Philosophy 101 Unit 1

-Elena Solomon-

Galileo lived from 1564 to 1642; Rene Descartes lived from 1596 to 1650. Descartes existed at the same time as Galileo; he challenged Aristotle and the Church at the same time as Galileo; he introduced radically unique thought at the same time as Galileo – thought, from both men, that would form the basis for the modern worldview of today. Yet Descartes finished his life with a pension from the French King, a request to teach the Swedish Queen Christina, and he died in general high esteem (1)*, whereas Galileo ended his years subjected to house arrest under suspect of heresy (2). Descartes managed to maintain a good name by using euphemisms for the term “God” in his works and prefaced his works, such as Meditations on First Philosophy, with letters addressed directly to men of the Church that defined his purpose, or at least a sweetened version of his purpose in order to remain clean in their eyes.

Such a letter can be found on the very first page of the aforementioned book, addressed “To those Most Wise and Distinguished Men, the Dean and Doctors of the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris.” Descartes is, in essence, sucking up. The letter details Descartes’ purpose in publishing his Meditations, throughout which he intersperses arguments of: ‘ “…we must believe in God’s existence because it is taught in the Holy Scriptures…” (3) but for those who don’t believe, I have written these thoughts,’ or “…one may infer from Sacred Scripture that the knowledge of him…is so utterly easy [to achieve] that those without this knowledge are blameworthy…” (3) and then he proceeds to actually quote from the Bible. He does this to turn those who might be his persecutors, the esteemed men of the Sacred Theology to whom he addresses his letter, into his supporters. Once they realize Descartes’ purpose is to “refute [non-believers’] arguments and to use all [Christian philosophers’] powers to demonstrate the truth” (4), with emphasis on truth, they can read through his work without the need to condemn him like they did Galileo – as Descartes wrote it in the name of God.

Descartes’ use of the word ‘truth’ in the above statement, and not some other word, such as ‘gospel’ or ‘scripture,’ reveals his other key method of escaping the heretic label: euphemisms. By using ‘truth’ Descartes further cloaks his upcoming challenges of God, for he ‘proves’ his belief that worshiping God is the only way. Whether he actually believes the latter is subject for debate; while it probably holds true, he may have just been covering his tracks. At key points in his work – for example in Meditation Two, when he breaks down all normal semblances of cognition and outright challenges God – Descartes substitutes the title God with “evil genius” (5), effectively nullifying his challenge (because he does not, in fact, challenge the will of the Almighty God, but rather some Evil Genius – or so he desires the men of the Sacred Theology of Paris to believe). Thus Descartes effectively escapes condemnation, unlike Galileo, who outright declares the Church at fault, or so the Church believes he does.

While Descartes seems the wiser of the two men, since both he and Galileo play the same game yet end with opposite fates, Descartes does have one advantage over Galileo: Galileo goes first. Descartes realizes the danger in publishing his philosophy only after hearing of Galileo’s infamous trial and conviction; he thereafter ceases plans for Treatise on the World, his novel worth four years of work, and instead puts out Discourse on Method and many other works besides (1). Descartes depends on Galileo for his own survival, and consequently today seems the wiser, but in actuality merely went second in the intellectual advancement known as the Scientific Revolution.

1. “René Descartes.” Wikipedia. 9 Sept. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rene_descartes#biography>.

2. “Galileo Galilei.” Wikipedia. 9 Sept. 2008 <http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo#Life>.

3. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 1.

4. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 2.

5. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 16.

*I know Wikipedia is not a great source to cite, but this is not a formal paper and I only used it for common knowledge –well, “common” knowledge. Information that can be found in many places – that I happened to get from this website, and I had to cite something. Also, the information posted on Wikipedia is regulated by scholars to maintain high accuracy levels.

What is truth? One might argue and say that truth describes things that are real, authentic, or genuine, or they might also use it in its semantic sense. Some think it to be relative; others believe truth is whatever produces successful results. There are several theories regarding this matter that are quite relevant in the quest for knowledge, because this is the one thing truth is not, for truth is only a determinant of knowledge.

