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Gumilyov Eurasian National University |
Course methodical-training complex |
The fourth edition |
Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Republican State Establishment
Based on the Right of Economic Administration
Gumilyov Eurasian National University
Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Philosophy
Approved by the Dean of
Faculty of Social Sciences
RSE based on REA L.N. Gumilyov
Eurasian National University
_________________________
____________Kashhynbay B.B.
_________________ 2016____
Course Methodical-Training Complex
On course FIL 2102 PHILOSOPHY
Intended for students of the specialties
5B020200-International Relations, 5b030200-International Law Astana
2015
The requirements for the design of course methodical-training complex (CMTC)
Title page +
Typical curriculum for courses of compulsory component
Syllabus (course program for students under conditions of credit learning technology) +
Course glossary and general methodical recommendations (tips) on working with course conceptual apparatus +
Summaries of lectures of course topics and methodical tips to help students master the course content +
Outline of seminar (practical) and/or laboratory classes and hints on preparation for them +
Assignments for students, self-study accompanied by information about work-intensity and hints on their completion +
Materials for current, interim evaluation and final exam and hints on how to prepare for them +
Hints on writing course theses (in case they are planned in the curriculum) +
Multimedia and software accompaniment of classes (it depends on the course content) +
Glossary
This is a brief glossary of some of the general philosophical terms and basic concepts used in philosophy to explain other concepts and doctrines; it is not an exhaustive alphabetical listing of the schools, doctrines, branches and concepts themselves.
A posteriori-where knowledge is possible only subsequent, or posterior, to certain sense experiences, in addition to the use of reason (empirical).
A priori-where knowledge is possible independently of, or prior to, any experience, and requires only the use of reason (non-empirical).
Axiom-a proposition that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be self-evident and taken for granted.
Causality-the law that states that each cause has a specific effect, and that this effect is dependent on the initial identities of the agents involved.
Consciousness-the faculty which perceives and identifies things that exist, and the relationship between oneself and one's environment.
Contingency-the status of facts that are not logically necessarily true or false (the possibility of something happening or not happening).
Deductive Reasoning-reasoning that proceeds from general principles or premises to derive particular information (what follows necessarily from given premises).
Dialectic-the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments, respectively advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses), in arriving at a conclusion (synthesis).
Emergence-the way complex systems and patterns arise (emerge) out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.
Entity-something that has a distinct and separate existence, although not necessarily a material existence.
Essence-the attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and that it has necessarily.
Existence-the state or fact of existing or being (the continuance in being or life).
Fallacy-any sort of mistake in reasoning or inference (essentially, anything that causes an argument to go wrong).
Formal Language-an organized set of symbols which can be precisely defined in terms of just the shapes and locations of those symbols, without any reference to any meanings or interpretations.
Forms (Platonic Forms)-the universal concepts or ideas which make all of the phenomenal world intelligible (the essences of objects, rather than their physical forms or appearances).
Freethought-the general philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic, and should not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition, or dogma.
Free Will-the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.
Hermeneutics-the study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts (often the Bible).
Hylomorphism-the theory which conceptually identifies substance as matter and form, such that substances are conceived as forms inhering in matter.
Identity-whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type (essentially, whatever makes something the same or different).
Inductive Reasoning-reasoning that proceeds from particular information to derive general principles (arriving at a reliable generalization from observations).
Infinite Regress-a causal relationship transmitted through an indefinite number of terms in a series, with no term that begins the causal chain (going back through a chain forever).
Instantiation-the representation of an idea in the form of an instance or example of it.
Law of Non-Contradiction-the basic law of logic which states that it is not possible for something to be and not be at the same time.
Monad-an unextended, indivisible and indestructible entity that is the basic constituent of physical reality.
Natural Language-a language that is spoken, written, or signed by humans for general-purpose communication (ordinary language as opposed to formal or constructed languages).
Normative-indicative of how things should or ought to be (as opposed to positive or descriptive).
Noumenon-the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as it is known through perception (c.f. Phenomenon).
Object-a thing, an entity or a being, that can have properties and bear relations to other objects. They are usually types of particulars, but there can also be abstract objects.
Ontology-the study of conceptions of reality, existence and the nature of being.
Paradox-a statement or sentiment that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet is perhaps true in fact, or a statement that is actually self-contradictory (and therefore false) even though it appears true.
Particular-a concrete individual object which cannot be copied without introducing new distinct particulars.
Phenomenon-a thing as it appears to be, as constructed by the mind and perceived by the senses (c.f. Noumenon).
Predicate-that which is affirmed or denied concerning the subject of a proposition (i.e. how we describe the subject of a proposition). The predicate is one of the two main constituents of a sentence (the other being the subject), containing the verb and its complements.
Premise-one of the propositions in a deductive argument. Essentially, it is a claim that is a reason for, or objection against, some other claim.
Property-an attribute or abstraction characterizing an object, but distinct from the object which possesses it.
Proposition-the content or meaning of an assertion or declarative sentence, which is capable of being either true or false.
Qualia-properties of sensory experiences, or the nebulous concept of "the way things seem to us".
Scientific Method-the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
Social Contract-that idea people give up some rights to a government and/or other authority in forming nations in order to jointly preserve or maintain social order and security.
Society-a collection or grouping of individuals with some shared interactions and common interests.
Substance-the unchanging essence of a thing, that exists by itself, and which has attributes and modes which, however, may change.
