Philo 1 Midterms Review An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis

I. Words and the World: Language and Reality

a. Philosophical Questions
i. Philosophical questions are statements that are not
1. Of ordinary perception
2. Science can answer
3. About the past or history
4. Mathematics
ii. What is Philosophy?
1. Philia (Love) + Sophia (Knowledge)
2. The study of reality (Metaphysics)
3. The study of justification (Epistemology)
4. The analysis of various concepts that are central to our thought (Logic)
5. Answers the questions What do you mean?
6. Values of the good and the beautiful (Ethics and Aesthetics)
iii. Branches of Philosophy
1. Logic
2. Epistemology
3. Metaphysics
4. Values
a. Ethics
b. Aesthetics
iv. Verbal Issues
1. Problems with the definition that causes dispute
2. Language vs Speech vs Communication
a. Language is distinct to human beings
i. Everything changes
ii. No word for every single entity
b. Speech is the unique faculty of humans, Zoon politikon or Man
is a political animal
b. Words and things
i. Heracleitus said that no same drops of water indicate not the same river (One
will never be in the same river twice)
1. Change requires something that does the changing
2. Committed the same-word-same-thing fallacy or collectivist fallacy
a. Dramatizes the differences of things
ii. Classification
1. Act of classifying is the work of human beings, depending on their needs
and interests
2. This is needed as there are not enough words to mean all things
a. Abstracting qualities
b. Proper names vs classes
3. Different lenses of classification
a. Similarities
 b. Differences
4. Depending on needs and intentions these lenses change
5. New name or same class?
iii. Words as tools
1. Words are conventional
a. Exclusive
b. Inclusive
c. Definition
i. Definition of a word tells us what features something has to have in order for
the word to apply to it.
ii. A word is said to designate the sum of the characteristics that something must
have in order for the word to be applicable to it
iii. Types of definition
1. Defining or sine qua non
a. Literally means without which, it is not
b. Defining features, e.g. a thing is not a square if it does not have
4 equal sides.
2. Accompanying
a. A feature of X but not all Xs
3. Unifying accompanying
a. All have this feature but it is not considered defining
iv. Definition and existence
1. Denotation- Literal meaning that corresponds to reality
2. Null class- does not denote anything
v. Scope and definitions
1. Definitions
2. True definitions (John Venn)
a. Conceivable variations
i. Exclusion
ii. Inclusion
3. Extension- if same thing is red and round they have the same extension
but redness and roundness will still pertain to two different things
vi. Truth and definition
1. Types of definitions
a. Stipulative- stipulates a definition
b. Reportive- reports of a how a word is actually used
2. Truth or falsity of definitions
a. Plato said that definitions can be discovered
i. Laches- courage
ii. Meno- Piety
iii. Republic- Justice
b. Socrates debated on the meaning of courage
vii. Essence- defining characteristics of objects
d. Vagueness
 i. Ambiguity
1. Same word but different meanings
2. Defining vs. non-defining
ii. Vague
1. Range of application is not clear
2. Multiple criteria for its application
e. Connotation
i. Types of connotative meaning
1. Secondary- a connotation that is universal that is considered part of its
meaning
2. Metaphorical
a. Implicit comparison between two unlike things
ii. Emotive
1. Associations that words have in peoples minds are the feelings and
attitudes that their utterance tend to evoke
f. Ostensive Definition
i. Came from the word ostendere meaning to show (Latin)
ii. Limits of application
1. Limited to what you can show
2. Limits other forms of objects
g. Verbal Definition
i. Cannot be done with highly abstract words
ii. Physiological conditions
h. Impressions and Ideas
i. David Hume Impressionism
1. We would have no idea of emotions we havent experienced them
2. Golden mountain= Mountain + color gold
i. Empiricism says that all concepts in some way are derived from experience
j. Rationalism says otherwise, based on reason and knowledge rather than on religious
belief or emotional response
k. Meaninglessness
i. Grammatical incompleteness- The lamp is above
ii. Category mistake Quadratic- equations go to horse races
iii. Metaphorical- At first may seem meaningless but one must dig to grasp its
meaning.
II. What Can We Know?: Knowledge
a. What is Knowing?
i. Knowing how or ability
ii. Acquainted
iii. Knowing that or state of being
b. Belief
i. Subjective condition of knowing
ii. To know p one must believe p
c. Truth
 i. Know it is to know it to be true
ii. I may believe what isnt true but I cant know what isnt true
iii. Objective
iv. Knowing is not the same as being certain
v. Absolute truth?
