Greek Philosophy Review 2024 PDF

philosophy Greek Philosophy Review 2024 The sources of Greek philosophy: from Pythagoras to Aristotle Aristotle was the first who systematically studied, recorded and critisized the works of previous philosophers. Aristotle: Metaphysics: teachings of predecessors summarized. T...

philosophy Greek Philosophy Review 2024 The sources of Greek philosophy: from Pythagoras to Aristotle Aristotle was the first who systematically studied, recorded and critisized the works of previous philosophers. Aristotle: Metaphysics: teachings of predecessors summarized. To this day, it‘s the most reliable source of our information about early Greek philosophy. Thales of Miletus (640-546 BC) Thales was considered by many to be the wisest of the seven wise men of the ancient Greek world. (but not by everyone, as once when Thales was studying stars he stumbled into a well and later he was found there by Thracian girl, who thought that he might know much about the heavens but was a bit dull when it came to what was right before his eyes). Aristotle called him the first philosopher, and he was also a valued political advisor. Thales Thales deserves credit for bringing forth a new way of looking at the world, for he introduced a perspective that is not mythological in character. At his time it was traditional to personify the components of the universe – to perceive the sea, the air, the sun, the earth, and so on, as gods. Beginning with Thales, philosophers began to see the world naturalistically, as consisting of substances and processes. (instead “All things are full of gods”) What is the basic substance according to Thales: Water is the first principle of everything (he was looking for some underlying, more fundamental level than that of appearances, something very flexible, something that could appear in many forms). Anaximandrus (610 – 547 B.C.) A student of Thales Vegetarian idea Nothing supports Earth: it stay where it is. Argued that the basic substance out of which everything comes must be even more elementary than water and air and indeed every other substance of which we have knowledge. The basic substance must be ageless, boundless, and indeterminate. It‘s an error to identify the ultimate material of the universe with any of the elements. The fundamental principle of things must be boundless or undefined (apeiron) Explained what forces had acted to bring the present world into existence. He saw the universe as a field of competing opposites: hot and cold, wet and dry. Proposed a theory of the origination of the universe. Pythagoras (580 – 500 B.C.) Invented the word „philosopher“ Instead of claiming that he is a sage or wise man (sophos) he modestly said that he was only a lover of wisdom (philosophos) Practiced both mathematics and mysticism Discovered relationship between musical intervals and numerical ratios Believed that study of mathematics was the key to the understanding of the structure and the order of the universe Heraclitus (535 – 475 B.C.) The last and the most famous of the early Ionian philosophers Nicknamed „The Enigmatic One“ or „Heraclitus the Obscure“ because his teaching was found difficult. He thought the work of previous thinkers was worthless. Believed, that the sun was new every day. Tought that we are simultaneously young and old, and coming into and gaoing out of existence. A raging fire is a paradigm of constant change. Fire is like gold: you can exchange gold for all kinds of good, and fire can turn into any of the elements. The human soul is itself fire. The universal Logos is hard to grasp and most men never succeed in doing so. „The weeping philosopher“ Parmenides „Nothing was in motion“ v.s. „everything was in motion“ (Heraclitus) Whatever there is, whatever can be thought of, is for Parmenides nothing other than Being. Being is one and indivisible: it has no beginning and no end, and it is not subject to temporal change. What is the dominant stuff of the Universe? Empedocles is famous for his theory of four elements. While Thales had priviledged water, Anaximenes – air, Xenophanes – earth, Heraclitus – fire. Empedocles thought that true reality is permanent and unchangeable, yet he also thought that it is absurd to dismiss the change we experience a mere illusion. He quite diplomatically sided in part with Parmenides and in part with Heraclitus. He was in fact the first philosopher to attempt to reconcile and combine the appearantly conflicting metaphysics of those who came earlier. According to Empedocles, he objects of experience do change, but these objects are composed of basic particles that do not change. Empedocles thought of his elements as four different kinds of matter: earth, air, fire, and water. He tried to explain not merely how changes in the objects occur but why they occur. He thought that the basic elements enter new combinations under two forces – love and strife – which are essentially forces of attraction and decomposition. Empedocles cosmic cycle Anaxagoras (500 – 428 B.C.) The idea of the expansion of the universe; All things were together Then rotation caused the separation of dense from rare, of hot from cold, of dry from wet, and bright from dark. Motion – the main principle of the development of the universe Democritus (460 – 370 B.C.) Democritus‘ fundamental thesis is that matter is not infinitely divisible. A-tomos: atoms – too small to be detected by our senses, they have existed for ever. Atoms and the void are the only two realities: what we see as water, plants, bodies, or fire are only conglomerations of atoms in the void. The sophists Itinerant teachers who went from city to city offering expert instruction in various subjects. Protagoras: grammar; „On the gods“ Relativist attitude: „Man is the measure of all things“ Socrates (470 – 399 B.C.) Socrates left no writing, but he is revered as a paragon philosopher. Knowldege of good and evil is identical with virtue Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)) The “Theory of Forms“ was put to use for the logical and semantical purposes, as well as to solve problems in epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. Platonic dualism „The Republic“ – the theory of ideas applied Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) The scope of Aristotle‘s researches is astonishing: Biology, Logics, Ethics, Rhetoric... Aristotle’s works areoften classified under five headings: the Organum (6 treatises on Logic); The Rhetoric and the Poetics; Works on natural science, including Physics and De Anima (on the soul); Metaphysics; The works on ethics and politics, including Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, and Politics. Many his treatises were sadly lost Aristotle Aristotle emphasized the importance of direct observation of nature and believed that you must obtain factual data before you can begin to theorize. He also maintained that knowledge of things requires description, classification, and causal explanation. In fact, Aristotle systematized all that was then known and, if that were not sufficient, he extended the limits of knowledge in virtually every existing subject including biology, psychology, zoology, physics, astronomy, ethics, aesthetics, logic, metaphysics, politics. His work was of enormous and lasting significance. Metaphysics, the “first philosophy” The most basic question of existence is “What is it to be?” In Aristotle’s opinion, to be is to be a particular thing. And each thing, he maintained, is a combination of matter and form. A statue is a chunk of marble with certain form. It is the same with other things too. There is some stuff out of which each thing is made, and there is a particular form this bit of stuff takes. Without the stuff the thing would not exist, because you can’t have a thing made of nothing. Likewise, without form, the thing would not exist. Without the form the stuff would not be some particular kind of thing, it would just be stuff. The form determines what the thing is: it is the essential nature of the thing. You need both form and matter to have a thing, and, with the exception of God, neither form nor matter is ever found in isolation from the other.  According to Aristotle, things do change: they become something new. Thus, another basic question is: What produces change? In Aristotle’s opinion each change must be directed toward some end, so just four basic questions can be asked of anything: The four causes What is it made of? - The material cause What made it? (this is what today we often mean by “cause”) - The efficient cause What is the thing? (or what is its form?) - The formal cause. (we do not use the word cause that way, but Aristotle did, and we just have to accept that). What purpose does it serve? Or, for what end was it made? - The final cause. Theory of causation It is difficult to perceive the ancient Greek metaphysicians as all being concerned about the same thing. But Aristotle explained that his predecessors were all concerned with causation. Thales, for example, was concerned with the stuff which all is made: the material cause of things. Empedocles and Anaxagoras were concerned with why there is change (with efficient causation). In his Theory of Forms Plato considered formal causation. It remained for Aristotle to present an adequate explanation of final causation. So Aristotle gave us a handy way of integrating (and remembering) ancient Greek metaphysics. Epicurus Hedonist. „On Nature“ The aim of Epicurus philosophy is to make happiness possible by removing the fear of death, which is the greatest obstacle to tranquility. Men strugle for wealth and power so as to postpone death... It is religion that causes us to fear death. The terrors held out by religion are fairy tales, which we must give up in favour of a scientific account of the world. Epicurus believed that the senses were reliable sources of information. If appearances conflict (for instance, something looks smooth but feels rough) then the mind must give judgement between these competing witnesses. A Simulacrum By Jean Baudrillard  Jean Baudrillard: A Simulacrum Simulacrum (Lat.) means „likeness, similarity“. It‘s a reresentation or imitation of a person or thing. Plato wrote of two kinds of image making. The first is a faithful reproduction, attempted to copy precisely the original. The second is intentionally distorted in order to make the copy appear correct to viewers. He gives the example of Greek statuary, which was crafted larger on the top than on the bottom so that viewers on the ground would see it correctly. If they could view it in scale, they would realize it was malformed. This example from the visual arts serves as a metaphor for the philosophical arts and the tendency of some philosophers to distort truth so that it appears accurate unless viewed from the proper angle. Nietzsche addressed the concept of simulacrum (but did not use the term) in the Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality. Postmodernist Jean Baudrillard argued that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal. Where Plato saw two types of reproduction—faithful and intentionally distorted (simulacrum)—Baudrillard saw four: (1) basic reflection of reality; (2) perversion of reality; (3) pretence of reality (where there is no model); and (4) simulacrum, which "bears no relation to any reality whatsoever". In Baudrillard's concept, like Nietzsche's, simulacra are perceived as negative, but another modern philosopher who addressed the topic, Gilles Deleuze, takes a different view, seeing simulacra as the avenue by which an accepted ideal or "privileged position" could be "challenged and overturned". Deleuze defined simulacra as "those systems in which different relates to different by means of difference itself. What is essential is that we find in these systems no prior identity, no internal resemblance". Simulacrum Simulation is the active process of replacement of the real. Dissimulation (pretending) „leaves the principle of reality intact“. Simulation threatens te difference between the „true“ and the „false“, the „real“ and the „imaginary“ Simulacrum is a representational image of presence that deceives, or a product of simulation usurping reality. I could be explained as „a copy without an original“ (for instance, a false icon of God. Or Disneyland) Simulation as a 4 step process of destabilizing and replacing reality 1. Faithful – when the image reflects a profound reality. PORTRAIT. 