Chapter 1. Three Things to Know before You Dive into Philosophy
Chapter 1
Three Things to Know before You Dive into Philosophy
Copyright by Paul Herrick, 2020. For class use only. Not for distribution. The chapters you are about to read online this quarter are excerpted from a textbook that will be published later this year. This chapter: 28 pages of reading.
Part 1. How Philosophy Began
1.1 From Mythos to Logos
In all ages of recorded history, human beings around the world have asked fundamental questions. Why are we here? Why does the universe exist? What is truth? How do we distinguish knowledge from opinion, reality from illusion, right from wrong? What is justice? Universal questions like these are fundamental in the sense that the answers we give to many other questions depend on the answers we have already given to these. The “fundamental questions of life,” as they are sometimes called, are important because the answers we give form the foundation of our worldview—our general understanding of the universe and our role within it. And whether we realize it or not, the choices we make in life all reflect, to one degree or another, our worldview.
At the beginning of the sixth century BC, most people around the world turned to their society’s myths (from the Greek root mythos) for answers to the fundamental questions of life. The ancient myths presented authoritative answers in the form of colorful, easily memorized stories that could be handed down orally from generation to generation. Here are three, from ancient Egypt, China, and Africa, respectively.
· A god named Khnemu, depicted as a man with a ram’s head, built an egg. When the egg hatched, the sun popped out. Khnemu then “sculpted the first man on a potter’s wheel.” This is the origin of man.[endnoteRef:2] [2: . “Khnemu (Khnum),” Ancient Egypt: The Mythology, last updated April 11, 2017, http://www.egyptianmyths.net/khnemu.htm.]
· In the beginning “there was darkness everywhere, and Chaos ruled. Within the darkness there formed an egg, and inside the egg the giant Pangu came into being. For aeons, safely inside the egg, Pangu slept and grew. When he had grown to a gigantic size he stretched out his huge limbs and broke the egg. The lighter parts of the egg floated upwards to form the heavens and the denser parts sank downwards, to become the earth. And so was formed earth and sky, Yin and Yang.”[endnoteRef:3] [3: . “Chinese Myths: Pangu and the Creation of the World,” Living Myths, last updated April 12, 2016, http://www.livingmyths.com/Chinese.htm.]
· In the beginning there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving land. Still in pain, Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and then some animals: the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and, finally, some men. This is the origin of man.[endnoteRef:4] [4: . “African Creation Myths,” last modified Jul.
Chapter 1. Three Things to Know before You Dive into Philosophy.docx
1. Chapter 1. Three Things to Know before You Dive into
Philosophy
Chapter 1
Three Things to Know before You Dive into Philosophy
Copyright by Paul Herrick, 2020. For class use only. Not for
distribution. The chapters you are about to read online this
quarter are excerpted from a textbook that will be published
later this year. This chapter: 28 pages of reading.
Part 1. How Philosophy Began
1.1 From Mythos to Logos
In all ages of recorded history, human beings around the world
have asked fundamental questions. Why are we here? Why does
the universe exist? What is truth? How do we distinguish
knowledge from opinion, reality from illusion, right from
wrong? What is justice? Universal questions like these are
fundamental in the sense that the answers we give to many other
questions depend on the answers we have already given to
these. The “fundamental questions of life,” as they are
sometimes called, are important because the answers we give
form the foundation of our worldview—our general
understanding of the universe and our role within it. And
whether we realize it or not, the choices we make in life all
reflect, to one degree or another, our worldview.
At the beginning of the sixth century BC, most people
around the world turned to their society’s myths (from the
Greek root mythos) for answers to the fundamental questions of
life. The ancient myths presented authoritative answers in the
form of colorful, easily memorized stories that could be handed
2. down orally from generation to generation. Here are three, from
ancient Egypt, China, and Africa, respectively.
· A god named Khnemu, depicted as a man with a ram’s head,
built an egg. When the egg hatched, the sun popped out.
