Philosophy 1010 Class #8

Philosophy 1010 Class #8 Title: Introduction to Philosophy Instructor: Paul Dickey E-mail Address: pdickey2@mccneb.edu Today: Submit Exam Retake & Discuss Discussion on Chapter Four Reading Assignment for Next Week. Read Chapter 6, Sections 6.1-6.3 (pp. 394-428) Get started on your class essays!!! Assignment Due on 11/11. Watch Series of videos & take notes. Last Day to Withdraw from Class is 11/4.

“What is Wrong with the Instructor in this Class?” “A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.” “It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in modern teaching, to render as much as possible of what the young are required to learn, easy and interesting to them. But when this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them, to learn anything but what has been made easy and interesting, one of the chief objectives of education is sacrificed.” J. S. Mill, Autobiography

History of Western Philosophy (Series of videos) http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCD181CDF9DF652F7 (2 ½ hours) Take good notes. Write down at least 2 points per each 10 minute section. Your notes are due on 11/11.

Class Essay • Your Class “Essay” will consist of four separate Essay Questions. • Your essay to answer to each question should range from 1 page to 1½ page in length. • Each question is worth 20 points. Thus, your four mini essays will compose 20% of your class grade. • The essays are due on the last day of class (11/18)

Online Sources that you will wish to consult: http://plato.stanford.edu/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/ http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/gpi/philo.htm http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/philosophy.htm

Question One: What is philosophy? What is the point? Should I study it? How is it different from science, common sense, and religious thought?

Question Two: What are the different “fields” or “disciplines” of philosophy? Describe the categorization given in your text and find (in a different source) an alternate formulation of it that contrasts with what is described in the textbook. How do either or both help us in our attempt to achieve the goals of philosophy?

Question Three: Describe Hobbes’ Materialism, Berkeley’s Idealism, and James’ Pragmatism in the way they view Reality. Make it clear what the views say and accurately distinguish them clearly from each other. Give a good argument (with at least three reasons or premises) for each and discuss one serious issue faced by each.

Question Four: Describe the Rationalist tradition in Western Philosophy. Discuss all of the following thinkers within the tradition: Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Rene Descartes. Focus on the four fundamental tenets and show how each did agree with the general view but then describe in some detail what each contributed uniquely to the development of the tradition.

Chapter 4 Philosophy and God (a Metaphysical Study)

What is Religion? • Professor Ninian Smart argues that religion is composed of six dimensions: • Doctrine • Experience with God • Myth • Ritual • Morality, and • Organization • Do you agree? Would you leave any out? Would you include something else?

Does God Exist? • Theism is the belief in a personal God who is creator of the world and present in its processes and who is actively engaged in the affairs of humans. • Pantheism is the belief that God is the universe and its phenomena (taken or conceived of as a whole). God exists but is not personally involved in the lives of men. • Atheism is the denial of Theism. (Metaphysical View) It states that there is no God. • Agnosticism is the view that it cannot be known whether God exists or not. (Epistemological View) • According to Logical Positivism, the question Does God Exist? is meaningless.

First, Can We Even Make Sense of the Question? • Surely before trying to answer the question, one needs to ask the following questions: • What does one mean by the word or concept of “God?” • What is the sense of existence that is being asserted when one says God exists. • Without being clear about these issues, the argument often becomes mostly subjective.

What Do We Mean by “God?” • If we say that God is the “creator of the universe,” do we mean: • 1) that there is a Being that is God that could or could not be the one who created the universe, but as a matter of factis the creator of the universe? Or • 2) that by definition that God is the Being that created the universe such that it would be a logical error to say that God did not create the universe. • Note that if we mean the first, we have still not said who (or what) God is, apart from what he has done. • If we mean the second, of course given the inherent assumptions, then God exists. But we have committed the logical fallacy of “begging the question.”

What is the Meaning of Existence that is Being Used to Say that God Exists? • Is existence a property of an entity? I say “This chair is black.” Blackness is a property of the chair. So that I would say that this chair has the property of “existing” and thus there could be chairs some of which have the property and some don’t. Then would I say that some chairs exist and some do not like I would say some chairs are black and some are not? • Or is existence of the chair identified in terms of its relationship to a real world, say Hobbes’ material world or Berkeley’s mental world? But then what sense does it make to say that God’s existence is dependent upon a world that He created and itself came into “existence” after Him? • If not, then what is this form of existence for God that we are asserting?

