Ethics and Philosophy – Week 1 The Center for Gifted

1. Ethics and Philosophy – Week 1The Center for Gifted Introduction to Philosophy

2. Day 1 – “The Examined Life” • Introductions • What do you know already about Ethics and Philosophy • Explanation about what we are going to do • Questions activity • The ups and downs of doing philosophy • “The Examined Life” • The Alien game • Summing up – choose your own • Plenary

3. Introductions My school – Claremont Fan Court School- D:\Pictures\Photos for Project Head of Religion and Ethics and Gifted and Talented Coordinator Teacher for nearly 20 years Born and brought up in Africa. First job was running an Art Gallery in Nairobi, Kenya Your turn

4. What do you know already? Courses in school Other courses Books Films etc

5. Philosophy and Ethics - General Outline of our course “The Examined Life” The Tools of the Philosopher Some history of Philosophy and Ethics Problem 1 – Philosophy of Religion Problem 2 – Ethics or how do we know what is right and wrong? Applied Philosophy – Just War Theory Your response – Open evening

6. Deep Questions • Make up a question that you would like to know the answer to • Mill and grab – walk around and find a partner to talk about your question • Find another partner • In groups of 3 or 4 choose one of the questions to discuss and come up with a possible solution • Report back

7. An Examined Life • “An unexamined life is not worth living” Socrates – • It is like driving an unserviced car or following fashion without look in the mirror • About Socrates

8. The ups and downs of doing philosophy – what are they? “The Examined Life” It could be dangerous !- You start to question things in your life You will be dealing with abstract ideas so not any practical use. Pointless because there are never any answers BUT It deals with the fundamental questions about the meaning of our existence

9. PhiloEthicsProject2011 • Have a look • Type in your first name: • Create a post about your thoughts on what we have done each day • It’ll be a good record for you • And great to see what others say Our Blog http://philoethicsproject2011.wordpress.com/

10. Q and A speech quiz oral presentation debate drama hot seating rap role play poetry interview painting slide show poster story board PowerPoint game You choose how to record your response Socratic dialogue written report tv programme video diary soundscape newspaper podcast leaflet/flyer music short story mind map

11. The Faculty of Wonder “The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder” JosteinGaarder

12. The Tools of the Philosopher • The faculty of wonder • The capacity to think • Questions • Answers - from your experience (a posteriori) and reason (a priori) • Is it true – valid, verifiable, inductive or deductive? Critical evaluation. • Coming up with some alternative views..............

13. The nitty gritty of doing philosophy • Do you know what method philosophers use to do philosophy? • It’s ARGUMENT – but not in the disagreement sense • “Philosophical argument” is special

15. Each philosophical argument is made up of a series of premises which are sentences that state the points in an argument. These will lead to a conclusion for example:

16. Many millions of crows have been seen • All observed crows are black • Therefore all crows are black • This is called an a posterioriargument meaning it is based on experience • But it is also an inductive argument because even if the premises are all true the conclusion might not be – another example:

17. Apples are fruit • All the fruit that I have eaten is green • Therefore all apples are green • So what’s wrong with this?

18. It is a proper philosophical argument but it is a weak one. • There are strong and weak inductive arguments • Try making up some of your own.................

19. The second type of argument that philosophers use is called deductive which means that the conclusion has to follow from the premises provided they are true – for example:

20. All men are mortal Socrates was a man What is the conclusion? Therefore Socrates was mortal

21. Deductive reasoning is often used in scientific and mathematical arguments like this: • Gravity makes things fall. • The apple that hit my head was due to gravity. • The are based on an generally accepted truth from which specific instances are drawn. • Now try making some deductive arguments yourself...............

22. How to criticise an argument Two ways of criticising an argument: • 1. attack the truth of the premises • 2. show the argument to be invalid regardless of whether the premises are true

23. Lets take a look at something philosophers have tackled – the problem of evil • What is the problem? • Work in pairs to look at the statements and put them in order. • Identify the one premise that can be challenged. • A philosopher would then create another argument to make this better.

24. If God desires something…………… • If God exists………… • If God is all- good……. • If God is all-powerful…………. • If God wants to prevent………… • Evil exists…….. • Therefore God does not exist The right order for the argument is: And the odd one out is number 5

25. And now your response

26. Brief history of western philosophy Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world?

27. The flawed premise The Alien Scenario Blank paper and pen response Story from Sophie’s World by JosteinGaarder

28. Philosophy Dating Game • Pick a card • Walk around and grab a classmate and ask them the question on the card – if they can’t answer tell them the answer. • Other person now asks his/her question and confirms answer. • SWAP CARDS • Find another person and repeat the process ending with swapping cards. • Soon you will start being asked questions that you have heard before and hopefully you will know the answer • Move on until you have answered at least 6 or more correctly

