What can we know? Does God exist? Do I have free will? How should I act? Does life have meaning? This course offers an introduction to the main areas of philosophy through discussion of some of the most interesting questions in each field.
Next course begins Monday 26th September 2011 as part of the Open Studies programme at The University of Edinburgh. Click here for further details.
Aesthetics is an area of philosophy sometimes taken to be synonymous with the philosophy of art. This, however, is a mistake. Although aesthetics is for the most part concerned with questions concerning the nature of art, it also addresses more general questions of beauty. In this session we will look firstly at beauty before going on to examine the nature of art. Continue reading
In 399 BC, when he was over seventy, Socrates was accused before the Athenian assembly of impiety and corrupting the young, and was sentenced to death. Plato, in his Crito dialogue, presents a dramatic scene from the condemned cell; Socrates’ friends urge him to escape from prison, and avoid the unjust and vindictive sentence of the court. Socrates, however, refuses to escape; choosing instead to accept his punishment and drink the hemlock. Continue reading
In Moral Philosophy, we discussed Meta-Ethics and Normative Ethics. Meta-ethics, if you recall, addresses questions about the nature of ethics itself, while Normative Ethics focuses on the ethical standards (norms) on which moral conduct is based. Now we are going to consider the third area of Moral Philosophy - Applied Ethics. In Applied Ethics, philosophical theory is applied to practical issues such as euthanasia and abortion. Continue reading
Ethics, or moral philosophy, can be divided into three related areas: Meta-Ethics, Normative Ethics, and Applied Ethics. Meta-ethics addresses questions about the nature of ethics itself. For example, ‘Is morality subjective or objective?’ is a meta-ethical question which concerns the nature of morality itself. Normative Ethics focuses on the ethical standards (norms) on which moral conduct is based. As such, we might ask whether the rightness and wrongness of an act determined its consequences or whether we should always act in accordance with duty. Finally, Applied Ethics applies philosophical theory to practical issues. It addresses questions such as ‘Is abortion permissible?’, ‘Is there a distinction between killing and letting die?’, and ‘’Are all animals equal?’. Continue reading
One of the major sub-fields of philosophy is Metaphysics. It is difficult to define exactly what metaphysics is; it began as the search for first causes or the study of ‘being as such’ (unchanging reality). However, metaphysics has evolved from its ancient roots to encompass a great deal of distinct, yet related, areas of philosophical debate. One such area is closely connected with the Philosophy of Mind (itself an area of metaphysics) – the problem of free will. Recall that one of the implications of accepting a materialist account of mind is that it would seem to entail that free will is just an illusion. The issue of free will also arose in our discussion of the Philosophy of Religion as a response from Christian apologists to the problem of evil. As such, the Free Will debate is of enormous philosophical importance. However, its importance is not limited to the metaphysical realm; it has huge moral ramifications and cuts deep into our very conceptions of ourselves and others. So what is the problem?
God has had a substantial role in the history of philosophy. For example, Descartes attempts to escape solipsism by appeal to the clear and distinct idea of God; he also invokes the Almighty in his attempt to explain the problem of causal interaction. In addition, Berkeley required the intervention of God in order to account for the continued existence of the world not perceived. However, most (but certainly not all) modern philosophers are atheists; indeed many actually hold religion responsible for a great many of the world’s ails. Given the role that religion continues to play in our lives it is important for philosophy to consider the arguments for and against the existence of God.
The mind/ body problem is as old as philosophy itself. Usually, people fall into one of two camps here – materialism (also known as physicalism) or dualism. Materialists believe that there is essentially one kind of thing in the world – matter. As such, everything – including our thoughts, feelings, and conscious experience in general – can be reduced to no more than the function of neurons firing in our brain (or whatever science tells us happens in there). Dualists, on the other hand, believe in the existence two fundamental ‘substances’ – matter and mind. Mind, they argue, is non-physical. Today, the vast majority of philosophers advocate some form of materialism and support for dualism is, sadly, waning.
If one subject, more than any other, has come to dominate philosophical inquiry it is epistemology. Epistemology deals with questions concerning the nature of knowledge, what we can know, and how we come to know it. Modern philosophy’s focus on epistemology might be considered the legacy of René Descartes; however, as we have already seen, epistemological concerns were being addressed as early as Plato.
Philosophy begins with questions and, as such, a good place to start is with this often overlooked question concerning the nature of philosophy itself. Strangely, for a discipline that places such great emphasis on defining and clarifying concepts, there is no unanimously agreed definition of what exactly philosophy is. The term ‘philosophy’ in its literal sense means ‘love of wisdom’ and we know that there have been, throughout history, a great many men [sorry ladies] that we call philosophers who have written ‘philosophical’ works on a wide variety of subjects. Perhaps then, we could just say that philosophy is the collected works of all of these philosophers. However, this doesn’t really enlighten us as to what it is that all of these thinkers and works have in common; what is it that means that we categorize them as ‘philosophical’ rather than scientific, religious, historical, or whatever? Continue reading
