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Endorsement by Dr Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Closer to Truth
Closer To Truth Robert Lawrence Kuhn May 25, 2020 To Whom It May Concern: It is a pleasure to provide our wholehearted endorsement of the ZerOrigIndia project and to offer Closer To Truth’s public outreach and promotional resources to support the vital research and understanding of “Zero” as it will no doubt emerge from the ZerOrigIndia project. The concept of Zero is both a critical event in intellectual history and a milestone in the development of mathematics, science and technology. The exploration of zero’s origin, culturally and linguistically as well as mathematically and philosophically, could elicit novel ideas and new ways of thinking. Moreover, the broader philosophical significance of Zero reveals transcendental ideas of Nothing, Emptiness, Void, Blank as features of reality to be apprehended and appreciated and perhaps applied to entirely new categories of thought. Indeed, “Nothing” is a prime Closer To Truth theme. The outstanding group of scholars and thinkers devoted to ZerOrigIndia should encourage our support. Closer To Truth will publish and promote relevant research from the ZerOrigIndia project. As background, Closer To Truth (CTT), featuring world-renown scientists and philosophers, is the definitive PBS/public television series and web archive on Cosmos (cosmology/physics/mathematics, philosophy of science), Consciousness (brain/mind, philosophy of mind) and Meaning/God (theism/atheism/agnosticism, philosophy of religion, critical thinking). The Closer To Truth YouTube channel, offering high intellectual content, is running at >1 million views and >11 million minutes watched per month; >125,000 subscribers; >60% outside the US. You may use my endorsement to support the ZerOrigIndia project in any way deemed appropriate. -
Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James Magrini College of Dupage, [email protected]
College of DuPage [email protected]. Philosophy Scholarship Philosophy 7-1-2012 Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James Magrini College of DuPage, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub Part of the Education Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Magrini, James, "Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education" (2012). Philosophy Scholarship. Paper 30. http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub/30 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at [email protected].. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Scholarship by an authorized administrator of [email protected].. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James M. Magrini Existentialism, and specifically phenomenology, in qualitative educational research, tends to be misunderstood. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that scholars/researchers writing in the field often emulate and imitate the dense writing styles of philosophical forerunners in phenomenology such as Hegel, Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Thus the writing is beyond the comprehension of many education professionals and practitioners. Existentialism and phenomenology need not be highly complex. Here I provide a summary of existentialism and phenomenology in accessible terms so that educators might see the potential this type of philosophy holds for enhancing our educational endeavors. 1. Existentialism is a modern philosophy emerging (existence-philosophy) from the 19th century, inspired by such thinkers as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Unlike traditional philosophy, which focuses on “objective” instances of truth, existentialism is concerned with the subjective, or personal, aspects of existence. -
Descartes' Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View
R ené Descartes (1596-1650) is generally regarded as the “father of modern philosophy.” He stands as one of the most important figures in Western intellectual history. His work in mathematics and his writings on science proved to be foundational for further development in these fields. Our understanding of “scientific method” can be traced back to the work of Francis Bacon and to Descartes’ Discourse on Method. His groundbreaking approach to philosophy in his Meditations on First Philosophy determine the course of subsequent philosophy. The very problems with which much of modern philosophy has been primarily concerned arise only as a consequence of Descartes’thought. Descartes’ philosophy must be understood in the context of his times. The Medieval world was in the process of disintegration. The authoritarianism that had dominated the Medieval period was called into question by the rise of the Protestant revolt and advances in the development of science. Martin Luther’s emphasis that salvation was a matter of “faith” and