Week One Plato Baker What is Philosophy? (6/20-6/24) Apology (p. 26-36) An Introductionto PhilosophicalThinking (p. 2-18) Week Two Plato Week Three BonJour/Baker Locke Reid Parfit Week Four BonJour/Baker Descartes Week Five BonJour/Baker Aquinas Paley Anselm Hume Week Six Timmons Rachels Week Seven Nozick Bentham Mill Week Eight Kant BonJour/Baker Hobbes Week Nine Singer Thomson The Death of Socrates & the Theory of the Forms (6/27-7/1) Phaedo (entiredialogue; available online) PersonalIdentity (7/4-7/8) Personal Identity & Free Will (p. 215-217) PersonalIdentity (p. 220-225) Of Mr. Locke s Accountof PersonalIdentity (p 226-228) PersonalIdentity (p. 237-248) Descartes & Epistemology (7/11-7/15) Knowledge & Skepticism (p. 42-46) Meditations on First Philosophy (p. 46-63) Does God Exist? (7/18-7/22) Faith & God (p. 516-518) The Five Ways (p. 518-520) The Argument fromdesign (p. 527-533) The Ontological Argument (p. 554-555) The Problem of Evil (p. 560-569) Intro to EthicalTheory (7/25-7/29) Moral Theory Primer (PDF) The Challenge of CulturalRelativism (p. 420-427) Utilitarianism (8/1-8/5) The Experience Machine (p. 605-607) An Introductionto the Principles of Morals & Legislation (p. 323-328) Utilitarianism (p. 329-336) Kantian Ethics & Social ContractTheory (8/8-8/12) Foundationsof the Metaphysics of Morals (p. 353-363) The Legitimacy of Governmentand the Nature of Justice (p. 447-448) The Social Contract from the Leviathan (p. 449-458) Topics in AppliedEthics (8/15-8/19) Fame, Affluence & Morality (p. 348-352) A Defense of Abortion (p. 385-395)
REVIEW: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? - Definitions - Branches & Methodologies - How to read philosophy - How to critically engage - Arguments - Valid forms of argument - Fallacies
REVIEW: APOLOGY Socrates on philosophy. The gadfly metaphor. Socrates on death. Big Question Why does Socrates chose to stay in Athens and accept execution?
Early Middle Late Example: Euthyphro Example: Phaedo Example: Republic Elenchus Elenchus + The Theory of the Forms The Theory of the Forms
THE STRUCTURE OF AN ELENCTIC ARGUMENT The candidate for the elenchus, C, produces a sincere belief, P... Under questioning, C accepts Q and R (or Q, R, S etc.). Q and R entail not-p. C's commitment to Q and R is sufficiently strong that, faced with the contradictory conclusion, he finds P to be problematic, not Q or R. P is refuted. (Source: C.D.C. Reeve Socrates in the Apology (Hackett, 1989), 40.)
A SILLY EXAMPLE OF AN ELENCTIC ARGUMENT
Socrates: Sir Charles, you re confusing me! You say that Lebron James is the greatest basketball player of all time. But he is a poor role model, he has never won a championship, and when/if he does win one in Miami, he ll play second fiddle to Dwayne Wade. So he can t be the greatest Charles:..
Aporia: philosophical puzzlement, usually at the culmination of the elenchus. C: P and not-p C finds P problematic and becomes confused. The Jack Sparrow Moment.
THERE IS AN ELENCHUS SKILLS ASSIGNMENT Structure: The candidate for the elenchus, C, produces a sincere belief, P... Under questioning, C accepts Q and R (or Q, R, S etc.). Q and R entail not-p C's commitment to Q and R is sufficiently strong that, faced with the contradictory conclusion, he finds P to be problematic, not Q or R. P is refuted. (Source: C.D.C. Reeve Socrates in the Apology (Hackett, 1989), 40.)
Discussion Question Is the elenchus a purely destructive philosophical method? Or can it also be constructive? Are you satisfied with the elenchus as Socrates s primary philosophical method? What is lacking? Structure: The candidate for the elenchus, C, produces a sincere belief, P... Under questioning, C accepts Q and R (or Q, R, S etc.). Q and R entail not-p C's commitment to Q and R is sufficiently strong that, faced with the contradictory conclusion, he finds P to be problematic, not Q or R. P is refuted. (Source: C.D.C. Reeve Socrates in the Apology (Hackett, 1989), 40.)
WHY INTRODUCE FORMS? Address Two Central Questions: 1. Metaphysical The Problem of Identity: What makes something what it is? How does it persist in this identity over time? 2. Epistemic Meno s Paradox, or The Paradox of Inquiry (Meno 80d-e) If you don t know what you re looking for, then isn t inquiry impossible?
A FORM IS Sometimes translated "idea (eidos) (but forms are mind-independent) Incorporeal (passim) Divine (80a3, b1) Eternal (79d2) Unchangeable (78c10-d9) Intelligible, not perceptible (79a1-5) Cause (aitia) of being ( The one over many ) (100c; also see Rep.596a) OMA Principle: Whenever we can apply a single term to more than one sensible object, there is a corresponding Form to that sensible object. (100c; also see Rep.596a)
FORM: THE ONE OVER MANY I think that, if there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than it participates in that Beautiful, and I say so with everything. (100c) Form Object 1 Object 2 Object 3 OMA Principle: Whenever we can apply a single term to more than one sensible object, there is a corresponding Form to that sensible object. (100c; also see Rep.596a)
MIRROR TO NATURE VS. ONE OVER MANY Form Object 1 Object 2 Object 3 OMA Principle: Whenever we can apply a single term to more than one sensible object, there is a corresponding Form to that sensible object. (100c; also see Rep.596a)
A FORM IS TO A SENSIBLE OBJECT AS THE ARCHITECT S BLUEPRINT IS TO THE BUILDING
FORM The Theory of the Forms
DISCUSSION QUESTION Think about the most beautiful person in the world. (A) On the Theory of the Forms, why is this person beautiful? (B) On the Theory of the Forms, how do you know that this person is beautiful?
THE IMPERFECTION ARGUMENT (PHAEDO 74-76) This is both an argument for (a) the existence of forms and (b) an argument for our possession of a priori concepts. Plato bases the argument on (a) the imperfection of sensible objects and (b) our ability to make judgments about those sensible objects. The Basic Idea. We cannot abstract the concept of Beauty from our sense-experience of objects that are beautiful. This is because: We never experience (in sense-perception) objects that are really, precisely, beautiful, and We must already have the concept of Beauty in order to judge the things we encounter in sense-perception to be approximately, imperfectly, beautiful.
THE IMPERFECTION ARGUMENT (74-76) 1. We perceive sensible objects to be F. 2. But every sensible object is, at best, imperfectly F. (That is, it is both F and not F. It falls short of being perfectly F.) 3. We are aware of this imperfection in the objects of perception. 4. So we perceive objects to be imperfectly F. 5. To perceive something as imperfectly F, one must have in mind something that is perfectly F, something that the imperfectly F things fall short of. 6. So we have in mind something that is perfectly F. 7. Thus, there is something that is perfectly F, that we have in mind in such cases. /.: There is such a thing as the F itself, and it is distinct from any sensible object.
NEXT CLASS I. Metaphysical Theory of Forms II. Epistemic Theory of Forms III. Further arguments IV. Why does Socrates stay in Athens and accept an unjust punishment?