Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.


Philosophy

The word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek Phila Sophia – Which means ‘love of wisdom’

First suggested by Pythagoras (570 BCE) There was a group who identified as ‘sophists’

‘Wise people’ They would only teach for money Often were skeptics

That is, denied that real knowledge is possible


‘Philosophy’ II

Pythagoras argued that only the gods were wise It was hubris for Humans to claim to be wise Rather we should think of ourselves as ‘lovers of

wisdom’ Lovers in the sense of seekers of knowledge

When you love something (in this sense) you desire to be around it

You seek it out Thus phila sophia is the pursuit of wisdom


Philosophy

philosophy is the search for wisdom (Truth, Goodness, Beauty) through logical reasoning rather than through either natural-scientific empirical method and/or religious faith

Content: Wisdom (Truth, Goodness, Beauty)

Method: Logical reasoning on the basis of facts without leaps of faith


Philosophy, Science, Religion

(a) Religion: Accesses Truth through scripture and faith

(b) Science: Accesses truth through natural-empirical scientific method

(c) Philosophy: Accesses the Truth through logical and theoretically speculative Reason


Truth Definition of truth: A belief and/or

statement (proposition, assertion) that corresponds to reality Ex: The proposition “this sentence has 5 words” is

true if it actually has 5 words. Analytic , logical truth: an assertion that is true

by definition Ex: A triangle is a three sided object with internal

angles that add up to 180 degrees Empirical, factual truth: a claim that is

empirically verifiable This sentence has 5 words. The chalk is white

Positivism: Any claims that are not true analytically or factually are meaningless


Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom

Definition of knowledge: to know something is to have a belief and/or to make an assertion that is true, i.e., it corresponds to reality, to what is the case.

Philosophical knowledge:

Types of Truth: Philosophical Capital “T” truths vs. scientific Small “t” truths

1. Wisdom: consists of capital “T” Truths that are general, universalnecessaryperennialpurportedly “eternal” (or at least historically broad), andpractical……with respect to the nature of reality, the nature of human being, the meaning of life, the nature of goodness, knowledge, and beauty

2. Scientific knowledge: consists of small “t” truths: a. Truths that are specific and relative to contexts (not universal & necessary)

b. Truths that are of lesser value, but still true


The Rational Nature of Philosophy

Rationalism: the belief that reason is the highest authority in human-human affairs and in the study of nature (science)

Principle of Sufficient Reason: nihil est sine rationis: nothing is without a reason: for every effect there is a rational cause, and for every problem there is a rational solution

Reason: Latin: ratio; Greek: logos 1. Word2. Explanation, account3. Principle (cosmological, religious, moral, political)


Logos vs. Mythos Mythos & Logos: Two Ways of Explaining the World

Logos (reason): use of logoi/words for explanations, narratives, stories that use

* logical thinking (induction, deduction)* scientific thinking (experimentation,

hypothesis, testing, observation, reporting)* empirical evidence/facts (verifiable, falsifiable)* theory (general explanatory stories that are

based on facts, help to explain facts, and predict future facts)

*such accounts strive to be objective, universal

Mythos (myth, metaphor, poetry): use of logoi/words for explanations, narratives, stories that use

* mythical thinking, even magical thinking* Def of myth: a factually false or empirically /logically

unverifiable story that reveals/discloses the truth metaphorically

http://journeytothesea.com/mythos-logos


Logos vs. Mythos 2

4 functions of myth explain the world in a meaningful way

The way the world came to be and why it is the way it is in nature and human affairs

explain and support social-historical customs provide psychological, moral, social-normative

guidance for people inspire and motivate meaningful action


The Way of Logos: Rational Argument

A philosophical argument aims to provide reasons that make a conclusion

probable (inductively) or necessary (deductively)

A sound argument is deductive and valid (the conclusion follows necessarily) and its premises are true

Ways to critique arguments: counterexample, show confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions, reduce argument to absurdity


