PHILO 111 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY / PHILOSOPHICAL READING AND WRITING MODULE 1

INTRODUCTION
Philosophy is not just the preserve of brilliant but eccentric thinkers that it is
popularly supposed to be. It is what everyone does when they’re not busy dealing with
their everyday business and get a chance simply to wonder what life and the universe
are all about. We human beings are naturally inquisitive creatures, and can’t help
wondering about the world around us and our place in it. We’re also equipped with a
powerful intellectual capability, which allows us to reason as well as just wonder.
Although we may not realize it, whenever we reason, we’re thinking philosophically.

Philosophy is not so much about coming up with the answers to fundamental

questions as it is about the process of trying to find these answers, using reasoning
rather than accepting without question conventional views or traditional authority. The
very first philosophers, in ancient Greece and China, were thinkers who were not
satisfied with the established explanations provided by religion and custom, and sought
answers which had rational justifications. And, just as we might share our views with
friends and colleagues, they discussed their ideas with one another, and even set up
“schools” to teach not just the conclusions they had come to, but the way they had come
to them. They encouraged their students to disagree and criticize ideas as a means of
refining them and coming up with new and different ones. A popular misconception is
that of the solitary philosopher arriving at his conclusions in isolation, but this is actually
seldom the case. New ideas emerge through discussion and the examination, analysis,
and criticism of other people’s ideas.

Debate and dialogue

The archetypical philosopher in this respect was Socrates. He didn’t leave any
writings, or even any big ideas as the conclusions of his thinking. Indeed, he prided
himself on being the wisest of men because he knew he didn’t know anything. His legacy
lay in the tradition he established of debate and discussion, of questioning the
assumptions of other people to gain deeper understanding and elicit fundamental truths.
The writings of Socrates’ pupil, Plato, are almost invariably in the form of dialogues, with
Socrates as a major character. Many later philosophers also adopted the device of
dialogues to present their ideas, giving arguments and counterarguments rather than a
simple statement of their reasoning and conclusions.

The philosopher who presents his ideas to the world is liable to be met with
comments beginning “Yes, but ...” or “What if ...” rather than wholehearted acceptance.
In fact, philosophers have fiercely disagreed with one another about almost every aspect
of philosophy. Plato and his pupil Aristotle, for example, held diametrically opposed views
on fundamental philosophical questions, and their different approaches have divided
opinions among philosophers ever since. This has, in turn, provoked more discussion and
prompted yet more fresh ideas. But how can it be that these philosophical questions are
still being discussed and debated? Why haven’t thinkers come up with definitive
answers? What are these “fundamental questions” that philosophers through the ages
have wrestled with?

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Existence and knowledge

When the first true philosophers appeared in ancient Greece some 2,500 years ago, it
was the world around them that inspired their sense of wonder. They saw the Earth and
all the different forms of life inhabiting it; the sun, moon, planets, and stars; and natural
phenomena such as the weather, earthquakes, and eclipses. They sought explanations
for all these things—not the traditional myths and legends about the gods, but something
that would satisfy their curiosity and their intellect. The first question that occupied these
early philosophers was “What is the universe made of?”, which was soon expanded to
become the wider question of “What is the nature of whatever it is that exists?”

This is the branch of philosophy we now call metaphysics. Although much of the
original question has since been explained by modern science, related questions of
metaphysics such as “Why is there something rather than nothing?” are not so simply
answered. Because we, too, exist as a part of the universe, metaphysics also considers
the nature of human existence and what it means to be a conscious being. How do we
perceive the world around us, and do things exist independently of our perception? What
is the relationship between our mind and body, and is there such a thing as an immortal
soul? The area of metaphysics concerned with questions of existence, ontology, is a huge
one and forms the basis for much of Western philosophy. Once philosophers had started
to put received wisdom to the test of rational examination, another fundamental
question became obvious: “How can we know?” The study of the nature and limits of
knowledge forms a second main branch of philosophy, epistemology.

At its heart is the question of how we acquire knowledge, how we come to know
what we know; is some (or even all) knowledge innate, or do we learn everything from
experience? Can we know something from reasoning alone? These questions are vital to
philosophical thinking, as we need to be able to rely on our knowledge in order to reason
correctly. We also need to determine the scope and limits of our knowledge. Otherwise,
we cannot be sure that we actually do know what we think we know, and haven’t
somehow been “tricked” into believing it by our senses.