2. Perversion – the image masks and denatures a profound reality. ICON Pretense – the image masks the absence of a profound reality. DISNEYLAND Pure – the image has no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own pure simulacrum. „THE ULTIMATE MATRIX“ Sourses of simulation and simulacrum Media culture Economics (business, entertainment industry, multi- national capitalism, urbanisation...) Language and ideology On hyperreal Hyperreal is a world of simulacra where nothing is unmediated (without intermediary mass media). Important: Media and medium mediate our experience without our noticing. We know that we are living in a mediated world, but as a result of the ubiquity of the simulation, life is now „spectralized... the event filtered by the medium – the dissolution of TV into life, the dissolution of life into TV“ Culture and media create and perpetuate the hyperreal. Whatever experiences in our lives that are mediated are all simulations. Whatever is mediated is what is simulated. Prevalence of simulacra in the post-modern societies Today, reality has been replaced by sign systems that recodify and supplant the real. Simulation precedes and determines the reality. Mass media shapes these symbols as agents of representation, not communication. Mass media creates a new culture of signs, images and codes without referential value, and are exchangeable. Contemporary society consumes there empty signs of status and identity having lost the ability to make sense of the distinction between the natural and the simulation. „The era of simulation is thus everywhere... All the great humanist criteria of value, all the values of a civilization of moral, aesthetic, and practical judgement, vanish in our system of images and signs.“ (Jean Baudrillard, „Symbolic Exchange and Death“, 1976) Moral and political theories Naturalistic fallacy in Ethics A confusion between what “is” and what “should be”. This fallacy is based on belief, that what is seen as natural is good and what is seen as unnatural is evil. Something what occurs in the natural world or fits into what people perceive as normal for their society. Moral philosophy Happiness, then, is something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action. Aristotle Morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness. Immanuel Kant Moral philosophy Ethics is the philosophical study of moral judgements, or value judgements about what is just or unjust, morally good or bad or evil, morally proper or improper. We say morally right and morally good because terms like right and good and proper can be used in nonmoral value judgements, as when someone speaks of a bad wine or of the right or proper way to throw a pass. Main questions about moral judgements What is a moral judgement? What does it mean to describe something as morally right or wrong, good or evil; what is it to say that one thing ought to be done and another thing ought not to be done? Or, what makes a moral judgement a moral judgement? How do moral judgements differ from other value judgements and pieces of practical advice? Which moral judgements are correct? That is, what is good and morally right thing to do? What is the “moral law”? Perhaps it is the most important question, not of ethics, but of philosophy. Then logically more fundamental question can be raised whether there is a moral law. Do moral obligations even exist? Are there really such things as good and bad, right and wrong? And if there are, what is it that makes one thing right and another wrong? What is the ultimate justification of moral standards? Ethical skepticism Ethical skepticism is the doctrine that moral knowledge is not possible. According to the sceptic, whether there are moral standards is not knowable, or, alternatively, if there are any moral standards, we can not know what they are. Relativism Descriptive relativism – the moral standards people subscribe to differ from culture to culture and from society to society. It’s a nonprescriptive and empirical doctrine about differences in cultural beliefs and attitudes. Individual relativism – what is right is what you believe is right. Cultural relativism – what is right (as distinguished from what is believed to be right) is what your culture believes is right: right and wrong are relative to a culture or society. F.Nietzsche: beyond good and evil 263 Master morality of noble individuals, who are egoistic, hard, intolerant, but bound by a code of honor to their peers. Noble individuals define harm entirely in terms of what is harmful to themselves and despise altruism and humility. F.Nietzsche: “If you kill a cockroach, you are a hero. If you kill a butterfly, you are evil. Morals have aesthetic criteria”  Description – “what something or somebody is like”, things as they are. Descriptive ethics or comparative ethics – empirical research or study of peoples beliefs about morality, involving observation of the moral decision-making process with the goal of describing the phenomenon. Prescription – an instruction or recommendation, put forward by some authority. Prescriptive ethics or normative ethical theories prescribe how people ought to act. Universal prescriptivism In The Language of Morals (1952), the British philosopher R.M. Hare (1919– 2002) supported some elements of emotivism but rejected others. He agreed that moral judgments are not primarily descriptions of anything; but neither, he said, are they simply expressions of attitudes. Instead, he suggested that moral judgments are prescriptions—that is, they are a form of imperative sentence. Hume’s rule about not deriving an “is” from an “ought” can best be explained, according to Hare, in terms of the impossibility of deriving any prescription from a set of descriptive sentences. Even the description “There is an enraged bull charging straight toward you” does not necessarily entail the prescription “Run!,” because one may have intentionally put oneself in the bull’s path as a way of committing suicide. Only the individual can choose whether the prescription fits what he wants. Herein, therefore, lies moral freedom: because the choice of prescription is individual, no one can tell another what is right or wrong. Subjectivism 231 It holds that right and wrong, good and bad depend entirely on the opinions of people: take away people’s opinions about right and wrong and good and bad, and right and wrong, good and bad, go away. W. Shakespeare: Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but, thinking makes it so” Is the objective world value-neutral? According to Plato, the Form of the Good is the source of all that is real. Is it itself real, and, moreover, has a reality independent of our minds. In other words, it has objective reality. Many people are inclined to think of objective reality – reality as it exists outside our minds and perceptions – as morally neutral. They regard values as subjective creations of the mind that the mind superimposes on events and objects, which things are themselves neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. It is very, very likely that this is your view. Still, if it is a fact that the universe “as it is in itself” is value-neutral, this is not a fact that we discovered in the same way that we discovered the principles of physics, chemistry, etc. Rather, it seems to be something we just believe. Is this belief more correct than the view of Plato, who thought that what is good does not depend on our opinions bus is set by, and is inherent in, a reality external to our minds? If you think Plato is wrong, how would you establish that? Ethics of Plato 232 Form of the Good is the source of all value and reality. We must strive to obtain knowledge and understanding of it. Forms can be apprehended only by reason, we should govern ourselves by reason. According to Plato (a 2000 years before Freud proposed an analogous theory), human soul has three different elements: an element consisting of raw appetites, an element consisting of drives (like anger and ambition), and an intellectual element (an element of thought and reason). When our appetites are ruled by reason, we exhibit the virtue of temperance; when our drives are governed by reason, we exhibit courage; and when the intellect itself is governed by reason, we exhibit wisdom. Plato: “Be governed by reason”. Non-natural and naturalistic ethical systems Platonic idea, that all value is grounded in a non-natural source, is an element that is found in many ethical systems and is quite recognizable in Christian ethics. There is another type of ethical systems: according to ethical naturalism, moral judgements are really judgements of fact about the natural world. Aristotle, for instance, who was the first great ethical naturalist, believed that the good for us is defined by our natural objective. What is our highest objective by nature? – it is the attainment of happiness, for it is that alone that we seek for its own sake. And, because the attainment of happiness is naturally our highest objective, it follows that happiness is our highest good. 2 categories of ethical theories Aristotle’s ethics were basically naturalistic: human good is defined by human nature. Plato’s ethics were nonnaturalistic: goodness in all its manifestations is defined by the Form of the Good. Despite these differences, Aristotle and Plato both conceive of ethics as focusing on good character traits of individuals – virtues – rather than on a set of rules for actions. That’s virtue ethics. From the point of view of virtue ethics, the fundamental ethical question is not so much, What ought one do? But rather, What kind of person ought one be? Ever since Aristotle’s time, ethical systems have tended to fall into one of two categories: those that find supreme moral good as something that transcends nature (follow the lead of Plato), and those that follow Aristotle by grounding morality in human nature. Thomas Hobbes. Contractarian theory 249 “all that exists are material things in motion” “people live under one or another condition of two basic conditions: a condition of war, in which they can harm each other, or a condition of peace, in which they cannot harm each other” Justice and injustice consists entirely in keeping or breaking the agreements. Justice and morality begin and end with the sovereign. NATURAL LAW (simply a value-neutral principle, discovered by reason, of how best to preserve one’s life) and NATURAL RIGHT (affirms that we have a natural right to use all