Rationalist

A Rationalist, in the most general sense, is someone who believes in rationalism & the principle of reason, and therefore uses rational argument to justify beliefs, values, and practices


The Paradigmatic Rationalist: Socrates

• “The unexamined life is not worth living”

• Socratic Method (Dialectic): Conversational cross-examination to achieve knowledge & wisdom


Basic Socratic Principles

1. The principle of Skepticism: Question!

2. The Clarification Principle: clarify!

3. The Generalization Principle: Generalize!

4. The Empirical Principle: Get the facts!

5. The Self-Critical Principle: Be critical!

6. Justification Principle: Justify!


The Principle of Skepticism

1. The principle of Skepticism: Question!1. Accept nothing as true until you have

sufficient reason to believe it is true beyond a reasonable doubt

2. Everything is questionable! Nothing is sacred


The Clarification Principle

The Clarification Principle: clarify! The meaning of basic terms Arguments: premises (major & minor),

conclusions & inferences Principles Presuppositions Intentions, beliefs, values, practices


The Generalization Principle

The Generalization Principle:

Generalize (decontextualize & deculturalize) through the use of second-order questions

1. 1st order questions: straightforward questions couched in a context

2. The experience of wonder in the face of either the lack of clarity or conflicting claims

3. 2nd order questions: clarificatory general questions about the meaning of the basic issues involved in a particular context

Example of Happiness


The Empirical Principle

1. Natural scientific objective facts: demand to see & to know the facts

2. Personal-experiential subjective facts: demand to see every truth for oneself


The Self-Critical Principle

Don’t assume that you are right, and even assume that the other is right and that you are wrong


Justification Principle

Whatever is believed and/or asserted to be true, good, or beautiful is so because there are good reasons to justify the belief and/or assertion

1. Reason makes right (true, good, beautiful)

2. Whatever is right is justified rationally


The Limits of Reason: The Non-rational and the

Irrational Definition of the Non-Rational: That which, although it is not rational, can be rationalized

(i) Emotions, Moods, Attitudes, Intuitions

(ii) Meditative Practices, Mysticism

Definition of the Irrational: That which cannot be rationalized or made sense of; that which defies logic


BERTRAND RUSSELLThe Value of Philosophy

“Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to the questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves.”


THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLYWhat is Your Philosophy of Life? (1)

Everybody has a philosophy of life. Identify some of the beliefs that form your philosophy of life, using these questions as a guide. Express your ideas as completely and clearly as you can. Think deeply and beyond superficialities, and refuse to be satisfied with the first idea you have.


THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLYWhat is Your Philosophy of Life? (2)

What do you most value in life? Why? What moral beliefs influence your choices and your behavior toward others? How do

you determine the “right” thing to do? What role do religious beliefs play in your life? Do you believe in “God”? Why or why

not? Is there an afterlife? If so, what is the path to it? What gives life meaning? What is the purpose of your life? What do you hope to

achieve in your life? How do we find truth? How do you know when you “know” something is true? What is

an example of something you know to be true? Do you believe that your choices are free? Do you hold yourself responsible for your

choices? What do you consider to be “beautiful”? Why? What is the function of art? Should

“extreme” forms of artistic expression be censored? Why or why not? Are all people entitled to basic human rights? Why? What is justice? What are other important beliefs in your life?


Metaphysics

Metaphysics: The study of the ultimate nature of reality Questions about whether there are fundamental

parts out of which everything else is made Is reality completely physical or is there a non-

physical aspect? What is the nature of causation? Are my actions free or determined? What exists? What does it mean to exist?

