Philosophy for beginners

Paige you sequestered son okay okay I'm told that it's time to start and I'm also told that I've being filmed and ought to stand here as much as possible so I start by going over far too far that way or by far that way right okay and now I'm assuming that none of you have PhDs in philosophy you might have read a book or something like that you don't have a PhD so I'm going to start pretty much from the beginning and all these pictures will be credited at the end so if you dying to get some of them for your wall you can find out anything so I'm going to talk about metaphysics to start with metaphysics is what in fact all the succulents I'm going to talk about some centrioles of philosophy they're very different from each other but nevertheless they are central to colossi so metaphysics and I'm going to talk about epistemology epistemology is the theory of knowledge how do we justify our claims to knowledge and so on then I'm going to talk about ethics and of course so I'm going to be testing your intuitions on ethics and then finally I'm going to talk about logic because logic is of the core subjects in philosophy it's the core because it's the methodology of philosophy it's how we do okay so let's start with metaphysics what is metaphysics metaphysics is is it asks the questions that are absolutely fundamental questions like what is real what is the case and I'm going to look at two I'm going to ask what exists and that's a special part of metaphysics it's called ontology and your ontology is your list of what exists so who believes in ghosts okay on your ontology you've got ghosts where if you haven't and those of you put your hands up we've got ghosts on your ontology those of you who believe in God have God is on the ontology your lists of what you believe it exists anyone believe in UFOs okay empty house there okay nobody has UFOs on their ontology in this in this room but as we know some people too so if you ask what exists you're asking ontological question it's a metaphysical question but ontology is is a section of metaphysics that's and if you asked what exists you probably have to ask possibly first you have to ask what is it what is its nature can anyone think why you have to ask that question first before you asked whether it exists why do I need to know something's nature before I can really tackle the question of whether exists it might not be the sort of thing that I can perceive so for example if we're talking about do moral values exist they're not the sort of thing probably I can perceive are they think about God for a second God's a good example here if we ask does God exist why might I want to know what is the nature of God first yes in order to say whether something exists I've got to say well first of all what is it haven't I and so although we first ask the question does it exist the second question the one that comes very hard on its heels and almost has to be answered first is the question well what is it because if I mean those of you who do believe in God you've probably had people say to you things like well what is this thing so what exists and what is its nature so for example I'm giving a series of lectures this term on causation causation is very I mean how could we explain anything if we couldn't say that a causes B so you explain B by saying that a happens and a causes B and you need to appeal to causation in prediction as well why did sorry why do you think B will happen well because an a is about to happen and a causes B so the causation is central to both explanation and prediction and also to any attempt that we make to manipulate the world if you want to bring about a sorry B then knowing that a causes B tells you that one way of bringing about P is spring about an any isn't it and so explanation prediction and manipulation are central they're very important parts of causation so I want to look at well what is causation is there any causation I mean Bertrand Russell very famous philosopher who might have heard says that the causation that is like the monarchy it shouldn't exist but it does or something actually I've got that quote very bad but we need to do more what is causation well we know it's that what are the causal relation is it a physical relation or is it just a relation the famous philosopher David Hume famous Scottish philosopher thought that there was no more to causation and temporal priority spatial contiguity and constant conjunction so if you see one billiard ball hitting another billiard hall and the second billiard ball rolling off the first billiard balls hitting the second variable is the cause and the second billiard ball rolling off is the effect and Hume says the cause comes before the effect and the cause and effect have got to be next to each other into in space but you've got this idea that there's a necessary connection that had the course not occurred the effect would not have occurred but there's a connection between the cause and effect such that the cause somehow produced the effect nonsence says who quite like that again but something like that he says actually causation is a habit of mind so every time one Billy but we've seen one billiard ball hitting another we've seen the second roll off and that's constant conjunction of the two events cause assisters expect the second event when we see the first event and it's that expectation that is our account of necessary connection actually causation doesn't exist in the world at all there is this constant conjunction causation the necessary connection particles ation is in our minds so you see it's in looking at what the nature of causation what it is that causes us to think well maybe it doesn't exist if causation is necessary connection then it doesn't exist what Hume does it changed it around you says this is what causation is it's constant conjunction temporal priority and spatial contiguity so it