Search for Truth- Final Exam

What is Philosophy?

the love of wisdom

Why take search for truth (practical)

• trains critical thinking skills

• teaches how to read difficult texts

• helps us live a virtuous life

Why take search for truth (theoretical) (3)

• teaches us to love wisdom

• gives new and deeper meaning perspectives on life/truth

• changes your life

three types of philosophy

• meatphysics (study of being)

• epistemology (study of knowledge)

• ethics (morality)

perspectivalism

depending on where you are and where you come from changes your perspective

• chair example

What is philosphy (pieper)

stepping out of the work-a-day world

• the cycle everyone follows/the common need

• the common need is NOT the common good

What pulls us out of the workaday world

• philosophical act (

• religious act

• aesthetic act

• existential shock of love and death

Where does philosophy begin (pieper)

wonder

• lack of knowing drives us to explore as well as the hope and joy of finding the new

  • some argue comes from doubt, but Pieper doesn’t

Anselm background

Anselm of Canterbury

• 1033-1109

• born in italy

• Benedictine abby in Normandy

point on Anselm when he was at Benedictine Abby in Normandy

• became the abbot and archbishop but was exiled because the king wanted to be head of church

What did anselm write

• monologian (1075-1076)

• proslgion(1077-1078)

Anselm’s method

faith seeking understanding (fides quadis intellectum)

• use reason to understand God (motivated by religion)

what is the goal of Anselm’s method

discover more about faith

• apply dialectic/reason to faith

  • It’s our duty as christians to use reason to understand God

Def of Monologion

Word to the self

Purpose of Monologian (+3)

show that God exists using reason alone

• ramblings to himself

• use logic and rational arguments

• faith and reason can work together

Def of Proslogion

word to others

purpose of the Proslogion

tries to narrow down purpose that was not as specific in Monologion

• ontological argument

Proslogion (3)

• show how faith seeks understanding

• has prayer (reasons about God and addresses him direstly)

• Explore God’s nature (perfect, necessary, eternal)

Monologion vs. Proslogion (in short)

monologion- many arguments; more detached and analytical

proslogion- one central argument; more personal; refelctive; prayer-like

ontological argument

God is “that than which nothing great can be conceived”

• Such a being must exsist in reality, not just in the mind

Ontological argument (summary)

if truly understand what God is (greatest possible being) = God can’t just be imaginary (He must exist)

anselm’s def of God

God is “that than which nothing graeter can be conceived”

Anselm: even someone who denies God..

understands this idea (they can recognize we needed to come from something)

Anselm- a being that exists in reality is greater than…

one that exsists only in the mind

Anselm- if God existed only in the mind then..

we could imagine something greater

• this means God exists in reality

Gaunilo’s objectoin

If you put an island into anselm’s argument then anything can exist

Gaunilo’s island example

• imagine most perfect island ever

• According to Anselm’s logic, you can think a more perfect island into exsistance because nothing in the mind can be greater than reality

Anselm’s response to Gaunilo

can’t use this argument for a topinc which nothing greater can be thought (the island can kepp getting better in our mind, but God can’t becasue he is already perfect)

aquinas years

1225-1274

Aquinas- self evidence of God

both self-evident and not

First way Aquinas thinks God is self-evident

per se notum secundum se

• through itself known according to itself

• God is self-evident through himself

second way God is self-evident

per se notum quad nos

• through itself known as for as us

• it is self evident in itself and to us

Yes and no to Go’d self-evidence (aquinas)

yes: God is his own exsistence

no: needs to be proven

• says can’t have an idea and jump to saying it exsists

How does Aquinas think we can prove Go'd’s exsistence?

by looking at his effects on Earth

two points on God’ existence

1. God exists

   1. self-evident but not necessarily to us

2. Can be demonstrated

   1. apriori and aposteriori

two ways God can be demonstrated

• aprioria

• aposteriori

apriori

prior to experince

• doesn’t hink God can be proved

Aposteriori

after experience

• God can be proved this way

Five ways God can be proven to exist (aquinis)

1. things move'

2. there are efficent causes

3. somethingns don’t have to exist

4. cause of all perfection, goodness, (ect.) is God

5. things tha lack intelligence seem to go towards an end purpose

the first three of the five ways God can be proven to exisits are what kind of arguments

cosmological arguments

the fifth argument for the five ways God can be prove in what kind of argument

teleological argument

First argument for God’s exsistence (aquinis) (more details)

things move

• if something is in motion, something caused it to move

  • need somehtint to start movement

  • God is the first mover

second way God can be proved (details)

there are effcient causes

• There needs to be something that caused everything else to exist

• God is the efficient cause

third way God can be proven to exist (details)

somethings don’t have to exist

• there must be a being that can reason about why something should exist

fourth way God can be proved (details)

there is a degree of something’s “perfectness” meaning there needs to be a maximum perfect/good

• God is this maximum perfect/good

fifth way God can be proved (details)

teleolofical argument

• things that lack intelliegence seem to fo toward an end purpose

  • plants, animals, and planets all have a purpose

• somethings prupose/end can only be created by an intelligent being

  • There is an intelligent designer

Faith (aquinas)

a motion of the intellect and will

• we drift between formed and unformed faith

fideism

it is impious to reason about what ought to be taken on faith

faith (fiedism)

hope or trust in unseen things

Reason (fideism)

order, understanding, logic

Five views on reason and faith (fideism)

