Transcript CHAPTER 10: WHAT IS SOCIAL JUSTICE? Creating a Just …

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Philosophy
 The word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek
 Phila Sophia –
 Which means ‘love of wisdom’
 First suggested by Pythagoras (570 BCE)
 There was a group who identified as ‘sophists’
 ‘Wise people’
 They would only teach for money
 Often were skeptics
 That is, denied that real knowledge is possible
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‘Philosophy’ II
 Pythagoras argued that only the gods were wise
 It was hubris for Humans to claim to be wise
 Rather we should think of ourselves as ‘lovers of
wisdom’
 Lovers in the sense of seekers of knowledge
 When you love something (in this sense) you desire
to be around it
 You seek it out
 Thus phila sophia is the pursuit of wisdom
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Philosophy
 philosophy is the search for wisdom
(Truth, Goodness, Beauty) through logical
reasoning rather than through either naturalscientific empirical method and/or religious
faith
 Content: Wisdom (Truth, Goodness, Beauty)
 Method: Logical reasoning on the basis of
facts without leaps of faith
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Philosophy, Science, Religion
(a) Religion: Accesses Truth through scripture and
faith
(b) Science: Accesses truth through naturalempirical scientific method
(c) Philosophy: Accesses the Truth through logical
and theoretically speculative Reason
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Truth

Definition of truth: A belief and/or
statement (proposition, assertion) that
corresponds to reality
 Ex: The proposition “this sentence has 5 words” is true
if it actually has 5 words.
 Analytic , logical truth: an assertion that is true by
definition
 Ex: A triangle is a three sided object with internal
angles that add up to 180 degrees
 Empirical, factual truth: a claim that is empirically
verifiable
 This sentence has 5 words. The chalk is white
 Positivism: Any claims that are not true analytically
or factually are meaningless
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Truth, Knowledge, Wisdom

Definition of knowledge: to know something is to have a belief and/or to make
an assertion that is true, i.e., it corresponds to reality, to what is the case.
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Philosophical knowledge:
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Types of Truth: Philosophical Capital “T” truths vs. scientific Small “t” truths
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1.
Wisdom: consists of capital “T” Truths that are general,
universal
necessary
perennial
purportedly “eternal” (or at least historically broad), and
practical……
with respect to the nature of reality, the nature of human being, the meaning
of life, the nature of goodness, knowledge, and beauty
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2.
Scientific knowledge: consists of small “t” truths:
a.
Truths that are specific and relative to contexts (not universal & necessary)
b.
Truths that are of lesser value, but still true
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The Rational Nature of
Philosophy
Rationalism: the belief that reason is the highest
authority in human-human affairs and in the study
of nature (science)
Principle of Sufficient Reason: nihil est sine rationis:
nothing is without a reason: for every effect there is
a rational cause, and for every problem there is a
rational solution
Reason: Latin: ratio; Greek: logos
1. Word
2. Explanation, account
3. Principle (cosmological, religious, moral,
political)
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Logos vs. Mythos
 Mythos & Logos: Two Ways of Explaining the World
 Logos (reason): use of logoi/words for explanations,
narratives, stories that use
* logical thinking (induction, deduction)
* scientific thinking (experimentation,
hypothesis, testing, observation, reporting)
* empirical evidence/facts (verifiable, falsifiable)
* theory (general explanatory stories that are
based on facts, help to explain facts, and
predict future facts)
*such accounts strive to be objective, universal
 Mythos (myth, metaphor, poetry): use of logoi/words for
explanations, narratives, stories that use
* mythical thinking, even magical thinking
* Def of myth: a factually false or empirically
/logically unverifiable story that reveals/discloses
the truth metaphorically
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Logos vs. Mythos 2
 4 functions of myth
 explain the world in a meaningful way
 The way the world came to be and why it is the
way it is in nature and human affairs
 explain and support social-historical customs
 provide psychological, moral, social-normative
guidance for people
 inspire and motivate meaningful action
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The Way of Logos: Rational
Argument
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A philosophical argument aims to provide
reasons that make a conclusion probable
(inductively) or necessary (deductively)
A sound argument is deductive and valid (the
conclusion follows necessarily) and its
premises are true
Ways to critique arguments: counterexample,
show confusion of necessary and sufficient
conditions, reduce argument to absurdity
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Rationalist
 A Rationalist, in the most general sense, is
someone who believes in rationalism & the
principle of reason, and therefore uses rational
argument to justify beliefs, values, and practices
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The Paradigmatic Rationalist:
Socrates
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“The unexamined life is not worth living”
•
Socratic Method (Dialectic):
Conversational cross-examination to
achieve knowledge & wisdom
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Basic Socratic Principles
1.
The principle of Skepticism: Question!
2.
The Clarification Principle: clarify!
3.
The Generalization Principle: Generalize!
4.
The Empirical Principle: Get the facts!
5.
The Self-Critical Principle: Be critical!
6.
Justification Principle: Justify!
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The Principle of Skepticism
1.
The principle of Skepticism: Question!
1.
2.
Accept nothing as true until you have sufficient
reason to believe it is true beyond a reasonable
doubt
Everything is questionable! Nothing is sacred
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The Clarification Principle
The Clarification Principle: clarify!
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The meaning of basic terms
Arguments: premises (major & minor),
conclusions & inferences
Principles
Presuppositions
Intentions, beliefs, values, practices
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The Generalization Principle
The Generalization Principle:
Generalize (decontextualize & deculturalize)
through the use of second-order questions
1. 1st order questions: straightforward
questions couched in a context
2. The experience of wonder in the face of
either the lack of clarity or conflicting claims
3. 2nd order questions: clarificatory
general questions about the meaning of the
basic issues involved in a particular context
Example of Happiness
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The Empirical Principle
1. Natural scientific objective facts: demand to see
& to know the facts
2. Personal-experiential subjective facts: demand
to see every truth for oneself
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The Self-Critical Principle
 Don’t assume that you are right, and even
assume that the other is right and that you are
wrong
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Justification Principle
 Whatever is believed and/or asserted to be true,
good, or beautiful is so because there are good
reasons to justify the belief and/or assertion
 1.
Reason makes right (true, good, beautiful)
 2.
Whatever is right is justified rationally
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The Limits of Reason:
The Non-rational and the Irrational
 Definition of the Non-Rational: That which,
although it is not rational, can be
rationalized
(i)
(ii)
Emotions, Moods, Attitudes, Intuitions
Meditative Practices, Mysticism
 Definition of the Irrational: That which cannot
be rationalized or made sense of; that which
defies logic
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BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Value of Philosophy
“Philosophy is to be studied, not
for the sake of any definite
answers to the questions since
no definite answers can, as a
rule, be known to be true, but
rather for the sake of the
questions themselves.”
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THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY
What is Your Philosophy of Life? (1)
Everybody has a philosophy of life. Identify some of the beliefs that
form your philosophy of life, using these questions as a guide.
Express your ideas as completely and clearly as you can. Think deeply
and beyond superficialities, and refuse to be satisfied with the first
idea you have.
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THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY
What is Your Philosophy of Life? (2)
 What do you most value in life? Why?
 What moral beliefs influence your choices and your behavior toward others? How
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do you determine the “right” thing to do?
What role do religious beliefs play in your life? Do you believe in “God”? Why
or why not? Is there an afterlife? If so, what is the path to it?
What gives life meaning? What is the purpose of your life? What do you hope to
achieve in your life?
How do we find truth? How do you know when you “know” something is true?
What is an example of something you know to be true?
Do you believe that your choices are free? Do you hold yourself responsible for
your choices?
What do you consider to be “beautiful”? Why? What is the function of art?
Should “extreme” forms of artistic expression be censored? Why or why not?
Are all people entitled to basic human rights? Why? What is justice?
What are other important beliefs in your life?
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Metaphysics
 Metaphysics: The study of the ultimate nature of
reality
 Questions about whether there are fundamental
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parts out of which everything else is made
Is reality completely physical or is there a nonphysical aspect?
What is the nature of causation?
Are my actions free or determined?
What exists? What does it mean to exist?
