historical introduction to philosophy book summary
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Course
Historical Introduction to Philosophy
Institution
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)
Book
Wijsbegeerte
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book: western philosophy, a historical introduction
Cato Sluyts
Western Philosophy
A Historical Introduction_final
Page 2
Table of Contents
Introduction
Plato’s cave Philosophy and ideology The historicity of philosophy
PART 1. THE FORTUNES OF PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITY
Chapter 1. Philosophy in Antiquity
1. Theoriginsofphilosophicalrationality
1.1 From mythos to logos 1.2 The natural philosophers: the development of a
cosmology Heraclitus: ‘everything flows’ Parmenides: ‘being is’ 1.3 The emergence
of ethics The relativism of the sophists Socrates (469-399 BC) 2.
Philosophybecomesasystem
2.1 Plato (428-347 BC)
Under the spell of Socrates The soul The intelligible The problem of moral education
The moral order of the state Knowledge Participation The Good Detaching the soul
from the body
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2.2 Aristotle (384-322 BC)
A systematic science The categories Four causes Form and end: teleology Soul as
form Form and matter: hylomorphism Change: act and potency Ethics The divine 3.
LaterAntiquity:Philosophyasawayoflife
An increase in scale: Hellenism (323-30 BC) and the Roman Empire (c. 200 BC -
475 AD) The Stoics Epicureanism Neoplatonism
Chapter 2. The medieval perspective (5th-15th century)
Christianity
1. TheEarlyMiddleAges.Augustine(354-430)
The will and reason The enlightenment of the mind (illumination) Philosophia
Christiana Early medieval intellectual life
1. TheHighMiddleAges.TherediscoveryofAristotle
,Medieval (Aristotelian) natural philosophy
1. TheintegrationofAristotle
Aristotelian sources of conflict
3.1 The synthesis of Thomas Aquinas
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Reason and faith Knowledge Universals God The human soul
Ethics
3.2 The Nominalism of William of Ockham (c. 1285 - c. 1348)
Reaction against realism Particulars, not universals Ockham’s razor... ...cuts both
ways
Chapter 3. The crisis of Modernity (15th-19th century)
1. Religiouswars
The crisis
1. TheNewScience
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Science and philosophy drift apart Nature as an enemy
to conquer
1. Theriseofthesubject
1. Modernphilosophyattheserviceofscienceandsubject 4.1 The rationalism of
René Descartes (1596-1650) Doubt First certainty: ‘Je pense donc je suis’
Dualism The problem of the bridge Second certainty: the existence of God
Third certainty: the existence of the external world The mathematical structure
of reality
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4.2 The empiricism of John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711- 1776)
‘No innate ideas!’ Scepticism Mind, substances and causality Science in crisis?
4.3 The critical idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Rationalism and empiricism A Copernican revolution The transcendental point of
view Analysis of cognition: Phase 1. Transcendental aesthetic Phase 2.
Transcendental analytic Phase 3. Transcendental dialectic Metaphysics as an
impossible science Critique of practical reason
4.4 The absolute idealism of G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)
4.5 Philosophy as a social practice: Karl Marx (1818-1883)
,Historical materialism Against Hegel Labour Division of labour, private property and
exploitation Self-alienation
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Class struggle Philosophy as a social practice
Chapter 4. The end of Modernity ? (19th-20th century)
1. Revolution
1. Limitsofthebeliefinscience
The belief in progress under discussion
1. Dethroningthesubject
The ‘masters of suspicion’
1. Aphilosophicalrevolution
New emphases in contemporary philosophy
4.1 Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), philosophizing with a hammer
Mummified concepts Rejection of ‘the’ truth Rejection of ‘Platonism’ and the
Judaeo-Christian tradition Rejection of morality Rejection of religion Where do we
go from here?
4.2 Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and phenomenology
The crisis of scientific rationality A transcendental standpoint Phenomenology
Intentionality The lifeworld as (re)construction Objectivity
4.3 Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and existential phenomenology
Dasein Existentials Our dealings with things in the world
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Mit-sein and Mit-Dasein The ‘They’ (das Man) Openness (Entschlossenheit)
Temporality Thrownness, projection and fallenness Anxiety Death Being and Time –
and beyond
4.4 Hannah Arendt (1906-1975): The Active Life
4.5 Existentialism: freedom at its peak
‘Pour soi’ and ‘en soi’ ‘L’être et le néant’ Condemned to be free
4.6 The deconstruction of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
Structuralism Language Writing Deprecation of writing ‘La différance’ The world as
text Deconstruction Time and the ‘undeconstructible’
1. Anewvoiceinanolddebate:Analyticphilosophy
, 5.1 Philosophy of language
‘Continental’ and ‘analytic’ philosophy
5.2 The scientific nature of the language of logic: L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus
(‘Wittgenstein I’)
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The programme: to avoid ‘chatter’ Meaning, reference and truth Only empirical
statements are meaningful Philosophy as clarification of language The mystical The
separation of factuality and meaning
5.3 The reality of ‘ordinary’ language: L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
(‘Wittgenstein II’)
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Introduction
Wonder is essential to philosophy.
begins with the sense that the world is not what it seems.
Plato’s cave
a cave in which we are chained to a low partition, with nothing but a flat wall in front
of us. All we can see are shadows of objects, projected on the wall by a fire behind
us.
But one day, one of the prisoners is freed, compelled to stand up, and forced to see
the reality behind the little wall. He discovers the ‘true’ objects, which none of his
companions has ever seen.
He climbs out of the cave, and discovers a light that is much stronger and much
more intense than the fire in the cave: the Sun.
he returns
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to the cave to free his former companions,
and rather than accepting the consequences of this discovery, they choose to
continue their reassuring existence.
The philosopher recognizes the world and lets it be ‘world’, by not reducing it too
quickly to something evident and reassuringly obvious.
Only in philosophy is wonder not merely the starting point, but also the guiding
principle that always keeps a firm grip on thinking.
Page 12
Philosophy and ideology
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