Philosophy

Philosophy 220 • Mendocino College Instructor: Molly Dwyer **Knowledge: Information that has been shaped by meaning. **

What is Philosophy?
**1)** Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other.

**2)** Philosophy is from the Greek, philo means love – or devotion – and sophia means wisdom. Philosophers are people devoted to wisdom.

**3)** Philosophy is an activity: a quest after wisdom. Philosophy is an activity of thought. Philosophy is a particular unique type of thought or style of thinking.

**4)** Being wise means attempting to live and die well, leading as good a life as possible within the troubled conditions of existence. The goal of wisdom is fulfillment. You could perhaps say ‘happiness’ but ‘happiness’ is misleading, for it suggests continuous chirpiness and joy, whereas ‘fulfillment’ seems compatible with a lot of pain and suffering, which every decent life must by necessity have.

**5)** Those who study philosophy are perpetually engaged in asking, answering, and arguing for their answers to life’s most basic questions.

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**Metaphysics **
At its core the study of metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, of what exists in the world, what it is like, and how it is ordered. In metaphysics philosophers wrestle with such questions as:
 * Is there a God?
 * What is truth?
 * What is a person? What makes a person the same through time?
 * Is the world strictly composed of matter?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Do people have minds? If so, how is the mind related to the body?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Do people have free wills?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is it for one event to cause another?

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Epistemology
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is primarily concerned with what we can know about the world and how we can know it. Typical questions of concern in epistemology are:
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is knowledge?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Do we know anything at all?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">How do we know what we know?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Can we be justified in claiming to know certain things?

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ethics
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The study of ethics often concerns what we ought to do and what it would be best to do. In struggling with this issue, larger questions about what is good and right arise. So, the ethicist attempts to answer such questions as:
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is good? What makes actions or people good?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is right? What makes actions right?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is morality objective or subjective?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">How should I treat others?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">When is the price of happiness too high?

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Logic
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Another important aspect of the study of philosophy is the arguments or reasons given for people’s answers to these questions. To this end philosophers employ logic to study the nature and structure of arguments. Logicians ask such questions as:
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">What constitutes "good" or "bad" reasoning?
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">How do we determine whether a given piece of reasoning is good or bad?

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Can We Learn Ethics from Nature?
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">In 1802 William Paley published a Teleological Argument For The Existence Of God, which included his famous argument says that after seeing a watch, with all its intricate parts, which work together in a precise fashion to keep time, one must deduce that this piece of machinery has a creator, since it is far too complex to have simply come into being by some other means, such as evolution. The skeleton of the argument is as follows: <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Human artifacts are products of intelligent design; they have a purpose. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. The universe resembles these human artifacts. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Therefore: It is probable that the universe is a product of intelligent design, and has a purpose. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">4. However, the universe is vastly more complex and gigantic than a human artifact is. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">5. Therefore: There is probably a powerful and vastly intelligent designer who created the universe.

=<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Trolley Problem—Who Should Be Saved? = <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">media type="youtube" key="1XsiHGAiuUE" width="560" height="315"

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Darwin wrote in a letter to botanist Asa Gray (1860)
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.— Let each man hope & believe what he can.—" [|Discussion, Stephen Gould]<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(Cat playing with a mouse at about 55 minutes in video) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The wasps who infest caterpillars]

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Asking Big Questions
<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">media type="youtube" key="zORUUqJd81M" width="560" height="315"

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">media type="youtube" key="SvMiXk2gGSk" width="560" height="315"

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">World View & Resistance to Change
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">In 1614, when the telescope was new technology, a young man in Germany published a book filled with illustrations of the exciting new things being discovered telescopically: <span class="wiki_link_ext">moons circling Jupiter, moon-like <span class="wiki_link_ext">phases of Venus , spots on <span class="wiki_link_ext">the Sun , the rough and cratered <span class="wiki_link_ext">lunar surface. The young man was Johann Georg Locher, and <span class="wiki_link_ext">his book was //Mathematical Disquisitions Concerning Astronomical Controversies and Novelties//. And while Locher heaped praise upon Galileo, he challenged ideas that Galileo championed – on scientific grounds. (From news article on [|Raw Story].)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Both Science & Religion Argued Against the Copernican World View] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(That the earth revolved around the sun.)

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy Defined:

 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is the study of knowledge, or "thinking about thinking."
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy concerns itself with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is an investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods (American Heritage Dictionary)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is the study of the ultimate nature of existence, reality, knowledge and goodness, as discoverable by human reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics (WordNet)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and his behavior and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is the rational and critical inquiry into basic principles (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is the study of the most general and abstract features of the world and categories with which we think: mind, matter, reason, proof, truth, etc. (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Philosophy is //careful thought// about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct (The Philosophy Pages)
 * <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The study of philosophy involves not only forming one’s own answers to such questions, but also seeking to understand the way in which people have answered such questions in the past. So, a significant part of philosophy is its history, a history of answers and arguments about these very questions. In studying the history of philosophy one explores the ideas of such historical figures as: Plato; Aristotle; Aquinas; Descartes; Locke; Hume; Kant; Nietzsche; Marx; Mill; Wittgenstein; and Sartre.

