Philosophy Unit 2

• Metaphysics


  The study of the nature of reality
• Metaphysical Questions


  • What is reality?
  • Can we control our destiny?
  • Do we have immortal souls?
  • Is there a supreme being(s)?
• Plato's Allegory of the Cave


  • Prisoners' reality was the shadows in the cave
  • Prisoners didn't know the reality outside of the cave was true reality

  
• Metaphysics


  • The philosophy which seeks to answer questions about existence
  • Study of questions about the world left unanswered by the natural sciences
  • Such as those regarding First Causes; Laws of the Universe; Mind/Body; Free Will/Determinism
• Metaphysics was first used by Aristotle who wrote his books Physics (concerning the physical world) and Metaphysics (beyond the physical world)
• Principle of non-contradiction


  • No real being can both be and not be at the same time
  • Ex. either God exists OR does not exist - God can't BOTH exist and not exist at the same time
• Principle of sufficient reason


  • Everything must have a reason or a cause
  • It is not possible for something to be its own cause (otherwise it would violate the Principle of non-contradiction)
  • Understood either in terms of reasons or causes
  • Ex. For Socrates to have existed requires that his parents first existed
• Materialism


  • Humans are animals, and brains are chemical systems
  • No soul
  • Humans are like computers
• Dualism


  • Mental is separate from physical
  • Mind and Soul can exist before the body, and survive bodily death (ex. Soul)
  • Dualists believe in the afterlife, and the paranormal
• 1 = monism
• 2 = dualism
• Idealism = mental
• Materialism = physical
• Metaphysics


  Aims to answer questions regarding existence
• Questions metaphysics aims to answer

  • First causes
  • Laws of the universe
  • Relationship between the mind and body
  • Free will vs. determinism
• First causes


  The self-created being (i.e., God) to which every chain of causes must ultimately go back
• First causes


  • Used by Greek thinkers like Aristotle which referred to God as the "unmoved mover" who started all the motion in the universe
  • Became a key concept in the Jewish-Christian tradition
  • Many philosophers and theologians in this tradition have formulated an argument for the existence of God by claiming that the world people observe with their senses must have been brought into being by God as the first cause
• Laws of the universe

  • A scientific law always applies to a physical system (ex. gravity) under repeated conditions
  • Implying there is a causal relationship involving the elements of the system
  • Based on repeated observations
  • Make predictions
  • Are true, apply everywhere, are stable, often expressed mathematically
  • Are relative to different disciplines (ex. physics, chemistry, biology)
• Mind-body problem


  How is the mind and body related?
• Theories of mind-body relationship

  • Dualism - world contains 2 different types of "stuff" mental (mind) and physical stuff
  • Monism - the world is made of one type of "stuff" mental OR physical
  • Idealism - the world consists entirely of minds and mental states
  • Physicalism/Materialism - the world consists entirely of the physical, there is no nonmaterial minds
• Free will


  • Ability to choose between different actions not by external causes
  • Closely linked to moral responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen
• Determinism


  Assumption everything that happens has a cause in the observable world
• Principle of non-contradiction


  No being can be and not be at the same time
• Sufficient reason


  • Every being has the sufficient reason for existence
  • Everything has a reason for its existence
  • It is not possible for something to be its own cause
  • Every being that does not possess the sufficient reason for its own existence must have a cause outside itself
• Meaning of life


  A fundamental question in philosophy about whether life is or is not worth living
• Having an answer to the meaning of life can shape a person's entire outlook on life
• Nihilists


  • Argue life is meaningless
  • All human striving is useless
  • Life is pointless
  • There's an attitude of despair
  • Whether something matters is an illusion
  • Some even argue that human existence is an error and is pointless
• Friedrich Nietzsche


  German philosopher who criticized traditional European morality and religion, and encouraged people to think freely and set their own ethics and morals
• "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" originated in Nietzsche's book, Twilight of the Idols
• Nietzsche proclaimed "God is dead," meaning society no longer needed theology because the Enlightenment had eradicated the need for it
• Theistic approach


  • Argues that human life is meaningful because a supreme being(s) has given people the gift of life
  • Life has purpose
  • Meaning of life is part of God's plan
  • Without God life would be meaningless
  • Some argue human reasoning is weak to guide people in the right direction, only faith can lead people to God
  • Others argue reason plays a role in guiding people to God
  • People often accept their problems/accomplishments as part of God's plan
• Al-Ghazali


  Medieval Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic who argued the spiritual life in Islam begins with the inner warfare against the ego, and that it is only through fighting the lower self can humans really understand the purpose of life – to connect to God
• Non-theistic approach


  • Argues people give life meaning, it's subjective
  • They believe no one has designed humans or the world
  • Humans are thrown into the world without direction – we invent direction
  • Humans determine what people are going to be or what they will make of themselves
  • They have no one to blame but themselves for their problems and accomplishments
• Simone de Beauvoir


  An existentialist feminist who believed we have an ethical responsibility to create our own life's meaning which we might attach ourselves, and which might lead us to deny freedom to others
• Simone de Beauvoir believed the material world is not an imperfect copy of the world of ideas as Plato argued
• Soul


  The spiritual "breath" that gives the living organism life
• Pre-Socratics' view of the soul


  • Greeks used the word "ensouled" to mean "alive"
  • The soul gives the body life
  • Early pre-Socratic belief - the soul is lifeless when it departed the body
  • It retired into Hades (Greek God of the underworld) with no hope of returning to a body
• Plato's view of the psyche (soul)


  • The essence of a person which decides how to behave
  • Exists after death, soul can think
  • Believed the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis AKA reincarnation) in different bodies
• Platonic Soul


  • Consists of three/tripartite parts: logos (mind or reason), thymos (emotion, spiritedness or masculine), eros (appetitive, desire, or feminine)
  • Logos regulates the other parts of the soul
  • Plato compares the three parts of the soul to the social system - each part must contribute so the whole functions well
• Aristotle's definition of the soul

  • The "first actuality" of a natural body
  • Part of the physical body
  • The main activity of a living thing constitutes its soul