INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

Definition What is PHILOSOPHY?

Etymological (origin of the word) Philia - love Sophia – wisdom Philosophy= love of wisdom

What is to love…? What is wisdom? How is it to love WISDOM?

LOVE Pursuit of something Be PASSIONATE in that pursuit WISDOM Physis First principle The source of all things The destination of all things

Branches or Divisions of Philosophy Speculative or Descriptive Interested in nature, essence, or substance of reality (Metaphysics) Normative philosophy Interested in the goodness or badness of a human act (Ethics) Practical philosophy Interested in TRUTH in relation to action (Logic) Critical philosophy Truth without being necessarily related to/with action (Epistemology)

LOGIC: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Pre-Socratics Main interest would be the PHYSIS Physis The physis problem is a search to identify that thing of which all else is derived and will return (the source or origin of the world) Cosmological

THALES 685 B.C. Miletus in Ionia Achievement: practical triumphs Military engineering Geometry Astronomy

Thales’ first cause… WATER The substance from which the entire cosmos emerged (and perhaps will also return) Water is a natural phenomenon, not a personified god or goddess

Logical reasoning… Biology (Proofs) Life depends on water Seeds (source of most life has moist) Heat provides moist The problem of solid objects?

ANAXIMANDER Milesian 610 B.C. Student of Thales Natural Philosophy, Astronomy First man to construct a MAP of the known world First to build SUNDIAL Build celestial globe with a chart of stars

Physis?

UNBOUNDED (APEIRON) Source out of which everything derives and also the unifier within nature. Indefinite (unlike water), no particular qualities of its own Neutral between opposites

UNBOUNDED (APEIRON) Something that can’t be comprehended Limitless or infinite (in order to give rise to everything in the universe) Unlimited potentialities

How was the cosmos generated? UNBOUNDED – moves in eternal motion As it moves something separates off (creation of something) Gives rise to the creation of the OPPOSITES; most important forces in the system

PLURALITY and MAINTENANCE Give rise to the multitude of objects 2. MAINTENANCE Manages to remain stable and predictable

The Pre-Evolutionary Theory Cause and Effect Human when born needs care from someone else in order to survive Human = Effect First human = Cause? From FISHLIKE creatures

ANAXIMENES Student of Anaximander Last Milesian philosopher Physis: AIR

AIR Soul/ breathy thing Unlimited and inexhaustible Proofs: Living creatures depend on air – life Holds together and guides living creatures

Critics: Big step backward from Anaximander’s Was he not aware of this? Step going back to the natural world Air is something that can be observed; the apeiron can’t Air is natural; Apeiron is theoritical

Air is somewhat superior to the unbounded It exists It is observable Scientific approach Unbounded has no qualities, but a source of all in the world?...

Air’s qualities… Always on a move (eternal motion) Can either be rarefied or condensed when rarefied = it becomes hot/fire Condensed = wind → water → clouds → earth → stone

Famous evidence… Breath Rarefaction = HOT Condensation = COLD

XENOPHANES Born in Colophon 570 B.C Poet and philosopher Adamant in rejecting the Olympian gods (anthropomorphic) There is only one non-anthropomorphic god who is unmoving, but all seeing, all hearing, all thinking; who controls the whole universe with his thought

Attacks on the traditional gods… Result of the human tendency to project our own nature onto the gods (Freudean) Different people/races have different gods relating to themselves If animals could draw their gods… Horses – god horses Oxen – god oxen

epistemology Milesians straight empirical observations + conclusion Xenophanes Straight empirical observation, but added:

Human knowledge is impossible in most fields of inquiry Mind cannot comprehend everything there is in the world; once one is focused on one thing, the rest observable things are left unattended

Alternative to empirical observation… Use of REASON Where human observation fails, we allow our reason to go beyond THEORIZE Observation with reason yields true knowledge…