Great Ideas of Philosophy

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B. Very early, the Islamic commitment is to see to it that all political, naturalistic, and scientific writingsrecord respect for, and derive their intellectual inspiration from, the teachings of the Prophet. The Koran isthe sole authority on all that matters to the faithful, and to reject that authority is to be an infidel.C. We must note, however, that there was still an independent philosophical movement within Islam. In the10 th and 11 th centuries, we begin to see philosophy as a core interest of Islamic commentators. There is arecognition that fields of inquiry can be developed while holding theology constant.1. One of the first of the important Islamic philosophers, al-Farabi, will reveal the influence ofAristotelianism in claiming the authority of reason to be greater than that of revelation. His attempt toreconcile Aristotelian and Platonic thought records a deep respect for the philosophical originality andpower of the classical world.2. The celebrated Avicenna (980–1037) would find in Aristotle’s Metaphysics a philosophicaljustification for a universe ordered at the level of matter, an order continuing into spiritual and civiclife.D. Avicenna’s commentaries on Aristotle put Arab scholarship and Islamic thought at the center ofnaturalistic and scientific thinking. The importance of this can’t be underestimated, because it wasultimately the Islamic community that put the West back on the path toward an intellectually andscientifically powered course of discovery, using the tools of ancient Greek thought.IV. By the 11 th and 12 th centuries, the East and the West were divided into two intellectually warring camps, withtwo different conceptions of human nature and its purposes and two different conceptions of truth at the mostfundamental religious level. Each camp used classical philosophy as a means of validation.A. Here arises a wonderfully rich interpretative exercise as to what Aristotle really meant, what Plato reallymeant, whether something can be known as a result of prophetic insights or by experience or by reasonalone, and so on.B. At this point in both cultures, philosophical positions may come to be judged as heresies. Once we begin touse philosophy as a way of vindicating or verifying what is essentially a religious position, the wronginterpretation may qualify as an offense against the religion.C. It should come as no surprise that as the Christian church solidified its own position politically,economically, and socially, it found itself doing constant battle with heresies. Why is this sequence ofevents perhaps inevitable?1. A religion solidifies its position by developing an official canon. This now becomes a body ofknowledge that can be taught to the faithful, and the faithful are understood to be those who areprepared to be obedient to this teaching.2. But once positions become solidified and burdens are imposed on those who are not prepared to accepttheir validity, the philosophical program stalls.3. Thus, as the writers and thinkers in the Christian world begin to take on the challenges that come fromthe East and, as a result of those challenges, work out an ever clearer version of the canon, debatesbreak out within the Christian community.4. As we will see in a later lecture on the witch panics, certain forms of conduct now take on a new color.Disorders and diseases of a certain kind suggest mysterious, even sinister, causes. As mentionedearlier, this was not the case in the Islamic East.D. The tension between Islam and Christianity, coupled with the recovery of ancient Greek thought, wouldcause a fruitful resumption of the “long debate.”1. The “long debate” is the debate about knowledge, conduct, and governance, which had animated theearliest philosophical inquiries into the nature of things.2. The debate had been discontinued by the need of Christianity to solidify its religious position.3. The greatest opponent of debate is orthodoxy, and Christian orthodoxy arises out of several coreconcepts: the old anti-intellectualism the church fathers, the social ambitions of the church to build andrun a new society, and the Augustinian conception that while reason has its use, faith is paramount.4. The combination of these elements resulted in a degree of fundamentalist conviction that was hostile todebate. If not a heresy, debate is at least an insult to the faithful and the faith.5. The contribution of Islamic culture was to show the West that there is more than one book of truth andmore than one set of prophecies, more than one language used to express thanks to God, and morethan one culture that might ground a spiritual life.20©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership
E. When the long debate is resumed, the question again is whether the best route to truth is by reason,intuition, faith, or naturalistic observation. The same question may be asked regarding ethical and moralissues. Again, the seeds of heresy and skepticism are planted, the inevitable products of authentic anddisinterested inquiry.F. The pressures against sustaining the long debate are always great, but the contemplative life that the Koranrequires of the faithful is entirely compatible with this sustained inquiry. Indeed, the Islamic commitmentto analysis and debate would make possible much of the philosophical program of the Scholastic Age inWestern civilization.Recommended Reading:Walzer, R. Greek into Arabic: Essays in Islamic Philosophy. South Carolina, 1970.Questions to Consider:1. Summarize how Western civilization might have developed in the absence of the Islamic recovery of classicalphilosophy.2. Summarize what the “Dark Ages” tell us about the conditions necessary for the preservation of the culture ofthought.©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 21
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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
Page 23 and 24: Xenophon. Memorabilia. Cornell Univ
Page 25 and 26: II. A philosopher is engaged in the
Page 27 and 28: Lecture NineCan Virtue Be Taught?Sc
Page 29 and 30: Lecture TenPlato’s Republic⎯Man
Page 31 and 32: Annas, J. “Classical Greek Philos
Page 33 and 34: III. The dominant school of Greek m
Page 35 and 36: 1. Epistemonikon is a special featu
Page 37 and 38: Timeline800-600 B.C.E. ............
