TELECOURSE STUDY GUIDE The Examined Life

[Pages:172]TELECOURSE STUDY GUIDE FOR

The Examined Life FOURTH EDITION

author

J. P. White Chair, Department of Philosophy

Santa Barbara City College

contributing author

Manuel Velasquez Professor of Philosophy Santa Clara University

This Telecourse Study Guide for The Examined Life is part of a collegelevel introduction to philosophy telecourse developed in conjunction with the video series The Examined Life, and the text Philosophy: A Text with Readings, tenth edition, by Manuel Velasquez, The Charles Dirksen Professor, Santa Clara University.

The television series The Examined Life was designed and produced by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, Netherlands Educational Broadcasting Corporation (TELEAC/NOT), and Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR) Copyright ? 2007, 2005, 2002, 1999 by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, 150 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 300, Pasadena, California 91105-1937. ISBN: 0-495-10302-0

Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Lesson One -- What is Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lesson Two -- What is Human Nature?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Lesson Three -- Is Mind Distinct From Body?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Lesson Four -- Is There an Enduring Self?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Lesson Five -- Are We Social Beings? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Lesson Six -- What is Real? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Lesson Seven -- How Do We Encounter the World? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Lesson Eight -- Do We Have Free Will? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Lesson Nine -- Is Time Real? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Lesson Ten -- Does God Exist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Lesson Eleven -- Can We Know God Through Experience? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Lesson Twelve -- Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Lesson Thirteen -- Does Knowledge Depend on Experience? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Lesson Fourteen -- Does the Mind Shape the World? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Lesson Fifteen -- How Does Science Add to Knowledge? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Lesson Sixteen -- Does Science Give Us Truth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Lesson Seventeen -- Are Interpretations True? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Lesson Eighteen -- Is Morality Relative? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Lesson Nineteen -- Does the End Justify the Means? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Lesson Twenty -- Can Rules Define Morality? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Lesson Twenty-one -- Is Ethics Based on Virtue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 Lesson Twenty-Two -- Moral Dilemmas . . . Can Ethics Help? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Lesson Twenty-three -- What Justifies the State? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135 Lesson Twenty-four -- What is Justice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Lesson Twenty-five -- What is Art? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147 Lesson Twenty-six -- What is the Meaning of Life? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153 Appendix -- Answers for Self-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

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Introduction

THE ADVENTURE

At the dawn of a new century, a new millennium, we bring to this moment of our history nearly 10,000 years of thinking and rethinking the nature of our universe, our world, and ourselves. While vast, elaborate, and complex systems of belief litter the path of our history, we presently face our future with a myriad of belief systems scattered around planet Earth. Not one of the belief systems operative today is without paradox and incompleteness. Yet these systems of belief constitute our understanding and serve as the guides for our actions. The Examined Life takes you on an unparalleled adventure of philosophical reflection through the fundamental beliefs and presuppositions that variously underlie all of humanity's various systems of belief. In the company of some of the late twentieth century's finest philosophical minds, you are about to explore The Examined Life.

Philosophy, a term believed to have been coined by Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C., comes from two Greek words, philein, to love, and sophia, wisdom. Philosophy thus means a love of wisdom and marks at least 2,500 years of humanity's passionate commitment to seeking wisdom. But what is wisdom? Who might have wisdom?

Essentially, the history of philosophy indicates that wisdom minimally requires knowledge of both what is and what ought to be. The Examined Life, through its 26 episodes, will explore significant philosophical ports of call pertaining to knowledge and value. By embarking upon this adventure, you

will experience questions, issues, and viewpoints you may never have considered previously.

In conjunction with Professor Manuel Velasquez's text, Philosophy: A Text with Readings, The Examined Life introduces you to specific problems and people who have come to define our philosophical heritage as well as those who are presently defining our philosophical future. Significantly, The Examined Life is a problem-based series and not simply an historical narrative. The series is very much alive with its contemporary focus upon issues that are sometimes ancient in their origins yet urgent in their modern application. As the twentieth century Oxford philosopher of history, R.G. Collingwood remarked in The Idea of History.

