Exploring Reality: Metaphysical Perspective in Philosophy

1. Philosophy 1010 Class #7 Title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Paul Dickey E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu Today Discuss Mid-term Exam. Discuss Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 3 – Reality & Being Watch one of the movies discussed in Chapter Three. See p. 147, 154, 165, 179, or 186. Be prepared to discuss the movie in its relation to the class discussion. 10/23/03 . Discuss Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 4. Sections 4.1 thru 4.5. - Class discussion assignments to be made.

2. Chapter 3 • Reality and Being • (a Metaphysical Study) • ***

3. Realism • Realism is the view that the real world exists independent of our language, our thoughts, our perceptions, or our beliefs about it. • Our common sense demands of us that we believe in realism. • But how can we know that “our wonderful world is real?” Can we prove it? Or alternately, do we have evidence? Can we provide “reasons to believe” without “begging the question?” • And what does it even mean for our world to be “real?” If someone were to say that the world was NOT real, what would he mean? What we understand that he was saying?

4. What Is Reality? • For now, let us assume we are realists, that is, we believe in realism. So what is the reality we believe in? • Some might argue that reality is what we experience through our senses. • Or would you perhaps argue that reality consists of more than the material world? What about justice, mathematics, liberty, freedom, truth, beauty, space, time, and love? • Is language real? • Is God real? • Or the sub-atomic theoretical entities that physics asserts? Are they real?

5. Metaphysics is the Study of What is Real • The most fundamental question in metaphysics may be: • Is reality purely material or is there reality beyond the material? • We already discussed this question to some degree in terms of the mind/body problem, but now we will begin to look at this issue in a much broader scope. • We have already seen the materialism of Thomas Hobbes, particular in the context of the mind/body problem. Hobbes, however, argued for Materialism in a much broader sense.

6. Descartes & The Scientific Revolution In 1636, a Hobbes travels to Italy where he may have met with Galileo. With the influence of Galileo, Hobbes develops his social philosophy on principles of geometry and natural science. Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science“ Galileo proposes that physics should be a “new science” based on methods of observation not just on the methods of reason.

7. Materialism • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) rejects Cartesian dualism claiming that Descartes Mind/Body problem itself refutes dualism. • Since mind and body cannot interact, they cannot both exist within human nature. • There can only be one realm of human nature and that is the material world. • All human activities, including the mental, can be explained on the paradigm of a machine.

8. Materialism • Hobbes was reductionist in that he believed that one kind of purported reality (the mind) could be understood entirely in terms of another (matter). • New scientific techniques of observation and measurement being used by Galileo, Kepler, and Copernicus were making giant strides in understanding the universe. • The spirit of his century suggested to Hobbes that all reality would be explained in time in terms only of the observable and the measurable. • Hobbes himself was unable to explain any mental processes in terms of the physical. • Perhaps motivating Hobbes’ view was basically his passionate faith in the advancement of science at the time.

9. The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for Materialism • The argument from common sense: • If there are other realities besides the material, can they causally interact with the material world? • If so, how can this interaction happen? If they can not interact, what does it mean to say that such a reality exists? • Please note this may be moredifficult that even the mind/body problem where we do seem to have direct evidence to believe that our own consciousness exists.

10. The Prima Facie (or Self-evident) Case for Materialism • The argument from science: • Science seems to be our most developed and useful organized body of knowledge about the world by focusing on observation and measurement of the physical material world. In the history of science, discussion of any kinds of entities other than material entities largely have been blind alleys. • The history of science is full of examples where entities once thought to be necessary to explain life and man have been replaced by fully causal explanations in terms of chemicals and biological processes. Doesn’t it seem reasonable that this also may be the case with mental states? (4:58)

11. Is There an Alternative to Materialism? Idealism & Plato’s Theory of Forms • The view that reality is primarily composed of ideas or thought rather than a material world is the doctrine known as Idealism. That is, an Idealist would say that a world of material objects containing no thought either could not exist or at the least would not be fully "real." • The earliest formulation of this view is given to us by Plato. • In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, the world of shadows is representative of the material world and is not fully real.

12. Modern Idealism • The founder of modern Idealism is Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753). • Berkeley argued against Hobbes’ Materialism that the conscious mind and its ideas and perceptions are the basic reality. • Berkeley believed that the world we perceive does exist. However that world is not external to and independent of the mind. • The external world is derived from the mind. • However, there is a further reality beyond our own minds. Since we have ordered perceptions of the world which are not controlled by an individual’s mind, they must be produced by God’s divine mind. • (9:00)

13. Pragmatism • The major pragmatist philosophers are Charles S. Pierce (1839-1914) and William James (1842-1910). • To the American Pragmatists, the debate between materialism and idealism had become a pointless philosophical exercise. • They wanted philosophy to “get real” (as we might say today.) • The Pragmatists argued that philosophy loses its way when it loses sight of the social problems of its day. Thus, the Pragmatists focused on issues of practical consequence. For them, asking even what is real in the complete sense is not an abstract matter.

14. Pragmatism • In terms of Metaphysics, James argued against both sense observation and scientific method and reason as the determinants of reality. • Reality is determined by its relation to our “emotional and active life.” In that sense, a man determines his own reality. What is real is what “works” for us. • Pragmatism was refreshing and offered new insights to various disciplines, particularly psychology as a developing science. • Ultimately to most philosophers, pragmatism failed to give a systematic response to the traditional philosophical issues that Materialism and Idealism were struggling with.

15. Logical Positivism • Similar somewhat to the American Pragmatists, the Logical Positivists also viewed the debate between materialism and idealism as a pointless philosophical exercise. • Unlike the Pragmatists however, they identified the problem with the metaphysical debate as a problem in understanding language and meaning. • The Logical Positivists proclaimed that Metaphysics was meaningless and both Materialists and Idealists were making claims that amounted to nonsense. They might be proposing theories that seemed to be different but had no consequences to our understanding of the world. • A.J. Ayer (1910 – 1989) proposed a criterion by which it could be determined what was a meaningful statement to make about reality.

16. The Logical Positivist Criteria of Meaning • Metaphysical statements such as “God exists” or “Man has a mind and body” or ethical statements such as “Lying is wrong” are meaningless for Ayer. • Such statements do not make assertions about the world, but in fact only express emotions and feelings like poetry. • A statement can only be meaningful if it is verifiable by means of shared experience.