Socrates Predecessors

•Human beings have lived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years. We,
of course, doesn’t know all the experiences and thoughts of our ancestors or the
earliest people.

•For us to know how this world was formed, our ancestors thought about it,
whether they were unique, compare to animals, or whether there was a world
beyond the earthly surrounding them.

•When we look at the earliest writings, we find various regions had their own
speculative tradition.

•The story of Western philosophy, begins in a series of islands and colonies during
the 6th century .
•In our lives., we have so many questions to ask for, just what others thinkers
from the past centuries, they had to asked, what are things really like? and
how can we explain the process of change in things?. This are some of
the question that some thinkers wanted to give solutions about on these
different puzzles were shortly thereafter dubbed, what we call “PHILOSOPHY”.

•Philosophy was defined as the love of wisdom, wherein it gives these

speculations on what is the recognition that things are not exactly what they
seem to be..

•These facts raised the questions of how things and people came into
existence, at different times and pass out of existence only to be followed by
other things and persons.

•Greek philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus and was located across the
Aegean sea from Athens, on the western shores of Ionian Asian minor.
 Three milesian philosophers
Thales

Anaximander

Anaximenes

•These three great philosophers though in terms of traditional

mythology with human-like gods, philosophy among the milesians began
as an act independent thought.
•What important thing to keep in mind, though, is that Greek philosophy
from the start was an intellectual activity.
•It was not a matter only of seeing or believing but of “thinking”
 What is permanent in existence?

•Thales of Miletus was a contemporary of Greek king Croesus and

statesman soloh.
•He apparently solved the difficult logistical problem of enabling the
Lydian's king army to cross the wide river Halys river.
•He was the one who worked out to measure the height of the pyramid,
using his solution to use the simple procedure of measuring a pyramid’s
shadow.
•He urged sailors to use the constellation Little bear as the surest guide
for determining the direction of the north.

•Thales became famous not for his general wisdom or his practical
shrewdness, but because he opened up a new area of thought for
which he has rightly earned the title to be the “first philosopher of
western civilization.”
•He inquired concerns about the nature of things, wherein he
formulated to asked “What is everything made of, or what kind
of stuff goes into the composition of things?
•He was trying to account for the fact that there are many
different kinds of things, such as earth, clouds, and oceans.
•He’s contribution to thought, was despite of the differences
between various things, there is still a basic similarities between
them all.
•“The many "are related to each other by “the one”.

•He assumed that some single elements, some stuff, a stuff

which contained its own principle of action or change lay at the
foundation of all physical reality.
•To him this “one” or the stuff he mentioned was the “WATER”
•All thought there is no record on how Thales came into
conclusion that water is the cause of all things Aristotle said
that Thales may derived it from observation of simple events,
or seeing that the nutrient of all things is moist and that heat is
generated from the moist and kept alive by it.

•But Thales analysis of the composition of things is far less

important than the fact that he raised the question concerning
the nature of the world.

•Admittedly, Thales also said that "all things are full of God”.

•So, we tried to explain the power in things, such as magnetic

powers in stones, he shifted the discussion from a mythygical
base to one of scientific inquiry.
 Anaximande
r
•He was a pupil of Thales of Miletus
•On what had Thales done, Anaximander agreed on it that there is some single
basic stuff out of which everything come from.
•He was the one who said that those basic stuff is either a water nor any other
specific element.
•The primary substance out of which all these specific things comes he argued on
a boundless realm, and on the opposite sides there is what he also calls
intermediate boundless.
•His explanation about the intermediate boundless is that, it originates and
destructible primary substance of things, yet he believes, it also has eternal
motion.he root of all things
• In contrast on this motion, the various specific elements come into being as the
separated off from the original substance.
•The eternal motion that was mentioned is which the heavens came to be.
•First is the warm and cold were separated off, and these two came the so called
moist: and from these the earth and air was formed.
•Anaximander said that the origin of life, come from a sea and that, living
things came out of the sea to dry land
•Anaximander also thought that there were many worlds n many systems of
universe existing all at the same time.
•All of them die out and there is a constant alternation between their
creations and destructions.

NOTE:
“From what source things arise, to
that they return of necessity when
they are destroyed: for they suffer
punishment and make reparation to
one another for their injustice
according to the order of time”
 Anaximen
es
•He was the third and last melesians philosophers, and was a young associate of
Anaximander.
•He agreed o what had Anaximander had answer to a question concerning about
the composition of natural things, but he was not satisfied with what had
Anaximander theorized with it.
•Boundless as being a source of all things was simply too vague and intangible,
•That is why anaximenes chose Anaximander notion over Thales notion that water
is the cause of all things.
•This boundless could explain the “ infinite background to the wide variety of finite
and specific meaning for anaximenes and he therefore chose to focus upon a
definite substance the way Thales did.
•As he mediate the two views of his predecessors, he designated “AIR” as the
primary substance from which all things come.
•He chose air because air is definite substance and we can readily see it at at the
root of all things.
•For example. Human beings cannot survive In this world unless if he breath, so
even air is invisible, it holds us together and air encompasses the whole world.
•To explain how air is the origin of all things, anaximenes argued that things are
what they are by virtue of how point he introduced the important new idea that
differences in quality caused by differences in quantity.
•Although, these milesian philosopher proceeded with scientific concerns and

temperaments they did not form their hypothesis the way of what scientist

do, instead the performed any experiments to test their theories

•But we must remember that the critical questions concerning to nature and

limits oh human knowledge had not yet been raised.

•What ever they had theorized certainly raises this questions into a problem.

•Whatever maybe the usefulness of their specific ideas about WATER, AIR

AND BOUNDLESS, as the primary or source of all things, the real significance

of milesians is, they are the first time to raised this questions about the

ultimate nature of things and made the first halting but direct inquiry into

what nature really consists of.

 The mathematical basis of
all things

•Pythagoreans said that things consists of NUMBERS.

•Although this was a quite strange, the difficulty of this theory is greatly
overcome when we consider why pythagaoras became interested in numbers
and what his conception of numbers was.
•His originality consists partly in his conviction that the study of mathematics
is the best purifier of the soul.
•He was also the founder of religious sect and a school of mathematics.

•Pythagoreans were also clearly concerned with the mystical problems of

purification and immortality.
•He has also a special practice of counting and writing numbers and thus may
have facilitated their view that all things are numbers .
 Heracli
us
•His theory in philosophy are:

•Flux and Fire

•Reason as the universal law
•The conflicts of opposite

 On his theory about the flux and fire, he assumed that there must
be something which changes and he argued that this something is fire. He
chose fire as the element in things was that fire behaves in such a way as
to suggest how the process of change operates. When therefore, Heraclitus
fastened about fire as the basic reality, he do not only identified that
something which changes, but though he had discovered the principle of
change it self.
 On his example, if gold is exchanged for wares, both then gold an
the wares still continue to exist, although they are now in different hands.
This example given by him proves that all things continue to exits although
they are being exchange their form from time to time.
 Another theory that he contribute is about the Reason of universal

law..

 On this theory of reason cane from Heraclitus’ religious conviction

that the most real of all is the soul. And the souls’ most distinctive and

important attribute is wisdom or thought. For him there is only one basic

reality namely fire .

 These rational principles constitute the essence of law- the

universal law immanent an all things . This account of our rational would

only mean that the thoughts of a man is the thoughts of God since there is

a unity between the one and the many and between God and human

beings.
 Lastly, his theory about the conflict of opposites . Although human
beings can know the eternal wisdom that directs all things, we do not pay
attention to this wisdom, instead we therefore proves to be uncomprehending
of he reasons for the way things happen to them.

 The conflict that we see in this world is not a calamity, but simply the
permanent condition of all things. According to Heraclitus, if we could visualize
the whole process of change we would see that war is common and justice is
strife and that all things happens by stifle and necessity.

 Therefore. This reasons says that people do not know how hat is at
variance agrees with itself. Thus, in the one, the way up and the way down is
the same, such as good and ill , quick and death, young and old and wake to
sleep.
 Parmenid
es
The logic of Parmenides theory begins with the simple statement that
something is, or something is not. For example, cows exist but unicorns do not
exist. Though Parmenides realizes that we can only assert the first part above
statement that something is. The reason is that, we can only conceptualize
and speak about things that exist but are in able to do this things that do not
exist. According to Parmenides we must reject any contention that implies that
something is not. First he argues that nothing ever changes, there we have
seen that everything is in constant change.

We first say that the tree for example is not, then it is,
then once again it is not. Logically speaking, we are forced to
reject this kind of thoughts of process of change. Thus,
nothing ever change.
 Z
eno
Zeno’s main strategy was to show that the so-called commonsense view
of the world led to conclusions even there's ridiculous than Parmenides’ view.
He concluded that our senses have deceived us. For either, there is a
sound when the single seed falls or there is not a sound when the many seeds fall.
So to get at the truth of things it is more reliable to go by way of thought than by
way of sensation.
Zeno’s four paradoxes are:
•The racecourse- according to this paradox of motion, a runner crosses a series of
units of distance from the beginning to the end of the racecourse..
•Achilles and the tortoise- this paradox is similar to the racecourse Illustrations.
This only explain that no matter what Achilles started ahead .of the tortoise he can
never reached it.
•The arrow- This paradox, argued the reality of space and therefore its divisibility,
would have to say that he moving arrow occupy a particular position in space.
•The relativity of motion- This paradox, explain the the opposite directions t the
same time.
 Empedo
The concepts of his theory are:
cles
•Hate

•Love

Empedocles assumed that there are in nature two forces, which he called
“love and hate”.

These are the forces of love cause elements to attract to each other
and built up into some particular form or person. The force of hate causes the
decomposition of things. The four elements then mix together or separate from
each other depending on hoe much love or hate are present. In fact,
Empedocles believe that there are cycles within nature that manifest Love and
Strife in differing degrees at different times.
 Anaxagoras
“The concept of his theory is that all things are governed by man”
According to Anaxagoras. The nature of reality is best understood as
consisting of Mind and Matter. Before mid has influence the shape and behavior
of matter, matter exists as a mixture of various kinds of material substances, all
uncreated and imperishable.
According also to Anaxagoras, separation is the process by which this
matter formed into various things, and such separation occurs through the
power of mind. Specifically, mind produced a rotary motion, causing a vortex
which spread out so as to encompasses more and more of the original mass of
matter. This forces a separation of various substances. This rotary motion
originally caused a separation of matter into two major divisions, one mass that
contained the warm, light, rare, and dry, and a second mass that contained the
cold, dark, and moist.
This process of separation, is continuous and there is a constant
progress in the process of separation.
 The sophists and
• Socrates
The first Greek philosophers focused in nature: the Sophists and Socrates
shifted the concerns of philosophy to the study of human. They instead asked
questions that more directly related to moral behavior. They proposed
inconsistent interpretations of nature and here appeared to be no way of
reconciling them.
• For example, Heraclitus said that the nature consists of a plurality of
substance and that everything is in a process of constant change. To
Parmenides, took the opposite view arguing that reality is a single, static
substance- the one- and that motion and change are illusions cast on our senses
by the appearances of things.
• As it was the controversy over the ultimate principle of things had
generated an attitude of skepticism about the ability of human reason to
discover the truth about nature.
• This question was further aggravated by cultural differences between
various races and societies . Consequently, the question about truth became
deeply entwined with the problem of goodness.
 The sophists
The three most outstanding Sophist who emerged in Athens during the
fifth century were:
• Pythagoras
• Gorgias
• Thrasymachus

They were part of a group hat came to Athens wither as traveling

teachers or, in the case of Hippias of Elis, as ambassadors.

