Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture OneFrom the Upanishads to HomerScope: In the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Theseus, having killed the Minotaur, is able to escape from thelabyrinth only because Ariadne had given him a golden cord by which he can retrace his steps. Myths arean endless source of metaphor, and the cord of Ariadne is an apt metaphor for history: We solve a problemor a puzzle by retracing the steps that got us where we are. In these 60 lectures on philosophy from remoteantiquity to the 21 st century, history will be our guide.Central to the history of philosophy are three overarching problems. For the sake of economy, these maybe dubbed the problem of knowledge, the problem of conduct, and the problem of governance. The first ofthese would be developed within the fields now called epistemology and metaphysics. The second is thedomain of ethics and moral philosophy. The third is the province of political science and jurisprudence.But these developed realms of reflective inquiry were slow to reveal themselves to human intelligence.Beginning in mimesis, in dance and ritual that encode and explain the world, the questions become moreinsistent, and as a whole, communities begin to ponder the nature of things. The dance is augmented bysong and poetry, by epic tales so vivid that children never forget the main characters and theirextraordinary experiences and exploits and that pose, in different terms, the fundamental questions: What isthe world? What should I do? How are our lives to be ordered? Between 800 and 600 B.C., such accountsproliferated. Both the Hindu Upanishads and Homer’s famous epics are rich in what may be called prephilosophicalreflections on the human condition and the point and purpose of life. Such works are thebackground “folk” wisdom of an age; philosophy is a refinement or a rejection of the claims of the dancerand the bard.OutlineI. We are about to embark on an intellectual journey of 60 lectures devoted to great ideas in philosophy, coveringa period of time from remote antiquity to the present century. Our guide will be the history of ideas.A. We begin with myth, which seeks to answer perplexing questions but does so in such a way as to createand preserve a kind of civic coherence. The mythology of a people is the basis on which they recognizethemselves as a people and have a coherent relationship, not only to each other but with their own past.B. To some extent, philosophy is disruptive in this regard. The enterprise is not an essentially civic one. Itdoes not begin with a settled position on political and moral matters, then seek ways to enshrine the settledview. Rather, the mission is a broadly epistemological one. The search, as we shall discover, is the searchfor truth.C. Nonetheless, the questions that mythology must set out to answer are not unlike the questions thatphilosophy sets out to answer. We can identify three overarching issues that consume much of the subjectmatter of philosophy: the problem of knowledge, the problem of conduct, and the problem of governance.1. The problem of knowledge is straightforward. How is it that we come to know anything? On whatbasis do we undertake to frame and seek answers to questions? Long before the appearance ofphilosophy, people facing the challenges of daily life were required to seek knowledge, if onlypractical knowledge. In philosophy, the problem reaches beyond the practical and the everyday tomore general and abstract realms.2. The problem of conduct is nothing less than the problem of deciding how one’s life should be lived.How should I conduct myself in such a way that my life is a satisfying one? How will I be able to actin a way that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain? What sort of person should I strive to be?What’s the nature of the relationships I have to others?3. Were there no basis on which to plan or conduct a course of life, there would be no real “problem” tobe solved politically. The problem of governance arises in light of conflicts at the level of conduct. Onwhat basis does a people come to understand itself as a people? What is the basis on which modes ofleadership are chosen? What is the basis on which leaders are resisted, revolutions staged, radicalupheaval fomented?2©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership