Thomas Reid
-scottish empiricist
-believed there was a common a sense among humans
-this common sense allowed us to have an understanding of the world that reflects the world as it is
-humans develop in a way that makes our understanding of the survivable
Common Sense
sense communis
Thomas Reid pt 2
For, before men can reason together, they must agree in first principles; and it is impossible to reason with a man who has no principles in common with you" -The Intellectual Powers of Man
The Intellectual Powers of Man
Thomas Reid wrote this book
Thomas Reid pt 3
-saw common sense as a way to overcome Hume's skepticism
-we can rely on the world as it appears
-believed there were moral implications to understanding
Adam Smith
-Wealth of Nations
-described the foundations of Capitalist system
-private property created by labor
-govts are created to maintain social order by protecting property
-wealth is created and expands (Profit- difference between cost and price. to be reinv
Wealth of Nations 1
Supply and Demand
-the more of something, the cheaper
-the fewer of something, the more expensive
Wealth of Nations 2
Division of Labor
-by dividing tasks to their basic parts and having different persons responsible for each task creates an efficiency that lowers cost
wealth of nations 3
Invisible Hand
-the market moves best when the needs of the market are met by supply and demand
wealth of nations 4
Enlightened Self-Interest
-Persons in a free market choose what is best for them to do and buy, creating the materials and goods that others will want
Capitalism (Free Markets)
capitalism is the leveraging of Capital (resources) to create wealth
- riches: a lot of one thing
-wealth: the ability to do many things
by creating wealth, capitalism promotes an expanding economy
-economies are dynamic
Capitalism pt 2
by concentrating resources it provides the means to create new wealth
-some will always have more than others
- economies flow
there is a risk in putting resources together, but the reward is worth the risk
Jeremy Bentham
-Philosophical radical
-materalist
-strong individualist
-sought modern reforms in education, govt, prisons, social class, economics, morality
-classic liberalism
-utilitarianism morality
(pleasure is the highest good; maximize please, minimize pain; grea
John Stuart Mill
-raised by bentham & mill to be the new modern man
-promoted utilitarianism his whole life
-advocate for personal liberty and women's rights
-"If actions were a means to an end of Happiness, what happens then?
John Stuart Mill pt 2
wrote on logic, civil rights, and morality
A system of Logic
John Stuart Mill wrote this
A system of Logic pt 2
-defines logic as "a system of proof"
-thought that logic more properly fit with the question of knowledge than with metaphysics
-introduces induction as the proper method of logic, noting that the uncertainty of the inductive method more closely match th
On Utilitarianism
John Stuart Mill wrote this book
On Utilitarianism pt 2
-revision of Jeremy Bentham's work
-argues that persons are motivated by pain or leisure
-moral decisions are made on the basis of outcomes, rather than actions
-"the greatest good, for the greatest number"
-moral rules come from the experience of the com
On Utilitarianism pt 3
o The value of the "cultivated mind"
- "it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied
On Liberty
John Stuart Mill wrote this
On Liberty pt 2
-People have a right to believe, admire, and to speak whatever they choose
-People have a right to act however they choose unless their actions harm another
-There should be no restrictions on a person's taste or behavior apart from those things that woul
On the subjugation of women
by john stuart mill
on the subjugation of women pt 2
-beginning for women's suffrage movement
-in england & usa
-wanted right to vote, only men could give it to them
-mill was the first male to vote towards women voting
(because of his philosophy, the individual is what's in the head not the body or biology
Georg Friedrich Hegel
-"the real is the rational and the rational is the real"
-idealist: ideas drive history
-work built off of and complemented kant
-new view of history- dialectic
Dialectic Terms
oDialectic- struggle between two ideas
oThesis- original idea
oAntithesis- competing idea, the maturing and negating process of the thesis
oSynthesis- reconciliation of the thesis and antithesis and the beginning of a new thesis
oAbsolute spirit- the grea
Process of the dialectic
oAn idea (thesis) emerges
oAs this idea develops, counter ideas (antithesis) develop
oThese ideas share some traits but serve to counter the original thesis
oThe thesis and antithesis struggle, bringing about a new idea (synthesis)
oThe synthesis contains
The dialectic continues...
