Chapter 1: The Philosophical Enterprise

Read this chapter in your textbook, and answer the questions and follow the prompts in this presentation!

Paragraph 1 (P1)

• What does Plato tell us about Philosophy?• What is “wonder”? • Which of the questions in this paragraph do YOU wonder

about?• Why are the questions in P1 both familiar and strange?• Why are philosophical questions unavoidable?

Paragraph 2 (P2)• What two motivations for doing philosophy are mentioned

in P2?• What are actions based upon? • Which actions have a better chance of succeeding?• Why is it important for you to have true philosophical

beliefs?• What is necessary for you to develop your own

philosophy?

Paragraph 3 & 4 (P3 & P4)

• Who is an expert according to physicist Werner Heisenberg?• Making one’s own mistakes and learning from them are very

important steps for growth and development in one’s own life.• How is learning from someone else’s mistakes important for one’s

personal growth and development and especially for one’s philosophy of life?

• What does Philosophy search for?• What will you learn to distinguish by doing philosophy?• Why are critical thinking skills very important in your life?

Paragraphs 5 & 6 (p5 & p6)

• What major activity does doing philosophy involve?• What three things does philosophy entail?• While doing philosophy, what will you come to realize?• In which three ways can philosophy help you?• What are the first things you will look at in Section 1.1?

Section 1.1: Philosophical Problems and Theories (Paragraphs 1-3)

• Why do people in the West lead very different lives from those in the East?• What determines the kinds of lives we lead?• How are the beliefs of the people in the West different from those in the East?• Why did the Greek philosopher, Socrates, maintain that the unexamined life is not worth living?• What would happen if we didn’t examine our lives and our philosophy of life?• What happens if we never question answers to philosophical questions that have been provided

to us in our childhood by our family, society and religion?• How can our thoughts and actions become truly free?• How does philosophical inquiry (questioning) liberate/free us from preconceived ideas and

prejudices?• Why are people willing to die for their philosophy?• How can philosophy influence society especially when it comes to revolutions?

Why is the sword always

defeated by the mind?

Philosophical Problems

Philosophical beliefs fall into 4 broad categories, which correspond to the major fields of philosophy:

1)Metaphysics – the study of ULTIMATE REALITY2)Epistemology – the study of KNOWLEDGE3)Axiology – the study of VALUE4)Logic – the study of CORRECT REASONING

(Metaphysical) Questions (of metaphysics)

(Epistemological) Questions (of epistemology)

(Axiological) Questions (of axiology)

(Logical) Questions (of logic)

Metaphysics is the anatomy of the soul – Stanislas Boufflers

Section 1.1 cont.

• What is Ethics?• What is Aesthetics?• What kinds of beliefs that we have does Philosophy examine?• How do our philosophical beliefs affect us?• What determines what we look for?• What determines how we look for something?• What determines what we do with what we find?• List as many subfields of philosophy as you can.• What makes definitive answers to philosophical questions so hard to come

by/obtain/get?

1) The mind-body problem: Is the

mind immaterial? If so, how can the

mind affect the body and vice

versa?

2) The problem of personal identity: How is it possible

for a person to change yet remain

the same?

3) The problem of free will: If every event is

caused by some prior event,

how can anything we do be up to us (our own decision)?

4) The problem of evil: How can

there be evil in the world created by such a being?

5) The problem of moral relativism: If no actions are objectively right or wrong, how is

moral disagreement

possible?

6) The problem of skepticism: Given that we can’t be certain of what we’ve learned through our

senses, how can we have

knowledge of the external world?

Philosophical Inquiry (Questioning)

• What do philosophical problems arise from?• How are our most fundamental beliefs?• What are inconsistencies?• Why does philosophical inquiry try to eliminate inconsistencies from our belief system?

The Stakes in Philosophical Inquiry• Why is the consistency of our

belief system so important?• What depends on the TRUTH

of our philosophical beliefs?• What would happen to our

thoughts, actions, and social institutions if our beliefs turned out to be FALSE?

• Why do ideas have to be DANGEROUS to be called ideas at all?

The Mind-Body Problem• What does Francis Crick’s “astonishing hypothesis” state?• Who proposed that we are “purely material beings” about 2500 years ago?• According to Leucippus and Democritus, what are we?• If we are nothing more than a “pack of atoms”, can we survive the death of our bodies?• If the mind is a physical thing, what should possibly be done?• What do scientists try to do in the field of artificial intelligence (AI)?• For those of you interested in AI and computer technology, you should research

TRANSHUMANISM and how this new philosophy will be applied more and more in our daily lives willy nilly (whether we like it or not) in the years to come.