Syllogism-a logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form.
Tabula Rasa-the idea that individual human beings are born with no innate mental content, but their knowledge is built up gradually from their experiences and sensory perceptions of the outside world (literally, "blank slate").
Teleology-the belief that events occur with a natural purpose or design, or in order to achieve some specific goal.
Theodicy-an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil or suffering in the world with the belief in an omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent God.
Theology-the study of the nature of God and religious truth, which seeks to justify or support religious claims.
Theorem-a statement which has been proven to be true by a rigorous argument.
Universal-a property of an object, which can exist in more than one place at the same time (e.g. the quality of "redness").
Virtue-the moral excellence of a person, or any trait valued as being good.
Zeitgeist-the intellectual and cultural climate of an era (literally, "the spirit of the age").
Lecture 1. Philosophy as a worldview and a methodology
1. Historical types of worldview: the myth, religion, philosophy
2. The specific nature of philosophical cognition.
3. Philosophy as a worldview
4. Philosophy as a methodology
Philosophy's aim from the beginning has been to give a general understanding of the universe that could provide a basis for the understanding of life, something on which to build a rational art of the existence of man and society. Since it concerned not any separate part of existence, but existence in general, it could not form the subject-matter of any specific science. It was the subject matter of philosophy – the science of the initial principles of the existence of the world, humanity and cognition. The subject-matter of philosophical cognition is not only the universe and its most general laws as they exist in themselves, but also and more particularly the relationship between man and the universe.
Philosophical cognition of reality is as ancient as the socially developed and rationally thinking human being himself. This is understand able enough, for the very fact of man's existence in remotest times presupposes a fairly well developed curiosity, an ability to state and solve not just the purely practical questions of everyday life but also problems involving a view of the world.
The original form of worldview was mythology, the imaginable and basically fantastic, generalized reflection of phenomena in which a certain general idea is thought of in personified, symbolical, sensuously concrete, plastically vivid and hypertrophied form, as in the fairy-tale. But whereas the fairy-tale is accepted as pure invention, the myth is regarded as something real.
The whole essence of the mythological consciousness consists in generalized images being thought of substantially, that is, as something animatedly material, corporeal. The mythological consciousness, which was characteristic of all peoples of the world at the tribal stage, was syncretic; it synthesized all spiritual culture – the first gleams of science, the artistic understanding of existence, and religious and philosophical views.
The worldview does not exist by itself, apart from specific historical individuals, social groups, classes and parties. In one way or another, by reflecting certain phenomena of reality it expresses their value orientations, their relationship to events of social life.
The basic question of philosophy is that of the relationship of thinking to being. It presupposes acknowledgement of the existence of an objective, i.e., independent of human consciousness, reality and a subjective, spiritual reality – representations, thoughts, ideas – and a certain relationship between them. Which comes first – matter or consciousness? Which generates which? Does matter at a certain stage of development generate its finest flower – the reason? Or does the world spirit create the material world? Or perhaps they have coexisted eternally as equal substances in their own right and are in some way interacting? Such is the first aspect of the basic question of philosophy.
Its second aspect comes down to the following. Can man and mankind in general know the objective laws of the world by the power of their own consciousness? Or is the world unknowable? In examining the first aspect implied in the basic question of philosophy the thinker inevitably finds himself in one of two camps, materialism or idealism (or dualism), while in examining the second aspect of the question he takes a stand either in favour of the fundamental possibility of knowing the world or in favour of agnosticism, that is, denial of this possibility.
The main trends in philosophical thought were and have remained materialism and idealism. Explanation of the world from the world itself is the methodological principle of materialism. It maintains that the connections between ideas in people's heads reflect and transform the connections between phenomena in the world.
Idealism is in general related to the desire to elevate the spirit to the maximum degree. In speaking with such veneration of the spiritual, of the idea, Hegel assumed that even the criminal thought of the evil-doer was greater and more to be marvelled at than all the wonders of the world. In the ordinary sense idealism is associated with remoteness from earthly interests, constant immersion in pure thought, and dedication to unrealizable dreams.
Idealism is divided into two basic forms: objective and subjective. The objective idealists, beginning from the ancients and ending with those of the present day, recognize the existence of a real world outside man, but believe that the world is based on reason, that it is ruled by certain omnipotent ideas which guide everything. Reality is considered to be rational and the reason is interpreted as the substance, the basis of the universe. All things and processes are thus spiritualized.
According to of subjective idealism, the world does not exist apart from us, apart from our sense perceptions: to exist is to exist in perception! And what we consider to be different from our sensations and existing apart from them is composed of the diversity of our subjective sensuality: colour, sound, forms and other qualities are only sensations and sets of such sensations form things. This implies that the world is, so to speak, woven out of the same subjective material of which human dreams are composed.
A methodology is a system of principles and general ways of organizing and structuring theoretical and practical activity, and also the theory of this system. Genetically methods go back far into the past, when our distant ancestors were acquiring, generalizing and handing down to new generations their skills and means of influencing nature, the forms of organizing labour and communication. As philosophy emerged, methodology became a special target of cognition and could be defined as a system of socially approved rules and standards of intellectual and practical activity. These rules and standards had to be aligned with the objective logic of events, with the properties and laws of phenomena.
