This Document Contains Chapters 1 to 5 CHAPTER 1: POWERFUL IDEAS Main Points What is Philosophy? 1. The word philosophy comes from the Greek words philein (which means “to love”) and Sophia (which means “knowledge” or “wisdom”). 2. For ancient Greek thinkers, “philosophy” was a word that could describe the careful consideration of any subject matter (such as what today we would call physics or psychology). Today mathematics, the physical and biological sciences, economics and political science, theology, and many other areas have become disciplines of their own. Philosophical Questions 3. Philosophy today addresses fundamental questions unanswered by other fields of knowledge, such as “Is it good to spread freedom? How do we know the answer? What is freedom?” “To what extent do we have a moral obligation to people we don’t know? To nonhuman living things?” “What are the ethically legitimate functions of the state?” “Do people have natural rights?” “Is there a God? Does it make any difference whether there is or isn’t a God?” “What is truth? Beauty? Art?” “Does the universe have a purpose?” “What is time?” and “Could anything have happened before the Big Bang?” 4. Philosophical questions arise out of everyday contexts: Caring for an aging parent suggests the question “What makes something a moral obligation?” Controversies about what should or should not be taught in the science classroom raises an issue in the philosophy of science: “Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory?” Portrayals of robots in movies such as Real Steel and on TV may lead one to ask “Will it be possible to build a computer that actually thinks?” Advances in brain research raise the question: “What is the nature of thought?” “What is the relationship between thought and the brain?” 5. Facts alone can’t provide the answers to philosophical questions. But that doesn’t mean philosophical questions are unanswerable. 6. Some philosophical questions concern the nature of change. If something changes, is it different from the way it was, and, if so, is it the same thing? The implications are more than just theoretical. If a young man murders someone, is he still guilty many years later if not a single molecule of the young man is in the old man? 7. Some philosophical questions arise from commonsense beliefs that seem to conflict. If causes make effects happen, then are voluntary choices really voluntary, since they are caused? Or are some choices uncaused? Misconceptions about Philosophy 8. “One person’s philosophy is as correct as the next person’s” or “any philosophical position is as good, valid, or correct as any other opinion” or “my view is correct for me, and another person’s view is correct for that person.” But contradictory opinions cannot possibly both be correct. 9. “Philosophy is nothing but opinion.” Philosophy requires opinions to be supported by good reasoning. 10. “Truth is relative.” Perspectives on various matters may differ, but one and the same sentence cannot both be true and not true at the same time and in the same respect. 11. “Philosophy is light reading.” Just the opposite may be the case! A Philosophical Tool Kit 12. Argument. When you support a position by giving a reason for accepting it, you are giving an argument. 13. Logic is the study of correct inference: whether and to what extent a reason truly does support a conclusion, the point that the argument is trying establish. 14. The Socratic Method. As practiced by the Greek philosopher Socrates, the Socratic method proposes a definition (of knowledge, for example), rebuts it by counterexample, modifies the definition in light of the counterexample, rebuts the modified definition, and so on, which helps advance the understanding of such concepts and aids in improving one’s arguments. 15. Thought experiments. Commonly used in philosophy (and also in science), the thought experiment imagines a situation in order to extract a lesson of philosophical importance. 16. Reductio ad Absurdum. A reductio ad absurdum demonstrates that the contradictory of a thesis is or leads to (i.e., “reduces to”) an absurdity. Most famously applied by St. Anselm in a proof of God’s existence that assumed (for sake of argument) that God (a being “greater than which cannot be conceived”) does not exist; which “reduces” to the absurdity that a being greater than which cannot be conceived is not a being greater than which cannot be conceived. So, the argument concludes, God exists. Fallacies 17. A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. 18. Switching the burden of proof: Trying to prove a position by asking an opponent to disprove it. 19. Begging the question (also called circular reasoning): as used by logicians or philosophers, the term means more or less assuming the very thing that the argument is intended to prove. 20. Argumentum ad hominem (“argument against the person”): the attempt to discredit a view by discrediting the person holding the view. 21. The fact that a person has changed his or her mind on an issue does not itself show that the person’s current position is contradictory or even incorrect. That someone has changed positions is a fact about the person, not the position, though confusing the two is perhaps the most common mistake in reasoning. 22. Arguments must be evaluated on their own merits; whether a person actually believes his or her own argument is irrelevant. 23. Straw man: the alleged refutation of a view by the refutation of a misrepresentation of that view. 24. False dilemma (either-or fallacy): the fallacy of offering two choices when in fact more options exist. 25. Appeals to emotion: arguments that try to establish conclusions solely by attempting to arouse or play on the emotions of a listener or reader. 26. Red herring: a general term for those arguments that address a point other than the one that is at issue. Ad hominem, appeals to emotion, and straw man can all be seen as specific types of red herrings. The Divisions of Philosophy 27. Questions related to being or existence: metaphysics. 