not “works” undermined papal authority in asserting that each individual has a channel to God. The Copernican revolution undermined the authority of the Catholic Church in directly contradicting the established church doctrine of a geocentric universe. The rise of the sciences directly challenged the Church and seemed to put science and religion in opposition. A mathematician and scientist as well as a devout Catholic, Descartes was concerned primarily with establishing certain foundations for science and philosophy, and yet also with bridging the gap between the “new science” and religion. Descartes’ Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View 1) Descartes’ disbelief in authoritarianism: Descartes’ belief that all individuals possess the “natural light of reason,” the belief that each individual has the capacity for the discovery of truth, undermined Roman Catholic authoritarianism. -
Events and the Nature of Time: Seth Lloyd Source URL
Events and the Nature of Time: Seth Lloyd Source URL: https://www.closertotruth.com/interviews/55447 Transcript - Long Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Seth, we're both at this – start again. Seth, we're both at this FQXi Conference in Banff, this beautiful area, um, about the physics of events, the importance of events and understanding what physics is, and one of the topics that we're looking at is the nature of time and how events can help us understand what time really is. How – how does that work? How can events help us understand what time is? Seth Lloyd: Well, now, that is something that unfolds in time, like a clock ticking or a – an electron moving from here to there, or a bit flipping in a computer. Or, you know, just our thoughts moving on and our conversation progressing. Um, now time is a mysterious thing and we don't understand it well. Heraclitus said that time is like a river, like this beautiful river here [clears throat], the water flowing and then time ever moving onward and, um – ah, but what makes us feel and perceive that time is going? Um, so, ah – the first answer is I don't know. Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Almost every question is the same. [Laughter.] Seth Lloyd: Yeah, um, but – but there are, ah, different eras of time. There's a perceptual era of time where we don't know something and then we know – know something that we didn't know. This is about getting information. Um, there's a – a conversation, talking back and forth, interacting, where – where you tell me some information, I get the information. -
Why This Universe? Toward a Taxonomy of Possible Explanations
28 viewing cosmologists, physicists, philosophers, and theologians, asking them, among other ques- Why This tions, “Why This Universe?” From their many answers, and from my own night musings, I have constructed a taxonomy5 that I present here as a heuristic to help get our minds around this Universe? ultimate and perennial question. The Problem to be Solved Toward a Taxonomy In recent years, the search for scientific explana- tions of reality has been energized by increasing of Possible Explanations recognition that the laws of physics and the con- stants that are embedded in these laws all seem ROBERT LAWRENCE KUHN exquisitely “fine tuned” to allow, or to enable, the WHEN I WAS 12, IN THE SUMMER BETWEEN existence of stars and planets and the emergence seventh and eighth grades, a sudden realization of life and mind. If the laws of physics had much struck such fright that I strove desperately to blot differed, if the values of their constants had much it out, to eradicate the disruptive idea as if it changed, or if the initial conditions of the uni- were a lethal mind virus. My body shuddered verse had much varied, what we know to exist with dread; an abyss had yawned open. Five would not exist since all things of size and sub- decades later I feel its frigid blast still. stance would not have formed. Stephen Hawking Why not Nothing? 1 What if everything had presented the problem this way: always been Nothing? Not just emptiness, not just Why is the universe so close to the dividing line blankness, and not just emptiness and blankness between collapsing again and expanding indefinitely? forever, but not even the existence of emptiness, In order to be as close as we are now, the rate of not even the meaning of blankness, and no forev- expansion early on had to be chosen fantastically er. -
© 2017 Luis H. Favela, Ph.D. 1 University of Central Florida PHI