means to defend ourselves). David Hume: “morality is more felt than judged of” 252 Moral judgements are not the “offspring of reason”. We think of execution-style murders as “cold-blooded” and “heartless”, not as irrational. This is an indication that we view the murderer as lacking in feeling rather than as deficient in reason. Is it hard to believe that a absolutely brilliant mind could commit murder? We think not. But it is hard to believe that someone with normal sensibility could commit murder? We think that it is. These considerations favor Hume’s principle. Immanuel Kant: reason alone can determine whether an act is morally right 255 Scientific inquiry can never reveal to us principles that we know hold without exception. Moral principles, however, hold without exception. Therefore, moral principles cannot be revealed through scientific investigation, and therefore reason alone can ascertain principles of morality. I.Kant: you should do your moral duty because it is your moral duty Supreme prescription of morality is to act always in such a way, that you could, rationally, will the principle on which you act to be a universal law. Categorical imperatives: “Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” “Treat rational beings in every instance as ends and never just as means!” Utilitarian ethics: 258 The rightness of an action is identical with the happiness it produces as its consequence. “The greatest happiness for the greatest number” Political philosophy Man, when perfect, is the best of all animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all… Justice is the bond of men in states. – Aristotle J.J.Rousseau 301 In the state of nature, in which there was neither state nor civilization, people were essentially innocent, good and happy. In the state of nature people enjoyed perfect freedom. In the proper society people should surrender their individual liberty for a different and more important collective liberty. Concept of the general will – the will of a politically united people, the will of the state. The state or the sovereign as a “moral person”. Recent Moral Philosophy Contemporary ethical theory begins with G.E.Moore (1873-1958). Moore believed that the task of the ethical philosopher is to conduct a “general inquiry into what is good”. Then if you know what good or goodness is and if you know what things are good, you also know what is proper conduct. What makes right actions right? That that they produce more good than alternative actions do. W.D.Ross (1877-1970) disagreed: “Certainly it is right and morally obligatory and our duty to bring into existence as many good things as possible. But the production of maximum good is not the only thing that makes an act right: we have other duties than to bring about good results”. For example, it is your duty to keep promises. (W.D.Ross, The Right and the Good, 1930). Ross believed that there exist prima facie duties – things it is our duty to do unless that duty is overridden by some other duty. Prima facie duties are not absolute duties; though it is our duty to keep promises, we are justified in breaking a promise to save someone’s life. W.D.Ross: prima facie duties 339 Ross believed, that the prima facie duties are self-evident, “just as a mathematical axiom or the validity of a form of inference, is self- evident”. Fidelity. We should strive to keep promises and be honest and truthful. Reparation. We should make amends when we have wronged someone else. Gratitude. Non-injury (or non-maleficence). Beneficence. Self-improvement. Justice. Deontological ethics Ross’s ethical views are similar to those of Kant. Kant also proposed a duty-based moral philosophy and was committed to the idea that our moral duties are self- evident. A duty-based moral philosophy, incidentally, is known as a deontological moral philosophy. Ross recognized not only prima facie duties but also intrinsic goods, specifically, virtue, knowledge, and pleasure (with certain limitations). J.Rawls. A Theory of Justice, 1971. The Fundamental Requirements of the Just Society According to Rawls, because society is typically characterized by a conflict as well as an identity of interests, it must have a set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties for determining the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. These are the principles of distributive and social justice. For Rawls, a society (or a state) is not well ordered unless (1) its members know and accept the same principles of social justice, and (2) the basic social institutions generally satisfy and are generally known to satisfy these principles. J.Rawls. The fundamental requirements of the just society 344 The two principles of social justice: 1. each person has an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others.” 2. social and economic inequalities must be arranged “so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.” These two principles are a special case of a more general conception of justice to the effect that: all social goods (liberty, opportunity, income, etc.) are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution is to The Rise of the Modern Philosophy The source: Anthony Kenny. A New History of Western Philosophy  The Renaissance 14-16th centuries was a transition period between medieval and modern times. The modern period in history, science and philosophy that followed lasted through the 19th century. It was a period of the rise of nation-states, the spread of capitalism and industrialization, the exploration and settlement of the New World, the decline of religion and the eventual domination of science as the most revered source of knowledge. Scientific revolution started. Blaise Pascal‘s mechanic calculator, 1642 Important development of metaphysics and epistemology There exists a universe of physical objects related to one another spatiotemporally. These objects are copmposed of atoms and subatomic particles that interect with one another in mathematically describable ways. In adition to the spatiotemporal physical universe there exist human observers who are able to perceive their corner of the universe and, within certain limits, to understand it. The understanding, we are inclined to suppose, and the minds in which this understanding exists, are not themselves physical entities, though we also tend to think that understanding and minds depend in some sense on the functioning of physical entities such as the brain and central nervous system. They, the understanding iteself and the minds that have it – unlike physical objects - such as brains and atoms and nerve impulses and energy fields – exist in time but not space. They, unlike physical things, are not bound by the laws of physics and are not made up of parts.  Today it is a matter of plain common sense that reality has a dual nature. We believe that the world or the universe consists of physical objects on one hand, and minds on the other. In a normal living person, mind and matter are intertwind in such a way that what happens to the body can affect the mind, and what happens to the mind can affect the body. The clearest examples of mind-body interaction occur when the mind, through an act of will, causes the body to perform some action or when something that happens to the body triggers a new thought in the mind. This is the commonsense metaphysics. It supposes that two different kinds of phenomena exist: physical and mental (spiritual). Dualism is essentially the „two-realms view“ invented by Plato and later transmitted to us in its contemporary form by early modern philosophers.  The alternative metaphysical perspectives: Dualism. This view holds that what wxists is either physical or mental („spiritual“); some things, such as a human person, have both a physical (ph.body) component and a mental component (a mind). Materialism or physicalism. This view holds that only the physical exists. So-called mental things are in some sense manifestations of an underlying physical reality. Idealism. This view holds that only the mental (or „spiritual“) exists. Accordingly, so-called physical things are in some sense manifestations of the mind or of thought. Alternative views. Some theorists have held that what exists is ultimately neither mental nor spiritual; still othes have believed that what exists is ultimately both mental and physical. How it could be both mental and physical? According to this view, often called double aspect theory, the mental and physical are just different ways of looking at the same things – things which in themselves are neutral between the two categories. Rene Descartes Born in 1596, Touraine, France. A layman, who wrote his most famous works in French. Whis focus was on mathematics, physics, optics, geometry, philosophy. In his Discourse on Method, 1637, Descartes presented his two key ideas: Human beings are thinking substances; Matter is extension in motion. Everything is to be explained in the terms of dualism of mind and matter. Rene Descartes What is to be the criterion of truth and knowledge about the ultimate nature of existing things? What is to be the criterion by which one might separate certain knowledge about matters of fact from inferior products such as mere belief? Descartes was vitally concerned with skeptical questions as to the possibility of knowledge, but hw was no skeptic. His interest in mathematics strongly affeted his philosophical reflections, and it was his more-or-less lifelong intention to formulate a unified sicnece of nature that was as fully certain as arithmetic. He employed skepticism as a method of achieving certainty. His idea was simple enough: I will doubt everything that can possibly be doubted, and if anything is left, then it will be absolutely certain. Then I will consider what it is about this certainty (if there is one) that places it bayond doubt, and that will provide me with a criterion of truth and knowledge, a yardstick against which I can measure all other purported truths to see if they, too, are beyond doubt. Method of systematic doubt: to prevent mistakes, the philosopher must begin by doubting whatever can be doubted. Cogito, ergo sum. „I decided to feign (to pretend) that everything that has entered my mind hitherto (so far) was no more true than the illusion of dreams. But immediatelly upon this I noticed that while I was trying to think everything false, it must needs be that I, who was thinking this, was something. And observing that this truth „I am thinking, therefore I exist“ was so solid and secure that the most extravagant suppositions of sceptics could not overthrow it, I judged that I need not scruple to accept it as the first principle of philosophy that I was seeking“ Discourse on the Method, 1637. Try for a moment to doubt your own existence... Cartesian dualism, a belief of dual existence of man Descartes believed that a man consisted of Matter: The physical stuff that walks, talks, and plays the accordion. Mind: The nonphysical substance (sometimes equated with the soul) that thinks, doubts, and remembers the tune to "Lady of Spain." Descartes believed in a mechanistic view of the material world — that matter goes about its business and follows its own laws, except when it is interfered with by the mind. Man's mind, then, simply "pulls the levers" of the body to do its bidding. Exactly how the nonphysical mind interacts with the physical body is a point of contention. Descartes believed that the pineal gland