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Preface
Chapter 1: Powerful Ideas
What Is Philosophy?
Misconceptions about Philosophy
The Tools of Philosophy: Argument and Logic
The Divisions of Philosophy
The Benefits of Philosophy
PART I: METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY: EXISTENCE AND
KNOWLEDGE
Chapter 2: The Pre-Socratics
The Milesians
Pythagoras
Heraclitus and P... |
Selection 13.3: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
Selection 13.4: Antony Flew, Theology and Falsification
Selection 13.5: Mary Daly, After the Death of God the Father
PART IV: OTHER VOICES
Chapter 14: Feminist Philosophy
The First Wave
The Second Wave
Selection 14.1: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights ... |
and that most understand it if it isn’t presented to them in exhausting prose. In
this text we strive above all else to make philosophy understandable while not
oversimplifying.
We also concluded years ago that some people just aren’t moved by the sub-
ject. Worse, we learned that among those who aren’t are a few who a... |
• A generous supply of easy original readings that don’t overwhelm beginning
students
• Boxes highlighting important concepts, principles, and distinctions or con-
taining interesting anecdotes or historical asides
• Biographical profiles of many of the great philosophers
• End-of-chapter checklists of key philosophers... |
Brenda S. Hines, Highland Community College
Chris Jackway, Kellogg Community College
Henry H. Liem, San José City College
And we wish to express our gratitude to the McGraw-Hill staff and freelanc-
ers—Jon-David Hague, Allison Rona, Jen Mills, Marty Granahan, Preston
Thomas, Victoria Nelson, Connie Gardner, Diane Jones... |
the universe be radically different from how we conceive it?
• Is a person more than a physical body? What is the mind? What is thought?
• Do people really have free will?
• Is there a God?
• Does it make a difference if there is or isn’t a God?
• What is art? What is beauty?
• What is truth?
• Is it possible to know a... |
Often, too, philosophers ask questions about things that seem so obvious we
might not wonder about them—for example, the nature of change. What is
change? It’s obvious what change is. If something changes, it becomes different—
what’s the problem? Well, for one thing, if we have a different thing, then aren’t
we consid... |
Chapter 1 • Powerful Ideas 5
• Computer-related issues: artificial intelligence, information processing,
whether or not machines can think
• Rationality and its ramifications
• Social implications of medical technology (abortion, euthanasia, right to life,
medical research issues, informed consent)
• Feminist issues
• ... |
very least involves opinions supported by good reasoning. If you express your opin-
ion without providing supporting reasoning, your teacher may think you have an
interesting opinion, but he or she probably won’t think you have produced good
philosophy. Philosophy requires you to support your opinions, which, by the wa... |
cies, but even philosophers aren’t always successful in doing so. The following are
frequently encountered fallacies, we hope more frequently encountered outside
philosophy than within.
Moore−Bruder: Philosophy: Front Matter 1. Powerful Ideas © The McGraw−Hill
The Power of Ideas, Sixth Companies, 2005
Edition
8 Chapter... |
tians). Suppose someone then argues, “Of course your friends are really
people, because they say they are and they would not lie to you.” The prob-
lem with this “proof” is that one of its premises—that your friends would
not lie to you—rests on the assumption that your friends really are people,
which is the very thin... |
Moore−Bruder: Philosophy: Front Matter 1. Powerful Ideas © The McGraw−Hill
The Power of Ideas, Sixth Companies, 2005
Edition
Chapter 1 • Powerful Ideas 11
There are other ways of dividing philosophy. Many universities offer philoso-
phy courses that examine the fundamental assumptions and methods of other dis-
ciplines... |
ments in life, and the decline of strength and
Without it [philosophy] no one can lead a life free beauty; it arms us against poverty, old age, sick-
of fear or worry. —Seneca ness and death, against fools and evil sneerers.
—Jean de la Bruyère
Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and
fears, is painful, but must... |
logic moral philosophy/ethics people believed it was flat?
fallacy social philosophy
10. Evaluate the argument on page 7. Does the
argumentum ad hominem political philosophy
conclusion follow from the premises? Are the
appeals to emotion aesthetics
premises true?
straw man
SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGS
QUESTIONS FOR
DISCU... |
readers. Thomas Mautner, ed., A Dictionary of Philosophy(Cam-
Arthur C. Danto, Connections to the World: The Basic bridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996). Brief, up-to-date,
Concepts of Philosophy(New York: Harper & Row, and useful.