-This process repeats, creating an editable progress through the creation of synthesis
-Each new synthesis is brought about by struggle
? Greatness is achieved by being the right person at the right time with the right idea
-the process is pushed by the a
Impact
oEvery major intellectual movement in every discipline of the nineteenth century included some aspect of the dialectic in its formation
?Marx- materialist dialectic
?Darwin- survival of the fittest
?Freud- the past is the future
oHumanity is seen as on an
Karl Marx
-Materialist/ materialist relations
-economist/ historian
-heavily influenced by hegel
-many hours in british museum studying history
-died penniless in london
Das Capital
Written by karl marx
Communist Manifesto
written by karl marx & friedrich engels
Human Capital
oTo be human is to produce
?Humanity's evolutionary advantage was to make things to compensate and entertain
oHumans are a kind of capital (resource)
?People create and produce based on the materials available to them
oCapital includes "means of productio
Dialectical Materialism
o marx saw material forces rather than a spirit that moves the dialectic
o these forces were primarily social/economic
o greed of the rich causes human divisions
o governments were instituted to protect the rich and their property. Police as oppressors of
Evils of capitalism
The Gap between Rich and Poor must widen
o People work for less than the work is worth
o Rich exploit the poor- "Religion as "opiate of the masses""
Waste of materials
o Repetition
o Useless items
Artificial business cycles created by greed
o Overproducti
Alienation
o Alien- to be made a stranger
Three alienations for the worker:
o From work
o From neighbor
o From self
Alienation leads to revolution
Socialist Revolution
o The workers (proletariat)- rises against the bosses (bourgeoisie)
o After a bloody struggle a new governing body of workers arise- socialist revolution
o There is created a "socialist (or revolutionary) committee" redistribute wealth to the proletariat
The End of History (workers paradise)
o with everyone working according to their ability and receiving what they need, all needs will be supplied and greed will disappear
o no private property is allowed
o with no need to "protect the rich," the police become unnecessary, and other government
Impact pt 2
o Marx's critique of Capitalism has led to labor reforms, primarily in Human Resources
o Many governments have tried to use redistribution of resources from the to the poor to the instituted an equality in lifestyle (socialism)
o Much of history today is
Rights
What are human rights and from where do they come?
Human Rights
o The notion of human rights is a modern idea
o While there are some discussion of rights in the ancients, such as citizenship rights or the idea of a natural law, it is in modernity that the idea of human rights evolves
Two basic discussions of human rights
1. What are the nature of rights?
2.From where do Rights come?
Rights pt2
o Natural rights- nature and/or Nature's God
o Community- rights as recognized behavior
o Reason- rights flow from rational principle and human nature
Power and Rights
o Some argue that rights are a function of power
-Those with power have rights that those without power cannot have
o (golden rule- he who has the gold makes the rules)
-this see rights as a privilege of wealth, status, power
o (victors write history)
-ot
Negative Rights
o negative rights are those rights that are appear to be innate in human beings
o they are called negative because:
o they cannot be taken away from a person without doing them harm
o they limit external controls on the individual by government or society
Why people like negative rights?
o You already possess them
o They offer open-ended alternatives to life
o They allow for freedom of thought, expression, and action
They create equality in spite of power or status
What are negative rights limitations?
o They limit actions one can take in regards to others
o They force you to earn your own way
o They are only as effective as the person willing to exercise them
o Undefended, they can be overwhelmed by power
Positive Rights
o Positive rights are entitlements given to human beings because of their humanness
o They are called positive because they list things human beings should receive, and which in most cases, they do not already possess
o They include things such as educati
Why people like positive rights?
o They provide for basic needs
o They offer a chance for improvement
o They raise the economic status of all persons
They give a mechanism for social change
What are positive rights limitations?
o They have limited resources
o They have to be provided by others
o There is no mechanism for distribution or a way of saying how much is enough
o They can cause dependency
Natural Rights
o Nature and/or Nature's God provides human rights
Natural Rights- Locke
Locke- second treatise of government
-Life, liberty, property
-Human pool rights to create a government
-Voluntary arraignment
considered negative rights
Natural Rights- Rousseau
Rousseau- Social contract
o Natural liberty in the goodness of men
o The evils of restrictive government/society
o General Will known though the vote
-considered negative rights
community
o John Stuart mill- utilitarianism
o Common reason and experience grants certain aspects of human interaction
o The greatest good for the greatest number
o Individuals should be left alone unless their behavior has an adverse effect on the whole
o Individ
Reason
o Immanuel Kant- Critique of Practical Reason
o Reason is the human trait, so all human activities must be rational
o Rights are an outgrowth of respecting the rationality of each human
o Humans deserve special treatment because they are human, it is the
Materialist
o Karl Marx- communist manifesto
o To be human is to produce
o All people have a right to what is produced
o Socialist distribution must be enforced "from each, according to his ability, to each, according to his need."
