Brief Summary
This video serves as a beginner's guide to philosophy, exploring five major areas: logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. It covers key concepts, historical figures, and major theories within each area, providing a broad overview of the philosophical landscape.
- Logic encompasses both the art of thinking and formal mathematical systems.
- Metaphysics explores the nature of reality, including theories of truth and the problem of universals.
- Epistemology investigates the nature of knowledge and the challenges of skepticism.
- Ethics examines right and wrong through consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics perspectives.
- Political philosophy addresses justice, wealth distribution, and the fundamental issues surrounding democracy.
How I Started with Philosophy
The author recounts his initial, somewhat misguided, approach to learning philosophy by diving into complex texts without a foundational understanding. He emphasizes that this video aims to provide a beginner's guide to philosophy, offering a tour through five major areas rather than a list of recommended readings. These areas include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.
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The video includes a brief promotion for Brilliant, a platform for learning math and computer science. Brilliant offers courses that can be completed in about 15 minutes a day, covering topics like data analytics and programming skills such as Python. A 20% discount is offered to the first 200 subscribers who use the provided link, along with a 30-day free trial.
Logic and the Art of Thinking
Logic is divided into two categories: the art of thinking and formal systems. The art of thinking involves improving one's reasoning abilities and avoiding false beliefs, exemplified by the 17th-century book "Logic or the Art of Thinking." This area aligns with critical thinking, addressing fallacies, which are flawed reasoning patterns. For example, the fallacy of guilt by association, where a belief is discredited simply because it's held by a disliked person. Understanding logic helps in recognizing and avoiding such fallacies, promoting better thinking through deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning. It also connects with modern psychology, particularly in understanding cognitive biases, which are common errors in judgment.
Formal Logic
Formal logic is understood as a mathematical system. While its modern form emerged in the 19th century, medieval logicians also focused on the structure of arguments. Key to formal logic is distinguishing between the form and content of an argument. Gottlob Frege's "Begriffsschrift" aimed to create a formal notation for representing and assessing arguments mathematically. Although formal logic was initially intended to ground mathematics, issues like Russell's Paradox and Gödel's incompleteness theorem presented challenges. Despite these setbacks, formal logic remains valuable for precisely modeling philosophical concepts, leading to modal, temporal, epistemic, and fuzzy logics.
Paradoxes
Paradoxes arise when plausible premises and reliable inference rules lead to absurd conclusions, revealing potential problems in our reasoning. A classic example is the Liar's Paradox ("This sentence is false"), which traps us in circular reasoning, concluding that the sentence is both true and false. Accepting common inference rules like modus ponens can lead to the principle of explosion, where a contradiction allows for the proof of any sentence, which is obviously absurd. Paradoxes highlight important issues, but their solutions remain a matter of debate, with numerous theories attempting to resolve them.
Metaphysics
Metaphysics explores the nature of reality, including topics like truth, identity, necessity, contingency, the existence of God, and the mind-body relationship. The discussion focuses on the nature of truth and the problem of universals.
Theories of Truth
Philosophers have long sought to define truth. Aristotle defined truth as "to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not," but this doesn't explain the nature of truth itself. The correspondence theory of truth states that a sentence is true when it corresponds to reality, aligning with realism, which posits mind-independent truths. The verification theory of truth, associated with anti-realism, asserts that a sentence is true when it has been verified. The pragmatist theory of truth, linked to American pragmatists like C.S. Peirce and William James, suggests that a belief is true if it is useful for achieving practical ends. The coherence theory of truth, tied to idealism, claims that a sentence is true if it coheres with a privileged set of beliefs. Finally, the deflationary theory of truth, prominent in the 20th century, argues that truth is not a property with a nature but rather a logical tool in language.
Universals (and Cats)
The world can be divided into individuals and universals. Individuals are discrete, distinct entities, while universals are common properties shared by individuals. For example, two black cats, Carl and Bark, are individuals who share the universals of being black and being cats (or "cattiness"). Plato's theory of forms equates forms with universals, which are timeless, eternal, and exist in a platonic realm. Aristotle agreed on the existence of universals but believed they exist within the objects that instantiate them, rather than abstractly.