Pythagoras

-was the oldest and, in many ways the most influential. He is best
known of his statement that, “ man is the measure of all things, of the
things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are
not. Therefore, to say that our knowledge is measured by what we
perceived, if something within us makes us perceive things differently,
there is then no standard for testing whether one person’s perception
is right and another person’s perception is wrong.
Gorgias
- He took as a radical view regarding truth that he eventually gave up
philosophy and turned instead to the practice and teaching of rhetoric. He
propounded the extra ordinary notions for example he argued that we
communicate with words are only symbols or signs and no symbols can ever
be the same as the thing it symbolizes.
- Upon abandoning philosophy, gorgias turned to rhetoric and tried to perfect it
as the art of persuasion.

Thrasymachus

-He portrayed as the sophists who asserted the injustice is to be preferred to

the life of justice. Thrasymachus considered the unjust person as superior in
character and intelligence. Indeed he said, that injustice pays not only at the
meager level of the pick-pocket but especially for those who carry injustice to
perfection and make themselves masters of whole cities and nations.
 Socrat
esthe foundation of the good life. As he
He was attempting to discover
pursued his mission he devised a method for arriving at truth; he
linked knowing and doing, so that to know the good is to do the good.
That was the golden rule mentioned by Socrates This golden rule only
explain that. What you do not want others do unto you don’t do to
other.

.Socrates Life

-Socrates wrote nothing. Most of what we know about him has been
preserved by three of his famous younger contemporaries , and they
are, Aristophanes, Xephanon, and most importantly Plato. From
Aristophanes, he depicts Socrates as a strutting waterfowl, poking fun
at his habit of rolling his eyes and referring impishly to his pupil and
thinking shop. To Xephanon, he portrait of a loyal soldier who had a
passion for discussing the requirements of morality and who inevitably
attracted younger people who sought his advice.
 Socrates as a Philosopher
• Our most extensive sources of his thought are the dialogues of Plato, in
which he is the leading character. Plato’s dialogues cannot identify whether his
dialogues were reporting of what had Socrates actually thought, or he was just
expressing his own ideas using the figure of Socrates.
• On this view, Plato, would get credit only for the literary form he devised
for preserving and elaborating on, and lending precision and color to Socrates
thought. On the other hand, Aristotle distinguished between the philosophical
contributions made by Socrates and Plato. Aristotle gave credit to Socrates, for
inductive arguments and universal definitions and to Plato he ascribed the
development of the famous theory of forms. The notions that the universal
archetypes exist independently of the particular things that embody them.
• For Socrates the key point in this conception of the soul concerns our
conscious awareness of what some words means. To know that something
contradict to others- for example, that justice cannot mean harming others- is
a typical example of what the soul can discover simply by using its ability to
know.
 Socrates theory of knowledge: Intellectual
Midwifery

• On his method which he called” dialectic”, is a deceptively simple

technique. It always begins a discussion of the most obvious aspects of any
problem. Through this process of dialogue, in which all parties to the
conversion are forced to clarify their ideas, final outcome of the conversation
is a clear statement of what is meant. Although the technique appeared
simple, it was not long before anyone upon whom Socrates employed it
could feel its tense rigor, as well as the discomfort of Socrates irony.
• We find a good example of Socrates method in Plato’s dialogue. Like
what he mentioned Euthyphro. Young euthyphro arrives on the scene and
explains that he plans to bring charges of impiety against his own father.
• Euthyphro answers Socrates by defining piety as prosecuting the wrong
doer, and impiety as not prosecuting him.
 Socrates moral thought

For Socrates knowledge and virtue were the same thing. If

virtue has to do with making the souls as good as possible,
it is first necessary to know what makes the soul good.
Therefore, goodness and knowledge are closely related. But
Socrates said more about morality than simply this. He in
fact identified goodness and knowledge saying that to
know the good is to do good, that knowledge edge is virtue.
By identifying knowledge and virtue, Socrates meant also to
say that vice, or evil, is the absence of knowledge. Just as
knowlegde is virtue, so, too, vice is ignorance.
• To equate virtue and knowledge Socrates had in mind a
particular conception of virtue. For him, virtue means, fulfilling
one’s function. .This inner well-being this, making the soul as goo
as possible can be achieved only by certain appropriate types of
behavior.

• Because we have a desire for happiness which acts or what

behavior will produce happiness? Socrates knew that some forms
of behavior appear to produce happiness but in reality do not.

• We may feel to be happy but there are still time that we feel
said. We cannot control our feelings, but it just give us our
emotional ability on what to feel.
 Socrates trial
and death
• Convinced that the care of human soul should be our greatest concern,
Socrates spent most of his time, examining his own life, a well as he lives and
thoughts of the other Athens.
• His defense as recorded by Plato’s apology is a brilliant proof of his intellectual
powers. Is I also a powerful exposure of his accusers motives and the
inadequacy of the grounds for their charges.
• His defense is a model of forceful argument, resting wholly on a recitation of
facts and on the requirements of rational discourse.
• To the end, his friends tried to make possible his escape, but Socrates would
have none on it.
• He was already growing cold and spoke for the last time. Crito, he said, I owe a
cock to Asclepius: do not forget to pay it. Such was the end… of our friend a
man, I think, who was of all the men of his time, the best, the wisest, and the
most just.
 Plato
The earliest Greek philosopher, the Milesians were
concerned chiefly with the constitution of physical
nature.

Plato's great influence stems from the manner in which

he brought all these diverse philosophical concerns
into a

unified system of thought.

 Plato’s life
• Plato was born in Athens in428/27 BCE, one year after death
of Pericles and when Socrates was bought 42 years old.

• Plato’s family was one if the distinguish in Athens, his early

training included the rich ingredients of that culture in the arts,
politics, and philosophy.

• Plato learned much about public life and developed at an

early age a sense of responsibility for public political service.

• Plato lectured at the academy without having a notes.

• Because his lectures were never written down, they were

never published, although notes by his students were circulated.

• An idealistic and rationalistic philosopher.

 If the world is not perfect, it is not because of God but because the
raw materials were not perfect.

Separates the ever – changing phenomenal world from the true

and eternal ideal reality. Idea or ideal and phenomena.

Phenomena are illusions which decay and die.

  Ideals are unchanging, perfect.

Phenomenal world strives to become ideal, perfect, and complete.

There’s the body which is material, mortal and ‘moved’ then, the
soul which is ideal, immortal and ‘unmoved’.
 Plato’s three theories of Soul
 
3 souls: (levels of pleasure)
 
 appetite – mortal and comes from the gut.

 spirit/ courage – mortal and lives in the heart.

 reason – immortal and resides in the brain.

Aristotle
 Aristotle
• Born in 384 BCE in the small town of Stagira on the
northeast coast of Thrace

• Went on Athens to enroll in Plato’s Academy, where he

spent the next twenty years as a pupil and a member.

• He wrote many dialogues in a Platonic style, which his

contemporaries praised for the “ goldenstream” of
their eloquence

• Aristotle was born in Stageira, a Greek colony in

Macedonia, in 384 BC. Generations of Aristotle's family
including his father, Nichomachus, had served as
physicians to the Kings of Macedonia.
• His parents died when he was about ten years old and he
was taken in by foster parents: Proxenos and his wife.

• He moved to Athens at the age of seventeen, and he

remained there for some twenty years.

• This is where he got his first taste of the sciences and

actively became a teacher.
• He studied under Plato , whose influences are most
apparent in Aristotle's theoretical and practical
philosophies.

• He greatly admired Plato all the way to his death, despite

the fact that he later opposed some of his most important
points.

• Aristotle was married twice, first to the foster daughter of

his noble friend Hermeias, named Pythias.
• After her death he married Herpyllis, who came from his
birthplace, Stageira.

• There was some controversy surrounding this marriage

because Herpyllis did not have as high a social position as
his first wife, Pythias.

• Herpyllis gave birth to his son Nichomachus and was

entrusted with the care of his daughter from his first
marriage.

• After the death of Alexander the Great, Athens was taken

over by people who didn't like Alexander.

• They suspected Aristotle of sympathizing with Alexander,

and he was exiled from Athens.

• Aristotle died in 322 BC at the age of sixty-two in Chalkis

on the island of Euboea, which had granted him refuge
when he was exiled from Athens.
 Aristotle's Logic

• Aristotle's logic, especially his theory of the syllogism,

has had an unparalleled influence on the history of
Western thought.

• It did not always hold this position: in the Hellenistic

period, Stoic logic, and in particular the work of
Chrysippus, took pride of place.

• However, in later antiquity, following the work of

Aristotelian Commentators, Aristotle's logic became
dominant, and Aristotelian logic was what was
transmitted to the Arabic and the Latin medieval
traditions, while the works of Chrysippus have not
survived.
 Aristotle's Logical Works: The
Organon

The ancient commentators grouped together

several of Aristotle's treatises under the title Organon
("Instrument") and regarded them as comprising his
logical works:

3. Categories
4. On Interpretation
5. Prior Analytics
6. Posterior Analytics
7. Topics
8. On Sophistical Refutations
• In fact, the title Organon reflects a much later
controversy about whether logic is a part of philosophy
(as the Stoics maintained) or merely a tool used by
philosophy (as the later Peripatetics thought); calling
the logical works "The Instrument" is a way of taking
sides on this point.
• Aristotle himself never uses this term, nor does he give
much indication that these particular treatises form
some kind of group, though there are frequent cross-
references between the Topics and the Analytics.

• On the other hand, Aristotle treats the Prior and

Posterior Analytics as one work, and On Sophistical
Refutations is a final section, or an appendix, to the
Topics).

