A romp through the history of philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to the present day

right okay and you've come here I assume because you're interested in philosophy presumably you don't know a lot about philosophy or you wouldn't have come to a philosophy for beginners so I thought I'd start by telling you how I came to philosophy and why I adore it as much as I do I was thrown out of school when I was fifteen and truancy and disruption if you're interested bored to tears and it was only when I was 26 when I started feeling that I needed some intellectual stimulation that I started doing it of course with the Open University wonderful institution and part of that was philosophy one one unit of it was philosophy and those were the days where you had to do a formal logic and I thought this was the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life and I actually sat up all night working on it and I thought actually I really enjoyed that and then I did quite well on it which always helps doesn't it and I started reading more and the more I read the more I thought this is what I want to do and I ended up going full-time to London University then came on here to do my graduate work and I just for three years at Bedford College in London I was walking on air I couldn't believe that actually the governor that in those days was paying me to study this absolutely fascinating and fantastic subject and as I say three years walking on air I've come down to earth a little bit since then that was quite a few decades ago but I still adore philosophy and my aim in these lectures is to convey to you some of the enthusiasm that I have for the subject some of the love I have for the subject the thing I like most about it is that there are all these things that you might have thought about as you're lying in bed that things like does space come to an end there's somebody the barman in a pub once told me that he often lay in bed wondering if space came to an end but actually never getting anywhere because how do you think about something like that if you haven't been trained to think about things like that and I explained to him that you could you know there was a whole it devoted to the study of such things as that and its philosophy so does space come to an end well if it does it means you get to a point where you can't put your arm out you know what's in its way there's just no space to put your arm into is there it's space a box or does it carry on to infinity that's that's the question that fascinated him but I'm sure you wouldn't be here if you didn't have a few things like that and I hope that sometime over the next five weeks I might address the question that bothers you and if not just ask me about it because there's plenty going to be plenty of opportunity for you to ask what we're going to do today is I build it in there and I continue to bill it as a romp through the history of philosophy it really is a romp because look at all the things I'm going to do and we've got one and a half hours I could spend six weeks talking about this lot so it really will be a romp but I hope what I'll do is is show you a bit about how these people thought and why they thought what they thought and that will introduce us to the different areas of philosophy which is what we'll be studying after today okay and we're going to start with the chap at the top chap called Democritus he was a pre-socratic in other words he lived before Socrates in the fifth century BC those are his dates and he was an atomist I should tell you something about what is it that makes a philosopher the first philosophers were actually also the first scientists they were the first people who looked for explanations of things that were natural so instead of looking to God or the supernatural in some form or another they looked for explanations that were earthbound if you like and so democracies Democritus was the pupil of somebody called Leucippus and he took most of his theory from him or started it but Democritus developed it in a big way he came from the idea that nothing comes from nothing the idea that nothing either comes into existence or goes out of existence because everything that exists just exists it is or it isn't and of course anything that isn't isn't so it's not very interesting and if you have a view of the universe like that that nothing comes into existence and nothing goes out of existence then you've got a problem haven't you you've got a problem with change you know things are changing all the time surely things are coming out of existence coming into existence all the time I mean I don't know how many grandchildren you have but there's somebody something that's come into existence surely it's complete nonsense to think that things don't come into existence well Democritus and the other atomists explains this that was the question they set themselves how do we explain change given that nothing comes into or goes out of existence and their answer was but um what exists is the void and within that void there are an indivisible x' there's a set number of things that have different shapes different properties etc but they exist and they are changeless in other words they don't come into existence or go out of existence but what they do do is form and reform into different sorts of aggregates so you have the indivisible x' the things that are as they are and don't change the atoms and they come together to create things like blue and things like this chair here and things like this fit chart and things like this microphone and so on so can you see how an atom becomes an explanatory particle it's what explains change and can you also see that that explanation is a completely natural explanation it's not postulating God or anything supernatural it's just saying that there exists there's the void and there are atoms within the void why do you think they're indivisible these things I've given you the answer and what I've said actually see if you can why are they indivisible atoms of course we know these days the atoms aren't indivisible at all but why would they think they were anyone no okay well if you can't come into existence and go out of existence if you can't change how could the atoms change how could they divide and come back together if these are the things that would enter into new combinations all the time then they can't themselves change can they so they are the indivisible x' somebody else had another way of describing this who was it ah Zeno said take a stick chop it in half chop it in half again chop that half in half chop that half in half and that half and half and so on carry on and you can only get two possibilities there's one is that it's infinitely divisible isn't it you can keep on going in two halves and the other is that you reach a point where as you chop it you no longer have wood what you have is is something that isn't wood you've cut it beyond the point where it's wood and that was another argument for atomism okay so that's the pre-socratics and you've had ten minutes of the pre-socratic so that's your lot and I should tell you a little bit more this chap wrote over 60 books he was hugely unpopular he was known as the laughing philosopher which makes it sounds if he ought to be popular and but he was laughing because he was laughing cynically at everyone else and their stupidity so he doesn't strike me as a nice sort of chap but he wrote all these books and all we have of him now is the fragments they are literally fragments of parchment we have a couple of pieces by people who also propounded his theories but we have a huge amount of stuff by his detractors the people who didn't lie Kim so remember as you're reading something like that you've got to bear in mind that they don't like this chap okay well that's that's the pre-socratics so let's move on a bit here let's move on to the post Socratic sif you like Plato of whom you will of course have heard and Aristotle ice tatl was Plato's pupil and Plato was the pupil of Socrates Socrates himself didn't write anything ever everything we know about Socrates comes down either from Plato or Socrates was also mentioned by a few of our Stephanies and a few other people who wrote plays but Plato himself wrote in dialogue form and he's very easy to read I really do recommend that if you like reading dialog form if you're interested in philosophy Plato is actually a good place to start and Aristotle's his pupil Aristotle is he has the reputation amongst his peers of being very easy to read but the works that