Comparative (Chinese- Western) Introduction to Philosophy Chad Hansen MB 307

Review  Sampling intro to philosophical thought  Norms and tools of philosophy  Arguments  Six traditions: China and West  Broadly historical order  Plato, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Nietzsche, Zen, Dewey  Text available in philosophy department  Web page  Bulletin Board for discussion argument  and select Comparative Philosophy  Student - valid

Requirements:  100% coursework includes tests  Coursework=quizzes, take-home mid- term and in-class final  Argumentative focus  Quizzes almost weekly on Tuesdays  Grading 5-1 (explanation)  Both exams: ten questions in advance and prepare eight

Objectives  3 goals of philosophy education  Intensive: logic, deep analysis  Extensive: range of options, open mind  Insight, wisdom, judgment  Disciplined discourse—discussion lecture  Ask questions as they come up  Special times with review  Tutorials: 4 with 5 -6 each (by vote)

Warnings  Plagiarism is not crediting a quotation  Minimally put quotes around it— name:year in parentheses or footnote  Zero for assignment, Zero for course, suspension  Penalty for late submission  Graduated: decide when better to get it done well (rule of A result)  ¼ per day for quiz, 2% per day for tests

Basic Divisions Of Philosophy:  Metaphysics: theory of being/reality  Idealism, materialism, dualism, monism (2 senses)  Epistemology: theory of knowledge  Rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, pragmatism  Logic—includes semantics (meaning)  Ethics—Value theory, prudence, art, politics etc.

Questions? Quiz Question: Formulate an argument proving that the conclusion of any sound argument is true. (Hint: you will need the definition of 'argument' of 'valid' and of 'sound'.)

Greek Rationalism  Start on Western Philosophy  Greek Rationalism  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle  Pre-Socratics

Thales: Water  Western philosophy starts in mid-east  Differences there at the beginning  Thales: stargazer and practical businessman  Navigation and trade  "Everything is water"  Growth and range of states of matter  Early scientific theory (explain change)

Implicit Model Of Knowledge  Knowledge as a description of reality  Metaphysics and science as the model  Philosophy = love of knowledge  "Natural" philosophy is early western science  Knowing is reducing to one, unchanging thing  Theoretical reduction of many to one

Dichotomies Of Greek Rationalism  Western "perennial problems" of philosophy  Assumption: explanation is reducing many to one  Assumption: something permanent underlies all change  Shared with Indian Buddhism  Only the permanent is real  Dependent or caused = unreal

Heraclitus: Fire  Series of other ‘reality’ candidates:  Air or the indescribable absolute, or "love"  Often likened to Daoism – constant change  The one is fire--symbolic "substance" for flux  Reality is no permanent reality (no substance)  No reality, only change  Everything includes its opposite  In the process of becoming it (yin-yang)

Also Gradual Substance Change  Cannot step in same river twice  One river, one (?) water  Mass stuffs and countable objects with “lifetimes”  A thing v the stuff it consists of  Not a concern in China

The Law (Logos) ”Exists"  All things in constant change  'Logos' crucial to Western philosophy  Discourse, words (bible), logic, reason, and – ology: Law: “all things change”  Link to 道 dao—guiding discourse  Cannot know changing things  Knowing cannot catch up  Knowledge is of reality so must be permanent  Western knowledge is of eternal "truths"  Add "knowledge-belief" to the list of rationalist dichotomies

Parmenides: Being  Exact opposite: nothing changes  Influence on Plato – and western philosophy  Primacy of reason over experience  Reason tells us experience is deceptive  What is is; what is not is not  Cannot “become”  Truths of reason (tautologies/analytic truths)

Experience A Fantasy/Dream  What is not cannot become anything  Experience is that things change and move but rationally impossible  Proof is hard to understand  Two possible elements  Start tale of differences

First Element  "Cannot speak or think about what is not"  We can only refer to things that exist  "Santa Claus lives at the north pole"  If Santa does not exist, the sentence is false  Consequently, we cannot think or speak about non-being

Second Element  ‘Being’ tied to the Indo-European verb--to be (copula)  Two uses in Indo-European languages  Predicative and existential  Predicative: needed to make a sentence or assertion 他高  Links things to a subject  To describe a thing is to say what "is" of it  What its existence includes

Existential  “X is” = X exists = there is ( 有 ) X  Blending the two uses leads to the view that all change is impossible—why(?)  To describe a change entails that it no longer is what it was before  This is to change “is not” to “is”  Parmenides construes change as non-being becomes being  That is impossible  Hence change is impossible

Classical Chinese Case  Literary Chinese has no copula  “exists” expressed with 有無  Also no required subject term  Doesn’t have a puzzle about how being can change  This “Perennial” problem turns out to be a problem of only one philosophical culture  A problem rooted in the language used to talk of existence and description

Guo Xiang: Like Parmenides  無 cannot become 有 and 有 cannot become 無  Although it changes constantly, it never ceases to exist  So accepts that reality is in constant change— no problem  Can deny movement from non-being to being without denying all change