• To these works should be added the Rhetoric, which

explicitly declares its reliance on the Topics.
 The Subject of Logic:
"Syllogisms"
• All Aristotle's logic revolves around
one notion: the deduction
(sullogismos). A thorough
explanation of what a deduction is,
and what they are composed of, will
necessarily lead us through the
whole of his theory.
 Induction and Deduction

• Deductions are one of two species of

argument recognized by Aristotle.

• The other species is induction.

• He has far less to say about this than

deduction, doing little more than
characterize it as "argument from the
particular to the universal".
Some of the differences may have
important consequences:

• 1.Aristotle explicitly says that what

results of necessity must be different
from what is supposed.

• This would rule out arguments in which

the conclusion is identical to one of the
premises.

• Modern notions of validity regard such

arguments as valid, though trivially so.
• 2.The plural "certain things having been
supposed" was taken by some ancient
commentators to rule out arguments with
only one premise.

• 3. The force of the qualification "because of

their being so" has sometimes been seen as
ruling out arguments in which the conclusion
is not ‘relevant’ to the premises,
• e.g., arguments in which the premises are
inconsistent, arguments with conclusions
that would follow from any premises
whatsoever, or arguments with superfluous
premises.
 Aristotle's Metaphysics

• The first major work in the history of

philosophy to bear the title “Metaphysics” was
the treatise by Aristotle that we have come to
know by that name.

• But Aristotle himself did not use that title or

even describe his field of study as
‘metaphysics’; the name was evidently coined
by the first century C.E. editor who assembled
the treatise we know as Aristotle's
Metaphysics out of various smaller selections
of Aristotle's works.
 What is Substance?
• In the seventeen chapters that make up Book Ζ of the
Metaphysics, Aristotle takes up the promised study of
substance.
• He begins by reiterating and refining some of what he
said in that ‘being’ is said in many ways, and that the
primary sense of ‘being’ is the sense in which
substances are beings.

• he explicitly links the secondary senses of ‘being’ to the

non-substance categories.

• The primacy of substance leads Aristotle to say that the

age-old question ‘What is being?’ “is just the question
‘What is substance?’”

• One might have thought that this question had already

been answered in the Categories.
 Motion
• Because motion or change (kinêsis) is mentioned in the
definition of nature, any discussion of nature will need to rely
upon the explanation of motion.

• One might—erroneously—think that this is an easy task,

because Aristotle's categories (as listed in the Categories and
also elsewhere) do contain two related types of entities, action
and passion.
• Aristotle's discussion of motion in the Physics, however, starts
out in a somewhat different manner.

• When he submits that there is no motion besides the categories

, he does not assign motions to the categories of action and
passion.

• After mentioning that the entities in the categories come in

oppositions, Aristotle submits a few lines later that there are as
many kinds of motion and change as there are kinds of being.
Classical Philosophy After Aristotl

Epicur
us
 EPICURUS

•Son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was an Athenian from the

district of Gargettus district, of the Philaidae clan, as
Metrodorus reports in his book On Noble Birth. 
•Other sources, including Heraclides in his Epitome of Sotion,
report that he grew up in Samos, after the Athenians divided
up the land for colonization

•He came to Athens at age eighteen, when Xenocrates

lectured at the Academy, and Aristotle in Chalcis. 

• But when Alexander of Macedon died, and the Athenians at

Samos were evicted by Perdiccas, Epicurus left Athens to join
his father in Colophon. 
 Physics

•In physics Epicurus founded upon Democritus, and his

chief object was to abolish the dualism between mind and
matter which is so essential a point in the systems of Plato
and Aristotle.

•All that exists, says Epicurus, is corporeal; the intangible

is non-existent, or empty space.

•If a thing exists it must be felt, and to be felt it must exert

resistance.

•But not all things are intangible which our senses are not
subtle enough to detect.
• The fundamental postulates of Epicureanism are
atoms and the void.

• Space is infinite, and there is an illimitable multitude

of indestructible, indivisible and absolutely compact
atoms in perpetual motion in this illimitable space.

• These atoms, differing only in size, figure and weight,

are perpetually moving with equal velocities, but at a
rate far surpassing our conceptions

• as they move, they are for ever giving rise to new

worlds; and these worlds are perpetually tending
towards dissolution, and towards a fresh series of
creations.

• This universe of ours is only one section out of the

innumerable worlds in infinite space
 The Gods

•This aspect of the Epicurean physics becomes clearer

when we look at his mode of rendering particular
phenomena intelligible.
•His purpose is to eliminate the common idea of divine
interference.

•That there are gods Epicurus never dreams of denying.

•But these gods have not on their shoulders the burden of

upholding and governing the world.

• They are themselves the products of the order of nature

a higher species than humanity, but not the rulers of man,
neither the makers nor the upholders of the world
Augusti
ne
 Augustine's Life
• Aurelius Augustinus was born on November 13, 354, in
the Numidian town of Thagaste in Roman North Africa
(located in the present-day Algeria).

• His parents were Romans citizens of modest means; his

father, Patricius, was a pagan, and his mother, Monica,
a Christian.

• The first nine, of thirteen, books of his Confessions are

autobiographical, dramatically recounting the first third
of a century of his life to his second birth by baptism, in
387.

• The Confessions are mostly a narrative, addressed to

God, of his painful, troubled search for spiritual
fulfillment.
 Faith and Reasons
• From the apologetics of the patristic period through the
medieval period, philosophers tried to understand the proper
mix of the two faculties of reason and faith in a person’s life.

• Which of the two should someone use to understand the

world? According to Augustine, philosophy must include both.

• Augustine believed that reason can never be religiously

neutral.

• Reason is not one independent approach to the truth while

faith is another.

• Reason is a function of the whole person and is affected by the

orientation of your heart, your passion, and your faith.

• As he puts it, “Faith seeks, understanding finds; whence the

prophet says, ‘Unless ye believe, ye shall not understand.’”
• The faith and reason issue also applies to moral
knowledge.
• Contrary to the Socratic dictum that “Virtue is
knowledge,” and that knowing leads you to pursue the
truth, Augustine maintained, as a result of his own
moral struggles, that knowledge does not produce
goodness.”
• According to Augustine, “Faith goes before;
understanding follows after.”

• Augustine used reason to work out his own doctrines

and to agree with or refute the doctrines of others.

• He was also a man of faith. As a philosopher, however,

he had to inquire and pursue the truth.

• True philosophy had to join faith and reason, he

thought.

• But according to Augustine, faith was primary.

 Ontology and
Eudaimonism
• In the Confessions, where Augustine gives his most
extensive discussion of the impact of the books of the
Platonists, he makes clear that he regards his previous
thinking as having been dominated by a common-sense
materialism

• It was the books of the Platonists that first made it

possible for him to conceive the possibility of a non-
physical substance, providing him with a non-Manichean
solution to the problem of the origin of evil.

• In addition, the books of the Platonists provided him

with a metaphysical framework of extraordinary depth
and subtlety, a richly textured tableau upon which the
human condition can be plotted.
 Philosophical
Anthropology
• With respect to Augustine's desire to find a viable
alternative to the awkward and intractable moral
dualism of the Manicheans, there can be little question
that his embracing of Neoplatonism is a positive
development.
• Not only does it allow him to account for evil without
substantializing it, but it also provides him with a unified
account of the moral drama that constitutes the human
condition.

• Even so, this metaphysical architectonic is prone to

tensions of its own, some of which lend themselves to a
kind of moral dualism not altogether unlike that of the
Manicheans.

• For Augustine, the individual human being is a body-

soul composite, but in keeping with his Neoplatonism,
there is an asymmetry between soul and body.
Philosophy in the Early
Middle Ages

Boethi
us
 Boethius’ Life
• Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in or near
Rome around the year 480 A.D.

• Orphaned young, he was brought up in the household of

one of the richest and most venerable aristocrats of the
time, Symmachus

• He married Symmachus's daughter and pursued a

typical career for a senatorial scion of the time,
alternating between ceremonial public office and private
leisure.
• In two ways, however, Boethius was unique.
• He was far and away the best educated Roman of his
age: indeed, there had been no one like him for a
century, and there would never be another (the senate,
long since ceremoniously inane, disappeared forever by
the end of the sixth century).
• He had a command of the Greek language adequate to
make him a student, translator, and commentator of the
Platonic philosophies of his age (to which we give the
name Neoplatonism, to distinguish their opinions from
the original doctrines of Plato himself).

• Boethius may in fact have studied in the Greek east,

perhaps at Athens, perhaps at Alexandria, but we
cannot be sure.

• At any rate, he undertook an ambitious project of

translating and interpreting all the works of both Plato
and Aristotle and then -- he opined -- demonstrating the
essential agreement of the two.
 Anselm's Ontological
Argument
• Anselm's ontological argument purports to be an a priori
proof of God's existence.

• Anselm starts with premises that do not depend on

experience for their justification and then proceeds by
purely logical means to the conclusion that God exists.

• His aim is to refute the fool who says in his heart that
there is no God.

• Anselm's goal is to show that this combination is

unstable. Anyone who understands what it means to say
that God exists can be led to see that God does exist.
• What follows is an attempt to clarify the
argument as it is presented in Chapter II of the
Proslogium.

• After you have worked through this page, you

might try to produce a similar gloss on the
second argument.

• This will not be easy: the argument is notoriously

complicated.

• But you might find it a useful exercise

nonetheless.
 Aquinas and His Late
Medieval Successors
• Thomas Aquinas brought together the insights of
Classical Philosophy and Christians Theology which
pertains to the study of nature of God and some religious
truth.

• According to him, Classical philosophy and Christian

Theology are related to each other

• Augustine blends the philosophy and theology by

combining the Christian Faith with the Plato’s philosophical
thoughts.

• On the other hand, the medieval thinkers were not agree

to Aquinas and Augustine.
 Aquinas’s Life
-He was born in 1225 near Naples

-His father hopes that someday he will enjoy a high

ecclesiatical position which pertains ton the position in the
church.

-He recognized the significance philosophy and science for

grounding Christian faith

-He concluded that Christian thinker must master

philosophical and scientific learning in all its forms

-He used Aristotle’s philosophical thoughts creatively and

systematically

-He died in a monastery at the age of 49

 Philosophy and Theology

• Aquinas is a theologian and he seems like a

Christian because of his thoughts

• He brought together the idea o f philosophy and

theology

• He describes the boundary between faith and

reason although he bring that together, still
philosophy and theology were not the same as it is
because there are things that the philosophy can
provide but cannot provide by the theology
 Faith and Reason
-Faith pertains to theology and reason pertains to philosophy
-Aquinas noticed the difference among them although they
both pertains to the truth
-Philosophy can tell us about the existence of God but it
doesn’t pertains to what God gives us or the creatures of
God by means of reflecting, the theology can tell us that

Proofs of God’s existence

Aquinas formulated some proofs of God’s existence
1.The first proof is motion, all of us in this world was able to
move and we re all movers. Each and ever y one of us is
the reason why there is a motion
-If there is a motion, there is also life
-Motion is one of the proof of God’s existence because God is
the reason why we are all able to move
 According to Aquinas, there are 4 kinds of
law:

1.)Eternal Law- This law refers to the fact that the whole
community of the universe is governed by divine reason.