we have are his lecture notes sadly we don't have any of his books we have his lecture notes and if you were to read my lecture notes you wouldn't find them very easy to read and Aristotle's work is also not at all easy to read it's a shame because Plato's fantastic and we believe that Aristotle was fantastic in the books he wrote but let's have a look at a dispute that they had between them can you imagine incidentally a school where Plato is the teacher and Aristotle was a pupil but it must being completely extraordinary mustn't it okay let's look at this particular thing um think about the word read okay what's the meaning of the word read how do you understand the word read anyone prepared to have a go which read well I'm talking on the word read remember there's a big difference between that and that okay that with the quotes refers to the word doesn't it and that refers to the color okay so the person who said which red okay were you talking about which color oh I see my apologies I hadn't thought of that I had that in mind okay now I'm in that red okay the color red yeah okay so taking the word red how do you understand its meaning what do you understand by the word red anyone prepared to tell me how in its a color okay but that's not going to help me much if I don't know the meaning of the word red do i I mean let's assume I know the meaning of the word color would that tell me the meaning yes that's interesting isn't it because sir the other thing is that here's a little thought experiment for you did you hear the lady said it's a certain wavelength which of course it is in one sense but is that how you understand the word that's what people tell you it's not how you understand it there may be people in this room who don't know that and yet they understand the word red so that tells us that can't be the meaning of the word red as you rightly said you get red coming out of you I mean in one sense I suppose you do and yes if you refine that a bit it's the color of what comes out of you when you cut yourself yep okay good so you're talking about it by description it's that part of the meaning of it though I mean it is it part of the meaning in China for example no I mean we've got two things here haven't we there's the word and there's the concept which is what you think when you understand the word okay so when I say the word read you're immediately entertaining your concept of read okay if I say elephant you're immediately entertaining your concept of elephant okay even though there isn't an elephant within miles socially that's what the lady there said does it mean danger I don't think it does mean danger because it might do in our society but I'm not sure it would in a society where there wasn't the correlation between red traffic lights red berries etc I mean it means love in China doesn't it isn't it the bridle color or is that India it's India isn't it well wherever it is you're taught what red is okay so tell me what it is saying was something else that's red okay let's let's take that one from it a whose way of describing red I mean the lady over there described it she said it's what it's the color of what comes out of you when you cut yourself well okay that's that's a good way of understanding isn't it as long as somebody knows what comes out here's another way it's the color of that gentleman's jumper roughly I mean maybe it's orange but let's pretend certainly the color of that gentleman's cardigan but he's wearing a jacket so you can't see it okay I've given an Austen sufficient but was it you who said it's the same as something else called red why should you get the color when I point at that I mean I'm trying to get lots of things apart from the color anti IR we agreed on it do you know that what you see when you look at this gentleman's jumper is what I see when I look at this gentleman's jumper do you you don't know well no not necessarily because that's exactly what I'm asking what is the color of which you have a concept because I point to that let's think about a child learning the concept red so what do you do when you're explaining what red means to a child you point to lots of other lots of different sorts of red that's red that's the lining of your jacket is red my skirt is sort of red red there red there and so on do you pick lots of jumpers to point to why not no I'm talking about red jumpers really yeah so let's say there are all red why would you not point to lots of jumpers exactly you might think that red means jumper instead of or even red jumper rather rather than just red so you point to lots of different things and you also point to things that are not red what you're trying to do is to give the child the conditions under which that is red are true and you also want to telling like is that red pointing to this lady's jumper and what do you hope the child says no send that manner yeah you have the chance let's know so the way you do it is you point to lots of different things and you hope that the child abstracts out what it is you're talking about you know that you're not talking about a person you're not talking about a jumper that you're talking about that particular quality now Plato and Aristotle were interested in how you explain our ability to learn language and our ability to apply concepts concepts are hugely important to human beings do you remember I said learn that elephant two minutes ago and you all immediately had an elephant in mind even though there isn't an elephant around here at all that's the difference between a percept and a concept a percept is a constituent of a perception so if I look at this chair a constituent of the perception I have is the color blue okay I can see the blueness of the chair and so can you presumably but when I think of elephant I'm not seeing an elephant at all am I instead I'm having a thought about an elephant and the third has a conceptual content and part of that conceptual content is elephant so what makes us different from animals arguably what enables us to think is that we can form concepts we can pull apart our thinking about the world from the way the world is so we can think about the way the world might be as well as the way the world is you can imagine me wearing yellow now can't you go on imagine it doesn't suit me at all does it okay but but what you're doing is you're pulling apart your the percept you see of me wearing black and red and you're replacing the black and red with yellow so you're pulling apart that's what enables us to be creative what enables us to be imaginative what enables us to form plans so we can imagine ourselves going swimming this evening whether we actually make that a reality it depends on willpower but we can indeed imagine it and that's what it is to form goals goals that you can then put into action no no I'm not going to get into that and I am but I don't expect you to believe me at this point no we're will maybe get into that at some point okay so Plato said and this is the problem he was dealing with how do we understand words how do we form concepts words obviously stand for if you like concepts so the word read the meaning that you entertain when you think about read is your concept of read okay not your percept your concept you've got to have the percept before you have the concept perhaps and he says well how do we do this and what he says is that when you look or when you as a child looked at different sorts of read as your mother was telling you or father was telling you the meaning of the word read what you did is you were reminded of something you saw before birth okay this is plato's theory of anamnesis or memory he thinks that before we're born our soul exists before birth and it exists in the realm of being which is where the forms are formed with a capital F and the form is the meaning of the word read so there's the form of good which is what we are reminded of when we see a good act when we see somebody do something good we think good that's good and what we're doing is we're reminded of the form which is pure goodness okay and the form of read is pure redness and the form of blue is pure blueness and and so it goes on and this says Plato is how you manage to teach your child read you point to that you point to that you point to that you point to that why does point into all these different things cause the child to form one concept answer it reminds him of the form okay that was Plato's theory what's wrong with that theory I mean I'm telling you this theory now and I can see some of you are thinking eh well why why are