does exist but it doesn't exist as you think it it so you've learned something by asking yourself the the twin questions does it exist and what is its nature so can you think of anything else you wonder whether it exists let's do something that interests you I mentioned moral values that yeah emotion that's me okay well do emotions exist what are they what at what our emotions okay let's do philosophy I haven't done this we can give examples of emotion and anger love jealousies they might be reactions to something so I'm angry because you there's a good one a reaction to an event and do you think those are the emotion or are part of the emotional or just correlates with emotion okay but it is interesting isn't it because there are definite physical I mean if you're in love I don't know how you describe it but there is some physical sort of yeah okay so there's some physical constituent there's some reaction to something in the world so you can't be jealous unless there's something you're jealous all or at least unless you believe there's something anything else to do with emotions anything else you think about I think a feeling has got to be I mean probably more people because people would say that the something causes feeling because the feeling of love is what causes the heart to flutter or does it maybe it's the heart flutter that causes the feeling of life but you see we talk about emotions all the time we think we know what we mean when we talk about anger or love or or whatever jealousy and but once we start asking for the topical questions about them we're getting a bit deeper one of the first things will find us we have no idea what emotions are and it starts to look very difficult to explain and if I ask you something like what's truth you see you start to get a feel for the difficulty that you can get yourself into because we talk about truth all the time don't we but what is truth what is truth let's try necessary truth contingent tree oh he certainly had done something because most people in this room probably don't know the difference between a necessary truth or the contingent truth let me explain if a necessary truth is something like two plus two equals four and now that's true in every possible world isn't it there isn't a single possible world in which two plus two is anything other than to know why can't it what why can't it equal 22 2 plus 2 equals 22 plus means it means if you change the meaning of 2 or plus all equals it can equal anything you like but the big about of course experiments like that is you have to keep the meaning constant don't you as long as 2 means 2 equals means equals and not plus and plus 3 is plus and not minus 2 plus 2 must before Merriam's wearing jeans or Marian's wearing trousers that's a contingent truth because it could be otherwise there are plenty of possible worlds in which Marion's wearing a nightdress lucky her or just wear a skirt or something like that might be something that this is a matter of that true that might be false and unnecessary truth is something that cannot be false so necessary must etcetera okay well I was going to talk to you about truth but instead I'm going to move on and talk about the epistemology okay anyone remember what epistemology knowledge it's to do with knowledge that's right it's the theory of knowledge and one of the first things that people find difficult in philosophy is they confuse metaphysics and epistemology they confuse what is the case and what we know to be the case it's a very easy confusion and it's one that almost all of you if you start coming to lectures on philosophy will find yourself making in the first lecture too so if you like we've got to distinguish as we go through the world human beings were irrational animals and so as we go through the world we're constructing a picture of the world and as all the time we're updating that picture so you've all got a picture of me at the moment I'm Peter and now you've dated it Miriam yeah okay your picture of the world is made up of your beliefs about the world and one of the first things you've got to do is distinguish the world about which you have beliefs and your beliefs about the world okay the world is one thing and your beliefs about the world are another and it's only if you're talking about epistemology you're talking about beliefs beliefs about tables are not located in space they said they don't make a sound when you hit them how would you go about hitting a belief the table can't be true or false can it but the belief about the table it will be either true or false and so that's a distinction you've got to distinguish between I've got a flipchart no pens this is a whiteboard pen but so you distinguish words concepts and things or let's say properties so the word read sorry this pen isn't very good it's not the same in English as in French is it and it's entirely arbitrary we could have chosen a completely different word the thing we pick out by read and then there's the concepts read which is a constituent of the thought so if I think that's a pretty red dress and the red constituent is a concept and when you had your children you taught your child the concept red by pointing out some red things so you put lots of different red things and you end up by saying no but you can see that a French person entertaining a thought about redness would entertain the same concept as an English person even though he'd express it with a different word okay so these are two different levels the level of language and the level of thought and then finally you've got the property red which of course is is neither a word nor a concept it's neither something and so the difference between epistemology and metaphysics is rather like that when we're talking about epistemology we're talking about our sentences what we say and what we think it's our sentences that express our beliefs and it's the world that we're