in the brain was the locus of interaction between the mind and body because he believed that this gland was the only part of the brain that wasn't a duplicate. It's important to remember that, for Descartes, the brain and the mind are not the same thing. The brain serves, in part, as a connection between the mind and the body, but because it is a physical, changeable thing, it is not the actual mind. Man's mind is whole and indivisible, whereas his body can be changed. You can cut your hair, remove your appendix, or even lose a limb, but that loss in no way reduces your mind. Descartes also believed that man was the only dualistic creature. He placed animals in the realm of the purely physical, mechanistic world, acting purely on instinct and on the laws of nature. Descartes was led to his dualistic theories in part from his most famous philosophical endeavor — to place into doubt all that could be doubted in the hope of arriving at a basic, undeniable truth. That resulted in his famous Cogito ergo sum — I think, therefore I am. Descartes could doubt the existence of the physical world and that even his own body actually existed, but he could not doubt the idea that his mind existed because doubting is a thought process. The very act of doubting one's existence proves that one actually exists; otherwise, who is doing the doubting? Through his process of doubting, he recognized that, regardless of what the changeable physical world was really like, his mind was still whole and unchanged, and therefore somehow separate from that physical world. Difficulties of the Cartesian dualism Descartes thought: Material things, including one‘s own body, are completely subject to physical laws. The immaterial mind can move one‘s body. The difficulty is that if the immaterial mind can do this then one‘s body evidently is not completely subject to physical laws after all. Descartesa lso found it difficult to understandjust how something immaterial could affest the movement of somethin material. He said that the mind interacts with the body through „vital spirits“ in the brain, but he recognized that this explanation was quite obscure and almost wholly metaphorical. Despite these problems, Descartes thought he had succeeded in establishing metaphysical dualism as absolutely certain. He also thouth he had shown thet the mind, because it is not in space and hence does not move, is not in any sense subject tophysical laws and therefore is „free“. Instead of asking „What is the basic stuff?“ or „Of what does reality consist?“ Descartes took an indirect approach and asked, in effect, „What do I know is the basic stuff?“ and „Of what can I be certain about the nature of reality?“ Descartes tried to discover metaphysical truth about what is through epistemological inquiry about what can be known. Variatons of Descartes‘s formula I feel, therefore I exist. (Th.Jefferson) I rebel, therefore I am. (Albert Camus) I ought, therefore I can. (Immanuel Kant) I want, therefore I am. (L.Tolstoy) I labour, therefore I am a man. (Max Stirner) Sometimes I think: and sometimes I am. (Paul Valery) Cogito, ergo sum... Can only mean, „I think therefore I am a thinker.“ the truth is, sum ergo cogito. (Miguel de Unamuno) Only the first word of the Cartesian philosophy is true: it was not possible for Descartes to say cogito, ergo sum, but only cogito. (Moses Hess) Thomas Hobbes the pioneer of the modern empiricism Hobbes had much in common with Descartes. They shared a contempt for Aristotle, and both of them had very modest libraries. But each of them was convinced that the material world was to be explained solely in terms of motion. „the course of universal things (of those, at least, that have any cause) are manifest of themselves, or (as they say commonly) known to nature; so that they need no method at all; for they have all but one universal cause, which is motion“, wrote Hobbes (De Corpoer, VI.5). Like Descartes, Hobbes denied the objective reality of secondary qualities such as colour, sound, heat and of all real accidents. „Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings ar caused“ (Elements of Law I.10). Hobbes also regarded the science of optics as being a key to the understanding of the true nature of sensation.  Hobbes philosophy of mind was strongly opposed to the philosophy of mind of Descartes. Hobbes denied the existence of mind in the sense in which Descartes understood it. Hobbes claimed that there is no such thing as a non-bodily substance, unextended and unmoving. There where no incorporeal spirits, human, angelic, or divine. The very expresion of „incorporeal substance“ was an absurd as „round quadrangle“. We can‘t be sure whether Hobbes‘ materialism involved a denial of the existence of God, or implied that God was a body of some infinite and invisible kind. It is unlikely that he was an atheist, but he certainly denied the dualism of mind and matter in human beings. Leviathan (published in London in 1651) Leviathan was written during the English Civil War, much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Beecause of human passions, the life without government would be a condition which Hobes called „the state of nature“, where each person would have right to everything in the world. According to Hobbes, this would lead to a „war of all against all“. In such a state, people fear death, and lack both the things necessary to commodious living, and the hope of being able to toil to obtain them. So in order to avoid it people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population beneath a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection. Any power exercised by this authority can not be resisted because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign. "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion.[ According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical powers. John Locke In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke argues that there are no innate principles in our minds, whether speculative or practical. All our ideas are derived, either directly or by combinations or by reflection, from experience. Locke classified ideas in various ways: ther are simple ideas and complex ones; clear and distinct, obscure and confused, ideas of sensation and ideas of reflection. It‘s an empiricist theory of mind and will. Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self. Locke was the first to defined the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. J.Locke‘s theory as representative realism According to Locke, when we say we are looking at an external object, what we are really doing is attending to the perception or „ideas“ of the object in our mind. That is, we perceive objects indirectly by means of our „representations“ or ideas or perceptions of them, some of which are accurate copies or reresentations or reflections of the real properties of „external“ objects, of objects „outside the mind“.this theory is widely held and is probably regarded by most people as self-evident. Almost any introductory psychology text contains it implicit in its discussion of perception Locke‘s theory of representative realism. Rationalism and Empiricism „nihil in intelectu quad prius non fuerit in sensu“; that is, „there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses“ (J.Locke). This doctrine is called empiricism. Another doctrine, rationalism, holds that the intellect contains important truths that were not placed there by sensory experience. „Something never comes from nothing“ might count as one of these truths, because experience can tell you only that something has never come from nothingso far, not that it can never, ever happen (or so a rationalist might argue). Sometimes rationalists believe in a theory of innate ideas, according to which these truths are „innate“ to the mind – that is, they are part of the original dispositions of the intellect. Political philosophy of Locke Locke's political theory was founded on social contract theory. Unlike Thomas Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature is characterized by reason and tolerance. Like Hobbes, Locke believed that human nature allowed men to be selfish. In a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions". Like Hobbes, Locke assumed that the sole right to defend in the state of nature was not enough, so people established a civil society to resolve conflicts in a civil way with help from government in a state of society. However, Locke never refers to Hobbes by name and may instead have been responding to other writers of the day. Locke also advocated governmental separation of powers and believed that revolution is not only a right but an obligation in some circumstances. These ideas would come to have profound influence on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Blaise Pascal (born in 1632, Auvergne) One more critic of Descartes, educated at home child, who was already publishing on the geometry of conic sections at the age of sixteen, and he invented a rudimentary computer to assist his father in tax calculations. He worked to prove the empirical possibility of a vacuum, which had been denied a priori by Descartes. Later in life he took a significant part in the dęvelopment of the mathematical study of probability, and he can claim to be one of the founders of game theory. Later, his work in mahematics and physics came to seem a matter of secondary importance.  „Jansenist“ affiliation In 1654 Pascal had a religious experience which led him to make devotion and theology his main concern. He became a close associate of a group of ascetics. Members of the group were called „Jensenists“ becauses they revered te memory of the Dutch bishop Jansenius who had written a famous treatise on St.Augustine, which defended a pesimistic and rigorist version of Catholicism. Jansenism stressed the coruption of fallen human nature, and held our hope of salvation only to a small minority of the human race. In our present state, some divine commands were impossible for human beings to obey, even with the best will in the world. There were little scope for free will: on the one hand, sin was unavaidable, and on the other hand, grace was irresistable. Such teaching was condemned by Pope Innocent X, but the Jansenists fought a long battle and their influence on Pascal remained profound. Pascal was sceptical of the power of philosophy , especially in relation to knowledge of God. „The true way to philosophise“, he wrote once, „is to have no time for philosophy“; as for Descartes, it was „useless and uncertain“. Because the Jensenists took a poor view of the freedom of the will, they were constantly at war with its principal Catholic defeners, the Jesuits. Pascal published a book „The Provincial letter“ in which e attacted Jesuit moral theology as excessively lax and indulgent for sinners. When he died in 1662, a paper was found stitched into his coat with the words: „God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God ofJacob, not of the hilosophers and scholars“. Pascal on human nature Its a mass of contradiction. We have an ideal of truth, but yet we posses only untruth. We have a yearning for happiness, but we can‘t achieve it. Many of his sayings have become familiar quotations: „The eternal silence of the infinite spacesterrifies me“; „We die alone“; „Man is only a reed, the frailest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. To crush him it does not take the whole universe in arms: a breth of wind, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, man would still be nobler than his killer. For he knows that he is dying and that the universe has the better of him. But the universe knows nothing of this.