you thinking eh what what's wrong with this theory well you can't prove it but there are lots of theories you can't prove and I mean with theories we tend to give reasons for believing theories rather than proof so theories we hope to find proofs but we're not always successful no they have to be reminded by the things that they see in this world yeah no they can't think of it without being reminded but that's reasonable as we'll see in a minute in a minute carburetor for example carburetor feminism a lemma okay um just the same way this lady did explain read my description a carburetors actually I have no idea what a carburetor is we well okay think of unicorn you certainly haven't come across any unicorns but you've still got the concept unicorn so how do you how would Plato explain your acquisition of the concept unicorn assuming that there isn't a form of a unicorn come on right you've go back to my previous question can I come back to you in a second okay now I've got this question what was it unicorn that's a good question okay unicorns don't exist do they but how can you think about a unicorn if they don't exist and how did they imagine it remember what I said about concepts you pull them apart we've seen pictures we haven't pitied a unicorn though we've perceived the combination of horse whiteness porn whatever do unicorns have wings they don't do they that's Pegasus right okay so what we've seen is the now think back to Democritus and the atoms okay we can't think of anything that we haven't come across you might think but what we can do is we can take the bits of what we have come across and we bind them in various ways so you've come across birds that fly and you've come across me because you're looking at me right now you can now imagine that I could fly I hope and I can imagine that I can fly sadly I can't do it but so what we're doing is we see the forms the form there are only forms of the simple things and you put those back together again but I still had a completely different understanding of this I started completely rejected the Platonic forms he argued that we don't need to postulate such I mean that going back to the question I asked earlier what's wrong with this theory well one thing that's wrong with it is its ontology okay ontology is a section of metaphysics metaphysics is to do with the nature of things what there is and what its nature is and ontology is your list of things that exist so who believes in ghosts here oh you've got no imagination any of you right it's somebody over here okay if you believe in ghosts your ontology has things like chairs people glasses necklaces ghosts on it if you believe in God gods on it if you believe in fairies fairies are on it and so on that's your list of what there is and Aristotle says the thing about Plato's theories it explodes your ontology not only is there redness which is a color there's also the form of red so we're doubling everything up and and have you heard of a chap called Aachen what's Aachen famous for his razor Aachen who wasn't born then of course or even thought of would have said we've just got to slash through this ontology we mustn't postulate entities that we can exceed for explanation and Aristotle thought well we can understand words and form concepts and so on because we see commonalities same Lass's similarities between objects that exist so instead of redness being a form up there that you were knew before birth as Plato said redness is a commonality between different objects not simpler isn't it and if that explains our understanding the word red why should we accept Plato's theory because that one's much simpler doesn't require us to postulate anything that is other than two things we can see in front of us things we can touch but let me ask you a question to distinguish between these two theories if redness didn't exist could you still have the concept of red if you if redness didn't exist at all could we still have the concept of it and whose theory does that favor Aristotle yeah okay so you only want Plato if you don't think Aristotle's theory can explain everything now there are some concepts and we'll get onto them in a minute but are very difficult to explain in terms of commonalities between things so any concept we have that can't be explained in that way might take us back towards plato's theory do you see why because if you have two theories one of which is much simpler than the other you definitely go for the simpler one but only if it can actually explain everything you want to explain if in order to explain everything you need to appeal to the richer one then you have to go for the richer one it's no good having a theory that doesn't explain anything is it who's speaking kata are they off well it doesn't require you to decide it does say because any Theory you postulate whether it's scientific or or philosophical will have various ramifications I mean it might postulate theoretical entities like forms or notice that Aristotle does postulate something he postulates the existence of what an object certainly but also something else no commonalities who said that absolutely right he postulates commonalities universals in other words properties now there's a huge question in philosophy as to whether universals actually exists are there both properties sorry objects and things that have properties sorry and the properties or are there only objects and relations between them are okay abstract objects I wonder if you would well a commonality I actually a truth is a commonality between sentences isn't it there are some sentences that are true and others that aren't yeah okay let's move on from Plato or Aristotle of we're going to get lost but we're not going to leave this subject because we're going to move we've come quite a few centuries on now we're going to talk about the rationalists and the empiricists notice that the empiricists were all British Locke Berkeley and Hume it's like jingoistic little cheer then everything okay the rationalists Descartes Leibniz and super Nosa the difference between these two sets of philosophers is that the rationalists believed that many of our concepts are innate in other words we're born with them whereas the empiricists believed that all our concepts come from experience that we're born as blank slates you've probably heard that that's saying so um okay let's think about this for a minute um first of all as can you try these people up with Plato and Aristotle who do you think the rationalists are more like Plato yeah absolutely Plato said that we're born with the memory of the forms the rationalist don't say with it we remember the forms but they do say that when we're born our mind is already stocked now there are different sorts of rationalists and instantly they're there some modern philosophers a chap called Fedor for example who actually thinks that we're born these days with the concept of carburetor and feminism what no no didn't me I I did yeah I haven't got that one and okay but the idea is we're born with knowledge we've already got some knowledge of what some things are and concepts that are candidates for things like that are concepts like causality or rationality so let's take causality this is something that Hume famously talked about and if you're a rationalist you believe that the concept of cause is a concept you were born with if you're an empiricist do you think that all your concepts come from experience therefore you must have some experience of causation that gives you your concept of causation can you think of what your experience of causation might be can anyone tell me what your experience of causation might be these very difficult questions instantly then don't think there's some actually that's a complicated one because you might want to say that that's a reason rather than a cause actually I don't I think it is a cause but can I leave that on one side and think about causation not involving us how about one billiard ball rolling into another and the other rolls off this is the okay do you experience causation when that happens do you experience do you see or otherwise experience the causal relation between the billiard balls here or not do you who said no why not good that's right isn't it you what you actually see is one event which is a ball rolling and it's touching another and the other ball going off now if you didn't know that there was force involved there could you work it out from what you saw could you put your hand up if you think you can't if you could feel it yes but that's why I wanted