Logic and language

Reasoning relies on establishing the truth of statements, which can then be used to
build up a train of thought leading to a conclusion. This might seem obvious to us now,
but the idea of constructing a rational argument distinguished philosophy from the
superstitious and religious explanations that had existed before the first philosophers.
These thinkers had to devise a way of ensuring their ideas had validity. was logic, a
technique of reasoning that was gradually refined over time. At first simply a useful tool
for analyzing whether an argument held water, logic developed rules and conventions,
and soon became a field of study in its own right, another branch of the expanding
subject of philosophy. Like so much of philosophy, logic has intimate connections with
science, and mathematics in particular.

The basic structure of a logical argument, starting from a premise and working
through a series of steps to a conclusion, is the same as that of a mathematical proof. It’s
not surprising then those philosophers have often turned to mathematics for examples of
self-evident, incontrovertible truths, nor that many of the greatest thinkers, from
Pythagoras to René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz, were also accomplished
mathematicians.

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Although logic might seem to be the most exact and “scientific” branch of
philosophy, a field where things are either right or wrong, a closer look at the subject
shows that it is not so simple. Advances in mathematics in the 19th century called into
question the rules of logic that had been laid down by Aristotle, but even in ancient times
Zeno of Elea’s famous paradoxes reached absurd conclusions from apparently faultless
arguments.

A large part of the problem is that philosophical logic, unlike mathematics, is

expressed in words rather than numbers or symbols, and is subject to all the ambiguities
and subtleties inherent in language Constructing a reasoned argument involves using
language carefully and accurately, examining our statements and arguments to make
sure they mean what we think they mean; and when we study other people’s arguments,
we have to analyze not only the logical steps they take, but also the language they use,
to see if their conclusions hold water. Out of this process came yet another field of
philosophy that flourished in the 20th century, the philosophy of language, which
examined terms and their meanings.

Morality, art, and politics

Because our language is imprecise, philosophers have attempted to clarify meanings

in their search for answers to philosophical questions. The sort of questions that Socrates
asked the citizens of Athens tried to get to the bottom of what they actually believed
certain concepts to be. He would ask seemingly simple questions such as “What is
justice?” or “What is beauty?” not only to elicit meanings, but also to explore the
concepts themselves. In discussions of this sort, Socrates challenged assumptions about
the way we live our lives and the things we consider to be important.

The examination of what it means to lead a “good” life, what concepts such as
justice and happiness actually mean and how we can achieve them, and how we should
behave, forms the basis for the branch of philosophy known as ethics (or moral
philosophy); and the related branch stemming from the question of what constitutes
beauty and art is known as aesthetics.

From considering ethical questions about our individual lives, it is a natural step to
start thinking about the sort of society we would like to live in—how it should be
governed, the rights and responsibilities of its citizens, and so on. Political philosophy,
the last of the major branches of philosophy, deals with these ideas, and philosophers
have come up with models of how they believe society should be organized, ranging
from Plato’s Republic to Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Religion: East and West

The various branches of philosophy are not only interlinked, but overlap
considerably, and it is sometimes difficult to say in which area a particular idea fall.
Philosophy also encroaches on many completely different subjects, including the
sciences, history, and the arts. With its beginnings in questioning the dogmas of religion
and superstition, philosophy also examines religion itself, specifically asking questions
such as “Does god exist?” and “Do we have an immortal soul?” These are questions that
have their roots in metaphysics, but they have implications in ethics too. For example,
some philosophers have asked whether our morality comes from god or whether it is a

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purely human construct—and this in turn has raised the whole debate as to what extent
humanity has free will.

In the Eastern philosophies that evolved in China and India (particularly Daoism and
Buddhism) the lines between philosophy and religion are less clear, at least to Western
ways of thinking. This marks one of the major differences between Western and Eastern
philosophies. Although Eastern philosophies are not generally a result of divine revelation
or religious dogma, they are often intricately linked with what we would consider matters
of faith. Even though philosophical reasoning is frequently used to justify faith in the
Judeo-Christian and Islamic world, faith and belief form an integral part of Eastern
philosophy that has no parallel in the West. Eastern and Western philosophy also differ in
their starting points. Where the ancient Greeks posed metaphysical questions, the first
Chinese philosophers considered these adequately dealt with by religion, and instead
concerned themselves with moral and political philosophy.

Following the reasoning

Philosophy has provided us with some of the most important and influential ideas in
history. What this book presents is a collection of ideas from the best-known
philosophers, encapsulated in well-known quotes and pithy summaries of their ideas.
Perhaps the best known as quotation in philosophy is Descartes’ “cogito, ergo sum”
(often translated from the Latin as “I think, therefore I am”). It ranks as one of the most
important ideas in the history of philosophy, and is widely considered a turning point in
thinking, leading us into the modern era. On its own however, the quotation doesn’t
mean much. It is the conclusion of a line of argument about the nature of certainty, and
only when we examine the reasoning leading to it does the idea begin to make sense.
And it’s only when we see where Descartes took the idea—what the consequences of
that conclusion are—that we see its importance.