So, is Logical Positivism right after all? • Theism is so confused and the sentences in which 'God' appears so incoherent and so incapable of verifiability or falsifiability that to speak of belief or unbelief, faith or unfaith, is logically impossible. • A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic • Wikipedia suggests A. J. Ayer (1910-1989) was an atheist. Ayer’s position on the existence of God should not be confused with atheism. Of course, claiming that God does not exist also lacks analytic or empirical verifiability and is thus also meaningless. • Many (perhaps most?) mid to late 20th century philosophers who abandoned strict logical positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein) still found Ayer’s response to this issue quite credible. • On the other hand, maybe the question is too obvious and important to give up on, so let’s stumble on ….

The Traditional “Proofs” The Ontological Argument • Saint Anselm (c. 1033-1109)provided the classical ontological argument (”proof”) for the existence of God: • First of all, Anselm argues, God is that Being for which “none greater can be conceived.” • But if God did not exist, then we could conceive a greater Being, namely a God that does exist. • Thus, God must exist. • Note: This argument does not give evidence of God’s existence. It attempts to prove it. • Unfortunately, the argument seems to suppose that • Existence is a property of a thing, and • Non-existence is an imperfection.

The Ontological Argument: Kant’s Objection • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued against Anselm’s Ontological Argument that it defines God into existence, that is, Anselm has formed a concept of God that itself requires existence as a property. • Nonexistence was an imperfection, thus God could not have that property since he by definition is perfect. • And thus, Anselm is begging the question. • Few philosophers or theologians today accept Anselm’s Ontological Argument.

The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument • Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)provided several cosmological arguments (”proofs”) for the existence of God that were of the following form: • First of all, Aquinas argues, “Some things move.” • What moves must be moved (caused) by something prior. • This movement (causation) can not have an infinite regression for it must have an origin. • The origin of the movement (the cause) cannot itself move (or be caused). • Thus, God (the original mover or first cause) must exist.

The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument • After Newton, it is necessary to refine Aquinas’ first argument to refer to acceleration rather than motion. • More damaging to his argument however is an objection that questions the assumption that there can be no infinite regress in the causal sequences of the universe. How do we know that the universe is not infinite? • The “Big Bang” theory seems potentially to counter this objection. The universe (along with space and time) does appear to have had a beginning. • But the argument still does not preclude alternatives. Could our universe have come into existence from events in another universe and thus we could still have an infinity of events in multiple universes?

The Traditional “Proofs” The Cosmological Argument • Aquinas believed that even if the universe existed forever, then there would still need to be a First Cause which would be God. • David Hume (1711-1776) disagreed. He claimed that if one had an explanation for all the parts of a thing (in particular, all individual causal links in the universe), it did not require an additional explanation for the whole. • Many analysts, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), have argued that the argument’s premise that every event must have a cause is actually inconsistent with his conclusion that God does not have a cause.

The Traditional “Proofs” The Argument From Design • The Argument From Design, also known as the teleological argument (thus being traced back to Aristotle) states that the order and purpose manifest in the working of nature, and particularly, human nature require that there be a logical designer or God. • This argument is very popular today and is probably the most prevalent and strongest argument for the existence of God. • The best known early formulation of this argument was given by the theologian William Paley (1743-1805). • Paley compared natural organisms to the mechanism of a watch and by analogy argued that as the design of the watch demonstrates the existence of a watchmaker, natural design shows the work of a “Divine Agency.”

The Argument From Design • Relying on a multitude of examples including the migration of birds, the adaptability of species, and the human eye, Paley seemed to make a pretty convincing argument given the science of the day, • David Hume did object however on the basis that as an argument from analogy, the argument was weak. Arguments from analogy are only as strong as our knowledge of the relevant similarities. In this one, we do not know how nature and living things are made and thus that it is at all “like” a watch being made. • Hume was arguing against Paley’s assumption that complex order can be produced only by an intelligent being. That may or may not be the case, Hume would say. Anticipating Darwin, he suggested that perhaps a finite amount of particles in random motion might achieve order.

Philosophy 1010 Class #8