10.00 11.00 The Ancient Philosophers: What is philosophy? 2
The Pre-Socratics 6th and 5th century BC thinkers the first philosophers and the first scientists no appeal to the supernatural we have only fragments of their work, and testimonia concerned with physical and cosmological speculation 3
The Milesians Thales water is the fundamental principle Anaximander - the orderly nature of the universe is internal rather than imposed from outside Anaximenes - the natural mechanism for change is the condensation and rarefaction of air Heraclitus everything is flux Parmenides humans can acquire knowledge Pythagoras nature is a structured system ordered by number Democritus the void is real 4
Socrates 469 399 B.C.E. Never wrote anything Concerned with morality and the best way to live Hugely influenced Plato Put to death by the Athenian state 5
Plato 427 347 B.C.E wrote in dialogue form has been said the whole history of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato famous for the theories of Forms and Anamnesis founded the first university The Academy 6
Aristotle 384 322 B.C.E. Pupil of Plato Teacher of Alexander Polymath from logic to ethics first to classify human knowledge into disciplines founded the Lyceum 7
Further Reading: Barnes, J., 1982, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd edition, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Graham, D. W. (ed.), 2010, The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, two volumes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, Donald R., 2010, The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraut, Richard (ed.), 1992, The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnes, J., The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. My romp through the history of philosophy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16tegbgftn8 Peter Adamson s History of Philosophy without any gaps: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=pl44393cfe83cae3c3 Documentary of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgox6mg-1ve 8
11.30 12.30 The Enlightenment: The birth of scientific method and questions about knowledge 9
Scholasticism Aristotle s Organum Knowledge attainable only by using deductive logic everything is constituted of some combination of earth, air, fire and water 1620 Bacon s Novum Organum inductive logic experiment and experience 10
Descartes Rene Descartes (1596 1650) the quest for knowledge innate ideas scepticism 11
The British Empiricists Locke, Berkeley and Hume the theory of ideas the problem of induction idealism 12
Further Reading: The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Aristotle s logic: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/ Bacon, F., 1620. The New Organon (Novum Organum), ed. by Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Rationalism and Empiricism: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Descartes: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/ The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Hume: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ Bernard Williams and Bryan McGee on Descartes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44h9quwcjyk Peter Millican s lectures on Hume: www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6syjppnty8 13
1.30-2.30 Modern Philosophy: Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein and the birth of computing 14
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) Frege s Begriffsschrift revolutionised logic when it was published in 1879 This was because it introduced quantifiers and enables logic to add all and some to the existing logical connectives (every good girl loves a sailor) In 1893 he published his Grundgesetze der Arithmetik Frege attempted to reduce arithmetic to logic using the symbols he had himself introduced In 1903 Russell wrote to Frege showing that it is possible to derive Russell s paradox from Frege s basic law 15
Some classes (or sets) seem to be members of themselves, while some do not. The class of all classes is itself a class and so is a member of itself. The null or empty class is not a member of itself. However, suppose that we can form a class of all classes that, like the null class, are not included in themselves. Question: is this class a member of itself? Consider a group of barbers who shave only those men who do not shave themselves. Suppose there is a barber in this collection who does not shave himself; then by the definition of the collection, he must shave himself. But no barber in the collection can shave himself. (If so, he would be a man who does shave men who shave themselves.) 16
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) Wrote on many topics but best known for his mathematical logic and analytic philosophy Very politically active Invented neutral monism http://www.openculture.com/2013/03/bertra nd_russell_on_his_student_ludwig_wittgenstei n_man_of_genius_or_merely_an_eccentric.ht ml 17
Ludwig Wittenstein (1889 1951) Early and late Wittgenstein Philosophy of Language (mind and logic) Published only one book in his lifetime The private language argument 18
Further Reading: Bryan McGee talks to A.J.Ayer about Frege and Russell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wnkgalhhy0 The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Frege: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege/ A Guardian article on Russell: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/nov/18/bertrand-russellphilosopher-religion-ethics-life The Internet Encyclopaedia on Russell s paradox: http://www.iep.utm.edu/par-russ/ The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy on Wittgenstein: http://www.iep.utm.edu/wittgens/ Bryan McGee talks to Anthony Quinton about Russell and Wittgenstein: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwndgnc9uui&list=plmkums9hjke6f7osjk6q2 D0Sjtf78hHmx&index=2 19
3.00 4.00 Cutting Edge Philosophy: a very modern philosophical problem 20
