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Summary Philosophy & Ethics - Lecture 1
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Philosophy & Ethics – Lecture 1 (18-04-2018): Introduction to PhilosophyWhat is philosophy?
- The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence,
especially when considered as an academic discipline.
- A theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.
- Thinking
Origin and drivers of philosophy:
Humans are ‘open beings’.
Philosophy is a Greek word;
*Filo means love
*Sophia means thinking.
Dutch: Wijsbegeerte
Socrates:
- Philosophy is not wisdom, but a desire or longing [eros] for wisdom.
- Socratic (= self-aware) ignorance.
Realizing that ‘we do not know’ is the first step towards wisdom.
Socrates questioned everything therefore he became popular, he was the most
paradigmatic questioner.
Pseudos=illusion
- Quest for true knowledge – instead of illusory (pseudos) knowledge and
opinions (doxa).
- Philosophy started of as a struggle with the sophists (‘bluffers’), those not
interested in truth but in something else, e.g. money, power, fame, influence,
etc.
Philosophical ideal of Socrates:
Socrates: ‘The unexamined life (the life that does not critically look at itself) is not
worth living.’
Two commands from Apollo:
‘Know thyself!’
‘Take care of thyself!’
*Goal: a good, true and beautiful life.
Apollo was ‘the God of wisdom’, son of Zeus who created everything.
Oracle: ‘truth-sayer’
When an oracle told Socrates he was the smartest, he did not believe this and began
questioning everything.
Philosophical questions:
- Questioning of the ‘what’ of things/phenomena:
, o What is truth?
o What is time?
o What is space?
o What is matter?
o What is life?
o What is humanity?
- Questioning the presuppositions of our thinking and reasoning, e.g.:
o Our senses are a reliable source of knowledge
o The world (cosmos) is intelligible (can be known)
o The human is a free creature (possesses free will)
The human:
Human: rational animal, animal rationale, zoon logon echon.
- Every human is a philosopher by nature?
- The human is a being that can put him- or herself and the world at large in
question.
- The human is a creature that wants more than it can do, and that can do more
than it may. (W. Wickler)
4 fundamental questions (Immanuel Kant):
1. What can I know? (science)
2. What must I do? (ethics)
3. What may I hope? (religion)
4. What is man? (anthropology)
Science vs. Philosophy:
Science:
- Always researches one specific domain of objects
- Object is already understood in a certain way
- Thus based necessarily on theoretical presuppositions
- Hypothetical
- Empirical-theoretical
Philosophy:
- Researches being in its totality and as such
- Object is questioned in its sway of being
- Critical examination of these theoretical presuppositions
- Problematizing
- Reflexive-theoretical
First philosophers (Presocratics):
- Asked for the unchanging foundations and regularities behind the permanent
change and changeability of the phenomena (phainomena).
- Looked for the first principles (archai) behind reality.
- The fundamental question was invariably: what is the original element or
principle? What constituted the world at its origin? And how have all the
various things come to be out of this origin?
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