“ Baruch Spinoza Born in Amsterdam in 1632, in a prosperous merchant family. An educated Jew, who learned Latin and became interested in writtings of Descartes. At his teens, Spinoza became sceptical of Jewish theology and on becoming an adult he gave up much of the Jewish practice. In 1656 he was excommunicated from the synagogue and devout Jews were forbidden to talk to him, to write tohim or to stay under the same roof with him. He trained himself to grind lenses, and manufactured spectacles and other optical instruments. This profession gave him leisure and opportunity for scientific reflection and research: it also made him he first philosopher since Antiquity to have earned his living by the work of his hands. A Dutch traveller reported about him, telling that in the village ther lived „somebody who had bocome a Christian from a Jew and now wa nearly an atheist. He does not care about the Old Testament. The NT, the Koran and the fables of Aesop would have the same weight according to him. But for the rest this man behaves quite sincerely and lives without doing harm to other people, and he occupies himself with the construction of telescopes and microscopes“... Spinoza Took over and enlarged Descartes‘ set of definitions and axioms, and proved fifty-eight propositions, of which the first is: „We can‘t be absolutely certain of nothing, so long as we do not know that we ourselves exist“, and of which the last is: „if a paticular body A can be moved in any direction by a force however small, it is necessarily surrounded by bodies all moving with an equal speed“. Thoughts of Methaphysics Ethics Demonstrated according to the Geometrical Order God in Spinoza‘s theory God played an importan role in the philosophy of Spinozaeven though‚ Spinoza was considered an atheist. Spinoza‘s Ethics consists of some 250 „theorems“, each of which he attempted to derive by rigorous logic from a set of eight basic definitions and seven self-evident axioms. Given his axioms and definition of substance (that which depends on nothing else for its conception; i.e., that which is self-subsistent), Spinoza is able to prove that there are no multiple substances, as Descartes thought, but only one infinite substance. Spinoza equated this substance with God, but we must not be misled by his proof of God. Spinoza‘s „God“ is simply basic substance, it is simply the sum total of everything that is. It is reality, nature. Spinoza was not an atheist, on the contrary, he was a pantheist: God is all. George Berkely Born in 1685 in Ireland, he wrote his best philosophical works at young age, between the ages of 24 to 28. Immaterialist. Stated a paradoxical thesis, that matter does not exist and that so-called material objects are only ideas that God shares with us, from time to time. His slogan: „Esse est percipi“ – to be is to be perceived – was widely quoted and widely mocked. Idealism of George Berkeley: material things as clusters of ideas Sensible things such as tables, chairs, trees, books, etc. are not material things that exist outside the mind. They are, in fact groups of ideas and, as such are perceived directly and exist only within the mind. Because they are ideas, we can no more doubt their existence than we can doubt our own aches and pains (which also are ideas). Berkeley’s idealism Berkeley’s idealism does not mean that the physical world is a mere dream or that it is imaginary or intangible or ephemeral. Dr. Samuel Johnson believed that he had refuted Berkeley by kicking a stone, evidently thinking that the solidity of the stone was solid disproof of Berkeley. But in fact Johnson succeeded only in hurting his foot and demonstrating that he did not understand Berkeley. A stone is just as hard an object in Berkeley’s philosophy as it is to common sense, for the fact that stone exists only in the mind does not make its hardness disappear. As for the stones found in dreams, Berkeley distinguished unreal dream stones from real stones just the way you and we do. Stones found in dreams behave in an irregular and chaotic manner – they can float around or change into birds – compared with those found in waking life. And Berkeley distinguished stones that we conjure up in our imagination from real stones by their lack of vividness and also by the fact that they, unlike real stones, can be brought into existence by an act of our will. Four basic metaphysical positions of modern philosophy Reality is entirely physical (Hobbes) Reality is entirely nonphysical (Berkeley) Reality is split (Descartes) “Matter” and “mind” are just alternative ways of looking at one and the same stuff (Spinoza) 18th century David Hume Born in 1711 in a noble Scottish family, empiricist, anti-metaphysical philosopher. Works: „Of the understanding“, „Of the Passions“, „Of Morals“. Hume attempted to do for psychology what Newton had done for physics, by applying experimental method to moral subjects. Explained passions as a special kind of impression. Concluded, that the much discussed conflict between passion and reason is a metaphysician‘s myth. Reason itself is impotent to produce any action: all voluntary behavior is motivated by passion. Passion can never be overcome by reason, but only by a contrary passion. „Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and to obey them“ The Treatise of Human Nature Hume’s epistemology (4 assumptions, each “T” or “F”) Thought, knowledge, belief, conception and judgement each consist in having ideas. All ideas are derived from, and are copies of, impressions of sense of inner feelings; that is, perceptions. Every claim that something exists is a factual claim. (That is, when you claim that something exists, you are expressing what you think is a fact). Factual claims can be established only by observation or by causal inference from what is observed. (For example, you can tell if an engine is knocking just by listening to it, but to know that is has worn bearings, you have to make an inference as to the cause of the knocking.) Hume on the Self We do not really have even an idea of the mind, if the mind is defined as an unchanging nonmaterial substance within. Hume holds, that our ideas cannot go beyond ours sense impressions, and we have no impression of the mind, except perhaps as a bundle of impressions. Hume believed, that all our knowledge is limited to what we experience, namely, sensory impressions. (Although he was not willing to go with Berkeley and say that sensible objects are just clusters of sensory impressions, 129) Immanuel Kant 1724-1804 Immanuel Kant, born in 1724 in Konigsberg Professor of Logics and Metahphysics in Konigsberg University 1770 – 1804. Was looking for the proofs of God‘s existence. When Berlins Academy set as a prize a question „whether metaphysical truths can be demosntrated with the same certainty as truths of geometry“, Kant applied unseccesfully. His own original philosphical system published in 1781 in „The Critique of Pure Reason“. Kant‘s aim was to make philosophy, for the first time, fully scientific. He claimed that metaphysical curiosity was inherent in human nature: humans beings could not but be interested in the three main objects of metaphysics: namely, God, freedom, and immortality. Kant Kant distinguished between two modes of knowledge: knowledge a priori (if we know it independently of all experience) and knowledge a posteriori (if we know it through experience). He agrees that with the empiricists (Locke) that all our knowledge begins with experience, but he denies that all of it arises from experience (133). Phenomena and noumena (Ding-an-sich) Kant: we do have knowledge about of objects that exist outside the mind, but our knowledge is of these objects only insofar as they are experienceable (phenomena). About external objects as they are in themselves (noumena) we can have no knowledge. 136 What is transcendental In modern philosophy, Kant introduced a new term — transcendental, thus instituting a new, third meaning. In his theory of knowledge, this concept is concerned with the conditions of possibility of knowledge itself. He also opposed the term transcendental to the term transcendent, the latter meaning "that, which goes beyond" (transcends) any possible knowledge of a human being. For him transcendental meant knowledge about our cognitive faculty with regard to how objects are possible a priori. "I call all knowledge transcendental if it is occupied, not with objects, but with the way that we can possibly know objects even before we experience them." He also equated transcendental with that which is "...in respect of the subject's faculty of cognition." Something is transcendental if it plays a role in the way in which the mind "constitutes" objects and makes it possible for us to experience them as objects in the first place. Ordinary knowledge is knowledge of objects; transcendental knowledge is knowledge of how it is possible for us to experience those objects as objects. This is based on Kant's acceptance of David Hume's argument that certain general features of objects (e.g. persistence, causal relationships) cannot derive from the sense impressions we have of them. Kant argues that the mind must contribute those features and make it possible for us to experience objects as objects. In the central part of his Critique of Pure Reason, the "Transcendental Deduction of the Categories", Kant argues for a deep interconnection between the ability to have self-consciousness and the ability to experience a world of objects. Through a process of synthesis, the mind generates both the structure of objects and its own unity. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) Response to Kant was German Absolute Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) Metaphysical idealism instead of epistemological skepticism: thought does not merely categorize reality: its categories are reality. 137 Reality is not the expression of your or any other particular person’s thought. Rather, reality is the expression of infinite or absolute thought or reason. And when we think or philosophize about reality, this is the rational process becoming aware of itself, that is, becoming infinite. Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Idea: 1. the world exists only as idea, only in relation to consciousness: „The world is my idea“. ( not a concept, but a concreate experience in a similar way as Locke and Berkeley believed). 