either talking about all thinking about and so if you like when we're asking it doesn't quite work like this nothing's as simple as it sounds when I put it in a introduction to philosophy legend and but you might say that when we're talking about the properties we're talking about metaphysics or truth what is knowledge well okay we can apply our newfound philosophical skills what do you think knowledge is what is knowledge don't be shy what is knowledge it's hard isn't it interesting is it you probably use that that word what five times today we believe has been proven a belief that we believe has been proven to be true okay the reason I like that is you've brought in second order beliefs okay so there's a belief about the world which is a belief about the table the table is brown on the table is square or something like that and then there are beliefs about beliefs too so I can believe of my belief about the table that it's true for example all this it's justified or that it's false so that is stupid or ungrounded or there are all sorts of things but there are very different properties they attribute to beliefs than to tables tables can't be justified any more than they can be true okay how do we test this claim what's your name believes that knowledge might be beliefs that we believe have been proven can anyone tell me why that isn't the case sorry I like it but it's why why is knowledge not beliefs that we believe has been proven okay so we might believe it's being proven so it would satisfy this definition and yet be false in which this can't possibly be knowledge valid so you're absolutely right we can see that this can't be knowledge I'm assuming here that knowledge can't be false they're gonna hate me because I knowledge would anyone like to argue with me there does anyone think knowledge can be false you think knowledge can be false why I completely accept that what you believe to be knowledge might turn out to be false I let's think about this one okay you're saying that knowledge can be false and I'm saying you can an unknowable changeable but let's stick to false for a second I'm saying that knowledge can't be false what can be false is something you believed honestly to be knowledge so there was a time when we all believed that the earth is flat okay let me finish we all believed the earth was flat oh it's blindingly obvious the earth is flat isn't it so we all believe that we all believe that it was knowledge that our belief had been proven you know that our belief is obvious that etc but we've since learned more haven't we and we've learned that this is false so what we've learnt is that we didn't have knowledge we thought we had knowledge but we were wrong well okay I would completely accept what you're saying is set that you said the knowledge was that's what all swans white and I'm saying no we thought that all swans are white constituted knowledge and then we discovered we were wrong both about swans and arcane knowledge and maybe we're wrong I mean and what this what does this tell us he's a native Jim is quite right we make knowledge claims now we think we know so we think and if I'm right then we again don't know which is all mr. knowledge are tentative if you like I mean some are more sensitive than others so I mean recently they thought they had shown very temporarily but nearly three news faster than the speed of light okay so then we thought we knew that in stones correct that nothing is faster the speed of light then temporarily we thought that we were wrong about that then we now think that we're right about that well that's a very interesting question again this is Einstein in this yeah breaking into dance I can't answer that I'm not a physicist and but but what was the question you asked again okay think about two different knowledge was no think about one knowledge claim and two context the knowledge claim is that my car has plenty petrol in it okay that's the knowledge claim I know my car has plenty of petrol in it context one I'm dashing down to the shops to get something not very important context - I'm going across the Nullarbor plain in Australia okay now would you what would you think of my knowledge pain in each case it's the same knowledge claim would you claim I do know in the first case probably would you accept my claims in order to say are you sure yes well I completely what the gentleman says Gordon is that he often makes a distinction as a judge between knowledge and belief and the distinction he makes because you you think that you know it if you see it with your own eyes if somebody's told you now I can see exactly why you would say perhaps yes it's hearsay than in the second place and it's that testimony as opposed to seeing things through your senses is normally thought to be not as good epistemically as seeing something with your own eyes but of course we all know that seeing something with our own eyes can be a problem I think you're absolutely right that we're more inclined to call it knowledge in the first case the name of the second case but it could still not be knowledge related the scene or so we saw what we saw with our own eyes was interpreted by as one way when in fact we should have interpreted it but you see the problem so knowledge is generally thought to be to have three elements to it knowledge involves belief well that seems reasonable you can't you can't know P unless you believe okay that's okay it involves justification and it involves truth so if a student comes in to me and says Descartes root I know that Descartes said such and such and I say oh you do believe that to you and he says no no I think that he's confused okay if he says yes course he believes it and I say well why do you say that what's your justification what's your grounds for saying that and if he says don't really have any again it's not knowledge is it there's got to be a justice and if they can't didn't say