Introduction to Philosophy

• Philosophy is derived from Greek roots, meaning "lover" or "pursuer" of wisdom.

Early Philosophy

• Sages in prehistoric traditions provided narratives linking intellect, wisdom, piety, and virtue to innovations that fostered ancient civilizations.
• The sage tradition marked a period of natural philosophy, which used rational methods to explain nature.
• A key aspect of philosophy is a willingness to question traditions, a curiosity about the natural world and humanity's place in it, and applying reason to better understand nature, human nature, and society.
• Philosophy can act as an alternative to religion, stemming from reason.
• Dialogue is central to philosophy, engaging with friends, oneself, other philosophers, and the past.
• Topics often explored in philosophy include justice, beauty, free will, consciousness, morality, social organizations, and politics.

Individual and Society

• According to Bakhtin, the self is a dynamic, embodied, and creative entity that seeks to give meaning and value to life and surroundings.
• This involves transforming the objective reality into a personal "world-for-me."
• The individual actively interacts with and alters their lived situation, leading to continuous self-transformation.
• Vassili Grossman emphasizes the importance of securing the right for individuals to be different, feel, think, and live in their own way.

Indian, Chinese, and Greek Traditions

• "Seven Sages" were wise men who authored ancient Indian texts, deriving wisdom from spiritual forces and practices like meditation and asceticism to control their bodies and minds.
• Women figures were significant in the Indian conception of nature's fundamental forces, such as energy, ability, strength, effort, and power, which were considered feminine.
• Over time, equality between the sexes shifted toward patriarchy.
• Confucius, a Chinese sage in the Sheng tradition, frequently cited ancient sages, their inventions, and their roles as rulers, wise leaders, for their wisdom.

Greek Seven Sages

• The "Greek Seven Sages" lived during the 7th-6th century BCE .
• The sages included Chilon, Pittacus, Periander, Cleobulus, Bias, Thales, and Solon.
• Thales of Miletus contributed to astronomy, developed a calendar, tracked the sun's progress, and predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BCE.
• Thales had practical, scientific, and mathematical knowledge of the natural world.
• Solon, a political leader, introduced the "Law of Release” in Athens, which canceled personal debts and freed indentured servants.
• Solon established a constitutional government in Athens with a representative body and economic reforms.
• He was admired as a political leader but voluntarily stepped down to avoid becoming a tyrant.
• Xenophanes explained rainbows, the sun, and the moon.
• Parmenides, founder of the Eleatic school, used logic to conclude that observed changes are an illusion.
• Democritus, who was also highly influential, held that all perceived qualities are merely human conventions.
• The Pythagoreans were a community of philosophers who were engaged in understanding the natural world and how best to live in it.
• They are known for the "Pythagorean theorem," a fundamental principle in geometry.
• Thales' followers were known as the Milesians.

Philosophy Defined

• Philosophy is open-endedness with the goal of understanding the widest possible range of topics.
• Philosophy studies informative and interesting subjects to provide a better understanding of the world and humanity's place in it.
• It helps to make judgements, a special skill, otherwise known as know-how.
• Philosophy helps understand the world of concepts, how they connect, and how things relate to each other.

Philosophers and Truth

• Philosophers aim to provide a coherent story of the world, integrating scientific knowledge.
• Understanding philosophical questions today comes from the influence of philosophy on world history, through the writings of past philosophers.
• Intuition (nous), traced back to Plato, involves insight into the nature of things.
• Clarity is a paradigm of intuition.
• Religious connotations: the knowledge is gained through intuition, similar to a glimpse of divine light.
• Contrary to a "gut feeling” or “hunch," common sense involves specific claims based on direct sense perception, which are true in a fundamental sense.
• Experimental philosophy uses empirical methods of investigation similar to those used by psychologists or cognitive scientists.

Logic

• Logic formalizes the process of reasoning for claims.
• The first critical step is recognizing that claims result from arguments.
• A claim is the conclusion of a series of sentences, where preceding sentences (premises) provide evidence for the conclusion.
• In logic, an argument is formalizing reasons (premises) to support a claim (conclusion).
• Rational explanation involves logical reconstruction to investigate the world.
• A set of beliefs or statements is coherent/logically consistent if they can all be true simultaneously.
• Statements or beliefs can be contradictory if they cannot all be true simultaneously.
• Accepting contradictory claims is unreasonable.
• A contradiction is a logical impossibility and contradictory beliefs suggest at least some of the beliefs must be false.

Conceptual Analysis

• Conceptual analysis clarifies and understands philosophical statements (premises or conclusions).
• It involves the analysis of concepts, notions, or ideas in statements or sentences, a key aspect of philosophical methodology.
• Conceptual analysis involves breaking apart complex ideas into simpler ones to discover truth.

Predicates

• Gottlob Frege said any sentence in natural language can be translated into a formal, symbolic language, modern logic.
• Mathematics eliminates the ambiguity of natural language by translating it into symbolic notation.
• Sentences are broken into names/object identifiers and concepts/predicates.
• Definite description analyzes names and object terms to make them more like predicates.

Enumeration

• Enumeration is identifying the component parts of a whole, like the legislature, executive, and judicial branches of a government.

Thought Experiments

• Thought experiments clarify the relationship between concepts.
• Thought Experiments use hypothetical scenarios to isolate features of a concept and place it in the appropriate relationship with other concepts.
• Thought experiments test or compare concepts to better understand their connections and logical consequences.
• Plato's "The Republic" (depicting Socrates' ideal city) identifies which part of the city gives rise to justice.

Aristotle

• Aristotle claimed that "nature abhors a vacuum," meaning nature would not allow empty space between matter.
• If there is distance between two points, that distance would have to be the property of something.
• It is impossible for properties to exist without something they are the property of.
• Distance is a property of matter, making it impossible to measure distance in a pure void.

Conceptions of Evil

• "The banality of evil" is the core problem of a person like Eichmann as the inability to think.
• An evil action disregards self-reflection and conscientious thought.
• Assessing the logical and moral consequences, it is neccessary to accept the negative consequences to find th view attractive for other reasons.
• In ethics, morality is entirely determined by the total quantity of effects caused by an action.
• Reflective Equilibrium uses judgments about particular cases to revise principles, rules, or theories about general cases.

Socrates

• Socrates stated “I neither know nor think that I know" ("I know that I know nothing").
• A life which is 'unexamined' is not worth living, this lead to Socrates' motivation to lead a philosophical life.
• Examination of the nature / curiosity is key "Man in the nature".
• Ethics, or how to live a good life, can be achieve with no one willingly chooses what is harmful to themselves; when a person does harm to others, they actually harm themselves.
• The goal of the "Socratic method," is to assist the person being questioned in discovering the truth on their own, by asking questions rather than explaining beliefs.
• Asking questions to a person is a process of self-discovery.