28. Questions related to knowledge: epistemology. 29. Questions related to values: moral philosophy (ethics); social philosophy; political philosophy; aesthetics. 30. Questions about the criteria for valid reasoning and demonstration: logic (the theory of correct inference). 31. Philosophy can also be divided into areas that consider the fundamental assumptions and methods of other disciplines, such as in philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, and so on. The Benefits of Philosophy 32. Philosophy students tend to have exceptional aptitude for analytical thinking, critical thinking, careful reasoning, problem solving, and communication, skills valued in the legal, medical, business and other professions as well as the sciences (though it’s an open question whether studying philosophy makes students better thinkers or whether better thinkers are attracted to philosophy). 33. Training in philosophy may increase one’s ability to use logic, make nuanced distinctions, recognize subtle similarities and differences, detect unstated assumptions; and decrease the likelihood of being prone to superficiality and dogmatism. CHAPTER 2: THE PRE-SOCRATICS Main Points 1. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned primarily with the nature, sources, limits, and criteria of knowledge. In the history of philosophy, epistemology and metaphysics have been intimately connected. 2. “Metaphysics,” the term, in its original meaning refers to those untitled writings of Aristotle “after the Physics” that deal with subjects more abstract and difficult to understand than those examined in the Physics. 3. The fundamental question of Aristotle’s metaphysics, and therefore of metaphysics as a subject, is What is the nature of being? However, this question was asked before Aristotle, so he was not the first metaphysician. In addition, it has admitted a variety of interpretations over the centuries, though for most philosophers it does not include such subjects as astral projection, UFOs, or psychic surgery. 4. The first Western philosophers are known collectively as the pre-Socratics, a loose chronological term applying to those Greek philosophers who lived before Socrates (c. 470–399 B.C.). 5. The thinking of these early philosophers ushered in a perspective that made possible a deep understanding of the natural world. Advanced civilization is the direct consequence of the Greek discovery of mathematics and the Greek invention of philosophy. The Milesians 6. Thales conceived and looked for (and is said to be the first to do so) a basic stuff out of which all is constituted. He pronounced it to be water. 7. Thales also introduced a perspective that was not mythological in character. His view contributed to the idea that nature runs itself according to fixed processes that govern underlying substances. 8. Anaximander thought the basic substance must be more elementary than water and must be ageless, boundless, and indeterminate. 9. Anaximenes pronounced the basic substance to be air. Pythagoras 10. Pythagoras is said to have maintained that things are numbers, but, more accurately (according to his wife Theano), Pythagoras meant that things are things because they can be enumerated. If something can be counted, it is a thing (whether physical or not). 11. For Pythagoras, there is an intimacy between things and numbers. Things participate in the universe of order and harmony. This led to the concept that fundamental reality is eternal, unchanging, and accessible only to reason. Heraclitus and Parmenides 12. For Heraclitus, the essential feature of reality is fire, whose nature is ceaseless change determined by a cosmic order he called the logos, through which there is a harmonious union of opposites. Such ceaseless change raises the problem of identity (can I step into the same river twice?) and the problem of personal identity (am I the same person over a lifetime?) 13. Parmenides deduced from a priori principles that being is a changeless, single, permanent, indivisible, and undifferentiated whole. Motion and generation are impossible, for if being itself were to change it would become something different. But what is different from being is nonbeing, and non-being just plain isn’t. Empedocles and Anaxagoras 14. Empedocles, reconciling the views of Heraclitus and Parmenides, recognized change in objects but said they were composed of changeless basic material particles: earth, air, fire, water. The apparent changes in the objects of experience were in reality changes in the positions of the basic particles. He also recognized basic forces of change, love, and strife. 15. Anaxagoras introduced philosophy to Athens and introduced into metaphysics the distinction between matter and mind. He held that the formation of the world resulted from rotary motion induced in mass by mind = reason = nous. 16. Mind did not create matter, but only acted on it, and did not act out of purpose or objective. Unlike Empedocles, Anaxagoras believed matter was composed of particles that were infinitely divisible. The Atomists 17. Leucippus and Democritus: All things are composed of minute, imperceptible, indestructible, indivisible, eternal, and uncreated particles, differing in size, shape, and perhaps weight. Atoms are infinite in number and eternally in motion. 18. The Atomists distinguished inherent and noninherent qualities of everyday objects: color and taste are not really “in” objects, but other qualities, such as weight and hardness, are. 19. The Atomists held that because things move, empty space must be real. 20. The Atomists were determinists. They believed that atoms operate in strict accordance with physical laws. They said future motions would be completely predictable for anyone with enough knowledge about the shapes, sizes, locations, directions, and velocities of the atoms. 