What philosophy is To understand what philosophy is, we will take a look at how this academic discipline came into being and how it developed into what it is nowadays. One might question this historical approach for understanding a thing, but my belief is that the history of a thing determines what it is; for example, to understand a person, it helps a lot to understand what his past life is: how he has been shaped by his environment and upbringing, what events occurred to him and how he reacted and learnt from his experiences. This is also true in the case of a nation; by learning its history (its pang of birth, its journey through wars and peace), we get to understand its people, its society, and its system of government. There are different types of philosophy. Broadly speaking, there are western and eastern philosophies, each with its own variety. In this class, I will teach only western philosophy simply because I know it better than the eastern one. Thus the following account of the evolution of philosophy is that of the western one. In the western world, philosophy originated in ancient Greece. This beginning was marked by the introduction of a mode of thinking about the universe that was a break from the traditional mode. The latter explained the universe theistically: every event in the universe happened according to the wishes of the gods. The man who initiated this break was Thales (634-546 B.C.). He proposed a thesis that events in the universe can be explained by one basic and controlling element which is Water. He didn t give any roles to the gods at all. We can contrast his thought with the traditional belief in this way. Traditional belief: everything in the universe is controlled by the gods. All events and actions are explained by the wills of the gods.
Thales: Water is the originating principle. That is, everything comes from water and finally changes back into water. In other words, water is the single material substance of everything. From our point of view, Thales thesis is primitive and laughable, but that s not the point. His thesis was revolutionary. In ancient Greece, it was the first time a thinker tried to grasp the nature of the universe by using a rational method. Thales made an observation of things around him: water evaporated and turned to vapor which in the form of clouds turned back to rain, water froze and turned into ice which when melted became liquid. Then from observation he used his reason to form a hypothesis. He reasoned that water was the basic form of things and so he concluded that water was the basic substance. The theistic explanation of the universe did begin from observation: most events in nature, for example, lightning, earthquake, were beyond human control. From this, people thought they must be controlled by something that they took to be the gods who had power. Since unlike water, the gods never appeared to us in persons, that is, we could not observe them, the hypothesis was not the work of reason, but of imagination. The revolutionary nature of Thales thesis can be understood in another way. Traditional belief understood the universe as a chaos in the sense that it regarded the events in the universe as controlled by the gods wills. Since the gods often disputed with one another (see Greek Mythology), their wills inevitably conflicted and thus the universe was governed not by one law or one will, but by conflicting wills. Thales, on the contrary, understood the universe as a cosmos: that is, as governed by one rational principle concerning water and its transformation, i.e. by one set of laws Since science also believes that the universe is governed by a rational principle (science uses the term laws of nature or physical laws ), Thales thesis is also regarded as a scientific
thesis and thus he is also regarded as the father of science. At this point we then face a question about what the difference between philosophy and science really is. This will be dealt with below. Greek thinkers after Thales offered rival accounts of the universe. For example, a philosopher proposed that air was the basic stuff of the universe. Some offered a theory that there was more than one basic substance of the universe: for example, a philosopher had a theory that earth, water, air, and fire were the basic elements. By the fifth century B.C., two philosophers, Socrates and Plato, shifted the focus to the problem of how we ought to live, linking this problem with the questions about who we are and about what the universe is. It was a logical extension of the search for knowledge of the universe. When we ask the question about the nature of the universe, we can ask ourselves why we care to ask it. The explanation is that we want to survive and live well, but we have to struggle against the forces of nature to achieve what we want. We want to know the nature of the universe not just to understand it, but also to exert some control over these forces in order to have a better life. Therefore the basic motivation for our quest for knowledge is our own welfare. Socrates and Plato realized this and thus directly dealt with the basic question about how we should live. But this question can only be answered if we know who we are which in turn depends on our knowledge of our place in the universe. Thus these questions were logically connected to form a system, and so by that time philosophy became a comprehensive system in direct competition with religion. We then encounter another question: what is the difference between philosophy and religion? To clarify the above point, I provide the elaboration in the box below:
Why do we want to understand the universe? (What are the laws governing it? What are the basic substances of the universe?) The answer is because we want to control nature. But why do we want to control it? It is because our fortunes and misfortunes to a large extent depend upon natural events. If we can understand the laws of nature, then we can find some ways to lessen miseries caused by natural events. That is, we want to understand the universe because we want to control our life in such a way that we can avoid hardship and miseries, in other words, we want to live a good life. Therefore the question about the nature of the universe is of secondary importance. What is of primary importance is the question about how to live a good life. What kind of life is a good life? If it is simply to avoid pain and increase pleasure, then we are no better than animals. If we think we are superior to them, then a good human life must be something more than that. But what is it? In order to answer this question we need to understand who we are and what our place in the universe is. That is we have to understand what human nature is in order to understand what kind of well-being is proper to humans. Therefore the following three questions are linked: What is the universe? What is human nature? How ought we to live? The answers to these three connected questions form a system of thought. Thus when Socrates and Plato turned their attention to the problem of how we ought to live as fundamental to our quest for knowledge, philosophy became a system. In ancient Greece, as we have seen in the case of Thales, philosophy and science were not separated disciplines. Any theories that tried to understand the universe as being governed by a rational principle was called philosophy.
Thus Aristotle (384-322 B.C), the Greek philosopher who is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers, conducted his research in such a way that a lot of his works are within the realm of science. The following are the titles of some of his works: Physics Generation and Corruption On the Heavens History of Animals Parts of Animals Movement of Animals Meteorology Progression of Animals Generation of Animals It was in the 17 th century that science and philosophy parted way. Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) separately developed the scientific method that distinguished the discipline of science from philosophy. The method consists in (1) observation (when we look at the sky, it appears to us that the sun, the moon, and the stars rotate with the earth as centre) (2) setting up a hypothesis (earth is the centre of the universe) (3) testing the hypothesis (if we can predict correctly the locations of celestial bodies, then the hypothesis is true; if we can t, we have to abandon the hypothesis and go back to step 2. Scientists soon found out they could not correctly predict the positions of the celestial bodies, so they abandoned the above hypothesis and proposed the hypothesis that the sun was the center.) (4) formulating a theory (scientists were satisfied that the new hypothesis passed the test and formulated an astronomical theory based upon it). Nevertheless the word philosophy was at that time still used to denote this new discipline. Thus Newton s major work has the title Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. The word science was used to mean knowledge.
Even as late as the 19 th century, philosophy was still used to mean science as we understand it nowadays. When Auguste Comte invented social science, he called his book Course on Positive Philosophy. Why is it that the word philosophy was still used in the same way even though science had separated from it? This is because when Galileo and Newton conceived of the scientific method, they didn t realize that the method they used would separate the two disciplines. They conceived of the method as the proper one for arriving at the real knowledge of the universe. They still used the word philosophy to denote this knowledge. It is only in the 20 th century that scientists and philosophers conceived of the method as the scientific method that separated science from philosophy. After science went its own way, philosophy became a discipline that tried to understand the universe and the human condition by means of reason without being limited to being testable by observation and experience. Its main instrument is logic, which has been continuously developed and refined. To understand better the difference between science and philosophy, we will look at the scope of philosophy. The main problems of philosophy are: 1. How should we live? What is the criterion for good and bad actions? 2. Who are we, and what is our place in the universe? 3. What is the nature of the universe? 4. Is knowledge about reality possible? The second and third questions might overlap with what science is doing, but philosophy tackles these questions by going beyond the scientific method. The first question is touched upon by philosophy and religion, but not by science which claims to
be value-free. The fourth question is unique to philosophy in the sense that science seems to assume that the answer is yes (though nowadays scientists admit that there are certain things science can never know), and religion doesn t give priority to it while philosophers have spent so much energy discussing it. But this gives rise to another question: how does philosophy differ from religion? Religion has as its aim the salvation of humankind or, to be more precise, the permanent state of happiness of human beings either in this world or in the eternal world. Since most major religions takes the worship of God as the key to salvation and since God is the ruler of the universe, these religions have to have a theory of how God is related to the universe and to man. From this it is evident that religion has to pose the first three questions above and thus is brought into direct competition with philosophy. To be more accurate, since religion is older than philosophy, the development of philosophy into a system brings it into competition with religion. The difference between religion and philosophy is that religion is ultimately based upon faith which religion regards as superior to reason. Philosophy refuses to accept this and uses reason to probe deeper without assuming in advance where the limit of reason is. A good illustration is the case of Buddhism. The Buddha didn t demand faith from his disciples. He was reported to say that people should believe him not because he said soand-so, but because they had contemplated what he said on the basis of reason and found it to be true. If we followed his advice, and we have used reason to contemplate his doctrines and have found them to be true and thus become a Buddhist, then we believe in Buddhism as a philosophy. But if we accept without questioning that the Buddha did attain enlightenment, then we believe in Buddhism as a religion because we have faith in his attainment. (Here s food for thought: if the Buddha did say so as reported, then he himself regarded his system as a philosophy, not as a religion).