In part, the problems of Philosophy are unchanging, in part, they vary from age to age and in the best philosophers of every age these two parts are so interwoven that the permanent problems appear sub specie saeculi, and the special problems of the age sub specie aeternitatis.

This study guide is one part of the total package you will have available to you when you embark upon the 26 half-hour journeys that make up The Examined Life. As a telecourse, this series ? in conjunction with your campus instructor as your guide ? will also be enhanced by the newly revised tenth edition of Professor Manuel Velasquez's, Philosophy: A Text With Readings. Professor Velasquez has significantly tailored his very popular and thorough text to generously complement The Examined Life.

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Telecourse Study Guide for The Examined Life

In this Study Guide you will find: A set of Learning Objectives, which will serve as benchmarks for your climb from the unexamined to the examined life. An Overview of each episode, which highlights the significant concepts and points of view contained in each episode. Text Links will guide you to relevant sections of the Velasquez text, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, for a further, and in most cases more detailed, analysis of the problems and theories under discussion. This scholarly, yet accessible, text also provides an opportunity to read original works, either historical or contemporary. Key Terms will provide definitions of those philosophical terms which now largely define the professional nomenclature of academic philosophy but may yet be foreign to the novice philosopher. A Self-Test proves a series of questions to assist you in understanding the material in each episode and to provide a method of review. Paradoxical Pursuits will provide succinct statements of the conflicting points of view brought

forth in each episode with suggestions for your further philosophical reflections.

Applied Philosophy will conclude each chapter with suggestions on how you can apply the concepts and theories learned in each episode to other aspects of your life ? classes you may be taking, conversations you may have with your family around the dinner table, or just about anywhere reflective people concerned with their intellectual integrity might gather.

Net Links will provide you with addresses to access the rich resource of the Internet. Remember that each site provided here is linked to many other sites. Any one of the websites listed throughout this text will provide even the novice web surfer with potential contacts to the entire world of philosophy.

As Socrates claimed, "The unexamined life is not worth living." The Examined Life is the telecourse that will introduce you to the examined life in all of its fascinating and rich detail. Welcome to the adventure. Welcome to The Examined Life.

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Lesson One

What is Philosophy?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completing this lesson, you should be familiar with the concepts contained in the lesson and able to critically discuss:

the distinction philosophers draw between the examined life and the unexamined life.

Plato's Myth of the Cave and its relevance to living the examined life.

at least five of the traditional aspects of the process whereby a person moves from an unexamined life to the examined life.

basic elements of the Socratic method and its application.

the essential role that questions play in defining an examined life.

OVERVIEW

Imagine living your whole life in an apartment with no windows or doors; only electric lights for illumination. All of your information comes from television, and all that ever plays are cartoons in endless variety. You have a few friends who live with you in this apartment but no one knows of the sunny outdoors. The refrigerator and pantry are always

stocked with nicely wrapped packages of food and the apartment nicely decorated throughout with artificial plants. You have no idea of what the food products actually are or where they come from, not because you can't get any answers but because the questions never occur to you. You never think of going anywhere because this seems to you all that exists.

One day you're standing alone when part of the wall suddenly slides back. You're grabbed from behind and jerked out of your apartment. Startled and frightened, you are relentlessly pulled up a long hallway to a control center where technicians and support staff work to keep your apartment and other similar apartments functioning. Their booth is illuminated by a large skylight whose filtered sunlight is very harsh compared to what you're accustomed to. You are confused, disoriented. You cannot see very well as you are actually suffering from a condition known as rigid pupilary reflex. The pupils of your eyes have not been exercised as they would have been had you grown up in the complex, ever changing real world of variable natural light. Now your pupils must adapt to this more complex and changing environment. These changes will not, according to the standard prognosis, be comfortable for you.