21. The common thread of the pre-Socratics: all believed that the world we experience is merely a manifestation of a more fundamental, underlying reality. Boxes The Nature of Being? (Some of the various questions a philosopher might have in mind when he or she asks the question) Profile: Pythagoras (Remembered for the Pythagorean Theorem, actually discovered earlier by the Babylonians) On Rabbits and Motion (Two of Zeno’s antimotion arguments explained) Mythology (The legacy of ancient myths) Lecture and Discussion Ideas Related to Selected Questions 6. A note on Parmenides and the Atomists. For Parmenides, the only alternative to being was non-being (nonexistence), so that if being itself could undergo change of any kind (that is, could be different in some way from what it was originally), the only way for being to be different would be for it not to exist. But that is logically absurd, for being cannot be and not-be at the same time. Thus, it is impossible for being to change. The Atomists used the idea of a “void” (the Greek word is kenon, the Latin word vacuum) to give “room” for things (atoms) to undergo change. But empty space was also real. A helpful way to understand this is to note that while the void was “nothing” (no-thing), it was not non-being. So for the Atomists both things and no-things existed: both had being (as opposed to non-being). A comparison of the two views appears below. Parmenides and the Atomists Compared Parmenides BEING IS NON-BEING IS NOT Atomists BEING Thing (Body) No-Thing (Void) IS NON-BEING IS NOT Source: Unknown 8. “The behavior of atoms is governed entirely by physical laws.” “Humans have free will.” Are these statements incompatible? Explain. We don’t believe they ever invented a beginning philosophy student who doubted free will. So regardless of your own views on the subject, it can’t hurt to argue against the idea. If it does nothing else, it will help students to see that the idea that we have free will is not the self-evident thing that it seems. Chapter 17 discusses the problem of Free Will in depth, so you may want to postpone detailed discussion until then. A good way to begin is by stipulating that Smith has free will if and only if it was physically possible for her to have acted differently in the same circumstances. Hence: If she has free will then it was physically possible for the atoms in the parts of her body that moved when she acted to have moved differently in the same circumstances. And if the atoms could have moved differently in the same circumstances, then they are not governed by physical laws. So, if they are governed, then she doesn’t have free will. Possibly someone will ask, and even if nobody does ask the subject should be brought up anyway, why it is that, if it were possible for something physical to have behaved differently in the same circumstances, then it was not governed by physical law. The answer is that that’s what it is to be governed by physical law. Take a simple law, for example, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. What it means to say that that is a law is that if you raise the temperature of some water to 100 degrees it will boil. If you could raise the water to 100 degrees without its boiling, then it wouldn’t be a law that water boils at that temperature. A rejoinder might be—and few students will raise it, though you might—that it is consistent with the idea that the activity of subatomic entities is governed by physical laws that there are “uncaused events” in the subatomic realm, and that therefore a subatomic entity could have behaved differently in exactly the same circumstances even though it is governed by physical laws. It might then further be suggested that if subatomic entities could have behaved differently in the same circumstances while being governed by physical laws, then so could atoms and larger things, such as Smith’s arms and legs, since subatomic entities exist in these atoms and larger things. However, let’s set aside the scientific controversies involved in this rejoinder and suppose that the atoms in Smith’s arms, while being governed by physical laws, could have moved differently due to the “uncaused” activity of internal subatomic entities. The point is, so what? True, it would follow that Smith has free will, as defined above, for she could have acted differently in the same circumstances (at least her body parts could have moved differently). But if she had acted differently, it would have been due to the “uncaused activity” of subatomic particles within her body, and not due to her. This is a good place to bring forth the old dilemma: Either your act was caused, or it wasn’t. If it was, then it couldn’t have not happened. And if it wasn’t, then you didn’t cause it. Either way, you can’t be held to account for your act. Philosophers’ Principal Works Thales (c. 640–546 B.C.) Anaximander (c. 610–547 B.C.) On the Nature of Things Anaximenes (fl. c. 545 B.C.) Pythagoras (c. 580–500 B.C.) Theano of Croton (sixth century B.C.) On Piety Heraclitus (c. 535–475 B.C.) Parmenides (fifth century B.C.) Zeno (c. 489–430 B.C.) Empedocles (c. 490–430 B.C.) On the Nature of Things Purifications Anaxagras (c. 500–428 B.C.) Democritus (460–370 B.C.) Little World System On Nature In the Nature of Man Leucippus (mid-fifth century B.C.) On Mind CHAPTER 3: SOCRATES, PLATO Main Points 1. Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.) was the pupil of Socrates (470–399 B.C.), and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was the pupil of Plato. Socrates 2. Socrates was not interested in arguing with his fellow Athenians merely for the sake of argument—as the Sophists were—but rather he wanted to discover the essential nature of knowledge, justice, beauty, goodness, and the virtues (such as courage). 3. The Socratic (dialectic) method: a search for the proper definition of a thing that will not permit refutation under Socratic questioning. The method does not imply that the questioner already knows the proper definition, only that the questioner is skilled at detecting misconceptions and at revealing them by asking the right questions. 