PP110 Philosophy

Quiz1 Sep 21

Unit 1

1.1 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Philosophy begins when we start to WONDER about and question our basic beliefs

o When we undertake philosophy, we do so because we are ignorant, puzzled, confused,

or simply overawed by the vastness of what we don’t know

Philein=to love, Sophia=wisdom the love of wisdom

Three clues about philosophy

o Philosophers will take any opportunity to disagree, argue, and debate

o There is almost nothing up for question and debate in philosophy

o If you want to know what philosophy is, you must be prepared to philosophize

(thinking in philosophy)

Page7: Groupthink – Irving Janis

o The tendency of cohesive group s to get increasingly out of touch with reality

o WHAT ASPECTS OF PLATO’S Myth of The Cave CAN BE INTERPRETED AS GROUPTHINK?

The GOLE of philosophy is to answer these questions for ourselves and achieve AUTONOMY

o Autonomy: the freedom of being able to decide for yourself what you will believe in by

using your own reasoning abilities

Plato’s Myth of the Cave

The cave = situation: ignorance, prejudice, thoughtlessness, and complacency

Plato’s Parable and “Doing” Philosophy

** The Myth of the Cave suggests philosophy is an activity that is difficult, has the aim of freedom,

and examines the most basic assumptions of human existence

Philosophy as an Activity

o Philosophical theories are the products of philosophy

o How to DO philosophical philosophizing

Philosophy is Hard Work

o Thinking critically, consistently, and carefully about beliefs

The Aim of Philosophy is Freedom

Philosophy Examines Our Most Basic Assumptions

o Plato’s parable suggests that the beliefs that philosophy examines are the most basic

concerns of human existence

o To do philosophy is to love wisdom. Because wisdom is an understanding of the most

fundamental aspects of human living, to love wisdom is to grapple with and seek to

understand the most basic issue in our lives

Perictione (a woman philosopher) – philosophy is a search for the purpose of the universe

Philosophy – the love and pursuit of wisdom – as the activity of critically and carefully

examining the reasons behind the most fundamental assumptions of our human lives

The Diversity of Philosophy

Women are important

The non-Western culture is important

2 philosophical approaches that focus on ideas that are not always included in introductions to

philosophy

o Feminist philosophy: women

o Multiculturalism: different cultures

***Explanation and Justification

Some opinions are better to have than other; that better opinions are supported by better reasons

Distinction between reasons for holding a belief, and explanations of why someone hole a belief

o Reasons criterion:

Justify a belief: if something is really a reason for holding a certain belief, then

it will increase the likelihood that the belief is true

Reasons for holding a belief: if they are any good at all, are reasons for anyone

to hold the same belief, but a good explanation of why someone holds a belief

may not help at all to explain why another person holds that same belief

1.2 THE TRADITIONAL DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

Traditionally, philosophy has sought an organized understanding of reality and our place in it:

an understanding of how we ought to love, including the reasons for our personal and social

moral values, and an understanding of what knowledge and truth are

3 categories: Knowledge, Reality, and Values Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Ethics

Epistemology: The Study of Knowledge

EPISTEMOLOGY looks at the extent and reliability of our knowledge, truth, and logic, and

whether knowledge is possible

Gail Stenstad, a feminist philosopher – she contrasts theoretical thinking, with feminist

“anarchic thinking”

o Theoretical or male thinking: there is only one truth, one correct theory

o Anarchic thinking: truth is many and that opposing views can be equally valid and true

Monotheism: the belief that there is just one God and that any beliefs in other gods should be

rejected

Metaphysics: The Study of Reality or Existence

METAPHYSICS looks at ultimate or the most general characteristics of reality or existence

o The place of humans in the universe, the purpose and nature of reality, and the nature

of mind, self, and consciousness. The existence of God, the destiny of the universe,

and the immortality of the soul

Theory: DETERMINISM – all things and all human beings are unfree because everything that

occurs happens in accordance with some regular pattern or law

o d’Holbach: everything is determined by causes we do not control, so we are not free

VS. Determinism Frankl, in a Nazi prison, saw humans as being ultimately free

Hindu: KARMA: humans can be both free and determined

o Karma, means action or deed, consists of the accumulation of a person’s past deeds

o Freedom is choosing now within a situation that is determined by our past

Ethics: The Study of Morality

Ethics, the study of morality, asks about our moral obligations and moral virtues; our moral

principles; what is morally good; and the morality of behaviors, social policies, and social

institutions

Gnadhi, we should selflessly harm no living thing and passively resist evil without violence

o Ahimsa, nonviolence

Browne, selfishness is and ought to be everyone’s policy

o EGOISM

Rachels, satisfaction in helping others if not selfishness

1.4 THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY

Why devote all this time and effort to study philosophy?