The first Theory of Truth is Relativism (Protagoras), which are the beliefs held in common within a group of people. Truth may be relative to the individual, the society, or the culture (there are probably more examples, but these are more than likely the most prominent). However, the fact that X is entitled to X’s opinion isn’t enough to determine whether or not something is true. If I belive the sky to be blue, but you hold it true and swear up and down that the sky is dark green, then we have reached a problem. If two contradicting statements are true simultaneously, then something has gone horribly awry in the Matrix, and either one or both of those statements are false. This leads me to the next theory…

The Theory of Coherence (Blanchard) is a sort of fancier version of relativism. This theory has nothing to do with the facts; it’s all a matter of consistency among old beliefs with the incorporation of new ones. In order to understand this theory, picture your belief system as a web of nodes (beliefs)- millions and millions of nodes; some connecting, others not. We’ll call the inside of your belief system your core beliefs; the ones you hold most dear. As you approach the outskirts of your belief system, we’ll dub these nodes your peripheral beliefs; the ones that aren’t nearly as significant as your core. Strange occurances manifest themselves in the complexity of the nodes and the connections in your belief system; many we can easily relate to, given the following terminology. Association is more or less the unconscious connection someone makes when something is sensed, which leads them to think of something else that associates with the the thing being sensed. Inference is rational problem sovling from one node to the other (”first we do this, then this…”). Conservative thoughts are synonymous with core beliefs, and if they are changed, it often causes a feeling of physchological pain or discomfort (anxiety). Anxiety is also caused from a feeling of cognitive dissonance, which happens when you encounter something that disproves a core belief. It can be concluded that when you encounter a new belief, which can be incorporated into your belief system without cognitive dissonance, then the new belief is true, but if a feeling of cognitive dissonace arises due to the inconsistency between the new and old belief, then the new belief is false, but this isn’t always the case… (ask me the otherwise, I’ll respond in the comments).

The third Theory of Truth is Pragmatism (James), which says that the belief must be coherent and tested to success, which is somewhat bias, because some truthful beliefs aren’t successful and some successful beliefs are false; for instance, the use of the Bohr model atom in the developement of the atomic bomb was successful, but now, due to progression in science, the Bohr model is outdated and is shown to be the incorrect structure of the atom, but this still didn’t halt any success. Success is no guaruntee of truth. Falsehood can be successful as well.

Concluding the 4 theories is the Theory of Correspondance (Tarsky). Any statement, when applying this theory, is only true when the statement being asserted corresponds to the facts at hand. Ex: This box is cube-like because it corresponds to the shape of other cube-like objects. However, this became a huge problem about 13 centuries ago when the Liar’s Paradox was born. “This statement is false.” There is no correspondance between the statement and the facts, so it contradicts itself, which [logically] makes this theory useless, until a man named Tarsky (very recently) solved the Liar’s Paradox. He said you had to strip self-reference when corresponding and said in order to talk about an object language, then you must use a meta language (ex: explain English in Spanish), then a meta meta, then a meta meta meta… and so on.

I hope this was somewhat on point and mostly “true.” I’ll just leave the rest to discussion, questions, corrections, and opinions of which theory is best for you.

…that rhymed. I’m terribly sorry, completely unintentional.

This is an open thread to share your thoughts on this week’s reading and lectures. You must leave a comment in this thread by Tuesday’s class to receive participation credit for this week. The following questions are merely prompts to stimulate your mind, but feel free to raise and answer any other on-topic question. You can comment on any topic raised in class this week. There is no word limit on your comment, but it must demonstrate some minor effort on your part to think critically about the topics raised in class. You may also respond to another student’s comments in this thread, or questions raised in lecture. Any substantive post beyond the first will count towards your reply requirements.

• Are all beliefs merely opinion? What is the value of an opinion, and how do we distinguish those from genuine knowledge?
• Why is persuasion and rhetoric a bad thing on Plato’s and Socrates’ view? Do you agree or disagree?
• Protagoras said “Man is the measure of all things.” Does that apply to mathematical and geometric truths as well? Does 1+1=2 simply because we say so, or does it reveal a deeper truth about the world?
• Is the unexamined life worth living? Why or why not?
• What is the area of a circle? How do you know for sure?
• Should we trust our reason and intellect over our senses? How deep does the distinction between the visible realm and the intelligible realm go?
• Can someone be taught an ‘eternal truth’, in Plato’s sense?