philosphy

Philosophy Proper

Metaphysics – Inquiry into reality; ask what is reality? What is the nature of reality?

Epistemology – Inquiry into knowledge; asks how do we know what we know?

Ethics – inquiry into morality/right and wrong (virtue and vice).

Logic – inquiry into propositions and language

Aesthetics – inquiry into beauty and the good

Religion – inquiry into religious experience and the nature of religious symbols.

Political and Social Philosophy – inquiry into society and the role of the individual in society.

Worldview - way in which a person/community takes up the world.

· Norms – customs, traditions: Socially accepted ideas, beliefs of what should and should not be done.

· Value(s) – instrumental; sentimental; intellectual; moral

· Symbols/Symbolic Imagination

· No pure experience qua experience. All experience is mediated under certain symbols.

Epistemological Starting Point tend to be more “naturalistic”; empiricist (knowledge grounded in experience).

Metaphysical starting point tend to be more “rationalistic”; knowledge is based on ideas. More open to traditional THEISM.

Allegory of the Cave

Plato (459 BCE) – Early Athens/Greece

Platonic Metaphysics

· Emphasis is on Education

· What is education?

· Knowledge of the Good/ Forms.

· Forms/Universal Ideas already in the Soul

· Soul exists in the world of Forms prior to being born in the world of Flux.

· Two Worlds Thesis

· Heraclitus - Empiricism

· World of Flux – Life inside the Cave- unenlightened

· Impermanence

· Nothing stays the same

· World around us is real

· Parmenides - rationalism

· World of Forms – Life outside the Cave-Enlightenment

· Ideas are real

· Plato Marries these two perspectives

· Sides more with Parmenides

· Ideas are real; eternal; unchanging.

· World of flux is more illusionary.

· Plato is more rationalist than empiricist

· Dualism – marrying of two opposing views

· Metaphysical

· Two dimensions/realms of reality in which positive value is assigned to one and negative value is assigned to the other.

· Allegory of Cave is example of this

· Substance

· Object has two substances one opposing the other; positive value is assigned to one substance and negative value is assigned to the other.

· Flesh vs Spirit is an example of this

· Knowledge of the Good is “Good”

· Ignorance is Evil

· Is there such a thing as altruism? Or are people really just egoistic/self-centered and only out for their own good?

· If the latter, Socrates argues there are no good people.

· His position is that there are good people. Good people are those who have cultivated proper habits of excellence and do good regardless of external circumstances.

· Leads to Either/Or Thinking

· Argument by Analogy

Value of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell

· No definite answers

· What can be known

· About questions rather than answers

· Living with a Sense of possibility

· Faith

· Imagining the way the world can be

· Only based on the way the world is.

· Sense of time (time consciousness – past, present, future).

· Dogmatic assurance – this is the enemy.

· Attitude

· Being RIGHT!!

· Others are Wrong

· Enemy because

· Completely closes conversation

· Impediment to good reasoning

· Laziness in thinking

· Intellectual imagination

· Philosophy opens us up to “the more” of experience.

· Unity with the Universe

· Being a part of the more; a part of something larger.

· Dogmatist in the end is solitary

· No desire to be tolerant an open minded

· Misunderstands the point of Argument analysis

· Has misconceptions of Truth and Rationality

· Ultimately, uses argument stoppers rather than engaging in discourse.

· Examples of argument stoppers.

· “Who’s to say ….?”

· “That’s subjective.”

· “I would prefer not to think about what you said.”

· “I’m going to believe what I’ve always believed.”