
Forms
St: Augustine basically agreed with Plato.
“What is truly real is the enduring spiritual
world,” and so it went for centuries.
And then, about 2000 years later…..
Materialism began to re-emerge.
Galileo & The Scientific Revolution
Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) 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.
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.
Materialism
With the influence of Galileo, Hobbes develops
his social philosophy on principles of geometry
and natural science.
•
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.
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.
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.
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?
What is Real?
***
Disk from “The Examined Life”
Video Series