Introduction to Philosophy

Away fromedit Master Click to Idealism Aristotle and Hume

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Aristotle (384-322BCE) Stageira

Student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Prolific writer in various subjects, including physics, metaphysics, rhetoric, logic, politics, ethics, biology and even zoology. Member of Platos Academy 20years After going abroad, teaching Alex (13 year absence), he returns and is dissatisfied with the current trends in the Academy Lyceum - School in opposition to the Academy of Xenocrates Resident Alien so school in public gymnasium

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Epistemology Classification of the Sciences

Highest knowledge is for itself, not a means to an end Philosophy is neither Dialectic (reasoning accurately from given premises) nor Sophistry (one who earns a living from apparent but not true wisdom) Philosophy/Science reasons only from true premises and is the disinterested employment of the understanding in discovery of truth

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Speculative/ Theoretical vs. Practical Philosophy

Speculative/Theoretical: That which cannot be otherwise or universal truths i.e. metaphysics, physics, mathematics Metaphysics Being qua Being or the concern with the universal characteristics which belong to the system of knowable reality as such Practical Philosophy Not an exact science as it deals with things that can be otherwise, particulars vs. universals, i.e. ethics, politics, medicine.

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Plato Revisited

Plato Radical Difference between senseperception and scientific/philosophical knowledge A scientific truth is exact and definite, no definite science about the material world, only probable opinion of the world of sense. The IDEAS are not arrived at by any process of abstraction from experience as all the particulars do not reveal the universal but only approximations. The Idea is Separate from EXPERIENCE, experience reflects the IDEA

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Aristotle on Ideas

Ideas are poetic metaphors All objects of knowledge are particular facts given in sense perception, the universal laws of science are mere convenient way of describing the observed uniformities in the behavior of sensible things. We cannot separate the FORM from the MATTER! EMPIRICIST Senses first point the way toward knowledge ..BUT, sense experience cannot give us the cause of things, it does not explain the why Sense Experience not knowledge but ground for knowledge
Knowledge of perception is immediate (anyone can do it) and as such for knowledge of sense experience one must use 4/25/12

Metaphysics: First Philosophy

Metaphysics Science which considers What Is simply in its character of Being, and the properties it has as such. All other sciences deal with some restricted property of WHAT IS and thus considers its subject matter not universally in its character of Being, or being real, but as determined by some special condition. Metaphysics examines the MODES of Being What it is and its qualities, actions Substance What it is (apple) vs. its attributes (green, sweet) or actions (falling to the ground)
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Substance

Two Senses

PREDICATE: Man, horse (special class of predicates) Socrates is a man Primary Sense This man, This horse

Only subjects of predication Remains the same, regardless of predication

Processes go on in them, they are what run the gamete of birth and decay, what is the thing that can be predicated infinitely Bearers of all qualities, terms of all relations, and agents and patients in all interaction

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Matter and Form

Individual Thing Desk made of the same stuff as a house but unlike in having a different shape Two different components of SUBSTANCES: Matter and Form Inseparably United Matter is not just Physical or Corporeal things but the stuff which can receive FORM Your character Impress a Form onto it Matter The relatively indeterminate Form What gives structure 4/25/12

Potential and Actual

Matter and Form Potential to Actual Living Organism

Embryos of two animals One has the potential to be a human being, while the other an ape

A seed This is not yet an oak but has the potential A person Right education brings out the potential for reason Process where a Form is realized Energeia Realized Form Entelechy Not unending process but everything has an END (TELOS)

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METAPHYSICAL WORLDVIEW

Universals exist only in things (in re), never apart from things. Unlike Plato we must study particular phenomena to discover the essence/form residing in them. Universal/Form is something identical in each of its instances. So all desks are similar in that there is the same universal, desk, in each desk. There is no Platonic Form of deskness, standing apart from all desks; instead, in each desk there is the same form of desk which all desks possess in themselves. Concept Formation (focusing on Substance of

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Metaphysics

To know something is to know its CAUSE What are the causes of this world order? Four Causes
1. 2. 2. 3.

Material: Seed Formal: law of growth Efficient: parent oak Final: full adult oak

Matter is Potential, Power, Possibility to Receive Form Form as Actuality, What it is

Substance Combination of Matter (potential) and Form (actual) Matter 4/25/12 and Form cannot be separated

Hume 1711-1776

Scottish Philosopher Empiricist (Opposed to Descartes Rationalism Rejection of Newtonian Physics) Lost faith at an early age Desire not Reason governs human behavior Reason is and ought only to be a slave of the passions. No innate knowledge, all knowledge gained 4/25/12 via experience

On Philosophy Enquiry 1
It seems then that nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race, and secretly admonished them to allow none of these biases to draw too much, so as to incapacitate them for other occupations and entertainments. Indulge your passion for science, says she, but let your science be human, and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. Abstruse thought and profound researches I prohibit, and will severely punish, by the pensive melancholy which they introduce, be the endless uncertainty in which they involve you, and by the cold reception which your pretended discoveries shall meet with, when communicated. Be a philosopher; but, amidst your philosophy, be still a man. 4/25/12

Enquiry Book 2: On the Origin of Ideas

1.