Khnemu then “sculpted the first man on a potter’s wheel.” This
is the origin of man.[endnoteRef:2] [2: . “Khnemu (Khnum),”
Ancient Egypt: The Mythology, last updated April 11, 2017,
http://www.egyptianmyths.net/khnemu.htm.]
· In the beginning “there was darkness everywhere, and Chaos
ruled. Within the darkness there formed an egg, and inside the
egg the giant Pangu came into being. For aeons, safely inside
the egg, Pangu slept and grew. When he had grown to a gigantic
size he stretched out his huge limbs and broke the egg. The
lighter parts of the egg floated upwards to form the heavens and
the denser parts sank downwards, to become the earth. And so
was formed earth and sky, Yin and Yang.”[endnoteRef:3] [3: .
“Chinese Myths: Pangu and the Creation of the World,” Living
Myths, last updated April 12, 2016,
http://www.livingmyths.com/Chinese.htm.]
· In the beginning there was only darkness, water, and the great
god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache,
vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving
land. Still in pain, Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and
then some animals: the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and,
finally, some men. This is the origin of man.[endnoteRef:4] [4:
. “African Creation Myths,” last modified July 24, 1999,
http://www.mythome.org/creatafr.html. ]
The ancient Greeks, too, had a rich collection of myths offering
explanations of everything from the origin of the universe to the
nature of justice. Most people took the myths for granted.
However, not everyone was satisfied with the answers they
offered. Beginning in the early sixth century BC, a group of
3. independent Greek scholars rejected the customary myths of
their society and proposed a new way to make sense of the
world. Their motivation sounds surprisingly modern: Although
myths contain answers to some of the most fundamental
questions of all, they argued, those answers are not backed by
any supporting evidence or logical reasoning. But if there is no
reason at all to believe the answers they offer are true, then why
believe them?
Seeing no good reason, these independent thinkers turned their
thoughts in a radically new direction. Each human being, they
said, has a mind and the power to reason, observe, and learn.
Why rely on unsubstantiated stories contained in myths when
we can think for ourselves? With that, they rejected the myths
and sought to answer the fundamental questions of life using
their unaided cognitive abilities alone, including reason (Greek:
“logos”).
This reliance on reason may sound commonplace today; it was a
radical innovation in the early sixth century BC. The ancient
Greeks named these independent thinkers “philosophers” (from
the Greek words philo for “love” and sophia for “wisdom,”
literally “lovers of wisdom”) and a new subject was born:
philosophy—“the love of wisdom.”[endnoteRef:5] As the
Greeks originally defined it, philosophy is the attempt to answer
the most fundamental questions of all using unaided reason and
careful observation alone, thus without reliance on
unsubstantiated myth, blind faith, unquestioned authorities
telling us what to believe, and the like. [5: According to a well-
attested story, the word philosophy began to circulate after
someone asked Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC), one of the early
philosophers, “What are you?” and he replied, “I am a lover of
wisdom.” ]
Introducing the Founder of Philosophy
At the beginning of any endeavor, someone has to get the ball
rolling. We know very little about the lives of most individuals
4. around the world in the sixth century BC. However, we know
quite a bit about the life and thought of the very first person in
recorded history to reject the myths of his society and pursue
reason-based answers to the fundamental questions of life
because the ancient Greeks preserved the names, biographical
information, and thoughts of their leading thinkers to an extent
unparalleled in ancient times.[endnoteRef:6] For the details, we
turn to Aristotle (384–322 BC), one of the greatest of the
ancient Greek philosophers and the author of the first history of
philosophy.[endnoteRef:7] (We’ll meet Aristotle later in this
chapter.) [6: The ancient Israelites of the Old Testament period
are a second exception to this generalization: they too preserved
in much detail the names, dates, and biographical information of
their major figures. The ancient Hebrews also reflected deeply
on the big questions of life. The Book of Job is only one of
many examples. Their writings, however, are not considered
philosophy because although they were not based on unargued
myth they also were not based on independent or stand-alone