(ontology)
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Metaphysics/Ontology
General metaphysics (Ontology): The study of
Being, i.e., the general nature of reality:
(a) The question of Being is the question of what
makes being be; i.e., the question of the ultimate
nature of reality, the “big picture”—The Being of
beings
(b) The question of the nature of the universe
(uni-verse): the sum totality of everything that
has both possible and actual existence
(c) Two branches (answers) of general
metaphysics: Monism and Dualism
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2 Metaphysical Views
Monism: (All is X): All of reality is one thing
(either matter or spirit—but also energy), or
has one common property (moving,
mentality, ideational, atomic structure etc)
Dualism: (All is either X or Y): Reality consist of
two distinct things or properties: matter and
spirit
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Ontological Relationships
 An ontological relationship is one in which
 The existence of B is dependent upon the
existence of A, such that B can exist if, and
only if, A exists
 A is the necessary condition for the possibility
of B
 B presupposes A ontologically
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Special Metaphysics
 Special metaphysics: The study of the
arguments regarding particular entities that
lie beyond the empirical: God, soul, spiritentities, afterlife, immortality, etc
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Epistemology
 Epistemology: The study of knowledge
 What does it mean for a sentence to be true?
 What exactly is knowledge?
 How is it different from belief?
 How is it related to truth?
 Where do we get it? Reason only? The senses
only?
 How do we know when we have it?
 Is it even possible to really know anything?
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Ethics
 Ethics: The study of right/wrong and good/bad
 What is the nature of value?
 Will include Aesthetics and Political philosophy
 Which actions are moral?
 Are there things which are really good/bad or is
this a human invention?
 What kind of life should I lead?
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Logic
 The Study of the rules and processes of rational
thinking
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QUALITIES THAT CHARACTERIZE A CRITICAL
THINKER
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Open-minded
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Knowledgeable
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Mentally active
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Curious
Independent Thinkers
Skilled discussants
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Insightful
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Self-aware
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Creative
Passionate
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CRITICAL THINKING METHOD
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Arguments
 Arguments consist of two parts
 Premises
 And conclusions
 The premises of an argument are offered in
support of the conclusion
 The premises of an argument are supposed to be
reasons to believe the conclusion
 We can divide arguments according to how
strong the relation of support is between
premises and conclusions
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Kinds of Arguments
 We generally class arguments into two kinds
 Deductive and Inductive
 Deductive: moving from a general premise(s) to
a specific conclusion
 All dogs are animals, so my dog is an animal
 Inductive: moving from specific premise(s) to a
general conclusion
 My Pit Bull is vicious , so all Pit Bulls are vicious
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Inductive Arguments
 If the premise is true
 Conclusion is MORE LIKELY to be true (but could be
false)
 Suppose you wanted to prove that all swans are
white, how would you do it?
 Inductive argument– I have seen a lot of swans
and they have all been white
 Every swan I have seen so far has been white, so
the next swan I see will be white
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Inductive Arguments II
 Are all swans white?
 No! Black swans exist
 So it can be true that every swan I have seen so
far is white, and then I see a black swan next
 If the premise of a deductive argument is true then
the conclusion MUST
 We will come back to induction when we get to
Hume in the modern period
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Deductive Logic
 An argument is valid when it meets this
requirement:
 IF the premises are true then the conclusion
MUST be true, for example
 1. All men are mortal
 2. Socrates is a man
 3. Socrates is mortal
 What Aristotle noticed was that validity was
due to the form that the argument took NOT
to what the argument was about
 The argument is valid due to the way the terms are
distributed throughout the argument
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Validity
 If we replace the repeating terms with letters
(and leave everything else the same) we will get
the argument’s form
 All A’s are B’s
 All S’s are A
 So, all S’s are B
 ‘A’, and ‘B’, stand for categories of things and
‘S’ is an object
 This is a valid argument form because no matter
what you substitute for ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘S’ (the
terms)
 IF the premises are true then the conclusion MUST be
true
 It will be impossible to fill in the A’s, B’s and S in a way
that makes the premises true and the conclusion
false
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Categorical Logic
 Aristotle’s logic is called ‘categorical’ logic
because it deals with categorical statements
(statements about categories of objects)
 He was interested in sentences of four kinds
 All A’s are B’s
 No A’s are B’s
 Some A’s are B’s
 Some A’s are not B’s
 He went through and categorized the ways in
which you could combine these kinds of
sentences into valid and invalid argument forms
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Validity II
 Here is an argument
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All republicans are vampires
Some republicans come out during the day
So, some vampires come out during the day
Is this argument valid?
YES!
 IF the premises were true then the
conclusion would HAVE to be true
 It just turns out that the first premise is false
 But IF it were true then the conclusion would HAVE
to be true
 What is the form of that argument?