(ontology)


Metaphysics/Ontology

General metaphysics (Ontology): The study of Being, i.e., the general nature of reality:

(a) The question of Being is the question of what makes being be; i.e., the question of the ultimate nature of reality, the “big picture”—The Being of beings

(b) The question of the nature of the universe (uni-verse): the sum totality of everything that has both possible and actual existence

(c) Two branches (answers) of general metaphysics: Monism and Dualism


2 Metaphysical Views

Monism: (All is X): All of reality is one thing (either matter or spirit—but also energy), or has one common property (moving, mentality, ideational, atomic structure etc)

Dualism: (All is either X or Y): Reality consist of two distinct things or properties: matter and spirit


Ontological Relationships

An ontological relationship is one in which

The existence of B is dependent upon the existence of A, such that B can exist if, and only if, A exists

A is the necessary condition for the possibility of B

B presupposes A ontologically


Special Metaphysics

Special metaphysics: The study of the arguments regarding particular entities that lie beyond the empirical: God, soul, spirit-entities, afterlife, immortality, etc


Epistemology

Epistemology: The study of knowledge What does it mean for a sentence to be true? What exactly is knowledge? How is it different from belief? How is it related to truth? Where do we get it? Reason only? The senses

only? How do we know when we have it? Is it even possible to really know anything?


Ethics

Ethics: The study of right/wrong and good/bad What is the nature of value? Will include Aesthetics and Political philosophy Which actions are moral? Are there things which are really good/bad or is

this a human invention? What kind of life should I lead?


Logic

The Study of the rules and processes of rational thinking


QUALITIES THAT CHARACTERIZE A CRITICAL THINKER

Open-minded

Knowledgeable

Mentally active

Curious

Independent Thinkers

Skilled discussants

Insightful

Self-aware

Creative

Passionate


CRITICAL THINKING METHOD


Arguments

Arguments consist of two parts Premises And conclusions

The premises of an argument are offered in support of the conclusion The premises of an argument are supposed to be

reasons to believe the conclusion We can divide arguments according to how

strong the relation of support is between premises and conclusions


Kinds of Arguments

We generally class arguments into two kinds Deductive and Inductive

Deductive: moving from a general premise(s) to a specific conclusion All dogs are animals, so my dog is an animal

Inductive: moving from specific premise(s) to a general conclusion My Pit Bull is vicious , so all Pit Bulls are vicious


Inductive Arguments

If the premise is true Conclusion is MORE LIKELY to be true (but could

be false) Suppose you wanted to prove that all swans

are white, how would you do it? Inductive argument– I have seen a lot of swans

and they have all been white Every swan I have seen so far has been white, so

the next swan I see will be white


Inductive Arguments II

Are all swans white? No! Black swans exist

So it can be true that every swan I have seen so far is white, and then I see a black swan next If the premise of a deductive argument is true

then the conclusion MUST We will come back to induction when we get to

Hume in the modern period


Deductive Logic

An argument is valid when it meets this requirement:

IF the premises are true then the conclusion MUST be true, for example 1. All men are mortal 2. Socrates is a man 3. Socrates is mortal

What Aristotle noticed was that validity was due to the form that the argument took NOT to what the argument was about The argument is valid due to the way the terms

are distributed throughout the argument


Validity

If we replace the repeating terms with letters (and leave everything else the same) we will get the argument’s form All A’s are B’s All S’s are A So, all S’s are B

‘A’, and ‘B’, stand for categories of things and ‘S’ is an object

This is a valid argument form because no matter what you substitute for ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘S’ (the terms) IF the premises are true then the conclusion MUST be

true It will be impossible to fill in the A’s, B’s and S in a

way that makes the premises true and the conclusion false


Categorical Logic

Aristotle’s logic is called ‘categorical’ logic because it deals with categorical statements (statements about categories of objects)

He was interested in sentences of four kinds All A’s are B’s No A’s are B’s Some A’s are B’s Some A’s are not B’s

He went through and categorized the ways in which you could combine these kinds of sentences into valid and invalid argument forms


Validity II

Here is an argument All republicans are vampires Some republicans come out during the day So, some vampires come out during the day Is this argument valid? YES!

