Great Ideas of Philosophy

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2. He argues that the former is preferable and that this very preference defeats the claim that the conceptof beauty is exhausted by the resources of experience and feeling or even those of human judgment.3. He concludes:We shall have to include in our ultimate end something beyond the limits of human existence. I admit,of course, that our beautiful world would be better still, if there were human beings in it to contemplateand enjoy its beauty. But that admission makes nothing against my points. If it be once admitted thatthe beautiful world in itself is better than the ugly, then it follows, that however many beings mayenjoy it, and however much better their enjoyment may be than it is itself, yet its mere existence addssomething to the goodness of the whole: it is not only a means to our end, but also itself a part thereof.Recommended Reading:Burke, Edmund. Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and Other Pre-Revolutionary Writings. Columbia University Press, 1958.Hume, David. On the Standard of Taste. Liberty Fund, 1985.Moore, G. E. Principia Ethica (1903). New York: Prometheus Books, 1988.Questions to Consider:1. Is beauty in the eye of the beholder, and if so, what must be assumed about that “eye”?2. Can art ever be totally disinterested in Kant’s sense?3. If genius is innate, why do we praise the genius?36©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership
Lecture SixtyGod⎯Really?Scope: Aristotle regarded theology as the “first philosophy,” foundational for both natural science andmathematics. Philosophy of religion is a various and profoundly important field of inquiry for both theobvious substantive reasons and because of its ability to illuminate and test resources used in many otherareas of philosophy. Of these, special importance attaches to the nature of belief in relation toepistemology, the nature of free will in relation to determinism, and the basis of just deserts. The corequestion, of course, pertains to the existence of God and the grounds on which belief in that is defensible.The most venerable argument favoring the proposition is Thomas Aquinas’s “five way” proof. The assetsand liabilities of these proofs are rehearsed. Several of the more popular criticisms are answered byinvoking the notion of strong and weak warrants of belief, reliance here on Thomas Reid and WilliamJames. Two special challenges come by way of the problem of evil and the alleged incompatibility ofhuman freedom and divine omnipotence. Each of these challenges is summarized and rebuttals are offered.OutlineI. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle distinguishes between natural science, or physics, which is theoretical and dealswith what is inseparable from matter, and theology, what he calls that “first philosophy,” which is prior to allthe rest, is not confined to matter, and embraces what is universal.A. Philosophy of religion is a thriving specialty within philosophy, as much for the richness of religiousconcepts requiring philosophical analysis as for the substantive claims of religion, the implications ofwhich are judged to be the most momentous.B. As the claims of religion either transcend the level of experience or include possibilities not given directlyin experience, their acceptance requires faith, which has much in common with ordinary belief.C. According to Reid, for a child to learn, at least two core principles must be at work; otherwise the child isuneducable.1. The principle of veracity holds that there must be a native and universal inclination to speak the truth.2. According to the principle of credulity, there must be an equally native and universal inclination toaccept what others say as truthful.3. Without the former, there could be no possibility of cooperative behavior, no efficacy to contracts andagreements, no social life.4. Absent the principle of credulity, we would all begin life as skeptics. If skepticism of this sort were tobe habitual, the resulting distrust would deprive us of the greatest benefits of society.D. Such basic principles are “intuitive” and foundational for other principles.1. The specific principle of credulity, for example, is clearly not the gift of philosophical reflection,because this presupposes an inclination to believe the implications and conclusions arising from suchreflection.2. It is what makes the practice and the prospects of such reflection intelligible.3. Only insofar as one is strongly inclined to believe the evidence of sense, the canons of logic, thepotential efficacy of one’s actions is any initiative plausible or even conceivable.E. William James associates his concept of the “will to believe” with a passage found in Alexander Bain’streatise on The Emotions and the Will: “The leading fact in Belief, according to my view of it, is ourPrimitive Credulity. We begin by believing everything.”F. Though life soon alerts the child to the painful fact that not everyone is trustworthy, credulity is a natural,not an acquired, disposition. It is strongest in childhood and diminished in strength by experience andgreater independence of mind.II. As credulity gives way to caution and critical appraisals, a standard is developed so that judgment is notarbitrary and counterproductive. In the ordinary course of events, that standard is a pragmatic one.A. To seek a “warrant” for a given belief is to seek a justification that would distinguish the belief from amerely preferred fantasy. James looked to life on the whole as the source of any such warrant.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 37
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Daniel N. Robinson, Ph.D.Philosophy
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Lecture OneFrom the Upanishads to H
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E. The Upanishads would merge us wi
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2. Despite their oracles, priests,
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4. Looking at geometry, we are told
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E. The contribution of pre-Socratic
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of the mystery of earth itself impe
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Lecture SixHerodotus and the Lamp o
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Lecture SevenSocrates on the Examin
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Xenophon. Memorabilia. Cornell Univ
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II. A philosopher is engaged in the
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Lecture NineCan Virtue Be Taught?Sc
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Lecture TenPlato’s Republic⎯Man
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Annas, J. “Classical Greek Philos
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III. The dominant school of Greek m
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1. Epistemonikon is a special featu
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Timeline800-600 B.C.E. ............
