1 Plato, Phaedo
2. Aristotle, Poetics (Book I, up to 55b only)
3. Descartes, Meditations.
4. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Chs. 1- 10 only)
5. Wm. James, The Will to Believe
(Essays "The Will to Believe" and "The Sentiment of Rationality" only).
[Note: Sartre's Existentialism and Humanism is out of print; but is now included in the Course Packet]
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PHILOSOPHY 203/203W F2000
LIST OF ADDITIONAL READINGS (included in the Course Packet)
Plato, the Cave parable (from the Republic)
Plato, the young Socrates confuted (from the Parmenides)
Plato, the attack on poetry (from the Republic)
Borges, "Averroes' Search" (from Labyrinths)
Ch. Daniels, "Meditations on First Philosophy" (re Descartes)
Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism
Sartre, "The Wall" (story)
Iris Murdoch, "Value and the desire to be God" (re Sartre)
Mary Warnock, "Freedom" (re Sartre)
(additional writing requirements in PHI203W)
Report 2-3 pages, due Friday Oct. 13 15%
Take home exam, 3-4 pages, due Friday Nov. 10 25%
Final term paper, 8-10 pages, due Dean's date, January 50%
Precept participation 10%
LECTURE SCHEDULE
CALENDAR F2000:
Indicated by the date of the Monday of that week; two lectures per week
WEEKS 1-3. PLATO (See Plato, Phaedo Outline )
Sept. 18 Intro lecture.
The lectures in the first three weeks on Plato will concentrate on the material in the Phaedo, lines 9-107b only.
The course packet has several additional passages from Plato's dialogues which will be discussed in the lectures.
Phaedo, from begin to line 72d. Socratic irony, Socratic argumentation.
The Forms introduced.
Sept. 25 Phaedo, lines 69-95a. The Case for Immortality.
Several theories of mind/soul/consciousness, objections, and replies
(selection from the Meno)
Oct. 2 Phaedo, lines 95a-107b. The Final Argument.
The theory of Forms developed. Later critique of the Forms (selection from the Parmenides)
WEEK 4. ARISTOTLE (See Aristotle, Poetics Outline )
Oct. 9 Poetics, lines 45a-55b.
Plato's attack on poetry and Aristotle's reply: the roles of reason and cognition in literature.
The structure of a tragedy. Questions of interpretation.
Note: 1st report due Fri Oct. 13 ( 2-3 pp)
WEEKS 5-6. DESCARTES (See Descartes, Meditations Outline)
Oct. 16 Descartes, Meditations I-III.
Overview of the Meditations. Systematic doubt; "I think therefore I am" (the Cogito).
The God of the Philosophers :
needed bridge between Meditations I-II (the thinking self) and Meditations IV-VI
(the world, mind and body)
Oct. 23 Descartes, Meditations III continued; IV-VI.
Strategies in the proofs for God's existence. Descartes' material world.
Critique of mind-body dualism.
-----------Oct. 30 BREAK-------------------
WEEKS 7-9. RUSSELL (See Russell, Problems of Philosophy Outline)
Nov. 6 Russell, Chs. 1-3
Overview of Russell's philosophy, place in the history of philosophy.
The new problem of knowledge: the senses and the material world
Note: 2nd Report (take home exam, based on lectures) Due Fri Nov. 10
Nov. 13 Russell, Chs. 4-5.
Russell's epistemology and philosophy of language.
Nov. 20 Russell, Chs. 6-10.
The problem of knowledge revisited: induction, a priori knowledge, universals.
WEEK 10. Wm. JAMES (See James, The Will to Believe Outline)
Nov. 27 Wm. James, two essays: "The Will to Believe", "The Sentiment of Rationality"
American pragmatism at the turn of the century. The problem of knowledge transformed.
Belief/opinion, value, and decision inextricably entangled.
WEEKS 11-12. SARTRE (See Sartre, Existentialism Outline )
Dec 4 Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism.