to use an example that we weren't actually involved in okay two billiard balls it is think about this Hume would have called this a necessary connection he said the idea of causation involves firstly events so the relati of the causal relation are events and one event happens before another event okay and it's the event before that's the cause so there's temporal priority there's spatial contiguity okay one billiard ball must actually hit the other before the other rolls off and but there is something else isn't there and this something else is says Hume necessary connection when you see one billiard ball hitting another the reason you think that one events causes the other event you think had the first not happens the second would not have happened either is that right okay let me say that again because that's a counterfactual had the first event not occurred the second event would not have occurred either now that's a claim not about this world because in this world that event did happen and so did the other it's a claim about all possible worlds in other words there is no world in which that second event would have happened without that first event having happened does that make sense so what you're see if you're claiming to be able to see that is a necessary connection a connection between types of events that covers all sorts of different possible worlds how can you see that I don't believe you I don't think you can see that at all I think that this is your theory of causation in other words we're suggesting that causation is the theoretical relation so if you think those of you know anything about the Higgs boson and the accelerator in CERN the Higgs boson is a theoretical particle it's a particle that's postulated within a theory the theory says that if you do this you will see that the Higgs boson really see traces of the Higgs boson and if we do that we'll confirm the theory and we're so sure of the theory we're spending millions of pounds to test it and well in this case we're saying the theoretical relation is causation we know we don't actually see causation we postulate it okay one question over him sorry can you speak up and well no because you could believe with live Nets and that there's no such thing as causation but what you have instead is lots of events that happen that are quite separate from each other and don't causally interact at all but that which are arranged in such a way that we can predict them okay that's what live Nets thought yeah it's a theory it's actually quite a convincing theory if you read live knits but I'm not going to tell you take us too long yes but does that mean there's nothing in between well something has to be touching actually I mean this is a open to question now the question whether there is action that it's distance is disputed but why does the moon cause the tides to change can anyone tell us gravity it's yeah okay um where was I so we've got one here we have this concept causation the concept involves several things that we can see and experience and this strange force or necessary connection that we don't seem to be able to see is it the empiricists or the rationalists who are winning on causation the concept of causation ah that's different okay we've got here a concept that we seem to have okay it's not a problem so if we have it it must come from experience according to the empiricists but what I'm asking you is can you experience necessary connection can you experience it to be the case that had the first ball not hit the second ball the second ball would not have run off do you experience that or not you don't do who's winning the rationalists yeah that's not what I'm asking let me ask you again no no no come on let's be precise here had the first ball not hit it the second ball would not have rolled off thats causation isn't it okay do you see that had the first ball not hit it the second ball would not have rolled off you see that right I don't think you can and I think you should think about that because what you're seeing and seeing that is things in different possible worlds not in this world you're seeing had the ball not hit it but of course the ball did hit it didn't it so in this world you haven't got a situation in which the ball didn't hit and therefore the ball didn't go off you can instantly if you don't see causation in one instance can we see it in 100 so you might say well okay it's not the first I don't see causation the first time it happens you know the ball hits ball rolls off but when I see this happen all the time then I see causation can I see in the hundred instant something I can't see in one good and that's exactly what Hume says Hume now look if you're an empiricist here you've got two ways of going here so you've claimed that all concepts come from experience you found a concept that apparently doesn't come from experience what are you going to claim sorry you could claim you do experience it anyway and some people do claim that but you could also claim that there's no such thing as causation and that's exactly what Hume claims what Hume claimed is that causation is an idea in our minds it's the expectation we form when we've seen a hundred billiard balls hit each other and roll off and we still haven't seen causation because if you don't see it in one you don't see it in a hundred either but what we do form is a mental expectation that if a billiard ball hits the other one will go off and two Hume that was all that causation is there's no relation in the world of causation no force all there is is an expectation in our minds we project onto the world this expectation that's what causation is who's winning the rationalists or the empiricists right with no wonder the empiricism British I think it's got to be the rationalists at this point and unless you're prepared to believe there isn't any such thing as causation you're prepared to believe that titer and actually I'm not knocking that there are quite a few people who do believe that Leibniz is one of them which is interesting given that he's a rationalist now that's an interesting question okay let's pick up what the lady at the back said when we ourselves are involved ok look I'm moving this jug here now I can feel that force can't I okay I I can experience the fact that I'm having an effect on the world but I had a reason for doing that okay it was to show you that I can move something too and have an experience and was my action caused or was it reasoned was it a rational action one that I performed for a reason the other concept that the rationalists say can't be explained except through an innate concept is the concept of Reason how do i form the idea of a reason where do we get the idea of rationality I don't see your reasons for acting do i I see what you do but I can't see your reasons for doing them and how could I have a concept of my own reasons for acting unless I have a concept of your reasons for acting if we assume that a reason is a theoretical concept that I apply in explanation of your behavior actually I lost myself in that sentence so I probably lost you too shall we start again okay right if you remember we're looking at Plato and Aristotle and the question we were posing ourself is where do we get concepts from how do we acquire knowledge of the meaning of a word if you explain knowledge of a meaning of word in terms of a concept then it just pushes the question back one what's a concept and where do we get concepts from Plato says we recognize the forms or rather we contemplate the forms before birth and then after birth we're reminded of these forms in instances we see around ourselves Aristotle says there's nothing before birth we we come into being as a blank slate we see instances and that is the forming of a concept rationalist and empiricists here they are hundreds of years later still quarreling about the same thing and you'd better believe it we're still quarreling about it because they're still rationalist and there is still empiricists and it hasn't been decided at all the rationalist Descartes Leibniz and Spinoza we're really only quarreling now about key concepts like causation rationality space is another one that actually space is quite good one do you think that when a baby is born as it first starts to to experience things does it experience things at a distance or does it experience everything in two dimensions and it's only as it starts to move that it puts together things at a distance so here are your a baby you're lying in your cot you see this two-dimensional array there's the bars