Introduction to Philosophy (PHI 2010) TR 12:30-1:45 Dodd Hall Auditorium DHA Prof. Justin Leiber
(jleiber@fsu.edu) Office hrs: Office hrs T 10-12:15, R 3:30-4:15 & by appointment; 283 Dodd Hall
TAs: Caitlin Adams (csa04@fsu.edu) 322 DIF
Gabriel De Marco (mgd05@fsu.edu) 419 A/B DIF
Texts : Plato, Republic (
this translation by
Reeve. Page numbers, terminology will differ if you use another text;
also there is a very
helpful Introduction and Synopsis).
Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge MA: Hackett, 1993).
Justin Leiber, Can Animals and Machines Be Persons?
(Cambridge MA: Hackett, 1985)
Leiber Home Page [LHP] (Google
Leiber, J. or go to Philosophy Dept. > Faculty > Leiber > Home Page).
Jan.4. Philosophy: the
word, the subject, and a short history. Course stuff. Texts. People. True/false
statements, valid/invalid/sound
arguments or proofs. IntroPhilNotes.htm. Bring texts to class!
Jan.6. The Ancient Greeks:
the beginning of sciences, universities, democracy, literature, Olympics,
art, tragedy, and nudity. It only happened once. “Philosophy Addict”
(LHP). Republic ix-xxxiv.
Jan.11. Elenchus and
Dialectic. Early and Late Dialogues. Plato/Socrates, Cephalus, Polemarchus,
Thrasymachus, Glaucon, Adeimantus. . Each character has a revealing name and a characteristic
viewpoint! Elenchus practiced on definitions of justice. 20 Century scientists who have
“Plato’s problem”:
Lawrence Kohlberg; Noam Chomsky.If knowledge is built up by generalizing from specific facts,
why is geometry the first science? Republic 1-35
Jan.13-27. Justice,
individual and social (individual writ large). Minimal state, luxurious state,
and the just state (history and
models). The principle of the state. Three classes, three
virtues. Education is key. Children's
stories, Education, Stage (75), Music (81), Eugenics (148-152),
Equal opportunity, Tracking, Meritocracy,
Treatment of women (143-145) and children (136-137).
(compare with Athens of Plato's day).
Justice in the state and the individual General solution: Kallipolis
and the Just Person. Republic Books II, III, IV and V (except
characterization of philosophers.)
Feb 1. In class essay exam.
Feb.3-15. The philosopher
(higher education). Forms of cognition,
Allegory of the
Cave.
Platonism assessed. Compare with Aristotle, Democratus, Protagoras, but also
with
Kohlberg, Chomsky, Fodor. Enduring influence of Republic on
Christianity, political theory, &
practice, academic curriculum & psychology/mathematics. Plato in
historical and philosophical
context.
Republic V, VI, VII & X. (Skim
VIII & VIV).
Feb.17. In
class essay exam.
Feb.22-March 17. Modern Era. Descartes and his
solution. Systematic individual doubt. Meditations
vii-17.
Mind/body problem. Dualism. Cogito Ergo Sum! Mental and Physical
Substances know through native
reason
not through the senses. [digression on
Rationalism and Empiricism (Nativism and Behaviorism)
and on
Chomsky, Skinner, and physicalism.] Meditations,
17-24, 47-59. Proofs of the existence of God:
cause-of-the-idea argument of III
(24-35); ontological and cause-of- my-mind arguments.
empiricist’s arguments.
Critique of arguments. (take home exam essays due March 22).
March 24-April 14. Can animals and machines be persons?
Mary Godwin and Peter Goodman. The chimpanzee/parrot
evidence. Is language uniquely human? Could computers think (the
Descartes/Turing test)? Slippery
slope
argument examined. Do we have a future? Arguments from solipsism, Chinese room,
the cast-of-millions.
April 19. Evaluations and Review.
April.21. In
class essay exam. Not a final, not cumulative. (final exam period is
unused).