4. Socrates was famous for his courage and for his staunch opposition to injustice. The story of his trial and subsequent death by drinking hemlock after his conviction for “corrupting” young men and not believing in the city’s gods is told in Plato’s dialogues Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Plato 5. Plato’s metaphysics: the Theory of Forms. What is truly real is not the objects of sensory experience but the Forms or Ideas. These are not just in the head but are in a separate realm and are ageless, eternal, unchanging, unmoving, and indivisible. Circularity and beauty are examples of Forms. 6. Particular objects have a lesser reality that can only approximate the ultimate reality of Forms. A thing is beautiful only to the extent it participates in the Form beauty, and is circular only if it participates in the Form circularity. 7. Plato introduced into Western thought a two-realms concept of a “sensible,” changing world (a source of error, illusion, and ignorance) and a world of Forms that is unchanging (the source of all reality and all true knowledge). This Platonic dualism was incorporated into Christianity and today still affects our views on virtually every subject. 8. Some Forms, notably the Forms truth, beauty, and goodness, are of a higher order than other Forms. The Form circularity is beautiful, but the Form beauty is not circular. 9. Plato’s theory of knowledge. Plato developed the first comprehensive theory of knowledge in philosophy, though many of his predecessors had implicit epistemological theories, some of them based in skepticism. 10. A skeptic is someone who doubts that knowledge is possible. Xenophanes declared that even if truth were stated it would not be known. Heraclitus believed that just as one cannot step into the same river twice, everything is in flux; though he himself did not deduce skeptical conclusions from his metaphysical theory, it does suggest that it is impossible to discover any fixed truth beyond what the theory itself expresses. Cratylus argued that a person cannot step even once into the same river because the person and the river are continually changing. True communication is impossible since words change their meaning even as they are spoken. It seems to follow that knowledge would also be impossible. 11. The Sophists, who could make a plausible case for any position, seemed to support skepticism by implicitly teaching that one idea is as valid as the next. Gorgias said there was no reality, and if there were, it could not be known or communicated; Protagoras, the best- known Sophist philosopher, maintained that “man is the measure of all things.” Plato took this to mean that there is no absolute knowledge because one person’s view of the world is as valid as any other’s. 12. In his dialogue Theaetetus, Plato argued that if Protagoras were correct, the person who viewed Protagoras’s theory as false would also be correct. Plato also argued against the popular notion that knowledge can be equated with sense perception. Knowledge clearly involves thinking and the use of concepts that cut across individual sense perceptions. Knowledge can be retained even after a person’s particular sense experience ends. Besides, since the objects of sense perception are always changing, and knowledge is concerned with what is truly real, sense perception cannot be knowledge. 13. For Plato, the objects of true knowledge are the Forms, which are apprehended by reason. (Perfect beauty or absolute goodness cannot be perceived.) 14. Plato’s epistemology is summarized in a passage in the Republic called the Theory of the Divided Line and the Myth of the Cave, which contrast true knowledge with mere belief or opinion. 15. Plato’s Theory of Love and Becoming. Each individual has in his or her immortal soul a perfect set of Forms which can be remembered (anamnesis), and only this constitutes true knowledge. 16. In The Symposium, Plato postulated the notion of love as the way for a person to go from the state of imperfection and ignorance to the state of perfection and true knowledge. 17. For Plato, love is the force which brings all things together and makes them beautiful; it is the way in which all beings can ascend to higher states of self-realization and perfection. Platonic love is intellectual or spiritual, though it does not exclude the love of physical beauty. 18. The highest form of love is beyond all mortal things; it is the love of beauty and truth themselves. Such appreciation of the changeless and the perfect is a kind of immortality. 19. Physical love begets mortal children; intellectual or spiritual love immortal children. To love the highest is to become the best. Boxes Profile: Aristocles, a.k.a. “Plato” (The nickname “Plato” means “broad shoulders”) The Cave (Plato’s famous allegory designed to explain his two-realms philosophy) Readings 3.1 Plato, from Apology Socrates defends himself against charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. 3.2 Plato, from Republic An account of the Good, the Divided Line, the Myth of the Cave, and the work of philosophers in the ideal society. 