Introduction to Philosophy

by

Professor Jon Saul

 

Human beings have always been curious creatures. They have questioned and explored their universe. Philosophy is the name given to this exercise.

 

Let us travel through time to review what and how many humans (those in Europe, at least) have thought:

 

The Ancient Greeks examined every aspect of reality, living in a time which we can only describe as superstitious. They believed that the earth was the center of the universe (Ptolemaic geocentrism) and that there were a multitude of gods (polytheism) who interfered with humans’ lives on a daily basis.  Ancient Athens, the first ‘direct democracy’ for free males with property, produced many philosophers. We have examined Socrates, who fostered the art of asking questions to pursue the TRUTH; Plato, who believe that IDEAS were real and reality was flawed (think of the dichotomy between theory and practice that we are familiar with today), and Aristotle, who attempted to catalogue all of knowledge. These men laid a foundation for future generations: each sought perfection differently: Socrates in the on-going, relentless search for truth; Plato in a world of ideas and Aristotle, in attempting to establish the limits/the entirety of human knowledge.

 

After the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity, certain aspects of Aristotelian and Platonic thought emerged in the cosmology (world view/explanation) of the Christian church. The Platonic idea of perfection was reborn in the Christian GOD (omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent). During the first 10 centuries of the ‘common era’, the Aristotelian idea of the great chain of being (think hierarchy) became the basis of Church, state (think aristocracy) and society think of Feudalism: the Manor and the Lord).  The Bible became the source of truth, in the form of revelation interpreted by members of the Church hierarchy. Redemption for Original Sin (think of Adam and Eve and the apple) became the ultimate reward. 

 

During the 12th, 13th centuries, the growth of population and development of cities and wealth gave rise to leisure time and artistic endeavors. Furthermore, soldiers returning from the Christian Crusades to reclaim the Holy Land (where Jesus was born) from the Moslem Empire (today’s Middle East) brought back hitherto unread texts from the Moslem lands.

 

In the middle of the 15th century, Gutenberg (1398-1468) invented a printing press using movable type (1447) and literacy spread as, at first the Bible, and then other books, ware printed for the masses (at first in Latin, later in the vernacular). During 14th and 15th centuries, there was a period of world exploration (think Columbus 1492 and all that, and Magellan, who circumnavigated the globe) and a Renaissance (think rebirth of interest in the ideas of the Ancient Greeks) in thought. Reason, rational thought, began to rival revelation as a source of truth. In Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and others ‘discovered’ the mathematical characteristics inherent in nature (mathematics became the language of nature) and Galileo invented a telescope. In England, Francis Bacon explored a new ‘scientific’ method. In Germany Copernicus (1473-1543) and  Kepler (1571-1630) saw the cosmos in a new light – heliocentrism was proposed as a more accurate and truthful explanation of the universe.

 

The Church reacted poorly to these changes in cosmology which threatened the basis of the absolute authority of both Church and state. God had given humans the Bible for truth and the King had Divine Right to administer justice. Questioning these, proposing another source of truth (nature thorough science and mathematics), undermined the authority of the rulers. The Church jailed Galileo (for 32 years under house arrest), repressed Copernicus’ work (think banning books) and burnt others at the stake as heretics (think of Giordano Bruno in 1600). 

 

Ultimately, the influence of power corrupted the leaders of the church and state (that is, redemption came to be available to the highest bidder). Honest clergy questioned, now reading and interpreting the Bible on their own, began to protest what they considered to be corruption in the Church, e.g., the sale of heavenly delights to the rich. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on a church door in Germany in 1517, the Protestant Reformation was born. The many new Protestant sects (interpretations of the Bible, such as Calvin, Luther, Baptist, Anabaptists) believed that human beings could pray to God without the intervening hierarchy of the Church. The Christian world was split in two: Catholics and Protestants fought each other and died for their beliefs for 200 years and longer (think Ireland today). 

 

The combination of bloody religious wars (humans of faith could not agree on revealed truths) and ugly repression of thought (to maintain personal and institutional power) opened the opportunity for a renewed emphasis on reason as a source of truth. 

René Descartes (1596-1650) (‘I think, therefore I am’) raised rational thought to the level of revelation. Descartes proved that he himself must have the basic characteristic of thinking, and that this thinking thing (his mind) is quite distinct from his body; the existence of a God; the existence and nature of the external world; and so on. What is important in this for Descartes is, first, that he is showing that knowledge is genuinely possible (and thus that skeptics must be mistaken), and, second, that, more particularly, a mathematically-based scientific knowledge of the material world is possible. Although I may doubt, I cannot doubt that I exist. I know I exist because I am thinking – and I am thinking of GOD.

 

Following Descartes, the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment (think age of reason) was replete with philosophical explorations of Human nature. When Isaac Newton (1642-1727) ‘discovered’ the law of gravity (think of the apple, again) and the three ‘laws’ of motion, the scientific revolution was complete. 

Motion along a line or a curve is called translation. Motion that changes the orientation of a body is called rotation. In both cases all points in the body have the same velocity (directed speed) and the same acceleration (time rate of change of velocity).

 

There was a new Copernican cosmology and a new Newtonian Physics. Reason/rational thought could completely explain the operations and functioning of the universe. 

 

John  Locke (1632-1704) (think tabula raza), David Hume (1711-1776) (think skepticism – seeing is believing, show me), among others, developed the idea of empiricsm – that sensory perception was the source of all human knowledge. Experience and experimentation were the only reliable sources of truth. Human Reason was a complete source of truth.

 

 If there were natural laws for the physical world, why not for human nature? Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson all explored ideas of Natural Law and Natural Rights. The Declaration of Independence, 1776, summarizes these thoughts.

 

What else occurred in 1776? Adam Smith (1723-1790) published a book entitled ‘The Wealth of Nations’. In it he argued that gold bullion was not the source of wealth for a country. Rather, he thought, the marketplace was the source of wealth….