The methodological principle of the determinist explanation of the world is the organizing principle of the corresponding physical, biological and social theories. After being tested by social practice, these theories in their turn may perform a methodological function, that is, serve as a guiding principle in further research.
There are several classifications of methodological knowledge.
One of the most popular is the division of methodology into substantive and formal methodology. The formal aspects of methodology are related to analysis of the language of science, the formal structure of scientific explanation, description and analysis of formal and formalised methods of research, particularly the methods of constructing scientific theories and conditions of their logical truth, the typology of systems of knowledge, and so on. It was the elaboration of this set of problems that raised the question of the logical structure of scientific knowledge and the development of a methodology of science as an independent field of knowledge.
Method is concretised methodology. Through the method of the concrete science it reaches the research desk. The concrete sciences, which are specific in relation to philosophy, may in their turn be methodological in relation to the narrower fields of their specific sphere of knowledge. For example, general biology arms botany, zoology and other narrower disciplines with general methods of research. Relying on Philosophy, general biology works out the methodological problems related to all the departments of biological science. This principle is to be found in other sciences as well. The present-day system of methods in science is as diversified as science itself. We talk, for example, of experimental method, the method of processing empirical data, the method of building scientific theories and their verification, the method of expounding scientific results, i.e., the classification of methods based on the classification of stages of research activity.
According to another classification, methods are divided into philosophical, general scientific, and special scientific methods. Yet another classification relies on different methods of qualitative and quantitative study of reality. The distinction between methods depending on the forms of causality -determinist and probability methods-is of considerable importance in modern science. For example, in biology dialectics is seen through the prism of general scientific methods (systems analysis, the principles of self-regulation, etc.), in specific research projects through applying special scientific methods and systems of methods (electronic microscopy, the method of tagged atoms, etc.).
One or another method makes it possible to know only separate aspects of the object of research. In order to comprehend all the essential aspects of the object, there must be complementarity of methods. The whole system of methodological knowledge necessarily involves a worldview interpretation of the basis of the research and its results. It should be stressed that general methodology is always at work in the brain of every scientist but, as a rule, it is kept in obscurity, as the intellectual background of a searching mind. This obscurity is sometimes so complete that the scientist may even deny that he acts according to any philosophical methodology, and insist that he is in general free of any philosophy. But this is merely an illusion of the consciousness.
Required reading:
Aristotle, 1994. Metaphysics, Books Z and H, translation and commentary, D. Bostock, Clarendon Aristotle Series, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Moser, Paul. Philosophy After Objectivity. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Quine, W. V. Word and Object. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960).
Rorty, Richard. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Optional reading:
Gill, M. L., 1989. Aristotle on Substance, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hawley, K., 2001. How Things Persist, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J., 2005. Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Koslicki, K., 2008. The Structure of Objects, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lagerlund, H., 2012. “Material substance”, in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy, ed. J. Marenbon, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 468–85.
Laycock, H., 2006. Words Without Objects: semantics, ontology and logic for non-singularity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, D., 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell.
Nagel, T., 2012. Mind and Cosmos, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Rea, M. (ed.), 1997. Material Constitution, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Wright, Crispin. Realism, Meaning, and Truth. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
Lecture 2. Philosophy of the Ancient East (Philosophy of Ancient India and Ancient China)
The origins of philosophical thinking in Ancient India.
Heterodox and orthodox systems-darshanas.
Indian Philosophy (or, in Sankrit, Darshanas) refers to any of several traditions of philosophical thought that originated in the Indian subcontinent, including Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and Jain philosophy. It is considered by Indian thinkers to be a practical discipline, and its goal should always be to improve human life. The main Hindu orthodox (astika) schools of Indian philosophy are those codified during the medieval period of Brahmanic-Sanskritic scholasticism, and they take the ancient Vedas (the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism) as their source and scriptural authority:
Samkhya is the oldest of the orthodox philosophical systems, and it postulates that everything in reality stems from purusha (self or soul or mind) and prakriti (matter, creative agency, energy). It is a dualist philosophy, although between the self and matter rather than between mind and body as in the Western dualist tradition, and liberation occurs with the realization that the soul and the dispositions of matter (steadiness, activity and dullness) are different.
The Yoga school, as expounded by Patanjali in his 2nd Century B.C. Yoga Sutras, accepts the Samkhya psychology and metaphysics, but is more theistic, with the addition of a divine entity to Samkhya's twenty-five elements of reality. The relatively brief Yoga Sutras are divided into eight ashtanga (limbs), reminiscent of Buddhism's Noble Eightfold Path, the goal being to quiet one's mind and achieve kaivalya (solitariness or detachment).
The Nyaya school is based on the Nyaya Sutras, written by Aksapada Gautama in the 2nd Century B.C. Its methodology is based on a system of logic that has subsequently been adopted by the majority of the Indian schools, in much the same way as Aristotelian logic has influenced Western philosophy. Its followers believe that obtaining valid knowledge (the four sources of which are perception, inference, comparison and testimony) is the only way to gain release from suffering. Nyaya developed several criteria by which the knowledge thus obtained was to be considered valid or invalid (equivalent in some ways to Western analytic philosophy).
The Vaisheshika school was founded by Kanada in the 6th Century B.C., and it is atomist and pluralist in nature. The basis of the school's philosophy is that all objects in the physical universe are reducible to a finite number of atoms, and Brahman is regarded as the fundamental force that causes consciousness in these atoms. The Vaisheshika and Nyaya schools eventually merged because of their closely related metaphysical theories (although Vaisheshika only accepted perception and inference as sources of valid knowledge).