3.3 Plato, from Meno Plato’s view that knowledge about reality comes from within the soul through a form of “recollection” and that the soul is immortal. Lecture and Discussion Ideas Related to Selected Questions 4. Does a world of Forms exist separately from the world of concrete, individual things? Explain. We have had good luck with the following three techniques for selling Plato’s Forms to our students. We don’t claim originality for any of them. (1) Ask the class if one thing can be in two separate places at the same time. They will deny that this is possible. Then show them two chairs, and ask the following questions: What do these two chairs have in common? (Well, they will say, they both have arms and legs and a seat and a back.) Okay, what do these two legs have in common; why are they both legs? (The response we often get is that “they look exactly the same”; i.e., they have the same shape.) Okay, so let’s talk about the shape that they both have. This “shape” is a Platonic Form. Does the shape exist separately from the legs? At this point, if they want to continue to maintain that nothing can be in two different places at the same time, they will have to concede that the shape does exist separately from the legs. At the least they will revise their original view and say that they meant that a physical thing can’t be in two separate places at the same time. This revision implicitly recognizes Forms as nonphysical “things” that can be in different places at the same time. (2) Write “This is a philosophy class” on the board twice and ask whether there is one sentence on the board or two. After they have argued about that for a bit, you can satisfy most everyone by bringing forth the type-token distinction: the two sets of chalk marks on the board are sentence tokens, but there is one sentence type that they are tokens of. The type is a Form, and it isn’t on the board, since there are two of what’s on the board. (3) This one, as we recall, comes from a text by Avrum Stroll. Ask the class to suppose that the paper on which the U. S. Constitution is written burns up in a fire. Does that mean that America no longer has a Constitution? Nope. That’s because the Constitution, a Form, exists separately from the world of physical objects. Philosophers’ Principal Works Socrates (c. 470–399 B.C.) Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.) Republic Theaetetus Symposium Parmenides Timaeus Apology Crito Phaedo CHAPTER 4: ARISTOTLE Main Points 1. Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was the pupil of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. 2. Aristotle observed nature closely and came to be considered the definitive authority on all subjects except religion (on which, nevertheless, his impact came to be tremendous and long- lasting). What Is It to Be? 3. Aristotle called metaphysics “first philosophy.” For him, to be is to be a particular thing, and each thing is composed of matter in a particular form; with the exception of God, neither form nor matter is ever found in isolation from the other. There is no separate and superior realm of Forms. 4. The basic questions that can be asked of any thing are about its causes, which are four: the formal cause (the form of the thing), the material cause (what it is made of), the efficient cause (what made it), and the final cause (its purpose or end). 5. Change can be viewed as movement from potentiality to actuality. Because actuality is the source of change, pure actuality (that is, the unchanged changer, or God) is the ultimate source of change. 6. Aristotle maintained that the metaphysics of his predecessors was concerned with various kinds of causation (Thales with material causation, Plato with formal causation, Empedocles and Anaxagoras with efficient causation). It was for Aristotle to provide an adequate explanation of final causation. Actuality and Possibility 7. Matter is pure possibility; it cannot move or form itself. 8. On the other hand, God is pure actuality, which can only move things without being moved or changed in any way. 9. Things move and are moved as a process of actualizing some of their potentialities. It is things’ love and longing of perfection or God that moves the universe. 10. Changes in the natural world continue without ceasing. Only God is pure act and perfect actualization. Essence and Existence 11. The first judgment to be made about a thing is whether it exists. 12. Next, if a thing is, what is it? Substance refers to the individual, particular thing and to what a thing is in common with other things. The latter is known as a thing’s essence, its definition. 13. Persons’ essence: rational animal. 14. The physical world can be divided into the essences, or species, of mineral, vegetable, and animal. To be a specific thing is to have a set potential which is in continuous process of actualization. This forming process constitutes a thing’s being and allows it to become a whole individual. Happiness is a way of measuring to what degree a human being is fulfilling his or her potential. Ten Basic Categories 15. Basic categories of being: substance, quantity, quality, relationships, place, time, posture, constitution, passivity, and activity. 16. These categories make possible the comprehension of a thing’s being. 17. The soul (psyche) is the principle of independent movement within each human being, providing the purposes and ultimate end which human beings pursue. The Three Souls 18. Human beings have three souls which form a single unity. 19. The vegetative soul is the source of nourishment. 20. The animal soul is the basis of sensation and movement. 21. The intelligent or spiritual soul (nous) is pure and immortal and is the source of conceptual thought and the understanding of being. Aristotle and the Theory of Forms 22. Aristotle used what is called the Third Man argument to take issue with Plato’s Theory of Forms. Circular coins have the Form circularity in common; but an additional Form is needed, it seems, to express what one of the coins and the Form circularity have in common. And there needs to be yet another Form to express what the additional Form and the Form of circularity have in common, and so on. 23. Aristotle’s own view is that the forms are universals (something that more than one individual can be) but that such universals do not exist apart from particulars. Circularity has no independent existence apart from particular circular things. Aristotle’s Theory of Knowledge 24. Discursive reasoning defines things by way of their limitations, samenesses, and differences; it is the basis of science and provides an understanding of everyday human life. 25. Aristotle sought to define things by determining how a thing is similar to other things (genus) and how it is specifically different (species, or specific difference). 