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">WATCH FOR JAN 31, 2017
====<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">BBC History Of The World In 2 Hours (It isn't two hours, even though it says it is.) Here's the link: <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|BBC Documentary] ====

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Romanticism:
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">A movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. The BBC produced a series of three documentaries that trace the impact of Romanticism on the history of literature, art and thought.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|BBC—Liberty]
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">the radical ideas of liberty that inspired the French Revolution opened up a world of possibility for great British writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|BBC—Nature]
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">As the Industrial Revolution took hold of Britain during the late 18th Century, the Romantics embraced nature in search of sublime experience. Mary Shelley's //Frankenstein// emerged out of Romantic philosophies.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|BBC—Eternity]
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">For the young Romantics (Keats, Byron and Shelley) poetry became the new religion, a way of reaching eternity.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Genius—Beautiful Minds, World Science Festival]
<span class="wiki_link_ext"><span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">(first eight minutes is presentation on genius)

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Some Interesting Links:
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What is Philosophy, Crash Course 1] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|You think, Therefore you are] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Who am I? TedEx (Ship of Theseus)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Descartes, Crash Course #5] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Kant's Ax Ted-Ex] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Sartre—Example of Master Thinker Presentation] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Emerson] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Math—Invented or Discovered] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Newton's Laws] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Free Will vs Determinism] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Occam's Razor (ends abruptly)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Flat Earth] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Empiricism—Locke & Berkeley] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What is a person?] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Understanding Pythagoras/Plato's Forms (Donald Duck at 8:12)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Fractals/Mandelbrot Set] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Natural Law: St. Thomas Aquinas] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The Boy from Aleppo]

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Does God Exist? Crash Course]
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|St. Augustine] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Hildegard von Bingen] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Post Modernism] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Post Modernism Too] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">T[|he Insider — A Post Modern Movie] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Post Modernism Lecture, University of Texas, Austin]

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[[image:god.jpg width="407" height="231" align="right"]]Thoughts on God
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Does God Exist? (Crash Course #9)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Aquinas & God (Crash Course #10)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Intelligent Design (Crash Course #11)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What is God? (Crash Course #12)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|What About Evil? (Crash Course #13)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|God is Dead—Nietzsche] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Is Religion Necessary for Goodness? Kant] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Evidence of a Great Flood]

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Thoughts, Literature & other good things
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Isabel Allende TedTalk] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The Old Man and The Sea (animation)] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Homer's Odyssey] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Greek Gods] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Pythagoras] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Aristotle on Virtue] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Aristotle on Politics (Cambridge/Oxford)]

<span style="color: #880000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ancient Non Western Philosophies & Religions
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Mayan Civilization 1800 BCE-900] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The Dogon of Mali, 2000 BCE-1500] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|The Buddha, 500 BCE] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Teotihuacan 100 BCE-550] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|How to Draw a Mandala]

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Games & Mind Benders
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Jeopardy Rocks] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Vocabulary.com] <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Philosophy Experiments—online questions & analysis]

<span style="color: #800000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|National High School Ethics Bowl]
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">"High school ethics bowl is a competitive yet collaborative event in which students discuss real-life ethical issues. In each round of competition, teams take turns analyzing ethical cases and responding to questions and comments from the other team and a panel of judges. An ethics bowl differs from a debate competition in that students are not assigned opposing views; rather, they defend whichever position they think is correct, provide each other with constructive criticism, and win by demonstrating that they have thought rigorously and systematically about the cases and engaged respectfully and supportively with all participants." <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">media type="vimeo" key="107366629" height="360" width="640"

[|Delaware Students (Example of competition)]

<span style="color: #880000; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Mahabharata (circa 3500 BCE)
<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The //Mahabharata// is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the //Ramayana//. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The //Mahabharata// contains philosophical and devotional material, including works the text known as the //Bhagavad Gita//, which is considered one of the most important texts of the Hindu tradition. //The Mahabharata// is to Hindu culture like the Bible is to Christian culture. It is a teaching story about a war between brothers and lessons learned. It's authorship is attributed to Vyasa, one of the "seven immortals" of Hindu belief. In other words, //The// //Mahabharata//, like the Bible, is thought to have been authored by a being who transcends human knowledge and understanding. The film below was directed by Peter Brook and is five hours plus long, but well worth the effort. It's a remarkable story that few westerners are familiar with. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span class="wiki_link_ext">[|Click here for a documentary that uses Peter Brook's footage to explain The Mahabharata]. (Watch it first.) <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|And here's a documentary on the origins of India's culture (from the video series Legacy: Origins of Civilization]