Many of the ideas in this book may seem puzzling at first glance. Some may appear
self-evident, others paradoxical or flying in the face of common sense. They might even
appear to prove Bertrand Russell’s flippant remark that “the point of philosophy is to
start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something
so paradoxical that no one will believe it.” So why are these ideas important?

Systems of thought

Sometimes the theories presented in this book were the first of their kind to appear
in the history of thought. While their conclusions may seem obvious to us now, in
hindsight, they were startlingly new in their time, and despite their apparent simplicity,
they may make us reexamine things that we take for granted. The theories presented
here that seem to be paradoxes and counter-intuitive statements are the ideas that
really call into question our assumptions about ourselves and the world—and they also
make us think in new ways about how we see things. There are many ideas here that
raise issues that philosophers still puzzle over. Some ideas may relate to other thoughts
and theories in different fields of the same philosopher’s thinking, or have come from an
analysis or criticism of another philosopher’s work. These latter ideas form part of a line
of reasoning that may extend over several generations or even centuries, or be the
central idea of a particular “school” of philosophy.

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Many of the great philosophers formed integrated “systems” of philosophy with

interconnecting ideas. For example, their opinions about how we acquire knowledge led
to a particular metaphysical view of the universe and man’s soul. This in turn has
implications for what kind of life the philosopher believes we should lead and what type
of society would be ideal. And in turn, this entire system of ideas has been the starting
point for subsequent philosophers.

We must remember too that these ideas never quite become outdated. They still
have much to tell us, even when their conclusions have been proved wrong by
subsequent philosophers and scientists. In fact, many ideas that had been dismissed for
centuries were later to be proved startlingly prescient—the theories of the ancient Greek
atomists for example. More importantly, these thinkers established the processes of
philosophy, ways of thinking and organizing our thoughts. We must remember that these
ideas are only a small part of a philosopher’s thinking—usually the conclusion to a longer
line of reasoning.

Science and society

These ideas spread their influence beyond philosophy too. Some have spawned
mainstream scientific, political, or artistic movements. Often the relationship between
science and philosophy is a back and-forth affair, with ideas from one informing the
other. Indeed, there is a whole branch of philosophy that studies the thinking behind
scientific methods and practices. The development of logical thinking affected how math
evolved and became the basis for the scientific method, which relies on systematic
observation to explain the world. Ideas about the nature of the self and consciousness
have developed into the science of psychology.

The same is true of philosophy’s relationship with society. Ethics of all sorts found
adherents in political leaders throughout history, shaping the societies we live in today,
and even prompting revolutions. The ethical decisions made in all kinds of professions
have moral dimensions that are informed by the ideas of the great thinkers of
philosophy.

Behind the ideas

The ideas in this book have come from people living in societies and cultures which
have shaped those ideas. As we examine the ideas, we get a picture of certain national
and regional characteristics, as well as a flavor of the times, they lived in.

The philosophers presented here emerge as distinct personalities— some thinkers

are optimistic, others pessimistic; some are meticulous and painstaking, others think in
broad sweeps; some express themselves in clear, precise language, others in a poetic
way, and still more in dense, abstract language that takes time to unpick. If you read
these ideas in the original texts, you will not only agree or disagree with the what they
say, and follow the reasoning by which they reached their conclusions, but also get a
feeling of what kind of person is behind it. You might, for example, warm to the witty and
charming Hume, appreciating his beautifully clear prose, while not altogether feeling at
home with what he has to say; or find Schopenhauer both persuasive and a delight to
read, while getting the distinct feeling that he was not a particularly likeable man.

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Above all these thinkers were (and still are) interesting and stimulating. The best
were also great writers too, and reading their original writings can be as rewarding as
reading literature; we can appreciate not just their literary style, but also their
philosophical style, the way they present their arguments. As well as being thought-
provoking, it can be as uplifting as great art, as elegant as a mathematical proof, and as
witty as an after-dinner speaker. Philosophy is not simply about ideas—it’s a way of
thinking. There are frequently no right or wrong answers, and different philosophers
often come to radically different conclusions in their investigations into questions that
science cannot —and religion does not—explain.

Enjoying philosophy

If wonder and curiosity are human attributes, so too are the thrill of exploration and
the joy of discovery. We can gain the same sort of “buzz” from philosophy that we might
get from physical activity, and the same pleasure that we enjoy from an appreciating the
arts. Above all, we gain the satisfaction of arriving at beliefs and ideas that are not
handed down or forced upon us by society, teachers, religion, or even philosophers, but
through our own individual reasoning.

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