Essential Contemporary Cast for
Republic: Noam Chomsky, Sigmund Freud,
Essential Ancient Cast: Sophocles
(Oedipus), Aristophanes, Democritus, Plato (Socrates), Aristotle
Essential Moderns and Contemporaries:
Galileo, Descartes, Isaac Newton, John Locke, Bishop Berkeley, David Hume,
Spinoza, Leibniz; Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Alan Turing
Course Description. Historically, the word “philosophy” stood for all
systematic, rational inquiry (physics, mathematics, biology, psychology,
political science, ethics, etc.). The
most general questions philosophers took up were
1)
What is real and fundamental and what is just
appearance? (metaphysics) –
e.g. “Is the red I see when I look at a red ball real or is it just the subjective reaction inside my brain when my
retinal cells are hit by photons?”
or “Does the number 2, as
in 2+3=5, really stand for something or
is it just a mark on paper?” or “Are my conscious mental states
real in themselves or are they
‘just states’ of my brain as I subjectively experience them?”
2)
How do I really know that the world of persons, of physical
objects, or of numbers really
exists? (epistemology) – e.g.,
“Can I ever really know what you are thinking as I indeed know what I am
thinking?” or “How do I know that 2+3=5?—through my senses?
Or is it ‘self-evident’ or ‘native to my reasoning
faculty’?’”
3)
What is a good life like? What should people do with
their lives? Are moral and political views just
subjective opinions.
When physicist Isaac Newton
asked, “Is gravity a real force?,” he was called a “natural
philosopher,” but by 1800s, with the growth of modern universities,
linguistic usage began to switch to using the word “philosophy” in
a narrower sense to mean only the
these most general questions; nonetheless, physicists, mathematicians, and
political scientists today ask, and write about, these questions, along with
the generalists we still call “philosophers.” Accordingly, course readings will begin with
a classical Greek philosopher, Plato, whose work is still worth examination
today (the world’s leading linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky
says “I am trying to answer Plato’s problem”; we will then
examine the work of seventeenth century Rene Descartes, who has been called the
founder of scientific physiology as well as a profound philosopher who wrestled
with questions that trouble cognitive science today; and end with a twentieth
century dialogue titled “Can Animals and Machines Be Persons?”
Course Objectives: By the end of this course you will have an active grasp of how the deep
questions about reality and appearance, about the relationship between the
physical, cognitive and moral sciences, have been addressed through the ages in
a way that emphasizes the unity of philosophy and the sciences. You will learn the strengths and weaknesses
of these views and of how they arose historically and how they engage us today.
You will learn to distinguish truth from validity and argument from proof. You
will improve your skill in detecting and understanding arguments and proofs,
and discourse structure.
Teaching Assistants. The TAs Caitlin Adams and Gabriel De Marco, will grade
some of the exams. All three of us will meet with you during our office, or by
appointment, hours to answer questions, review course material, etc. All three
of us are also available through e-mail.
Finding us: The
main entrance to Dodd Hall (off
Required Work: To
earn a grade you must complete the in-class essay exams and the take-home essay
assignment. Each in-class essay exam will ask you to answer 2-4 questions and a
few short answer questions. Each exam will concern material covered since the
previous exam. The take-home essay assignment will ask you to cover questions
from a list provided. Use your spell checker for the take-homes.
Grades: All
grades will be according to the plus-minus system. Your final grade will be determined by your exam grades. Each will
determine 20% of your grade, with the remaining 10% determined by attendance
and class participation. Your final grade will be determined by an average
of your four grades; it may be higher depending on my curve (but never lower
than the average). When grading, we look for accuracy, relevance, clarity,
organization, and well-defended judgements.
Attendance: 8%
of your grade will be determined by attendance. A cut of a regular class will
count 1 against you and 1/2 for a discussion section. You will be dropped for
more than 5 unexcused negative points. Exception: if you are maintaining an A
or A- grade, your cuts will not count against you.
Make-ups and final exam: There is no final exam for this course.
Honor Code and
Plagarism: The FSU Honor Code Policy
outlines the University’s expectations for the integrity of
students’ academic work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations,
and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout
the process. You are responsible for reading the Academic Honor Policy. If we
believe you have plagiarized in written work, we will discuss this with you. If
there is a disagreement (between you and me) or a finding (in a hearing) that
you have committed plagiarism, you will received an ‘F’ for the
course. (Practically speaking, lifting a sentence or even a phrase or two from
the web or another student’s essay can stick out like a sore thumb.)