26. Intuition is an immediate, direct seeing of a certain truth. That which is absolutely simple and first, God, can only be understood through intuition. The most fundamental principles of knowing, including the principle of contradiction (a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect), must also be known intuitively. Logic 27. Aristotle’s contribution to the study of sound reasoning is fundamentally important, and he is known as the father of logic. His work on the syllogism (in which one proposition is inferred from two others) is still taught in universities throughout the world. (To infer one proposition from other propositions is to see that the first one follows from the others.) 28. Aristotle’s logic is linked to his metaphysics because he believed that the forms of thought in which we think about reality represent the way reality actually is. Boxes Profile: Aristotle (He tutored Alexander the Great when Alexander was 13) Aristotle and Plato on Forms (For Aristotle, universals have no independent existence apart from particular things) Readings 4.1 Aristotle, from Metaphysics Aristotle here describes the relation of form to matter, the nature of forms, and the types of generation. Lecture and Discussion Ideas Related to Selected Questions 1. What are the four Aristotelian causes of a baseball? One of our colleagues, Ric Machuga, presents the following outline to his students. He sees Aristotle as a mediating voice between the extremes of Heraclitus and Parmenides and uses that idea to present Aristotle’s concept of change. The four causes of a baseball are set in their appropriate context in the outline. Aristotle’s Response to Heraclitus and Parmenides Heraclitus 1. Argued that the only source of knowledge is that which we observe through the five senses. 2. Those senses reveal a continually changing world. A bank robber can never be charged with a crime because the person charged would be different from the person who robbed the bank originally. Parmenides 1. There is only one, unchanging Being. 2. Argued that all change is illusory. 3. If change were possible, Being would change into something else. The only thing other than Being is non-being, which (said Parmenides) amounts to nonexistence. Aristotle 1. Things exist. 2. Some things move and change. 3. The things in this universe that exist, move, and change are not totally unintelligible. Subject matters of the sciences (in increasing generality) 1. Things insofar as they are able to make rational choices between competing goods (ethics). 2. Things insofar as they are alive (biology). 3. Things insofar as they are moving or changing objects (physics). 4. Things insofar as they exist (metaphysics). What is a thing? 1. Aristotle said that things have being. 2. The purpose of metaphysics is to make clear what being is. 3. Most things are composed of matter and form. 4. Prime matter (matter devoid of all form) is nothing more than a potential thing. 5. Pure form (form devoid of all matter) is pure actuality. 6. For Aristotle, God is pure form. 7. In most all things, however, matter and form are a unity and can only be separated conceptually. Knowing things 1. Human beings have the capacity to abstract forms from matter. 2. We can observe a vast array of different objects and realize they are all trees. 3. Nature is divided into natural kinds that humans discover and name when they abstract a thing’s substantial form. Substantial and accidental form 1. Substantial form is that which makes a thing what it is. 2. If you change a thing’s substantial form, the thing becomes something else. 3. Cut down an actual tree and the mass of matter is no longer a tree but is potentially either a house, firewood, or compost. 4. If you change a thing’s accidental form, the thing remains that kind of thing. 5. We can prune a limb from a tree or pick its fruit; the accidental form of the tree changes, but the tree remains a tree. To Heraclitus 1. Our five senses reveal that the accidental forms of things are continually changing, but it is not true that a thing’s substantial form is always changing. 2. So while in a sense Heraclitus was correct, his radical conclusion that everything is in a continual state of flux is false. To Parmenides 1. Although in a sense Parmenides was right, he fails to distinguish between actuality and potentiality, and so his conclusion that nothing changes is false. 2. When a thing changes its accidental form, it does not mean one thing passes out of existence to be replaced by another (different) thing. 3. We may say (truthfully) that the table is white; but it is also potentially red. Painting the table does not mean the white table goes out of existence, only that the accidental form of that table changes. Cause 1. Any complete explanation of what a thing is, or why a thing changes, must mention the following four kinds of causes. 2. Material cause (that thing is a baseball because it is made out of cork, rubber, string, and leather). 3. Formal cause (that thing is a baseball because it’s in the shape of a ball). 4. Efficient cause (that thing is a baseball because the maker of the ball put its parts together in a certain way). 5. Final cause (that thing is a baseball because it was designed to be used in the game of baseball). Final cause 1. According to Aristotle, an infinite series of temporal causes is impossible. 2. If such an infinite series of causes existed without a first cause, the series as a whole is unintelligible. 3. Since Aristotle thought the universe always existed, the first cause is not temporally prior to all other causes, but it is conceptually first. 4. A bowl of food causes a hungry dog to run toward it; the cause (the bowl of food) and the effect (the dog’s running) exist simultaneously. 5. The motion of the stars and planets (which in turn causes all other motion) must have a first cause = prime mover = God. 6. For Aristotle, God is the unmoved mover, ultimately responsible as a final cause for all movement in the universe without himself moving. 