Philos_Child.pdf

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Philosophy for Children

Jack Brannigan

Published by IndependentBook .com

© 2000 by Jack Brannigan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced in any form or by any means without

permission in writing from the publisher.








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CONTENT

WHY INTRODUCE PHILOSOPHY TO CHILDREN?......... 3

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY AND WHO ARE

PHILOSOPHERS? .............................................................................. 6

WHAT IS RELIGION?........................................................................ 6

DOES GOD EXIST? ........................................................................... 8

ARE WE FREE? ................................................................................. 12

WHAT IS MORALITY? .................................................................... 14

WHAT IS THE DEVIL?.................................................................... 17

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? AND WHY DOES

LIFE END? ............................................................................................ 17

FINAL THOUGHTS ........................................................................... 19



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WHY INTRODUCE PHILOSOPHY TO CHILDREN?

Although this book is called philosophy for children, it is

not exactly a child’s reading material. This book is

written for parents to learn and then to encourage theirchildren to think about and investigate their surroundings

continuously.

One may think that children are not capable of

philosophical discussions. Quite contrary, children are

philosophers by nature. Anyone who has a little

experience with children knows very well the never

ending string of questions that a child asks to get a

satisfactory answer. Similarly, every philosophical

discussion starts with a question and then repeated

questions to get to the bottom of something. Indeed,

because of their curiosity, children are always in search

of knowledge and since they don’t know much, they

won’t have Descartes’ problem. (When Descartes



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started his philosophical thoughts he had to doubt

absolutely everything.) Children are also capable of

reasoning, which is another important key for having a

philosophical dialog. (Look at these examples: I can’t

play in the dirt because my mom will be mad. I don’t like

shots because they hurt me.)

The focus of this book is ethics, or morality. Organized

religions have been the main source of moral education

for a long time. As these organizations are losing

popularity throughout the world, it is extremely important

that a new set of principles and values replace theconcepts taught by them. Otherwise there will be

societies without a system of values to live by.

Philosophy may be able to replace religions’ role in

society only if philosophers use a more direct and simple

language in their arguments. Until recently, there hasn’tbeen much effort to popularize philosophical principles

and concepts.



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This book will give you some ideas about a few of the

common questions that people have been asking

through out the ages. The answers in this book may not

be satisfactory to you, but hopefully over time you and

your child will find the answers that satisfy you the most.



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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY AND WHO ARE

PHILOSOPHERS?

We all have questions such as: who are we? why do we

exist? what is right? Philosophy is the search for the

answers to these types of questions, and philosophers

are people who do philosophy. They are always in

search of wisdom, and, most importantly, they know that

there is a lot they don’t understand. As Socrates puts it,

one thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

Religion is a set of beliefs, values, and practices based

on the teachings of a spiritual leader. Faith is the most

important factor in religions. In questions regarding

God, God’s existence, morality, and so forth, there is

little room for reasoning. Thus, the main difference



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between philosophy and religion is this: philosophy is

about the search for answers while religions provide the

answers and demand faith in them.



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DOES GOD EXIST?

Different philosophers have produced different

arguments trying to find an answer to this question.

Interestingly enough, most of them agree that there is aGod. Of course, once one establishes that fact, he also

needs to describe the character of such God and

perhaps even to define our relationship with this God.

Descartes argues that although he is an imperfect being,

he has the idea of a most perfect being in his mind.

Where does the idea come from, he asks? He says that

the idea of a perfect being must have a perfect cause,

God.

Kant argues that only an all-powerful being could have

possibly designed the universe. But this is not really an

argument, is it? This is faith and this is actually a

religious argument!



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Others argue that the cause of the world (every event

has a cause) must be found outside of the world. And

the condition for production of such a world must be an

all-powerful being, God.

Perhaps the best argument to deduce the existence of

God is the one that discusses the order in the world.

You surely do agree that we live in a law-governed

universe. At least you agree that there is plenty of order

in the universe known to us even though it may be that

there is not order in other universes. God is the cause

of the order in the world. Without a sheriff there wouldn’tbe any law in town, would there?

What is God’s character?

Most religions and some philosophers have given the

following properties to God: all-powerful, timeless,

supremely good, etc.

However, these types of adjectives are inherently

paradoxical. For example, if God is all-powerful, can he



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make a rock that he can’t lift? This is a losing

proposition. If he cannot make the rock, then he is not

all-powerful; if he makes the rock and cannot lift it, again

he is not all-powerful. Regarding God’s being timeless,

one can ask, can he predict the future? If so, how can I

be responsible for my sins?

There are religions that claim that God created us as an

image of himself. Thus, God is like us, only perfect,

lacking all of our deficiencies. One wonders whose

image God had in mind when he was creating hyenas or

cockroaches! There are also philosophers who arguethat when one reads a book, he will get an

understanding about the writer of the book. Thus,

through observations of the world created by God, we

should learn about him. This is absurd because if a

writer is capable of writing in diverse topics and styles,

imagine what God could do in his creation (which he

has). Of course these philosophers immediately give

examples of all of the good and beautiful things in nature



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to describe God as infinitely good and beautiful. Again,

they intentionally neglect the hyenas and cockroaches!

There is no doubt that if there is a God who created the

universe he must be quite powerful, ingenious, artistic,

and immortal. Yet, maybe no one can describe God’s

character precisely.

What is our re lat ionship w i th God?

