Transcript Review: Logic and Socrates

Socrates and Plato
• Socrates uses reason to find moral reality
– Same rationalist assumptions
• One, unchanging, knowable, rational, real
• Plus: Knowledge  virtue
• Death at the hands of democracy
– Becomes the hero of Plato's dialogues
• Dies ignorant--method doubt; no solution
– Hard to prove a contradiction from moral premises
• Plato combines with Parmenides rationalism
– Ultimate reality is value/meaning (definition)
– Intellectual reality = idealism (optimism and ideas)
Define: Philosophy=Semantics
• Basis of all knowledge
– Needed to know the truth of sentences
– Because needed to know meaning?
• Vicious circle--must be some we learn without
– In fact most are learned without definitions
• But important to logic (Geometry)
– Allows logical analysis, reveals structure of
arguments
• Reality=concepts, meanings, Ideos, Forms
– One, unchanging, knowable, rational=real
• Sense experience is unreal, belief, change etc.
Working with Definitions
• Rules to ensure we get the right kind
– No lists, vagueness, circularity (synonym)
• Must give an analysis: species and difference
– Biology model of scientific knowledge (classification)
– No hearsay (only expert insight) & test by reason
• Real v nominal definitions
– Things real nature—what makes it “of that kind”
– Shared in things of that type.
• Result: Theory of Forms
– The ultimate reality (metaphysics); distinguishes
knowledge from belief, meaning/logic, value
Questions
Give a formal analysis of the Analects
論語 argument for the social-political
importance of rectifying names 正名. Is
it valid? Is it sound? Explain why or why
not.
Coffee Tutorial today at 1 pm
Difficulty: Famous Analogies
• Cave: sensible appearance v reality
– C.f. taking hallucinatory drugs
– Meditation or rational insight
• Analogy: shadow/object as object/form
– Equal difficulty in getting you to accept them
– When you "see" them, you will need no more
convincing
• The character of the object determines your
knowledge
Line Analogy:
• Links metaphysics and epistemology
• Knowability depends on nature of object
(Parmenides)
• Rival view: true belief plus an account (the
modern analysis)
– X knows that P =df.
• P is true
• X believes that P
• X has justification for believing that P
The Sun Analogy
• Rule for identification of forms
–Logic: there must be a form of forms
–“More real” than the forms
• The form of the good: of all value
–Form of the truth/beauty/good
• Mystical Result:Absolute one/being
–No mental grasp
• It would blind us (our intuition)
–But necessarily there
• (or nothing exists)
Key Political Doctrines
• The Republic a political plan
–Justice in political structure =in
individual
• Rule of the correct ruler—intellect
• The Philosopher King
–Anti-democratic and manipulative
–Education and classes
–Social ranks: intellectual, spirited,
body-like
End Plato & Greek Rationalism
• Ancient Chinese idealism next!
On To China!
• Same approximate time
– Axial age hypothesis because of lack of
contact
– Socrates, Buddha, Confucius
• Contrast
– First philosopher the most famous
– Starts out with politics and ethics
• Geography and Shang Culture
– Navigation v landlocked agriculture
– Geometry v cycles
China’s Uniqueness
• Non-Indic religious base
• No immortal “soul” but spirit = 精神
• No creation God or anthropomorphism
– Oldest continuous religion—ancestor
veneration
• Political organization first
– Shang society and Zhou “nature” 天
– Social religion and “Emperor on High”
• Oracle bones and conquest
• Beginning of “deliberate” history
Mandate of 天tiannature:sky
• Duke of Zhou political justification
– Moral divine right of kings
– With right to revolution built in
• Mandate/duty 命 to rule/care for 天下
– Society in nature
– Lost when fails or loses德 devirtuosity
• Mandate goes to another
– Revolution and success (rain, luck, etc.) sign of 天
命 tian’s selection
Confucius:
• Traditional political view
– Controversy: education first
• Dreams of Duke of Zhou 周公
– 天 tiannature:sky names (命mingdestiny) the ruler
• Moral merit 德 – not pure religion
• Is天God? (Like Western "divine right of
kings")
• 上 帝 was anthropomorphic ancestor
– Place of dead spirits “above”
– 天 Tian also above, but only “destins” things
天 Tiannature:sky: Natural Process?
• “Organic" or anthropological authority (?)
• Constant patterns
– Corrupting power of evil
• Confucius minimally religious but starts a
philosophical process
– Agnostic about spirits and afterlife
– Little talk about 天 tiannature:sky (??)
• Natural moral social/political hierarchy-not hereditary
Purpose Of Hierarchical Society
• Naturalist & realist
– We could add premises (evolution)
• Moral education, not institutions
– No legislature, bureaus or courts
– Education by models
• Like father in the family
– Ruler responsible for our moral character
• No law
• Motivation and linguistic arguments
Penal Codes: Publish Punishments
• Not a list of general commands
– (universal sentences creating legal
duties)
• Thought of as naming the
punishments
• Then specifying when to use them
• Texts call them 刑 xingpunishments
Confucius' Argument Against Law
• “Lead them with 政zhengcoercion, order
them with 刑 xingpunishment, the people will
avoid [wrongdoing?] but will have no
shame. Lead them with 德 devirtuosity and
order them with禮liritual and they will have
shame and learn to fit in.” (2:3)
Psychological and Interpretive Grounds
• Psychological
argument: Human
sociability and weak
selfishness
• 禮li ritual exercises the
natural impulse to
conform to social
expectations
• Interpretive argument:
public codes invite
disputation and
encourage people to be
argumentative
• "In litigation, I am as
the others are, but the
point is to eliminate
litigation"
Human Nature
• Natural social animals that have traditions:
– Language and ritual 禮liritual
• Conventions = df. Shared coordination patterns that
persist because cooperation is more important than
alternative actions
• Confucius' ethics seem conventional
– 禮liritual for training morality
– Transmitter not a creator
Philosophical Content:
• 正名 zheng-mingrectify names
• Father-ruler example: conflict of rules
• Abortion case
– Never kill an innocent person
– A fetus is an innocent person
• A fetus is not yet a person
– Never kill a fetus
• Intuition about instance helps us rectify names
– Judgment about abortion