1989). An important contemporary philosopher Meta-Encyclopedia of Philosophy,http://www.ditext... |
encyclopedia/categories/philos.html. Another nice (500–1600); Vol. 3: Modern Women Philosophers
dictionary/encyclopedia that includes philosophy. (1600–1900); Vol. 4: Contemporary(twentieth cen-
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy(New tury) Women Philosophers.
York: Simon & Schuster, 1945). As readable as... |
Some of these questions are none too clear, but
• What are the fundamental featuresof reality? they provide signposts for the directions a person
might take in coming to answer the question, What
• Is there a fundamental substanceout of which
is the nature of being? or in studying metaphysics.
all else is composed? If ... |
mixed blessing. But advanced civilization is a fact, and that it is a fact is a direct
consequence of two developments in thought. One of these, which we will not dis-
cuss, is the discovery by the Greeks of mathematics. The other, which we are about
to discuss, is the invention by the Greeks of philosophy, specificall... |
piece of wood was actually water in one of its more exotic forms.
We are guessing about Thales’ reasoning, of course. And in any case Thales
did come to the wrong conclusion with the water idea. But it was not Thales’ con-
clusionthat was important—it was what Thales was upto. Thales attempted to ex-
plain the complex ... |
another of its type—if it can be enumerated—it is a thing; and if it is a thing, it
can be enumerated.
Moore−Bruder: Philosophy: I. Metaphysics and 2. The Pre−Socratics © The McGraw−Hill
The Power of Ideas, Sixth Epistemology: Existence Companies, 2005
Edition and Knowledge
Chapter 2 • The Pre-Socratics 23
PROFILE: Pyt... |
identity or “sameness over change”:Can today’s river and yesterday’s river be the
same, since not a single drop of water in yesterday’s river is in today’s river?The
question, obviously, applies not just to rivers, but to anything that changes over
time: rivers, trees, chickens, and the World Wide Web. It also, signifi... |
Parmenides based his philosophy on principles like that. One of these prin-
ciples was that if something changes, it becomes something different. Thus, he
reasoned, if being itself were to change, then it would become something different.
But what is different from being is non-being, and non-being just plain isn’t.Thu... |
the change we experience as mere illusion. Empedocles quite diplomatically sided
in part with Parmenides and in part with Heraclitus. He was possibly the first phi-
losopher to attempt to reconcile and combine the apparently conflicting metaphys-
ics of those who came earlier. Additionally, Empedocles’ attempt at recon... |
women couldn’t participate, and married women
couldn’t even watch. This, at the time, was a pretty
strict rule, and the penalty for violating it was . . .
death.
The Olympics returned to Athens in 2004.
rate and distinct from matter in that it alone is unmixed. It is everywhere and ani-
mates all things but contains no... |
of exactly the same matter but different in size, shape, and (though there is con-
troversy about this) weight. Atoms, they believed, are infinitely numerous and eter-
nally in motion. By combining with one another in various ways, atoms compose
the objects of experience. They are continuously in motion, and thus the v... |
ing states and events is called determinism. When you read the box “Free Will
versus Determinism,” you will see that determinism seems to contradict the belief
in free will.
Moore−Bruder: Philosophy: I. Metaphysics and 2. The Pre−Socratics © The McGraw−Hill
The Power of Ideas, Sixth Epistemology: Existence Companies, 2... |
all else is composed is water. question, What is the nature of being?
• Anaximander held that the original source of 3. Compare and contrast the metaphysics of the
all things is a boundless, indeterminate element. three Milesians. Whose metaphysics seems
most plausible to you, and why?
• Anaximenes said that the underl... |
on the basic questions of philosophy. demic Press, 1991). The first of a four-volume series
G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic on the history of women philosophers.
Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy
Texts,2nd ed. (Camb... |
bears his name, the “Socratic method.” To this day, more than twenty centuries
after his death, many philosophers equate proficiency within their own field with
skill in the Socratic(ordialectic)method.
The method goes like this: Suppose you and Socrates wish to find out what
knowledge is. You propose, tentatively, tha... |
Edition and Knowledge
Chapter 3 • Socrates, Plato 37
wherever it leads, the public confession of one’s thoughts, the invitation to others
to criticize, the readiness to reconsider, and at the same time firm action in accor-
dance with one’s present beliefs. Plato’s Apologyhas in fact made Socrates the
chief martyr of r... |
whom he may have derived his great andTheaetetus.In the most famous of
respect for mathematics. Plato thought that the these, the Republic, Plato explains and interrelates
study of mathematics was a necessary introduction his conceptions of justice, the ideal state, and the
to philosophy, and it is said that he expelle... |
make even to suppose that they might move or be physically divided?