USEFUL MATERIALS: I) Sample 1st and 2nd
exam questions; II) An important passage in Aristotle;
1. Here are some sample 1st questions. Instructions: Answer question 0 and two of the
questions 1-7. Do not answer more than three questions!
Do not write the questions down, just number your answers.
0) Distinguish true/false
from valid/invalid. What is a sound argument? Distinguish empirical truths from
necessary/logical truths.
1) What features of ancient
Greek civilization are our universal heritage? What features were, largely,
peculiar to their culture? What features of Greek history give support to
Plato's characterization of the minimal and luxurious state?
2) In Bk 2 Socrates switches from the just man to talking about the just state.
How does he describe and how does he justify this switch (both explicitly
& implicitly)? What is the general strategy of the argument that
begins with the question as to whether the just man (with bad reputation, etc.)
will be happy? In general how reasonable is it to make an analogy between
the individual and the state? How does Thomas Hobbes make this analogy?
3) Explain Socrates' plans for the education of the general populace of his
kallipolis including at least the following: food & drink, music, the
form and content of story-telling, drama, & religion. Also
indicate and give Plato's justification for the unusual features of kallipolis
respecting gender, eugenics, euthanasia, and parenting.
4) Describe the first, minimal state (including its basic principle). Why does
it evolve into the luxurious state? What problem does this state face
& how might dealing with this problem lead to the kallipolis? Explain
what moderation, courage, wisdom, and justice amount to in the kallipolis,
indicating the place the "myth of the metals" plays in the ideal
state.
5) How does Plato argue that individual humans have a tripart soul (with what
entity is each part metaphorically linked)? Compare and contrast
his version with Freud in as much detail as you can manage (to remind you
of Freud's terminology, he speaks of "ego," "id,"
and "superego").
6) What do the various characters represent? How does Socrates deal with the
three definitions of justice that are offered in Book I? How does the dialogue
form fit Plato's view of reality and knowledge?
7) Recapitulate Sophocles Oepidus Rex. How does Aristotle explain
the play’s emotional impact and usefulness? Why does Plato think it
dangerous to act in the play? Why would he ban it from public performance in
the Kallipolis?
Here are some sample 2nd exam questions. Answer all questions (1-3); 1) How do professors Chomsky (what say about language
development; against behaviorism) and Kohlberg (give stages in individuals and
societies) exemplify the enduring insights of Plato?
2)
Indicate what the various items in the allegory of the cave stand for &
what the allegory explains in general about human cognition and science
(and in particular about Socrates' own career). What are the four levels of
cognition in Bk 6? Give examples of cognition at each level. Relate to the
stages in the education of the citizens in general and the guardians in
particular. What role could the dialogue itself play in the educational
system?
3) Compare & contrast Plato's most general views with those of Democritus.
What crucial ingredient does modern biology add to the materialism of
Democritus?
II) Here are some words of Aristotle relevant to the last question
above. Can you see, in modern terms, what view Aristotle is rejecting and why
he is rejecting it?
Aristotle, Bk 2, Physics. We
must explain then (1) that Nature belongs to the class of causes which
act for the sake of something; (2) about the necessary and its place in physical problems, for all writers ascribe things to this
cause, arguing that since the hot and the cold, &c., are of
such and such a kind, therefore certain things necessarily are
and come to be-and if they mention any other cause (one his
'friendship and strife', another his 'mind'), it is only to
touch on it, and then good-bye to it.
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the
sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What
is drawn up must cool, and what has been cooled must become
water and descend, the result of this being that the corn
grows. Similarly if a man's crop is spoiled on the
threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this-in order
that the crop might be spoiled-but that result just followed. Why then
should it not be the same with the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth
should come up of necessity-the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food-since they
did not arise for this end, but it was merely a coincident
result; and so with all other parts in which we suppose that
there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just
what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such
things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting
way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish,
as Empedocles says his 'man-faced ox-progeny' did.