Background to existentialism in modern philosophy.
Human existence, consciousness, freedom.
Dec 11 Sartre's rejection of metaphysics, and of the problem of knowledge.
View of the human condition, the role of the will, the question of essence.
Jan. 8 READING WEEK
Note: Check for Dean's date for final paper; no extensions without Dean's permision-- paper due 8-10 pages
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PLATO, The Phaedo OUTLINE
Note: 65d-107b contains the main philosophical arguments and ideas, on which the
lectures will concentrate.
Line #
57a Prologue
59c Socrates in Prison
Socrates' defense of the philosophical life
60b pleasure and pain
61b philosophy and literature
64c what is death? A separation of body and soul
65 d The Theory of Forms
This theory is going to play a major role in what follows. Is there such a thing as honesty, beauty, health, circularity, size, shape, ....? It is agreed those things do exist. Are they visible, perceivable by the senses? There are honest people both in China and in America, and you cannot see both at once - what they have in common is honesty: but you cannot _see_ what is in common to all those honest people, you can only see the individual people themselves. Those abstract things (honesty, beauty, size, ...) Plato will call 'Forms'. They are real, but not perceptible by the five senses.
69 e The Case for Immortality
Cebes objects: the soul may be real and death a separation of soul and body; but perhaps the soul disperses and ceases to exist when the body dies.
In response, Socrates proposes to examine an ancient theory, that the soul existed before birth in the underworld and returns there after death, to be eventually born again in a body.
70d The Cyclical Argument
a. That everything that has an opposite comes from that opposite
b. Since death and life are each other's opposite, it follows then that the living come from the dead just as the dead come from the living
72e The Recollection Argument
Cebes reminds Socrates of another theory, that true knowledge is not learned but recollected.
If that is the case then (if we have any true knowledge at all) the soul must have existed before the body.
[References: See Meno 80-86, and Phaedrus 249-250]
Socrates adds a new argument to support the Theory of Recollection: from the way we get to know about the Forms. [Theory of Forms 74 a 9 - 77 a 5]
77a Combination of the Arguments
78b Affinity Argument
Socrates returns to Cebes' initial objection, that perhaps the soul disperses at death. What sort of things have a tendency to disperse in this way? They must be composite rather than simple, without parts. What must the soul be like, simple or composite? What are the Forms like? Is there a connection between being constant and invariable, and being simple?
[Theory of Forms 80 b 1 - ]
[Reference: the parable of the cave, The Republic Bk VII, 514-518]
84 c Simmias' and Cebes' Objections
Simmias objects that what Socrates has concluded about the soul could also be said about tuning a musical instrument: that the attunement is is invisible, incorporeal, splendid and divine, and located in the tuned instrument, while the instrument itself is material, composite, and perishable. So perhaps that is also how the soul is related to the body.
Cebes has a different objection. He is willing to assume that the soul already existed before the body, and has perhaps existed previously in other bodies. But that does not imply that it will continue to exist after this body dies, for this might be its last body. His analogy is a person who wears a coat, and when that one wears out he wears another, but eventually a coat he wears is truly his last coat - he dies and never gets to wear another coat.
88c Socrates' Reply to Simmias
Socrates reminds Simmias of the Recollection argument: if our knowledge is recollection, the soul must have existed before the body - but the attunement of the musical instrument cannot exist before the instrument. Therefore the two cases are not alike.
Simmias gives up at once, but Socrates is not satisfied, and gives two more arguments to push the musical instrument analogy to show its deficiencies.
a. Argument from the will
b. Degrees of harmony argument
These arguments do not rely on acceptance of the Recollection argument.
95 a Socrates' Reply to Cebes
Socrates begins with a restatement of Cebes' objection. After some reflection he says that an adequate answer will require a full treatment of the causes of generation and destruction.
96a Socrates' intellectual biography
Socrates discusses natural science, and his dissatisfaction with the sort of explanations it provides. It seems that the same question (e.g. why is Simmias sitting, or what accounts for consciousness) may be understood in different senses, and what sort of answer is satisfying depends on how the question is understood.