o Plato’s the Myth of the Cave: the value of philosophy of that through it we achieve

freedom – freedom from assumptions we have unquestioningly accepted from others,

and freedom to decide for ourselves what we believe about ourselves and our place in

the universe

o PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE MAKES UR FREE

The Buddha: Freedom from the Wheel of Existence

Buddha: wheel of birth, suffering death, and rebirth

Each living thing, when it dies, is reincarnated in another living thing, its new condition

determined by its past action, or karma

Maslow: Actualizing Needs

Maslow: humans have “maintenance needs” and “actualizing needs”

o Philosophy helps fulfill actualizing needs

Carl Rogers: the fully functioning person

o “Self-actualized”

Characteristics of the self-actualized

o The ability to form one’s opinions and beliefs

o Profound self-awareness

o Flexibility

o Creative

o Clearer, well-thought-out value systems in morality, the arts, politics and so on

Aristotle: happiness is found by developing abilities that satisfy our higher level needs, which

are satisfied by exercising our reason and making reasonable choices. Philosophy develops

these

o Happiness if ultimately an activity of what is noblest and best in us: our reason

o The happy life is ultimately found in a self-realization that is rooted in the

development of our philosophic wisdom and understanding, and the development of

our ability to satisfy our desires and express our emotions in a reasonable way

Other Benefits of Philosophy

Philosophy helps us to be more aware, to understanding the history of thought and to think

critically

Philosophy: A Male Bias?

Janice Moulton, Genevieve Lloyd

The Price of Philosophy

**In study philosophy we risk having the weaknesses of our personal and cultural beliefs and

assumptions exposed, but this risk is worth taking, considering the value of philosophy. Because

philosophy has had many “male tendencies,” it is especially important for women to philosophize

now

Unit2 HUMAN NATURE

2.1 WHY DOES YOUR VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE MATTER?

WHAT KIND OF A BEING AM I? – Human Nature: what a human being is – will profoundly

affect how you see yourself, how you see others and how you live

Psychologists (Freud) claimed humans are cruel, aggressive, and selfish

Philosophers Hobbes and Schlick claimed that humans act only out of self-interest and are

material bodies

**Thomas Hobbes (British)

o Materialist

o The antisocial desire for power over others is what mainly motivates human beings

**Moritz Schlick (European)

o Psychological egoism

Human beings are made so that they can act only out of self-interest

People always choose the option that gives them the most pleasure

Beliefs about out nature influence our relationships, our view of our place in the universe, and

our view of how society should be arranged

2.2 WHAT IS HUMAN NATURE?

The belief in life after death assumes that the self is conscious, has a purpose, and it distinct

from its material body

o 1st: All human beings have a Self: the ego or “I” that exists in a physical body and

that to this is conscious and rational

o 2nd: This Self is different from, but related to, the body

o 3rd: This Self endures through time: not only does the self remain the same self

throughout its life, but it can also continue to be the same self after death

o 4th: The Self is an independent individual

The Traditional Rationalistic View

Reason: Humanity’s Highest Power (Plato & Aristotle)

The most influential version of the traditional theory of human nature views the human

primarily as a thinker capable of reasoning

Soul, inner self for sour

Appetite vs. Reason

o **Plato claimed that REASON often conflicts with our appetites or our

aggressiveness, and our appetites can conflict with our aggressiveness

Forms, the forms are eternal and perfect ideals that exist in an unchanging, perfect heaven

o The purpose or destiny of the soul is to be free of its body and ascend to heaven,

where it will be united with these perfect forms

Plato: REASON, APPETITE and AGGRESSION are the three main parts of human nature

o Reason can know how we ought to live, it should rule appetites and aggression

If a person always gives in to his appetites or aggressive impulses, these will enslave him

and reason can no longer rule them

Aristotle: reason is our highest power and what distinguishes human nature

o The truth about human nature required only knowledge of our own world

(different from Plato)

The Human Purpose (Aristotle)