To say that philosophy tries to use reason beyond the scientific method and to trust more in reason than faith does not imply that philosophy is superior to science and religion. All we can say is that philosophy uses a different method than science and religion in order to grasp the truth. Some scientists think philosophy embarks upon the realm of the nonsense. Religionists think the method of philosophy amounts to having a faith in reason and thus in shunning faith philosophers are being hypocritical. This should give you a rough idea of what philosophy is. We should get a clearer idea after we have read the Euthyphro next week. What do we get from studying philosophy? When we consider the above questions that are central to philosophy, most of us will believe that we already have the answers. If you, like most people, subscribe to a religion, then these answers are provided by your religion. Some answers, like the ones on the nature of the universe and the nature of mind, seem to be suggested by science; if these answers conflict with those provided by religion, then either you have to choose between science and religion or you have to reconcile them. From what we have said above about philosophy having the same aim as science and religion but a different method, it follows that philosophy also provides answers to these questions and so there is a likelihood that we will have three conflicting answers. So what we get from studying philosophy is that we will have an alternative to religion and science when we are interested in the answers to the above questions. But there is also a deeper, more important reason. If we consider all the answers to the above questions together, they constitute a comprehensive world-view. Since science does not touch upon the issues of values and of
proper behavior, religion and philosophy are left as two competing disciplines providing comprehensive world-views. It is the religious world-view that has been instilled into us since we were young. This is because society has to educate its young citizens so they can grow up and be integrated into society; each society is held together by a shared religious doctrine and thus it is the religious world-view that is taught to the young generation. This world-view remains with us into adulthood and functions as a guide to how to live our life and interact with other people. However this comprehensive conception is taught to the young without much of rational justification partly because children have not yet developed fully their rational faculty, and partly because society regards the doctrine as the truth that needs no justification. Therefore, most people in society uphold a comprehensive world-view without questioning its truth. The philosophical method requires that philosophy sets out to answer the above questions without presupposing any truths in advanced, it subjects every possible answer to rational scrutiny, including the prevailing world-view in society, in order to come up with answers that can satisfy reason. In this sense, philosophy is a challenge to any comprehensive world-views upheld in any societies. Studying philosophy therefore gives us the tool to question the world-view each of us believe in. This questioning might have one of the two following results: either we abandon our world-view because it cannot stand up to reason and accept another world-view which can, or we find out that the world-view we have been holding is the one that is most rational and so we hang on to it with even firmer conviction. Of course there is another possibility, that is we fail to find a worldview that satisfies our reason and we are lost and without anchor. But whatever the result is, doing philosophy helps us achieve autonomy. To have autonomy is to have selfdetermination, to be the master of our own life. We are master of our life when we live according to the most reasonable comprehensive world-view which we have chosen ourselves
after following our own reason. We are not master of our own life if we live according to what other people tell us to. My method of teaching What you will be studying is an introductory course in philosophy; in fact, it is only half a course because we have to share half of the course with logic. Since usually philosophy is taught at the university level, I assume that this subject is new to you. My idea of teaching such a course is that it is my duty to get students to understand the basic nature of philosophy; and the best way to do it is to acquaint them with some of the basic issues in philosophy. By doing this, it will also give students the foundation of philosophical knowledge so that if they choose to pursue this discipline further, whether by means of taking other philosophy courses or by doing their own research, they can have a solid base to build upon. To achieve this aim I choose the method of lecturing because it is fast and direct (as compared to giving them a list of readings and discussing those in class). These lectures are based upon excerpts from the writings of some classical philosophers because I believe that the best way to understand the nature of philosophy is to learn how the great philosophers think. Most of these philosophers are long dead and gone but their greatness is by no means diminished by the passage of time; their ideas are still relevant today. I m not implying that their ideas are correct; what I contend is that by thinking along with them we will learn how to think philosophically. Hopefully by learning from their defects we will go beyond them and get closer to the truth. My idea above entails that evaluation is done by a written examination instead of having students submit papers on the topics of their choice. The latter method often leads students to neglect other topics and concentrate upon one topic. By doing this they will not acquire sufficient knowledge of the philosophical issues they do not pay attention to and thus they will not possess the solid foundation of philosophical
knowledge. An examination will force students to study all issues covered in class and if they study well they will obtain the knowledge I intend them to have. Background for the next lesson We have now some ideas of how philosophy, science, and religion differ from one another. This should give us a vague idea of what philosophy is. We need to do more to understand clearly what philosophy is. A good way to do that is to observe what a philosopher does when he is said to be doing philosophy. Watching a philosopher in action helps us understand what the philosophical method is, how it differs from the scientific method and the religious method. But we will not just choose any philosophers. We will choose to observe how one of the greatest philosophers did philosophy. This philosopher is Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher who is regarded by some as the father of philosophy. But how can we observe his activities when he is long dead and gone. It can be done because Plato who was Socrates pupil and friend recorded Socrates activities in writing. These writings are in the form of dialogues. We will read one dialogue called the Euthyphro which gives a vivid picture of how Socrates did philosophy. Plato is considered by all as one of the greatest philosophers, and by some as the greatest of them all. Alfred North Whitehead, a major philosopher in the last century, once made a much-quoted remark that philosophical theories after Plato are just footnotes of Plato. Almost all of Plato's works came down to us in the form of dialogues. These feature Socrates as the main participant in the conversations. Plato was a pupil of Socrates and he admired him so much he used him as a mouthpiece for his own thoughts. Socrates never wrote anything, but his activity is considered to be a paradigm of philosophy in action. We thus have to get to know him before we read the Euthyphro.
Western philosophy began in Ancient Greece which was neither an empire nor a nation-state, but a number of city-states scattered around the Mediterranean sea. The most influential of them were Athens and Sparta. Since Athens was where Socrates was in action, we shall try to understand the social and political environment in this city-state during the time when Socrates was alive. In the early days, Athens was ruled by the aristocrats who were landowners. Later on when commerce flourished, the manufacturers, merchants, and the town proletariat became more powerful. They struggled against the stranglehold of the aristocrats and won. At first, the people were governed by 'tyrants', who led the struggle against the aristocrats. These tyrants were not the kinds of men who preyed upon their people. They ruled by law and thus paved the way to democracy. During the Persian Wars, Athens depended upon it naval power. Since it was the town proletariat who manned the ships, after the victory these people demanded more say in the affairs of the city-state. That was when democracy began its life and that is why there is a saying that Ancient Greece was a cradle of democracy. But democracy back then was not a rule by all, but by a class consisting mostly of the town proletariat. The aristocrats were excluded from political rule but they always tried to fight their way back. The political history of Athens is that of the struggle between these two classes. The democratic revolution brought about a revolution in the spheres of ideas and religion. During the aristocracy, the aristocrats monopolised culture and religious ideas. Only their priests were said to know the ways of gods. When democracy triumphed, the aristocratic tradition and religion were abandoned and replaced with the cult of reason. With tradition gone, the Greek thinkers had to try to reconceptualize the universe, and they chose reason as the instrument to carry it out. They observed the natural world and tried to explain it without recourse to the gods. Thus philosophy and science began. In
