Intro to Philosophy
Branches of Study
Definition of Philosophy
Why Study Philosophy
The History of Western Philosophy
… as soon as you start to comment on philosophy …
… you have started to
philosophize!
The History of Western Philosophy
Much of the story of philosophy is in dialogue with Christian
faith.
Can you prove that God exists?
Why is there evil in the world?
Can miracles happen?
Is there life after death?
Is experience useful evidence?
What is good?
Can we describe ultimate reality with ordinary words?
The question of
miracle
The existence of
God
The question of life
after death
Three
important
themes
What is Philosophy?
• Philosophy has been
called many things
and it can have many
meanings
• Those single words or
statements on the
right side are only
some of them
• What words would
you add?
•
•
•
•
•
Wisdom
Reality
Theories
Meaning of Life
Nature of being
human
• Life perspectives
Philosophy = the love of wisdom
Samples of questions philosophers ask
• What’s the meaning of life?
• Why do innocent people suffer?
• Does God exist?
• Is everything a matter of opinion?
• What is happiness?
• What is knowledge?
• How do you know what is real?
• How do you verify knowledge or reality?
• Explore how philosophers, scientists, and theologians
attempt to answer these questions
Areas of Philosophy:
• Metaphysics
• Epistemology
• Ethics (Axiology)
• Social and political philosophy
Note: more than 200 areas listed by
Philosophical Documentation Center
Metaphysics: what is truly real?
• Questions about reality that go beyond sense
experience, beyond ordinary science:
– Free will, mind-body relationship, supernatural
existence, personal immortality, and the nature of being
• Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two
basic questions in the broadest possible terms:
What is there? & What is it like?
• A person who studies metaphysics would be called
either a metaphysicist[4] or a metaphysician.[5] The
metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental
notions by which people understand the world,
including existence, the definition of object,
property, space, time, causality, and possibility.
Metaphysics (cont.)
Prior to the modern history of science, scientific
questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics
known as natural philosophy.
The term science itself meant "knowledge" of, originating
from epistemology.
The scientific method, however, transformed natural
philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from
experiment unlike the rest of philosophy.
By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called
"science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thus,
metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a nonempirical method into the nature of existence.
Epistemology concerns w/ knowledge & truth:
• is the branch of philosophy concerned with
the nature and scope (limitations) of
knowledge
• Epistemology questions involve standards of
evidence, truth, belief, sources of knowledge,
gradations of knowledge, memory,
perception.
• It addresses the questions:
– What is knowledge?
– How is knowledge acquired?
– How do we know what we know?
Axiology
• philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of
value—or the foundation for these fields, and thus similar
to value theory and meta-ethics.
• Axiology studies mainly two kinds of values: ethics and
aesthetics.
– Ethics investigates the concepts of "right" and "good" in
individual and social conduct.
– Aesthetics studies the concepts of "beauty" and "harmony." Is
beauty a matter of taste or is it objective?
• Encompasses the study of moral problems, practical
reasoning, right and wrong, good and bad, virtues and
vices, character, moral duty, and related issues involving
the nature, origins, and the scope of moral values.
– Specialization: medical ethics, environmental ethics, issues of
ethnicity and gender…etc.
Foundationalism
vs.
constructivism
Claim
claim
• One rationality that is universal
and objective
Argument
• Beliefs are rational if supported
by good reasons
• If an infinite regress of reasons is
to be avoided, there must be a
foundation of self-evident
beliefs.
• Such foundational beliefs are the
laws of logic or evident to the
senses
Critique of constructivism
Amounts to self-refuting relativism
• Many rationalities that are local
and based on inter-subjective
agreement
Argument
• Rationality is conditioned by
history and culture
• Vast amounts of historical,
cultural, anthropological, and
linguistic evidence support the
above claim.
• Critique of Foundationalism
• Can’t agree on what is
foundational beliefs; hence they
are not self-evident; amount to
ethnocentric imperialism.
