1. Western Philosophy: an Introduction
Kelly Inglis
Office hours: by appointment

2. About the course Tuesdays 10:00-1:00 (sec. 1) 2:30 – 5:30 (sec. 2)
Classroom: U104 (sec. 1) L108 (sec. 2)
For schedule, readings, announcements, etc., see course website:

3. Course content Introduction to Western Philosophy Assessment:
Exploration of philosophical ideas, puzzles and problems through lectures, discussion and videos
Assessment:
30% Participation and quizzes
40% Project (debate, presentation or video project)
30% Final exam

4. Readings
Readings will be made available on-line or through your department. Readings are expected to be completed before the relevant lecture. Discussion and quizzes will depend upon readings being completed before class.

5. Projects 40% of final grade Two choices of project: 1) In-class debate
2) Group video project

6. Debates Two sides: 3 members per side Speaker 1, side 1: 5 minutes
Speaker 3 (responding), side 1: 5 minutes
Speaker 3, (responding), side 2: 5 minutes

7. Debate topics “Neo was justified in killing people in the matrix”
“Cigarette smoking should be banned in public areas”
“Marijuana for medical purposes should be legal”
“It is wrong to eat meat”
“Great apes should have human rights”

8. Video projects Form a team of 3-4 students
Choose a topic related to the course
Obtain permission for your topic
Produce a minutes on your topic
Grades will be for the project as a whole. Each team member will receive the same grade

9. What is philosophy?
Tackling the big questions Epistemology What is real? What can we know? What is logically possible? Morality What is moral? Where does morality come from? How do we decide what is moral? Philosophy of Mind What is consciousness? Do we have free will? What is a person? The Meaning of Life Does life have meaning? What makes a good life?

10. Philosophical topics in this course
Skepticism
Morality
Paternalism vs. Individual Rights
Free Will
Personhood
Personal Identity
Animal Rights
Consciousness
The Meaning of Life
Problems and Paradoxes of Time Travel

11. Skepticism Is the world real? What can we know? Are we dreaming?
Are we brains in a vat?
Are we part of a computer program?

12. Plato’s cave Plato Ancient Greek philosopher Student of Socrates
Approx. 427 BC – 348 BC
The Republic

13. The cave

14. Reality vs. illusion The cave is an illusion
Outside the cave is reality
The prisoner’s know only the illusion
Are we like the prisoners?
Is there another world that is more real than this world?
Spectrum of reality:
Illusion Reality
shadows ordinary objects the Forms
reflections the apparent world the real world

15. Rene Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher and mathematician
Philosophy, scientist, mathematician
Father of analytic geometry
Inventor of Cartesian coordinate geometry

16. Radical skepticism
Meditations on First Philosophy Meditation I: Concerning Those Things That Can Be Called into Doubt Radical skepticism Doubt everything 1) Dream argument 2) Evil demon hypothesis

17. Could you be dreaming right now?

18. If you’re dreaming right now, what are you?

19. Zhuangzi Ancient Chinese philosopher (4th century B.C.)
Dreamt he was a butterfly
“Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.” (2, tr. Burton Watson 1968:49)

20. Evil demon
Descartes: Could a demon fool me about everything? Could you be wrong about everything? The whole world? Mathematics?

21. What cannot be doubted?
Descartes’s answer:
I think therefore I am.
Thoughts, ideas, perceptions are real.
Everything else is in doubt.
Maybe the world is not real.

22. Plato vs. Descartes
Descartes: I am real, you are not
Plato: we’re in the same “dream”
Note: Plato taught that this world is not real but there is a higher reality. Descartes ultimately decided that the world we see and experience is real.
Zhuangzi??

24. Goggles
Earphones
Touch sensors
Motion sensors
Pain synthesizers

25. No goggles, earphones, etc.
Direct brain stimulation

26. No body Brain in a vat supercomputer experiences
floating in nutritious fluid
attached to electrodes
electrodes attached to a
supercomputer
supercomputer generating
experiences

27. Could you be a brain in a vat today?
Your brain was taken out of your body last night and attached to electrodes
You are not here. I am not here.

28. Or maybe you’ve always been a brain in a vat.
Your brain was removed at birth, put into a vat and attached to electrodes.
Nothing you’ve seen or heard or done was real. It was all simulated
You don’t live on Earth. You live on planet Zorgon in a lab run by aliens.

29. Or there are no labs, no planets, no brains.
Brain in a vat is just one more version of a skeptical argument.
If we don’t know if the world is real, etc., then we don’t know if brains are real.
Maybe our minds are stimulated directly by a demon. No brain. No electrodes. (Back to Descartes)

30. Readings on Skepticism
 Required reading:
Plato, Allegory of the Cave, at:
Suggested reading:
Stephen Law, The Philosophy Files, Chapter 2, “How do I know
the world isn’t virtual” (on reserve?) (fun)
Descartes, Meditation I (and Meditation II) at: (challenging)
Daniel Dennett, “Where am I?”, at: (challenging)