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty
on this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true
view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally
come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or
spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do;
nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter. If
then, it is agreed that things are either the result of
coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of
coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an
end; and that such things are all due to nature even the
champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action
for an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.
III) Over the last five decades, the
Psychological and Cognitive Sciences revived Platonism or more generally
Rationalism, as opposed to the Behaviorism, the dominant view in the first half
of the 20th Century. In 1960, a lengthy article by linguist Noam
Chomsky, “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior,” led the charge against Behaviorism (see
link below). I have also placed a
short encyclopedia article about Chomsky below. While Chomsky put new life into
a Platonist view of language acquisition, Lawrence Kohlberg made a related
attempt to show that morality, and the ordered sequence of its acquisition, are
built into the normal human’s development. If you google Noam Chomsky or
Lawrence Kohlberg you will find a wealth of material.
Notes
on Kohlberg and Review of Review of Verbal Behavior
Modern comment:
Preconventional
Level
Stage 1: The
Stage of Punishment and Obedience
Stage 2: The Stage of Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
Conventional
Level
Stage 3: The
Stage of Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships and Conformity
Stage 4: The Stage of Social System and Conscience Maintenance
Postconventional
Level
Stage 5: The Stage
of Prior Rights and Social Contract or Utility [Utilitarianism and/or Social Contract]
Stage 6: The Stage of Universal Ethical Principles [Immanuel Kant; Kantianism]
No
preliterate society reaches beyond "help friends; hurt enemies"; law
is law.]
Chomsky,
Noam.
International
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity,
Jr.. Vol. 1. 2nd ed.
Born in Philadelphia in 1928, Chomsky pursued
his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied
with Zellig Harris, a structural linguist who saw linguistics as the compact
description of a community’s time-bound finite corpus of utterances
(literally, sonic sequences of supposed phonetic atoms). Chomsky completed his
graduate work while a Junior Fellow at
The opening three sentences of Syntactic Structures tersely render his formalized, mentalist, and nativist view:
Syntactical investigation of a given language
has as its goal the construction of a device for producing the sentences of the
language under investigation.… The ultimate outcome of [such] investigations
should be a theory of linguistic structures in which the descriptive devices
utilized in particular grammars are presented and studied abstractly.…
One function of this theory is to provide a general method for selecting a
grammar for each language, given a corpus of this language. (Chomsky 1957, p.
x)
Formally speaking, one cannot describe a
human language by listing its sentences, simply because there are an infinite
number of them. One must therefore describe a device that would generate these,
and only these, sentences. This “device” would display the
knowledge that a competent human speaker of this language has. Language is the
device, the internal brain/mind device, not the finite behavioral outputs that
this device, coupled with others, produces. Linguistics is thus a branch of
psychology.
Behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner thought
that knowledge of language consisted of associations between particular words
(heard sound sequences). Through repetition, humans learn the sound sequences
“How are you,” “I would like a red apple,” and “I
am fine,” but not “Are you how,” “Red a like would I
apple,” “Am fine I,” and so on. An associative grammar like
this is called finite state grammar; it fits well with the empiricist
notion that humans learn everything through (sequences of) sensory experience,
and it makes no use of “dubious” abstractions such as noun,
pronoun, verb, auxiliary verb, or adjective.
Yet there is massive evidence that people
routinely produce new sentences that they have never heard before and that have
never been produced in the history of their language. Even if sentences are
limited to fifteen words or less, there are literally trillions of different
but perfectly grammatical sentences of English. In fact, Chomsky gave a decisive
formal proof that no human language could be generated by a finite-state
grammar. We simply have to internalize at least a phrase structure
grammar that makes use of rules that deal in abstract categories such as noun
phrase, verb phrase, noun, pronoun, verb, auxiliary verb, adjective, and so on.
Indeed, Chomsky proved that even a phrase-structure grammar is not all that is
needed, and that the surface structure of a sentence is not a reliable guide to
its deeper features.
Human languages have in common many
principles and processes, word forms and structures, and rules and features.