and we know the bars of the cotton your mother's face and so on and so forth but all the baby sees is this two-dimensional array but it's moving its limbs like this and it one point it hits out and something goes out and now the baby starts to correlate the owl with that bit of the two-dimensional array and it's movement like that and it soon starts to learn that actually in order to touch something that looks like that I've got to move like this do this and if I touch you hard enough you'll go owl or you might say if I say say something when I touch you what there see it works and but you see I could either be born seeing things at a distance or I could construct my concept of space from the experience of correlating what I see how I move and what I hear touch etc oh yes I read Balan yep well that one argument for that would be rationalism that there's some sort of innate fear of falling okay let's move on from sorry this is a romp if you want to know more about these people you're going to have to come and do some lectures right let's move on to something completely different let's move on to ethics or ethics and politics okay the utilitarians and the deontologists the utilitarians believe that the right action is the action that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number okay let's think about this what does this mean this means that okay if we're looking at what is it for something to be right okay what is it for an action to be the morally right action utilitarian say look for the action that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number and that'll be the right action okay what do people think about that theory it's certainly true we've got to start defining things because what is happiness hi there's a question for you what is happiness anyone want to have a go at that I can't I can't resist this we're having a romp so I'm going to do it anyway okay two theories about happiness one of them is that it's a subjective experience okay a certain feeling and the other is that it's both a certain feeling and the beliefs that cause that feeling okay so the beliefs that cause the feeling must be true here's an is lanta you think you're said you believe yourself to be very happily married okay you're you're delirious everything's going well for you et cetera then you discover that your partner your spouse has been playing away okay has that taken away the happiness you had before in other words were you happy and then you stopped being happy when you learned this or were you not happy all along put up your hands if you think that you were happy before and you're not now okay anyone prepared to take the Aristotelian view apart from me No you've got no no courage okay Alton is that true think about it I mean there are lots of things that make us happy well that's what I'm talking about as a subjective experience okay well I'm putting those together yeah okay okay but do you see that there's a subjective experience in both of them let me put the Aristotelian question to you another way you see Aristotle comes up everywhere and let's say that a some famous scientist comes to the government comes the Prime Minister and says I have a machine such that if we attach everybody to it they will become deliriously happy we can either let them off the machine every now and again so that they can do things and keep people alive or we can leave a few of them off the machines permanently do all the stuff and leave everyone else attached the Machine now if you're a utilitarian prime-minister want you to say yes to attaching everyone to this machine okay now let's say that this machine causes you to believe that you're doing things like going to philosophy lectures listening to people talk about philosophy I don't know what else is seeing your grandchildren or making weddings for your children all that sort of thing okay so you believe that you had the sort of life and let's make it exactly your sort of life these are the beliefs you have but actually all you've ever done is be attached to this machine okay because that's making you happier than anything else would are you happy who who thinks you are happy oh well done okay only two of you now but listen if happiness is nothing other than a subjective feeling in your own head you must be happy because you've got that I knew so those of you who thought that happiness was a subjective feeling inside your own head ought to be putting your hands up here if you're going to be consistent but actually none of us believe that you are I'm sorry two of you believe but you would be happy under that circumstance of course it does and that's what we're actually doing these thought experiments are precisely designed to test what happiness is or what you understand by the word happiness I'm with our subtle on this one i I think that if you were attached their happiness happiness machine you would falsely believe you are happy but you wouldn't be happy because happiness involves the truth of the beliefs on which your happiness is based okay that's Aristotle yes as I said we moved I mean we are romping through yeah we've been doing metaphysics and epistemology and philosophy of language and we're now doing ethics and political philosophy okay no I'm just at random picking out things that I think you'll find interesting because my job is to enthuse you with the idea that philosophy is a good thing so this is entirely arbitrary the choice I'm choosing things because I think you'll enjoy them actually philosophy is quite hard work as you might have already discovered and you have to do a lot of thinking but yeah we've moved to ethics here ethics and politics okay that's the utilitarian and the right action is the action that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number and you said what's happiness and we then dive digressed for ten minutes on what happiness is because I couldn't resist it it's a good one that one isn't it let's go back to this it's the right action the one that produces the greatest happiness of the greatest number why not can anyone think of a counter example okay you could say that it to bring back happy hanging would make more people happy than not does that make it right well if you're a utilitarian you would presumably have to say that it would but if you don't say that you're you might prefer to be a day on tala just a day on tala just is someone who says that there is something called the moral law and the right action is that that which accords with the moral law so you might say let's take an example like there's a sheriff in a western town I hate this example but it happens to have come to mind so I'll go on with it there's been some raping and pillaging around this town and everyone's very upset and there's about to be riots and so on and you have in your cells a [ __ ] who doesn't have any family he's very depressed he wants to die and you think I I know sorry I've got to write into that the person who's been perpetrating these rape rapes has died and you can't prove that but what you do think is if I hang this [ __ ] I'm giving him what he wants he's going to be happy I'm giving everyone else what they want I'm going to say he committed the rapes and I'm going to hang him it's going to make everyone happy should I do it should I hang an innocent man no ok so utilitarianism has got to be wrong what are we going on always saying that shalt not kill an innocent person don't get me onto that the moral law is universal that that would be the idea it pertains to everyone whether they know it or not okay whether they believe it or not and you mean if they knew that he was innocent they wouldn't be happy it's certainly true you're right you've got to build in certain epistemological things in other words things to do with knowledge yes if you found out that he'd hung an innocent man you wouldn't be happy would you so you've got to write in to the authority experiment that you wouldn't find out which I agree is yeah okay add an Tala just the right action is that which accords with the moral law take thou shalt not kill and that looks to be the moral law on which the you shouldn't hang an innocent man is based doesn't it well is it true should you not kill I mean is there any circumstance in which killing would be the right thing to do do you think more let's let's put more on one side because we let's look at the laws you shouldn't kill an innocent in peacetime shall we how about that is there any situation which killing an innocent in peacetime would be the right thing to do right let's scrub