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Below: The Study of Human Nature | The Study of the Universe | Human Nature & the Universe | Rationality, Universality, Objectivity | Limitations of the Western Philosophical Tradition | Philosophy & Popular Culture | Key Concepts

About Philosophy 9^th ed., Chapter 1
What is Philosophy

• "Philosophy" from the Greek philo (love) and sophia (wisdom): literally "the love of wisdom"

What Do Philosophers Do?  The Study of Human Nature

• Socrates: Life and Times
• a stonemason by trade
• The oracle at Delphi prophesied that he was "The wisest man in all of Greece"
• hanging round the marketplace -- the agora -- of old Athens
• tried & condemned for corrupting the youth of Athens & irreligion
• Plato his greatest student: founded the Academy
• wrote dialogues
• famously defended the reality of "the Forms"
• Aristotle: Plato's greatest student: founded the Lyceum
• invented logic
• founded scientific biology & psychology
• Four Basic Principles
• "The unexamined life is not worth living."
• There are valid objective principles of thought and action that must be followed in order to lead a good life
• True principles of thought and action reside within each individual
• Certain individuals can aid others in self-examination to help them discover these principles for themselves.
• Socratic Method
• use of irony -- "I am ignorant," Socrates says
• the interlocutor takes this as an invitation to enlighten Socrates
• the audience understands it's Socrates who will "enlighten" the interlocutor
• by showing him he didn't really know what he thought he did
• reducing them to the same sort of "ignorance" as Socrates who at least "knows that he doesn't know"
• The point of was to lead them into knowledge of their own ignorance that they might then begin to pursue the truth
• dialectical method of discovery of valid objective principles of thought and action
• a thesis/definition is put forward,
• aside: Socrates among the first to develop the idea that language parallel's reality
• e.g., Justice is what is to the interest of the stronger party.
• The thesis is challenged (objections are raised, probing questions are asked, contradictions exposed) & revised or discarded.
• Socrates: Explain yourself?
• Thrasymachus: The ruling party in every state makes laws in their own interest, and this is what is called "just".
• Socrates: And should the people obey the rulers?
• Thrasymachus: Of course.
• Socrates: Can't rulers sometimes be mistaken about what's in their interest?
• Thrasymachus: Naturally.
• Socrates: So here's what I don't get,
• When rulers are wrong about their interest they rule in ways not in their interest (i.e., unjustly, according to your definition).
• Yet you say the citizens ought to follow these rulings.
• So, you say they ought to do what's unjust (by your definition).
• But justice ought to be done, not injustice..
• Something is wrong with your thesis.
• Discussion
• Thrasymachus says, "justice is what's in the interest of the stronger party" and wants to understand this to mean, in effect, might makes right.
• "the strong" who rule should rule for their own benefit
• "the weak" the ruled should follow the strong's rulings.
• but now, it seems there has to be some objective standard to distinguish
• what's really in their interest
• vs. what they say and think is in their interest
• . . . unless you want to say "the strong" are infallible (this is, in effect, the tack Thrasymachus takes).
• Thesis is revised & the revised thesis reexamined
• until we arrive at an improved version of the thesis
• or else decide that this won't work
• we're on the wrong track: to say the strong are infallible is implausible
• back to the drawing board:
• propose some entirely different thesis
• justice is what's in the interest of each and all (Socrates proposes)

What Do Philosophers Do? The Study of the Universe

• The Milesians: Ancient Monists from Miletus
• Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes
• Their question: "What is everything made of?"
• Thales, the first philosopher: Water.
• Anaximenes: Air.
• Anaximander: Aperion (undifferentiated stuff)
• Assumptions
• monism: everything is made of one element
• naturalism: the universe can be understood in naturalistic terms, i.e. independently of religious assumptions
• Ancient Atomists
• Democritus & Lucretius
• everything is made up of tiny indivisible particles: atoms
• these come in many different shapes and sizes: e.g., earth, air, fire, water, thought or aether
• and everything else is made by the clumping together of atoms in various shapes and proportions
• "Nature . . . works by unseen bodies" (Lucretius, p. 18)
• Philosophy & Science
• Philosophy has been called "the mother of sciences": science-like features
• critical attitude toward its hypotheses: provisional acceptance
• appearance-reality distinction: in their true nature, things are not just as they appear
• rejection of mythological-religious style questions & answers
• On their relation
• the most common answer": science gets spun off (when they develop reliable methodologies), and philosophy is what's left.
• Wolff's view: philosophy reflects on the "criteria of thought and right action" which the mind "employs in all of its activities"
• philosophy the overseer of the sciences (among other things)
• determining the criteria of right thinking which the sciences (among other things) then apply
• Wolff holds there is a philosophical component to virtually everything we do