philosophical arguments. The Old Testament is a religious
rather than a philosophical collection of writings. ] [7: The
collected writings of Aristotle fill two 1,200-page volumes,
both still studied and discussed by scholars today. However,
only one-fifth of his written works were preserved. We know
from ancient lists that his complete writings would fill
approximately fifty thick volumes in a modern university
library if they had all survived. Some ancient commentators
attributed to Aristotle 170 manuscripts on scores of academic
subjects. ]
Aristotle traced philosophy back in time through a succession of
major writers to the prosperous Greek seaport of Miletus and to
an individual there named Thales, whom he called “the first
philosopher.” His historical research has since been confirmed:
Thales of Miletus (c. 625–c. 546 BC) indeed deserves the title
history has conferred on him, “founder of philosophy,” for no
record has been found of any individual anywhere before Thales
5. rejecting the customary myths of his or her society and
developing in their place answers to fundamental questions
supported by independent reasoning and observation
alone.[endnoteRef:8] [8: Some have claimed that the ancient
Egyptians invented philosophy and then taught the Greeks to
philosophize. However, this claim has been thoroughly
examined by historians, and not a single document in the
records of ancient Egypt contains a single theory supported by
distinctly philosophical arguments, that is, arguments asserted
independently of myth, priestly authority, magic, or
unquestioned tradition. A dialectical tradition of back-and-forth
reasoned philosophical debate preserved in written form appears
in Greece and does not appear in the records of any other
ancient civilization of the sixth century BC.]
Evidence also exists that Thales circulated his answers and
supporting arguments in written form, hoping to stimulate
rational discussion and reasoned debate.[endnoteRef:9] One of
his students—for Thales was a teacher—raised logical
objections to his teacher’s hypotheses and proposed alternative
answers. That student, Anaximander (c. 615–545 BC), the
second philosopher in recorded history, supported his
hypotheses with reasoned arguments of his own that he
circulated in a manuscript titled On Nature. The discussion
continued. Anaximander’s student Anaximenes (528–585 BC),
the third philosopher on record, criticized his teacher’s
reasoning on logical grounds and proposed new ideas which he
too circulated in a book containing his reasoning and evidence.
[9: . See Patricia F. O’Grady, Thales of Miletus: The
Beginnings of Western Science and Philosophy (Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2002). Unfortunately, none of his writings
survived; we know of his work through commentaries written by
later philosophers, including Aristotle. Put very roughly, Thales
proposed that all things are different manifestations of, or are
composed out of, a single underlying element. ]
6. In no other society of the sixth century BC is there a
documentary record of (a) independent scholars proposing
nonmythological, reason-based answers to fundamental
questions circulated in written form for reasoned debate while
(b) their students, in turn, write books challenging the
hypotheses of their teachers using arguments of their own while
contributing new hypotheses stated in written form accompanied
by further reasoning. The Greeks are the founders of philosophy
as an academic discipline.
1.2 The First Philosophical Question: The Problem of the One
and the Many
Thales began with one of the most fruitful questions ever asked.
Here is one way to put the first documented philosophical issue:
The universe contains extremely diverse things: plants, animals,
consciousness, mountains, stars, ideas, love, and people. Yet
everything seems to be interconnected in some way, for the
universe in the largest scale displays an overall pattern or order
that allows us to make accurate predictions. Why doesn’t it all
fly apart? What unites the many into one to make this a uni-
verse rather than a multi-verse? Is there something—a One Over
the Many—that unites everything into one orderly whole?
Historians call this a “gateway question” because of the many
lines of research it opened and the advances in thought it
sparked. Thales’s question, known as “the problem of the one
and the many,” has been raised by nearly every major
philosopher, East and West, since his day. It has also been
addressed by many of the greatest scientists, including
theoretical physicists working on the cutting edge of big bang
astrophysics today searching for something they call a “grand
unified theory” of the physical structure of the universe.