• 2045: A New Era for Humanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01hbkh4hXEk• What are the possible implications of this TRANSHUMANIST AGENDA that is being

implemented as we speak?

The Problem of Free Will

• What is commonly believed that we can be held responsible for?• What can we not be held responsible for?• Why does the principle of Universal Causation seem to be inconsistent with

the notion of Free Will?• Where did the view that we have no free will come from specifically?• Why are we powerless to change the future according to the ancient Greeks?• According to the ancient Greeks, what is an illusion?• Do you think that you are the master of your own destiny/fate? Why or why

not?

B. F. Skinner

• What did Skinner claim about the belief in free will?• What is Animism according to the information in this paragraph?• According to Skinner, how can psychology become a science?• What does Skinner think humans are and why? • According to him, what would a “truly” enlightened society have no use for?• What do you think about this idea that a truly enlightened society should

have no use for the notions of freedom and dignity?• What does Skinner believe that human behavior is primarily determined by?

Richard Dawkins and James McConnell

• What does Dawkins believe that human behavior is primarily determined by?• What two things does the information in our genes determine?• What does Dawkins think humans are and why?• What do Skinner and Dawkins have in common?• Do you think that we are robots? Why or why not?• What would life be like in a world where the idea of free will had been abolished?• Do you agree that individuals are not responsible for their actions? Why or why not?• Do you agree that individuals who are “flawed” should be re-programmed?• What does psychologist James McConnell think about the widespread use of behavioral reconditioning

techniques?• Look up Skinner’s novel Walden II, and Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World.• Aldous Huxsley’s Brave New World (1980) BBC movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek5vse2_Aq0• George Lucas’ first movie THX 1138 (1971): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hLXOVCZr-8

The Problem of Personal Identity• What is the cornerstone of the American legal system?• What does the law recognize under certain circumstances?• What kind of argument is commonly heard at parole hearings?• How much and in what ways must someone change in order to be considered a different person?

What do you think?• What do Buddhists maintain about personal identity?• If who we are seems to be closely tied to our memories, then if we suffered from total amnesia

and were unable to remember anything about ourselves, would there be grounds for saying that we had ceased to exist? What do you think?

• What are some very important questions mentioned in this paragraph?• Remember Transhumanism? How is Transhumanism connected to personal identity and the type

of questions the author is asking in this paragraph?

The Problem of Moral Relativism

• Why are many people led to believe that there are no objective moral standards?• What are some social problems that require moral judgments?• Why doesn’t our believing something to be right make it right?• Why does doing the right thing seem to involve more than simply doing what one

believes in?• What are some difficulties regarding morality (subjective/objective)?• Why is resolving these difficulties of the highest importance?• How does one know a moral question is being asked?• What determines how we answer moral questions?• Why is it important to be clear about what our moral obligations are?• Do you know what your moral obligations are?

The Problem of Evil

• What are the three attributes of God?• What seems to be incompatible with the existence of evil?• According to logic, could evil exist in each of the following premises and why?• 1) If God were all-knowing and all-good, but not all-powerful …• 2) If God were all-powerful and all-good, but not all-knowing …• 3) If God were all-powerful and all-knowing, but all-good …• According to this paragraph, what needs to be done to the traditional conception of

God and why?

The Problem of Skepticism

• What do people claim to know?• What is very important for knowledge to become firmly set? What does knowledge require? I am

looking for a noun.• Why can’t people be certain of anything that they learned through the senses?• What are the human senses?• Can we have true knowledge of the external world if we can’t trust our senses?• What do Skeptics in the Western tradition claim about the sense experience?• What do many Oriental claim about the sense experience?• What has become a source of knowledge for Western Skeptics based on the claims of some modern

physicists as well as Oriental thinkers?• What kind of knowledge does Mystical experience give us about reality and waking consciousness?• Why would our conception of education and intellectual inquiry have to be radically altered?

The Importance of Our Philosophy

• How can the structure of our belief system be compared with that of a tree?• Why are our philosophical beliefs among our most fundamental ones?• What would happen to our philosophy of life (tree) if we were to reject a

philosophical belief?• What does philosophical inquiry attempt to arrive at?• How can a belief system or worldview become more philosophically

comprehensive?• How can a belief system or worldview become more philosophically coherent?• How can having a comprehensive and coherent worldview help us in our lives?

Go to Chapter 1: The Task of Philosophy!

• Read this Chapter very carefully and take notes before attending class, so you can be better prepared during the class.

• SOURCE: Titus, Harold H., Marilyn S, Smith, and Richard T. Nolan. "Chapter 1: The Task of Philosophy." Living Issues in Philosophy. 9th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1995. 2-23. Print. Retrieved from the internet from http://www.philosophy-religion.org/living/philosophy/1.pdf