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Validity III
 1. All A’s are B’s
 2. Some A’s are C’s
 3. So, Some B’s are C’s
 You can see that this arrangement must preserve
truth no matter what A, B, and C stand for
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1 says everything that is an A is also a B,
And if it is really true that some A’s are C’s (as 2 says)
then it would have to be the case that some B’s are C
Because 1 says that everything that is A is also B
 So the validity of the argument depends only on the
form
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Soundness
 The validity of an argument is independent
of the truth of the argument’s premises
 A sound argument is a valid argument with true
premises
 Only valid arguments can be sound or unsound
 An invalid argument is never sound
 It is perfectly ordinary for a valid argument to
have false premises (as in the previous
example)
 That just means that it is not sound
 What is not allowed is for a valid argument to have
true premises and a false conclusion
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Testing for Validity
 So, to determine if an argument is valid
we need to know the form of the
argument
 and whether it is possible for that form to have
true premises and a false conclusion
 This is called a counter-example to the
argument form and will look like this
 True premise
 True premise
 False conclusion
 If the argument form is valid it will be
impossible to find a counter example
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Counter-Example
 A counter-example to an argument form is
an argument with the same form that has
true premises and a false conclusion
 If you can produce a counter-example to an
argument form then you have shown that every
argument with that form is invalid
 Or that the conclusion does not follow from the
premises
 The premises of an invalid argument,
whether true or not, give you no reason to
believe the conclusion
 A sound argument rationally compels you to
believe the conclusion
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Another Argument
 Consider the following argument
 All men are mortal
 Socrates isn’t a man
 So, Socrates isn’t a mortal
 What is the form of this argument?
 Find the repeating terms, assign them a letter
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and rewrite the argument with the letters
All A are B
No S is an A
So, No S is a B
Is this argument form valid?
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Counter Example
 Can you construct a counter example to
this argument?
 Try to think of a scenario where the premises
are true and the conclusion is false
 This is easy to do
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Perhaps ‘Socrates’ is the names of my pig
It could then be true that all men are mortal
And true that Socrates isn’t a man
But false that he isn’t mortal
 Therefore this argument form is invalid
 Any argument with this form will be invalid
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Counter-Example II
 Usually an argument that is in an invalid form
will be a counter-example to itself
 Like the one we just looked at
 But sometimes it is hard to tell
 That is when we try to generate a new argument
with the same form
 One that is easy to see that the premises are true
 While the conclusion is false
 Every invalid argument form will have an
infinite number of counter-examples
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Counter-Example III
 All A are B
 S is not an A
 So, S is not a B
 some other counter-examples
 All dogs are mammals (True)
 George isn’t a dog (true: George is a human)
 So George isn’t a mammal (false: humans are
mammals)
 All cats like milk (True (let’s say))
 Bob isn’t a cat (True: Bob is a human)
 So Bob doesn’t like milk (False: Bob likes milk (let’s
say))
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Sentential Logic
 Modern Logic is called ‘sentential’ because it
deals with the relations between sentences (not
categories)
 Modus Ponens
 1. If P then Q
 2. P
 3. Therefore Q
 ‘P’ and ‘Q’ can be replaced with any sentence
and one will have a valid argument
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Sentential Logic (2)
 Modus Tollens
 If P then Q
 Not Q
 Therefore not P
 Disjunctive Syllogism
 Either P or Q
 Not P (not Q)
 So not Q (not P)
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INFORMAL FALLACIES (1)
 Fallacies of False Generalization
 Hasty generalization
 Sweeping generalization
 False dilemma
 Causal Fallacies
 Questionable cause
 Misidentification of the cause
 Post hoc ergo propter hoc
 Slippery Slope
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INFORMAL FALLACIES (2)
 Fallacies of Relevance
 Appeal to authority/tradition/bandwagon
 Appeal to emotion
 Appeal to personal attack
 Red herring
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THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY
How Do You Know What is True?
Reflect on your approach to the information you receive from the
sources in your life: friends, family, teachers, books, television,
newspapers, the Internet, magazines, and so on. How often do you
make a special effort to question, analyze, and critically evaluate that
information? How often do you tend to simply accept the information
in the form it’s provided? In what ways would taking a more critical
thinking approach to information help you arrive at well-supported
knowledge?
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