This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported CROSSROADS OF TRADITIONAL PHILOSOPHY Frederick B. Mills With Historical Essays by George Sochan Bowie State University i This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported For Evelyn Gonzalez-Mills, who holds the beacon on the path. ii This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Acknowledgments I owe a great philosophical debt to Ralph Acampora, who provided many useful comments on the introduction and the section on epistemology. I am grateful to Benjamin Arah for reading the first draft and making suggestions that influenced the overall design of this work. I appreciate the helpful comments of Joseph Kum, George Sochan, and Mario Fenyo of the History and Government Department at Bowie State University. I am grateful to Dr. Sammye Miller and Dr. William Lewis who supported my work on the first edition of the text. Frederick B. Mills Bowie State University March 2002 Thanks to Dr. George Sochan who gave permission to include his historical essays in this Creative Commons version of Crossroads. Frederick B. Mills Bowie State University August 2012 iii This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported CONTENTS Preface for students Note on historical essays Part One: Basic Concepts 1. Subfields of philosophy 2. The crossroad 3. The philosophic life 3.1 Plato: The Apology (philosophy as a way of life) 3.2 Plato: The cave analogy (philosophy as education) 3.3 Gandhi: Ahimsa and Satyagraha (philosophy and truth force) 3.4 Martin Luther King Jr.: “A Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (philosophy and social justice) 4. Reflection and Choice 4.1 W. E. B. DuBois: Double consciousness, 4.2 Simone de Beauvoir : The “second sex” 4.3 Soren Kierkegaard: The Seriousness of Making Choices Part Two: Epistemology 5. Getting started: The path to the cogito 5.1 From Cartesian doubt to the cogito 5.2 John Locke: primary and secondary qualities iv This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported 5.3 Bishop George Berkeley: critique of indirect scientific realism 6. David Hume: Starting over 6.1 Matters of fact (impressions and ideas) and relations between ideas 6.2 Critique of the concept of causality and the limits of induction 7 Immanuel Kant: Copernican revolution in epistemology 7.1 Human reason as constructive 7.2 Providing theoretical justification for the scientific method 7.3 Post-Kantian theory of knowledge Part Three: Metaphysics 8 Classical metaphysics 8.1 The Pre-Socratics: Being and becoming; the one and the many 8.2 Plato: Theory of forms 8.3 Aristotle: The four causes 9. Early modern metaphysics 9.1 Rene Descartes: Substance dualism 9.2 Thomas Hobbes: Physicalism 9.3 Bishop George Berkeley: Phenomenalism 9.4 David Hume: Critique of metaphysics 9.5 Immanuel Kant: Rehabilitation of metaphysics 10. Karl Marx : Theory of alienation 11. Friedrich Nietzsche: The death of God 12. Contemporary philosophy of mind v This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported 12.1 The problem of consciousness 12.2 Behaviorist strategy 12.3 Functionalist strategy 12.4 Paul Churchland: Critique of dualism 12.5 Fred Mills: The easy versus the hard problem of consciousness 12.6 John Searle: Four features of the mental 12.7 Douglas Hofstadter: Can machines think? Part Four: Ethics 13. What is ethics? 14. Classical ethics 14.1 Plato: justice in the soul 14.2 Aristotle: practice makes virtuous 14.3 The Sophists: moral relativism 14.4 Epictetus: The Stoic response 15. The Problem of Evil 15.1 Plato: Euthyphro 15.2 Saint Augustine: On evil 16. Early modern and nineteenth century ethical theories 16.1David Hume: Moral sentiment 16.2John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism 16.3Immanuel Kant: Rationalism: The categorical imperative 16.4 Friedrich Nietzsche: Relativism vi This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported 17. Contemporary Ethics 17.1 Jean-Paul Sartre: “Existentialism is a Humanism” 17.2 John Rawls: Justice and the original position 17.3 Charlotte Bunch: Feminism and the global approach vii This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported PREFACE FOR STUDENTS This online version of Crossroads is made available to students free of charge. It is based on a previous editon that was formerly published by Kendall Hunt. It does not include the primary sources. Why study philosophy? Why is philosophy sometimes a required course at the university? The answer to these questions is that philosophy is the foundational discipline. It provides the ground work for both the natural and social sciences. The natural and social sciences all employ a method or standards of evidence. This is why every major has its research methods course or introductory course where the methods employed in order to develop theories and make progress in the specific fields are discussed. Philosophy examines very closely the