it but I don't care what oh well he's justified his claim he's not right he doesn't know it so these three elements have been thought to be necessary for truth okay but this is where metaphysics and epistemology comes in there's a difference between something's being true and our knowing something to be true now I mean going back to what we were saying earlier all knowledge claims the tentative because if we think something is true we might be wrong because to think something's true is an epistemic claim but for some things be to be true it's a metaphysical claim so something might be knowledge without our knowing that it's knowledge sorry and it might not be knowledge without our knowing this it's not knowledge but let me give you a counter example to this okay let's say what's your name Caroline Caroline believes that Maryanne owns a Toyota okay that's the belief that Caroline has and she's justified in that belief because she's seen me driving around in that Toyota often let's say so every time she seen me in a car she's seen me driving this tire to the same time so every time so she's justified and and what's more it's true I do own a titer but the Toyota I own is not the one Caroline's seen me driving around in it stays in the garage because it's got one of those notices that because there's something wrong with the damn thing and I haven't taken it out of the garage for a year now does Caroline know that I own a Toyota who thinks who thinks she does no you're right she doesn't know so these three conditions of knowledge actually may be necessary for knowledge you maybe have to have each of these before you have knowledge but they're not sufficient are they it's got to be something else it can't be luck because it's not it because the tires that the the conditions that justify Caroline's belief are not the conditions that make it true the tires she seemed in is not the time to iron and so it's luck that she believes sorry that yes it's luck that she believes I own a Toyota and it can't houses knowledge it's like so again we see that by applying philosophical we immediately find out that we can be persuaded very quickly that it is something and then persuaded just as quickly that it can't be that thing and that's what we're doing this is why logic is is the court of law speak okay so that's what is knowledge the second question that comes up is it's can we have knowledge so you love while I've mentioned Descartes already haven't I and Descartes was in a very difficult position at one point seeing as I think written a book that he was about to publish and in this book he claimed to that instead of the Sun going round the earth the earth went round the Sun and he was about to publish this book and then Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition and Descartes forty ought to sit on the book and he also thought well it would I want to know what knowledge is I don't know what why we justify belief or whatever counts as knowledge so he was a Christian because most people in those days were Christian as if they but he was also a physicist and mathematician and he had good reason for believing that the Sun the earth went around the Sun but as a Christian he also had good reason for believing that the other way around so he wanted to think about justification stays shut himself away in another and he took himself down three through three levels of doubt so what he wanted to do was to find out whether there was any belief of whose truth he could be certain absolutely certain so he thought about his beliefs and he thought about their own categories and thought well okay is there anything that can make me doubt this type of belief because if there is I'm going to treat it as if it's false and and and I'm going to keep it in my knowledge box only those beliefs of which I'm absolutely certain so if you went down three levels of thousand let me take you through them and the first level was the argument from illusion so we've all had the experience happen way of buying that wonderful dress or whatever getting it home I've done it it's not black it's blue so your senses have deceived you there isn't anyone in this room such senses happens at some point deceive them well okay so steak heart is that enough reason to think that all beliefs formed on the basis of my senses are false or sorry should be treated as false obviously he's got no more reason to think that they're false than that they're true but he's going to treat them as if they're false should he I does the fact that our senses have deceived us show us that it could be the case that all our sensory beliefs are false no why not you know that's on the basis of your sentences yes I don't ever apologize I mean being philosophy is a good thing right I'm finding out you're wrong about something is almost as useful as finding out you're right about it maybe there are but but I must be a more precise posture than that knowing that our senses have on occasion deceived us can we ever trust our senses listen question I'm asking why at times why because our accumulated experience so at times which experience particular touch sense smell no no that's just using your senses what makes you think that your senses I mean you do well I think that's a the accumulation of experience that comment Connor is talking about what did you see China nerim you're all thinking of Charlie okay let me the reason that you cannot say that you distrust your senses because your senses having the past deceived you this is the only reason that you know that your senses have deceived you in the past is by relying on your senses isn't it so you know that the dress is blue and not black because you can see it it's now we're seeing it in proper light so the reason I thought that you were right is you save some circumstances and indeed there are own Descartes says I look at my hands and I see that they're there I can't be wrong