100b Socrates' account of reasons and causes
Here Socrates develops the Theory of Forms, as answer to one sort of 'why' questions (with correlate sense of 'because'). Things are what they are like because they participate in certain Forms and not in others. (Other terminology: they are instances of those Forms, they share in those Forms, those Forms are present in the thing.)
102 Theory of Change
Part One. (102d-105a) Change = Giving way to opposites
The Forms bear certain relations to each other - e.g. one Form may exclude another, or bring another along with it. This leads to a Theory of Change:
a. One Form may give way to another (contrary) Form
b. There are limits to change even in particulars
(This is in effect a distinction between 'essential' and 'accidental' properties -- that is a later terminology which Plato does not use, but which we can use to describe the argument. Fire can become smalller or larger, but cannot become cold. Being hot is an 'essential' property of fire.)
Part Two. (105b-106a) The reason why something is thus or so must always be something (else) which is essentially thus or so.
(Why is the stove hot? Because of the fire in it. Note that being hot is an accidental property of the stove, which is why the question arises - stoves are not always hot.)
105 The Final Argument
1. The only way a soul can cease to exist is to die
2. To die is to become dead (I.e for life to give way to death in the soul)
3. The reason that a person is alive is that s/he has a soul
<therefore, by Theory of Change Part Two>
4. The soul is essentially alive
<therefore>
5. The soul cannot admit the opposite of being alive, i.e. it cannot be dead
<therefore, by Theory of Change Part One>
6. Since the soul cannot _be_ dead it cannot _become_ dead
<therefore, by 2. above>
7. The soul cannot die
<therefore, by 1. above>
8. The soul cannot cease to exist.
107 c 1 Myth and Death Scene
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ARISTOTLE, POETICS OUTLINE
[47a-55b only]
1. General -- definition of poetry and its subdivisions; on representation [47a8]
Definition of tragedy and its parts [49b20-]
2. Six Parts [49b32-]
Note especially the last three, specific to the representation of action: plot, character, and reasoning (the way in which the characters use language to demonstrate something or to make a general statement).
3. Plot [50a15-] - the most important of the six parts
Structure, Magnitude, Unity: What makes for the unity of plot?
Universality & Necessity, Truth in poetry: "poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history" (although the story may be historically false, a fiction, or inaccurate), for poetry "speaks of universals", depicting how certain sorts of people will act "in accordance with probability or necessity". (Cognitive value: what is conveyed by the representation? What is 'truth in fiction'?)
4. Elements of Plot [51b32-]
Pity & Fear, Reversal, Recognition, Suffering
(See also 54b18- for kinds of Recognition)
5. Aim & Function of Tragedy, and how they are achieved [52b28-]
To represent what is pitiful and fearful: a change in fortune
a. Fortune
The proper changes in fortune in tragedy : from good to bad, neither to a wholly good person nor to a wholly wicked one
b. Character
Requirements for a tragic character (a person who is neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but comes to misfortune through some error or flaw in his own character). (The 'tragic hero' has a 'tragic flaw'.)
c. Situation and Action [53b 13-]
The situation should involve people closely tied to each other (family/ friends/ enemies), and either knowledge or ignorance should play a significant role in the action.
d. Character [54a16-]
Good, Appropriate, Verisimilar, Consistent
e. Place of the improbable and supernatural [54a33-]
Everything should develop as logically and plausibly as possible; the resolution of the plot should come 'from within', not through a 'deus ex machina'. If improbable or supernatural events are crucial to the plot they are admissible but should, if at all possible, happen offstage.
f. Recognition [54b19]
It is a crucial part of the tragic plot that at some point, understanding of the situation is reached and this moment of recognition plays a significant role in the action. Best if this arises naturally from an incident in the story, second best if it happens from inferences drawn from the incidents.
g. Plot : three parts can be distinguished in any plot: the 'involvement', the 'change in fortune', and the 'unraveling' [55b1-]
Note: The main issues of interpretation concerning the Poetics pertain to:
1. The 'tragic flaw' in the protagonist
2. The role of cognition, the cognitive values of [in] tragedy
3. Pity, fear, and 'catharsis' (what is this 'purging'?)
4. The relation of the Poetics to Aristotle's general philosophy (theory of human nature, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science).
