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Lecture Notes on Philosophy for Foreign Students А.О. Борисова, М.В. Арделян, О.М. Муравйова, Л.В. Саватєєва LECTURE NOTES ON PHILOSOPHY FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS Навчальний посібник для іноземних студентів з англійською формою навчання Харків 2015 5 МІНІСТЕРСТВО ОСВІТИ І НАУКИ УКРАЇНИ ХАРКІВСЬКИЙ ДЕРЖАВНИЙ УНІВЕРСИТЕТ ХАРЧУВАННЯ ТА ТОРГІВЛІ А.О. Борисова, М.В. Арделян, О.М. Муравйова, Л.В. Саватєєва LECTURE NOTES ON PHILOSOPHY FOR FOREIGN STUDENTS Навчальний посібник для іноземних студентів з англійською формою навчання Харків 2014 6 CONTENTS Introduction 5 Lecture1. What is Philosophy? Why Learn Philosophy? Good Arguments. 6 Lecture 2. Philosophical Topics. Sophists and Philosophers. 12 Lecture 3. Virtues of Philosophy. Appropriate Skepticism. Appropriate 15 Open-Mindedness. Dogma. Fanaticism Is Philosophy Oppressive? Lecture 4. Dialectic. The Search for Truth. Philosophical Skepticism. 19 Philosophical Relativism. Why Philosophical Relativism Is Wrong? Lecture 5. Ancient Philosophy. Introduction. Early Ancient Greek 29 Philosophers. Lecture 6. The Development of Early Ancient Greek Philosophy. 33 Pythagoras. Heraclitus. Zeno. Lecture 7. The Sophists. Protagoras. Democritus. Plato. Aristotle. 38 Lecture 8. Medieval Philosophy. General Introduction. Early Medieval 50 Philosophers. Plotinus. Lecture 9. Christian Philosophers. Augustine. Thomas Aquinas. 53 Lecture 10. Islamic and Jewish Philosophers. Avicenna. 60 Lecture 11. Modern Philosophy. General Introduction. The Birth of 63 Science. Lecture 12. The Enlightenment Philosophers. Rene Descartes. Spinoza. 68 Lecture 13. The Empiricists. Francis Bacon. 75 Lecture 14. The Enlightenment Philosophy. J.-J. Rousseau. I. Kant. 80 Lecture 15. The Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Introduction. The 88 German Idealists. G. Hegel. A. Schopenhauer. Lecture 16. The Existentialists. F. Nietzsche. 96 Lecture 17. The Utilitarians and Marxists. K. Marx. The American 100 Pragmatists. C. Peirce. Lecture 18. The Twentieth-Century Philosophy. General Introduction. 108 Frege. Husserl. Lecture 19. The Logical Atomists. B. Russell. Wittgenstein. Part I. 114 Lecture 20. The Logical Positivists. Rudolf Carnap. 123 Lecture 21. Ordinary Language Philosophy. Wittgenstein. Part II. 127 Lecture 22. The Analytic Philosophers. W. Quine. T. Kuhn. 131 Lecture 23. The Phenomenologists and Existentialists. Heidegger. 139 Lecture 24. The Hermeneutics and the Postmodernists. 142 Lecture 25. The Revival of Nietzsche. Michel Foucault. 146 7 Appendix 1. Ancient Indian and Chinese Philosophy. 151 Appendix 2. The Basic Stages of Development of the Ukrainian 154 Philosophy. Appendix 3. Philosophy of Globalism. 160 Appendix 4. 20th-century Philosophy. 162 Appendix 5. Glossary of Philosophical Terms. 164 Appendix 6. Top 10 Greatest Philosophers in History. 217 Reference Literature 226 8 Introduction Our lectures are meant to help students understand what philosophy looks like. This guide doesn’t pretend to describe everything about philosophy. It provides perspectives about what philosophy is about. This work contains basic ideas that everyone interested in philosophy should consider. Our understanding of philosophy is one partly moral. Philosophy tells us how we should argue and how we can be free to think for ourselves to improve our lives. This entire work is indebted to our philosophical education. Several arguments are presented throughout this guide. We may not agree with all of the arguments presented, and students should also feel free to question them. What is important is to have examples of potentially persuasive arguments for us to consider on our own. It should also be noted that some of the arguments are also presented to have the opposite effect and help us understand what bad arguments look like. Our lectures may not make you a philosopher. But they provide you with everything you need to become one. A covert purpose of our classes is to bring philosophy to you, even more importantly to bring you to philosophy. 9 Lecture 1. What is Philosophy? Why Learn Philosophy? Good Arguments. What is Philosophy? You have probably heard the word “philosophy” used many times. People say things like, “That’s my philosophy,” “What’s your philosophy?” and “That’s your philosophy!” When used in this way, philosophy seems to mean little more than “opinion” or “perspective.” This is not what philosophy means in the classroom. Philosophy is the quest for the best opinions possible and the best life possible. Everyone has an opinion, but we can’t just assume that our opinions are right. We should question our own beliefs and seek justifications for them. Philosophy in the classroom is focused on good arguments. Good arguments require: 1) an understanding of logic and 2) an understanding of justifications. In philosophy you are not allowed to believe whatever you want because you have to be able to justify your beliefs. In everyday life, the word “argument” is often taken as a kind of confrontation. We “argue” with people when we have a “fight” with them. Arguments generally are