1 University of Central Florida PHI 3320: Philosophy of Mind Fall 2017, Syllabus, v. 08222017 Course Information ¨ Title: Philosophy of Mind ¨ Course number: PHI 3320 ¨ Credit hours: 3.0 ¨ Term: Fall semester 2017 ¨ Mode: Web Instructor Information ¨ Name: Luis Favela, Ph.D. (Please refer to me as “Dr. Favela” or “Professor Favela.”) ¨ Email: [email protected] ¨ Website: http://philosophy.cah.ucf.edu/staff.php?id=1017 ¨ Office location: PSY 0245 ¨ Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 1:30 – 3:00 pm Course Description ¨ Catalogue description: Recent and contemporary attempts to understand the relation of mind to body, the relation of consciousness to personhood, and the relation of psychology to neurobiology. ¨ Detailed description: This course introduces some of the main arguments, concepts, and theories in the philosophy of mind. Some of the questions addressed in the philosophy of mind include: “What are minds made of,” “How does the mind relate to the brain,” and “what is consciousness?” Answers to these questions have consequences for a wide range of other disciplines, including computer science, ethics, neuroscience, and theology. The first part of the course covers the main philosophical views concerning mind, such as dualism, behaviorism, identity theory, functionalism, and eliminativism. The second part of the course focuses on consciousness, and questions such as: “Does ‘consciousness’ exist,” “Is consciousness physical,” and “Can there be a science of consciousness?” Student Learning Outcomes ¨ Students will be able to describe the main philosophical views concerning the mind. § Students will be able to reconstruct the arguments underlying the main philosophical views concerning the mind. § Students will be able to articulate their positions concerning whether or not they agree with the conclusions of the arguments behind the main philosophical views concerning the mind. -
“Modern” Philosophy: Introduction
“Modern” Philosophy: Introduction [from Debates in Modern Philosophy by Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo (Routledge, 2013)] This course discusses the views of various European of his contemporaries (e.g. Thomas Hobbes) did see philosophers of the seventeenth century. Along with themselves as engaged in a new project in philosophy the thinkers of the eighteenth century, they are con- and the sciences, which somehow contained a new sidered “modern” philosophers. That might not seem way of explaining how the world worked. So, what terribly modern. René Descartes was writing in the was this new project? And what, if anything, did all 1630s and 1640s, and Immanuel Kant died in 1804. these modern philosophers have in common? By many standards, that was a long time ago. So, why is the work of Descartes, Kant, and their contempor- Two themes emerge when you read what Des- aries called modern philosophy? cartes and Hobbes say about their new philosophies. First, they think that earlier philosophers, particu- In one way this question has a trivial answer. larly so-called Scholastic Aristotelians—medieval “Modern” is being used here to describe a period of European philosophers who were influenced by time, and to contrast it with other periods of time. So, Aristotle—were mistaken about many issues, and modern philosophy is not the philosophy of today as that the new, modern way is better. (They say nicer contrasted with the philosophy of the 2020s or even things about Aristotle himself, and about some other the 1950s. Rather it’s the philosophy of the 1600s previous philosophers.) This view was shared by and onwards, as opposed to ancient and medieval many modern philosophers, but not all of them. -
Atheism's Best Arguments? (Part 1): David Bentley Hart Source URL
Atheism's Best Arguments? (Part 1): David Bentley Hart Source URL: https://www.closertotruth.com/interviews/57486 Transcript - Long Robert Lawrence Kuhn: David, you believe in God and argue for God's existence. Part of that is attacking those who would deny God's existence, atheists. So, when you hear atheistic arguments, what are your reactions to them? David Bentley Hart: It depends on how good they are. In recent years, we've seen a little cottage industry spring up in marketing very bad arguments for atheism, so, then my reaction is ill-concealed scorn, right? Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Let's just differentiate. Let's start with the bad arguments. What are some of those? David Bentley Hart: I mean, the sort of arguments you would find in Richard Dawkins in which he clearly misunderstands claims about ontological contingency and thinks you can conjure them away by having this efficiently comprehensive cosmology, or when he says something like, evolution answers the question of existence, that's actually something he says. I mean, you realize there that you're dealing with category errors so profound that they verge on the infinite. So, those are bad arguments. And in general, my list of fine atheist philosophers in the 20th Century is a small one. Mackey would probably be it, really. Sobel, in the English-speaking world. I think there was a greater age of atheism in the 19th Century. Profounder arguments, simply because they were based on a deeper knowledge of what they were attacking. Nietzsche. Nietzsche understood Christianity. Not every aspect of it. -