Impressions (Sensations) vs. Ideas (Memory and Imagination)

A.

Perception/Sensation is more lively than Memory/Imagination (Being burnt vs. Remembering/Imagining being burnt) Being angry vs. Remembering the Feeling

B.

All the colors of poetry can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landscape. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation
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Book 2
Empiricism Perception/Sensation is the cause of all ideas But the mind can take us anywhere? Even to what we have never experienced? Unbounded Liberty of Thought? No! 1. Ideas result from compounding (gold mountain, mermaid), transposing (virtuous horse), augmenting and diminishing

Without impression Ideas are meaningless (God and Self) 4/25/12

2.

All Ideas from Impressions

Complex Ideas God is a compound and not a reality as such

Berkeleys All Perceiving God No direct impression of this No Dr. Layne without my experiences, i.e. no essence/soul separate from the hundreds of impressions compounded to form the Idea of Dr. Layne

Self is a compound of experiences and not a reality as such

Complex Ideas from Association of Ideas Resemblance Contiguity in Time and Space Cause or Effect
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All Associations are not REASONABLE and Do not reflect REALITY as such.

DESIRE VS. REASON

It is not reason which engages us to suppose that the past resembles the future, and to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appearance, similar or to assume that conjoined events are causally related.

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The Problem of Induction

Induction and Cause/Effect is only a HABIT/CUSTOM Deduction Going from general principles to particular conclusions.

All people who have a cough are sick. You have a cough You are sick

Induction Going from particular (impressions) to general (unobserved Ideas)

The sun came up today, the sun came up yesterday thus the sun will come up everyday Assuming that there is a pattern in the behavior of objects that will be the same in the future or when unobserved.

4/25/12 UNIFORMITY

OF NATURE

The Problem of Induction

Inductive Reasoning from observed to unobserved

Inductive reasoning goes beyond the present testimony of the senses, and the records of our memory. We believe that things behave in a regular manner; i.e., that patterns will persist into the future, and throughout the unobserved present. Principle of the Uniformity of Nature.

No justification that nature will continue to be uniform. Two kinds of Justification

(1) Demonstrative reasoning

Uniformity principle cannot be demonstrated, as it is "consistent and conceivable" that nature might stop being regular Circular

(2) probable reasoning.

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Custom

The great guide of human life without which we would be at a loss All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that and some other object. Or in other words; having found in many instances, that any two kinds of objectsflame and heat, snow and coldhave always been conjoined together; if flame or snow be presented anew to the senses, the mind is carried by custom to expect heat or cold and to believe that such a quality does exist, and will discover itself upon a neared approach. This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits; or hatred, when we meet injuries. All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or invent.

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Heidegger (1889-1976)

The Question of the Meaning of Being Being vs. beings Examine Dasein (being-there, being in the world) What is Dasein 1. A being whose Being is an issue for it 2. Human being aware of Being as Existence 3. Awareness of Being-toward-death (Angst) Losing the I in the they, becoming part of the crowd vs. freedom Inauthentic vs. Authentic

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Introduction to Metaphysics

The Fundamental Question Why are there beings at all instead of nothing? First Question (not chronologically) 1. Broadest Not beings but Being Limited only by Nothing, but it is something 2. Deepest What is the ground for Being? 3. Originary Human being who poses the question Why question challenges the Being of the whole Why the why?

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Misunderstanding of Philosophy
Forgetfulness The question why something rather than nothing is the grounds of Science Religious (Cannot authentically question without suspending faith Without the exposure to unfaith, the faithful is not in faith but a convenient indifference)

Misunderstanding of Philosophy All essential questioning is untimely The few philosophers/the unsettlers Supports Culture Doesnt make things easier but more difficult You 4/25/12 cant do anything with philosophy? It can only do

Greek Philosophy

Phusis Nature (origin meaning lost) The emergence, the opening up Why is there something rather than nothing? Not a physical question, limited to such beings but all of Being Metaphysic Beyond beings Are we asking the question or willing the question? Knowing is to be able to stand in the truth Truth is the openness to beings
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Nothing

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