Again, you are dragged. You pass the technicians' booth. Continuing to squint, as the light hurts your eyes, you can hardly make out who is dragging you so relentlessly. You beg to stop just to get oriented, or plead to go back to the familiarity of your apartment, but they continue to pull you along, up toward an opening that is blindingly bright. Finally,

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2 Telecourse Study Guide for The Examined Life

you are tossed out. You can't see a thing but you feel a breeze. This breeze is so very different from the breeze your hair dryer would make. This breeze is not constant but changes in intensity, in temperature, even in smell. The ground also feels different. It is uneven, rough, nothing like your smooth, soft, always-level nylon carpet. Slowly your eyesight returns and you are absolutely stunned by the magnificent onslaught of colors and shades that flood in upon you. The lush panorama stretches to the horizon, the distance of which you had never before imagined. Stunned, you start to smile, then laugh uncontrollably, then finally cry and laugh while muttering, "Reality! So this is Reality!"

What you've just read, as you have no doubt realized since viewing Episode 1 of The Examined Life, is an updated variation on Plato's parable, known as the Myth of the Cave. Rather than a cave, we have an apartment; rather than shadows, we have cartoons on television. The question arises here again, 2,250 years after Plato first posed it, would anybody, would you, choose to live out your life at the bottom of Plato's cave, or in the above described apartment? Would you choose to live where your beliefs and thoughts were only directed at shadows or cartoons? Ignorance could perhaps keep one blissful under such conditions but to anyone not ignorant of the alternative, the prospect of such a life of cave or apartment dwelling is no doubt terrifying. The thought of living out one's life under such conditions raises profound questions concerning the value of life itself. As Socrates so eloquently and unconditionally expressed, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates, as we know, gave up his life rather than live the unexamined life, rather than live under conditions of pervasive ignorance.

The prospect of being placed in such a cave or apartment of ignorance awakens in one questions about the role of knowledge in terms of the value of life. For life alone is not worth living, as Socrates reminds us; only the good life is worth living. The good life is not one of ignorance but is the examined life. Socrates inevitably brings this issue directly home to each of us. How extensively have you examined the beliefs that have come to define who you are and how you live your daily life? Has the mass media, the shopping mall mentality, suburban homogeneity socialized you so thoroughly that you live in a world of shadows and don't even realize it? Do you actually live an examined or an unexamined life? Have you fallen prey to such glib, popular views that morals are a matter of how you feel or truth is relative to each of us? Are you, say, a Christian who

believes in one God, because that is how you were raised but had you been raised in India, you would have been a Hindu, believing in many gods? Are we simply socialized cave dwellers oblivious to the processes that have caused our beliefs? Are we ignorant of the questions that might deepen our understanding and thereby provide us with an examined life?

Socrates (469 B.C. to 399 B.C.) has come to historically exemplify this quest for an examined life. Socrates' pursuit is philosophical in the oldest and hence broadest sense of the word philosophical. Philosophy begins in wonderment, as Socrates' student, Plato, pointed out. In that wonderment a question arises but, as Socrates made abundantly clear, not just any answer will do. The acceptable answer is not simply one you may feel comfortable with nor one that you really want to believe. An acceptable answer is ultimately one that satisfies some rational or logical criteria. This reliance upon rational criteria as the test of an answer's acceptability is the primary reason all academic disciplines today award a PhD--the Philosophical Doctorate. Questioning, then searching for rationally defensible answers, is the legacy of Socrates.

Because Socrates would not settle for just any answer, his questions often remained without answers. People sometimes criticize philosophy as consisting of only questions and no answers. Socrates would probably be perplexed by such a criticism and might ask, "And so, what's your point?"

Some questions are very personal; they rattle the foundation of one's belief system. These are the questions that Socrates pursued relentlessly--the questions that finally landed him in prison, facing execution. His questions concerned religious beliefs, and whether or not such beliefs are rational. Socrates encouraged youth to look beyond the shadows of convention and acculturation in the cave, and to expose their beliefs to the light of rational inquiry directed at the truth. For such questioning, Socrates was condemned for impiety and corrupting the youth.

The joy of wonderment, the need to question, the discovery that not just any answer will do are the critical activities that Socrates so vividly exemplified over 2,000 years ago. They still motivate humans to philosophize in its broadest sense. For the philosopher, these activities make life itself worth living. To repeat and emphasize Socrates' point, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Contemporary philosophers, W. V. Quine, John Searle, Hilary Putnam, Stephen Toulmin, Daniel Dennett, and others describe in this opening episode how they came to philosophy through this

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