1. All truth is relative
2. Dictated by the ones in power
vi. Partly true, partly false sometimes
d. Criteria for Truth
i. Correspondence Theory of Truth
1. Statement is true if it corresponds to reality
2. Contrary-to-the-fact hypothetical statement
3. Corresponding to fact of reality
ii. Coherence
1. Logically consistent
2. Logically implying
3. Importance with sciences
4. May be tested by propositions
iii. Pragmatic theory of truth
1. The truth works
2. E.g. cant be at two places at the same time?
e. Evidence
i. A good reason to believe
ii. Something that is physical
iii. Must be
1. Considerable
2. Inconvertible
3. Conclusive
f. Sense of know
i. Strong (Philosophically stringent)
1. I dont know until I have conclusive evidence
2. Nothing more than or anyone could discover that would cast the
slightest doubt on the statement
ii. Weak (Daily life sense)
1. No means of knowing it is false
2. Belief with a good reason
g. Epistemology
i. From the word episteme meaning knowledge and logos meaning study
ii. Knowledge is justified true belief
h. Propositions- have truth values
i. Sources of knowledge
i. Reason (Rationalism)
1. Reason is the sole judge of what is true (Parmenides)
a. Change is an illusion
 b. Reason says that change cannot exist
2. Logic- study of correct reasoning
3. Valid and sound
4. Soundness
a. Reasoning is valid
b. Premises are true
ii. Proof
1. True premises
2. Axioms- assumed to be true
3. Limits of proof
a. Cannot have propositions
i. P:P, A:A arguing in a circle
ii. Infinite regress L J K
iii. Reason as a faculty
1. Deductions if General to specific
2. Inductions if specific to general
j. Equivocation
i. P Q
ii. P
iii. Q
k. Laws of thought
i. Law of identity
1. A:A
2. We cant even think without assuming this principle
ii. Law of noncontradiction
1. Nothing can be A:~A
2. Contradicting
iii. Law of excluded middle
1. Everything is either A or ~A
2. Only says no middle ground between its negative
l. Experience
i. Sense-perception- see, touch, take pictures based on experience
1. Sense mislead us
2. Maybe we are dreaming at the same time
ii. Introspection
1. Knowledge of our own thoughts and feelings
2. Inter
3. Dispositional starter
iii. Feel that
1. I feel I am sick (state of mind)
2. I feel that I am sick (proposition)
3. No relation of what you feel will happen
iv. Memory
1. Remember
 2. Memories may be fake
3. People write what they think has happened
v. Testimony
vi. Faith
1. Belief
2. Does not justify any belief
3. Sometimes there is a reason for having faith
vii. Intuition
1. There is no claim to knowledge
2. Highly fallible
3. Intuition careful observations
a. ESP- Extra-sensory perception
III. What is the World Like?
a. Common Sense Realism
i. Doubts and Deceptions
1. Rene Descartes- I think therefore I am
a. Legit Sense perception
b. Dreaming vs. Wake
c. Self-evident truths (Evil Genius)
2. Descartes Evil Genius (O.K. Bouwsma)
a. Everything will be paper
b. Human beings will be deceived
c. Tom doubted
d. If we think of nothingness there can be no delusions at all
e. Different meaning of deception
i. Must be deceived first
ii. Different realities
ii. Dreams- have meaning when it has been contrasted with something else, they
are islands of experiences that dont fit with actual experiences
iii. Illusions and Hallucination
1. Problems with sensory perception
2. What is it we perceive when we perceive a material thing
a. Public- everyone has access to
b. Existence dependent of perception
c. Accessible to more than one of the senses
3. Perceptual realism- earth continues to exist even no creature is around
to perceive it
4. False perceptions
a. Illusions- an object has qualities when in fact it doesnt
b. Hallucination- false belief induced by expectation
5. Delusions- false belief
a. Caused by internal means or drugs, external means or glasses,
etc.