animals - let's talk about human being okay well we might even put that on one side let's make things really hard for the day ontology I'm looking for a time when it would be right to kill a perfectly healthy ordinary adult human being have I left anything out not in war time who is innocent okay I think that counts as war actually let me tell you a circumstance because I think this might go on too long okay this was a true story there's a that was a ship that was on fire just off the coast of Australia this was a few years ago and the only way of saving this ship on which there were hundreds of sailors was by turning off the oxygen in the engine room and turning off the oxygen in the engine room meant killing the four sailors who are in the engine room should the captain have turned off the oxygen in the engine room put your hands up if you think he should yeah okay I'm amazed that not all usually everyone puts their hands up but okay if you think that he should kill those sailors they're innocent its wartime but the fact is killing those four means saving the hundreds and most people at that point swing straight into utilitarianism that's true but the fact is you're still killing you're breaking the moral law if that's what the moral law is by saying by killing those four in which case we're moving over to utilitarianism the utilitarian thinks that the only rights that you have as a human being are not inviolable in other words that you have the rights that you have because it leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number for you to be treated as if you have rights but if killing you is what's going to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number then you're right it appears okay in fact it becomes my duty to kill you if your life is standing in the way of the greatest happiness of the greatest number it's my duty to turn off the oxygen in the engine room if that's the only way I can save the hundreds of other people so what we see is where as the day ontology can recognize a right that's inviolable the utilitarians can't for the utilitarian it's always secondary to the grace happiness the grace number who here is thinking that there are utilitarian put your hands up well if you don't know I've done my job actually so so you'll be well I wouldn't because I wouldn't have done anything would I yes why not take your choice well it depends whether you think of acts and omissions is the same thing actually if you're a day ontology and you go for don't kill you probably also have a distinction between acts and omissions where your acts can be morally culpable but your own missions can't be which is an interesting one well if you well if you think about it my eucalyptus tree died it died of lack of water Queen Elizabeth didn't water it so she used to blame for the death of my eucalyptus tree I mean had she watered it it would have lived isn't it isn't that true isn't that a causal relation therefore Queen Elizabeth is responsible for the death of my eucalyptus that's true but she's still responsible if you're responsible for your own missions I mean it's true she didn't water it isn't it it's true it's dead okay no um what we're discussing it do remember it before we were talking about that the question was is how do we get the meanings for our words how do we form concepts the one we're looking at here is what is it for an action to be right okay we all distinguish between actions that are right and actions that are wrong don't we that's a very human thing humans and moral agents we divide the world up into things that are right and things that are wrong and the thing that a philosopher wants to know is how do we do this what what is it that makes an action right what is it that makes an action wrong and these are two different theories about that one theory says what makes an action right is that it produces the greatest happiness or greatest number and the other theory says no what makes an action right is in effect just that it is right it's it's laid down by the moral law do you see that so they are talking about the same thing but they are you're also right that they're different because they're giving different explanations of the same thing and they're contradictory explanations so they can't both be true the moral law the idea if your cat's free I mean if you're if you believe in the Ten Commandments you think that the moral law comes from God and that it's revelation that tells you what it is if you're a Kantian you believe that the moral law is something that's perceived by human beings through intuition in other words we have five senses a sensory but that enable us to perceive the world but we have another it's not a sense but it's it's a way of discerning what's right and wrong so you actually you see something you see an action and you get a strong feeling of approbation or disapprobation that's your moral intuition and it's your moral intuition that tells you what is and what isn't the moral law Plato in the form it's adding in well yeah absolutely yeah I mean it the moral law you might say okay here's another way of looking at the moral law and if you think of absolutism versus relativism the relativist says that all moral truth is relative to something or other relative to an individual or relative to a community or a cultural or something like that whereas the absolutist will say that there are certain things that are true everywhere for everyone at every time whether they know it or not now if I ask you whether your relative is store absolutists most of you will probably put up your hands say your relativists and but what I'll then point out you'll see that I'm speeding up because I've got two things to get through and it's not going to happen okay here are two different sorts of moral law don't kill or produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number notice that you do Tillet arianism is an absolutist moral creed it's not a relativist moral creed and here's the Kantian one never treat yourself or another solely as a means to your own ends run out of room web can says is that the the categorical imperative the only thing that is the moral law is the claim that I must treat you as an end in yourself which means I must allow you to make up your own mind about how you want to live your life if I want you to carry my suitcase for me I can ask you to do it that's treating you as a means but is if I'm allowing you to say no I'm also treating you as an end or as if I trick you into carrying my suitcase I'm treating you as nothing more than a means to my end it's my ends that are important and what the day.on telogen says is that if you're an end in yourself you have intrinsic value and in virtue of having intrinsic value you have rights that are inviolable the cut that can't be overruled and that's the utilitarian won't say that because there's no such thing as a right that can't be overruled for the utilitarian and just to put this in a slightly different way of looking at it the utilitarian is thinking of actions when they think that something's right they're always thinking of actions whereas the day ontology are always thinking of will willing and intention if you think of an action this goes back to what we're saying about reasons every action has an intention the action itself and a consequence okay you don't get an action that it hasn't got an intention I mean where you have causation there isn't intention but that when there's a reason there is intention the utilitarians are concerned only with consequences whereas the de ontology are concerned only with intentions so Kant for example says that a good will is the only thing that's good in itself okay consequences are only good secondarily the intention is the only thing that's good in itself so what your job is is to obey the moral law as you understand it sincerely in other words you mustn't be self-serving in doing that you mustn't say you know while lying is going to get me out of a hole here therefore I'm going to lie that is not the moral law okay you think what's the right thing what should I do here and you do that thing okay so it's the duty that takes you into the area of morality and that's another big difference between these two but let's go back to to the cool thing linking up with what this gentleman here said and what you've got is a question what is it that makes an action right or what is it that makes an action wrong and as with any question you're going to have postulated answers people are going to put forward answers and these are