SPINOZA's ETHICS: FREEDOM and DETERMINISM by Alfredo Lucero
SPINOZA’S ETHICS: FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM by Alfredo Lucero-Montaño 1. What remains alive of a philosopher's thought are the realities that concern him, the problems that he addresses, as well as the questions that he poses. The breath and depth of a philosopher's thought is what continues to excite and incite today. However, his answers are limited to his time and circumstances, and these are subject to the historical evolution of thought, yet his principal commitments are based on the problems and questions with which he is concerned. And this is what resounds of a philosopher's thought, which we can theoretically and practically adopt and adapt. Spinoza is immersed in a time of reforms, and he is a revolutionary and a reformer himself. The reforming trend in modern philosophy is expressed in an eminent way by Descartes' philosophy. Descartes, the great restorer of science and metaphysics, had left unfinished the task of a new foundation of ethics. Spinoza was thus faced with this enterprise. But he couldn't carry it out without the conviction of the importance of the ethical problems or that ethics is involved in a fundamental aspect of existence: the moral destiny of man. Spinoza's Ethics[1] is based on a theory of man or, more precisely, on an ontology of man. Ethics is, for him, ontology. He does not approach the problems of morality — the nature of good and evil, why and wherefore of human life — if it is not on the basis of a conception of man's being-in-itself, to wit, that the moral existence of man can only be explained by its own condition. -
Madness, Reason, and Truth: an Examination of Two Philosophical Debates
W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 7-2012 Madness, Reason, and Truth: An Examination of Two Philosophical Debates Catherine Leigh Robey College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Robey, Catherine Leigh, "Madness, Reason, and Truth: An Examination of Two Philosophical Debates" (2012). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 534. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/534 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Madness, Reason, and Truth: An Examination of Two Philosophical Debates A thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirement for an award of honors in the department of Religious Studies from The College of William and Mary by Catherine Leigh Robey Williamsburg, VA May 3, 2012 Table of Contents I. INTRODUCTION 5 II. HEGEL, PLATO, AND KIERKEGAARD: AN ANALYSIS OF THE SUBJECTIVITY OF AN OBJECTIVE PHENOMENON 8 INTRODUCTION 8 HEGEL – THREE MAIN FORMS OF MADNESS 9 “IDIOCY” 9 “MADNESS PROPER” 11 “MANIA OR FRENZY” 12 HEGEL – REASON, UNIVERSALITY, OBJECTIVITY, AND THE DOCTRINE OF MEDIATION 13 PLATO AND “DIVINE MADNESS” 16 “MADNESS OF PROPHECY” 17 “MADNESS OF THE MYSTIC” 18 “MADNESS -
PHILOSOPHY 27 Early Modern Philosophy in This Course We Will
PHILOSOPHY 27 Early Modern Philosophy Michael Epperson CSUS Office: Mendocino Hall # 3036 Fall 2010 Telephone: 278-4535 T & TH 10:30 – 11:45, Amador 152 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: By Appointment Description In this course we will examine the ways in which the scientific and political innovations of 16th, 17th, and 18th century Europe both influenced and were influenced by the rationalist and empiricist philosophical traditions that competed and flourished during this period. We will study the works of several philosophers working within these two traditions as they struggled to make sense of the scientific and social revolutions sweeping through their world; and we will see how their work would, in turn, help shape these revolutions, even as they continue to evolve today. One focus of the course, then, will be to examine the ways in which these philosophical traditions have maintained their relevance and influence in our own millennium as 21st century science struggles with its most difficult questions yet. Our survey will entail a careful reading and critique of the metaphysical and epistemological schemes developed by key philosophers of the early modern period, beginning with the work of Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes and concluding with Kant and his revolutionary synthesis of the rationalist and empiricist worldviews. The course website can be found at: www.csus.edu/cpns/epperson. Requirements Our work will primarily be lecture and discussion, so both careful attention to the readings and class participation will be crucial for a lively course. Please bring your text to class. There will be two examinations--one take-home mid-term paper and one in-class final--as well as several homework assignments and unannounced short answer quizzes on the readings. -
An Introduction to Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so.