Introduction to Philosophy
Contents |
Pre Socratics
Democritus, the laughing philopsopher was a pre-socratic who lived in ? He was an atomist someone wo looked for explanations in the natural not supernatural world. He was a pupli of Lupidus. He came up the ideas with 'nothing comes from nothing" Nothing thing comes in to or out of existence. But how do they explain chnage They explained change given that nothing comes into existence by explaining what exists is the void and within that void is aew ndevisibales aset o things form and reform in to different types aggregrates. Therefore, they become a chair or a coat. It is a completely natural explanation not a supernatural one.
Xeno said take a stick and keep chopping it in halves. At a point of time we can no longer cut it in half and eventually it will be a collection of atoms
The laughing philosopher 60 books
Post Socratics
Aristotle was Plato's pupli who was Socrates' pupil. We have nothing from Socrates, most of it comes from Plato. We no longer have to books by Aristotle only lecture notes. Plato and Aristotle had a dispute. Take the color red. We understand it in relation to what we all see to be red - our concept of red. A percept is a cionstituent of perception. A blue chair. You see the percept of the color blue and the object chair but If you think of elephant you are forming a concept or a thought of an elephant. Our ability to think in terms of concepts draws us apart from other animals. We can see world how it is and think about more importantly or how it might be. This is what enables us to be crerative or imaginative.
Plato had a theory of anamnesis. When we see red as a child we are remembering something you saw before birth. He said our soul exists before births and we a rememberance of forms. We had form of good (pure goodness), or the form of Red (pure redness) etc. There are only forms of simple things. Aristotle disagreed. Whats wrong with it is the ontology (the list of things that exist). Plato's theory explodes. We see similarities or commonality between different objects. It's a much simpler as it doesnt require any postulations. (e.g. Occam's Razor. (Always choose the simpler of two theories if both can explain a theory. If redness didnt exist you could not have the concept of it. This favors Aristotle's theory.
Stoicism
Founded by Xeno in the 4th Century BC and flourished in Greece and Rome and won praise for its ideas of inner solitude fortitude and forbearance.
Stoicism took its name for the Stoa or Colonnade where Xeno and his followers discussed their ideas. It resents us with a coherent system of logic, physics and ethics. It argues for a materialistic and deterministic cosmos. At the conceptual level it is composed of passive matter interpenetrated by active divine reason. At the observaervable level, this passive matter takes the form of earth and water and the divine reason takes thre form of fire and air which is known as pneuma. This divine reason organizes everthing for the best. The cosmos only has a finite life span . When it comes to the end it transmutes itself in to creative ration fire from which the next identical cosmos is formed. It has to be identical because it was perfect the forst time. We are part of a greater whole and our happiness and virtue rest on acknolwledgment of that. If we can live in accordance of the plan then and accept it then we are living in harmony with nature.
At the time these ideas are coiming to fruition we are hundred year after the Plato's academy and after the coming to power of Philip of Macedonia and Alexander The Great. Given those unstable times and the disintegration of the Polis people will trying to seek solace by thinking in terms of a greater plan
At the same times the Cynics and Epicurians and thinking along similar lines. All of these schools were teaching you how you could leave a live of Virtue and seek happiness
Xeno and Stoicism
Diogenes the Cynic took Platonism very seriously. He gave up all outward signs of possessions or conformity, living in a tub, etc. His rich pupil Crates gave away his money and could say now he can care about no one. Xeno meets Crates while looking for followers of Socrates. He tells Xeno to carry Lentil soup in the market. Xeno is embarrassed and ties to hide the soup under his clothes. Crates smashes the bowl and now the soup is dripping down his leg and tells him not to be ashamed of his embarrassment. Xeno continued to be uneasy and from this story we can see that although these two philosophies are similar one can argue Stoicism is cynicism for the shy.
Xeno was a too conventional to follow cynicism. However, He found a way to follow the Socratic value system but nevertheless pursue a conventional life. Even though wealth foe instance is not intrinsically good it depends on how we use it. But it is our instinct from birth to follow these goals so these it would be foolish to suppress them. Instead you need to conform to nature's rational plan. For instance we should aim to be healthy but if you become sick there maybe some higher reason for it. e.g. To experience ill health and then help other people, like a Florence Nightingale figure.
The Rationalists and Empiricists
See also [|RationalistsVEmpiricists] The rationalists (Descartes, Liebinitz and Spinoza believe our concepts are inate while empiricists (Locke, Berkeley and Hume says we are born with blank pallets and our concepts come from experience. Causality or rationality - Hume . If you ratonalist the concept of causation is something you were born with where the empiricists says that causality comes form experience.