answers are theories that you're putting forward in the hope of answering a question now once again this is a live debate we don't know which is the right theory but their arguments I mean I've just given you a tip of an iceberg of the arguments giving you organs for and against these two different theories as a matter of fact we have no idea which is the right theory sometimes in one situation one theory looks right sometimes in another situation another theory looks right and your job as philosophers is to look at the arguments on both sides and weigh them up against each other and you'll probably find as I have over my philosophical career I started off as a utilitarian I then became a Kantian I went back to utilitarian I then went back to kantianism and at the moment I have absolutely no idea because the thing about the more you learn about the theory and the more you learn about how it works the more strengths you see in it so it does become actually quite difficult to decide but at least you know you're not setting up straw men you know sometimes people say it's blindingly obvious that utilitarianism is wrong because of that Sherriff example okay that seems pretty conclusive didn't it but think about utility ilysm could it justify genocide oh yeah absolutely well I mean it maybe Hitler was a good utilitarian it's just that he didn't count Jews and do you count animals I mean maybe our grandchildren are going to say of us Oh they ate lamb for Sunday lunch you know it depends on who you count as a unit of or you know something that can have happiness if you don't count Jews then Hitler you know did he do the right thing you know if you don't count women but surely it's alright to abort females just because they're female and so on well now you're into the area of moral truth and which is a major area in case you didn't guess that and I'll just leave you with one thought before I move on to utilitarianism what's your name sir Michael I don't think you said that first did you but okay you are being kind to me weren't you okay Michael believes that Maryann is wearing black okay there's one sentence there isn't there and then there's another sentence there so Marion is wearing black is one sentence that could be true or false and Michael believes that Marion is wearing back is another sentence right could they both be true and that's probably the actual situation isn't it could they both be false come on I mean if Michael wasn't here you wouldn't have any beliefs about me would he so it would be false that he believes I'm wearing black so that is that what could I be wearing yellow right okay yes I could be wearing yellow so they could both be false okay could that be true and that false yep so Michael believes that Marion's wearing black but Marion isn't wearing black he's colorblind or something and could that be true and that false yeah okay so it's true Marion's wearing back but as Michael didn't turn up today he doesn't leave I'm wearing black okay now let's change that to mugging elderly ladies is okay okay so we've got Michael believes that mugging elderly ladies is okay what was that let's leave that on one side we're doing logic at the moment so we're looking at possible world's rather than the actual one okay we've still got one sentence within another haven't we okay and could they both be true could they both be false could they both be ended on it we've got exactly the same possibilities haven't we the thing is that the truth of that belief whether it's marianas wearing black or mugging by elderly ladies is okay is determined by something quite different from what determines the truth of that that sentence is made true or false by Michael's beliefs whereas that sentence is made sure or false by what I'm wearing or by whether it's okay to mug elderly ladies so you've got to distinguish the epistemology in other words what we know or believe from the truth of our beliefs or what actually is the case okay so so you mustn't become a relativist just because you've made that logical blunder must you no definitely not okay that's it it's that sort of distinction that that philosophers have to use next week we're going to look at logic and argument and we'll be looking very much at that sort of thing because if you're not thinking clearly you can't think about this sort of abstract thing at all it's philosophers do it in the head you know they can't go into the into the laboratory and apply the rules of nature what they're applying the whole time is the rules of logic the laws of logic and that that's a good example of how logic can help you clarify something okay let's let's move on to Vic and Stein okay there's early victims Stein late Vic and Stein there's no such thing as Vicki in Stein well there was but he changed his mind all the time which of course is a sign of intellectual honesty the early victim Stein said and notice we're back to the Plato Aristotle empiricists rationalist problem early Rick and I thought words get their meaning by standing for objects so what does chair mean that okay what does person mean that what does purple mean that and so on and he believed that language is the reason we get meaning is we pick up something he called strict and literal truth conditions okay we okay why do we think this let's take aa what's your name right at the back Margaret and let's say this is the fifth lecture and Margaret has come in late to every single lecture okay so we've started the fifth lecture is ten minutes into it door flies open I say hello Margaret early again okay what's the meaning of what I've said that she's late isn't she now isn't that interesting what you've got here is you all understood a certain meaning but it was put in a certain context and what you did is you took one meaning and inverted it didn't you how do you explain language if that's what you can do well here's one way you might explain it language is composed of strict and literal truth conditions conditions of truth and falsehood so do you remember I said talking about red you're teaching a child to learn the conditions under which this is read is true and this is red is false and then you've so you've got esoteric sentences like this is red then you've got the force so you can say this is red or is this red or make that red or so you apply a different force you do something different with the sentence then you can add tone so early again okay the tone the sarcasm in that case but I mean there all sorts of other ones I'm not angry did you see we've turned it round again and then this context you're all laughed because I'd told you the story about Margaret coming in late every session which is why when I said early again Margaret you laughed okay so the early victim Stein thought thought that meaning was made up only of that okay and that what that did was link a word with an object okay so if you go back to atomism the Democritus and the atoms the idea was that every word gets meaning by standing for an object and Vic and Stein drew huge metaphysical claims from this he said words get meaning well sorry words have meaning it's a necessary condition of words having meaning that words stand for objects therefore words must sorry objects must exist so much for skepticism that's the end of skepticism isn't it words do have meaning and if it's a necessary condition for words having meaning that objects exist well then we know that objects existent they hey bingo um and it's good argument actually as long as you do know that your words have meaning but of course if we if they didn't how would you be understanding the word that I'm saying now okay the later Wittgenstein the thoughts this was rubbish what he thought is that words get meaning from the way they're used in other words all of this is meaning okay so it isn't just that there's weak meaning and strong meaning which is the way I put it so here's a sentence can you read that okay James is tall is what it says okay do you understand that sentence yeah okay so it has meaning does it okay do you know whether it's true or false why not you don't know who I'm talking about do you in fact I'm not talking about anyone I'm not even if there is someone called James here I'm not talking about them the thing is this is a sentence that could be used but it's not being used do you see what I mean it I'm talking about a sentence rather than using a sentence and because I'm talking about a sentence it doesn't actually have meaning does it it has potential meaning maybe so you could call that meaning the weak meaning the strict and literal