2. World as will. Science explains the motion of bodies in terms of laws such as inertia and gravitation. But science offers no explanation of the inner nature of these forces. Indeed, such explanation could ever be offered if a human being was no more than a knowing subject. Howevver, I am myself rooted in the world, and my body is not just one object among others, but has an active power of which I am conscious. This, and this alone, allows us to penetrate the nature of things. The answer to the riddle is given to the subject of knowledge, who apears as an individual, and the answer is will (766). The World as Will and Idea What is the nature of will itself? All willing arises from want, and so from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. If a wish is granted, it is only succeeded by another, we always have many more desires than we can satisfy. If our consciousness is filled by our will, we can never have happiness or peace; our best hope is that pain and boredom will alternate with each another. Two different ways of liberation from the slavery to the will. The first way of escape is through art, through the pure, disinterested contemplation of the beauty. The second way of escape is through renunciation. Only by renouncing the will to live can we be totally freed from the tyranny of the will. Soren Aabye Kierkegaard Either/Or : presented two different life-views, one aesthetic and one ethical. In aesthetic the individual is an unquestioning member of a crowd, its the first stage towars the self-realization. The aesthetic person persues pleasure, but does so with taste and elegance. He avoids taking of any commitment, whether personal, social, or official, that would limit his options for seizing whatever is immediately attractive. As time goes on, such a person may realize that his demand for instant freedom is actually a limitation on his powers. If so, he moves on to the ethical stage, in which he takes his place within social institutions and accepts the obligations that flow from them. But however hard he tries, to fulfill the moral law, he finds that his powers are unequal to it. Before God he is always in the wrong. The transition from the ethical to the religious sphere invites to make a decision in blind faith (769). Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche was profoundly infuenced by Schopenhour‘s „The World as Will and Idea“ and Richard Wagner‘s music. One of his ideas was that men as they now are will be superceded by a race of supermen: „higher ones, stronger ones, more triumphant ones, merrier ones, built squarely in body and soul“. The second was the idea of the transvaluation of values: a complete overturning of traditional and especially Christian moral priorities. The third was the idea of eternal recurrence: in infinite times there are periodic cycles in which all that has ever happened happens once again (780) (935). John Stuart Mill Educated at home by his demanding father. Began to learn Greek at the age of three. At the age of twelve had read much of Plato in the original! He was never allowed a holiday „lest the habit of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired“. He had no university eduacation, but by the age of sixteen he was already far more well-read than most MA. J.S.Mill Influenced by nascent socialism of the Comte de Saint- Simone (1760-1825) and positivism of Auguste Comte (1798-1857). Positivist attitude reffers to the „imposed on the mind by experience“. Positivism is the philosophy of mind that holds the information derrived from logical and mathematical treatments and reports of sensoy experience is the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge. Positivsm holds, that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. For instance, Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society. J.S.Mill Believed that human knowledge and human societies passed trough three self-contained historical stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. In the first stage people gave supernatural explanations of phenomena and endeavoured to bring in the effects of magic and religious practices. In the second phase (after Reformation) phenomena were explained by essences and forces, which turned out to be no less occult than the supernatural factors held to operate in the theological phase. And the third – after the French Revolution – the world was now about to enter upon the positive, or truly scientific, stage of science and society. J.S.Mill Books: A System of Logic; Principles of Political Economy; On Liberty; The Subjection of Women.. Women had no right ot vote. Mill proposed that every educated housholder, male of female, should be entitled to vote „for why should the vote-collector make a distinction where the tax-gatherer makes none?“ Edmund Husserl „Experience by itself is not science“ The data of consiousness come in two kinds: physical and mental phenomena. Physical phenomena are such things as colours and smells; mental phenomena , such as thoughts, are characterized by having a content, or imanent object. It was defined as „intentionality“ and became the key term to the understanding of mental acts and life. Intentionality could be described as characteristic of mental as opposed to physical phenomena that they are directed to objects. If I think of Troy, or worry about my investments – intentionality is the feature indicated in the little words „of“ and „about“. What is the relation between what is going in my mind and a long defunct city or stock markets accros the world? Husserl, and many after him, spent years wondering about the answer to that question. Intentionality has nothing to do with „intention“ in the modern sense. An intentional object is, as it were in the case when someone pulls the bowstring in the course of aiming at a target, the target of a thought. Phenomenology of Husserl Logical Investigations. A distinction between psychology and logic. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology. Its aim was to study of the immediate data of consciousness, without reference to anything that consciousness might tell us,or purport to tell us, about the extra-mental world. When I think of a phoenix, the intentionality of my thought is exactly the same whether or not there are any phoenixes in the reality. In 1901, Husserl wrote: „It makes no essential difference to an object presented and given to consciousens whether it exists, or is fictitious, or is perhaps completely absurd...“ (817). Phenomenology is not the same as phenomenalism. A phenomenalist believes that nothing exists except phenomena, and that statements about such things as material objects have to be translated into statements about appearances. Berkeley and Mill held versions of phenomenalism. Husserl, on the other hand, did not assert in his Ideas that there are no realities other than phenomena; he deliberately left open the possibility that there is a world of non-phenomenal objects. Only, such objects are no concern, or at least no initial concern, of the philosophers. The philosophers of the Roman and Christian Eras Hypatia St. Augustine Boethius St.Thomas Aquinas Master Eckhart Boethius. The consolation of Philosophy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMUP48stXDc St.Augustine St.Augustine on Time and Eternity, Confessions, Book 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqK9JclJdBE St.Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274 St.Thomas Aquinas had access to translations of Aristotle that were directly from the Greek. He blended Christianity with the philosophy of Aristotle. Aquinas was convinced that there is a real external world ordered by law and that human beings truly can have knowledge of that world. He did not believe, that reality was a product of the human mind, nor was he sympathetic to attacks on the value of the sciences. Aquinas held that there can be only one truth, part of which is accessible to human reason and part of which requires faith. Human reason, for him, could know of the existence of God and also that there can be but one God. St.Thomas Aquinas Change can be explained using the Aristotelian four- cause theory. All physical things are composed of matter and form. Nothing could cause it’s own existence, because it would already need to exist (as cause) before it existed (as effect), which is a contradiction. So, anything that begins to exist is caused to exist by something already existing, and, ultimately, by an Uncaused Cause of Existence, God. St.Thomas Aquinas Aquinas’s epistemology was built on Aristotle’s notion of three powers of the soul: - the vegetative (e.g. reproduction) - animal (e.g. sensation) - human (e.g. the understanding) St.Thomas Aquinas : Cosmological arguments (The Crash Course #10) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgisehuGOyY Roots of the Western Philosophy Aristotle Plato Socrates Plotinus Sceptics St.Augustine Hypatia Greece, 5th century B.C. Athens – the center of Western civilization, a city-state. Democracy: 50 thousand citizens of Athens govern the city and the city’s empire. Power was not achieved through wealth or physical strength or skill with weapons; it was achieved through words. Public discussion and debate. The Sophists Rhetoricians, men and women with sublime skill in debate, created plausible arguments for almost any assertion and taught others to do it too (for a fee). Sophists were interested in practical things and few had patience with metaphysical speculation. They demonstrated their rhetorical abilities by “proving” the seemingly unprovable. They examined accepted standards of behavior within Athenian society. Socrates (470-399 B.C.) A stonemason with a muscular build and a keen mind. He wrote nothing but we know about him from Plato’s “Dialogues”. “The wisest of people” Socrates was wandering about the city, engaging citizens in discussion and arguments. Brilliant debater, idolized by many young Athenians. The Socratic (or dialectic) method Seeking to discover the essential nature of knowledge, justice, beauty, goodness. It’s a search of a proper definition of a thing, a definition that that will not permit refutation under Socratic questioning. The method does not imply that the questioner knows the essential nature of knowledge. It only demonstrates that the questioner is skilled at detecting misconceptions and at revealing them by asking the right questions. “I know that I know nothing” and “Know yourself” The Delphi Oracle was asked whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates. The reply was that there was no one: many fancied themselves wise but were all in fact ignorant and foolish. Wisdom of Socrates lay in the fact that, unlike others, he knew that he knew nothing. His mission was to help others to know themselves. Socrates as Father of Western Philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyIKayNXTPY Plato’s Metaphysics or Theory of Forms What is truly real is not the objects we encounter n sensory experience but rather FORMS, and these can be grasped intellectually. Forms are eternal Unchanging. Unmoving. Indivisible. Concept of two relms There is the realm of Forms – eternal, fixed and perfect - the source of all reality and of all true knowledge. There is the realm of particular, changing, sense- perceptible or “sensible” things. This realm Plato likened to a cave. What is truth? Plato’s theory of Knowledge Is it correct that “man is the measure of all things?” (Protagoras) Plato: if Protagoras is correct, and one person’s views about the world are really as valid as the next person’s, then the person who views Protagoras’s theory as false has a valid view. Plato in book 4 (Republic) presents, that the human soul has three main faculties and corresponding four virtues: Reason - Wisdom Spirit - Courage Appetite - Temperance Integrated in Justice  REASON WHISDOM (SOPHIA) SPIRIT COURAGE JUSTICE (ANDREA) (DIKAIOSUNE) TEMPERANCE APPETITE (SOPHROSUNE) FACULTIES OF VIRTUES THE HUMAN SOUL Plato table of 4 virtues Plato theory of the Cardinal virtues Since the rulers are responsible for making decisions according to which the entire city will be governed, they must have the virtue of wisdom (Gr. sofia), the capacity to comprehend reality and to make impartial judgments about it. Soldiers charged with the defense of the city against external and internal enemies, on the other hand, need the virtue of courage (Gr. andreia), the willingness to carry out their orders in the face of danger without regard for personal risk. The rest of the people in the city must follow its leaders instead of pursuing their private interests, so they must exhibit the virtue of temperance (moderation), the subordination of personal desires to a higher purpose.  