The main objective of the Purva Mimamsa school is to interpret and establish the authority of the Vedas. It requires unquestionable faith in the Vedas and the regular performance of the Vedic fire-sacrifices to sustain all the activity of the universe. Although in general the Mimamsa accept the logical and philosophical teachings of the other schools, they insist that salvation can only be attained by acting in accordance with the prescriptions of the Vedas. The school later shifted its views and began to teach the doctrines of Brahman and freedom, allowing for the release or escape of the soul from its constraints through enlightened activity.
The Vedanta, or Uttara Mimamsa, school concentrates on the philosophical teachings of the Upanishads (mystic or spiritual contemplations within the Vedas), rather than the Brahmanas (instructions for ritual and sacrifice). The Vedanta focuses on meditation, self-discipline and spiritual connectivity, more than traditional ritualism.
The main heterodox (nastika) schools, which do not accept the authority of the Vedas, include:
Also known as Lokayata, Carvaka is a materialistic, sceptical and atheistic school of thought. Its founder was Carvaka, author of the Barhaspatya Sutras in the final centuries B.C., although the original texts have been lost and our understanding of them is based largely on criticism of the ideas by other schools. As early as the 5th Century, Saddaniti and Buddhaghosa connected the Lokayatas with the Vitandas (or Sophists), and the term Carvaka was first recorded in the 7th Century by the philosopher Purandara, and in the 8th Century by Kamalasila and Haribhadra. As a vital philosophical school, Carvaka appears to have died out sometime in the 15th Century.
Buddhism is a non-theistic system of beliefs based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, an Indian prince later known as the Buddha, in the 5th Century B.C. Buddhism advocates a Noble Eightfold Path to end suffering, and its philosophical principles are known as the Four Noble Truths (the Nature of Suffering, the Origin of Suffering, the Cessation of Suffering, and the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering). Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics and epistemology.
The central tenets of Jain philosophy were established by Mahavira in the 6th Century B.C., although Jainism as a religion is much older. A basic principle is anekantavada, the idea that reality is perceived differently from different points of view, and that no single point of view is completely true (similar to the Western philosophical doctrine of Subjectivism). According to Jainism, only Kevalis, those who have infinite knowledge, can know the true answer, and that all others would only know a part of the answer.
It stresses spiritual independence and the equality of all life, with particular emphasis on non-violence, and posits self-control as vital for attaining the realization of the soul's true nature. Jain belief emphasizes the immediate consequences of one's behaviour.
Principles of Ancient Indian philosophy and modern Indian Political Philosophy:
The Arthashastra, attributed to the Mauryan minister Chanakya in the 4th Century B.C., is one of the earliest Indian texts devoted to political philosophy, and it discusses ideas of statecraft and economic policy. During the Indian struggle for independence in the early 20th Century, Mahatma Gandhi popularized the philosophies of ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (non-violent resistance), which were influenced by the teachings of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, as well as Jesus, Tolstoy, Thoreau and Ruskin.
Required reading:
Chatterjee, Satischandra; Datta, Dhirendramohan (1984). An Introduction to Indian Philosophy (Eighth Reprint Edition ed.). Calcutta: University of Calcutta.
Dasgupta, Surendranath (1975). A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0412-8, p.365
Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy, Vol. I-II, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2006, ISBN 0-19-563820-4.
Radhakrishnan, S., and Charles Alexander Moore, eds. A Source Book in Indian Philosophy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.
Dhammapada. A Source Book in Indian Philosophy. Eds. S. Radhakrishnan and Charles Alexander Moore. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. 292-325.
Optional reading:
Flood, Gavin (1996). An Introduction to Hinduism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43878-0.
Hiriyanna, M. (1993, reprint 2000). Outlines of Indian Philosophy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-1099-6.
Sue Hamilton, Early Buddhism. Routledge, 2000.
Sharma, C. (1997). A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0365-5.
Becoming and features of the philosophy of Ancient China.
The Hundred schools of thought – the heyday of Chinese philosophy.
Ancient Chinese Philosophy refers to any of several schools of philosophical thought in the Chinese tradition, including Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Mohism. It has a long history of several thousand years.
It is known that early Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC-1046 B.C.) thought was based on cyclicity, from observation of the cycles of day and night, the seasons, the moon, etc., a concept which remained relevant throughout later Chinese philosophy, and immediately setting it apart from the more linear Western approach. During this time, both gods and ancestors were worshipped and there were human and animal sacrifices. During the succeeding Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC-256 B.C.), the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was introduced, which held that Heaven would bless the authority of a just ruler, but would be displeased with an unwise ruler, and retract the Mandate.
The "I Ching" (or "Book of Changes") was traditionally compiled by the mythical figure Fu Xi in the 28th Century B.C., although modern research suggests that it more likely dates to the late 9th Century B.C. The text describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy that is intrinsic to ancient Chinese cultural beliefs, centring on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change. It consists of a series of symbols, rules for manipulating these symbols, poems and commentary, and is sometimes regarded as a system of divination.
In about 500 B.C., (interestingly, around the same time as Greek philosophy was emerging), the classic period of Chinese philosophy (known as the Contention of a Hundred Schools of Thought) flourished, and the four most influential schools (Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism and Legalism) were established.
