Philosophy 1010
Class #8
Title:
Introduction to Philosophy
Instructor:
Paul Dickey
E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu
Today: Submit Exam Retake & Discuss
Discussion on Chapter Four
Reading Assignment for Next Week.
Read Chapter 6, Sections 6.1-6.3 (pp. 394-428)
Get started on your class essays!!!
Assignment Due on 11/11.
Watch Series of videos & take notes.
Last Day to Withdraw from Class is 11/4.
“What is Wrong with the
Instructor in this Class?”
“A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded
which he cannot do, never does all he can.”
“It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in
modern teaching, to render as much as
possible of what the young are required to
learn, easy and interesting to them. But when
this principle is pushed to the length of not
requiring them, to learn anything but what has
been made easy and interesting, one of the
chief objectives of education is sacrificed.”
J. S. Mill, Autobiography
History of Western Philosophy (Series of videos)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCD181CDF9
DF652F7 (2 ½ hours)
Take good notes. Write down at least 2 points per
each 10 minute section. Your notes are due on
11/11.
Class Essay
•
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 (11/18)
Online Sources that you will wish to
consult:
http://plato.stanford.edu/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/philo.htm
http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/philosophy.htm
Question One:
What is philosophy? What is the point?
Should I study it? How is it different from
science, common sense, and religious
thought?
Question Two:
What are the different “fields” or
“disciplines” of philosophy? Describe
the categorization given in your text and
find (in a different source) 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?
Question Three:
Describe Hobbes’ Materialism, Berkeley’s
Idealism, and James’ Pragmatism in the way
they view Reality. Make it clear what the
views say and accurately 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.
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.
Chapter 4
Philosophy and God
(a Metaphysical Study)
What is Religion?
Professor Ninian Smart argues that religion is
composed of six dimensions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Doctrine
Experience with God
Myth
Ritual
Morality, and
Organization
Do you agree? Would you leave any out? Would you
include something else?
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 fact is 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
1.
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.
2.
Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that
1.
Existence is a property of a thing, and
2.
Non-existence is an imperfection.
The Ontological Argument:
Kant’s Objection
•
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) 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.
The Traditional “Proofs”
The Argument From Design
•
The Argument From Design, also known as the teleological
argument (thus being traced back to Aristotle) states that the
order and purpose manifest in the working of nature, and
particularly, human nature require that there be a logical
designer or God.
•
This argument is very popular today and is probably the most
prevalent and strongest argument for the existence of God.
•
The best known early formulation of this argument was given
by the theologian William Paley (1743-1805).
•
Paley compared natural organisms to the mechanism of a
watch and by analogy argued that as the design of the watch
demonstrates the existence of a watchmaker, natural design
shows the work of a “Divine Agency.”
The Argument From Design
•
Relying on a multitude of examples including the
migration of birds, the adaptability of species, and the
human eye, Paley seemed to make a pretty convincing
argument given the science of the day,
•
David Hume did object however on the basis that as an
argument from analogy, the argument was weak.
Arguments from analogy are only as strong as our
knowledge of the relevant similarities. In this one, we do
not know how nature and living things are made and
thus that it is at all “like” a watch being made.
•
Hume was arguing against Paley’s assumption that
complex order can be produced only by an intelligent
being. That may or may not be the case, Hume would
say. Anticipating Darwin, he suggested that perhaps a
finite amount of particles in random motion might
achieve order.