Aristotle. Nikomachean Ethics Aristotle holds the view that moral virtues are states of character lying at the mean between extremes of excess and deficiency. Moral virtues, for Aristotle, are to be distinguished from intellectual virtues. Moral virtue has to do with feeling, choosing, and acting well. Intellectual virtue is identified as a kind of wisdom acquired by teaching. Here we are concerned only with moral virtue. In holding that moral virtues are states of character, Aristotle gives us a view of what sorts of things virtues are. But not all states of character are virtues. Many more states of character are vices. Aristotle's view that virtues lie at the mean between two extremes, sometimes called 'the doctrine of the mean', is intended to help us identify which states of character are the virtuous ones. It is taken for granted that virtues belong to the soul. Aristotle's notion of the soul is perhaps closer to our notion of the mind. His view of the soul is not a view of some non-material thing that exists independent of our bodies. On Aristotle's view, the soul has three sorts of components. These are our passions, our faculties and our states of character. Our passions are our feelings, our desires, fears, ambitions etc. Our faculties are our natural capacities for feeling and acting in the various ways that we can. Our states of character can be thought of as complex tendencies or dispositions to act and feel in certain ways under certain circumstances. Given this view of what the soul consists of, moral virtues must be identified with one of these three. Aristotle rules out the first two possibilities and is left with the view that virtues are states of character. Virtues can not be passions, Aristotle claims, because we are not praised or blamed for the way we feel, but we are praised or blamed for our virtues. We are not praised or blamed for our feelings because they arise more or less involuntarily in response to circumstances. Aristotle's reason for denying that virtues are faculties is similar. Part of a persons faculties consist of his or her ability to feel anger. Be we do not praise or blame people for having the ability to feel anger. Rather, we praise people for tending to manifest their ability to feel anger when, and only when, the circumstances call for it. So virtues are not to be identified with our capacities either. Virtues must, therefore, be states of character. Not all states of character are virtuous. Lustfulness, for instance, is a state of character. It is a tendency to feel sexual desire too much and seek sexual pleasures too much. But this state of character is not a virtuous one. Having reached the conclusion that virtues are states of character, Aristotle's account of moral virtue remains incomplete until he tells us something about which states of character are the virtues. Here Aristotle appeals to his doctrine of the mean. The virtues are those states of character that lie at the mean between excess and deficiency. The virtuous state of character will be a tendency to feel and react to circumstances in the appropriate way and to the appropriate degree. This, as opposed to over-reacting on the one hand or under-reacting on the other. Consider again the case of lustfulness. Lust is not a virtue because it is a tendency to feel too much sexual desire and to respond to it too indiscriminately. Lust lies at the extreme of excess. At the other extreme is the state of character we sometimes call frigidity which consists in a tendency to feel too little sexual desire or to react too little to it. Sexual virtue, will lie at the mean between these extremes on Aristotle's view. Sexual virtue will consist in feeling and responding to sexual desire under the right circumstances and to the appropriate degree. Aristotle’s virtues I. Defining Virtue in General Virtue = a means between two extremes, an excess and a defect, with respect to a particular action or emotion. II. Defining Specific Virtues Courage is a means between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness with respect to the emotion of fear Temperance is a means between the the extremes of self-indulgence and insensibility with respect to the desire for pleasures of the body (eating, drinking, sex). Generosity (or liberality) is a means between the extremes of extravagance and stinginess with respect to the giving away and taking in of money. [an extravagant person is excessive in giving away , but defective in taking in money; a stingy person is defective in giving away money, but excessive in taking in it]. Pride is a means between the extremes of vanity and excessive humility with respect to ones desire to receive great honors. Good temper is a means between the extremes of irascibility (or irritability) and apathy with respect to ones proneness to anger. Truthfulness is a means between the extremes of boastfulness and self-deprecation with respect to the way one presents oneself to others. Wittiness is a means between the buffoonery and boorishness with respect to ones desire to amuse others. Friendliness is a means between obsequiousness (e.g., being overly deferential/groveling) and unpleasantness with respect to the desire to please others. Modesty is a means between the extremes of bashfulness and shamelessness with respect to one's susceptibility to shame. Righteous indignation is a means between envy and spite with respect to the pleasure and pain that one feels at the fortunes of one's neighbors [e.g., One who is righteously indignant is pained by the undeserved good/bad fortune of others, but is pleased by the deserved good/bad fortune of others; the envious person is pained good fortune of others, whether deserved or not; the spiteful person feels pleasure at the bad fortune of others, whether they deserve it or not] Aristotle. Eudaimonia Eudaimonia (Gr. εὐδαιμονία) is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'. Eudaimonia in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It characterizes the well-lived life. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of eudaimonia in the Western philosophical tradition, eudaimonia is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality -- reason -- as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of eudaimonia was an activity that could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the polis or city-state. Plotinus (A.D. 205-270) Specified the ultimate source of reality as God or the One. Video materials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VjbI80EqnE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDPsH2B5Dw St.Augustine (353-430 A.D.) Influenced by Plato and Plotinus Connected non-Christian and Christian thoughts. “Ex nihilo” idea, creation out of nothing. Augustine, God and Time God does not exist in time. “What, then, is time? If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not.” (Confessions, Book 11) Time is a subjective phenomenon. Augustine and Scepticism Total sceptics: nothing can be known. Modified sceptics: at least some things are known. Finally it’s an attitude that NOTHING can be absolutely known or certainly proved. St.Augustine Scepticism can be refuted by the principle of noncontradicition: a proposition and its contradiction cannot both be true. Act of doubting discloses one’s existence as something that is absolutely certain: from the fact I am doubting, it follows automatically that I am. Sense perception itself gives a rudimentary kind of knowledge. Deception in sense perception occurs only when we “give assent to more than the fact of appearance.” Hypatia (370-415 A.D.)+ Significant influence on Western thought. Sympathetic to Plotinus’s metaphysics, and to stoicism. Believed that the solution to the mystery of the One, the ultimate source of reality, would explain everything. It would explain the nature of God, the nature of the universe, and our place in it. Hypatia Video materials about Hypatia: Short one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ5_ohn3fP0 Large: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pixDj1NlRok Introduction to Philosophy 2023 From Aristotle to Augustine BASIC SCHOOLS OF THE ANCIENT THOUGHT ARISTOTLE 384 – 322 BC Migrated to Athens in 367 and joined Plato‘s Academy. Plato introduced Aristotle in his writings in Parmenides, in disspute about Theory of Ideas Protrepticus: soul‘s union with the body discussed Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics: the Idea of the Good Metaphysics: what there is? Literarally it simply means „after physics“ and refers to the works that were listed after Aristotle‘s Physics. But the branch of phislosophy we now call „metaphysics“ Aristotle called it „First Philosophy“ and he defined it as the disciple who studied Being of Being. Aristotle on Rhetoric and Poetry Rhetoric: human emotions explained. Emotions and feelings alter peole‘s judgements and they are accompanied by pain and pleasure. Anger, for instance, explained as desire accompanied by pain. Catharsis – Aristotelian term, meaning purification of feelins when we observe tragedy. Ethics of Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Eudemian Ethics Magna Moralia Eudaimonia – happiness – the supreme good Aristotle‘s political theory Politics : books 1-3 general theory of the state Books 4-6 various forms of the state constitution (three tolerable: monarchy, aristocracy, polity) (and three intolerable: tyranny, oligarchy and democracy). Books 7 and 8 are devoted to the ideal form of constitution. Aristotel about human nature “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ” Aristotle, Politics. On human being In the Nicomachean Ethics (I.13), Aristotle states that the human being has a rational principle, on top of the nutritive life shared with plants, and the instinctual life shared with other animals, i.e. the ability to carry out rationally formulated projects. That capacity for deliberative imagination was equally singled out as man's defining feature. Later, Neoplatonic thinker Porphyry defined man as a „mortal rational animal“ Dualism, or the mind-body problem In philosophy, dualism is the position, that the mind and body are not identical. Plato believed, that the sould was not dependent on the physical body. He believed in metempsychosis, or the migration of the soul to a new physical body. Aristotle taught about three kinds of the human soul: a nutritive soul of growth (that plants, animals and people share); a perceptive soul of pain, pleasure and desire (shared by only people and animals); and the faculty of reason (that is unique to people only). For Aristotle, all three souls perish when the living organism dies. Hierarchy of the soul faculties in Ancient philosophy: in the theories of Plato and Aristotle intelect came above sensation, and rational choice above animal desire. Stoic philosophers used to make distinction between thought, or cognitive and appetitive dimension. Notice on voluntariness It became common in modern times to define the will as a