During the Qin Dynasty (also know as the Imperial Era), after the unification of China in 221 B.C., Legalism became ascendant at the expense of the Mohist and Confucianist schools, although the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) adopted Taoism and later Confucianism as official doctrine. Along with the gradual parallel introduction of Buddhism, these two schools have remained the determining forces of Chinese thought up until the 20th Century.
The main schools of Ancient Chinese philosophy are:
Confucianism. This school was developed from the teachings of the sage Confucius (551-479 B.C.), and collected in the Analects of Confucius. It is a system of moral, social, political, and quasi-religious thought, whose influence also spread to Korea and Japan. The major Confucian concepts include ren (humanity or humaneness), zhengming (similar to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven), zhong (loyalty), xiao (filial piety), and li (ritual).
It introduced the Golden Rule (essentially, treat others as you would like to be treated), the concept of Yin and Yang (two opposing forces that are permanently in conflict with each other, leading to perpetual contradiction and change), the idea of meritocracy, and of reconciling opposites in order to arrive at some middle ground combining the best of both.
Confucianism is not necessarily regarded as a religion, allowing one to be a Taoist, Christian, Muslim, Shintoist or Buddhist and still profess Confucianist beliefs. Arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself was Meng Tzu (or Mencius) (372 – 289 B.C.)
Taoism. Sometimes also written Daoism, Taoism is a philosophy which later also developed into a religion. Tao literally means "path" or "way", athough it more often used as a metaphysical term that describes the flow of the universe, or the force behind the natural order. The Three Jewels of the Tao are compassion, moderation, and humility. Taoist thought focuses on wu wei ("non-action"), spontaneity, humanism, relativism, emptiness and the strength of softness (or flexibility). Nature and ancestor spirits are common in popular Taoism, although typically there is also a pantheon of gods, often headed by the Jade Emperor. The most influential Taoist text is the "Tao Te Ching" (or "Daodejing") written around the 6th Century B.C. by Lao Tzu (or Laozi), and a secondary text is the 4th Century B.C. "Zhuangzi", named after its author. The Yin and Yang symbol is important in Taoist symbology (as in Confucianism), as are the Eight Trigrams, and a zigzag with seven stars which represents the Big Dipper star constellation.
Legalism is a pragmatic political philosophy, whose main motto is "set clear strict laws, or deliver harsh punishment", and its essential principle is one of jurisprudence. According to Legalism, a ruler should govern his subjects accordoing to Fa (law or principle), Shu (method, tactic, art, or statecraft) and Shi (legitimacy, power, or charisma). Under Li Si in the 3rd century B.C., a form of Legalism essentially became a totalitarian ideology in China, which in part led to its subsequent decline.
The School of Naturalists or the "School of Yin-Yang" was a Warring States era philosophy that synthesized the concepts of yin-yang and the Five Elements; Zou Yan is considered the founder of this school. His theory attempted to explain the universe in terms of basic forces in nature: the complementary agents of yin (dark, cold, female, negative) and yang (light, hot, male, positive) and the Five Elements or Five Phases (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth). In its early days, this theory was most strongly associated with the states of Yan and Qi. In later periods, these epistemological theories came to hold significance in both philosophy and popular belief. This school was absorbed into Taoism's alchemic and magical dimensions as well as into the Chinese medical framework. The earliest surviving recordings of this are in the Ma Wang Dui texts and Huang Di Nei Jing.
Mohism was founded by Mozi (c. 470-390 B.C.) It promotes universal love with the aim of mutual benefit, such that everyone must love each other equally and impartially to avoid conflict and war. Mozi was strongly against Confucian ritual, instead emphasizing pragmatic survival through farming, fortification and statecraft. Although popular during the latter part of the Zhou Dynasty, many Mohist texts were destroyed during the succeeding Qin Dynasty, and it was finally supplanted completely by Confucianism during the Han Dynasty.
Required reading:
Slingerland, E., 2003, Confucius: Analects, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds., 2000, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Seven Bridges Press. (Partial translation.)
Johnston, Ian, tr., 2010, The Mozi: A Complete Translation, New York: Columbia University Press. (Complete translation.)
Ames, Roger and Hall, David. (2003). Daodejing: "Making This Life Significant" A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.
Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, Antonio S. Cua (Editor), Routledge, 2003.
Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Karyn Lai, Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy, Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2011).
Ivanhoe, P. J., 2000, Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Fraser, Chris, 2012, “Truth in Moist Dialectics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 39(3): 351–68
Robins, Dan, 2010, “The Later Mohists and Logic,” History and Philosophy of Logic, 31(3): 247–285
Optional reading:
Mou, Bo (ed.) (2006), Davidson's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, Boston: Brill.
Shun, Kwong-loi (2009), “Stuydying Confucian and Comparative Ethics: Methodological Reflections,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 36: 455–478.
Sim, May (2007), Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Slingerland, Edward (2003), Effortless Action: Wu-Wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Norden, Bryan (2007), Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yu, Jiyuan (2007), The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle, New York: Routledge.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. (2002). The Daodejing of Laozi. New York: Seven Bridges Press.
Kohn, Livia and Roth, Harold., eds. (2002). Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Lecture 3. History of Ancient Philosophy
Cosmos and logos as the dominant of Ancient philosophy.
The Pre-Socratic Philosophy.
Classical Philosophy.
The Hellenistic school of thought.