o This distribution will eliminate
Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900
oMaterialist Philosopher
oBelieved traditional philosophical thinking was inadequate to the modern man
oDynamic writer, but somewhat erratic
oRejected religion and saw conventional morality as flawed
-Christianity is the most vile religion
-Amoral- no mor
Friedrich Nietzsche
o Author of Thus Sake Zarathustra, The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo
Ubermensch
superman
Apollonian and Dionysus
o Niezsche believed that Western Philosophy took a wrong turn with Socrates following Reason as the way to truth
o He compares rationality the Greek God of the Sun Apollo- god of light and truth
o He believes that life should be lived passionately and com
apollonian vs dionysus
table
Pragmatism (1907)
William James wrote this book
Existentialism / Nihilism
o existentialism- existence is all we have
o nihilism- nothingness
o Nietzsche's materialism leads him to believe that nothing human is perfect or perfectible
o We live boldly, then we die and all is gone
o Nothing we do will ultimately matter to anyone e
Friedrich Nietzsche pt 2
-Very individualistic- somewhat elitist
-Used by many too assert superiority
-Some argue he begins to move philosophy out of the modern era
-Very popular in contemporary philosophy for his use and understanding of power
o Michael Foucalt
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
o Idealist
o Troubled childhood and youth
o Melancholy temperament
o His father issues and his broken marriage engagement caused him fits of despair
-He stressed the importance of the individual and the idea that truth is subjective
Faith and Reason
o Kierkegaard rebelled against what he saw a cold, sterile, rational faith
o Saw the Kant and Hegel explanation of the world and god seemed to be limited and not like the God of the Bible he believed in
o He believed that Reason had limits
o Reason descri
leap of Faith
o How can you go from reason to faith?
o A "leap of faith" was necessary
o Not possible to reason to faith
o Truth is relational and subjective
o Real religion is passionate
Fideism- a belief in faith as foundation
Humanism
-His Christian faith caused him to think about the plight of persons
-Humanism is the belief that the chief concern of humanity is other humans and our relationships with them
-The primary responsibility of people is persons
-Humanism is the belief that a
Early 20th century
o The success of the scientific method in technology caused the impression among many that the philosophical search for truth was over
o Science and the scientific method were seen as the impartial arbiters of reality
o In combination with the Materialist
American Pragmatism
o American Common-Sense Realism, when confronted with the Post-Enlightenment materialism sought practical answers rather than Idealist or traditionalist answers
o C.S. Pierce
o William James
o John Dewey
Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914)
o First of the American Pragmatists
o Writer, teacher of logic, lecturer
o Believe that knowledge was ideas not contrary to facts and that facts were empirically shown
o Knowledge through habituation
How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1877)
Charles Sanders Pierce wrote this book
How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1877) pt 2
? "our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects"
? Three steps to clarity
� Familiarity
� Definition
� Concrete utilization
William James (1842-1910)
o Psychologists and Philosopher
o Defined American Pragmatism
o Pragmatism is a philosophical method and a theory of truth
oTruth is what works
? Must be consistent with other ideas
? Comfortable with the facts
? Subject to the tests of experience
oCommon
Democracy and Education
John Dewey wrote this book
John Dewey (1859-1952)
-Psychologist and Philosopher of Education
-Considered a pragmatist, but preferred "Instrumentalist" (a theory should be tested by how effectively it explains and predicts)
-Wrote extensively on education
?Public education is about making good citizens
-B
The Structures of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Thomas Kuhn wrote this
Logical Positivism
o Logical Positivism was the belief anything that could be called knowledge must be able to be verified by the scientific method or mathematically
o Ag group of European mathematicians, logicians, physics, and philosophers became known as the Vienna Circk
A.J. Ayer (19010-1989)
oLanguage, Truth, and Logic
? Logical Positivism
o Metaphysics is impossible
o Philosophical statements are not factual, but linguistic- either definitions or logical relations
o Any values statement reflects the feelings of the one conveying the statemen
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
oLogician and mathematician
oFounder of Analytical Philosophy- statements can be considered true or false based on logic and linguistic studies
oTried to ground all philosophy in logic, but showed the limits to logic
? Squirrel and the tree- can you ever
Three Assumptions of Modern Science
o The Universe is Comprehensible
? Unless the universe can be understood, science can tell us nothing about the universe
o The Scientific Method works and is the best way to knowledge
? Without confidence in the Scientific Method, all the results would be
The Great Irony
o None of these assertions can be Scientifically verified
o At best, all that can be shown is a pragmatism
If science is limited, what can be known?