those days, the two disciplines were not separated, and the the Greeks used the word 'philosophy' which means "love of wisdom" to encompass this quest for knowledge. The Greeks were excited with this new form of knowledge and they were eager to learn. The demand begat a number of teachers called the Sophists. The word sophist comes from the word sophia which means wisdom and so the word means one who exercises wisdom. They went around teaching mathematics, astronomy, theology, the art of living, etc. for a fee. But when democracy developed further, their career began to change. Democracy in ancient Greece, especially in Athens, required that all the male citizens directly participated in public affairs, not via representatives. Thus laws must be discussed and approved by the assembly consisting of all male citizens. Since in the assembly each person wanted others to accept his opinions, rhetoric was regarded as the key to successful persuasion. Jury duty was also performed by male citizens of at least 30 years of age. The jury was chosen by lot from volunteers and usually numbered 500 and more. When a person had a case in court to be decided by the jury, he had to persuade hundreds of people in order to win the case. Again skill in public speaking came into play. Therefore the art of rhetoric was in demand and the Sophists turned to teach rhetoric as the main subject. But to persuade people, truth was not necessary. It was enough to get people to accept your opinions no matter what the truth was. Hence, though reason is revered, its use for discovering truth was secondary to its use for persuasion, at least for the Sophists and their clients. Socrates was disturbed by this phenomenon. The Sophists claimed to have knowledge even though they were interested more in the art of persuasion than in teaching truth. Other thinkers also suffered from this degradation of reason and were not rigorous enough in their pursuit of truth. Socrates set himself the task of the restoration of reason by embarking on a mission to disclose the ignorance of those who claimed to know. He
went around the city engaging in conversations pretending to seek knowledge from those who thought they knew the truth. He told these people he wanted to learn and he asked them philosophical questions, for instance, what is justice, what is courage etc. He even offered to pay for the lessons. But when answers were given, he analysed them to show their inadequacies and asked the putative knowers to be clearer and tell him the real truth. Finally the supposed teachers were cornered and exposed to be ignorant. This activity gained him reputation and hatred. A number of people became his pupils and a lot more his enemies. One of his pupils became a leader of a coup which toppled the democratic government at the time, so when the democratic force later on triumphed, his enemies found an excuse to prosecute Socrates even though he had nothing to do with the coup. He was charged with worshipping strange gods and corrupting the youth. Even though there was not enough evidence against him, he was convicted and found guilty. He was finally sentenced to death and was executed by being forced to drink poison. The rise of the sophists was a major factor in Socrates mission but the real reason is more general: he wanted to show that people s claims of knowledge were unjustified, no matter whether these people were sophists or not. His motive was clearly stated by Plato in his famous dialogue, Apology, in which he had Socrates say the following in court to defend himself. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether--as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt--he asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his
brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying. Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, 'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.' Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him--his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination--and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,-- for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Plato was saddened by this injustice against his teacher, and wrote dialogues featuring Socrates to commemorate him. The early dialogues are portrayals of Socrates' activities and are useful to us for showing Socrates' method which is now regarded as the method of philosophy. Later on Plato developed his own philosophy but still wrote in dialogues having Socrates as the main figure. But in these later dialogues Socrates was used only as Plato s mouthpiece. Euthyphro is one of the early dialogues, thus it portrays Socrates as what he really was. The scene was when Socrates went to court to answer allegations that he worshipped strange gods and corrupted the young. He met a man named Euthyphro and asked to learn from him so that he could perform successfully in court. The dialogue will help us learn what a philosophical method is and give us a glimpse of what philosophy is. Try to read it for fun. If you have fun reading it, then you have a philosophical mind. If you are bored with it, don't torture yourself by reading it to the bitter end. I will guide you through it in class.