Take a billiard ball rolling onto another. You do not experience causality of two hitting balls hitting. All you see is one ball moving and touching another and the other moving. Could you work out that force was involved? Causality requires events and one event to happen before the other. The first event is the cause. Hume says there is necessary connection. Had the first not happened then the second event would not have happened either. There is no world where the second event would have happened unless the first even to happened. In fact you cannot see that it is a theory of causation. It is a postulation, even if it is a correct one. You cannot experience necessary connection. Hume claimed that causation does not exist he says it is in our minds and is the expectation we form from 100 billiard balls hitting each other but we still havent seen causation. Therefore the empiricists seem to have stronger argument unless you are willing to argue against causation.
Ethics and Politics
- First (Order) Actions Ethics
Looks at the world - Actions types like Murder, cloning etc are morally acceptable. i.e My belief that this chair is blue
- Second (Order) Actions
What is it that makes an action right and wrong
i.e. What makes me believe that this chair is blue.
You can only test your second order ethics with reference to the first. If your belief that murder is OK is tested against the worldly acceptance of murder and find that murder
Aristotle and Ethics
The right action is the action that would be chosen by a virtuous person. A virtuous person as three characteristics
- The person knows what is virtuous. Aristotle does nor accept there are rules. Their general claims have to be applied in specific situations and break down. How do you be kind and honest when giving an opinion. You have broken the rules. This is moral dilemma and you end up making up a rule or prioritize rules. Aristotle says you should maintain both truth and honesty by not making a rule but acting virtuously in the specific circumstances and acting accordingly.
- The virtuous performs the virtuous action. Aristole believes you can be born with the potential, for example, benevolent but you have to work on the disposition to become benevolent. You have to execise and practice the benevolence and do it not because you have to, or be seen to be benevolent but because it is virtuous
- A virtuous person performs the right acton for the right reason
If throughout your lifetime you act as above then you become virtuous.
Unity of the Virtues - Aristole believes all the virtues come together. They are prudence, temperence, justice and courage and if you have one you have all them all
Kant
For Kant a action is right if it is done out of reverence for the law or through duty. The difference is the person is acting out of intention not inclinaton. David Hume believes that everything that is done is out of self interest. There is no altruism. If you do the action because it makes you feel good then it is not a moral action says Kant. He defines a Categorical Imperative as a moral law that is not dependent on any other ulterior motive or end. e.g. Do not steal. Kant gives 6 accounts of the categorical imperative. Treat all people as an end not a means.
Utilitarianism
The right action is the one that does the most good for the greatest number of people. This is a consequentialist doctrine not one based on intenton or will. It is the consequences of your actions not your intent that is important. This tends to be how the judicial system works. Utilitiarianism would argue that dropping the bomb on Hiroshima would lead to the greatest happiness to the majority. However when we act we do not necessarily know what the outcome will be. So it should be the intended consequences not the actual. It's the moral action of the agent that is important. Turning it around if you did something wrong yet turned out for the good. Utilitarianism would say that if the intended consequences were bad the moral agent is bad.
Problems with Utilitarianism can be seen with genocide. The right to life might be denied if the majority would be happier if you were dead. More of a dilemma would be the allocation of resources in healthcare. Do we prioritize the old or the young, productive individual or feckless or one drug that saves one from a dreadful illness or many from a mild illness. However, it is a descriptive not a prescriptive theory.
Distributive Justice
John Rawls and Veil of Ignorance
In his Theory of Justice he sets out to choose the principles of justice for a society. How should goods be distributed that allow for the most equitable distribution amongst those in society. The Original Position is his way of choosing the principles of justice. A certain kind of people are put in a certain position and to judge the rules by which goods are distributed. They must be rational, self-interested and risk averse. They are put behind the Veil of Ignorance. By being self ignorant of your own circumstances you can draw a philosophical conclusion of the justice or injustice of the principle at stake. For instance if you do not know if your rich or poor or balck or white, old or young. The only knowledge they do have in the Thin Theory of Good, which are basic rules about humans psychology - like the need for food and warmth. By being self ignorant it enables them to judge the principles of justice becuase they are forced to be fair and your self interest is not going to work on behalf of one set of people but all people.
This leads us to the two principles of justice
1. Everyone is entitled to maximum liberty and equality. 2. Inequalities are permitted but only when it makes the worse off, better off.
In opposition to Rawls,Nozick holds a Lockian property theory. You own the labor of your own ability and everything that you mix with the labor. It underpins much of American Constitution and British law. He sees taxation as forced labor. For instance a brilliant sportsman is paid to play sport and gets rich but we then substract from his income and resistribute elsewhere. By definiton we have reduced his liberty and he has no rights over how that money is used. Also we willingly paid to make him rich so it is not unequal that he became rich. If we do not want him to have this level of inequality then we should no longer pay to watch him play sport According to Aristotle you are not happy because you believe you are happy. So if you were happy but misled you were not happy becuase happiness requires the truth of the happiness.