Limits to the Verification
o The philosopher of science, Karl Popper argued that Science was caught in an inductive logic trap
? Problems of induction
? Verification causes no one to only admit data that is favorable to the hypothesis
o It is not possible for a statement about scie
Karl Popper (1902-1994)
o Realized science was caught in a logic trap
o Proposed science be based on deductive thinking- falsification
o One must be able to come up with an experiment to prove one's idea false to show the limits of the data, otherwise it is a belief and not scie
20th century challenges to science
o questions about science arose
? problems caused by technology
� environmental destruction, disease transmission
? immoral use of science
� nazi experimentation, atomic weapons
? limits to observation
� quantum physics/ new cosmologies
o science could no
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
o Kuhn realized that science was not an orderly progressive march, but messy shift in beliefs and priorities based on societal trends
o Coined the word "paradigm" to describe the framework of knowledge or world-view on has in looking at the data
o Scienti
Being and Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote this book
Jean-Paul Sartre
o Philosopher, author, and playwright
o Was a couple with Simone de Beauvoir, early radical feminist
o Existentialist- being is what matters
? Existence precedes essence
o Human condition of anguish
o No god- no hope- nothing but despair
? Hell is other p
Course in General Linguistics (1916)
Ferdinand de Saussure wrote this book
Linguistic Turn
o Just as there was a cosmological turn that began philosophy, and a epistemological turn that began that modern era there are those we are asking whether we on the verge of another turn
o Varieties of language-based views of philosophy are circulated now
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
-Swiss linguist who studied the similarities in the Indo-European languages
-He believed that language is largely arbitrary in terms of use and definition and is constantly changing
-Language can be scientifically studied, yet to study a language "freezes
How to Do Things with Words (1962)
J.L. Austin wrote this book
The Postmodern Condition (1979)
Jean-Francis Lyotard
J.L. Austin (1911-1960)
o Speech act theory
o The differences between saying something and doing something is only apparent. The idea that there is a difference between stating (constative utterances) and performing an act with speech (performative utterances) such as saying "I
J.L. Austin main speech acts
o Three main speech acts:
-Locutionary acts: uttering words with sense and reference
-Illocutionary acts: social conventions such as promising, stating
-Perlocutionary acts: natural acts such as persuading, consequent upon illocutionary acts
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
o Two Philosophical careers
o Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus- Logical Positivist
? Philosophy as a mathematical problem
? Retired, thinking all of Philosophy had been solved
o Philosophical Investigations- Language Philosophy
o Changed modern thinking abo
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
o French Algerian, founded deconstruction
o Deconstruction is a philosophy that critiques Western Thought as "logocentric" (placing ideas- logos- at the center of all philosophical contemplation)
o Difference- Derrida's term for the idea that no word is d
Post-structuralism
o Structuralism was an early 20th century belief that all systems comply to a set of rules or laws that creates the structure that is the reality behind the system
o Post-structuralism believes that this is mistaken, that there is no reality behind the sy
Jean-Francis Lyotard (1924-1999)
o Narrative- the story we tell ourselves to explain the world to ourselves
o Grand Narrative- the story that fits all together for a grand explanation of everything
o Lyotard argues that there are no grand narratives, only the little narratives for oursel
table
two people
Critical Theory
o Marxists at the Frankfort school in Germany were puzzled at the end of the First World War why Marxist dialectic had not succeeded in causing the workers to unite and rise around the world
o The Second World War forced the Frankfort School to move to th
Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)
o Leader of the Frankfort School
o Philosopher and social critic
o Began Critical Theory with Theodor Adorno
? Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944) Culture represses us.
o The purpose of Critical Theory was "to create a world which satisfies the needs and po
Herbet Marcuse (1898-1979)
o One-Dimensional Man- Marcuse' term for the unity of opinion after the Second World War
o He wanted to re-introduce the struggle to "wake-up" the oppressed by endorsing the '60's counter-culture and his views on art
o Marcuse, along with other critical t
Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
o Foucault studied Nietzsche and was convinced that power was located in the social systems and was used to marginalize vulnerable social groups in the name of "order." He called the "unconscious power."
o He studied different social structures in prisons
Modern Realism
o Knowledge us dependent upon experience
o Experience (sensory perception) can be mistaken or misled (David Hume)
o Is the world we perceive the "real world?"
o Definitely yes- common sense realism
o To a degree- critical realism
No way to tell- socially
Common Sense Realism
o Thomas Reid- Scottish realist
o Persons are configured to in and understand the world in which they live
o The world is as it appears to our "common" sense
-Morality is self-evident- part of creation
Critical Realism
o Immanuel Kant
o Human sense are limited, so our knowledge of the world is limited too
o To assume the world we perceive is the word that is is na�ve
Morality is based on reason
Socially-Constructed Realism
o Various postmodern thinkers (Lyotard)
o Since knowledge is primarily linguistic expressions of our experiences, what we know is heavily dependent upon how we express it
o We shape our understanding of the world by the way we describe it
Morality is a la