Chapter 3: Reality and Being

Kant

________ says when we act, we have to assume we are free, and when we try to explain our acts scientifi- cally, we have to assume we are determined.

Goodman

________ argues "we make what we find "in reality by "drawing certain boundaries rather than others "around things.

Husserl

________ asks us to "bracket "the natural standpoint by suspending judgment about whether the spatiotemporal world we experience really exists "out there ..

Ayers

________ "criterion of meaning "says a state- ment is meaningful only if it is a tautology (true by definition) or an empiri- cally verifiable statement (verifiable in principle by observation)

Dewey

According to ________, phi- losophy arises out of social and emotional material.

Carnap

________ argued that meaningless metaphysi- cal statements express emotions.

metaphysical statements

Because ________ are neither tautologies nor empirically verifiable, Ayer says they are meaningless.

Hobbes

________ concluded that measurable matter is all there is in the universe.

Metaphysics is the attempt to answer the question

What is real

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Robert Nozicks Experience Machine thought experiment

As the philosopher Robert Nozick has said, to say some

thing is real is to say it has "value, meaning, importance, and weight

Saint Augustine

the universe contains in itself every kind of spirit, low and high

There is only one valid source of knowledge

sense perception

Inductive Reasoning

generalizing about what we observe

Deductive Reasoning

appeals to general statements to reach logical conclusions

Matter has been dematerialized

not just as a philosophical concept, but as modern physics

George Berkeley

he did not deny the reality of the world perceive

Dependent on my mind

Subjective

Dependent on Gods mind

Objective

Yogacarin

truth through the practice of meditation

Vijnanavada

mind-only doctorine

James held that philosophy should not lose its connec

tion to personal and social problems

According to Dewey, phi

losophy arises out of social and emotional material

Carnap argued that meaningless metaphysi

cal statements express emotions

Critics of logical positiv

ism say that its criterion of meaning is unprovable and that if it is applied to itself, it implies that it is itself meaningless

Putnam argues that just as different systems of counting indicate that dif

ferent numbers of objects are in a container, what reality is depends on the system our minds use to describe it

Critics of Spender point out that if language cre

ated multiple realities that were all equally true, then the supposedly sexist reality created by sexist male language would be as true and acceptable as any other; sexism would not be an objective reality because there would be no one true objective reality

For Husserl, the "natural standpoint" is our normal awareness of the world spread out in space and time, with value charac

teristics and as something that exists "out there."

of philosophy is to study being, which is the indi

viduals very act of existing within the human world

If we are authentic, we respond with anxiety and face our responsi

bility for who we are; if inauthentic, we deny the present possibility of death and flee our responsibility for ourselves

is focused on (1) getting clarity about what to do, (2) understanding reality through subjectivity, and (3) overcoming the gap be

tween God and humanity

How we choose is more important than what we choose.Through our choices we become the person who we are

Our free choices bring us into existence

Critics say one can be in the mode of being-for

itself by freely choosing to be committed to a group where one gives up his freedom

But this contra

dicts Sartres view that to be a being-for-itself one must always remain free to choose

Darrow argued that their heredity and upbringing, together with the laws of causality, made Leopold and Loeb do what they did, so they were not mor

ally responsible for killing Bobbie Franks

Determinism holds that (1) human acts are caus

ally determined, (2) such determination rules out freedom and responsibility, so (3) humans are neither free nor responsible

(1) humans are free and responsible, (2) deter

minism rules out such freedom and responsibility, and (3) human acts are not causally determined

Critics say compatibilism ignores the real issue

Are we unfree in the sense that our acts are causally determined

Kant says when we act, we have to assume we are free, and when we try to explain our acts scientifi

cally, we have to assume we are determined

metaphysics

is the attempt to answer the question: What is real?

Saint Augustine

the universe contains in itself every kind of spirit, low and high

Eastern Materialism

we should seek our happiness in this material world and its physical pleasures

inductive reasoning

generalizing about what we observe

deductive reasoning

appeals to general statements to reach logical conclusions

western materialism

Democritus supported this with theory atoms and that all things had a purpose on the physical plane

idealism

Matter does not seem to account for everything. If we go far enough into thinking, only a mental state exists.

western idealism

The belief that realities essentially composed of minds, and their ideas, rather than matter

eastern idealism

Yogacarin: truth through the practice of meditation

pragmatic method

interprets an idea in terms of its practical consequences and asks what difference it would make if it were true.

Saint Augustine

Who’s reasoning is this: because God wanted to fill reality with goodness, he placed in the world every possible kind of creature that had the ability some to degree reality and therefore of goodness

Kirkegaard

Who followed this reasoning of philosophy?

* (1) getting clarity about what to do,
* (2) understanding reality through subjectivity
* (3) overcoming the gap between God and humanity.

Libertarians

Who holds that:

* (1) humans are free and responsible
* (2) determinism rules out such freedom and responsibility
* (3) human acts are not causally determined.

Compatibilists

Who held that:

* (1) human acts are causally determined
* (2) determinism does not rule out freedom and responsibility
* (3) humans are predetermined yet can be free and responsible.

criterion of meaning

says a statement is meaningful only if it is a tautology (true by definition) or an empirically verifiable statement (verifiable in principle by observation).

Determinism

theory argued that their heredity and upbringing, together with the laws of causality