Thales’s opening question has also been applied within every
academic subject, with the same fruitful results. Applied to
7. economics, for example, his question becomes, What holds a
modern economy together? What are the fundamental principles
that explain the way an economic system works? Applied to a
nation, the question is, What unites the many different people
into one nation? The problem of the one and the many remains a
cutting-edge idea today.
Thales proposed a hypothesis regarding the general structure of
the universe, supported it with at least six lines of empirical
(observable) evidence, circulated his idea, and sought critical,
reasoned feedback. His hypothesis has since been overturned—
as we would expect of any initial idea of ancient origin.
However, this should not detract from the importance of what
he accomplished. The historian of philosophy Wallace Matson
calls the emergence of the first nonmythological, reason-based
theory of the universe in Greece during the sixth century BC
“the most stupendous intellectual revolution in recorded
history.”[endnoteRef:10] J. V. Luce, also a historian of
philosophy, calls Thales [10: . Wallace Matson, A New History
of Philosophy, vol. 1 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1987), 4. Note that I am using the terms theory and hypothesis
interchangeably here to mean “a proposed explanation offered
as the starting point for further investigation.” We often use
these two words in this way in everyday life. Some prefer the
more technical definitions: A hypothesis, they say, is “a
proposed explanation based on limited data and offered as a
basis for further study, while a theory is a proposed explanation
that is already well-confirmed.” ]
the first thinker to propound a comprehensive account of the
physis [nature] of the world, based largely on his own
observations and inferences. He seems to have outlined a daring
and unified scheme . . . thought out along rational lines, which
justly marks its author as a major innovator in the history of
thought.[endnoteRef:11] [11: . J. V. Luce, An Introduction to
Greek Philosophy (Dublin: Thames and Hudson, 1992), 22.]
8. Among the ancient Greeks, the term arche (pronounced ar-KAY)
meant “a foundational principle explaining and unifying
everything within a specified domain.” For a modern example,
the US Constitution is the arche of US law. According to
Aristotle, Thales was searching for the arche of the entire
universe—one ultimate principle or source that would explain
the interconnectedness of everything and make rational or
reason-based sense of the whole.
<Box> “Without some kind of unity within diversity, we could
have no thought or language, and thus nothing would be
intelligible. Even the simplest concept—for example the
concept “dog”— brings many individual things under a single
concept.”—James Fieser and Norman Lillegard.[endnoteRef:12]
<End Box> [12: James Fieser and Norman Lillegard, A
Historical Introduction to Philosophy (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 5. ]
An Intelligible Universe?
Thales’s quest for the arche of the universe led him to raise a
second gateway question, one that also ranks as one of the most
fruitful questions of all time. If there is an arche of the
universe—a One Over the Many--can its existence and nature be
understood by the human mind through reason and careful
observation? In other words, is the arche rationally intelligible?
Thales had a hunch that the answer is yes and on that
assumption set out to see how far his own cognitive abilities
might take him.
We can easily miss the significance of Thales’s second gateway
question. His working assumption—that we live in an
intelligible universe—was revolutionary. The historian of
philosophy David Stewart calls Thales’s rational intelligibility
thesis a “brilliant leap forward in the history of thought . . . an
9. advance absolutely essential to the development of modern
physical science.”[endnoteRef:13] L. P. Gerson, another scholar
of ancient thought, writes that it is “a remarkable advance on
common sense to intuit that there are reasons for the regularity
[of the universe] and that different sorts of regularity or
patterns in nature are linked by common underlying principles
[that can be grasped by the human mind].” The hypothesis of
the intelligibility of the universe, Gerson claims, is one
“without which any scientific enterprise cannot hope to
begin.”[endnoteRef:14] In one of his many path-breaking books,
the philosopher Thomas Nagel writes that “science is driven by
the assumption that the world is intelligible . . . that [its basis]
can not only be described but understood . . . without the
assumption of an intelligible underlying order, which long
antedates the scientific revolution, [its major] discoveries could
not have been made.[endnoteRef:15] [13: David Stewart,
Exploring the Philosophy of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1980), 77.] [14: L. P. Gerson, God and Greek
Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology
(New York: Routledge, 1990), 14. ] [15: Thomas Nagel, Mind
and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of
Nature Is Almost Certainly False (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 16. Nagel also argues quite convincingly that the
amazing things we have learned about the deep structure of the
universe—discoveries based on the assumption that the universe
is intelligible--are strong evidence that the universe is
intelligible.]