disagreements and can relate to power struggles. The following is an example of how some people view arguments: You: The new Star Wars movies weren’t very good. Friend: Yes, they were. They had great special effects. You: No, they weren’t. They had boring characters. Friend: They were good movies. You: No, they weren’t! Friend: Yes, they were! Fortunately, this is not what “argument” means in philosophy. Arguments in philosophy require “a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition”. These kinds of arguments can indeed be heated and insulting. We could often describe philosophical arguments as being “adversarial.” Such intellectual arguments often require criticisms, which are meant to be helpful to others (constructive criticism), but people rarely want to find out that they are wrong about their beliefs. Insofar as a philosophy class has to do with arguments, it is not separate from any other kind of class. Many classes give you arguments to believe one thing or another, and it is often important for you to think of your own arguments. Many upper division classes will expect you to be able to write argumentative papers. 10 Philosophy is a subject quite unlike any other. General, natural and social subjects try to gain knowledge of parts of the world through controlled observation or experiment. Knowledge gained in this way is called empirical knowledge. For example, one tries to measure how much force it takes to destroy a neutron. This assumes the idea of force and neutrons. Suppose one tries to understand why people fall in love; this presupposes the concept of love. Finally it is clear that in the practice of law, whole sets or families of concepts are presupposed, such as the notion of a correct and fair procedure. Philosophy is the non-empirical study of such concepts; it is an activity usually aimed at clarifying, redefining, or at creating new ones. Such clarifications and understandings are non-empirical in the sense that, in principle, the resulting knowledge could not be gained through the observation alone. To answer the question “What is love?” it is not sufficient simply to study or observe people who are in love though it might be help. One has to engage in reflective thinking about the meaning of the term and the nature of love itself. For example, one has to answer questions such as “Is loving someone different from being in love with him or her?” and “Are there differences between loving and liking someone, and what are they?” So questions such as “Do ghosts exist?” and “Is life in the Andromeda galaxy?” are purely empirical. Even if we do not know the replies to those questions in principle they would have to be answered through the observation alone. In other words, they are not philosophical questions because they are empirical rather than conceptual. In contrast, “What is a ghost?” or “What counts as life?” are conceptual. Answer the following questions: 1. What does the word “philosophy” mean in everyday life? 2. What is philosophy as a science? 3. What does the word “argument” mean in everyday life? 4. What does “argument” mean in philosophy? 5. How could we describe philosophical arguments? 6. What arguments require criticism? 7. Why is it important for you to think of arguments? 8. Why is philosophy unlike any other subjects? 11 Why Learn Philosophy? It might be useful to consider what we can get out of learning philosophy. This can help us be receptive to making connections between everyday life and philosophy. 1. It can help you live a thoughtful life. 2. It can help you think clearly and critically. 3. It can help you understand arguments. 4. It can help you master argumentation to get what you want out of life. 5. It can help you understand how to justify your arguments. 6. It can help you avoid deception. In addition, people who have devoted their life to philosophy have revolutionized the world. Socrates invented the dialectic method and developed the idea of moral virtue, Plato helped to invent political science, Aristotle invented logic and helped to invent empirical science, the Stoic philosophers invented propositional logic, and logicians invented computers. The list goes on and on. By devoting your life to philosophy, you can find out what people have already thought of and it can help you think of ideas that have never been thought of before. Good Arguments In order to know what philosophy is, you must understand what arguments are. Philosophy can be very clear, easy to understand, and it can be used to show us what we have reason to believe. There are the following three good arguments for your amusement: 1) The Argument for Predictions, 2) the Argument for Coherence, 3) the Argument for Criticism. We hope each of these arguments will be easy to understand and easy to agree with. Each argument will be organized into separate thoughts that are numbered one after another. The final thought is the conclusion of the argument. 1) Argument for Predictions 1. A scientific theory will fail to predict future events unless (a) there is a coincidence or (b) the theory is accurate.
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