HUM130 ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY

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HUM130 - ISSUES IN PHILOSOPHY

• Rick Blazek Chapter 4 Part 1

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METAPHYSICS

• What is most real?
• Common sense
• Religion
• Science
• Virtual Reality

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Common Sense Metaphysics

• The earth is flat (?)
• or Australians are standing on their heads
• The sun rises (?)
• The earth stands still and the sun and planets
  move around it (?)
• ----------------

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Religious Metaphysics

• God exists
• Yet He cant (under normal circumstances)
• be seen
• be touched
• be tasted
• be heard
• Does life have a purpose?

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Scientific Metaphysics

• What color is an atom?
• What is this table really like?
• invisible micro-particles
• surrounded by empty space
• constantly in motion
• Do you really expect me to believe this?

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IS SEEING BELIEVING?

• Is it square, rectangular, round?
• Optical Illusions
• Emotional interference
• Virtual experiences of Reality
• Space walks and Roller-coasters
• Lawnmower man

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What shape is it?
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The table top

• on which you are now working
• What shape is it?
• How do you know? (by appearance?)

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Eyes Play Tricks

• As train tracks disappear into the distance,
• do they get closer together?
• If they did the train would derail.

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Experiencing Reality Virtually

• Reality mediated by technology (assisted)
• Telephone
• Chat rooms
• Video MGM Studios Orlando
• Video Sierras at Lake Tahoe

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Two tests

• As developed by the ancients
• that upon which all else rests (is dependent)
• Solomon 108
• that which is permanent

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Reality behind the Appearances

• Solomon 107 --basic definitions
• Metaphysics is the attempt to say what reality
  is.
• Ontology is the study of what is.
• Cosmology is the study of how things have come
  into being.

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Thales

• First Western Philosopher
• Greek Science (4 elements)
• earth, air, fire, water
• Water is ultimate
• There is a difference between the way the world
  seems to be and the way it really is.

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PRE-SOCRATICS

• Anaximander
• stuff (never experienced as such)
• Anaximenes
• air (water is thickened air)
• Heraclitus
• fire (always changing)
• Democritus
• atoms (tiny and indestructible)

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MATERIALISTS

• Thales
• Anaximander
• Anaximenes
• Heraclitus
• Democritus
• material definitions of reality

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IMMATERIALISTS

• Pythagoras
• numbers
• Parmenides
• unchanging and unknown to us
• Zeno
• unchanging and motion is unreal (paradoxes)
• Heraclitus
• change, with underlying logos

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Zeno, Paradox of arrow

• If Achilles shoots an arrow from point A toward
  point B,
• it first must cover distance A-C, which is half
  of A-B
• then C-D, half of C-B
• then D-E, half of D-B
• It will never reach B.
• motion is not real.

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Meet Socrates

• The gadfly
• The sting
• The trial
• The test
• The death

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Socrates The Gadfly

• The gnats that bite the great horse to keep it
  awake and active.
• Delphi Oracle Of all men the wisest.
• Because I know that I do not know.
• The unexamined life is not worth living.

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Socrates teaching

• Socratic method
• The goal of life is to be happy
• to know the good
• Pursuit of excellence of character

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Socrates The Sting

• His quest was very public
• Questions led to much embarrassment for public
  leaders
• Youth loved the situation

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Socrates The Trial

• New democracy tried him
• Corrupter of youth
• Atheist
• Refused to defend self
• Named punishment as life-time pension
• Condemned to death

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Socrates The Test

• Friends asked him to seek exile rather than face
  an unjust death
• Consistency and integrity required that he accept
  the judgment of the state that had given him life

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Socrates The Death

• Hemlock
• Friends
• Clear all debts

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Socrates and Plato

• Plato was a student of Socrates
• Wealthy family
• Wrote the Socratic dialogues -- only source of
  serious knowledge from Socrates
• Well consider them as believing and teaching the
  same things
• Founded school in Athens --

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PLATOS TWO WORLDS

• of Becoming
• things we see
• perceptions
• are shadows (images)
• of Being
• eternal reality
• ideals
• forms
• Solomon 115

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PLATOS Myth of the Cave

• Inside is dark and shadowy
• outside is bright and clear
• journey is arduous and painful
• return is enthusiastic and fruitless
• Solomon 115

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TWO PASSIONS --PHILOSOPHERS

• To see what is real
• To tell others
• Rigorously
• At all costs

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Epistemology

• To Learn
• To Remember
• Transmigration of the Soul
• Recollection
• Evidence from slave boy

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Metaphysics1

• The end