Albert Einstein placed himself in the tradition of Thales when,
more than twenty-five centuries later, he wrote, “Certain it is
that a conviction, akin to a religious feeling, of the rationality
or intelligibility of the world lies behind all scientific work of a
higher order.”[endnoteRef:16] Indeed, the idea that the universe
is rationally intelligible is a presupposition not just of science
but of every academic subject. In chapter 2, we’ll explore some
amazing implications of this gateway idea—the working
10. assumption that we live in an intelligible rather than an
unintelligible or random universe. [16: Albert Einstein, Ideas
and Opinions (New York: Crown, 1954), 261–262.]
Philosophy and Belief in God
Thales’s first theory was naturalistic, that is to say, it referred
only to physical or material elements and principles within the
observable or natural universe. However, according to the
doxographers—ancient Greek historians who commented on the
great texts of their culture’s past—Thales did not believe his
naturalistic hypothesis went deep enough. They tell us he also
argued for the existence of a supernatural arche of the universe
existing above and beyond the material, or physical, world, a
“divinity, an immortal being, something living which, precisely
because it is living, is capable of self-initiated movement and
change.”[endnoteRef:17] For example, in Lives and Opinions of
Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius (third century AD),
one of the greatest doxographers, attributes this statement to
Thales: “God is the most ancient of all things, for he had no
birth: the world is the most beautiful of things, for it is the work
of God.”[endnoteRef:18] [17: Merrill Ring, Beginning with the
Pre-Socratics (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing, 1987),
22. ] [18: See
http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diogenes/dlthales.htm..]
If Thales conceived of the One Over the Many in divine or
supernatural terms, which he likely did, he was the first
philosophical theist (from the Greek theos for “God,” literally
“one who believes in God, or a supreme being”). Of course, in
his day the word theos did not carry all its modern connotations.
For Thales it likely meant something like “the divine,
transcendent source of all observable things.” As philosophy
developed and as philosophers reasoned more about the problem
of the one over the many, theos acquired deeper meanings.
Thales’s reasoning for the existence of God, or a supreme
11. being, likely took the form of argument philosophers today call
“inference to the best explanation.” In general, a best
explanation argument fits the following abstract format:
1. D is a collection of data (facts, observations) in need of
explanation.
2. Hypothesis H, if true, would explain D.
3. No other hypothesis can explain D as well as H does.
4. Thus, D is the best explanation available.
5. Therefore, the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that H
is true.[endnoteRef:19] [19: I am indebted to the logician and
philosopher of science Stathis Psillos (University of Athens) for
this particular way of stating the logical form of inference to
the best explanation. ]
One reason theism may have seemed to Thales to be the most
reasonable solution to the problem of the one and the many is
that it unites arche and logos within one explanatory structure
to provide a unified account of the whole of reality. Discovering
a unifying account of varied data from diverse domains has
always been a goal of serious intellectual thought.
The historical evidence indicates that both Anaximander and
Anaximenes—the second and third philosophers in recorded
history—also reasoned that the underlying order and
intelligibility of the universe is best explained if we suppose
that the universe is the product of a superintending intelligence.