Human have a PURPOSE

For Aristotle, all living things have a purpose. The purpose of humans is to use their reason

to think and to control desires and aggressions

Aristotle & Plato: reason is the most important feature of our human nature

o Reason is what is unique in humans – what makes us unique and different from all

other animals

o Reason is the purpose of human nature – the purpose of human beings is to be

rational: to use their reason. To achieve this, reason must control its desires and

aggressions

The Immaterial an Immortal Soul

PHAEDO

o In Phaedo, Plato argues that the soul is immaterial an immortal because it can

perceive nonmaterial ideals that do not exist in this world

Our ability to think is evidence of our immaterial nature

Implications of the Traditional Rationalistic View

Aristotle claimed that because barbarians were less rational than Greeks, they were less

human an so could be ruled and enslaved by the Greeks

Traditional Judeo-Christian View of Human Nature

Love of God

The Judeo-Christian view says humans are made in the image of God because they have

will and intellect; the purpose of humans is to love and serve God

Choosing Good or Evil

Augustine: from Plato: the human self is a rational self: an immaterial soul that is

conscious and that can think

o The self can with the help of God control its desires and has the power to allow

reason to rule over passion

o The souls that will rise to heaven are those that love the perfect, eternal God

o WILL: is our ability to choose between good and evil

Love

Humans have within them powerful desires that, like an unruly “steed”, constantly

“weight” us down to the earth and away from “heaven above”

The human being has both reason and will: the ability to know the truth about God and

the ability to choose and love that God

Human nature is not basically self-interested

Implications of the Judeo-Christian Tradition

The Judeo-Christian view may not be supported by modern science and may imply a

cultural superiority that justifies destroying other cultures

The Darwinian Challenge

Variation, the Struggle for Existence, and Natural Selection

Darwin’s:

o Animals and plants are sometimes born with features that are different from those

of their parents but than they can pass on to their own offspring

Variations

o Because animals produce more offspring than can survive, they are continuously

caught in a great “struggle for existence” – they must continuously compete with

one another to stay alive

Some creatures have random variations that can be inherited by offspring, and those with

advantageous variations survive and pass them on. Descendants of a species can become

so different that they are a new species

o The random with which an animal is born can sometimes give it an advantage in

this great struggle for existence

Darwin’s theory applies to humans. But if all human abilities evolved from lower animals,

reason is not unique but just a more developed animal ability

Implications for the Traditional View

Traditional View Darwin’s Theory

**Our ability to reason is a completely different

kind of ability than any of the abilities that

animals have

***The human power to reason is so unique, so

different in kind from the powers of animals,

that it could have come only from God

**All human abilities are merely more developed

variations of the same kinds of abilities that

nonhuman animals have

***The human power to reason is not qualitatively

unique but is merely a more developed version of

the cognitive powers of nonhuman primates

Like all living things, human beings are obviously

designed and so must have a purpose.

Aristotle: the purpose of humans if to

exercise their reason

Augustine and Aquinas: the purpose of

humans if to exercise their reason to live

GOD and neighbor

Humans and their parts provided evidence of

evolution, not of purpose

Reactions to Darwin

Wrong:

o Although there is adequate evidence of what is called “microevolution” (change or

evolution of organisms within a species), the evidence for “macroevolution” (the

evolution of one species into a new species) is not as complete

o It is a mistake to think that evolution proves that human nature is not designed for

a purpose

God can direct evolution, so evolution is the tool God uses to design

humans for a purpose

o Reason is unique to humans, in particular the use of linguistic reasoning and

communication

The Existentialist Challenge

Existentialism: all humans are whatever they make themselves

Existentialists like Sartre say there is no God to determine our nature, so humans have no

purpose or nature except the one they make themselves. We are free and fully

responsible for what we are; knowing this causes anguish

Sartre: there are no true, universal statements about what humans are, but here is the

one: we are free

Bad faith is deceiving ourselves by pretending we are not free and so not responsible

The self has no rational nature but is the sum total of all its actions

“Existence is prior to essence” means humans are first born (exist) and then define their

nature (essence) by acting

Existentialism says there is no universal human nature, no rational human nature, no

purpose for human nature

The Feminist Challenge

Some feminists claims that the Traditional view of human nature is sexist

Is Reason “Male”?

Some feminists have argued that here Plato inserted a critical assumption into the

rationalistic view of human nature: The soul and reason are superior and should rule,

whereas the body and its desires and emotions are inferior and should obey

Plato said reason is superior to and should rule our desires and emotions; Aristotle then

associated women with desires and emotions and men with rationality and concluded that

men should rule over women

Can We Think Differently?