2.)Natural Law- Consists of broad general concepts, it reflects

on God intentions for people in creation. It represents our
rational knowledge of the good.

3.)Human Law- A law made by the human to make the

country peaceful and it is based on human reason.

4.)Divine Law- A kind of Law that can direct us to that

supernatural end. It is not the product of human reason
unlike the human law. It is gave to us through God’s grace.
 HUMAN NATURE AND
KNOWLEDGE

 Human beings are a unity of body and soul.

In other words, our body is not just a body
but it has soul which gives form in our body.

 Our body is the reason why we have senses

and we can use our sense to gain
knowledge.

 The unity of our body and soul is very

important.
Philosophy During Renaissance
•Humanism and Italian Renaissance art during the middle
Ages was filled with religious symbolism and they make use of
it for teaching biblical stories.

Pico
Pico Della Mirandola is the most vivid representative of
Renaissance humanism

•His most famous piece is the oration on Human Dignity, a

brief speech and the philosophical context of this is the classic
theory of the great chain of being.
•He begins his oration b y asking what makes humanity so
special and the answer to this is that God created us uniquely
below the angels and above the animals.
According to him:

 God in fact filled every conceivable niche

in the chain of being with some kind of
creature

 God saw that every slot was already

occupied by something

 God’s solution was to allow people to

select their own spot within the great chain.
 Machiavelli
•He was a product of Italian Renaissance
•Savonarola was his great preacher
•Savonarola taught Machiavelli an early lesson about the
relative power of good and evil forces in society.
•Machiavelli composed two books: (1) The Discourses and (2)
the Prince in 1513 but it was published after his death
•The one that he write which is the Discourses expressed
enthusiasm or the great interest for self government and
liberty emphasis
•While the Prince is about n the need for an absolute monarch
•-He thought that all people are evil because he found
corruption at every level of political and religious government
and even the popes of his day wer e of such bad repute
•According to him, corrupt society needs a strong government
•He believed that monarchy or rule by a single person was the
most preferable form of government
 Luther
•He was deeply influenced by two great medieval
philosophers- Augustine and Ockham.
•Augustine argued that sin rests in the bondage of the human
will not in ignorance, therefore faith not reason that overcomes
our sinful predicament.
•According to Luther, things that seem impossible to reason are
possible to faith.
•Ockham argued that we cannot discover God through the mere
use of reason and so-called proofs for his existence
•We gain knowledge of God trough faith, Luther adopted this
position wholeheartedly and rejected Aquinas’s natural theology
•According to Luther, the problem with human reason is that
being finite, it tends to reduce everything to its own limited
perspective.
 Erasmus
•Desiderius Erasmus was an important figure both as as
humanist and for the Reformation.
•He was born in Rotterdam in 1466
•He sought to uncover the pure and simple elements of
Christianity that had been overlaid and obscured by the
excessive rationalism.
•When he study at the College Montaigue in Paris, his
enthusiasm for classical literature was stimulated.
•He began his first book entitled the: Adagiorium Chiliades
•He made several contributions to the spirit of renaissance.
•He saw a close similarity between Plato’s philosophy and the
teachings of Jesus.
•He mainly wished to harmonized the church’s teachings with
the new humanistic learning.
 Montaigne
•He expressed the captivating version of classical Skepticism.
•He discovered a new way of viewing daily life.
•He saw himself as a n unpremeditated philosopher- one who
was not confined intellectually to some rigid set of ideas within
which his thought and life must be expressed.
•For him Skepticism o r the doubting attitude was a liberating
force.
•According to him, contentment is possible only when we
achieve tranquility of mind or being calm of the mind.
•A good place to begin is with one’s own personal
experiences.
•He saw in Skepticism a source for a positive affirmation of all
facets of human life.
 Pascal
•Blaise Pascal was another who was strongly influenced by
the resurgence of Skepticism
•He was renown as a mathematician and scientist
•He laid the foundations of infinitesimal calculus and
integral calculus
•When he was 31y/o, he underwent a deep religious
experience which influenced the rest of his life as thinker
although he devoted himself to his deep faith to God.
•The formula for his new way of thinking is found in his
famous statement “The heart has its reasons which the
reason does not understand. This is quite true because if we
are falling in love, our hearts has its reasons why we love
that person but we are unable to identify and understand
the reason behind why we really love that person.
 Bacon
•He assigned himself the task of reforming the philosophy and
science of his day
•According to him, knowledge is power. It is true that our
knowledge will serves as our power because knowledge is the
thing that we can really keep and we can use it wherever and
whenever we want to use it.
•He was destined to live, work, and think in a style befitting
one of high social rank
•He was born in 1561
•Through the succeeding years, he was honored by Queen
Elizabeth and King James I as a member of Parliament, the
House of Lords, and in time became Solicitor General and Lord
Chancellor
•His philosophical works are as significant as they are
monumental.
•The Bacon principal objective was: the total reconstruction
•Of the sciences, art s and all human knowedge
 Distempers of Learning

•Bacon attacked past ways of thinking, calling them

“distempers of learning”, to which he offered a cure.

•He named three of these: fantastical learning, contentious

learning and delicate learning.-In fantastical learning people
concern themselves with words, emphasizing texts, languages
and styles and hunt more than matter.

•Contentious Learning is even worse he said, because it

begins with the fixed positions or points of view taken by
earlier thinkers and these view are used as the starting point
in contentious argumentation.

•The delicate learning wherein earlier authors who claim more

knowledge can be proved.
 IDOLS OF MIND

Bacon refers to four idols which he metaphorically calls

the Idols of the Tribe, the Cave the Market Place and the
theatre

1.)These idols, of false phantoms are distortions of the mind.

The idols of tribe involve our preoccupation with opinions
following from the false assertion that the sense of man is the
measure of things. Simply looking at things is no guarantee
that we will see them as they really are.

2.)The idols of the Cave were taken by Bacon from the

Platonic allergy and again suggest the limitations of the
untrained mind.

3.)The third class of Idols is aptly designated as the idols of

the Market Place since it stands for the words people use.
 Hobbes
•He was born in Westspot near Malmesbury, England

•His education at Oxford stirred in him a fascination for

classical literature whereas his exposure to Aristotelian Logic
left him bored.

•In England, Hobbes was much admired by Bacon who as,

chancellor, enjoyed conversations with him to translate
Thucydides.

•In his early forties, his interest shifted to mathematics and

analysis with his discovery of Euclid’s Elements- a book that
made him in love in Geometry.
 INFLUENCE OF GEOMETRY UPON HOBBES’S
THOUGHT

•His initial fascination with mathematics came from his

encounter with Euclid.

•He joined that small but eloquent company of thinkers who

saw in geometry the key to the study of nature.

•He assumed that no mattered what the object of the study

was, he could gain exact knowledge through the method of
observation. Sometimes our observations can really provide
us reliable knowledge.

•Hobbes called the father of modern totalitarianism although

not accurate

•He describes the relation between citizen and sovereign in

such severe terms that it is no wonder he brought upon
himself widespread criticism.
 Mechanical View of Human Thought
•The human minds works in various ways , ranging from perception,
to imagination to memory, to thinking. All types of mental activity are
fundamentally the same because they are all motions in our bodies.
•Physical or mental activity happened in our body cause motion
•When we at the object, we will see what Hobbes called phantasm.
•Phantasm is the image within us caused by an object outside of us.
•For him, perception is not the sensation of motion or the sensation
of the exact qualities that an object actually possesses.
•One of his concept was the retention of the image within us after
the object is removed is what Hobbes means imagination.
•Thus, thinking is something quite different from sensation and
memory.
•In sensation, the sequence of images in our mind is determined by
what is happening outside of us, whereas thinking we seem to put
ideas together whichever way we wish.
•On the other hand, he proved that there is still difference between
the mind of an animal and the mind of the human being, even though
both of them have a sensation and memory and because of the fact
that everyone of them has its own capacity to function.
 Ratinalism On The Continent
• Rene Descartes is the founder of Continental Rationalism
and he initiated the Modern Philosophy
• Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz fashioned a
new vision for philosophy. Influenced by the progress of
science, they attempted to provide philosophy with the
exactness of mathematics.
• The rationalists assumed that what they could think clearly
with their minds did in fact exist in the world outside their
minds.
• Descartes and Leibniz even argued that certain ideas are
innate in the human mind, and, given the proper occasion,
experience would cause these innate truths to become self-
evident.
• Spinoza proposed a monism, saying that there is only a
single substance, namely, “Nature”.
• Leibniz was a pluralist, saying that there are different kinds
of elemental substance which make up the world.
 Descartes
-Descartes studied in the Jesuit college of La Fleche, where his
curriculum included mathematics, logic, and philosophy.
-He wrote his principal philosophical works, including his
Discourse on Method , Meditations on First Philosophy,
Principles of Philosophy and The Passions of the Soul.
-He went to Sweden in 1649 to instruct Queen Christina in his
philosophy. From there, he encountered bitter cold that
made him easy prey to illness.
-With a few months, he suffered an attacked of fever, and in
February, 1650, at the age of 54, he died.