What the linguist describes, therefore, belongs to human language as much as to
a particular language (abstracting, of course, from the peculiarities of
particular idiolects and dialects toward humanly universal cognition). Indeed,
every one of the hundreds of human language that has been described makes use
of the same phrase-structural concepts of noun phrase, verb phrase, pronoun,
verb, adjective, and so on. In the linguistic theory of the last two decades,
it appears that a small number of principles and initial parameter settings
determine every aspect of grammar that makes a human language and
differentiates it from other human languages (a good thing, too, because the human
baby seems equally prepared to take on any human language to which it is
exposed). Chomsky has speculated that a Martian anthropologist would regard all
human languages as essentially the same language.
“A general method for selecting a
grammar for each language,” given a sample corpus, would also be the
knowledge a human child brings to the samples of a language to which the child
is exposed. A vast body of evidence about child language development has
persuaded nearly all linguists and cognitive scientists that the human child is
preprogrammed with a “language acquisition device.” To give an
example from personal experience that is familiar to investigators of language
learning, the two-year-old daughter of this author, Casey, exploded into using
auxiliary verbs and tag negations over the space of two weeks, saying “I
am going,” “I can’t,” “Susan isn’t
here.” All of the auxiliary verbs came in at virtually the same time, and
Casey tag-negated only those verbs, no others: She never said “I
eatn’t,” “I gon’t,” “Susan
walkn’t,” or “The cat grabn’t the bird.” She also
said “I amn’t” and “I am going, amn’t I.”
No one around Casey ever said “amn’t,” but she went on
happily using the construction, and it wasn’t until she started school
two years later that she realized no one else talked that way. Of course, Casey
was doing what comes naturally. In some sense, she (or some part of her
brain/mind) knew what auxiliary verbs and regular verbs were, and she knew that
you could tag-negate (put “n’t” after) auxiliaries but not
after other verbs. She also never said “I am going, aren’t
I,” because she knew that “am” is a singular verb, that
“are” is a plural verb, and that “I,” being a singular
pronoun, could not take a plural verb (“are”).
Now, of course, Casey had never heard the
English words “noun,” “verb,” “auxiliary
verb,” “tag-negate,” “pronoun,”
“plural,” or “singular.” Nonetheless, she (or some part
of her brain) knew perfectly well the word kinds that these English words name,
just as a monolingual speaker of Urdu knows what nouns, pronouns, and verbs
are, although he may have no idea what spoken label (in Urdu or English) to use
for these perfectly familiar word kinds. It is this sense of knowing, of
linguistic competence, that linguistics now clearly emphasizes.
But how did Casey know about
these things when no one around her ever tried to explain them to her? The
linguist’s answer is that hearing something is an auxiliary verb or a
pronoun is just like seeing that something is a red ball or a small animal. So Casey,
just like any other human child whether in a literate or tribal community,
identified the different word kinds present in her environment, although no one
was explicitly coaching her to do this. She recognized that auxiliary verbs,
but not other verbs, could be tag-negated, so she said “I
amn’t,” just as she said “I can’t” or “He
isn’t,” because she saw that “am” was an auxiliary
verb, and so could be tagged with “n’t.” Speaking and hearing
a natural language is a competence acquired naturally (in the first several
years of life), while reading and writing
requires—unfortunately—years of effort and explicit instruction.
Similarly, our basic visual/motor competencies come to us naturally in our
first years. Our recently burgeoning “cognitive sciences” attend to
this central aspect of being human, the characteristic competencies or
faculties that make us homo sapiens.
Chomsky maintains that his work in
linguistics, and cognitive science generally, have virtually no connection with
his political and moral views—views for which he claims no expertise,
although he has published countless articles, books, interviews, and
commentaries on political and moral matters. He claims no professional
expertise in such matters because he believes that no one really has such
expertise. To Chomsky, political and moral matters can and must be understood
by all citizens, not just by elites or would-be professional apologists for
elites (or, more particularly, corporate wealth and power). Chomsky rose to
public attention (and the Nixon White House’s “enemies” list)
for his opposition to the Vietnam War, although his subsequent opposition to
Barsky, Robert. 1997. Noam Chomsky: A Life
of Dissent.
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures.
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory
of Syntax.
Leiber, Justin. 1975. Noam Chomsky: A
Philosophic Overview.
Justin Leiber