These notes include everything one needs to know for Philosophy 114. They helped me to get an A and I hope they can enable other students to understand and love philosophy. They are easy to read, engaging and in-depth.
Philosophy 114
• Socrates - father of western philosophy + plato and Aristotle
- Can’t just automate your life
- “An examined life is a good life”
• Philosophy can be de ned as rational inquiry into the reasons for our beliefs
• Critical thinking and analysing
- “Thinking about thinking”
- Inquiring into the beliefs we have
• “Canned thinking”: closed minded, not questions, limiting thoughts out of fear, passively living
by everything you’ve been told
Philosophy is concerned with the rational inquiry into the grounds for our own thinking.
Philosophical questions vs scienti c questions
1.1 Philosophy vs Science
📚 What is proposition?
• A proposition is a meaningful statement that asserts if something is true or false.
‣ This chapter will look at two propositions
💡 The rst proposition relates to the common origin of philosophical and scienti c questions, i.e.
the similarities between the two kinds of questions.
PROPOSITION 1
The common origin of philosophical and scienti c questions is the
striving of the human mind to understand the principles according to
which human experience is ordered, and according to which human
existence in the world ought to be ordered. This striving is ful lled by
means of an independent investigation, conducted from a theoretical
perspective and in a reasonable way.
• This statement describes the way of thinking that is common to philosophy and science.
In the past, there was a growing awareness that some things about people and nature remained
the same regardless of where one went in the world, inspired a few Greek thinkers to start
thinking about nature and human life without relying on myths.
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, 🔮 Mythical thinking
• Mythical thinking is a way of thinking according to the myth, whether it is conscious or not, and
connected with the state of knowledge about the world.
‣ Mythical thinking can be awed
‣ Mythical thinking is a form of dogmatic thinking.
‣ Unquestioned assumptions that have been passed down and no longer questioned. The
truth of a myth is accepted as a given and experiences are then explained in terms of this
unquestoned “truth”
‣ Circular reasoning: events are explained due to an event to make belief further believed
‣ Unquestioned belief ➡ explain ones experiences in light of this belief ➡ employ as proof
of the truth of the original
‣ Tried to make the world understandable for us
‣ Eg. Floods due to angered gods
‣ Philosophy and science both directly opposed to mythical thinking
‣ Circular reasoning= completely unquestioned YET in Philosophy and Science we aim to
question everything
💡 3 aspects of mythical thinking are especially relevant for our purposes.
i. A myth is a manifestation or revelation of a hidden reality; the content of the myth was not
indecently discovered byt human intervention or initiative.
The content of myths does not rest on a discovery. Rather, the light shed by the myth
illuminates the human mind as if from the outside.
ii. Knowledge is closely linked to (ritualistic) action.
• Believer doesn’t try to acquire knowledge; try & in uence prevailing higher power to
act favourably on them. Know, in order to in uence & thus survive in a dangerous
world.
iii. Myths cannot be questioned or justi ed through argument. No critical discussion of a myth is
possible. A myth can only keep on ful lling its function as a source of illumination and sense of
security as long as it is accepted unconditionally. The myth claims total authority.
The early Greek philosophers freed themselves from precisely these three aspects of mythical
thinking and promoted a new ideal of knowledge that became the cornerstone of philosophical
and scienti c questions.
‣ These early philosopher-scientists rst started to conceive of themselves as independent
thinker
Secondly, the Greek thinkers adopted a theoretical approach in an attempt to discover the
underlying principles that regulated nature and human life.
• The theoretical attitude is a disinterested (note: not uninterested!) stance: a desire to know what
is really the case, rather than to believe something for the sake of feeling more secure.
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