Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics (NWIFFIL100)
Institution
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
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Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics (NWIFFIL100)
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Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics
Socrates
- Philosophy is not wisdom but a desire or longing for wisdom
- Scientists need this desire for success
- Socratic (= self-aware) ignorance
- Quest for true knowledge – instead of illusory knowledge [pseudos] and opinions [doxa]
- Philosophy started off as a struggle with the sophists: ‘bluffers’, those not interested in
truth but in something else (money, power, fame, influence, etc.)
- Socrates: ‘The unexamined life (or the life that does not look critically at itself) is not
worth living
- ‘Know thyself!’ and ‘Take care of thyself!’
- Goal: a good, a true and a beautiful life
Philosophical questions
- Questioning the ‘what’ of things/phenomena
- Questioning the (implicit) presuppositions of our thinking and reasoning, eg. Our senses
are a reliable source of knowledge
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 (extremely ambitious), and that
can do more than it may’ (W. Wickler) (think Ethics; can kill someone, but may we? –
rules)
4 fundamental questions (I. Kant)
- What can I know? (science)
- Wat must I do? (ethics)
- Wat may I hope? (religion)
- What is man? (anthropology)
,Philosophical disciplines
- Logic: the laws of thinking: we obey certain laws
- Ontology (science of beings, fundamental things in the world; true or real)
- and epistemology (science of knowledge of beings)
Transformation mythical to logical explanations about the world
- Alphabet/phonetic writing: memory technology for eg. economics
technology of thinking (ancient philosophy)
First philosophers (Presocratics)
- Asked for the unchanging (eternal) foundations and regularities behind the permanent
change and changeability of the phenomena (phainomena)
- Looked for 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?
First philosophers (physikoi or presocratics)
, - Thales of Milete: water is the first thing: everything links back to one thing
- Anaximander: the infinite, where everything came from (abstract)
- Pythagoras: the world is ultimately made of numbers (mathematics)
- Parmenides: ‘What is, is’; only being is, not- being is not and cannot be thought either;
change is impossible because something cannot originate from nothing; the (apparently)
changing world of phenomena (of our senses) is therefore an illusion = no change
- Heraclitus: ‘Everything flows’ [panta rhei], ‘You cannot step into the same river twice’,
‘War is the father of all things’ (everything comes into composition due to conflict,
change), ‘Nature loves to hide’ (always more to be found, secrets, can never completely
see nature in its nakedness); there exists a logos (reason behind everything) that
pervades and lies at the foundation of physis (nature) = constant change
- Empedocles: doctrine of the elements (fire, air, earth and water) and everything is a
mixture of these elements
- Democritus/Leucippus (atomists): atom, cannot be split anymore; ultimate entity of
reality
- Plato and Aristotle: theory of ideas
Plato
- Very important/fundamental
- First academy/school for philosophers
- Two worlds doctrine (= doctrine of ideas): difference between reality and thinking; eg.
Horse is infinite, but the idea of a horse is infinite
- Three souls doctrine:
Soul (psyche): principle of life = organizing and vitalizing principle in each living
organism: reproduce, eat, etc.
1. Vegetative soul = metabolism (plants):
2. Sensitive and animate soul (animals)
3. Intellectual/rational soul (humans)
, Aristotle
- After Plato
- Invented all the sciences (super scientist)
- Form/matter and categories
- Explaining change: potentiality-actuality doctrine; four causes doctrine and four
elements doctrine (fire, earth; similar to Empedocles)
Aristotle said that there are four causes that explain the existence of everything in the world. A
house has four causes of existence:
- Material cause: bricks and cement
- Formal cause: sketch or blueprint
- Efficient cause: architect or constructor
- Final cause: a place to live in
Some fundamental concepts
- Cosmos: the whole; universe
- Logos: everything is united; everything , also means language/understanding
- Physis: nature (that which has its principle of movement and rest within itself)
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