Western Philosophy, by which we usually mean everything apart from the Eastern Philosophy of China, India, Japan, Persia, etc really began in Ancient Greece about the 6th Century B.C. Thales of Miletus is usually considered the first proper philosopher, although he was just as concerned with natural philosophy (what we now call science) as with philosophy as we know it. Thales and most of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers (i.e. those who lived before Socrates) limited themselves in the main to Metaphysics (enquiry into the nature of existence, being and the world). They were Materialists (they believed that all things are composed of material and nothing else).
For instance, Thales thought the whole universe was composed of different forms of water; Anaximenes concluded it was made of air; Heraclitus thought it was fire; and Anaximender some unexplainable substance usually translated as "the infinite" or "the boundless". Another issue the Pre-Socratics wrestled with was the so-called problem of change, how things appear to change from one form to another. At the extremes, Heraclitus believed in an on-going process of perpetual change, a constant interplay of opposites; Parmenides, on the other hand, using a complicated deductive argument, denied that there was any such thing as change at all, and argued that everything that exists is permanent, indestructible and unchanging.
This might sound like an unlikely proposition, but Parmenides’s challenge was well-argued and was important in encouraging other philosophers to come up with convincing counter-arguments. Zeno of Elea was a student of Parmenides, and is best known for his famous paradoxes of motion (the best known of which is that of the Achilles and the Hare), which helped to lay the foundations for the study of Logic. Their attempts were therefore important first steps in the development of philosophical thought.
They also set the stage for two other important Pre-Socratic philosophers: Empedocles, who combined their ideas into the theory of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire and water), which became the standard dogma for much of the next two thousand years; and Democritus, who developed the extremely influential idea of Atomism (that all of reality is actually composed of tiny, indivisible and indestructible building blocks known as atoms, which form different combinations and shapes within the surrounding void).
Another early and very influential Greek philosopher was Pythagoras, who led a rather bizarre religious sect and essentially believed that all of reality was governed by numbers, and that its essence could be encountered through the study of mathematics.
Classical Philosophy
Philosophy really took off, though, with Socrates and Plato in the 5th-4th Century B.C. (often referred to as the Classical or Socratic period of philosophy). His system, sometimes referred to as the Socratic Method, was to break problems down into a series of questions, the answers to which would gradually distill a solution. Although he was careful to claim not to have all the answers himself, his constant questioning made him many enemies among the authorities of Athens who eventually had him put to death.
Socrates himself never wrote anything down, and what we know of his views comes from the "Dialogues" of his student Plato, perhaps the best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of all time. In his writings, Plato blended Ethics, Metaphysics, Political Philosophy and Epistemology (the theory of knowledge and how we can acquire it) into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. He provided his important and famous theory of Forms and universals. Plato believed that virtue was a kind of knowledge (the knowledge of good and evil) that we need in order to reach the ultimate good, which is the aim of all human desires and actions. Plato's Political Philosophy was developed mainly in his famous "Republic", where he describes an ideal (though rather grim and anti-democratic) society composed of Workers and Warriors, ruled over by wise Philosopher Kings.
The third in the main trio of classical philosophers was Plato's student Aristotle. He created an even more comprehensive system of philosophy than Plato, encompassing Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, Metaphysics, Logic and science, and his work influenced almost all later philosophical thinking, particularly those of the Medieval period. Aristotle's system of deductive Logic, with its emphasis on the syllogism (where a conclusion, or synthesis, is inferred from two other premises, the thesis and antithesis), remained the dominant form of Logic until the 19th Century. Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that Form and Matter were inseparable, and cannot exist apart from each other.
He thought that happiness could best be achieved by living a balanced life and avoiding excess by pursuing a golden mean in everything (similar to his formula for political stability through steering a middle course between tyranny and democracy).
Other Ancient Philosophical Schools.
In the philosophical cauldron of Ancient Greece, though (as well as the Hellenistic and Roman civilizations which followed it over the next few centuries), several other schools or movements also held sway, in addition to Platonism and Aristotelianism:
Sophism (the best known proponents being Protagoras and Gorgias), which held generally relativistic views on knowledge and generally skeptical views on truth and morality (although, over time, Sophism came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in rhetoric and "excellence" or "virtue" for money).
Cynicism, which rejected all conventional desires for health, wealth, power and fame, and advocated a life free from all possessions and property as the way to achieving Virtue (a life best exemplified by its most famous proponent, Diogenes).
Skepticism (aka Pyrrhonism after the movement's founder, Pyrrho), which held that, because we can never know the true inner substance of things, only how they appear to us (and therefore we can never know which opinions are right or wrong), we should suspend judgement on everything as the only way of achieving inner peace.
Epicureanism (named for its founder Epicurus), whose main goal was to attain happiness and tranquility through leading a simple, moderate life, the cultivation of friendships and the limiting of desires (quite contrary to the common perception of the word "epicurean").
Hedonism, which held that pleasure is the most important pursuit of mankind, and that we should always act so as to maximize our own pleasure.
Stoicism developed by Zeno of Citium, and later espoused by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, which taught self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions in order to develop clear judgement and inner calm and the ultimate goal of freedom from suffering.
Neo-Platonism (developed out of Plato's work, largely by Plotinus), which was a largely religious philosophy which became a strong influence on early Christianity (especially on St. Augustine), and taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, from which the rest of the universe "emanates" as a sequence of lesser beings.