7. God is the unmoved mover by definition; it makes no more sense to ask “what moves God?” than it does to ask “why is a vacuum empty?” What exists? 1. Things like rocks and people, which are sometimes moving. 2. Stars and planets, which are always moving and always move other things. 3. God, which always moves other things but is never himself moved. Philosophers’ Principal Works Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) Physics Metaphysics On the Soul (De Anima) Nicomachean Ethics Politics The Organon of logical works Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.) Republic Theaetetus Symposium Parmenides Timaeus Apology Crito Phaedo CHAPTER 5: PHILOSOPHERS OF THE HELLENISTIC AND CHRISTIAN ERAS Main Points Metaphysics in the Roman Empire 1. The contributions of Romans to philosophy were minimal. 2. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods there were four main traditions or “schools” of philosophy: Stoicism and Epicureanism (covered in Chapter 10) and Skepticism and Neoplatonism (covered in this chapter). 3. Plotinus. The great philosopher of Neoplatonism found reality in unity and permanence: the One. Reality emanates from the One as light emanates from the sun; matter is the final emanation and stands on the edge of non-being. The One can be apprehended only by a coming together of the soul and the One in a mystical experience. Unlike the Christian God, Plotinus’s god was not personal. 4. The Rise of Christianity. The predominance of Christianity in Europe came to define the framework within which most Western philosophizing took place. 5. St. Augustine. Through Augustine’s thought, the Christian belief in an eternal and unchanging nonmaterial actuality that is the ground of all being and truth received a philosophical justification, essentially Platonic and Neoplatonic in substance. However, Augustine identified this ultimate ground not with the Forms of Plato or the nonpersonal One of Plotinus but with the Christian God. 6. Augustine accepted the Old Testament idea that God created the world ex nihilo (creation ex nihilo means creation “out of nothing”) and the New Testament Gospel accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Augustine believed that God took on human form in the person of Jesus, a position unthinkable for Neoplatonists, who thought that the immaterial realm could not be tainted with the imperfection of mere gross matter. 7. Augustine and skepticism. Total skeptics maintain that nothing can be known (or profess to suspend judgment in all matters); modified skeptics do not doubt that at least some things are known but deny or suspend judgment on the possibility of knowledge about particular things, such as God, or within some subject matter, such as history or ethics. 8. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods after Plato there were two schools of (total) skepticism, the Pyrrhonists, disciples of Pyrrho, who suspended judgment on all issues, and the Academics, who maintained that “all things are inapprehensible.” 9. Sextus Empiricus, a Pyrrhonist, the greatest skeptic of ancient times, set forth in Ten Tropes arguments by the ancient skeptics against the possibility of knowledge. For example, one cannot know how any object really is in itself, because what one perceives or thinks it to be is always in relationship to, never independent of, that perceiver. 10. St. Augustine: Skepticism is refuted by the principle of noncontradiction; by the very act of doubting—from the fact of my very doubting it follows that I am; and because sense perception itself gives a rudimentary kind of knowledge (we make no mistake if we assent to the bent appearance of a stick as it enters the water). 11. Hypatia. Hypatia of Alexandria, a pagan, was the last major commentator on the geocentric astronomical system of Ptolemy Claudius, whose work was eventually overthrown by Nicholas Copernicus in the sixteenth century. She tried to improve the mathematics of the Ptolemaic system and tried to demonstrate the completeness of Ptolemy’s astronomy. Ptolemy’s work fit with the prevailing Christian theology in teaching the centrality of humankind and of the earth in God’s creation. 12. Hypatia was sympathetic to Plotinus’s metaphysics and to stoic philosophy. Plotinus’s interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics, she believed, implied a way of life, and for her and her students, mathematics and astronomy were essential preparation for the study of metaphysics. The Middle Ages and Aquinas 13. Original philosophy was virtually nonexistent in Europe during the early Middle Ages, with the exception of Neoplatonists Boethius (sixth century) and John Scotus (ninth century). 14. The problem of universals (important to thinkers of the time, to Aristotle, and to contemporary analytic philosophers): Does a term that applies to more than one thing denote something (a “universal”) that actually exists outside the mind? 15. Three main positions regarding universals: Realism (universal terms, like “man,” denote something that exists outside the mind); conceptualism (universal terms correspond only to concepts in the mind); and nominalism (universal terms can be accounted for without resort to concepts in the mind or reference to real things out in the world). 16. Contact with the Arabian world during the high Middle Ages rekindled interest among churchmen in Aristotle. 17. The most important of those who saw accord between Christian principles and Aristotle was St. Thomas Aquinas, who clarified the boundary between philosophy and theology. Though a person can have true knowledge of the natural world (the kind of knowledge science produces), such knowledge is insufficient. The realm of supernatural truth, dealing with the most profound aspects of Christian belief, goes beyond human reason but is not contrary to that reason. Human reason, for example, could know that God existed and that there was but one God; but knowledge of the Trinity could come only by divine revelation. For Aquinas, philosophy is a handmaiden for theology. 