Spring 2010 201 Model Student Work

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Return to Human Nature

Section 1: Participation Journals

Euthyphro 10

Student 1

Throughout the entire dialogue, Socrates asks Euthyphro repeatedly what the definition of piety is. After each explanation given to him, Socrates finds the flaw and proves the definition to be false. Presumably, Socrates wants to know the answer to this question, because he is entering court on this day. He wants to be able to argue against the true definition of piety and, therefore, win the case against him. In Euthyphro’s third definition of piety, he basically says, “All that is loved by the gods is pious, and all that is hated by the gods is impious”. When Socrates says, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious or is it pious because it is loved by the gods”, he questions the definition. Ultimately, he completely eliminates Euthyphro’s previous definitions for piety. His first reason for not accepting this definitions is because, he proves that the piety came first, before the liking, through his “see/seeing and carry/carrying” analogies. Basically, Socrates means that “being liked” is a state of an object/idea already in existence. Therefore, that which is righteous is liked by the gods, because it is righteous, it isn’t righteous solely because the gods like it. Socrates offers a definition as well; "piety is a species of the genus 'justice'”. Soon enough, Socrates points out that his definition is also false. All that is pious is not necessarily just, as well as, not all that is just is necessarily pious. However, most human beings generally associate that which is pious, is also just, or considered “morally correct”. Finally, Socrates points out that there are many actions that cannot be sorted into both or either category. If you save your brother’s life by shooting a killer, it is not considered morally correct. But is it considered pious?

Are we radically wrong about our knowledge of reality?

Student 1

It happens daily: I am walking with a friend or driving in a car or running in the city and I look around and say to myself, “This is not real.” It is an incredibly surreal experience – I look around and realize that I have complete control over the situation around me and that my actions will be void of consequence. I am not crazy, or reckless, or an existentialist. I have lucid dreams every single night, realizing it is a dream about halfway through. This epiphany, that I am dreaming, awakens me to a completely different understanding of my (dream) reality. I can tell myself to wake up and reenter the reality that I know is certain. Because I know when I am dreaming and, therefore, asleep, I know when I am awake. It is the feeling that Plato’s captives in the caves must feel when they emerge from the cave into the sunlight, gaining a new understanding of reality. But what is reality? In the dictionary, reality is defined as “existence that is absolute, self-sufficient, or objective and not subject to human decisions or conventions”. This definition leaves the possibility of reality open to being different from what we interpret it to be. Reality is one thing, but our idea of reality is based off of our perceptions of experiences in the world. Whether or not our perception of reality lines up with reality is a question that we can speculate upon, but how do we know? It is unlikely that we are radically wrong about our knowledge of the world. I say this acknowledging the fact that I am no philosopher or scientist, but can attempt to combine my own thoughts with the theories of philosophers’ we have read. From an admittedly more ignorant view of this question, I say that we are not radically wrong about our perception of reality because the complexity involved in the world and the scientific intricacies of our minds and bodies and the world seem too involved for us to have been wrong the whole time. However, you could refute that idea by stating that this is all our perception, and if we were being fooled, we would not know. One thing that makes reality seem evident is our ability to taste, touch, see, feel, and hear. Our senses are the way we interact and come into contact with reality. Our senses are used millions of times during the day, and science suggests that everyone’s senses work in roughly the same. Our senses are never as strong in our dreams as they are in real life, which suggests but does not prove that we are awake when we are. I keep coming back to Descartes, “I think, therefore, I am.” Whatever reality is, the fact that I am here and thinking pays tribute to the fact that I am real in some way, shape or form. Maybe it is not the way we have perceived it all along, but I can think and ask these questions, I must exist independent of an outside force. If I exist, then I can conclude that the rest of the people in the world exist, too, which further suggests that the world is real, too. Coming from a religious viewpoint, maybe our knowledge of the world now is, indeed, incomplete. Many religions suggest death as not an ending, but a beginning. An awakening, perhaps, to full knowledge and understanding of the world. It is not that this may be wrong and that is right, but maybe this world is not as real or important as we think it and heaven (or whatever you believe) is the true reality. It may be apathetic, but, for now, if our knowledge of the world is wrong, so what? It does not change the way we live or interact with others, for now. If we are the prisoners in Plato’s cave, we are content with the shadows because we do not know anything different. It does not matter if our knowledge of the world is wrong because we cannot change it.

Student 2

I find it highly unlikely that our knowledge about the world is radically wrong; unlikely that we have been elaborately and completely deceived. I would have to concede that it is possible. I can imagine two general scenarios that allow for this possibility of our being radically wrong (As I will explain later however, just because these are the only two scenarios I can imagine doesn’t at all make them the only two possibilities. It doesn’t even make it likely). The first scenario is some kind of man made deception, while the second involves a “malicious demon” like the one described by Descartes. First, I will consider the scenario where this radical deception was created by humans. This would be similar to the matrix or the “brains in a vat” from our reading. The technology does not, of course, exist in our world today, but you must admit that it is possible it may exist in the future. It must, therefore, be possible that the machines creating our illusion are from the future. In other words the real world is years and years ahead of the world of conjured perceptions that we think we are living in. In fact, it would make sense for these future scientists in charge of our deceptive experiment to model our illusion on something they know – namely a previous time period from their same reality. Still, I believe that this eventuality is very unlikely. I doubt this because I cannot believe that they would be able achieve this level of sophistication. I know that there are things we can do today with technology that would have seemed unfathomable to someone from the distant past, but the world is infinitely complex. I don’t think that any technology or machine will ever be able to model it this way. I don’t believe that they could capture the beauty of the world, or the unpredictability of nature and society. And what about our personal experiences? The kind of experiences that are so personal that you don’t think you could explain them to someone else if you tried? I don’t think they could recreate the world that we know. The second scenario I mentioned was one where we are all playthings for some super intelligent “malicious demon” who has inflicted this deception on us all. My doubt for this scenario is based in my faith instead of reason. I believe that there is a God, who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and completely good, and like Descartes, I don’t believe that this God would allow for us all to be taken advantage of in that way. As is so often the case in this skeptic argument, however, one could easily say that my belief in this God is still the work of our favorite deceptive demon.

       I suppose it has to do with our perception of ourselves and our role in the universe.  In the film Men In Black II agents Jay and Kay open a train locker to find a little word inside the locker containing these little creatures.  For these creatures, their entire world is inside what for us is just a train locker.  Then at the end of the film, agent Kay opens a door for agent Jay labeled “DO NOT OPEN,” revealing an enormous train station with huge aliens walking around.  Although I still do not believe it, if you have a different view of our role in the universe, perhaps it is easier to imagine us as the playthings of some far more intelligent being. 
       In conclusion, I feel like I must express that I find this entire skeptic argument frustrating and useless.  Ironically, it is the same reasoning that Grau (someone who obviously thought this was an argument worth spending time on) cites in our reading that explains the pointlessness.  Assume that it is true that we are being deceived.  Assume that everything we know is part of some perfect illusion, and there is a completely foreign “real world” out there.  If it is a perfect illusion, the operator or program will never screw up and somehow shock us into waking up.  Even if we do start playing with the notion that we might be under an illusion like this, any commentary we have about the “real world” might as well be gibberish because there is no way you could have any knowledge or perspective to know what you are talking about.  So even if it is true that we are experiencing a deception, if there is not and never will be a chance that we will get to know or experience this other world, why even consider it.  Why not just get focused on exploring the truths of the only world we have to deal with?