methodology of the sciences, their underlying assumptions, and their scope and limits. Logic evaluates the arguments used in developing theory, and epistemology tries to determine what can be known and the level of accuracy and certainty sought in any science. For this reason logic and epistemology provide a compass for finding our way through a variety of disciplines. Philosophy also helps us to see the universality in the university. By going beyond any particular discipline, philosophy explores the links and relationships among disciplines. Such an approach to learning can help us to see how neuroanatomy, artificial intelligence, and psychology all impact on the understanding of human consciousness. The interdisciplinary approach to learning can also help us understand the issues involved in determining the nature of human beings (if there is such a nature!) and the fundamental features of the universe. viii This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Philosophy will help us to formulate our ideas clearly, conduct research, analyze problems, and assess the ideas of others critically. Such analytical and problem solving abilities can transfer over into practical life and almost any occupation. Indeed, many employers today are looking for such analytical and problem-solving skills. Philosophy can help students to communicate more clearly and persuasively. The practice of careful argumentation, exposing informal fallacies and formulating sound arguments is important for the effective communication of ideas. Not everyone listens to the voice of reason, but it is an asset to have logic on your side. Finally, philosophy, for more than two thousand years, has been concerned with questions about values (axiology). In ethics, we study the origin and nature of moral values and raise questions about moral standards. Ethics has an immediate practical application in both personal morality and public policy. The closely related field of political philosophy raises issues about the nature of civil society, the state, international relations, justice, and human rights. In the second edition the applied ethics section is deleted and several theoretical selections are added, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Saint Augustine, Plato (the entire Euthyphro) and Charlotte Bunch. John Rawls is covered in largely narrative form. The introduction is expanded to include the entire Apology (Plato), and selections from Simone de Beauvoir, W.E.B. DuBois, and Soren Kierkegaard. There are revisions to the text to address areas where students have called for more explanation. The most extensive revision has been to the Hume section on moral sentiment. Dr. George Sochan makes a most valuable contribution by providing insights into the historical and biographical context of the philosophers covered in the text. As always ix This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported comments of instructors and students are welcome and are taken seriously in the revision and updating process. Frederick B. Mills, 2012 Note on Historical Essays The short historical passage given to each philosopher in Crossorads, while designed to be more than a brief biographical excerpt, is not intended to be a complete history. The passage for each philosopher provides a biographical sketch and also attempts to set that philosopher’s life and career within a historical context. That historical context is primarily the period during which the philosopher lived and, secondarily, when appropriate, it may include subsequent periods of history where the philosopher had significant influence. For instance, Plato and Aristotle are discussed in the context of the Classical Age of Greece, which is when they lived, but their ideas and writings are often referenced in later periods, like the Middle Ages, which they influenced. The historical sections are intended to supplement the philosophy presented in Crossroads, both in regards to the primary resources that are used and the commentary made on these selections. The historical writing has not been presented as heavily documented research. Therefore, no citations are used in the text. Much of the content is of a general knowledge and can easily be found in encyclopedic references. Almost all of the information in the historical writings has been taken from secondary, not primary, sources. A few of the sources used have been listed. Each historical passage concludes with a select bibliography. The listing of a select bibliography has two purposes. First, it provides some of the sources used that enabled the x This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs 3.0 Unported author to write these passages. An extensive listing was considered unnecessary because each passage is brief and serves only as background to the philosophy. Secondly, the select bibliography provides the interested student with references for further reading.