Fall 2009 Philosophy of Human Nature Lecture Notes

This page is primarily for notes for class lecture and discusion.

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9/2: Course Intro, Philosophy, and the Real

1. Course Goals
2. Roll Call
3. Schedule, Grading Schemes, Wiki, Journals, Study Questions
4. 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.

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 on 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 rational knowledge.

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 saying that is never successful. And story telling almost always seems to imply a view of life and a hence a range of philosophies.

What is Real? (1st Exercise)

We discussed some ways of identifying the "real". We'll pick this up briefly next class as we talk more about Plato's answer.

The Nature of Philosophy and Philosophical Method

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.

Identifying the Philosophical

• Turn toward basic questions
• Meta-level cognition in general - theorizing
• In the Structure of Knowledge -- Philosophy as queen of the sciences.

Other ways of identifying Philosophy

• in relation to science
• as speculative
• as dealing with matters of direct importance to living
• as dealing with matters of great uncertainty

Philosophical Methods

Rauhut Chapter Two

Go to Philosophical Methods

Main Philosophical Topics for the Class

Plato, Euthyphro

10: Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious or is it pious because it is loved by the gods? What's at stake?

Plato, Apology

Image of Socrates as a Philosopher

Philosophy in Society - What's the lesson of Socrates' death?

What is Love?

getting ready for Symposium by constructing a preliminary philosophy of love.

9/14

Continued work on the Nature of Love

List of things we would want a good theory of love to do:

• Explain how love emerges, what sustains it, and what destroys it.
• Distinguish types or kinds of love; define the scope of the phenomena.
• Explain the value of love in a human being's life.
• Distinguish love from its cultural variations. Romantic love / arranged marriage /
• Distinguish "lust" from love.

Next steps:

• Venturing definitions (list)
• Venturing hypotheses (list)

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 (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 intellectual we make of 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.

Divided Line

Philosophical Methods

• Review first three methods: Looking carefully at phenomena, Using rationales, and Giving Definitions.
• Comment on other definition strategies aside from Plato's: Lexical defintions, stipulative definitions, precising definitions, extensional meaning and intensional meaning.

9/21

Note on Philosophical Method

From the list: Questioning Presuppositions.

Example from Plato: Plato's "two worlds view" is a consequence, not a presupposition of his view. However, his view that reality is intelligible is a presupposition of his view.

Two statements about the value of philosophy

Small Groups: If possible, mix group with Kant and Russell writers. From your group discussion, get a concise statement of each author's view and rationales. Compare and contrast and get ready to evaluate.

• Timeline for locating Kant and the Enlightenment

Kant:

Russell:

Some Notes on Greek History, or, How did we ever get to the Apology?

• Reference Map for Xerxes invasion

• Reference Map for Peloponnesian War

More Really Important Dates

2220 bc Creatan Minoan Culture

1000 bc Destruction of Mycenean Palace Culture

900-800 revival of population on Peloponesis, use of iron in tools and weapons.

750 city states growth.

750-550 period of Greek colonization.

480 Xerxes, ruler of Persia attacks at Thermopylae and Salamis

477, Athens governs Delian League

495-429, Pericles.

450-429, Period of "Periclean Athens" - democratic and legal reforms. great playwrights such as: Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides

431-404, Peloponnesian War, starting with Spartan invasion of Attica, ending with Athens surrender in 404

415, Alcibiades defects to Sparta.

404, Athens surrenders to Sparta.

404-403, Reign of Terror, 30 Tyrants.

399, Socrates trial.

More on Plato's Worldview

review of concept of Divided Line as model for enlightenment

Plato's psychology: Tripartite division of the soul: Rational, Appetitive, Vegetative.

-Need for rational element to control appetite.

-Connects need for harmony of the soul, harmony of the state (Brief mention of the Republic.)

-Harmony of the soul achieved through realization of virtues: Courage, Moderation, Justice, and Wisdom.

Plato and the Body

9/23

Beginning the Symposium

Setting: Drinking Party, Speeches on Love

Phaedrus: Love is a great God. There is One Love. Love motivates the lovers to virtue. No lover wants to look bad in front of their beloved. "In truth, the gods honor virtue most highly when it belongs to Love." 180B

Pausinius: There are two loves: Urania - Heavenly Aphrodite and Pandemos - Common Aphrodite. Love itself is neither good nor bad. Defends Greek practice. Love's character depends on the behavior it gives rise to. Potin of customs about love is separate the "wheat from the chaff," heavenly from common.

Erixymachus: Love is a broader phenomenon and force. Medicine "the science of of the effects of love on the body" Music - science of the effects of love on harmony and rhythm. But not all love is good. Love also at work in destruction.

Aristophanes: Story of first people, challenged the gods, split. Love is the search for your "other half". Interest in your partner not just for sex, but some kind of completion. Need to respect the gods or we'll be split again!

9/28

Beginning Epistemology

Types of Knowledge

Propositional:

Know-how:

Knowledge by acquaintance

Defining Knowledge as "true, justified belief"

Consider all three factors.

Skepticism, Empiricism, and Rationalism

global vs. local skepticism

Epiricism vs. Rationalism

Recall the parabola video, concept of "discovery" in mathematics, also this TED talk:

Garrett Lisi, A Beautiful New Theory of Everything note especially the way he mixes knowledge of particles and mathematics.