THE QUEST FOR CERTAINTY

-Descartes was chiefly concerned with the problem of
intellectual certainty.
-Looking back on his studies, his study shows that ancient
literature provided him with charming fables that
stimulated his mind.
•He thought that by exposing himself to people of the world
he would discover more exacting reasoning , since in practical
life, as compared with scholarly activity, a mistake in
reasoning has harmful consequences.
• Descartes decided to believed nothing too certainly of
which had only been convinced by example and custom.
• He broke with the past and gave philosophy afresh start.
• He was determined to discover the basic of intellectual
certainty in his own reason.
• He gave philosophy afresh start by using only those truths
he could know through his own powers as the foundation
for all other knowledge.
• His goal is to arrived at a system of thought whose various
principles were not only true but connected in such a clear
way that we could move easily from one true principle to
another.
• He was not finding only the truth but the essence of a
particular principle.
 DESCARTES’S METHOD
• His method consists of harnessing the abilities of the mind
with a special set of rules. He insisted on the necessity of
method and on systematic and orderly thinking.
• The Example of Mathematics
• Descartes looked to mathematics for the best example of
clear and precise thinking. In accordance to this, numbers
never lies since he is searching for the truth, that’s the
reason why his specialization is mathematics because
numbers always shows what’s the truth.
• He wanted to make all knowledge a sort of “universal
mathematics”.
• He was convinced that the mathematical certainty is the
result of a special way of thinking.
• Geometry and Arithmetic are only examples of his new
methods.
• In addition, mathematical reasoning showed how we
progress in an orderly way from what we do know to what
we don’t know.
 RULES OF METHOD
-This Rule is done to provide a clear and orderly procedure for the
operation of the mind.
-It begins with a simple and absolutely clear truth and must move
step by step without losing clarity and certainty along the way.
The following are the most important rule:
Rule III: When we propose to investigate a subject, our inquiries
should be directed, not to what others have thought, nor to what
we ourselves conjecture . But to what we can clearly and
perspicuously behold and with certainty deduce.
Rule IV: This is a rule requiring that other rules be adhered to strictly
for if a person observes them accurately, he shall never assume
what is false as true, and will never spend his mental efforts to no
purpose.
Rule V: We shall comply with the method exactly if we “reduced
involved and obscure propositions step by step to those that are
simpler, and then starting with the intuitive apprehension of all
those that are absolutely simple, attempt to ascend to the
knowledge of all others by precisely similar steps.
Rule VIII: If in the matters to be examined we come to a step in the
series of which our understanding is not sufficiently well able to
have a intuitive cognition, we must stop short there.
 Spinoza
-Baruch Spinoza was among the greatest of Jewish philosophers.
-His refusal to accept the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg was
further evidence of his desire to preserve his freedom to
pursue his ideas wherever the search for truth might lead him.
-He was born in Amsterdam in 1632 in a family of a Portuguese
Jews who had fled from persecution in Spain
-He was influenced by Descartes' rationalism. Their interest is
similar but Spinoza was not a follower of Descartes. Spinoza
only add new philosophical thought about continental
rationalism.

SPINOZA’S METHOD
-He thought that we can achieve exact knowledge of reality by
following the method of geometry.
-Descartes and Spinoza has the same principle that numbers
symbolizes truth and it is exact, Spinoza add some
philosophical thoughts with regards with this.
 KNOWLEDGE, MIND AND BODY

-Spinoza distinguished between three levels of knowledge and

describes how we can move from the lowest to highest.
-”The more we understand individual things, the more we
understand God”- by refining our knowledge of things, we
can move from (1) Imagination (2) reason (3) intuition)
• At a level of imagination, our ideas are derived from
sensation.
-We find to get/create new ideas by using our sense and from
there, we can be able to create an imagination.
2. The second level of knowledge goes beyond imagination to
reason. This is a scientific knowledge.
-From the idea that we had, we can know if our idea is
reliable by reasoning.
-3. The third and highest level of knowledge is intuition.
Through intuition, we can grasp the whole system of
Nature.
 Leibniz
-Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz showed unmistakable signs of a
brilliant mind.
-He developed infinitesimal calculus and published his results
three years before Sir Isaac Newton had released his
manuscript to the printers.
-Leibniz was born at Leipzig in 1646 and entered the
University there at the age of 15.
-At Leipzig, he studied philosophy.

SUBSTANCE
-Leibniz was dissatisfied with the way Descartes
and Spinoza had described the nature of substance.
-Spinoza’s monism was a pantheism in which God was
everything and everything was part of everything else. In
part of this, God is everything because he is the one who
created the universe and all the things in this world is
created by God.
 EXTENSION VERSUS FORCE
-According to Descartes and Spinoza extension implies three
dimensional size and shape.
-Descartes assumed that extension refers to a material substance
that is extended in space and is not divisible into something more
primary.
-Observing that the bodies or things we see with our senses are
divisible into smaller parts.

MONADS
-Democritus and Epicurus, argued that all things are atoms but
Leibniz rejected this notion of atoms, because Democritus had
described these atoms as extended bodies, as irreducible bits of
matter.
-Leibniz argued that the truly simple substances are the monads and
these are “the true atoms of nature……… the elements of things”
-Leibniz wanted to emphasized that substance must contain life or a
dynamic force
-A monad is a point, not a mathematical or a physical point but a
metaphysically existent point.
-Each monad is independent of other monads.
-Leibniz was saying that monad are logically prior to any corporeal
forms
 EVIL AND THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE
WORLDS
-The harmony of the world le Leibniz to argue not only that God had
preestablished it but also that in doing this God created the best
of all possible worlds.
-Leibniz was aware of the fact of evil and disorder but considered it
compatible with the notion of a benevolent creator.
-The source of evil is not God but rather the very nature of things
God creates, for as these things are finite or limited, they are
imperfect.

FREEDOM
-According to Leibniz, freedom does not mean volition – it is the
power of choice.
-Freedom means the power of choice, we consider ourselves free
because we are able to do what we want and that is our choice..
-Freedom in this sense, means the ability to become what we are
destined to be without obstructions.
-Although we are determine ton act in specific ways, it is our own
internal nature that determines our acts.
 KNOWLEDGE AND NATURE

-For Leibniz, to know the subject is already to know certain

predicates,
-Leibniz distinguished between truths of reason and truths
of facts.
-According to him, truths of reason is purely by logic and
the truths of fact is by experience.
-Mathematics is a striking example of the truth of reason,
since its propositions are true when they pass the test
of the law of contradiction.
-The truth of fact are known through experience and they
are not necessary a propositions.
Utilitarianism and Positivism
Utilitarianism

according to this theory, moral

actions are those which produce the
greatest number of people.

it is the belief that utility of actions

determines moral value.

it is about a person’s act where all

members will benefit.
Positivism
according to this theory, we should
reject any investigation that does not
rest on direct observation.

 it is the belief that if things are not

observable or existing then it is not
knowable.

believes that authentic knowledge is

scientific knowledge.
Bentham and Mill
argued that moral goodness involves achieving the
greatest amount of pleasure and minimizing the greatest
amount of pain for the greatest number of people.
According to them, moral goodness is the additional
virtue of scientific accuracy.

Hobbes
had already tried to construct a science of human nature
and turned his back on traditional moral thought,
emphasizing instead people’s selfish concern for their own
pleasure.

Hume
ethics for him has something to do with our experiences
of sympathetic pleasure.
 Jeremy Bentham
Life:
born 1748 in Red Lion Street, Houndsditch, London.
showed early signs of intellectual abilities.
at age 4, he was already studying Latin grammar.
at age 8, he was sent off to Westminster School.
at age 12, he entered Queen’s College in Oxford.
1763, he took BA degree in Lincoln’s Inn
returned to Oxford because of William Blackstone.
with deep concentration, he had observed the fallacy respecting
natural rights.
formulated the ‘rhetorical nonsense – nonsense on stilts’.
tried to bring order and moral defensibility into what he
considered the deplorable state of both the law and the social
realities that the law made possible.
“A Fragment on Government” (1776), his first book that was an
attack on Blackstone.
remained as a powerful public figure until his death 1832, age of
84.
The Principle of Utility
nature has placed mankind whether under pain or pleasure.
each person only concern on gaining and maximizing happiness
and in people’s life not only pleasures but also pains gives the
real value of actions taking place.
Sanctions
sources of pleasures and pains which may also be called as
causes of behavior.
• Physical
• Political
• Moral
• Religious

The Pleasure – Pain Calculus

*Lots – mathematical units for pleasure or pain.
- the value depends on pleasure’s intensity,
duration certainty and propinquity or nearness.
- According to Bentham, in balancing the sum of the values of
pleasures on the side and the sum of the values of pains on the
other side, the act is good if it be on the pleasure side while if it
be on the pain side, the act is bad.
Law and Punishment
use of the principle of utility.

The Object of Law

*Legislation – (Bentham’s method) to measure the ‘mischief
of an act’ consisting consequences that the act which produces pain
or evil must be discouraged.
*Law – eliminates and discourage evil doings for the sake of
giving total happiness of the whole community.

Punishment
“all punishment is in itself evil” (Bentham) because it causes pain
and suffering.
since the object of law aims to augment total happiness in the
community, punishment done must be useful in order to attain the
goal of having totality pleasure.
according to Bentham, punishment should not be inflicted in the
following situations:
1. when punishment is groundless
2. when punishment is inefficacious
3. when punishment is unprofitable or too expensive
4. when punishment is needless
Punishment should be:
variable to fit the particular case
equable so as to inflict equal pain
commensurable that punishment of different crimes be
proportion
frugal so as not to be excessive
reformatory in order to correct behavior
disabling to discourage future offenders
compensatory to the sufferer
capable of remittance for sufficient cause and should have
popular acceptance

Bentham’s Radicalism
*Philosophical Radicals – utilitarian group who
eagerly attempted to reform the evils in the society.
aims to achieve the greatest happiness of the greatest
number.
they thought of putting the government in the hands of the
people to prevent self- interest and abuse or misuse of
power.
 John Stuart Mill
born in 1806.
between ages 3 and 4, he was the object of a rigorous
‘educational experiment’.
at the age of 20, he fell into a dull state of nerves because
of the intense learning that took its toll on young Mill.
married with Harriet Taylor (1807 – 1858), an acclaimed
philosopher in her own right.
system of logic (1842), Priciples of Political Economy
(1848), the essay On Liberty (1859), the essay On
Utilitarianism (1861) are some of his literary achievements.
his father, James Mill, became a huge influence to him
together with other philosophers like Bentham where he got
ideas on its literary works.
when Bentham died, Mill was 26 years old and started his
own philosophy on utilitarianism where to distinguish his
approach from that of Bentham’s in significant way.
Mill’s Utilitarianism
writes his ideas and thoughts about utilitarianism that is
different from his father and Bentham.

Qualitative versus Quantitative Approach

Bentham uses quantitative approach to pleasure by
using analogies like pushpin and that of a thermometer
according to him just as a thermometer measures the
different degrees of heat, so also a ‘moral thermometer’
could measure the degrees of happiness or unhappiness.

On the other side, Mill alters these ideas and use
qualitative approach to pleasure. The qualitative aspect
of pleasure, Mill thought, was as much an empirical fact
as was the quantitative element on which Bentham
placed his entire emphasis.

Higher happiness, then, is the aim of all human life, a

life ‘exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as
possible in enjoyments’.
Liberty
Mill argued that the sole end for which mankind are warranted,
individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action
of any of their number, is self – protection.