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DESCARTES, Meditations on First Philosophy OUTLINE
Meditation I. Of the Things of Which We May Doubt
Sources of knowledge and of doubt:
a. The senses
b. The possibility of madness
c. Dreaming
d. The possibility of a deceiving god or demon
Method of radical doubt: to see if we can uncover something which will remain even so.
Meditation II. Of the Nature of the Human Mind
(that it is more easily and better known to me than the body)
What survives even the evil demon hypothesis:
The Cogito: I doubt, therefore I am.
I am a thinking thing; but can I be sure that I am anything more?
What is a body or material thing?
Example: the piece of wax. Accidental and essential characteristic
Bodies, if they are real, are (spatially) extended things (which the mind is not)
That bodies themselves are not properly perceived by the senses, but by the intellect alone.
Meditation III. Of God, That He Exists
The general rule: "all things which I perceive/conceive clearly and distinctly are true"
Objection: does God exist, is he a deceiver who gives us the sense of clear and distinct perceptions of unreal things?
Epistemological prolegomenon: of ideas, judgements, truth and falsity
First argument for God's existence (related to the 'Ontological Argument')
Second argument for God's existence (related to the 'Cosmological Argument')
That God cannot be a deceiver (Corollary to the above arguments)
Meditation IV. Of Truth and Error
Elaboration on the epistemology.
With respect to a clear and distinct idea the intellect can only assent or withhold assent; it cannot assent to the opposite.
What is the source of error?
With respect to ideas not clearly and distinctly perceived/conceived, the will can assent when both assent and dissent are open to it.
Meditation V. Of the Essence of Material Things - and Again, of God; That He Exists
The scientific world-picture; the primary qualities
New argument for the existence of God (also related to the 'Ontological Argument')
Meditation VI. Of the Existence of Material Things;
and of the Real Distinction Between Mind and Body
Matter = extended substance; Mind = thinking substance
God not being a deceiver, the material world is as I clearly and distinctly conceive of it
(though not corresponding to the unclear, indistinct, confused perceptions to which my will assents)
The mind's own body
General rule "it is sufficient that I am able clearly and distinctly to conceive one thing apart from another, in order to be certain that the one is different from the other"
Thus I am "entirely and truly distinct from my body"
The meaning of pain, hunger, thirst, etc.:
"that my mind and body compose a certain unity"
RUSSELL, The Problems of Philosophy (Chs. 1-10) OUTLINE
Ch. I. Appearance and Reality
1. "Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?"
This sounds like the question confronted in Descartes' Meditations. But despite the similarity, the problem raised has changed over the intervening 250 years.
2. Does such knowledge derive from sense experience?
What precisely is it that our experiences make us know? Not at all what one might think at first blush. Example of the table (compare with Descartes' example of the piece of wax)
3. If we are to know anything about the table, it must be by means of sense-data - but what, precisely is the relation between the table and the sense data?
The table, if it really exists, is a physical thing; the totality of all physical things is matter.
Thus we arrive at two more general questions:
a. Is there any such thing as matter?
b. If so, what is its nature?
4. Idealism versus materialism: opposite answers to these questions
Ch. II. The Existence of Matter
1. Our fixed point of reference is the existence of our sense data, and what they are like. Discussion of the 'Cogito' argument.
Russell argues that the existence of the Self, the 'subject' of those sense data, is as questionable as that of the physical objects, the 'objects' of those sense data.
2. The physical object considered as accounting for the unity of various perspectives, by different people looking at the same thing.
