Spring 2011 Philosophy of Human Nature Lecture Notes

Back to Human Nature

January 11, 2011 (1)

1. Three Web Sites!
2. Course Goals
3. Roll Call
4. Schedule, Grading Schemes, Wiki, Study Questions
5. Philosophy

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy is a discipline of inquiry directed toward a wide range of basic questions about the nature of the universe and our experience in it. It involves a turn toward "basic questions". It also involves meta-level cognition.

Philosophy uses general tools of reasoning and knowledge to answer basic questions and to develop theories about the nature of reality, both as a whole and in parts.

Philosophy is an activity that involves the use of thought, experience, and judgement to order one's life and thinking about the universe.

Philosophical Methods

Go to Philosophical Methods

Go to General Overview of Critical Thinking Concepts

What is Real? (1st Exercise)

In small groups, generate a list of criteria or a definition for calling something "real". Then try to figure out if you can find reasons for preferring one set of criteria or definition over another.

January 11, 2011 (2)

Continuation of "What is Real?"

Try to keep track of methods used, report on distinctions made, questions which arose, cases considered, principles which were proposed to fit cases, etc.

Review of Socrates' life and methods

Socrates as an image of the philosopher. Review of Enclycolpedia Channel, and MM McCabe

Elenchus -- Maieutics -- Aletheia

Socratic Method -- value of discovery of ignorance, value of the examined life / life spent examining.

Structure of Philosophy

Fields of Philosophy and major questions

Logos, Mythos, and Theos

How is philosophy related to and different from science, theology, and literature?

Course matters

How timeline assignment works.

Questions on grading schemes

January 18, 2011 (3)

Logos, Mythos, and Theos

locating philosophy in relation to Mythos and Theos

Logos (Human culture associated with discovery of truths about a wide range of objects)

Associated with Philosophy, Interpretation, and Science

Requires belief in the truth of conclusions.

Aspires toward rational knowledge.

Theos (Human culture associated with our relationship to totality and to the divine)

Associated with Religion.

Commitment to truth of beliefs, but no longer typically asserted as directly comparable to forms of rational knowledge such as science.

Includes both individual and communal experience which produce insight and knowledge about important matters in life.

Mythos (Human culture associated with myth and story in drama, books, and other media.)

Typically associated with fiction, but includes dominant myths of the culture.

Does not require belief in the reality of objects in the story.

Claim to truth derived from indirect reference.

It is important to acknowledge that these three areas of culture interpenetrate each other extensively. There are stories and philosophies at work in religions. Philosophy attempts to purge itself of narrative, but some say that is never successful. And story telling almost always seems to imply a view of life and a hence a range of philosophies.

Additional details/questions from R1: distinction between philosophy and science, branches of philosophy.

Plato, Euthyphro

• Summary of the dialogue.
• How does Socrates come across in this dialogue?
• Euthytphro 10

Group Exercise on Objectivity

In your small groups, consider the nature of objectivity from Euthyphro 10. Begin my making a list of things that are what they are because we say so (subjective), as opposed to things that are what they are independently of what we think about them (objective). At first, generate your list without raising any questions about the items. Then, after you have 15-20 items, go back and look at the list. What principle distinguishes the subjective from the objective items? Is the distinction clear in all cases. Try to say what is difficult about the mixed cases. Use your analysis to start coming up with a view about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity.

Philosophical Methods

We'll briefly highlight the philosophical methods we saw in the 1st group exercise on the "real" (lists, definition, using a principle to distinguish cases), and connect it with the methods we used in the exercise above.

Also, I will work in some review of argument theory since the next, and main, philosophical methods we will on are reconstruction or rationales and critical response to points of view.

We'll start with these concepts:

• claim
• rationale
• argument
• explanation

January 20, 2011 (4)

Review of Apology

• main story, accusations, defense.
• What is the image of Socrates in this dialogue? The image of philosophy.

Group Discussion

Today's group exercise doesn't involve doing philosophy, so maybe we'll just have the discussion as one big group. I'd like you to use the image of Socrates in the Apology to think about the nature of philosophy.

• Is Socrates a blasphemer by virtue of his activity?
• Is Socrates a hero for you in Plato's depiction, a really eccentric crank who finally had to be put down, or something in between?
• Does Philosophy have to be radical?

Introduction to Platonic Metaphysics

Plato's answer to the question, "What is Real?"

The real is what persists through all changes and manifestations.

Key Elements of Plato's Worldview

1. Essential Definitions

Through the project of giving essential definitions (relentlessly asking, "What makes all instances of X (horses) "X" (capable of having the word "horse" predicated of it), Plato is led to focus on form as persistent reality.

2. Mathematics and the structure of reality. Independently of the search for essential definitions, one might reason that abstract relationships underlie reality. (Show parabola video, or first 1:38 of it. [1])

Plato holds that mathematics is a tool for seeing the deep structure of reality.

3. Hierarchy of reality in the process of enlightenment.

Following to some degree from the first two commitments, Plato recognizes that things "participate" in reality to different degrees. This applies to both reality and to the forms of intellect we bring to it. The two main images of the "hierarchy of reality" in Plato's thought are in the Allegory of the Cave and the Divided Line.

Allegory of the Cave -- The Allegory of the Cave gives us an image of the implications of Plato's metaphysics for his view of human existence. We'll read the Allegory (Republic 514) and discuss it briefly in class. [2]

Divided Line

Philosophical Methods

Review of Philosophical Methods

Don't forget Crtical Thinking review articles on main page. General Overview of Critical Thinking Concepts

Critical Response in light of Socrates' fate.