Three conditions under which the Government should not

interfere with:

1. Government should not interfere when private individuals can

perform the action better.
2. Governments should not interfere when it is desirable for the
individuals to do it for their development and education.
3. Government should not interfere when there is danger that too
much power will unnecessarily accrue to the government.

Mill is pointing out here that the government should discourage

the use of liberty if people harm other people but not when their
selves only. It is better to exercise our own liberty and put
ourselves at risk for the sake and benefit of others.
 Comte
•Auguste Comte is the founder of positivism, a philosophical
and political movement which enjoyed a very wide diffusion
in the second half of the nineteenth century. It sank into an
almost complete oblivion during the twentieth, when it was
eclipsed by neopositivism.

•Comte's decision to develop successively a philosophy of

mathematics, a philosophy of physics, a philosophy of
chemistry and a philosophy of biology, makes him the first
philosopher of science in the modern sense, and his
constant attention to the social dimension of science
resonates in many respects with current points of view.

•His political philosophy, on the other hand, is even less

known, because it differs substantially from the classical
political philosophy we have inherited.
1824- he published a series of books of which his
Systeme ae Politique Positive

1851-1854- his second Le systeme de politique

positive

1852- Catechisme positiviste

1856- Synthese subjective

1857- His career ended when he died at the age of 59

His objective: was the total reorganization of society.

But he was convinced that this practical objective
first required the reconstruction or at least
reformation of the intellectual orientation of his era.
 The Law of the Three strategies

Each stage representing a different way of discovering

truth
 
First stage is THEOLOGICAL, people explain phenomena
in reference to divine causal forces.

Second stage is METAPHYSICAL, replaces human

centered concepts of divinity with impersonal and abstract
forces.

Third stage is POSITIVISTIC, that only the constant

relations between phenomena are considered and all
attempts to explain things by reference to beings beyond
our experience are given up.
 
He believed that this law is at work in the history of ideas,
in science, and in the political realm.
 
 
 Nietzsche
•Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th century German
philosopher and classical philologist.

•He’s influence remains substantial within and beyond

philosophy, notably in existentialism and postmodernism.

•His style and radical questioning of the value and

objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and
interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition, and to a
lesser extent in analytic philosophy.

•His key ideas include the interpretation of tragedy as an

affirmation of life, an eternal recurrence, a rejection of
Platonism and a repudiation of both Christianity and
egalitarianism.
•He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the
prominent moral schemes of his day: Christianity, Kantianism,
and utilitarianism.

•He did not want to destroy morality, but rather to initiate a

re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world.

•He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more

naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.

•He presents master-morality as the original system of

morality — perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece.

•Value arises as a contrast between good and bad, or

between 'life-affirming' and 'life-denying': wealth, strength,
health, and power (the sort of traits found in a Homeric hero)
count as good; while bad is associated with the poor, weak,
sick, and pathetic (the sort of traits conventionally associated
with slaves in ancient times).
 God is Dead
• According to him, recent developments in modern
science and the increasing secularization of European
society had effectively 'killed' the Christian God, who
had served as the basis for meaning and value in the
West for more than a thousand years.

• He claimed the 'death' of God would eventually lead to

the loss of any universal perspective on things, and
along with it any coherent sense of objective truth.
Instead we would retain only our own multiple, diverse,
and fluid perspectives. This view has acquired the
name "perspectivism".

• Developing this idea, Nietzsche wrote ‘Thus Spoke

Zarathustra’, therein introducing the concept of a
value-creating Ubermensch.
 Will to Power

•This provides a basis for understanding motivation in

human behavior.
• He suggests that the will to power is a more important
element than pressure for adaptation or survival.
•According to Nietzsche's concept, the will to power
applies to all living things, suggesting that adaptation and
the struggle to survive is a secondary drive in the
evolution of animals, less important than the desire to
expand one’s power.
•Nietzsche eventually took this concept further still, and
transformed the idea of matter as centers of force into
matter as centers of will to power.
•Nietzsche wanted to dispense with the theory of matter,
which he viewed as a relic of the metaphysics of substance
 Marx
•He was a philosopher, political economist, historian,
political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary,
whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern
communism.

•He summarized his approach in the first line of the first

chapter of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles.”

•He argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic

systems, will inevitably produce internal tensions which will
lead to its destruction.

•He believed socialism will, in its turn, replace capitalism,

and lead to a stateless, classless society called pure
communism.
• He assumed that human nature involves transforming
nature. To this process of transformation he applies the
term "labour", and to the capacity to transform nature
the term "labour power."

• He sees transformation as a simultaneously physical and

mental act.

• Marx's analysis of history focuses on the organization of

labor and depends on his distinction between:

7. the means / forces of production, literally those things

(like land, natural resources, and technology) necessary
for the production of material goods; and
8. the relations of production, in other words, the social
relationships people enter into as they acquire and use
the means of production.
ragmatism and Process Philosop

Pragmatism
was more of a method of solving problems
than it was a metaphysical system of the world.

mediated between two traditions, one on

Darwin’s theory and Descartes rationalistic
philosophy.

Process philosophy
did not offer a specific vision of the nature
of things.
 Pierce
Charles Sanders he was born in 1839.

He was educated in mathematics, science and

philosophy at home under his father’s discipline.
at ages 16 and 20, he studied at Harvard
College.

Received an MA in mathematics and chemistry

and work for 3 years at Harvard Observatory.

Little of his total literary output appeared

during his lifetime because of resistance from
publishers.
 Theory of Meaning
 Pragmatism comes from the Greek word ‘pragma’
meaning act and deeds which implies that words derive
their meaning to actions.
 Pierce is that our idea of anything is our idea of its
sensible effects. Thus, a word has no meaning if it refers to
an object about which no practical effects can be
conceived.
 Meaning are not individual or private but social and
public because we derive meaning from our experiences.

Elements of Meaning:
1. Method of science requires that we state not only what
truth we believe but also how arrived at it.
2. Method of science is highly self – critical.
3. Method of science requires a high degree of cooperation
among all members of the scientific community.
 James
William James born in 1842 and came from a
cultured family.

Receives his MD from Harvard Medical School.

Moved from psychology and philosophy, producing

the famous principles of psychology.

Died in 1910 at age of 68.

Had fashioned a new approach and philosophy and

managed to communicate his pragmatic principles to
an unusually wide audience.
 Pragmatism as a method

assumed that human life has a purpose and that rival theories about
human nature and the world to be tested against this purpose.
pragmatism takes its cue from the newly discovered facts of life.

The Pragmatic theory of Truth

*Truth – essentially an inert static relation.

According to James, when you got your true idea of anything, there’s an
end of the matter because as well as all believe. Life is a never ending
search for truth throughout our lives and if a certain truth have been
found, then, that’s the end of it.
Truth then lives on a credit system because it is said that for one truth
process completed, there are million in our lives that function in this state
of nascency.
He also distinguish the difference between tough- minded and tender -
minded approaches to truth
• Pragmatist would look only at more specific kinds of successful behavior.
• Pragmatists would consider less scientific behavior in the truth process.
 Free Will

*Will – relates solely to the existence of

possibilities.

In the issue about whether human will is free or

determined, James uses pragmatic approach and different
ideas arises. He believes that what makes us different is
our consciousness. For one thing, we are capable of
judgments of regrets. Not only do we make judgments of
regrets but we make moral judgments of approval and
disapproval.

It is said that determined will is simply not a choice. For

James, free will is more true because it better
accommodates judgments of regret and morality.
 The Will to Believe

when reason is truly neutral on an urgent issue, we may rightfully

believe based solely on our feelings, agues James on his essay
“The Will to Believe”.

his pointing out that the will of a person to believe in an issue

where in the reason is neutral just like the question about God’s
existence, the person tends to use his feelings to choose what he
wanted to believe.

Three conditions that determine when emotionally based

beliefs are justified:
1. The belief must be a live option.
2. The choice must be forced in the sense that we may
either accept or reject the conception.
3. The issue must be momentous or a major concern.

In general, when reason is neutral in matters that are genuine

options, we can decide the issue based on our hopes and feelings
according to what James believes.
Empiricism in Britain
•Empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that
knowledge arises from experience.
- emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,
especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas,
while discounting the notion of innate ideas.

•John Locke who was the founder of empiricism in Britain,

aimed at the more modest objective of “clearing the
ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies
the way knowledge”.

•The scope of our knowledge is limited to our experience.

It simply means that if ever we do not experience anything
we are lack of knowledge but if we experience many thing
we are said to be full of knowledge.

•Without challenge the general view that we can attain

certain knowledge, so long as we use the proper method.
 Locke
•John Locke was born at Wrington, a village in Somerset, on
August 29, 1632. He was the son of a country solicitor and
small landowner who, when the civil war broke out, served as
a captain of horse in the parliamentary army. "I no sooner
perceived myself in the world than I found myself in a
storm," he wrote long afterwards, during the lull in the storm
which followed the king's return. But political unrest does not
seem to have seriously disturbed the course of his education.

•1646-He entered Westminster school

•1652-passed to Christ Church, Oxford, as a junior student
•1684-deprived of his studentship by royal mandate
•1659-he was elected to a senior studentship
•1666- he declined an offer of preferment
•1668- he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society
•May 1689- He was made commissioner of appeals
•1696 to 1700-he was a commissioner of trade and
plantations at a salary of L1000 a year
•October 28, 1704- his death
Locke’s Theory of Knowledge

•He determined the limits of knowledge and can

decide what constitutes intellectual certainty.

•He also said that all our ideas come to us

through some kind of experience. This means
that each person’s mind is in the beginning like
a blank sheet of paper upon which experience
alone can subsequently write knowledge.
• 
•No innate ideas: means Ideas or concepts that
we allegedly acquire or possess prior to
experience can be called a priori. Belief in
innate ideas is one form of nativism.
• 
 Primary and Secondary Qualities
 

•Primary Qualities- those that really exist in the

bodies themselves. It refers to the solidity, figure
and number that belong to the object.

•Secondary Qualities- produce ideas in our

minds that have no exact counterpart in the
object. Refers to colors, tastes, sounds and
odors.

•The importance of these qualities is that

distinction between the appearance and reality.
 The degree of knowledge

•Knowledge is defines as nothing more than the

perception of the connection of an agreement or
disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas.

•Intuitive knowledge- the clearest and the most certain

that human frailty is capable of. From intuition we
know that we exist. Experience can convince us that
we have intuitive knowledge of our own existence.

•Demonstrative knowledge – it occurs when our minds

try to discover the agreement or disagreement of ideas
by calling attention to still other ideas.