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1705...............................
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1873...............................
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Functionalism: The view that consci
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Tabula rasa: A blank slate. In the
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progress in one of its most summoni
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John Locke (1632-1704): Physician a
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The Great Ideas ofPhilosophy, 2 nd
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Table of ContentsThe Great Ideas of
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Lecture ThirteenAristotle on Friend
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C. Aristotle is recovering the Home
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III. The problem of conduct is then
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C. The Stoic account relies on the
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Lecture SixteenThe Stoic Bridge to
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Recommended Reading:Bede. A History
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III. Roman law successfully permitt
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Lecture EighteenThe Light Within⎯
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B. Augustine approaches the problem
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B. Very early, the Islamic commitme
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Lecture TwentySecular Knowledge⎯T
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IV. The third great institutional c
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1. Scholasticism was an attempt to
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Lecture Twenty-TwoScholasticism and
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E. Further, to the intellectual vir
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historical volumes tell Florentines
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Lecture Twenty-FourLet Us Burn the
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1. First, the courts required a doc
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650-850 C.E. ......................
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Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and s
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ut cannot know what it is. Ultimate
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Biographical NotesAeschylus (525-45
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Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771)
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Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.): Greek p
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Scope:The Great Ideas of Philosophy
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B. This expansion, however, does no
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1. This standard essentially rules
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Lecture Twenty-SevenNewton⎯The Sa
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Lecture Twenty-EightHobbes and the
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Recommended Reading:Hobbes, T. Levi
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B. Other things can be known to be
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Lecture ThirtyNo Matter? The Challe
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Lecture Thirty-OneHume and the Purs
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Lecture Thirty-TwoThomas Reid and t
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efore him were not always faithful
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2. His Letters on the English makes
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Lecture Thirty-FourThe Federalist P
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VI. The Federalist Papers and the g
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III. Kant argues that there is some
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Lecture Thirty-SixMoral Science and
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Questions to Consider:1. A hypothet
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650-850 C.E. ......................
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1794...............................
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Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and s
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ut cannot know what it is. Ultimate
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Biographical NotesAeschylus (525-45
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Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771)
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Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.): Greek p
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Scope:The Great Ideas of Philosophy
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C. Though his system would be mocke
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1. There is nothing in the physics
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F. To include Hegel within the trad
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Lecture FortyThe Aesthetic Movement
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insisted that our very character is
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III. Nietzsche was an admirer and o
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B. In the final state, we’re all
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Lecture Forty-ThreeDarwin and Natur
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2. There is room for altruism but o
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1. He is a Hegelian who stands Hege
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Lecture Forty-FiveThe Freudian Worl
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B. How can repressed elements be un
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III. What figures in the human imag
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Lecture Forty-SevenWilliam James’
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Questions to Consider:1. Conclude w
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III. As long as we subscribe to a
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Timeline800-600 B.C.E. ............
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Page 214 and 215: Lecture Forty-NineAlan Turing in th
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