When you think of these various characteristics of Forms and remember as
well that Plato equated the Forms with true reality, you may begin to see why we
stated that Plato’s metaphysics formed the model for Christian theology. You may
also be reminded,... |
hand, there is the realm of particular, changing, sense-perceptible or “sensible”
things. This realm Plato likened to a cave (see the box “The Cave”). It is the realm
of flawed and lesser entities. Consequently, it is also, for those who concern them-
selves with sensible things, a source of error, illusion, and ignora... |
42 Part One • Metaphysics and Epistemology: Existence and Knowledge
In Plato’s Myth of the Cave a group of prisoners is placed so they can see, on the wall of the cave, only
reflections of objects carried back and forth in front of a fire behind them. Because the reflections are
all they see, the prisoners assume the r... |
further subdivisions are to be understood is a matter of controversy.) What is es-
sential to remember is that, according to Plato, the highest form of knowledge is
that obtained through the use of reasonbecause perfect beauty or absolute goodness
or the ideal triangle cannot be perceived.
Plato’s Theory of Love and Be... |
given to him by a woman named Diotima. Socrates implies that few may be able to
follow this line of reasoning, which he himself has difficulty comprehending, but
Diotima’s theory of love was this: The higher forms of love express the will to im-
mortality and the will to produce immortal “children,” not merely physical... |
be my prosecutors and I will sum up their words in
*From Christopher Biffle, A Guided Tour of Five Works by
Plato, 3rd Edition, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2001, Benjamin Jowett. Reprinted with permission from The
pp. 36–40. Based on the nineteenth century translation by McGraw-Hill Companies.
Moore−Bruder: Philosophy... |
“if your two sons were foals or calves, there would and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether—as
be no difficulty in finding someone to raise them. I said, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked
We would hire a trainer of horses, or a farmer prob- theoracletotellhimwhethertherewasanyonewiser
ably, who would imp... |
aware of the anger that I provoked; and I lamented given rise also to many falsehoods. I am called wise
and feared this, but necessity was laid upon me. because my listeners always imagine I possess the
The word of the god, I thought, ought to be consid- wisdom which I do not find in others. The truth is,
ered first. A... |
the most widely read Western book of all time. In this out knowledge is always a shabby sort of thing?
selection, Plato compares Goodness (or the Good) to the At the best it is blind. One who holds a true
sun, sets forth his famous Theory of the Divided Line, belief without intelligence is just like a blind
and explain... |
the Forms are objects of thought, but invisible.
pensed by the Sun, like a stream flooding the
G: Yes, certainly. eye. And again, the Sun is not vision, but it is
the cause of vision and also is seen by the vision
S: And we see things with our eyesight, just as we
it causes.
hear sounds with our ears and, to speak gene... |
grained, polished surfaces, and everything of
G: You are giving it a position of extraordinary that kind, if you understand.
splendour, if it is the source of knowledge and
G: Yes, I understand.
truth and itself surpasses them in worth. You
surely cannot mean that it is pleasure. S: Let the second section (B) stand for... |
clusion, never making use of any sensible ob-
each subject. These data they take as known;
ject, but only of Forms, moving through Forms
and, having adopted them as assumptions, they
from one to another, and ending with Forms.
do not feel called upon to give any account of
them to themselves or to anyone else, but trea... |
prisoners and the fire is a track with a parapet
out the objects whose shadows he had been
built along it, like the screen at a puppet-show,
used to see. What do you think he would say,
which hides the performers while they show
if someone told him that what he had formerly
their puppets over the top.
seen was meaningl... |
sion that it is the Sun that produces the seasons as standing for the upward journey of the soul
and the course of the year and controls every- into the region of the intelligible; then you will
thing in the visible world, and moreover is in a be in possession of what I surmise, since that
way the cause of all that he ... |
which case he will think its condition enviable been pruned from earliest childhood, cleared
and its life a happy one; or whether, emerging of those clinging overgrowths which come of
from the depths of ignorance, it is dazzled by gluttony and all luxurious pleasure and, like
excess of light. If so, he will rather feel... |
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