•Sensitive knowledge- is not knowledge in the strict

sense of the term it only passes under the name of
knowledge.
 Berkeley
 
George Berkeley or also known as Bishop Berkeley,
he was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose achievement
was the advancement of a theory immaterialism.

1709-His earliest publication was a mathematical

one but the first which brought him into notice was his
Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, first published

1710-His most widely-read works are A treatise

concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

1713- Three Dialogues between Hylas and Phinolous

1734-he published The Analyst, a critique of the

foundations of infinitesimal calculus, which was
influential in the development of mathematics.
God and the Existence Of things
• 
•He did not deny the existence of things or
their order in nature, it was necessary for him
to explain how things external to our minds
exist even we don’t perceive them and how
they achieve their order. And because all
human minds are intermittently diverted from
things there is an omnipresent eternal mind
which knows and comprehends all things and
exhibits them to our view in a manner to such
rules as he himself has ordained and are us
termed the Laws of Nature.

•The existence of things depends on the

existence of God and God is the cause of the
orderliness of the things in nature.
 Hume
•David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, economist,
historian and a key figure in the history of Western
Philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment.

•He is the son of Joseph Home of Chirnside, advocate,

and Katherine Lady Falconer, was born on 26 April
1711 in a tenement on the north side of the
Lawnmarket in Edinburgh.

•He changed his name in 1734 because the English

had difficulty pronouncing 'Home' in the Scottish
manner. Throughout his life Hume, who never
married, spent time occasionally at his family home at
Ninewells by Chirnside, Berwickshare.

•Hume was politically a Whig.

 Kant
•Immanuel Kant was the last influential philosopher of modern
Europe in the classic sequence of the theory of knowledge during
the Enlightenment beginning with thinkers John Locke, George
Berkeley, and David Hume. In terms of influence, it is often said
that there are only three towering figures in western philosophy,
namely, Plato, Aristotle, and Kant.

•He was born in the East Prussian city of Königsberg, studied at

its university, and worked there as a tutor and professor for more
than forty years, never travelling more than fifty miles from
home.

•Although his outward life was one of legendary calm and

regularity, Kant's intellectual work easily justified his own claim
to have effected a Copernican revolution in philosophy.
Beginning with his Inaugural Dissertation (1770) on the
difference between right- and left-handed spatial orientations,
Kant patiently worked out the most comprehensive and
influential philosophical programme of the modern era. His
central thesis—that the possibility of human knowledge
presupposes the active participation of the human mind —is
deceptively simple, but the details of its application are
notoriously complex.
Kant’s Critical Philosophy and His
Copernican Revolution
•Kant’s answer to the question is complicated, but
his conclusion is that a number of synthetic a priori
claims, like those from geometry and the natural
sciences, are true because of the structure of the
mind that knows them.

• “Every event must have a cause” cannot be proven

by experience, but experience is impossible without
it because it describes the way the mind must
necessarily order its representations. We can
understand Kant’s argument again by considering his
predecessors.

•Kant’s crucial insight here is to argue that

experience of a world as we have it is only possible if
the mind provides a systematic structuring of its
representations.
 Analytic Philosophy
 One of the dominant philosophical movement in the
English speaking world during 20th century.
 Analytic philosopher during this time has a big difference
to other ordinary philosopher because of their unique
methods for addressing issues.
 It aspires for a very high level of clarification and the
precision of formulation and argument.

Positive Side
 Clarify that the new assumption was that philosopher can
render a genuine service by carefully unraveling complex
problems whose origin rests in the imprecise use of
language.
 It only support the idea that analytic philosophers required
clarification.
 For them, philosophy function as the proofreader of the
scientists’ expressions, checking the literature of science
for its clarity and logical meaningfulness.
 Negative Side:
 Stated that the philosopher does not formulate philosophical
propositions meant for the early analysts that there must be
imposed limits on the scope of philosophical activity.
 Said that philosophers have a great task and role in finding a
more deeper solution on a problem.
 They are not involved in finding a nature of reality but it is the
scientists tasks.

Russell's Mission
 One of the Hegelian philosophers who engaged in the idealist
task of system building.
 He was a brilliant mathematician, trained in precise thought,
and in comparison with the language seemed to him loose and
obscure.
 He tried to analyze the “facts” for the purpose of inventing a
new language, namely, logical atomism.
 Logical Atomism
 “the kind of philosophy that I wish to advocate, which I
call logical atomism, is one which has forced itself upon
me in the course of thinking about the philosophy of
mathematics” said Russell.
 Russell set out first to analyze certain “facts” which he
differentiated from “things”.
 His basic assumption was that facts, since they have
components, must be in some sense complex, and hence
must be susceptible to analysis.
 According to Russell, language is consists of a unique
arrangement of words, and the meaningfulness of
language is determined by the accuracy with which these
words represents facts.
 Atomic fact is a term when a fact is of its simplest kind.
 Atomic propositions are propositions that state atomic
facts.
 Logical Positivism
 A dominant philosophy of science.
 19th century positivists were disposed to reject metaphysics as
outdated by science.

The Principle of Verification

 Accordingly, the logical positivists formulated the verification
principle.
 If a statement passes the stringent requirements of the
verification principle, then it is meaningful, and if a statement fails
to do so, then it is meaningless.
 It offers a two-pronged test. A statement is meaningful if it is
either:
9. Analytic which means that it is true by definition. It derived
meanings based on the definitions of their words and symbols. It
also has a formal meanings and comes from mathematics and
logic.
10.Empirically verifiable which means that the statement is one
whose truth rests on some kind of empirical observation. Logical
positivists believed that we actually verify the truth or falsehood
of a given statement.
 Carnap’s Logical Analysis
 Eminent positivists of Vienna Circle and wrote the book
Philosophy and Logical Syntax.
 He said that the only proper task of philosophy is
Logical Analysis.
 The function of logical analysis is to analyze all
knowledge, all assertions of science and of everyday
life, in order to make clear the sense of each assertion
and the connections between them.
 Its purpose is to discover how we can become certain of
the truth or falsehood of any proposition.
 One of its principal tasks is to discover the method of
verification of that proposition.
 According to Carnap, the method of proposition's
verification is either direct or indirect which are central
to the scientific method.
 Quine’s Critique of empiricism
 He attempted to expose a more fundamental problem
with empiricism that applied not only to logical
positivism but to all traditional accounts of empiricism.
 He addresses this in his 1951 essay “Two Dogmas of
Empiricism.”
 The first dogma is the long-standing assumption that
statements neatly divide between those that are analytic
and those that are synthetic.
 The other dogma is that of reductionism, which holds
that every meaningful statement can be translated into
a statement about immediate experience.
 Quine believed that science and logic are important
conceptual schemes and useful tools.
 Wittgenstein's Road to Philosophy

 Born on April 26,1889, the youngest of eight children of

one of the wealthiest and high-placed families in Austro-
Hungarian empire.
 He went to Manchester to study aeronautics but he can’t
deny the powerful inner drive to pursue his interest in
philosophy.
 He suffered from strains of deciding between the two
professions of philosophy and engineering.
 He was encouraged to study under Bertrand Russell.
 Russell believed that Wittgenstein has been a great event
of his life. He is the young moan ones hope for.
 He devoted himself to his analysis of the problem of logic.
He finished his manuscript and enter a university as a
lecturer.
 His book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was the only book
published.
 The New Wittgenstein
 He now somewhat believed that language has many
functions besides simply picturing objects.
 It occurred to Wittgenstein that the assumption that all
language states facts and contains a logical skeleton was
derived not from observation but from thought.
 He therefore shifted his plan of analysis from preoccupation
with logic and the construction of a “perfect” language to the
study of ordinary usages of language.

Clarifying Metaphysical Language

 Wittgenstein did not reject the statements of metaphysics
outright instead, he considered metaphysician as a patient
instead of a criminal.
 Philosophy does not provide us with new or more
information, but instead adds clarity by a careful description
of language.
 If metaphysics displays resistance or a prejudice that
obscures the ordinary usage of words, Wittgenstein
concedes that this is not a stupid prejudice.
 Phenomenology and
Existentialism
 Phenomenology set asides questions about the so-called objective
nature of things.
 Existentialism adopted phenomenology’s subjective approach and
further developed practical issues of human experience.

Hussel’s Life and Influence

 He was born of Jewish parents in the Moravian province of Prossnitz in
1859.
 He studied physics, astronomy, mathematics and found time to
attend lectures on philosophy.
 He earned his PhD in the University of Vienna for his dissertation on
“Contributions to the Theory of Calculus of Variations.”
 His early interest was in logic and mathematics, and next he
developed an early version of phenomenology that focused chiefly on
theory of knowledge.
 Husserl’s philosophy should have had a variety of influences on
different scholars at various times such as Martin Heidegger who was
an assistant. Together with Husserl, they prepared an article on
phenomenology for the encyclopedia Britannica. Other scholars
influenced were Sartre, and Marleau-Ponty.
 Husserl believed that the essence of consciousness is
intentionality. He means that any object of consciousness- a
pleasure, a number, a house , another person – is something
meant, constructed, constituted and intended.
 For Husserl, too, intentionality is the active involvement of the
self in creating our experience. It is both the structure of
consciousness itself and the fundamental category of
existence.

Phenomena and Phenomenological Bracketing

 Husserl argues that phenomena are ultimately contain in the
very subjective act of experiencing something.
 By focusing on the phenomena of a thing available to our
consciousness, we actually have a more enlarged description of
it. For it now includes the real object, our actual perception of
it, the object as we mean it, and the act of intentionality.
 We can best understand the elements of our experience by
discovering the active role of consciousness in intending and
creating phenomena.
 Husserl's said that we must put aside or bracket ay
assumptions about external things. He calls this process
phenomenological epoche’ where the term epoche’ is Greek for
bracketing. He writes that this method involves detachment
from any point of view regarding the objective world.
 Heidegger’s Life
 Martin Heidegger was an extraordinary thinker whose
reputation had spread among students of German universities.
 As a teacher, he did not develop a set of ideas or a system of
philosophy. He produced nothing in the way of a neat structure
of academic ideas that a student could quickly understand and
memorize.
 He set out to explore the deepest nature of our thinking when
we are thinking as existing human beings.
 He was able to publish his manuscript in 1927 entitled, “Being
and Time”.
 He was drafted into the “People’s Militia,” having been declared
in 1994 the “most expendable” member of the Freiburg faculty.