What Do Philosophers Do?  Human Nature and the Universe

• What else philosophers do is try to synthesize or put together these two pursuits
• pursuit of knowledge of human nature
• pursuit of knowledge about the nature of the universe
• Question: How is possible to penetrate behind the appearances to discover the true nature of things?
• skeptics answer: it's not
• how to answer the skeptic
• Stoic strategy: nature seen as imbued with rationality
• there is a natural order or "logos" -- a "natural law" that pervades all of reality
• "regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul" (M. Aurelius (p. 21)
• reason can understand reality because reality is at bottom rational (law governed) & intelligent in its operations
• Modern strategy: the epistemological turn
• "epistemology" from the Greek episteme (knowledge) and logos (characterization or description)
• if we undertake to understand the thought processes by which we come to know reality
• we can obtain some understanding of the true nature of what's known thereby
• if we come to the understand the processes by which we acquire knowledge of things
• perhaps we can draw some inferences about the nature of the things
• about the way things must be to be knowable by such processes
• rationalism v. empiricism
• (British) Empiricism: all knowledge comes from the evidence of our five senses
• Locke
• Berkeley
• Hume
• (Continental) Rationalism: some knowledge comes from the exercise of reason alone
• Descartes
• Leibniz
• Kant

Rationality, Universality, Objectivity

• Three concepts used to test the value of a philosophical insight.
• Rationality: an insight is rational to the extent that it can be adequately supported by reasons, evidence, and arguments
• Universality: An insight is universal if it applies for everyone, everywhere, always.
• Objectivity: An insight is objective if it corresponds to reality rather than mere opinion.
• Three characteristics go together
• What is objective (as opposed to subjective) is knowable by reason and the same for everyone
• We all have different -- private and subjective -- experiences of the lectern
• But we all alike recognize here's a lectern
• Wolff's doubts about universality
• the defenders of apartheid's were unable to imagine the "double consciousness" of South Africans
• "Consequently, the way in which they understood the world, down to the very categories of time, space, causality, and personhood they employed, were incompatible with those that I use, or that are used by my black and white comrades in South Africa."

The Limitations of the Western Philosophical Tradition

• Whether or not there is universality to be had at the end of inquiry the claim of the Western Philosophical Tradition to represent that universal standpoint is questionable on the very face of things.
• The voices of women and persons of color are hardly ever heard.
  • St. Augustine to the contrary somewhat withstanding
• What entitles these few "dead white males" to speak for everyone?
• The experiences and insights of these marginalized groups might enrich the Western tradition
• Limitations of the Western philosophical traditions: shameful & dismissive views of Hume, Kant, & Hegel
• about the intellectual inferiority of Blacks
• and the insignificance of African (& all native cultural) history & experience
• call for a more inclusive approach
• especially, "an exploration of the philosophical implications of the African American experience"
• W.E.B. DuBois' exploration {pronounced Due Boyss}
• the color line shutting the African American off from the white world
• resulting in double consciousness: seeing oneself
• not completely through your own eyes & experience
• but as others - the white majority -- see you: according to their stereotypes
• second sight vs. decentering
• decentering = seeing oneself as stereotyped
• second sight = seeing through the stereotyping to "a much broader critique of the history, politics, social customs, culture, religion, and public myths" that maintain and enforce the stereotypes.

Philosophy and Popular Culture

• The Watermelon Man: Questions About Race
• Questions to Consider: If you are white, imagine that you wake up one morning and you are black. Or, if you are not white, imagine that you wake up one morning and you are now white. How would your life and attitudes change? In addition, if you are male, imagine that you wake up one morning as a female, or conversely. How would your life and attitudes change?

Key Concepts Chapter 1 Atomism Empiricism Epistemology Logic Monism Metaphysics Objective Philosophy Rationalism Rational Subjective Universal LH's Mostly Modern Philosophical Glossary

The Ruins at Delphi

 Above: The Study of Human Nature | The Study of the Universe | Human Nature & the Universe | Rationality, Universality, Objectivity | Limitations of the Western Philosophical Tradition | Philosophy & Popular Culture | Key Concepts

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