Our attempts to show that mental states are physical states have failed repeatedly. In 1975 the philosopher Hilary Putnam offered a possible explanation of such failures. Could it be, he asked, that the mental states simply aren t in the head? 21
To understand Putnam s argument we should first understand Internalism. Internalism is the view that mental states are states of the sort that are inside us. So the mind and all its mental states are intrinsic properties of a person. 22
Intrinsic (non-relational) properties: Physical properties (including neural properties) Phenomenological properties Behavioural dispositions 23
Descartes was an Internalist. He believed that all our beliefs about the external world could be false because he believed our beliefs would be the same even if the world was entirely other than we take it to be. This assumes that our thoughts are the thoughts they are solely because of properties intrinsic to us 24
INTERNALISM World One in which our thoughts about the external world are (mainly) true World Two in which our thought about the external world are all false 25 25
Putnam s thought experiment questions Internalism by asking us to imagine: Our planet Earth a person, Oscar Another planet, Twin Earth Oscar s doppelganger Oscar TE 26
Two important things to note: 1. Twin Earth is exactly like Earth except the stuff that runs in rivers, that they drink and shower in, has the chemical composition XYZ instead of H 2 0 (we ll call this water TE ) 2. Oscar TE is identical to Oscar with respect to his physical properties, his phenomenological properties and his behavioural dispositions (i.e. all his intrinsic properties) 27
Oscar TE That s water XYZ Twin Earth Oscar That s water H 2 0 Earth 28 28
The next thing we have to imagine is that Oscar is overnight transported to Twin Earth. He finds himself in the same room with Oscar TE both of them are looking at a glass of water TE and both of them are thinking that s water The question we must answer is are the twins thinking the same thought? 29
Twin Earth Oscar TE That s water XYZ That s water Oscar Question: Are the twins thinking the same thought? 30 30
If you are an Internalist you have to say that the twins are thinking the same thought. The twins are identical with respect to all their intrinsic states (ex hypothesi). As an Internalist you believe that the twins thoughts are wholly and solely determined by these intrinsic states. So the twins must be thinking the same thoughts. 31
But we might want to insist that the twins thought are different. One reason for thinking this is that Oscar s thought is false. Yet Oscar TE s thought is true 32
When Oscar thinks about water after all Oscar is thinking about H 2 0. But the liquid he is thinking about on Twin Earth is not H 2 0, it is XYZ. So his thought that s water is a thought about something that is not water. It is therefore false. 33
But when Oscar TE thinks that s water he is thinking about water TE. And water TE is XYZ. When both the twins are on Twin Earth Oscar TE s thought that s water is a thought about something that is water TE. It is therefore true. 34
But if their thoughts were the same thoughts entertained in the same circumstances then their thoughts would have to have the same truth value. 35
It is the content of a thought that relative to a specific context determines its truth value for example the content of the thought it s a cat entertained whilst looking at a dog would generate the truth value false 36
So if the twins thoughts differ in their truth value then this can only be because their contexts differ or because the contents of their thoughts differ and ex hypothesi they are embedded in the same context so it must be the contents of their thoughts that differ. This means they are not thinking the same thought 37 37
Putnam argues that the twins thoughts do differ in content and that as they are identical with respect to their intrinsic properties i.e. in respect to all their internal properties this means that thoughts ain t in the head they must instead be determined by the environment, or rather by the subject s relations to things in his environment 38 38
Internalism, therefore, is false says Putnam and Externalism is true 39
EXTERNALISM World One World Two 40 40
If Externalism is true then mental states that have contents are not inside the head they are not determined by states intrinsic to the subject but by the subject s relational states 41 41
Perhaps the relation between the mind and the body is so intractable because whilst physical states are the sort of states that are inside us..mental states are the sort of states we get into. in which case it is not surprising that we cannot prove that they are identical! 42
Resources: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-narrow/ Stanford entry on intentionality (mental states that have content) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contentexternalism/ (Stanford entry on externalism) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/content-narrow/ (Stanford s entry on Internalism (also known as narrow content ) Podcast: Rupert Sheldrake on Empirical Evidence on the Extended Mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jna8gutxpxy For reading check out the reading list 43
Where to go from here: Online courses There are ten online courses in philosophy run by OUDCE. You can find them here: http://onlinecourses.conted.ox.ac.uk/subjects/philosophy.php Podcasts If you have enjoyed this course you might enjoy listening to my podcasts You ll find them on my website: www.mariannetalbot.co.uk or on the Oxford site of itunesu along with all sorts of other podcasts made by Oxford philosophers, and other Oxford academics: http://itunes.ox.ac.uk Marianne on twitter (@oxphil_marianne) and Facebook (Marianne Talbot Philosophy) The Philosophical Society OUDCE s thriving Philosophical Society currently has nearly 450 members. Membership currently costs 12 a year. If you can t get to Oxford as a member you can use the discussion forums on the society s website to discuss all sorts of issues with other members. You will find details of benefits and of how to apply for membership on the website: http://oxfordphilsoc.org/ 44