• rationalism

• dualism

• Identity

• Fideism

• Partial overlap

rationalism (fideism)

Don’t be certain about things unless you can prove it with reason

• reason has it’s limits and needs faith to help, but reason is what everything should be based on

Dualism (fideism)

Reason and faith are completely seperate things

Identity (fidism)

faith and reason are the same

fideism (fideism)

can’t prove anything by reason even if you think you can

• can only take religion on faith alone because God cannot be proven by rational logic

partial overlap (fideism)

some things can known either way

Who believes in partial over lap

anselm and aquinas

Who believes in fideism

Ockham

Ockham’s first problem of proving God’s existence

God is nobler and better than anything

• aquinas’s first thesis does not prove God exists in this way

• it also doesn’t prove there is only one God (there could be multiple

Fix

Ockham’s second problem proving God’s existence

nothing is better or more perfect

• Ockham believes this can prove God’ existence

• This doesn’t prove God is the most perfect thing (he could be tied with another/multiple)

Ockham’s belief regarding God’s existence

we cannot prove his existence

Ockhams’ problems of demonstrating things of faith

Ockham does not believe we can prove what we believe propter quiet a priori (prioir to our expereicnce) or Propter quia a posteriori (after our experince)

• he does not believe we can look at the cause to get the effects or vice versa

what do aquinas and anselm believe (demonstrating faith)

Aquinas: believes we can look at the effect and get the cause (posteriori) but not in priori (looking at cause to get the cause)

Anslelm believe you can look at both

what contrasts Scientism

truth is personal

Augustine’s belief and understanding

They are directly relevant to each other meaning you understand somehitng to believe in it and you believe something to understand it.

Themes of Truth as Personal (8)

• trust is transcendent (beyond us) and immanent (within us)

• truth is inside me adn outside me

• Truth brings rest and intoxication

• truth is evident in gifts given in body and mind

• truth is bread for my soul, light of my heart, and in the deepest part of my mind

• truth is what I long for/delight in

• truth is always with me

• truth is found in the most inward part of myself. It points to something higher than me

Augustine’s experience of personal truth

His introspection- looks into himself to find the truth to the world

• realizes his soul is divided

• the deeper he goes the more truth he finds (inner truth points to higher/larger truth)

• same as number 8

Heideggar’s method

Constantly asking questions and dissecting those questions

• breaks the question “what is called thinking” down into it’s seperatee words and what they could all mean to gain a better understanding of the question he is asking

• Phenomenology

phenomenology

study of what comes up in our day-to-day lives

Heiddegar’s understanding of human (3 questions and 1 point)

1. How do humans come to know the truth?

2. What are the structures that allow us to see meaning in the world?

3. What structures are in the world and which are in the mind that allow us to see meaning ni the world

• Not looking at humans as objects but as its relations with others and other things

  • we constantly use tools but only recognize it when they break

Heiddegars relaiotn between science adn thinking

Science does not think!!!

• There is a huge leap between science and thinking

Humans think, not science

Heideggar’s understanding of truth

truth is a revealing of beauty to us

• truth lets us see the beauty in things because we better understand them

Heideggar: thinking and being

Thinking is dwellingin being

• only humans can do this becasue they influence the world in the same way the world influences them

being =

given (gift)

• we create from waht was given (ex: making technology and science)

Heidegarr: waht is behind science

There are deeper question that we are unable to acheive because science does not think and Heiddegar believes what we are looking for is constantly turning away from us

• behind science is only what we think of as thinking as we search for “being” which is constantly turning away from us

Dasein

beibg there or here: dwelling upon

Literally means “there to be”

Scientism

any question that cannot be ansered scientifically has no certain answer

Scientific Determinism

scientific laws completely predict what has happened and what will happen

• all of the world adn the actions we make were causes of natural law

• disproves anything from being a miracle

Weak anthropic principles (def)

fine-tuning of rules that makes our existence possible

ex) of weak anthropic principles (4)

• distance of our planet from the sun (goldilocks zone)

• near circular orbit

• the sun’s mass

• age of the universe

these are known as lucky properties

strong anthropic principles (def

fine-tuning of the universe, including the laws of nature

example of strong anthropic prinicple

carbon present for life

Hawkings reason for existance

• M-theory

  • spontanious creation becasue of laws of physics

  • gavity and quantum mechanics

• We were created to survive and create more offspring (very animalistic)

M-theory

predicts that many universes were created out of nothing according to scientific law

• not suprising one is compataible for life

relativism

teaches that each belief is true only for the individual or culture that holds it

fideism

teaches that it is impious to reason about what ought to be taken on faith

purpose to plato’s republic

• define justice

• prove a just life is happier adn more profitable than an unjust one

  • uses an imaginary city to find these

Who wote the republic

plato

waht did aristotle write

nicomachean ethics

Who wrote Summa Theologica

aquinas

who argued for truth as supreme

plato and aristotle

(aristotle piggybacked off plato’s ideas beacue he lived later)

who supported relativism

hume

who supported truth as God

anselm, aquinas and stump (wrote about aquinas)

who argued fideism

ockham

who argued truth as personal

Augustine and heidegar

who argued against aristotle and plato

hume

who argued against anselm and aquinas

ockham

who argued against augustine and heideger

hawking