Dasein as Being-in-the-World
 Heidegger takes a similar approach in Being and Time and
attempts to understand Being in general by first understanding
human beings.
 Throughout the history of philosophy, definitions of human
beings have tended to resemble the definition of things.
 To clearly separate Heidegger's views of human beings from
traditional theories, he coined the German term Dasein,
meaning simply “being there”.
 The basic state of human existence is our being-in-the-world.
Consider, first our ordinary daily experiences, what Heidegger
calls “average everydayness.”
 The central feature of our being-in-the-world is that we
encounter thing as “gear,” as what they are for.
 Dasein possesses a threefold structures that makes possible
the way that we project the world.
1. Our understanding, by which we project contexts and purposes
to things. It is through these projected interrelationships that
things derive meaning.
2. Our mood or approach, which affects how we encounter our
environment. These are not merely attitudes; instead, they
describe our manner of existence and the way the world exists
for us.
3. Our discourse wherein only something that can be formulated
in speech can be understood and become subject to our
moods.
 Jasper
 Karl Jasper was a professor in Heidelberg who wrote in
several areas including psychology, theology and political
thought.
 He was influenced by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Husserl,
and his philosophical works develop phenomenological and
existentialist themes.
 His quest is for the reality that underlies the human life-a
reality that he simply calls Existence.
 He does not reject the technical knowledge of science but
he insists that the practice of life requires that we bring to
this knowledge some additional reality.
 The main task of existence philosophy, then is to deal with
existence, and to do this philosophers must consider their
own immediate inner and personal experiences.
 According to Jasper, existence philosophy is the manner of
thought through which we seek to become ourselves. It is
a way of thought that does not restrict itself to knowing
objects but rather elucidates and makes actual the being
of the thinker.
 Sartre
 Jean-Paul Sartre was born in 1905.
 He was attracted to philosophy by Henri
Bergson.
 He spent 1 year of his study to Husserl’s
phenomenology.
 He says, “that morality is a simple
superstructure, but rather that it exists at the
very level of what is called infrastructure.”
 He met Simone de Beauvoir, with whom he
enjoyed a lifelong companionship.
 Sartre lived simply and with few possessions,
finding fulfillment in political involvement and
travel, and needing only a small apartment.
 He died at the age of 74, on April 15,1980.
 Existence Precedes Essence
 Sartre views were best known from his brief lecture
Existentialism Is a humanism.
 He later reject this piece and present his classic formulation
of the basic principles of existentialism : Existentialism
precedes essence.
 Sartre argues that we cannot explain human nature in the
same way that we can describe a manufactured article.
 Each person, is a particular example of the universal
conception of Humanity. In short, we all possess the same
essence, and our essence precedes our individual concrete
or historical existence.
 Sartre believed that if there is no God, then there is no given
human nature precisely because there is no God to have a
conception of it.
 People exist, confront themselves, emerge in the world, and
define themselves afterwards, as stated by Sartre.
 Freedom and Responsibility
 Sartre analysis as an amoral subjectivism now turns out
to be an ethics of accountability based on individual
responsibility.
 He says that even though we create our own values and
thereby create ourselves, we nevertheless create at the
same time an image of our human nature as we believe
it ought to be.
 People must choose and make decisions, and although
we have no authoritative guide, we must still choose
and at the same time ask whether you would be willing
fro others to choose the same action.
 The act of choice, is one that all of us must accomplish
with a deep sense of anguish, for in this act we are
responsible not only for ourselves but also for each
other.
 Sartre says that freedom is appalling. This is precisely
because there is nothing forcing us to behave in any
given way, nor is there a precise pattern luring us in the
future.
 Sartre agrees with Husserl that all consciousness is
consciousness of something, which means that there is
no consciousness without affirming the existence of an
object that exists beyond, that is, transcends, our
consciousness.
 Consciousness shifts us from being-in-itself to being-for-
itself, where consciousness dramatically differentiates
the objects of the world from the conscious self as
subject.
 The activity of consciousness is at this point twofold.
4. Consciousness defines specific things in the world and
invests them with meaning.
5. Consciousness puts a distance between itself and
objects and in that way, attains freedom from those
objects.
 The activity of consciousness is what is usually called
“choice.” We choose to undertake this project or that
project, and the meaning of things in the world will
depend to a considerable extent on what project we
choose.
 Ponty
 Maurice Merleau-Ponty was born in 1908.
 He broke with the Catholicism as he worked
through his version of phenomenology in his first
work, The structure of Behavior.
 He and Sartre unfolded as a stormy relationship
during which they would be alternately friends and
enemies. They published Les Temps Moderne, a
journal aimed at a political commentary.
 A few years later, Merleau-Ponty wrote a book,
Adventures of the Dialectic, in which he included a
chapter analyzing in detail Sartre’s relationship
with communism.
 The Relativity of Knowledge
 Merleau-Ponty says that, “in the final analysis every perception
takes place within a certain horizon and ultimately in the world.”
 That follows the fact that perception results from a person’s bodily
presence in the world.
 Ponty tries to solve the problem by using the concept of an “a priori
of the species.”
 “What I see be seen by you also,” said Merleau-Ponty.

Perception and Politics

 Merleau-Ponty rejects the lofty claims of abstract theories of
political, justice and morality.
 Universal political values were imposed by people who themselves
had not participated in creating those system of government.
 Ponty argues that things are not all that we encounter through
perception.
 Perception provides us with the important element of meaning.
 He held that it is possible to perceive in actual society the
developing consciousness of the working class.
 Recent Philosophy
 Philosophy is more on multicultural now than it has ever
been.
 Philosophy now is driven less by the thoughts of great
individual minds and more so by great issues and
movements within the discipline.
 It also recognizes the philosophical contributions of non-
western cultures.

The Mind Body- Problem

 It is one of the oldest and most explored areas of
philosophy.
 Descartes attempted to explain how are spiritual minds
interact with our physical bodies.
 The dominant issue is not one of how our spiritual minds
interact with our physical brains, instead the concern is with
how our mental experiences can be best explained in terms
of brain activity.
 Ryle’s Ghost in the Machine
 Ryle contends that the official doctrine of mind is unsound and
contradicts virtually everything we know about human mentality.
 Because this traditional theory completely isolates the mind from
the body, and this is termed as “dogma of the Ghost in the
Machine.”
 He says that people who are perfectly capable of applying concepts
are nevertheless liable in their abstract thinking to allocate those
concepts to logical categories to which they do not belong.

Identity Theory and Functional Existentialism

 Ryle’s behaviorism presumes that we can explain everything there
is about mental events by looking solely at sensory input and
behavioral output.
 Identity theory is the view that mental states are identical to brain
activity. It attempts to bring the whole issue of human
consciousness under the umbrella of science – specifically,
neuroscience.
 The most common criticism of identity theory is that it fails a
principle called Leibniz’s law. Leibniz argued that two things are
truly identical, then properties asserted about the one thing must
also be assreted about the other.
 Searle’s Chinese Room Argument

 John Searle is a former student of John Austin at Oxford University.

 Searle was bothered by grandiose claims of computer scientist that a
computer program could interpret stories the way humans do.
 Searle counters the view with a picturesque through experiment.
Suppose that I, or some other non-Chinese speaking person, am put
in a room and given three sets of Chinese characters.
 A large batch of Chinese writing constituting the structure of that
language.
 A story, and
 Questions about the story.
 According to Searle, it is quite obvious that “I do not understand
a word of the Chinese stories. I have inputs and outputs that are
indistinguishable from those of the native Chinese speaker, and I
can have any formal program you like, but I still understand
nothing.”
 For Searle this scenario goes against both of the above claims of
strong artificial intelligence.
 Rorty’s Analytic Philosophy
 Richard Rorty is an American philosopher who
stated that analytic philosophy did not usher in a
major change in the assumptions of philosophy.
 What is new in analytic philosophy, Rorty says, is
the conviction that knowledge is presented by
what is linguistic and not by what is mental.
 We still have in analytic philosophy,
 “knowing subject,”
 a “reality out there,” and
 A “theory of representation”
It describes how reality is represented to the
knowing subject.
 Virtue Epistemology
 Epistemology-the study of knowledge-focuses on the ways
that we acquire knowledge and the standards that we use for
maintaining that we know things.
 Virtue epistemology, though, shifts the emphasis from the
properties of my belief to the properties of me the person.
 Virtue responsibilism is a bolder version of virtue
epistemology which maintains that the mental abilities that
are truly important for knowledge are good intellectual
character traits.
 Aristotle maintained about moral virtues, these
epistemological virtues are acquired through practice and
eventually become habits of thinking.
 According to Zagzebski who is a proponent of this approach,
there are two features present when we act upon
epistemological virtues.
 Our virtuous motivation wherein other intellectually virtuous
people would rather perform the same act in similar
circumstances.
 Reliable success wherein through our virtuous counduct we
arrive at truth.
 Structuralism
 It began in the early 1900s as a theory explaining the nature of
language.
 Ferdinand de Saussure was bothered by standard 19th century
linguistic theories that presumed to find some commonality
between various foreign languages.
 He argued that each language is a closed formal system – an
entity unto itself – with no significant connection to other
languages or even to the physical objects to which the words
presumably refer.
 Saussure realized that his theory had implications beyond
language and in fact could apply to other systems of social
convention.
 The two key components of the structuralist movement, then,
are
 The meaning of a thing is defined by its surrounding cultural
structures.
 The system has a coherent structure that is reflected in paired
opposites.
 Post-Structuralism

Appeared in the 1970’s which is both an expansion on and

refutation of structuralism.
It has branched out into several disciplines, perhaps most notably
in the field of literary criticism.
In philosophy, post-structuralism is most associated with the
French philosopher Jacques Derrida. He target philosophy books and
argues that throughout the history of Western thought philosophers
have built their theories around key opposing concepts.
Derrida believes that these philosophical concepts are also
suspect. Through a technique that he calls deconstruction, he
attempts to show that all of these paired opposites in philosophy
are in fact self-refuting.
According to Derrida, one of the more central dichotomies
underlying philosophical discourse is that between speech and
writing.
He stated that both speech and writing involve basic elements of
language such as conventional use of symbols and strict rules of
grammar.
 Postmodernism
Postmodernism is not a single philosophical theory; to be
so would be self-defeating. Instead, it is an umbrella
movement that covers a variety of critiques of the modern
conception of things.
Post-structuralism is perhaps the most dominant of these,
and for this reason the terms postmodern and post-
structural are often used interchangeably.
However, much of the recent philosophy targets
modernism and thus would also count as postmodern.
Much of postmodernist discussion extends well beyond
the discipline of philosophy, which is only one
manifestation of modern culture.
Postmodernists writers, musicians, and artists thus
attempt to break the traditional molds of their respective
genres.
Prepared by:
NR – 22
“Philosophy of
Man” Members:
Leader:
Hannah
Eloise Kaye Bacani
Pateño Aina
Asst. leader: Boydon