Nominalism
Nominalists deny the existence of universals or properties, and possibly abstract objects. Arguments for nominalism often invoke the principle of simplicity, favoring simpler theories that explain the same phenomena. William of Ockham, a nominalist, argued against the coherence of universals, suggesting that universals exist only as mental constructs when we classify objects. Nominalism appears throughout history and across cultures, including in Buddhist philosophy, which emphasizes the impermanence of everything, contradicting the notion of timeless, unchanging universals.
Epistemology
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. A fundamental question in epistemology is defining the nature of knowledge. The JTB (Justified True Belief) theory, traced back to Plato, defines knowledge as justified true belief. While many have accepted versions of the JTB theory, debates often arise over the nature of justification. Edmund Gettier challenged the JTB theory in the 20th century by presenting cases where the JTB conditions are met, but the individuals in question do not genuinely possess knowledge due to epistemic luck.
Philosophical Skepticism
A fundamental epistemological problem is whether knowledge is possible at all. Skeptics argue that it is not. Philosophical skeptics deny the possibility of knowledge. To avoid self-contradiction, skeptics often hedge their positions. The Pyrrhonist school of Greek philosophy, exemplified by Sextus Empiricus, taught followers to suspend judgment and avoid belief. Academic skepticism, found among Plato's followers, also questions the possibility of certain knowledge. Skepticism appears in Buddhist and Western medieval traditions, with figures like John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham debating the possibility of knowledge.
Cartesian & Humean Skepticism
In the modern era, skepticism shifted from a position to a tool for inquiry. René Descartes used methodological skepticism in his quest for certainty, doubting any belief with any reason for doubt. Descartes aimed to identify fixed truths as a foundation for a system of knowledge, a project known as foundationalism. His famous "I think, therefore I am" became a foundational truth. David Hume, another skeptic, believed knowledge was based on experience. He used skepticism to examine ideas, discarding those not constructed from impressions based on experience. Hume questioned induction, causation, and the existence of a stable self.
Ethical Theories
Ethics is the study of right and wrong, encompassing three major schools. Consequentialists assess actions based on their consequences, often using a theory of value to determine good or bad outcomes. Utilitarians, like Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Peter Singer, combine consequentialism with hedonism, aiming to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Deontologists, such as Immanuel Kant, focus on rules for classes of actions, deducing moral law from principles of rationality. Virtue ethics emphasizes character development and virtue, focusing on how to be a good human being. Prominent in ancient Greece and Confucianism, virtue ethics, exemplified by Aristotle, prioritizes self-development and virtuous behavior.
Nihilism & Metaethics
Moral nihilists question the existence of objective right and wrong. While some doubters become subjectivists, claiming ethics is a matter of personal opinion, moral nihilism takes the more radical step of denying objective moral truths. Friedrich Nietzsche is often associated with nihilism, though scholars debate whether he fully abandoned moral categories. J.L. Mackie's argument from queerness suggests that moral properties are so strange that we should abandon them. Metaethics explores foundational questions about ethics, including the language, epistemology, and metaphysics of ethics.
Political Philosophy & The Problem of Justice
Political philosophy addresses human beings on a larger scale, with a major issue being the problem of justice and the distribution of wealth. Some argue for state redistribution of wealth to promote equality, while others defend individual property rights. John Rawls and Robert Nozick, both at Harvard, reached different conclusions. Nozick's entitlement theory, outlined in "Anarchy, State, and Utopia," is a historical theory that traces property acquisition to determine justice. Rawls, in "A Theory of Justice," uses the veil of ignorance thought experiment, where individuals deliberate on a just society without knowing their future position in it, leading to principles that prioritize the least well-off.
Philosophers Against Democracy
Democracy is often taken for granted as a positive system, but historically, many philosophers have opposed it. In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle were anti-democratic. Plato, in "The Republic," favored rule by philosopher-kings, while Aristotle classified democracies as deviant governments. They feared the tyranny of the majority and believed the general population lacked the intelligence to rule. Similarly, classical Chinese philosophy assumes a ruling elite or king with the Mandate of Heaven. Anarchists have also critiqued democracy as a form of majority rule and tyranny, though some argue that true democracy would be anarchistic.
