PHILOSOPHY 101 by Paul Kleinman

• The word philosophy means “love of wisdom.”
• In a very broad sense, there are six major themes philosophy touches on: Metaphysics: The study of the universe and reality Logic: How to create a valid argument Epistemology: The study of knowledge and how we acquire knowledge Aesthetics: The study of art and beauty Politics: The study of political rights, government, and the role of citizens Ethics: The study of morality and how one should live his life
• While Socrates is widely regarded as one of the wisest men to have ever lived, he never wrote down any of his thoughts, and all that we know about him is based on the written works of his students and contemporaries (mainly the works of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes).
• Socrates believed that in order for a person to be wise, that individual must be able to understand himself.
• Socrates is perhaps most famous for his Socratic method.
• By continually asking questions, Socrates was able to expose contradictions in the way an individual thought, which allowed him to come to a solid conclusion.
• By using the Socratic method, students are able to start thinking critically and using logic and reasoning to create their arguments, while also finding and patching up holes in their positions.
• One of the key ideas of existentialism is that the meaning of life and discovering oneself can only be attained by free will, personal responsibility, and choice.
• Aristotle breaks down how things come to be through four causes: The material cause: This explains what something is made of. The formal cause: This explains what form something takes. The efficient cause: This explains the process of how something comes into being. The final cause: This explains the purpose something serves.
• According to the tripartite theory of knowledge, knowledge is when a true belief is justified.
• Hard determinism is the philosophical theory that, because every event has a cause, all human action is predetermined and therefore choices made by free will do not exist.
• Hard determinism asserts that nothing happens without a cause, that no act is free from the law of causality.
• Consequentialism is the philosophical view that an action is morally right when it produces the best overall consequences.
• There are two basic principles to consequentialism: An act is right or wrong based solely on its results. The more good consequences created from an act, the better and more right that act is.
• Immanuel Kant is one of the single most important philosophers to have ever lived. His work forever changed the shape of Western philosophy.
• In philosophy, idealism refers to the various notions that share the belief that the world is composed not of physical things, but of mental ideas.
• There are three major types of dualism:
• Substance Dualism: Substance can be broken down into two categories: mental and material.
• Property Dualism: The mind and body exist as properties of one material substance.
• Predicate Dualism: In order to make sense of the world, there needs to be more than one predicate (the way we go about describing a proposition’s subject).
• In act utilitarianism, only the results and consequences of a single act are taken into account, and an act is deemed morally right when it creates the best (or less bad) results for the largest number of people.
• While act utilitarianism looks at the results of a single act, rule utilitarianism measures the results of an act as it is repeated through time, as if it were a rule.
• Empiricism is the theory that all knowledge comes from sensory experience.
• Rationalism is the theory that reason, not the senses, is where knowledge originates.
• Descartes is most famous for his statement “Cogito ergo sum,” translated as “I think; therefore I am.” According to Descartes, the act of thinking is proof of individual existence.
• Hobbes believed that basing philosophy and science on the observations of nature alone was too subjective because humans have the ability to view the world in many different ways.
• Hobbes believed that factionalism within society, such as rival governments, differing philosophies, or the struggle between church and state, only leads to civil war. Therefore, to maintain peace for all, everyone in a society must agree to have one authoritative figure that controls the government, makes the laws, and is in charge of the church.
• Intentionality is defined as the particular mental states that are directed toward objects or things in the real world.
• Metaphysics focuses on the nature of being and existence, and asks very complicated and profound questions relating to God, our existence, if there is a world outside of the mind, and what reality is.
• In metaphysics, existence is defined as a state of continued being. “Existence exists” is the famous axiom to come out of metaphysics; it simply states that there is something instead of nothing.
• In metaphysics, identity is defined as whatever makes an entity recognizable.
• Actions are considered to be unpredictable and are not caused by external events; rather, they come from us. In order for there to be free will, there must also be alternative possibilities, and after an action has been performed, the notion that it could have been done a different way must be present.
• The Enlightenment refers to a radical shift in thought that occurred in Europe (particularly France, Germany, and Britain) during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This movement completely revolutionized the ways in which people viewed philosophy, science, politics, and society as a whole, and forever changed the shape of Western philosophy.
• The introduction of the scientific method, which is based on observation and experimentation, allowed scientists to explain various theories through the use of reason and logic, and removed tradition from science.
• One of the most significant philosophical changes that came about during the Enlightenment was the embracing of rationalism (the notion that we gain knowledge independent of the senses).
• Nietzsche believed that there is always a need for people to identify a source of value and meaning, and he concluded that if science was not that source, it would appear in other ways, such as aggressive nationalism.
• Meanings of words are not fixed or limited. The meaning of a word can be vague or fluid and still be just as useful.
• There are two ways to value art: intrinsically and extrinsically. Those who believe art has an extrinsic value appreciate art as a way to express a recognized moral good and to educate the emotions, while those who believe art has intrinsic value believe that art is valuable in and of itself.
• Language is cultural (and can differ from culture to culture), and therefore, its effects on thought must be considered cultural effects.
• Language (which is affected by culture) has great influence over our thought processes, and therefore, it also affects our perception.
• Emotions are not only fundamental to culture; they are fundamental to being a mammal
• Ethical and moral systems are different for every culture. According to cultural relativism, all of these systems are equally valid, and no system is better than another.
• The basis of cultural relativism is the notion that no true standards of good and evil actually exist.
• Voltaire was greatly influenced by John Locke and the skeptical empiricism that was occurring in England at the time.
• There is evidence that there are certain cultural, linguistic, and cognitive universals among all people, regardless of their specific group, and the existence of these universals goes against descriptive relativism.
• The philosophical principles of Buddhism are based on the Four Noble Truths (the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that frees one from suffering).
• Put simply, the demarcation problem is how one can distinguish between science and non-science (this question also deals with pseudoscience in particular).
• FALSIFIABILITY: In order for a hypothesis to be accepted as true, and before any hypothesis can be accepted as a scientific theory or scientific hypothesis, it has to be disprovable.
• According to inductive reasoning, if a situation holds true in every observed case, then it holds true in all cases.
• Pseudoscience refers to those theories and doctrines that fail to follow the scientific method. Essentially, pseudoscience is nonscience that poses as science.
• The most significant argument against theism is known as “the problem of evil.”
• According to Epicurus, there exist four possibilities: If God wishes to prevent evil and is not able to, then God is feeble. If God is able to get rid of evil but does not want to, then God is malevolent. If God does not wish to get rid of evil and is not able to get rid of evil, then God is malevolent and feeble, and therefore, he is not God. If God wants to get rid of evil and is able to get rid of evil, then why does evil exist in the world, and why has God not gotten rid of it?
• There are three main types of arguments for the existence of God: ontological, cosmological, and teleological.
• Ontological arguments use a priori abstract reasoning to claim that the concept of God and the ability to speak of God implies that God must exist.
• Ontological arguments are flawed, for they can be used to show the existence of any perfect thing.
• The cosmological argument claims that since the world and universe exist, this implies that they were brought into existence, and are kept in existence, by a being. There must be a “first mover,” which is God, because an infinite regress is simply not possible.
• The teleological argument, which is also referred to as intelligent design, claims that because there is order in the world and universe, the world must have been created by a being that had the specific purpose of creating life in mind.