Comparative (Chinese-Western) Introduction to Philosophy

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Comparative (Chinese-Western) Introduction to
Philosophy

• Chad Hansen MB 307

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Review

• Sampling intro to philosophical thought
• Norms and tools of philosophy
• Arguments
• Six traditions China and West
• Broadly historical order
• Plato, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Nietzsche, Zen, Dewey
• Text available in philosophy department
• Web page http//www.hku.hk/philodep/ch
• Bulletin Board for discussion argument
• http//www.hku.hk/discussboard/ and select
  Comparative Philosophy
• Student - valid

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Requirements

• 100 coursework includes tests
• Courseworkquizzes, take-home mid-term and
  in-class final
• Argumentative focus
• Quizzes almost weekly on Tuesdays
• Grading 5-1 (explanation)
• Both exams ten questions in advance and prepare
  eight

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Objectives

• 3 goals of philosophy education
• Intensive logic, deep analysis
• Extensive range of options, open mind
• Insight, wisdom, judgment
• Disciplined discoursediscussion lecture
• Ask questions as they come up
• Special times with review
• Tutorials 4 with 5 -6 each (by vote)

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Warnings

• Plagiarism is not crediting a quotation
• Minimally put quotes around itnameyear in
  parentheses or footnote
• Zero for assignment, Zero for course, suspension
• Penalty for late submission
• Graduated decide when better to get it done well
  (rule of A result)
• ¼ per day for quiz, 2 per day for tests

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Basic Divisions Of Philosophy

• Metaphysics theory of being/reality
• Idealism, materialism, dualism, monism (2 senses)
• Epistemology theory of knowledge
• Rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, pragmatism
• Logicincludes semantics (meaning)
• EthicsValue theory, prudence, art, politics etc.

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Questions?

• Quiz Question
• Formulate an argument proving that the conclusion
  of any sound argument is true. (Hint you will
  need the definition of 'argument' of 'valid' and
  of 'sound'.)

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Greek Rationalism

• Start on Western Philosophy
• Greek Rationalism
• Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
• Pre-Socratics

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Thales Water

• Western philosophy starts in mid-east
• Differences there at the beginning
• Thales stargazer and practical businessman
• Navigation and trade
• "Everything is water"
• Growth and range of states of matter
• Early scientific theory (explain change)

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Implicit Model Of Knowledge

• Knowledge as a description of reality
• Metaphysics and science as the model
• Philosophy love of knowledge
• "Natural" philosophy is early western science
• Knowing is reducing to one, unchanging thing
• Theoretical reduction of many to one

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Dichotomies Of Greek Rationalism

• Western "perennial problems" of philosophy
• Assumption explanation is reducing many to one
• Assumption something permanent underlies all
  change
• Shared with Indian Buddhism
• Only the permanent is real
• Dependent or caused unreal

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Heraclitus Fire

• Series of other reality candidates
• Air or the indescribable absolute, or "love"
• Often likened to Daoism constant change
• The one is fire--symbolic "substance" for flux
• Reality is no permanent reality (no substance)
• No reality, only change
• Everything includes its opposite
• In the process of becoming it (yin-yang)

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Also Gradual Substance Change

• Cannot step in same river twice
• One river, one (?) water
• Mass stuffs and countable objects with
  lifetimes
• A thing v the stuff it consists of
• Not a concern in China

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The Law (Logos) Exists"

• All things in constant change
• 'Logos' crucial to Western philosophy
• Discourse, words (bible), logic, reason, and
  ology Law all things change
• Link to ? daoguiding discourse
• Cannot know changing things
• Knowing cannot catch up
• Knowledge is of reality so must be permanent
• Western knowledge is of eternal "truths"
• Add "knowledge-belief" to the list of rationalist
  dichotomies

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Parmenides Being

• Exact opposite nothing changes
• Influence on Plato and western philosophy
• Primacy of reason over experience
• Reason tells us experience is deceptive
• What is is what is not is not
• Cannot become
• Truths of reason (tautologies/analytic truths)

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Experience A Fantasy/Dream

• What is not cannot become anything
• Experience is that things change and move but
  rationally impossible
• Proof is hard to understand
• Two possible elements
• Start tale of differences

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First Element

• "Cannot speak or think about what is not"
• We can only refer to things that exist
• "Santa Claus lives at the north pole"
• If Santa does not exist, the sentence is false
• Consequently, we cannot think or speak about
  non-being

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Second Element

• Being tied to the Indo-European verb--to be
  (copula)
• Two uses in Indo-European languages
• Predicative and existential
• Predicative needed to make a sentence or
  assertion ??
• Links things to a subject
• To describe a thing is to say what "is" of it
• What its existence includes

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Existential

• X is X exists there is (?) X
• Blending the two uses leads to the view that all
  change is impossiblewhy(?)
• To describe a change entails that it no longer is
  what it was before
• This is to change is not to is
• Parmenides construes change as non-being becomes
  being
• That is impossible
• Hence change is impossible

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Classical Chinese Case

• Literary Chinese has no copula
• exists expressed with ??
• Also no required subject term
• Doesnt have a puzzle about how being can change
• This Perennial problem turns out to be a
  problem of only one philosophical culture
• A problem rooted in the language used to talk of
  existence and description

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Guo Xiang Like Parmenides

• ? cannot become ? and ? cannot become ?
• Although it changes constantly, it never ceases
  to exist
• So accepts that reality is in constant changeno
  problem
• Can deny movement from non-being to being without
  denying all change