Required reading:
Luchte, James, Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn, in series, Bloomsbury Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2011. ISBN 978-0567353313
Couprie, D.L., R. Hahn, and G. Naddaf, Anaximander in Context. Albany 2003
"The Cyrenaics on Pleasure, Happiness, and Future-Concern," by Tim O'Keefe, Phronesis, vol. 47 no. 4 (2002), 395-416.
Trépanier, S. Empedocles: An Interpretation (London, 2004)
Furley, David. Anaxagoras, “Plato and Naming of Parts.” Presocratic Philosophy. Eds. Victor Caston and Daniel W. Graham. Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002. 119-126.
Sider, David. The Fragments of Anaxagoras. 2nd ed. revised. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2005
Aristotle, Poetics, Joe Sachs (trans.), Focus Philosophical Library, Pullins Press, 2006.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Joe Sachs (trans.), Focus Philosophical Library, Pullins Press, 2002.
Reeve, C.D.C. Plato. The Republic. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004).
Susanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Reale, Giovanni. 1990. A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 4. The Schools of the Imperial Age. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. [Edited. & translated by John R. Catan].
Russell, B: "A History of Western Philosophy". Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1972
Optional reading:
Ahbel-Rappe, Sara, and Rachana Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
Morrison, Donald R., The Cambridge Companion to Socrates (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Rudebusch, George, Socrates (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).
Bobonich, Christopher. Plato’s Utopia Recast (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Schofield, Malcolm. Plato: Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
Barney, R. 2006. ‘The Sophistic Movement’, in M.L. Gill and P. Pellegrin (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, 77-97. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rijk, Lambertus Marie de. Aristotle: Semantics and Ontology. Boston, M.A.: Brill, 2002.
Smith, Robin. “Aristotle’s Logic,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. E, Zalta. ed. Stanford, CA., 2000, 2007.
Caston, Victor. 1999. "Something and Nothing: The Stoics on concepts and universals" Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy17: 145-213.
Sihvola, Juha and Engberg-Pedersen, Troels (eds.) 1998. The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Lecture 4. Medieval Philosophy (Arab-Muslim and Christian philosophy)
The problem of the relation of faith and reason in scholasticism.
The meaning and significance of proofs of God's existence in medieval philosophy.
Avicennism: reconcile aristotelianism and neo-platonism with Islamic theology.
Averroism and the theory of “double truth”.
Orthodoxal Islamic doctrine and Sufism.
After about the 4th or 5th Century A.D., Europe entered the so-called Dark Ages, during which little or no new thought was developed. By the 11th Century, though, there was a renewed flowering of thought, both in Christian Europe and in Muslim and Jewish Middle East.
The Medieval period of philosophy represents a renewed flowering of Western philosophical thought after the intellectual drought of the Dark Ages. The early Christian theologians St. Augustine and Boethius represent a link between the Roman and Medieval periods, and arguably had more in common with the later medieval philosophers than with the earlier Romans (where they have been included for the purposes of this guide).
An important development in the Medieval period was the establishment of the first universities with professional full-time scholars. Establishment of the first universities was an important factor in the subsequent development of philosophy. It should also be noted that there was also a strong resurgence in Islamic and Jewish philosophy at this time.
The most influential movements of the period were Scholasticism and its off-shoots Thomism and Scotism, and the Islamic schools of Averroism, Avicennism and Illuminationism. Scholasticism tried to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers (particularly Aristotle) with Christian theology. The Scholastic method was to thoroughly and critically read the works of renowned scholars, note down any disagreements and points of contention, and then resolve them by the use of formal Logic and analysis of language.
St. Anselm (best known as the originator of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God by abstract reasoning alone) is often regarded as the first of the Scholastics, and St. Thomas Aquinas (known for his five rational proofs for the existence of God, and his definition of the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues) is generally considered the greatest, and certainly had the greatest influence on the theology of the Catholic Church.
Other important Scholastics included Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. Each contributed slight variations to the same general beliefs. Roger Bacon was something of an exception, and actually criticized the prevailing Scholastic system, based as it was on tradition and scriptural authority.
The Scholastic method is to thoroughly and critically read a book by a renowned scholar or author (e.g. The Bible, texts of Plato or St. Augustine, etc), reference any other related documents and commentaries on it, and note down any disagreements and points of contention.
Among the great Islamic philosophers of the Medieval period were Avicenna (11th century, Persian) and Averroes (12th century, Spanish/Arabic). Avicenna tried to reconcile the rational philosophy of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism with Islamic theology, and also developed his own system of Logic, known as Avicennian Logic. He also introduced the concept of the "tabula rasa" (the idea that humans are born with no innate or built-in mental content), which strongly influenced later Empiricists like John Locke.
Averroes's translations and commentaries on Aristotle (whose works had been largely lost by this time) had a profound impact on the Scholastic movement in Europe, and he claimed that Avicenna's interpretations were a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism.
Avicenna argued that some existing thing must necessitate, impart, give or add existence to an essence and that "essence precedes existence" (Essentialism).
Later in the 12th Century, the Sufi mystic Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (1155-1191) developed Illuminationism, a combination of Avicennism and ancient Persian philosophy, along with many new innovative ideas of his own. However, Avicennism was also criticized by several Muslim theologians.
Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149-1209) and the Ash'ari theologians objected to Avicennism mainly on the grounds of its inconsistencies with the Qur'an and Hadith. Al-Ghazali's famous work "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" was specifically aimed at Avicenna, particularly his assertions that the world has no beginning in the past and is not created in time, that God's knowledge includes only classes of beings and not individual beings (universals not particulars), and that after death the souls of humans will never again return into bodies.
In the 17th Century, Mulla Sadra (c. 1571-1640) combined the vision of Sufi metaphysics with some of the rationalistic approach of Avicenna, eventually leading to a whole new philosophy known as Transcendent Theosophy. However, he opposed Avicennism's Essentialism, and espoused the opposite idea of "existence precedes essence", a key foundational concept of later Existentialism.
Averroes believed that Scripture sometimes uses metaphorical language, and that those without the philosophical training to appreciate the true meaning of the passages in question are obliged to believe the literal meaning. Siger expanded this to claim that there exists a "double truth": a factual or "hard" truth that is reached through science and philosophy, and a "religious" truth that is reached through religion.
The Roman Catholic Church in the ecclesiastical centres of Paris and Oxford condemned 219 of Averroes' theses in 1277.
Despite the condemnations, many Averroistic theses survived to the 16th Century and can be found in the philosophies of Italian Renaissance thinkers like Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) and Cesare Cremonini (1550-1631), who talked about the superiority of philosophers to the common people and the relation between the intellect and human dignity.
Some scholars consider Averroes to be the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe.
The Jewish philosopher Maimonides also attempted the same reconciliation of Aristotle with the Hebrew Scriptures around the same time.
Required Readings:
St. Augustine. The City of God Against the Pagans, translated by R.W. Dyson, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, Cambridge University Press 1998.
St. Augustine. Against the Academicians and The Teacher, translated by Peter King, Hackett Publishing Company, 1995
St. Augustine. Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick, Oxford University Press, 1991.
John Scottus Eriugena. Treatise on Divine Predestination, with an Introduction by Avital Wohlman, Brennan, Mary, (tr.) (1998). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Abelard, P. Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian (or Collationes). Orlandi, G. and J. Marenbon (trans).Peter Abelard: Collationes. Oxford medieval texts. (Oxford: Clarendon 2001) also translated in Spade 1995.
Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works. Trans. Brian Davies and Gillian Evans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)
Duns Scotus, John. Philosophical Writings (1987). Trans. and ed. Allan Wolter. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Boehner, Philotheus, ed. & trans. 1990. William of Ockham: Philosophical Writings, rev. ed. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett. (Original edition, London: Thomas Nelson, 1957.) Selections from several texts.
McInerny, Ralph, 1998. Thomas Aquinas Selected Writings. London: Penguin Classics.
Gilson, Etienne, 2002. Thomism: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Trans. L.K. Shook and A. Mauer. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.
Optional reading:
King, Peter (2003). “Scotus on Metaphysics,” Chapter 1 in Williams [2003], 15-68.
Pasnau, Robert (2003). “Cognition,” Chapter 9 in Williams [2003], 285-311.
Panaccio, Claude, 2012. “Ockham's Externalism.” In Gyula Klima (ed.) [2012], Intentionality, Cognition and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy, Ney York: Fordham University Press.
Dewan, Lawrence, 2006. Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Jensen, Steven J., 2010 Good and Evil Actions: A Journey Through Saint Thomas Aquinas. Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Carlson, John W., 2012. Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary of the Perennial Tradition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Cessario, Romanus, O.P., 2003. A Short History of Thomism. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
Haldane, John (ed.), 2002. Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Kerr, Fergus (ed.), 2002. After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Malden: Blackwell.
Tatakis, B., Byzantine Philosophy, tr. N.J. Moutafakis (Indianapolis: Hackett 2003).
Required Readings:
Avicenna, 2005, The Metaphysics of The Healing: A Parallel English-Arabic Text, M.E. Marmura (ed. and trans.). Provo (Utah): Brigham Young University Press.
al-Ghazâlî, 2000, The Incoherence of the Philosophers / Tahâfut al-falâsifa, a Parallel English-Arabic Text, M. E. Marmura (ed. and trans.), 2nd. ed., Provo (Utah): Brigham Young University Press.
Ibn Rushd, Decisive Treatise & Epistle Dedicatory. C. Butterworth (trans.). (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2001).
Ibn Rushd, Faith and Reason in Islam [al-Kashf]. I. Najjar (trans.). (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001).
J. Lameer, Conception and Belief in Sadr al-Din Shirazi (Tehran: Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 2005).
Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Ibrahim Kalin, Metaphysical Penetrations: A Parallel English-Arabic Text by Mulla Sadra (Provo: Brigham Young Press, 2013).
Colin Turner, Challenging Islamic Fundamentalism: The Three Principles of Mulla Sadra (London: Routledge, 2011).
Optional Readings
Adamson, P. (2007) Al-Kindi (New York: Oxford University Press).
David Reisman and Ahmed al-Rahim (eds), Before and After Avicenna, Leiden/Boston, 2003.
O. Leaman, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Christian Jambet, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra. Jeff Fort (trans.). (New York: Zone Books, 2006).
Ibrahim Kalin, Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy. Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
Muhammad Kamal. From Essence to Being: The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra and Martin Heidegger (London: ICAS Press, 2010).
Sayeh Meisami, Mulla Sadra (Oxford: Oneworld, 2013).
Mohammed Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012).
Lecture 5. Philosophy of the Renaissance