meaning or you could say that that actually doesn't have meaning because it doesn't have conditions of truth or falsehood you don't know the meaning of that sentence because you don't know how to determine whether it's true or false and the fact is it's not true or false it's neither true nor false because I'm not actually using the sentence at all so the early liechtenstein thought that that would that had meaning because each of these stood for an object okay it could only have meaning because there was something that was being picked out by James and there is something a property as Aristotle would say that's being picked out by is tool therefore this has meaning the later Wittgenstein says no that's not true it doesn't have meaning until you actually use it it doesn't have meaning at all it's only in use so what's the meaning of hello Margaret early again no hang on the use I made of that particular token sentence had the meaning you're late again Margaret didn't it I asked you what's the meaning of hello Margaret early again I mean actually it has a different meaning doesn't it depending on the context in which I use it and depending on the tone I you so I'm not angry what does that mean yes that is all in the tone isn't it yeah in that one so that's why the early Victor site you could see I mean you went for his theory when I asked you if that had meaning but then you went for the other theory when we put it in context so once again you have a question which is how do words get meaning what's what's the nature of the meaning of a word and we have two different theories this time postulated by the same trap at different times in his life and the question is which is the right one and there are good reasons actually on both sides and of course you've got to ask yourself could it be that these two theories are actually consistent that you need both of them for different aspects of meaning I think in this case that that certainly is a a real runner it hasn't been in some of the other things we've seen but it and this one it is yep you're absolutely right that humor humor depends uh Turley on logic I mean this is logic this is philosophy of language and logic and you don't get tumor without the logic being right the grammar being right again I'll perhaps next week we'll give you some example of that okay I'm going to move on to the last one and okay let's link this with what I was saying earlier about happiness let me ask you a question okay do you all have a belief about me and you might have several beliefs about me but just one will do any belief about me okay fine and do you think you could have that very belief even if I didn't exist okay so if I didn't exist you couldn't have that belief your belief would be different it made maybe it wouldn't exist at all but at least it would be different yeah remarkable consensus that okay let me tell you another story and you've heard of Descartes I should imagine okay Descartes argued that the world could be completely other than we take it to be okay so we all think that's we're in a lecture room we're looking at a lecturer we're listening to a lecture etc could it be with you exactly as it is now and yet that belief be false okay so what's your reason for thinking you're in a lecture hall because you are well do you know that your senses tell you okay you can see me you can hear me etc that's another way of testimony of others yeah okay now could it be with you that you believe you see me but you don't okay could you come in example I mean let's make it realistic well you could be you could wake up any minute and think oh god I've got to go to that lecture this afternoon what a bore so it could be with you exactly as it is now and yet you're not being an election theater you're having a lucid dream dig out went one further than that because you believe don't you that you're having experiences and that your experiences are being caused by something okay you are having an experience as of a lecturer and that experience is being caused by a lecturer don't you what makes you think that can you get outside your experiences to see what's causing them No well then how do you know you wouldn't be I wouldn't be here if you didn't want me to be believe me I wouldn't be here if I didn't want me to know that's not true either you might not need me here at all I might still be no no that no because there's only two minutes to go I'm going to draw this okay do you remember we talked about causation if you're going to know that that causes that okay you need to see that they're correlated that these types events are correlated if you think that this is similar to that you need to be standing here don't you you need to be able to see both now you think that your experiences of P are caused by P okay can you stand here with respect to your experiences no where are you standing with respect to your experiences here okay you cannot get outside your experiences to determine what's causing those experiences so and nevertheless you believe very strongly that not only your experiences being caused by something external to them but also that your experiences are a good guide to the cause of those experiences and what Descartes did he said why do you believe that not why do you believe that but but what's your justification for believing that could it be that instead of your experiences being caused by a philosopher sanding you're lecturing to you there's an evil demon of some kind who is twiddling your thought processes and causing you to think so your experiences are caused by something but the cause is completely other than you take it to be is that a possibility can you tell me that that isn't the case well and let's think about your own body okay you think you've got a body don't you could the demon get in between you and your body could it be that that you although you think you have a hand actually you don't you think you have a body and actually you don't there's just your thoughts and experiences and the causes of them which is the demon do you see what I mean the brain isn't going to help you here and neither are other people actually because your brain is on the other side of the demon and so so are your Sara other people so what Descartes did is he he opened up a gap this may look like a pussycat but it's a demon and this is the world and this is your mind and Descartes showed that this could be or at least the argue rather this could be exactly as it is whilst this could be totally other or might not even exist so what's Descartes an internal list or an external list is he what he's an internist exactly - he believes that our thoughts could be exactly as they are even if the world were completely different now let's go back to the question with which I started this little bit of the session you have a belief about me could you have that very belief if I didn't exist what would you have to say if you were an internist yes okay um does that make you an external list then yes you're sort of nodding but you're not very sure about this okay does that mean you're rejecting the car T's in thought experiment you are if you're an external estat s'right do you think the car TT and thought experiment is incoherent you do would you like to tell me what's incoherent about it can you be sure that the world is as you experience it sure that is we're talking about certainty here not just it's unknowable yes Molly if it is unknowable then you're you're with the ents the internalists aren't you because if you're an external astir the way they are because the world is the way it is in other words your belief about me is a relation between you and me okay it's not something that's going on in your head completely independently of me it's a relation between you and me therefore if I don't exist you couldn't have that belief and all your intuitions were that way initially but then I told the Descartes story the Cartesian story which is pretty convincing isn't it so your homework this week is to go away and worry about the Cartesian story and ask yourself whether you're an intern list or an external list okay I we've got slightly over time if there are any questions I'm happy to take them but if anyone wants to leave they're most welcome to do so thank you very much you you

Channel: Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Views: 79,054

Rating: 4.8277512 out of 5

Keywords: philosophy, pre-socratics, philosophical history, marianne talbot

Id: 16TegBGFTn8

Length: 92min 18sec (5538 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2013