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Page 43 and 44: Functionalism: The view that consci
Page 45 and 46: Tabula rasa: A blank slate. In the
Page 47 and 48: progress in one of its most summoni
Page 49 and 50: John Locke (1632-1704): Physician a
Page 51: The Great Ideas ofPhilosophy, 2 nd
Page 54 and 55: Table of ContentsThe Great Ideas of
Page 56 and 57: Lecture ThirteenAristotle on Friend
Page 58 and 59: C. Aristotle is recovering the Home
Page 60 and 61: III. The problem of conduct is then
Page 62 and 63: C. The Stoic account relies on the
Page 64 and 65: Lecture SixteenThe Stoic Bridge to
Page 66 and 67: Recommended Reading:Bede. A History
Page 68 and 69: III. Roman law successfully permitt
Page 70 and 71: Lecture EighteenThe Light Within⎯
Page 72 and 73: B. Augustine approaches the problem
Page 76 and 77: Lecture TwentySecular Knowledge⎯T
Page 78 and 79: IV. The third great institutional c
Page 80 and 81: 1. Scholasticism was an attempt to
Page 82 and 83: Lecture Twenty-TwoScholasticism and
Page 84 and 85: E. Further, to the intellectual vir
Page 86 and 87: historical volumes tell Florentines
Page 88 and 89: Lecture Twenty-FourLet Us Burn the
Page 90 and 91: 1. First, the courts required a doc
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Page 96 and 97: Apatheia: Freedom from pathos and s
Page 98 and 99: ut cannot know what it is. Ultimate
Page 100 and 101: Biographical NotesAeschylus (525-45
Page 102 and 103: Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-1771)
Page 104 and 105: Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.): Greek p
Page 107 and 108: Daniel N. Robinson, Ph.D.Philosophy
Page 109 and 110: Scope:The Great Ideas of Philosophy
Page 111 and 112: B. This expansion, however, does no
Page 113 and 114: 1. This standard essentially rules
Page 115 and 116: Lecture Twenty-SevenNewton⎯The Sa
Page 117 and 118: Lecture Twenty-EightHobbes and the
Page 119 and 120: Recommended Reading:Hobbes, T. Levi
Page 121 and 122: B. Other things can be known to be
Page 123 and 124: 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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Daniel N. Robinson, Ph.D.Philosophy
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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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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 Forty-NineAlan Turing in th
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C. Searle thinks that the missing i
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3. Even activities could be simulat
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B. The inclination to classify is a
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Lecture Fifty-TwoPhilosophy of Scie
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V. These debates illustrate a far l
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1. The two had in common the idea t
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Questions to Consider:1. What does
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C. Locke and others emphasized that
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Lecture Fifty-FiveWhat Makes a Prob
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B. Kant suggests that the moral law
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1. Proponents have argued that so m
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Lecture Fifty-SevenOn the Nature of
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2. So far as it can coexist with th
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3. Slavery is commonplace in all of
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3. Does the just-war theorist have
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B. The quadrivium comprised arithme
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2. He argues that the former is pre
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1. The objects of the knowable worl
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etween a world of beauty and one of
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⎯⎯⎯. On Free choice of Will.
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Herodotus. The Persian Wars. G. Raw
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———. Toward a Science of Huma
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