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Philosophy 2

Hans Sluga

Fall 2011

Welcome to


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The title of our course is

Individual Moralityand Social Justice


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Individual morality

is the concern of

ethics


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And social justice

is the concern ofpolitics


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Ethics

Politics

Philosophy

Our course is occupied then

with three topics


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Each of these three conceptsneeds our attention.

So, we will spend

the first three weeks

on an initial exploration ofthem.


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After that we will spend

five weeks on a more detailedexamination of questions of ethics.


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And five more weeks on questionsof politics.

That leaves us a little time for

drawing some broader

conclusions.


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I begin with the question:

What is philosophy?


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There is no simple,

straightforward answer tothat question.


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Philosophy is, in fact,many things.

It may concern itself withalmost anything.

And may do so in a variety of

different ways.


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There is

MetaphysicsLogic

Theory of knowledge

Epistemology

Ethics

Political Philosophy

Philosophy of science

Philosophy of art

Philosophy of religion

Social theory

Philosophy of history

Philosophy of mind

Existential philosophy

Hermeneutics

Analytic philosophy

Idealism

Realism

Skepticism

Monism

Dualism

Pluralism

Materialism

Philosophy of Language

Empiricism

Marxism

Platonism

Deconstruction

Phenomenology

Eastern philosophy


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Philosophy is the attempt to thinkin the most sustained way

about our most fundamental

problems.

If we want a comprehensive formula, we

can say only:


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I want to discuss in this and the next

two lectures

three different conceptions of

philosophy


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1. Philosophy as world view.

(This is still the most common view of whatphilosophy is.)


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2. Philosophy as a practice of

questioning.

(This will turn out to be for us the decisive

conception of philosophy.)


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3. Philosophy as science.

(Many philosophers today consider this to be

the most compelling conception.)


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Each of these conceptions has

influenced the way philosophers havethought about ethics and politics.


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1. They have sometimes considered

matters of ethics and politics in the

context of a broad philosophical worldview. (Plato, Aristotle)


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2. They have sometimes approached

such matters in a spirit of radicalquestioning. (Socrates, Nietzsche)


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3. They have occasionally also sought

to develop a science of ethics and

politics. (Hobbes, Kant)


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Today I want to talk about the first of

these three conceptions ofphilosophy.


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One of our distinctive

human characteristics is

that we formcomprehensive views of the

world around us.


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These are transmitted through

commonsense beliefs

stories, myths

poems, images, songs

religious teachings


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Philosophy in the Western

tradition

began with challengingthese transmitted accounts.


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I will try to illustrate this by reference

to three early Greek philosophers:

Xenophanes, ca. 570-475 BCE

Heraclitus, ca. 540-480 BCE

Empedocles, born ca. 484 BCE


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Xenophanes is most famous forchallenging the assumptions of

traditional Greek religion as it

was expressed in the poems of

Homer and Hesiod.


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Greek religion assumed the

existence of many gods similar to

human beings both in appearanceand behavior


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Zeus and his family tree


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Faced with this kind of belief, Xenophanesasked three basic philosophical questions:

1. What does it mean?

2. Is it true?

3. How is it justified?


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These are still for us the most

fundamental philosophical questions.

In the course of this semester you

should practice to ask them with

respect to the readings we will be

discussing.


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You should also develop the

habit to ask these questions of

ideas and beliefs you encounterelsewhere in your life.


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Xenophanes argued that by making

the Gods too human, the Greeks

were ascribing to them all kinds ofdisreputable things


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Homer and Hesiod attributed to

the gods all sorts of actions which

when done by men aredisreputable and deserving of

blame.


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He argued further that the Greek

conception of their gods was

unjustifiably anthropomorphic.


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If oxen or lions had hands which

enabled them to draw and paint

pictures as men do, they would

portray their gods as having pictures

like their own: horses would portray

them as horses and oxen as oxen.


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Xenophanes, in fact, dismissed the

images of the Greek gods as culturally

relative.


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Ethiopians have gods with snub

noses and black hair, Thracians havegods with gray eyes and red hair.


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He advanced, instead, a belief

in a single god who is abstract

in nature, not quasi-human.


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God is one, supreme among gods and

humans, not at all like mortals in bodyor mind.


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Without effort, he sets everything

in motion, by the thought of his

mind.


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After Xenophanes other philosophers

would challenge Greek religion evenmore radically

by arguing that it is impossible toknow whether there are any gods

or even by denying the existence of

god(s) altogether.


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Heraclitus laid

out a wholly new

world view.

The world is for

him like a fire,constantly

changing,

dominated by

opposition and

strife.


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This universe has not been made by

any god or man, but it always has been

and will be an ever-living fire, lightingup regularly and extinguishing

regularly.


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Everything flows and nothing abides;

everything gives way and nothingstays fixed.

You cannot step into the same river

twice, for ever new water flows

towards you and away from you andyou yourself are never the same.


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Conflict is the father and king of

all; some he has shown forth as

gods and others as men, some hehas made slaves and others free.


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Homer was wrong in saying: I wish

strife would disappear amongst gods

and men. For if that were to occur,

then all things would cease to exist.


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Empedocles somewhat later proposes

an essentially materialist world view.

There are, according to him four

elements: fire air, water, and earth.

These combine and separate in regular

cycles according to two great opposing

forces: strife and love.


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These two forces, Strife and Love,

existed in the past and will exist in the

future.Now one prevails, now the other, each

in its appointed turn, as change goes

incessantly on its course.


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These alone truly are, but

interpenetrating one another they

become men and tribes of beasts. At

one time they are brought together byLove to form a single order, at another

they are carried off in different

directions by the repellent force ofStrife;


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Four concluding thoughts

1. Philosophers in the past have, indeed, sometimes

advanced entire world views.

2. They have often proposed these views as critical

alternatives to other prevailing views of the world.

3. But the conception of philosophy as world view is

only one among several others.

4. For reasons we will explore, philosophers see

themselves today not generally in the business of

devising world views.

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