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"X is good"
Public "physical" stuff: publicity-observations,
events, facts, knowledge.
EXAMPLE: how many desks are in this room? What is the temperature currently in this room?
*Something everyone agrees on. |
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Mental stuff: sensations, feeelings, emotions, beliefs.
A headache( is something only you can feel) |
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| Major branches of Philosophy |
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Epistemology:
Ethics:
Metaphysics:
Aesthetics:
Logic: |
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| The study of the proper methods of thinking and reasoning. Logic languages, like Predicate Logic, promise to produce arguments which, if the premises are true, can only lead to true conclusions. Logic is slightly different than the other branches as it aims to suggest the correct ways of studying philosophy in general. Classic works include Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics, and Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica. |
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| The philosophy of art. Concerned with questions like why do we find certain things beautiful, what makes things great art, so on. Classic works include Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics, Schopenhauer and Hegel's lectures, Kant's Critique of Judgement. Plato had a famously dim view of this branch. |
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| Meta means above; this is the study of the nature of things above physics. Metaphysics covers the kinds of things most people probably think of if asked what philosophy covers e.g. those 'big questions', such as, is there God, why are we here, what is the ultimate nature of the universe, and so on. Another important area of metaphysics is the nature of substance, that is, what is the universe really made of, a particular favourite of mine. Metaphysics has often come under attack for being too abstract to actually have any worth, particularly famously by A.J. Ayer. Classic works include Aristotle's Metaphysics, Spinoza's Ethics (which unsurprisingly also is a classic work on Ethics), and almost anything written by Leibniz. |
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| This is probably the most self-explanatory of all the branches. Concerned with such things as what is good/evil, is there such a thing as objective morals or are they created by us, or some other being, how we should live our lives, and so on. Classic works include Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. |
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| The philosophy of knowledge. Concerned with such questions as, is knowledge of anything really possible, is our knowledge certain, how do we get our knowledge, what things can we have knowledge about, what exactly is knowledge, etc. Classic works include Descartes' Meditations, Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Almost all the major philosophers have written on this subject, though it is less popular nowadays. |
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| Epistemology 2 primary theories |
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*empiricism:all knowledge is derived from the experience- a posteriori
*rationalism:some knowledge is independent of experience- it is derived from reason(the mind) itself |
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A teleological school of thought is one that holds all things to be designed for or directed toward a final result, that there is an inherent purpose or final cause for all that exists.
ends or purposes |
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that judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules. Deontologists look at rules and duties.
*according to which the rightness of an action is determined by its consequences |
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| Metaethics explores as well the connection between values, reasons for action, and human motivation, asking how it is that moral standards might provide us with reasons to do or refrain from doing as it demands, and it addresses many of the issues commonly bound up with the nature of freedom and its significance (or not) for moral responsibility |
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The movement of reason towards truth through a process of questions and answers
A question is asked, an answer given, a subsequent question reveals the inadequacy of the answer given, a new answer is given . . . And so on.
This continues until an acceptable answer is given or supplied, an impasse is reached, or the inquiry is abandoned or reformulated. |
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Essence of X
that which makes X an X or that without which X would not be an X
Xness dependent on essence
X - essence = not X |
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Attribute of X
characteristic or property of X: it is X and it also has a certain property or characteristic
Xness independent of attribute
X - attribute = X |
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Incorporates the idea of God as law giver/maker and binds the idea of morality with the notion of God’s will
Morality is simply doing God’s will
"Morally right" is that which is commanded by God
"Morally wrong" is that which is forbidden by God
Rephrase the Question:
•Is it loved by the gods because it is holy?
or
Is it holy because it is loved by the gods?
___to___
•Is it commanded by God because it is right?
or
Is it right because it is commanded by God? |
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If the DCT is true, then either:
•Something is morally right because God commands it; command = essence
–God’s command is morally arbitrary
•Something is commanded because it is morally right; command = attribute
–The moral standard is independent of God’s command
Neither outcome acceptable to most theists - presents a dilemma |
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We call both the sky and blue jeans by the same color: Blue. However, clearly a pair of jeans and the sky are not the same color; moreover, the wavelengths of light reflected by the sky at every location and all the millions of blue jeans in every state of fading constantly change, and yet we somehow have an idea of the basic form Blueness as it applies to them. Says Plato:[29][30]
But if the very nature of knowledge changes, at the time when the change occurs there will be no knowledge, and, according to this view, there will be no one to know and nothing to be known: but if that which knows and that which is known exist ever, and the beautiful and the good and every other thing also exist, then I do not think that they can resemble a process of flux, as we were just now supposing.
[edit] The argument from perfection
No one has ever seen a perfect circle, nor a perfectly straight line, yet everyone knows what a circle and a straight line are. Plato utilizes the tool-maker's blueprint as evidence that Forms are real:[31]
... when a man has discovered the instrument which is naturally adapted to each work, he must express this natural form, and not others which he fancies, in the material ....
Perceived circles or lines are not exactly circular or straight, and true circles and lines could never be detected since by definition they are sets of infinitely small points. But if the perfect ones were not real, how could they direct the manufacturer? |
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