iv. Microscopes and Telescopes (Scientific instruments)
 1. Allows us to see what its really like
2. Atoms and electrons
a. Democritus Lucretius (De Rerum Natura) On the nature of
things
b. John Locke
i. Primary qualities- height, mass, volume (Exists even
when there are no perceivers)
ii. Secondary qualities- insensible parts of objects
1. Exist as power
a. The color of an object is the power to
produce a certain kind of sensation in
perceivers
2. The power is in the object but the secondary
characteristics we see exist only as sense-
impressions
c. Sense-experiences contents of our own sensations
i. The mind has knowledge only of its own contents or
ideas (contents of consciousness, such as sensations,
images and thoughts)
ii. If we have a table experience and there is no table, then
its a hallucination and if there is a table it is not (or
veridical or a true perception)
b. Berkleys Idealism
i. Bishop George Berkley
ii. No objects independent of the mind exist
1. No independently existing matter what exists is minds and their ideas
iii. Sense-experiences- based on our own
1. Berkeley believe that there are chairs but not that our chair experiences
represent anything existing outside us and independently of us
2. must be related to one another, family of sense-experiences
a. no discontinuity
b. form an orderly series
3. Determining hallucinations
a. If sense experiences relate to one another
b. Different from Lockes, which cannot be applied as we could
never get outside our sense experiences
c. Test for veridicality is coherence among sense-experiences, not
corresponding with something that is not sense experience
iv. Esse est percipi- to be is to be perceived
1. Idealism states that physical objects are families of sense-experiences
v. Types of idealism
1. Strong
a. Physical objects do not exist unobserved
b. Fallacy: Manifest Repugnancy or contradiction
 2. Weak
a. Physical objects might exist unobserved but we cant know if
they did
vi. Manifest repugnancy- fallacy
vii. Criticisms
1. God as a cause of experience is contradictory
a. God causes to have same experiences so we can communicate
b. But He is outside our sense-experiences therefore the premise
was falsified
2. All exists in the mind how can he know that other minds exist
viii. Argument
1. We have knowledge of physical objects
2. Knowledge is limited to experience
3. Physical objects are experience
4. Experiences cannot exist unexperienced so physical objects cannot exist
unexperienced either
ix. For the mind- esse est percipere, to exist is to perceive
1. So that he can avoid being a solipsist
x. Perceiver Sense perception Impressions ideas physical things
c. Phenomenalism
i. To be is to be perceivable
ii. Locke and Berkeley + Materialism (Matter, John Stuart Mill- permanent
possibility of sensation, epidemiological)
iii. There is really an object there or it is just an idea is beyond our knowledge
iv. Sense-data- same thing but not same sense-data
1. Direct experience
d. Attack on the Foundations
i. Noticing
1. Sense-data how physical objects appear to you
ii. Sense experience and certainty
1. Lying to others what you experience
2. Mean one thing but say another
3. Misdescribe what you experience
4. Error of memory
iii. Propositions
1. Involve concepts and concepts involve classification
2. Statements that are certain or uncertain
iv. Theory of appearing
1. Only one affair, piece of white paper and green glasses only white
should be seen
v. David Hume
1. Constancy
a. No jump in sense-data
2. Coherence
 a. Backed up by touch
vi. Direct Realism
1. Objects require no intermediary such as sense-data between me and
the object
2. The way we see objects depends on the conditions of observation
IV. The way the world works
a. Scientific knowledge- explain things occur as they do (why?)
i. P Q (Affirming the consequent)
ii. Q
iii. P
b. Hierarchy
i. Laws- remain unchallenged but are not absolute
ii. Theories
iii. Experiments
c. Ockhams Razor- cutting out the unnecessary parts, explaining things in a simple way
d. Laws
i. Prescriptive
1. Prescribed by
2. Should be obeyed
ii. Descriptive
1. Observational
iii. Nature
1. Obeyed (this is how it really happens)
2. Has a lawmaker (prescriptive only)
3. Discovered, not made (for descriptive laws)
iv. Science
1. Universal
2. Open-ended
3. Hypothetical
4. General or not spatic or time bound
e. Theories
i. Never proven
ii. Never logically certain
iii. Fallacy when a theory is regarded as true
1. Fallacy of affirming the consequent
f. Ceteris paribus (other things being equal)- true until proven otherwise
g. Emergence- qualities of things that could not have been predicted them from a
complete knowledge of what went before
h. Reducibility- from any number of propositions a deduction is done
i. Deduction are logical truths
j. Inductions- An increase in the probability arising from regularities
k. Argument against science
i. Experiment A = Experiment A
ii. Experiment A is replicated so it is an entirely different experiment
 iii. How can one induct
l. Principles of the uniformity of nature
i. The laws of nature have been in the past so they will be in the future
1. Begging the question, arguing in a circle
m. No assurance
i. What is your evidence for the future occurrence (Hume)
ii. However, evidence for the future is contradictory because you cannot present
evidence for the future since it is physical and cannot exist in the present
n. Approaches in solving the problem of induction
i. Linguistic solution
1. Evidence of the future
2. There are no Xs but no grounds of what X is
ii. Pragmatic
1. Best bet for future discoveries
iii. Justify procedures
1. To show that the yield is reliable
o. Possibility
i. Probability is greater than zero
1. Empirically possible obvious possibility
2. Technically changes as our ability to apply laws of nature expands, e.g.
storing in a memory card
3. Logically possible no contradictions