This begs the question, which is in effect whether anything at all exists beyond my sense data.
3. The existence of physical objects (and other people) considered as a hypothesis, similar to scientific hypotheses.
Some hypotheses are better than others, namely if they account for the data and do so more adequately and/or more simply. The hypothesis that life is but a dream cannot be ruled out on logical grounds, but there is no reason to believe it, for we can account for our sense data with a better, simpler hypothesis.
4. We don't come by our belief in the external world through argument; it is an instinctive belief.
We need good reason to change our beliefs from what they are, or to give up our instinctive beliefs. There is so far no good reason to give up the instinctive belief in the external world.
General rule: "We cannot have good reason to reject a belief except on the ground of some other belief."
Thus sceptical doubts do not suffice to force rejection of our beliefs.
5. The modest but important function of philosophy: not to give us new knowledge but to help us to systematize our beliefs.
Ch. III. The Nature of Matter
1. We shall now take it for granted that matter, physical objects, the external world exist -
e.g. that there is a real table which exists independently of our sensations, and of which the sensed qualities are the appearances.
The question is then: What is that matter like?
2. To this question science provides one answer, and it is very different from the answer of common sense belief.
The physical objects cause our sensations, and those sensations reveal something about the objects in the sense that effects generally reveal something about their causes. The cause must be complex enough, and have the sort of complexity sufficient to account for the complexity and structure of the appearances.
3. The physical space is not the same as our private experienced space, but must be connected with our private spaces in a certain way. Similarly for the time of physics as related to our experience of time.
Physical space and time must correspond to private spaces and times, but all we can know about them (about the structure of the external world) is that it must be such as to account for the correspondence. Thus we can assert similarity of structure, on a rather abstract level, but not that the objects and our sensations are alike (have common properties).
Ch. IV Idealism
1. Idealism is the doctrine that whatever exists, or at least everything that can be known to exist, is mental. (Opposed to materialism: "All there is, is matter")
On this view, tables may be real, and independent of our sensations of tables, as long as they are something like ideas - and provided ideas can cause sensations
2. Berkeley's subjective idealism examined: "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived")
3. Argument: our sensations of tables are to some extent subjective, the sensations cannot exist except in perception. Therefore (?) nothing can be immediately known except what is in the mind.
4. Argument: we cannot know that anything exists which we do not know. Therefore (?) if matter is something which we cannot know (by acquainted with) than we cannot know that it exists and cannot be said to be real.
5. Distinction: "know" has two senses. You can know a thing or person (= be acquainted with that thing or person). You can also know _that_ something is the case (for example, _that_ a certain person is happy).
Hence there is knowledge of things and knowledge of truths, and the two must be clearly distinguished. In French and German there are two words, not one; hence English speakers are more likely to become confused about knowledge.
6. Using this distinction, we must restate the apparent truism which is the premise of 4. above as "We can never truly judge that something with which we are not acquainted exists".
That is not only not a truism, but palpably false. But that leads us to the next chapter.
Ch. V Knowledge by Acquaintance and by Description
1. We are acquainted with anything of which we are directly aware, without any inference or knowledge of truth.
Am I acquainted with sensations, with physical objects, with myself, with other people?
2. We know something by description if we know that it exists and what it is like, and are not acquainted with it.
If I am not acquainted with the table, but know that there exists a thing which causes my table-sensations, then I know that thing by the description "the cause of my table sensations".
3. Besides sense data, memory is also a source of immediate knowledge (knowledge by acquaintance); so is introspection.
Most of what there is we know at best by description; this includes the Self (if that exists), other minds (if they exist).
4. The Theory of Definite Descriptions.
A definite description is a phrase of form "the so and so" (for example, "the King of France", "the President of the United States")
The phrase "The so and so exists" means that there is precisely one entity which is so and so. Thus, "The present King of France exists" and "The Professor of Philosophy at Princeton exists" are both false (though for different reasons).