IF the premises were true then the conclusion would HAVE to be true It just turns out that the first premise is false But IF it were true then the conclusion would

HAVE to be true What is the form of that argument?


Validity III

1. All A’s are B’s 2. Some A’s are C’s 3. So, Some B’s are C’s

You can see that this arrangement must preserve truth no matter what A, B, and C stand for 1 says everything that is an A is also a B, And if it is really true that some A’s are C’s (as 2 says) then it would have to be the case that some B’s are C Because 1 says that everything that is A is also B

So the validity of the argument depends only on the form


Soundness

The validity of an argument is independent of the truth of the argument’s premises A sound argument is a valid argument with true

premises Only valid arguments can be sound or unsound An invalid argument is never sound

It is perfectly ordinary for a valid argument to have false premises (as in the previous example) That just means that it is not sound What is not allowed is for a valid argument to have

true premises and a false conclusion


Testing for Validity

So, to determine if an argument is valid we need to know the form of the argument and whether it is possible for that form to have

true premises and a false conclusion This is called a counter-example to the

argument form and will look like this True premise True premise False conclusion

If the argument form is valid it will be impossible to find a counter example


Counter-Example

A counter-example to an argument form is an argument with the same form that has true premises and a false conclusion If you can produce a counter-example to an argument

form then you have shown that every argument with that form is invalid

Or that the conclusion does not follow from the premises

The premises of an invalid argument, whether true or not, give you no reason to believe the conclusion A sound argument rationally compels you to believe the

conclusion


Another Argument

Consider the following argument All men are mortal Socrates isn’t a man So, Socrates isn’t a mortal

What is the form of this argument? Find the repeating terms, assign them a

letter and rewrite the argument with the letters

All A are B No S is an A So, No S is a B Is this argument form valid?


Counter Example

Can you construct a counter example to this argument? Try to think of a scenario where the

premises are true and the conclusion is false This is easy to do

Perhaps ‘Socrates’ is the names of my pig It could then be true that all men are mortal And true that Socrates isn’t a man But false that he isn’t mortal

Therefore this argument form is invalid Any argument with this form will be invalid


Counter-Example II

Usually an argument that is in an invalid form will be a counter-example to itself Like the one we just looked at

But sometimes it is hard to tell That is when we try to generate a new argument

with the same form One that is easy to see that the premises are true While the conclusion is false

Every invalid argument form will have an infinite number of counter-examples


Counter-Example III

All A are B S is not an A So, S is not a B

some other counter-examples All dogs are mammals (True) George isn’t a dog (true: George is a human) So George isn’t a mammal (false: humans are

mammals) All cats like milk (True (let’s say)) Bob isn’t a cat (True: Bob is a human) So Bob doesn’t like milk (False: Bob likes milk (let’s

say))


Sentential Logic

Modern Logic is called ‘sentential’ because it deals with the relations between sentences (not categories)

Modus Ponens 1. If P then Q 2. P 3. Therefore Q

‘P’ and ‘Q’ can be replaced with any sentence and one will have a valid argument


Sentential Logic (2)

Modus Tollens If P then Q Not Q Therefore not P

Disjunctive Syllogism Either P or Q Not P (not Q) So not Q (not P)


INFORMAL FALLACIES (1)

Fallacies of False Generalization Hasty generalization Sweeping generalization False dilemma

Causal Fallacies Questionable cause Misidentification of the cause Post hoc ergo propter hoc Slippery Slope


INFORMAL FALLACIES (2)

Fallacies of Relevance Appeal to authority/tradition/bandwagon Appeal to emotion Appeal to personal attack Red herring


THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLYHow Do You Know What is True?

Reflect on your approach to the information you receive from the sources in your life: friends, family, teachers, books, television, newspapers, the Internet, magazines, and so on. How often do you make a special effort to question, analyze, and critically evaluate that information? How often do you tend to simply accept the information in the form it’s provided? In what ways would taking a more critical thinking approach to information help you arrive at well-supported knowledge?

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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