phenomenon of in introspective consciousness. Acts of will, or volitions, are mental events that precede and cause certain human actions, their presence or absence make the difference between voluntary and involuntary actions. There was no concept of the will in Aristotelian philosophy. But he defined voluntariness as follows: something was voluntary if it was originated by an agent free from compulsion or error (NE 3.1.) in Aristotelian theory animportant role was also played by the concept of (prohairesis, Gr.) purposive choice: the choice f an action as a part of an overall plan of life. Stoicism Zeno of Citium 334-262 BC) – the founder. Stoics sought trankquility. Diogenes of Sinope, who lived like a dog („cynic“) For Zeno and later Stoics, physics is the study of nature and nature is identified with God. God and matter together constitute an „all-pervasive cosmic fire“. Chrysippus of Soli – most intelligent of all Hellenistic Stoics. His houskeeper reported that he wrote at a rate of 500 lines per day, and he left 705 books. Ethical principles in various philosophies (Tomas Kreeft, Back to Virtue) Lucretius In the first century primacy in philosophy passed from Greek to Latin authors. Latin philosophy, like Greek philosophy, began in verses and only later turned to prose. O wretched man! In what a mist of life Enclosed with dangers and with noisy strife He spends his little span; and ofverfeeds His crammed desires, with more than nature needs! Cicero Created Latin philosophical vocabulary. Took elements from different philosophical tendencies. In Ethics he favoured the Stoic tradition. He looked to moral philosophy for consolation and reassuarance. On the Nature of the Gods On Fate – discuss issues of determinism and philosophical theology. Judaism and Christianity Like Heraclitus and other Greek thinkers, Jesus predicted that there will be a divine judgement on the world, amid socmic catastrophe. Roman stoics: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus Early Christian philosophy Christian thinkers made attempts to harmonize their religion with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. They experimented with Aristotelian logics and praised the Stoic ideal of freedom from passion. Plotinus (205 – 270) developed ideas of the Mind, the Soul and the One. Oneness is the key property of Being. The One is, in a mysterious way, identical with the Platonic idea of the Good: it is the basis of all being and the standard for all value; but it is itself Plotinus on soul and body If the soul is the principle of life in living beings, it can not be bodily in nature. Bodies undergo changes at every instant: how could something in such perpetual flux remember anything from moment to moment ? Bodies are divided to parts and spread out in space: how sould such a scattered entity provide the unified focus of which we are aware in perception? We can think of abstract entities, like beauty and justice: how can what is bodily grasp what is non-bodily? The soul must belong, not to the world of becoming, but to the world of Being. (Plotinus, „On the Immortality of the Soul“) Plotinus Early maintained the personal immortality of individuals. It would be absurd to suggest that Socrates will cease to be Socrates when he goes from hence to a better world hereafter. Minds will survive in that better world, because nothing that has real being ever perishes. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430) Baptized in 387. On Ideas: the ideas have no extra-mental existence, but they exist, eternal and unchangeable, in the mind of God. Against the Academics The Confessions On the Free Choice The City of God St.Augustine. Philosophy of mind and freedom Young Augustine was influenced most by Plotinus. In his De Libero Arbitrio (on the free choice) he raised question whether the soul sins by necessity. We have to distinguish, as Augustine wrote, three senses of „necessity“: nature, certainty, and compulsion. Nature and compulsion are incompatible with voluntariness, and only voluntary acts are blameable. If a sinner sins by nature or by compulsion, the sin is not voluntary. But cetainty is compatible with voluntariness: it may be certain that X will sin, and yet X will sin voluntarily and will rightly be blamed. Concept of the free choice Augustine tried to prove that wanting is in our power. Whenever we want, we want. If it is in my power to do X, in the sense earlier outlined by Augustine, then it must be in my power not to do X. This weakens his arguments to show that wanting is in our powrer. For whatever plausibility there is in the claim that if i want something, I want it, there is none in the claim that if I want not to want somethin then I do not want it. I may very sincerely want to give up smoking: that does not prevent my passionate want for a cigarette at this moment. St. Augustine: Predestination The part of the Libero Arbitrio most relevant to the issue of determinism and freedom is his consideration of the foreknowledge of God. Augustine believed that at any moment God foreknew all future events. He can then construct the following argument against the possibility of voluntary sin. 1. God foreknew that Adam is going to sin. 2. If God foreknew that Adam is going to sin, necessarily Adam was gaoing to sin. 3. if Adam was necessarily going to sin, then Adam sinned necessarily. 4. if Adam sinned necessarily, Adam did not sin of his own free will. 5. Adam did not sin of his own free will. Augustine on Time „What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to an inquirer, I know not“ „What was God dong before the world began?“ – Augustine toys with and late rejects the answer „preparing hell for people who look too curiuosly into deep matters“ (Confessions, XI, 12.14.) Augustine on Time If first God was idle and then creative, surely that involves a change in the unchangeable one? The answer Augustine develops is that before heaven and earth were created there was no such thing as time, and without time there can be no change. It is folly to say that inumerable ages passed before God created anything; because God is the creator of ages, so there were no ages before creation. „You made time itself, so no time could pass before you made time. But if before heaven and earth there was no such thing as tie, why do people ask what you were doing then? When there was no time, there was no „then“ (Confessions, XI.13.15.) The City of God It was the first great sythesis of classical and Christian thought. It is implicit in the very title of the book: Christian gospels have much to say about the Kingdom of God, but Greeks and Romans focused on the city and its political institutions. Augustine devoted the first books of his treatise to showing that the gods of classical Rome were vicious and impotent and that their worship was disgust and depraving. Augustine followed Plato and Cicero in denouncing as blasphemous the myths that represent deities (Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite and the minor divinities) as engaged in arbitrary, cruel, and indecent behaviour. A brief survey of the history of the Roman Empire suffice to make evidence that the worship of the ancient Gods does not guarantee security from disasters. Romans strove towards honour, power and glory. But they have no part in the heavenly city, for they did not worship the one true God, and they aimed only at self-glorification.  Augustin did not regard the gods of pagan myths as complete fictions. On the contrary, he thought that they are wicked spirits who take advantage of human superstition to divert to themselves worship that is due only to the one true God. Some Platonists had classified the rational beings to three groups: gods, men, and daimones (demons). Gods dwelt in heaven, men on earth, and demons in the air between. Demons were like gods in beingimmortal, but like men in being subject to passions. Many demons are bad, but some are good, such as the daimon who was familiar of Socrates... Good demons could be of service as intermediaries between men and gods. Augustine did not reject the idea that the air is full of demons, but he did not accept that any of them are good, still less that they can mediate between God and man. Demons are „utterly malevolent spirits, totally indofferent to justice, swollen with pride, green with envy, cunning in deception“. In other words, Augustine identifies the Platonic daimones with the fallen angels.  Between creation of angels and the creation of humans, Augustine tells us, came the creation of animals. All animals, whether solitary like wolves or gregarious like deer, were created by God in multiple speciments simultaniously. But the human rase was created in a single individual, Adam: from him came Eve, and from this first pair came all other humans. This unique creation did not imply that a man was an unsocial animal; just the contrary. The human race, Augustine says, is, by nature, more socialble than any other species. But it is also , through ill will, more quarrelsome than any other.  Human beings stand in the middle between angelsand dumb animals: they share intellect with angels, but they have bodies as the beasts do. However, in the original divine plan they would have had a greater kinship with angels, because they would have been immortal. It was because of Adam‘s sin in Paradise that humans became mortal, subject to the bodily death that had always been natural for beasts. After the Fall death would be the common lot of all humans; but after death some, by God‘s grace, would be rewarded by aadmission to the company of the good angels, while others would be punished be damnation alongside the evil angels – a second death more grevious than the first. Augustine‘s Two Cities Jerusalem becomes the emblem of the City of God and Babylon becomes the emblem of the city of the world. Babylon was the city of confusion, where God had shattered the original unity of human language in order to frustrate the building of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). In the cityof the world philosophers speak with as many different tongues as the builders of Babel. Some say there is one world; some say there are many; some say this world is everlasting, others say it will perish. Some say it is controlled by a divine mind, others that it is the plaything of chance. Some say the soul is immortal, others that it persishes with body. Augustine‘s Two Cities The most important disputations among philosophers are those that concern the ultimate good and the ultimate evil. The ultimate good is that for which other things are desirable, while it is iteslf desirable for its own sake. Philosophers have sought to place the ultimate good in the present life: some hold that it is pleasure, some that it is virtue, some that it is tranquility, others that it is in the enjoyment of the basic goods with which nature has endowed us. But the City of God knows that eternal life is the supreme good, and eternal death the supreme evil, an that it is only by faith and grace that the supreme good can be achieved and the supreme evil avoided. What is Philosophy? Greek Philosophia means ‘Love of knowledge’ or ‘persuit of wisdom’. It also means: learning, scholarship, body of learning. Is it about timeless fundamental issues? What can be known? What is the nature of mind and how is it related to body? ‘Philosophy is what happens when you start thinking for yourself’ ‘Philosophy is a great intellectual adventu