The phrase "The so and so is such and such" means that there is precisely one entity which is so and so, and all entities which are so and so are also such and such. Thus, "The present King of France is alive" and "The first Professor of Philosophy at Princeton is alive" are both false (though for different reasons).
5. All knowledge by description must be based on knowledge by acquaintance.
General rule: "Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted"
This means that there must Universals (Plato's Forms). For example, to know that Peter is honest, I must know Peter and be acquainted with (the abstract object) honesty.
Ch. VI On Induction
1. Through our acquaintance with sense data etc., we have a basis for knowledge. But we must be able somehow to get from this basis to everything else we know (or even, to what it is reasonable for us to believe).
"If we are to draw inferences from these data ... we must know general principles of some kind by means of which such inferences can be drawn."
2. Whatever those principles may be, the are traditionally called "principles of induction".
"Induction" is the name for drawing inferences from our data in accordance with those principles.
3. Of course, those principles must be such that inferences drawn in accordance with them are reliable (or reasonably believed to be reliable); otherwise they could not give rise to more knowledge (or to reasonable belief).
This raises the great Problem of the Justification of Induction.
4. The uniformity of nature
- if we can believe in _that_, in some form in which it entails that the future will be relevantly like the past, and the elsewhere relevantly similar to what is close at hand, then simple extrapolation will be a reasonable form of induction.
But how could we support belief in the uniformity of nature?
5. At this point Russell attempts a general formulation of the Principle of Induction.
Note his use of "probability" in this formulation - a new concept in epistemology that we have not previously encountered.
6. Discussion of the character of probability, and the pitfalls of probability inferences.
7. Final conclusion: that justification of Induction is not possible
"Thus all knowledge which, on the basis of experience tells us something about what is not experienced, is based on a belief [in the reliability of Induction] which experience can neither confirm or confute ...."
Ch. VII. On Our Knowledge of General Principles
1. In the discussion of Induction we found that we have certain beliefs [practices] which are not provable or disprovable [justifiable or impeachable] by experience, but on which we totally rely nevertheless (especially in passing beyond the limits of immediate experience).
Indeed , it appears that this reliance is indispensable to coherent thinking and experience of ourselves as living and acting in a real world. (A Kantian theme, departing from Russell's apparent initial empiricism)
2. Besides Induction, what do we rely on in this way?
A discussion of logic, mathematics.
3. If we are to maintain that we have real knowledge that goes beyond the deliverances of immediate experience, we must claim to have a priori knowledge (e.g. that Induction is reliable).
4. Examination of the controversy between the empiricists and the rationalists in modern philosophy, concerning whether we have, or can have, a priori knowledge.
5. Some conclusions: that knowledge of what exists is not a priori; that knowledge of mathematics and of ethical principles is.
Ch. VIII. How Is a Priori Knowledge Possible?
1. An examination of Kant's 'critical philosophy'.
a. Analytic/synthetic distinction
b. A priori/a posteriori distinction
c. In all our experience, there are elements contributed by the objects (our sensations) and elements due to our own nature. The latter include the spatial and temporal arrangement, and the fitting into patterns of cause and effect.
d. Distinction between the thing in itself and the objects known in experience (the appearances, 'phenomena').
2. Objections to Kant's account:
a. The possibility of change in our nature
b. The independence of facts from thought and perception
c. The independence of my relation to other things from thought
Thus a different account is needed of how a priori knowledge is possible.
Ch. IX. The World of Universals
1. Russell's thesis: we have direct acquaintance with universals, and what we call a priori knowledge is knowledge we have of [about] universals.
We have seen in preceding chapters that such entities as relations have a being different from that of physical objects, as well as from minds and from sense data.
2. The questions to be addressed are:
a. What is the nature of this kind of being?
b. What objects are there that have this kind of being?
c. How do [can] we have knowledge of these objects?
The third question will be the subject of Ch. X.