Both philosophers sought to explain the overall order of the
universe in a unified way and in the process gave philosophical
arguments for the existence of God, or a supreme being. Thus,
reason, argued first three philosophers, points beyond the
material, or natural, universe to a supernatural but rational mind
above it. Arguments for God’s existence can be found
throughout the ancient philosophical tradition. This helps
explain the fact that by the fifth century BC, most educated
Greeks were monotheists (from the Greek mono for “singular,”
literally “believers in one God, or supreme
being”).[endnoteRef:20] We’ll examine some of these
12. arguments—and their modern successors—in the course of this
book. As we’ll see, philosophical arguments for God’s existence
bring to light logical connections between the intelligibility of
the universe, God’s existence, and the validity of science, math,
and even reason itself. [20: The Hebrews, of course, were
monotheists long before this, although not for strictly
philosophical reasons. They preserved their religious
experiences and thoughts of God in the books we call the Old
Testament today.]
Thales in Retrospect
The specific details of Thales’s first hypothesis—a theory of the
world which he supported with at least six lines of empirical
evidence--are of historical rather than philosophical interest
today. His proposal was primitive by modern standards, of
course. His hypothesis sounds strange to the modern ear—as
one would expect of a theory 2,600 years old. It has been
superseded, obviously. However, all of this should not detract
from the importance of what Thales did. What is important is
not the specifics of his theory but the fact that he supported it
with reason and observation apart from myth and authority.
The ancient Greeks maintained a special roster honoring their
wisest thinkers, or sages. The greatest were known as the
“Seven Sages of Greece.” Although archeologists have
discovered differing lists, the name Thales of Miletus appears in
first place on each one.
1.3 A Definition of Our Subject
This very abbreviated history of ancient philosophy has covered
a lot of ground. Can the basic idea be encapsulated in a concise
definition? Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989) characterizes
philosophy as the rational effort “to see how things in the
broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the
broadest possible sense of the term.”[endnoteRef:21] Referring
to the method rather than the goal of our subject, Laurence
13. BonJour (b. 1943) writes that philosophy is “essentially
dialectical in nature, consisting of arguments, and responses,
and further arguments and further responses back and forth
among the different positions on a given issue.”[endnoteRef:22]
These statements by major philosophers both describe academic
philosophy as it is practiced today, yet they are equally true of
the way philosophy was practiced in the days of Thales. The
independent use of our own cognitive abilities, combined with
the goal of understanding the whole of reality in a rational way,
is the common thread linking Thales’s thoughts to ours today.
Reason is our common currency. [21: . Quoted by Laurence
BonJour in Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary
Responses (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), 1.
Originally from Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, and
Reality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 1.] [22:
Ibid., viii.]
Pulling all the foregoing threads together, I believe the
following definition captures the core meaning that hasn’t
changed since ancient times. Philosophy is the attempt to
answer the most fundamental questions of human existence
using our cognitive abilities alone, including reason and
observation.
Defined in this way, philosophy may sound too abstract to be of
any significance. However, several considerations suggest
otherwise. We have already noted that the answers each of us
give to the fundamental questions of life form the basis of our
worldviews—our general understanding of the world. But our
worldviews influence the choices we make in life. Since the
choices we make affect the way we live, our choices matter.
Indeed, one of life’s lessons is that seemingly small choices
sometimes have huge consequences. The big questions of
philosophy are not mere idle daydreams—they give expression
to one of the most universal and practical of all human needs,
namely, the need to make sense of life as a whole so as to know
how to truly live.
14. 1.4 Scientism: A Challenge to Philosophy
Since ancient times, philosophy has been considered the place
to go for carefully reasoned answers to the most fundamental
questions of all. In recent years, however, an increasing number
of people have been turning to other sources. Many today
believe that we should reject philosophy and rely solely on
science when deciding what to believe, including what to
believe regarding the most fundamental matters. The only real
knowledge, they say, is scientific knowledge. Nothing counts as
knowledge unless it has been validated by the scientific method
of hypothesis testing. According to this view, known as
“scientism,” science is our only path to truth, our only
legitimate form of knowing. Any claim to knowledge not
validated by science is merely unfounded (and expendable)
opinion.