29. The story of philosophy – the march of intellectual thought - History in 5 mins

30. Philosophy of ancient Greece The Natural Philosophers • These philosophers liberated philosophy from myth and legend • They wanted to know about basic substance and the changes they observed • For example Thales, an empiricist believed the basic substance was water • On the other hand Parmenedes, a rationalist, held that reason told him there was no such thing as change

31. Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world? • Heraclites believed that everything was constantly changing • The last of the great natural philosophers – Democrites did not believe in change, rather he believed that everything was made of tiny invisible blocks which were eternal and immutable called “atoms” which means “un – cutable” in Greek – hence the lego block

32. Philosophy of ancient Greece contin. The Metaphysical philosophers SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE - These are the greats! • SOCRATES – believed that the pure qualities of virtue and justice were the true self. • Saw the soul as the seat of conscious and morality. • Believed knowledge gained through questioning – the Socratic dialogue or dialectic.

33. Western Philosophy continued.... “One thing only that I know, and that is that I know nothing” Socrates

34. Philosophy of ancient Greece contin. Contemplating the divine/human relationship • PLATO (b.428 b.c.e)– One of his key ideas was that the material world was a mere reflection of the ideal forms that were metaphysical - Dualism • ARISTOTLE (b.384 b.c.e.)– believed in God the Prime Mover/First Cause but that everything else was firmly rooted in the material world – what you see is what you get and you must use reason to understand it.

35. Plato – tried to “grasp” reality – what was eternal • Plato agreed with the Natural philosophers that there was a core substance and that everything changes • His idea was that while all on earth changes the ideas or “forms” behind do not. So no horse/pigs or crocophants • These “forms” live in the eternal world of “form” • Hence the ideal or “form” of the horse, human beings etc. • Everything has a body which dies and a soul that survives. –dualism.

36. ARISTOTLE – the last of the great Greek philosophers, the first of the great biologists • “We can only have true knowledge of things that can be understood with our reason” – the earth is transitory so we can only have an opinion about it. Plato Aristotle disagreed and criticised his teacher. He believed that: • Nature was very real. He studied nature minutely and gave scientists much of their terminology still used today. • He said that ideas are in our head, they come from our observation. • Body and Soul inseperable – form (characteristics) and substance (what things are made from)

37. Christian Philosophy AUGUSTINE (b.354 c.e.) THOMAS AQUINAS (1225c.e.) • He used many of Plato’s ideas of body and soul. Born in North Africa he had a great influence on the early church with his ideas of original sin so that man can only fulfil his destiny by God’s grace. He was a dualist. • Another Christian philosopher who achieved the remarkable feat of uniting medieval Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy especially Aristotle’s work. He is the only philosopher to have a system of thought named after him – Thomism.

38. The rise of modern western philosophy Rationalism and Empiricism

39. “DOUBT EVERYTHING” Rene Descartes(b.1596 c.e) There is a direct link between these philosophers – all believed that knowledge can only be obtained through reason (not experience) – they are rationalists

40. The Beginnings of Modern philosophy • Rene Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy. He was both a mathematician and philosopher • He was the next person after Thomas Aquinas for found a whole new philosophical system • His philosophical project was twofold – finding the certainty of knowledge and working out the relationship between mind and body.

41. Cartesiandualism • Cartesian dualism is that the body and mind are made of two entirely different substances that are joined together in the pineal gland in the brain

42. and Cartesian method:........... • To doubt everything and breaking things down into their component part. He doubted everything about himself – he thought “what if I am being controlled by a evil demon?” – then he thought but even if his brain was being controlled at least he would be able to think that he was being controlled therefore: “Cognito ergo sum”

44. David Hume- Scottish philosopher • Unlike Descartes, Hume (b. 1711 c.e) was purely an empiricist but like Descartes he was also a sceptic and atheist (one of the first) • He believed that absolutely nothing can be known unless it could be proved by experience or sense perceptions. • Therefore no real knowledge because it is just our perceptions.

46. He was a scientist but he was goaded into philosophical action by his encounter with the sceptical empiricism of Hume He believed that real knowledge was gained both by experience through the senses (a posteriori) and through reason (a priori). Immanuel Kant (b 1724 c.e.) – attempted to combine rationalism with empiricism

47. Kant’s view on the existence of God • For example he believed that reason tells us that there is an unknowable God even we cannot prove His existence. • God is known through morality because it is inconceivable there would be not ultimate justice – God is the final judge in the afterlife

48. Modern Philosophy “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent” LudwigWittgenstein

49. Ludwig Wittgenstein • Influenced modern philosophy – particularly Logical PositivismandAnalytic Philosophy • He was a soldier in World War 1 • He studied under Bertrand Russell • His philosophy is divided into two periods • He refuted his early work

50. Early work – TractatusLogico-Philosophicus • This philosophy is called “picture theory” • The world is made up of a bunch of parts “atoms” • There is a word for every object and its properties • Language represents everything in this world • If there is no object for a word then it is meaningless