3. Examination of Plato's response to similar questions about his Forms ('Ideas').
4. The mistaken focus in modern philosophy on adjectives and nouns, rather than verbs and propositions, in the discussion of universals.
The importance of relations, typically indicated by verb phrases and prepositions.
5. That the being of universals is not merely mental
Distinction: the world of being [things that subsist or have being, the universals] and the world of existence [things that are in time, physical objects, minds, sense-data].
Ch. X. On Our Knowledge of Universals
1. Recall the distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance.
We are directly acquainted with some universals: sensible qualities, relations between parts of a single complex sense datum, the relation of resemblance or similarity.
2. Thesis: All a priori knowledge deals exclusively with the relations of universals.
3. To understand a proposition we must have acquaintance with whatever is really dealt with by the proposition.
This entails that many propositions that we understand, and that seem to be about particulars are really concerned only with universals.
4. We have the power of sometimes perceiving certain relations between universals, and therefore of sometimes knowing general a priori propositions such as those of arithmetic and logic.
However, any applications of such general a priori propositions to actual particulars involve experience.
5. Important distinction: the meaning of a proposition versus the evidence there is [or can be] for it.
6. A survey of our sources of knowledge:
a. We must first distinguish knowledge of things from knowledge of truths
b. In each there are two kinds, immediate and derivative
c. Immediate acquaintance: with particulars (sense data, the self?) and with certain universals.
d. Derivative knowledge of things: knowledge by description, involves both acquaintance with things and knowledge of truths.
e. Immediate knowledge of truths: 'intuitive knowledge' of 'self-evident truths'
f. Derivative knowledge of truths: anything derivable from self-evident truths by self-evident principles of derivation.
7. Given the above account, all our knowledge of truths depends on our intuitive knowledge.
8. Two new questions are now raised: about the character of intuitive knowledge and about the source, possibility, and character of error.
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WM. JAMES The Will to Believe OUTLINE
Intro. Ostensibly an essay on the epistemic right to religious belief, this essay is in fact an outline of a general epistemology. Its characteristics are voluntarism (allocating an important role to the will in the formation and maintenance of rational opinion) and pragmatism (insistence that opinion, action, and decision cannot be separated either in practice or in theory).
- Hypotheses and options
- Pascal's Wager
- Clifford's veto
- Psychological causes of belief
- Thesis of the Essay
- Empiricism and absolutism
- Absolutism: the belief that not only can we attain to knowing the truth, but we can know when we have attained such knowledge
- Empiricism: although we can attain to knowing the truth, we cannot infallibly know when we have attained it. (To know is one thing; to know for certain that we know is another.)
- Two different sorts of risks in believing
- To believe truths --the more the better
- To not believe any falsehoods (to avoid error)
- Some risk unavoidable
- Faith may bring forth its own verification
- Logical conditions of religious belief
A hypothesis is anything that may be a candidate for belief. First distinction: live and dead hypotheses. Second distinction: forced or avoidable. Third distinction: momentous or trivial. [All these distinctions are relative (to a given person, in a given context)].
A genuine option is one which is forced, live, and momentous.
We cannot believe 'at will'. Yet there is such a thing as 'making up one's mind', in which deliberation is followed by a decision to believe or not to believe --this can only happen under certain circumstances, namely when we are dealing with a hypothesis which is live for us.
Pascal's wager introduces the example of someone for whom the option of belief in God, conceived in a certain way (such that He rewards belief in Him with eternal life) is live. Reason and evidence together cannot suffice to prove or disprove the hypothesis. So how this person deliberate in a way that might lead to making up his or her mind?
Pascal's introduction of evaluation of options with probability and outcome value, the 'expectation value' of the option. If the hypothesis is live for someone, it has a certain positive probability for that person, and the outcome value of eternal life outstrips by far the value of any outcome achievable within one human life. Therefore the evaluation concludes that belief in God has the largest expectation value of the two options for making up one's mind.
