Philosophy 024: Big Ideas

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Philosophy 024 Big Ideas Prof. Robert DiSalle
(rdisalle_at_uwo.ca) Talbot College 408,
519-661-2111 x85763 Office Hours Monday and
Wednesday 1130-1230 Course Website
http//instruct.uwo.ca/philosophy/024/
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Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) Being and Time
(1927) Basic Problems of Phenomenology
(1927) What is Metaphysics? (1929) Kant and the
Problem of Metaphysics (1929) An Introduction to
Metaphysics (1953) The End of Philosophy and the
Task of Thinking (1964)
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Some Background to Heidegger Phenomenology
Philosophical analysis of the nature and
qualities of immediate experience, and analysis
of objects solely as we are immediately conscious
of them-- not in relation to any possible
scientific understanding of them. Franz Brentano
(1838-1917) Psychology from an Empirical
Standpoint (1874) Edmund Husserl
(1859-1938) Logical Investigations (1913), Ideas
(1913)
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The phenomenological approach to philosophy
(phenomenological reduction) The natural
attitude Acceptance of the reality and
importance of ordinary material objects and the
ordinary concerns of life The phenomenological
attitude Bracketing the reality of the things
of ordinary life, and considering them only as
they are in themselves-- that is, as objects of
our immediate awareness or thought. Phenomenologic
al reduction separates philosophical analysis
from psychology and all other empirical sciences,
because it isolates the analysis of experience
from all presuppositions about material nature
and existence.
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More background to Heidegger Existentialism
The idea that human existence is a peculiar kind
of existence in and for itself. Existing
things in general are determined by their own
essences, by other things, and by conditions
imposed by nature and history. Essence precedes
existence. Human existence is open and
undetermined. The essence of a human being is
shaped by the decisions and commitments made in
an individual life. Existence precedes
essence. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Either-Or (1843), Fear and Trembling
(1843) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) Thus
Spoke Zarathustra (1883), The Anti-Christ (1888)
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The predicament of human existence Our
experience of existence is inherently
subjective. But our sense of the meaning of
existence comes from the sense of connection to
something objective philosophical or moral
principles, religious ideas, etc. The
subjectivity of experience and knowledge means
that we must always be in doubt about the
objective ground of our own existence and its
meaning. Individuals must determine their own
authentic response to the meaning of life and
the nothingness of death.
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Kierkegaard Overcoming the human predicament may
require an irrational leap of faith, based in
passion rather than thought. The story of Abraham
and Isaac Abraham must decide whether universal
moral principles can be set aside at the command
of God. Such decisions are necessarily made in
complete isolation. Nietzsche The human
predicament means that individuals must be strong
enough to create meaning for themselves. The
superman Unlike the common herd whose sense of
meaning and purpose lies entirely in conformity
to rules of the herd, the great are those who
re-valuate all values.
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Still more background to Heidegger Romantic
anti-modernism The advance of modern
civilization has removed people from their own
authentic existence. Three enemies of the
authentic German spirit Technology removes
people from the simple, and direct contact with
practical life that characterized pre-modern
societies Cosmopolitanism lowers a peoples
culture to decadent international standards,
causing them to lose the characteristic spirit of
their own nation. According to Heidegger, the
German spirit in particular was being undermined
by the cosmopolitan Jewish influence. Liberal
democracy apart from encouraging technology and
cosmopolitanism, places all people on a level and
undermines natural hierarchy.
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Heideggers association with the Nazi
Party 1933 Joins the National Socialist
Party 1933 Elected Rector of the University of
Freiburg by the pro-Nazi faculty members
enforces anti-Semitic laws and pro-Hitler
policies with apparent enthusiasm. Embraces the
Fürher-principle, that University decisions are
to made by Party-appointed leaders rather than
local committees. 1934 Resigns as Rector,
apparently because of resistance to his
methods 1934-1945 Continues to pay his Party
dues, and to speak publicly in favor of the
National Socialist idea. 1945-1976 Keeps pretty
quiet about the whole thing
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Heideggers address to the students of Freiburg,
1933 Academic Freedom, celebrated so often,
is banished from the German University for this
freedom was not genuine because it was only
negative. It meant mainly lack of concern,
randomness of intentions and inclinations, lack
of all bonds in what one did and omitted. The
concept of the freedom of the German student is
now brought back to its truth. German Students!
The National Socialist revolution brings complete
upheaval to our German life....Do not let dogmas
and ideas be the rules of your being. The
Führer himself and alone is the German reality,
present and future, and its law. Learn always to
know more deeply from now on every matter
requires decision and every action
responsibility. Heil Hitler!
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Philosophical questions raised by Heideggers
life Can philosophy be separated from the
historical context in which it arises, and be
analysed solely on its intrinsic merits? Is a
great philosopher somehow responsible for being a
great, or at least a halfway decent, or at least
not particularly revolting, human being? Can
philosophers evil political ideas be separated
from their purely philosophical
contributions? Or does embracing political evil
imply that there is something wrong with the
philosophy as well?
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Heideggers problem with traditional
philosophy Philosophy has always tried to grasp
the totality of what is, considering it in
itself, independent of our existence. Science
represents the culmination of this attempt, the
total submission to what is as an object of
neutral contemplation by a disembodied I. But
the real questions of metaphysics arise precisely
when we consider ourselves in relation to this
what is, because metaphysics must seek to
transcend this given totality. Science is
concerned with all of what is, and Nothing
else. But what about this Nothing?