If scientism is true, philosophy is as outmoded as the horse and
buggy.[endnoteRef:23] But is it true? As we proceed here, keep
in mind the distinction between science and scientism. Science
is not the same thing as scientism. Science refers to those
subjects (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.) that restrict
themselves to research that employs the scientific method of
hypothesis testing. The sciences also limit themselves to claims
about the material world—the generally accepted scientific
method prohibits reference to anything supernatural such as
God, angels, spirits, etc. The sciences have certainly enlarged
our knowledge. All philosophers today agree on this. The
scientific method is surely one guide to truth. However, it
doesn’t follow, from the fact that science is one guide to truth,
that science is the only guide to truth. Scientism goes further
and claims, not that science is one guide to truth but that
science is our only guide to truth. Scientism, then, is a thesis
about the scope and limits of human knowledge. [23: Recent
advocates of scientism include the famous physicists Stephen
Hawking, Lawrence Krauss, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. ]
15. However, as many philosophers have pointed out, scientism is
false according to its own method of validation. The reasoning
is plain. Consider the following sentence, which we shall name
S:
S: Science is our only path to truth; nothing outside of science
counts as real knowledge
Exactly which scientific experiment or series of experiments
has ever proved that S is true? Which verified scientific theory
appearing in the standard textbooks shows that science is the
only path to truth? No scientist has ever carried out an
experiment or developed a theory showing scientifically that S
is true. Which is why scientism is neither presented nor
defended in any reputable physics, chemistry, or biology
textbook
There is a reason for this. Scientism has neither been tested nor
proved because it is not a scientifically testable thesis. But if
scientism cannot be established using the only method it claims
is valid—the scientific method—then why believe it?
Considered critically, scientism refutes itself in the sense that if
you accept it then you have logical grounds to reject it.
In the course of this book, we’ll examine many phenomena that
science alone cannot explain—even in principle—including the
fact that the material universe exists, the fact that it is orderly
and predictable, the fact that it is intelligible, and the existence
of knowledge, truth, consciousness, free will, and objective
moral value. Scientific knowledge is a fraction of the sum total
of all knowledge and needs to be interpreted within that sum
total.
1.5 The First Free Marketplace of Ideas
At the start of a new subject, it is the questions that matter
most, not the first answers given. Thales asked questions that
stimulated discussion and opened new fields of investigation.
The discussion he started grew into a “dialectic,” a many-sided
16. conversation in which (1) one person puts forward a hypothesis
…
Part One: Choose one of the following two questions:
A. Has there been a Socrates figure in your life? If so, describe
that person and discuss the way he or she changed your life.
B. B: Find an idea in the first online lecture that interests you
and post your philosophical thoughts on that idea.
Part Two. Read the posts of others in the class, pick one person
and post a critical thinking reply to their thoughts.
Posts of others
KAIA G ARMAS
The Socrates figure in my life is my father. I used to find him
very frustrating ,the way he always wanted to "talk" about
everything so we understood the bigger picture. He wanted drill
down with questions to get to the heart of things and make us
understand what the consequences were of our choices and the
language we used. From a young age he told us that we did not
need many "things" and every year things we did not use we
donated. It was about the experience and understanding what is
important. He believes in reasoning and being able to
understand what you are talking about even though I don't
always know what he is talking about. I think also reading about
Socrates that it was hard for us to challenge or question
ourselves. Asking why you believe something also makes a
person analyze their own reasoning and not just repeat what we
believe to be true or are socialized to believe. Socrates
believed in questioning beliefs and values, and getting people to
discuss it with others. I have seen my dad change my
grandparents mind about things they thought were true by
17. asking them these very questions. It is something that I am not
very good at.