about them you know there's nothing wrong with an item so all I've got in my doubting basket and just to explain that he made an analogy between apples that are rotten if you both basket full of apples you know summer rotten it's a good idea to take them all out and discard the ones that you think might be rocking and put into your basket only ones that using the perfect so at the moment out of his basket he's only got those sensory beliefs all in bad psychic optimal conditions well you've got to okay - depends on what I was talking about for the difference between the world as it is and the world as we picture it there is some I mean it's some this this is made of a lot of air and a few small particles that are combined in a certain way of solids so that it's an illusion that the table is solid but it's something that I don't think this is what Descartes has in mind let me take you down to the second stage of what we've got at the moment is the idea that we can put outside as as we can admit doubt on any century belief that we formed in suboptimal conditions but now could it be with you exactly as it is at the moment so you believe there's a lecture in front of you you believe that so for all the reasons that you've got it's not so all those reasons are in but it's still could that happen when when you're asleep exactly you any minute now you could wake up and think oh god I've got to go to that let the philosophy picture today because it might be with you exactly like this except that you're asleep once you know that surely we can all your sensory for us into the doubting basket it still eludes you with things like two puzzles for because that's true whether you're asleep or not isn't it and but the sleep one what's much more into the dowsing basket but it still doesn't make you doubt everything does it what's left I mean why does it not make you doubt everything no you're jumping over the final level of doubt because Stefan doesn't plead say I think therefore I am but he doesn't say that for at least a chapter yet the reason that you're being asleep doesn't put everything into doubt is exactly the same structurally as your reason that your senses are deceived you doesn't and you know that you've thought sometimes being asleep because sometimes you've woken up so you might be asleep at the moment but there are still many things that are that are true like grass is bringing us on because they'd still be true when you were asleep so you don't know for sure but you're lots of sleep at the moment but you do know for sure that there have been times when you haven't been asleep okay because you've woken up you could have several levels of Vega see okay so you can dream that you're waking up I agree but in order to have a dream that you're waking up you've got to have the concept of being awake and therefore you've got to have woken at some point I'm not saying these are not questions you can ask they they certainly are but there's the killer one there everyone sleeping over it's the demon argument and you mentioned when he talked about the brain in the bat but I don't like brains in the battle I prefer the original Cartesian one to questions he brought or to claims he brought into doubt there are two things that you believe very importantly one is my experiences are caused by external states of affairs you do believe that don't you so you have experiences and you believe that they're being caused by something outside you okay and the second thing you believe is that the character of my experience is determined by the character of what is outside so you have an experience as of a lecturer and you believe that what's causing it but what does you get gone what do you owe I didn't say on the lecture I said of a lecturer I don't believe that all your experiences of me are different I do there'll be some of you are thinking that bloody woman and when she's going to shut up and there are others who think me I love this I love it with it is of me that these are beliefs is that not right no and that's why I make a distinction between your experience and your beliefs about the experience let me draw you a little something another have you heard before the duck rabbit god I got to draw it now okay if I write duck under it and that's the beak of the duck okay in this and if I write rabbit under it then those are the ears of the rabbit you can flip it at will but the thing is what you're flipping is the same your interpretation of what you are seeing is different on each occasion and in exactly the same way you are all experiencing your beliefs about what you experience are all different because they're all and so on is that fair enough but let's go back to this otherwise we're never gonna get objects knowledge Basanta mythix and what Descartes what Descartes says is that we all believe that our experiences are caused by something outside and that our experience is a good guide to what is causing them but actually why do we think they're experiences at all well it's sorry our experiences are caused by something outside how can we get outside our experiences to know that they are caused by anything maybe they're not caused by anything and going back to the idea I started talking about earlier with causation okay so here's the world that we picture there's a table and here's our picture of the world okay there's a belief about the table and if we're thinking that that causes that we've usually got to be sitting here haven't we to see the correlation between a table and a belief about the table but how can we sit here on our experiences we've got to sit here haven't we all we ever experience is our experiences we never experience what causes our experiences or that there are causes of our experiences so as soon as that gap opens up we have a real problem saying well how do we justify the claim that our experiences are caused by anything maybe there's nothing maybe