18. Following Aristotle, Aquinas said that all physical things are composed of matter and form, and that the form of a thing does not exist apart from matter. 19. But Aquinas went beyond Aristotle in pointing out that what something is is not the same as that it is (its existence). Existence is the most important actuality in anything, without which even what something is (its form) cannot be actual. 20. Aquinas also emphasized that nothing could cause its own existence and must be caused to exist by something already existing, and, ultimately, by the Uncaused Cause of Existence (God). Aquinas went beyond Aristotle’s conception of God as Pure Act (because God is changeless) to an understanding of God as Pure Act of Existence. 21. For Aquinas, the “essential form” of the human body is the soul. The soul is pure form without matter and as such is immortal. Each soul is a direct creation of God and does not come from human parents. It stands in a relationship of mutual interdependency relative to the body. A human being is a unity of body and soul. Without the soul the body would be formless; without a body the soul would have no access to knowledge derived from sensation. 22. Aquinas’s epistemology was built on Aristotle’s notion of three powers of the soul: the vegetative (e.g., reproduction), animal (e.g., sensation), and human (e.g., the understanding). Knowledge is reached when the picture in the understanding agrees with what is present in reality. This knowledge is empirical in that it comes from the senses, but human imagination and intelligence are required to discover the essence of things that represents their definition. 23. Aquinas’s proofs for God’s existence rely on the idea that things must have an ultimate cause, creator, designer, source of being, or source of goodness (i.e., God). But our knowledge of God’s nature is in terms of what God is not—unmoved and unchangeable (eternal), not material and without parts (utterly simple), not a composite (God’s essence is his existence). 24. Aquinas believed that the task of the wise person is to find both order and reason in the natural world. Interest in Aquinas experienced a strong revival in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Boxes Profile: Plotinus (He would not acknowledge his birthday) Profile: St. Augustine (He was baptized into Christianity at the age of 33) Augustine on God and Time (Augustine’s analysis of time) Profile: Pyrrho (Mentions also epoche, ataraxia, and agoge) Sextus’s Asterisk (Sextus maneuvers around some possible criticism by not counting “involuntary judgments” as knowledge- claims) Profile: Hypatia of Alexandria (A pagan, she had many Christian students) Why Do Humans Stand Upright? (Aquinas gave a teleological explanation) Readings 5.1 St. Augustine, from Confessions Augustine on time and eternity. 5.2 St. Thomas Aquinas, from Summa Theologica Aquinas on knowing God by natural reason and the deeper knowledge of God through grace. Lecture and Discussion Ideas Related to Selected Questions 4. Defend some version of total skepticism. One of Peter Unger’s arguments in Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975) can be counted on to stimulate a good discussion among beginning philosophy students. Basically Unger’s argument, to paraphrase, is this: No one is certain of anything; therefore, since you can know something to be so only if you are certain of it, you cannot know anything. What makes the argument interesting is, among other things, Unger’s reason for maintaining the first premise, that no one is certain of anything. “Certain,” he says, is an absolute term like “flat.” If a surface is flat, then no surface can ever be flatter. Likewise, “if someone is certain of something then there never is anything of which he or anyone else is more certain.... Thus, if it is logically possible that there be something of which any person might be more certain than he now is of a given thing (as there always is), then he is not actually certain of that thing.” It is because of the absolute nature of “certain” that the first premise supposedly holds. The argument certainly is not beyond criticism. 8. Can we say only what God is not? No, of course not. God is good, God is caring, God is loving, and so forth. But the thing is, what do we mean when we say that God is good, caring, and so on? Skeptics argue that such positive descriptions of God either are meaningless honorific phrases or can only be clarified by resorting to further negative descriptions. The fundamental problem, we think, is this: the predicates that we apply to God connote temporality, but God, according to the most popular conceptions of God, is not in time. So what can these predications mean? What is nontemporal caring and loving? Or is there some way that God’s caring can be in time while God himself is not in time? Aquinas’s treatment of the analogical nature of religious language is in Question XIII of Part I of Summa Theologica. Philosophers’ Principal Works Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360–270 B.C.) Diogenes Laertius (c. A.D. 200) Lives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers Plotinus (c. 205–270) Enneads Sextus Empiricus (third century) Outlines of Pyrrhonism Against the Dogmatists Hypotoposes Augustine (354–430) Confessions De Genesi ad Litteram De Trinitate The City of God Hypatia (c. 370–415) Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) On Being and Essence (1253) Truth (Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate [1256–1259]) Summa contra Gentiles (1258–1260) On the Power of God (1265) Summa Theologica (1265–1269) In Librum de Causis (1271) Instructor Manual for Philosophy: The Power of Ideas Brooke Noel Moore, Kenneth Bruder 9780078038358
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