Even if the option is live, and one reaches this conclusion, it is still not necessarily easy to acquire the belief -- we cannot believe at will, even if we have either overwhelming evidence or if we have any other sort of overwhelming reason to believe. However, we have means to bring ourselves to believe over time, once we have reached such a conclusion (Pascal states this ironically: "Go to mass, take holy water --that will make your mind docile" -- he actually uses a word which has as root the word for beast or animal, so, "docile like an animal").
Epistemic morality: if reason and evidence cannot settle the matter, it is still wrong to believe or disbelieve (W. K. Clifford, a scientist and contemporary of Wm.. James). We ought never to believe anything except on the basis of sufficient evidence.
Argument that what Clifford describes is not a human possibility, and that we are deceived if we think that we form our opinion so as to be precisely proportionate to the evidence we have, with our volition playing no role at all --or that we could so form it.
That our volition not only may but must decide between propositions, whenever that is a genuine option that cannot be settled on intellectual grounds (by reason and evidence) alone.
Support for this thesis: that to withhold both belief and disbelief [and to abstain from all non-trivial judgements as to how likely the hypothesis is to be true] -- to remain 'agnostic' -- is itself a decision.
Question: if we must make one decision or other, with respect to belief, how can we evaluate the risks and possible gains involved? Is the decision to remain 'agnostic' without risk?
A digression: we are leaving scepticism aside here, and take for granted that the hypotheses we are considering are true or false, and that we can have true beliefs about them. But this position has two variants:
Objective certainty and its unattainability:
James is an empiricist, but emphasizes that in giving up the hope or purport of objective certainty, the empiricist does not give up the quest for truth, i.e. the enterprise of finding out the truth about what things are like.
The two values pursued in forming, maintaining, and changing our opinion are:
The two values are in tension: by not believing or disbelieving, we are sure to avoid error; if we believe or disbelieve, we incur the risk of error. But by not believing or disbelieving, we fail to acquire true beliefs, which are valuable to us. Thus we must also make up our minds as to how much we value the aquisition of true beliefs, and how much we disvalue error --as well as, on each occasion, how likely it is that adopting a certain belief will lead us into error. Our 'risk quotient' is personal, and the intellect cannot determine a uniquely right or rational risk quotient to adopt.
NOTE: the remaining two sections do not deal with general epistemology
The 'power of positive thinking' --an empirical hypothesis which James tries to confirm here anecdotally ...
Application of the preceding to religious belief --which makes sense on James' view of religion, and not necessarily on everyone's view.
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SARTRE, "Existentialism is a Humanism" OUTLINE
1. What is existentialism?
Two varieties, Christian and Atheist
[ but see last page :Sartre presents only atheist existentialism]
Historical context: demise of 17th century theological metaphysics.
Philosophy of the 18th century tries to retain nature or (pre-existent)
essences. Contrary view: existence precedes essence
[Reference: his novel Nausea]
2. The new approach to essence
Shift from the question "What is man? " to "What am I?"
Answer determined by actions and projects -- to what extent, at death and during life
Determination of the meaning of an act is retrospective;
Implication of this fact for the question of what I am now
Rejection of the determinism that would obliterate these distinctions[Reference: application to political acts and historical events: Dirty Hands and Being and Nothingness , p. 476]
3. Creation of values
Freedom implies that value has no foundation; life as a work of art
The element of universality in choice; every act is a political act
The meaning of an act cannot be divorced from its significance
in others' eyes
The three basic features of freedom:
Anguish The responsibility involved in choice without guide.
Example of Abraham
Forlornness.
Illusion of a secular ethics; obeying a moral code;
illusion of feeling as guide; constitution of and therefore
responsibility for my past
Despair
the complete lack of security implied by the fact that belief and
trust too are matters of choice
4. The subversion of freedom: Bad Faith
First version: regarding myself as a thing, determined by it nature
[Reference: psychological misuse of psychology, Being and Nothingness, p.144/145]
Second version: regarding myself as independent of my actual past and situation
5. The two meanings of "humanism"