all there is is our experiences one after the other after the other after the other and there's nothing Descartes said I can't even wrap my mind around that he doesn't say that something similar I'm gonna put out there an evil demon someone who's trying to deceive me and so he's causing you to think that there are chairs and tables and students and the other but in fact there's nothing like that that's just the evil demon causing me to think that there so there is a course to my experiences but that causes an evil demon or to bring the thought experiment up to data as an evil scientist and all I am is a brain-in-a-vat so in effect it's at that point that Descartes says are but there is something of which I can be certain and that's my own it's because if I'm being deceived I must exist to be deceived and if I don't know whether my beliefs about the world of truth I still know that I have these beliefs and therefore I am the thinker of these beliefs and I'm I'm a thinking thing I can be absolutely certain that I exist and that I have thoughts even if I can't be certain of those thoughts of any of those thoughts that they are true those thoughts okay oh that was hot well that isn't look but I don't think that's Cartesian floor and he couldn't he goes on to prove that everything that we think exists exists but it's much more sophisticated than that and you'll have to come to one of my classes on ticket you want to know the answer to that question let's go on to ethics and oh there's one I have a podcast on epistemology and metaphysics and you can find it there I don't know if they're giving you a handout of this are they if you can email me and I can send you all these but you all you have to do is popped all that metaphysics and epistemology find it okay ethics okay anyone heard of Tralee ology truly ology okay okay this is a problem in ethics there's a trolley ash a train coming and there are five people on this track here and the train is going towards this track here and you are standing here by this lever and by pulling the lever you can change the Train onto the other track sadly there's this single person on this other track and if you pull the leaf or the train will kill him but it will save these five people here so should you pull the lever or not put your hands up if you would pull the lever okay that's that's quite a few of you the rest of you are still thinking about it obviously okay here's another one sorry about the resolution in this picture it's not good again you've got five people on the track here the Train is coming you can't stop the train but you're standing on a bridge this time and on the standing on the bridge with you is this very fat person such that if you push him off the bridge he's gonna stop the train here and it'll save these five people unfortunately the the big man will die himself okay so it's the exactly the same don't give me your reasons yes so this chap you're gonna push him off and he'll stop the train and you'll have safe the five people unfortunately killed the one okay so who's going to push the fat man off the train stick hand up oh right okay let's let's sort up okay who would pull the lever but wouldn't push the fat man okay anyone who said yes in both cases who said yes in both cases probably you terian are utilitarian is someone who believes that the only things that matter morally are consequences okay so the consequences of each situation as such that five people are saved one person dies that's all that matters according to a utilitarian we're going to get rid of the one and save the five that was bought okay we're not gonna have any fad ism here it's already bad okay utilitarians don't detain intention is motives or beliefs into account at all when they evaluate something morally the only thing that matters is the action and the action of the action matters its consequences okay and if you want to learn more about you can get this online well you mean you've killed your uncle in order to get his money he doesn't matter what he would say is wrong is that you killed this person I mean that this person is dead why you killed him is not relevant I mean that's probably not true it can take intentions into account in this way in that it won't be murder unless there's an intention to kill in other words the person must be dead as a result of your intending to be dead otherwise it's manslaughter or something like that but the actual intention you know I want to make his money but actually that's probably not true since the DPP's we'll talk about that in just a minute so there's a difference between acting and you're saying well but if I do nothing I don't feed the children for whom I'm responsible I would still be guilty I see it might be the lesser of two evils let's move on okay anyone who said no in both cases did anyone say no in both cases a few of you okay it's probably a day on tala just a day on tala just is someone who believes that there are moral rules that we must obey killing is wrong whatever the sir Sansa's so if you don't I mean this is actually since what you were saying if you don't pull the leaver the five are dead but you haven't killed them you've let them die but you haven't killed them whereas if you if you pull the lever you have killed the 1 and the 5 you save the 5 but you have actually killed the one so if the rule is don't kill you violated it in the second place but not the first case you don't but that's completely irrelevant so there is a difference but it doesn't it's not really relevant tonight morals is first sort of morality is abortion wrong ethics is second-order morality how do you know that something is wrong all right but as I say it's irrelevant yeah no no no okay so down tonnages believes that there are moral rules that we must obey and they don't take into account the consequent

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Published: Mon Nov 16 2015