There are no decent philosophical answers to these

questions. Most religions state (some indirectly) that

God created us to worship him. Religions’ difficulty isthat since they claim they communicate with God, they

must absolutely have an answer to every question. So

they manufacture answers. No wonder that sometimes

they come up with such absurd and foolish ideas.

Anyway, the important thing is not really what God islike, but that we know he exists.



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ARE WE FREE?

There are some philosophers who believe that the idea

of freedom is contradictory to the idea of causality (there

being a cause for every event). They argue that everyevent that has happened in the past was the precise

result of things that had happened before that event.

Likewise, the events happening in the future will be the

precise results of past events and how things are now.

Thus, there is no freedom.

This same idea has been argued differently: if we can

trace back the causality of one’s action, how can we

state he had the freedom to make a choice?

These arguments are valid to great extent. However,

they ignore the quantum mechanics’ uncertainty

principles (a principle in quantum mechanics holds that

increasing the accuracy of measurement of one

observable quantity increases the uncertainty with which



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other quantities may be known). For example, the

quantum mechanical result indicates that the electron in

the hydrogen atom has a certain probability of being in

any region from right in the center of the atom to beyond

the Milky way. However, it is most probable that it orbits

at a radius of 2.083E-9 inch around the nucleus.

Thus, because of this inherent uncertainty in the

particles’ behavior, we cannot claim that every event is

determined but only most probabilistically determined.

(Couldn’t we use this fact as another reason for

existence of God? How ingeniously he created freedomwithout causing chaos. I am humbled.)

In conclusion, the answer is yes, we are free, and we

have choice (however small it may be). After all, if we

were not free, why would we need moral laws?



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WHAT IS MORALITY?

Morality is defined as a system of ideas of right and

wrong conduct. The real questions are these. How

does one define such a system? Is there such a thingas universal laws of morals, or is morality a matter of

personal judgment, motives, or moral education?

There are some philosophers who claim that right or

good actions are those which generate the most

happiness. But happiness for whom? How do we

estimate the amount of happiness generated? What

right does one have to put others happiness on his

agenda? Because of the difficulties related to these

questions, this argument did not fly well!

Kant claims that there are universal laws of morals and

that they are innate in humans. He is talking about

human conscious and that our conscious dictates,

through reasoning, what is right or wrong, so there is no



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need for a system. But don’t we know for a fact that

people, who by the way do have conscious, may have

different opinions about the same moral issue? (For

example, one person thinks that killing a deer is wrong,

while another thinks it is totally right.)

Hume, who improved the above argument, discusses

that morality has a motivating force, namely moral

emotions (conscious). Moral emotions are of two kinds:

those based in self interest and those based in

sympathy. Although each person’s sympathy based

emotion is small, they are made greater collectively in asociety which creates the moral laws. Thus, moral laws

are needed and they are contained in a society’s

customs and laws. Now, this argument explains why

different people have different ideas of what is right and

wrong. The balance between the moral emotions in

people are different which results in their different

choices and actions.



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In conclusion, the important thing is not what you may

think is precisely right or wrong. What matters is that

you choose to have an opinion at all on what is right or

wrong.



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WHAT IS THE DEVIL?

If God is the idea of a perfect being then the Devil must

be the total opposite: the idea of an imperfect non-being!

While God is about construction, everything good, lawand order (just enough freedom), and morality, the devil

is all about destruction, everything bad, absolute

freedom (no law or order), and selfishness. However,

most philosophers think that the devil does not really

exist but is only the absence of good (God).

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LIFE? AND WHY DOES

LIFE END?

Philosophers come up short here again. Sartre believed

that man has no eternal nature to fall back on. It is

therefore useless to search for the meaning of life.

However, he didn’t believe that life is meaningless. We



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must create this meaning in our own lives, he says. In

other words, our life could be meaningless if we do not

give it a meaning.

And why does life end? Is it because if life did not end,

we would not value it at all? Or is it because of the

fundamental truth that for everything in the world there is

an opposite thing: matter and anti-matter, good and evil,

beautiful and ugliness,… life and death?

Perhaps death is the price we pay for freedom. If we

assume that freedom is in fact the result of uncertainty in

particles’ behavior, then because of this exact

uncertainty, DNA duplication; cell division and organs

are doomed to malfunction.



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FINAL THOUGHTS

As you read this book, you found out that there is no

single or clear answer for a question. Maybe that is why

philosophical questions are repeated over and overagain.

In my view, we will never find answers to some of these

questions. Just imagine for a moment a laboratory rat

placed in a maze for the sole purpose of

experimentation by a scientist. The rat will learn

perhaps quickly what buttons to push to get food and

which one to avoid to not get shocked. It will learn it’s

way around the walls quite well and it may even learn a

couple of other nice tricks. But it will never learn about

what is going on outside of the lab, inside the scientist’s

head or what the scientist’s personality is like. It is

simply beyond it’s brain’s capabilities to understand and

comprehend these issues.



The point is not that we are experimental rats in God’s

laboratory, but that understanding God’s personality and

how and why he created the world is well beyond our

brains’ capacity and capabilities.

Nevertheless, it is not the answers that are important but

the search for the answers. In searching we become

wiser and better people.

Finally I would like to suggest that you talk about these

issues with your friends, family, and especially your

children. Philosophy is learned best when thinking

together and during dialogs when parties express their

thoughts freely.

Jack Brannigan Jack Brannigan Jack Brannigan Jack Brannigan

mailto:[email protected]



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