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A box full of nothing
Actual nothing may differ.
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Heideggers approach to metaphysics Da-sein
Being-there, being-in-the-world, existing in
connection with things in the world instead of
being a detached observer. Metaphysical
angst the dread that comes from sensing that,
beyond the totality of what-is, there is
Nothing. Resoluteness the response of an
authentic character to the angst about Nothing
and the emptiness of Death. Care (Sorge) sense
of connection and responsibility instead of mere
objective observation of things Community the
group of people within which the individual finds
an identity and a common destiny-- especially the
Volkgemeinschaft of the German people
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Dasein
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Angst
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Resoluteness (Beschlossenheit)
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Care (Sorge)
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Community (Volkgemeinschaft)
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More Volkgemeinschaft
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Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) Nausea (1938) Being
and Nothingness (1943) No Exit (1944) Existentiali
sm is a Humanism (1946) Critique of Dialectical
Reason (1960)
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The existential question pipe or cigarette?
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The café thing
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Highlights of Sartres political career 1939
Enlists in the French army 1940 Captured by the
German army 1941 Released from POW camp, returns
to Paris 1941-45 Various resistance activities
and Socialist organizing 1954-62 Supports the
Algerian war for independence from France 1956
Supports Hungarian resistance to Soviet
control 1967 Participates in war-crimes
tribunal to judge US war against Vietnam 1968
Supports student uprisings in Paris, democratic
uprising in Czechoslovakia
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Sartre on existentialism Man can will nothing
unless he has first understood that he must count
no one but himself that he is alone, abandoned
on earth in the midst of his infinite
responsibilities, without help, with no other aim
than the one he sets himself, with no other
destiny than the one he forges for himself on
this earth. (Being and Nothingness, 1943)
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Sartre on the traditional view (essence precedes
existence) The conception of man in the mind
of God is comparable to that of the paper-knife
in the mind of the artisan God makes man
according to a procedure and a conception,
exactly as the artisan manufactures a
paper-knife, following a definition and a
formula. Thus each individual man is the
realisation of a certain conception which dwells
in the divine understanding.Man possesses a
human nature that human nature, which is the
conception of human being, is found in every man
which means that each man is a particular example
of a universal conception, the conception of
Man. (from Existentialism is a Humanism)
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Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism What do we
mean by saying that existence precedes essence?
We mean that man first of all exists, encounters
himself, surges up in the world and defines
himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist
sees him is not definable, it is because to begin
with he is nothing. He will not be anything until
later, and then he will be what he makes of
himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because
there is no God to have a conception of it. Man
simply is. Not that he is simply what he
conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills,
and as he conceives himself after already
existing as he wills to be after that leap
towards existence. Man is nothing else but that
which he makes of himself.
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Analytic Philosophy Traditional metaphysicians
have never been able to solve any traditional
problems, because they have never bothered to
analyze the problems themselves. Careful analysis
of the language in which we frame philosophical
questions shows that much of our philosophical
confusion is caused by the language itself. Why
is there something rather than nothing? What is
the meaning of life? We ask questions like these
because we are confused about the concepts we are
using, taking them out of any context in which
they can be meaningful.
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Scientific Philosophy, a.k.a. Logical
Empiricism In general, statements can either be
true or false. If true, this means If it is a
logical or mathematical truth, it can be
logically derived from first principles. If it is
a statement about what there is in the real
world, or any matter of empirical fact, it can be
verified by some observations. If false, this
means either that it is logically contradictory,
or that it is contradicted by the facts.
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Verification and Meaning A statement that cannot
be verified by any empirical observation or
logical reasoning, even in principle, is neither
true nor false. It is completely
meaningless. Example Nothing nothings is
neither true nor false. It simply has no
cognitive content. Whatever content it might have
is emotional rather than cognitive. (It is not a
direct statement about any state of affairs. It
is an indirect statement about the emotional
state of the speaker.)
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Albert Einstein (1879-1955) On the
electrodynamics of moving bodies (1905) The
foundation of the general theory of relativity
(1916)
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Einstein and the philosophers What Einstein did
was not merely to propose a theory with powerful
philosophical implications (e.g. the relativity
of space, time, and motion). He actually created
his theories by applying philosophical analysis
to the fundamental concepts of physics. His
theory of time is not a hypothesis about time,
but a philosophical analysis of the concepts
involved in our thinking about time and how we
measure it. Relativity reveals that our usual
notions of time are based on concepts that have
never been clearly defined.
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Heidegger on the notion of time Temporality gets
experienced in a phenomenally primordial way in
Daseins authentic Being-a-whole, in the
phenomenon of anticipatory resoluteness. If
temporality makes itself known primordially in
this, then we may suppose that the temporality of
anticipatory resoluteness is a distinctive mode
of temporality. (Being and Time, 1927)
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Einstein on simultaneity (1917) We encounter
the same difficulty with all physical statements
in which the conception " simultaneous " plays a
part. The concept does not exist for the
physicist until he has the possibility of
discovering whether or not it is fulfilled in an
actual case. We thus require a definition of
simultaneity such that this definition supplies
us with the method by means of which, in the
present case, he can decide by experiment whether
or not both the lightning strokes occurred
simultaneously. As long as this requirement is
not satisfied, I allow myself to be deceived as a
physicist (and of course the same applies if I am
not a physicist), when I imagine that I am able
to attach a meaning to the statement of
simultaneity.