More terms
• Cognitive relativism: denial of universal truths
• Ethical relativism: denial of universally valid
moral principles
• Ethnocentric imperialism: imposing our views
on others by presenting them as if they are
the only true views
Fallacies: bad argument that appears
to be good
Some common, informal fallacies
1. Hasty generalization: generalizing from unrepresentative or
insufficient cases
–
“no one should drink alcohol in any amount because my friend
drank alcohol, became alcoholic and died”
2. Begging the question: Assuming as true what needs to be
proved.
–
“God exists because the Bible says so, and God wrote the Bible”
3. Black and White: assuming that alternatives are exhaustive
when they are not. “Either we attack that country or
appease it and history shows appeasement is futile.
Therefore, let it be war”
4. Strawperson: distorting someone’s position and arguing
against the distortion. Pro-choice = baby-killer
More common fallacies… Don’t commit
them
5. False analogy: assuming similarities between two things
hold when they do not or are relevant when they are not.
“the state is like parents; therefore, he must respect and
obey it”
6. Ad hominem: an attempt to discredit a position by
discrediting the person holding it.
7. Appeal to authority: assuming a claim is true from the fact
that some alleged authority supports it.
Religionist appeal to the Bible, prophet, tradition,
8. Argument from ignorance: assuming that the absence of
evidence for or against something makes it true.
“There is life after death because no one has proven
there is not.” Unfair shift of burden of proof, which does not
work in our reality.
It is a Shameful Question by Will
Durant p7 (Soccio)
• “…Is all this philosophy useful…We do not ask of poetry….If
poetry reveals to us the beauty our untaught eye have
missed, and philosophy gives us the wisdom to understand
and forgive”
• “…For what if we should fatten our purses, or rise to height
office, and yet all the whole remain ignorantly naïve,
coarsely unfurnished in the mind, brutal in behavior,
unstable in character, chaotic, in desire, and blindly
miserable?
• “We are so slovenly and self-contradictory in our thinking;
it may be that we shall clarify ourselves, and pull ourselves
together into consistency, and be ashamed to harbor
contradictory desires or beliefs.
The Prejudices of Practical Men by
Bertrand Russell
• “Philosophy is to be studied to …enrich our
intellectual imagination and diminish the
dogmatic assurance which closes the mind
against speculation, but above all because,
through the greatness of the universe which
philosophy contemplates, the mind also is
rendered great and becomes capable of that
union with the universe which constitutes its
highest good.”
Philosophy and the Search for Truth
• No question or point-of view is off-limits
• The history of philosophy is a history of heresy
(Walter Kaufman)
• The best philosophers…radically questioned and
revised their own thinking over the course of their
lives, reacting to what they saw as more compelling
evidence
• There has always been a powerful philosophical
tradition that challenges the status quo and
confronts social institutions
– Environment, animal rights, family structure, racism, and
sexism
• “I do not know how to teach philosophy without
becoming a disturber of the peace” Baruch Spinoza
Belief: subjective mental acceptance;
need not be true unlike knowledge p13
(Soccio)
• Conviction or trust that a claim is true; an
individual’s subjective mental state; distinct
from knowledge
• Mere belief: A conviction that something is
true for which the only evidence is the
sincerity of the believer
• The best way to distinguish reliable beliefs
from problematic ones is to subject important
ideas to careful scrutiny
Ignorance is not an option
• Rejecting important philosophical arguments
before we’ve really thought about them is foolish
and arrogant…because we can’t really know what
value there is in a position if we don’t give it a fair
hearing…and because it implies that without any
background knowledge we know more than
philosophers, scientists, and theologians who’ve
devoted years of study to these issues.
• Willed Ignorance: closed-minded attitude of
indifference to the possibility of error or
enlightenment that holds on to beliefs regardless
of the facts
The Search for Happiness
• Ancient philosophers made no distinction
between “being good” and “being happy”