Harry Harlow’s Experiment:

“It’s just the way things are”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYfW7LJ4nDE

Philosophy 1010Class #4

Hand in your Socratic Dialogue play& return your previous work

No physical Class #5 (4/7/14).

So what is reality? Is a virtual class real?Does a class have to exist in a definite space & time to be real?

Class #5 Assignment:History of Western Philosophy (Series of videos)

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCD181CDF9DF652F7 (2 ½ hours)

Take good notes. Write down 2 points per 10 minute section. Send copies of your notes to instructor.Due: Wednesday, April 9, 6 pm. (pdickey2@mccneb.edu)

Philosophy 1010Class 6 -- (4/14/14)

“Pop Quiz”

Midterm Exam delayed to 4/21/14.

Read for Class Discussion:

Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, (12e), Chapter 3, Sections 3.1 – 3.5

Assign Discussion Leaders

Class #6 Video Assignment:

Logic --The Structure of Reason (Great Ideas of Philosophy) - video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp9SjZkc6bw(42 minutes)

Chapter 2

On Human Nature: A Metaphysical Study

Class Discussion

What is it to be Human? What is a Person?

What is a Self? What is a Soul? What is a

Person Worth?

• Video:What is Human

Nature?

Chapter 2

On Human Nature: A Metaphysical Study

Class Discuss:

Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 2, pp. 50-71 (12e) or 48-66 (11e)

Read Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text With Readings, Chapter 2, pp. 71-90

• The Prevalent View Regarding the Nature of Man Makes Four Basic Claims:

1) That the self is conscious (has reason) and has a purpose

2) That the self is distinct from the body, but somehow is related.

3) That the self endures through time.

4) That the self has an independent existence from other selves

The Traditional Western View

The Traditional Western View

The Traditional Western View of Human Nature is the one most commonly held in our culture.

Yet different philosophers throughout history have questioned and rejected every one of the four tenets with various arguments.

• For Plato, humans have a nonphysical or material soul or self in agreeing with all these assumptions.

• Plato contends that since reason often conflicts with our desires (or appetites) and that either of these can conflict with our aggression, each of these comprise one of the three main elements of our soul (self).

• For Plato, man can choose what part of his self rules his actions. (Free Will?) Because reason alone can know how we ought to live, it should rule the appetite and our aggressions.

The Traditional Rationalist View(Plato)

• Aristotle (384-322 BC) mostly agreed with Plato but went on to argue that reason can discover the truth about man in the natural world, and how we should act.

• Thus, Aristotle is rejecting Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, suggesting that Plato’s world of shadows can be known through reason.

Ah, isn’t this the basic motivation for science?

• For Aristotle, all living things and the natural world have purpose (telos). The purpose of man is to control desires and aggression through reason.

The Traditional Rationalist View(Aristotle)

• “The purpose of man is to love and serve God.” (St. Augustine – 354-430 AD)

• Although influenced by Plato, this view asserts that humans are made in the image of God. Man has an immaterial and immortal soul and the ability to love and to know, in the very manner of God.

• Augustine emphasized that humans have will and intellect, the ability to choose between good and evil.

• “The purpose of man is to know God through reason.” (St. Thomas Aquinas - c. 1225 –1274)

The Traditional Western Religious View(Judeo-Christian)

The Traditional Western View

The Traditional Western View of Human Nature is the one most commonly held in our culture.

Yet different philosophers throughout history have questioned and rejected every one of the four tenets with various arguments.

The most radical view is perhaps the Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre -- 1905 – 1980.

• “Existence precedes essence.”

• Humans are radically free. Human nature itself is determined by a man’s choices. There is no fixed universal human nature (or soul) prior to the choices that an individual free man makes.

• Existentialism challenges our basic values of western civilization that human nature in some way is “fixed.” God does not exist.

Human, All Too Humanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxbkPCLlXII

• The Prevalent View Regarding the Nature of Man Makes Four Basic Claims:

1) That the self is conscious (has reason) and has a purpose

2) That the self is distinct from the body, but somehow is related.

3) That the self endures through time.

4) That the self has an independent existence from other selves

The Traditional Western View

• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) claimed that man acts only to satisfy his desires. In particular, he possesses a basic, powerful desire for aggressiveness and sexual pleasure. Man views others as objects.

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) claimed that the man’s primary desire was for power over others.

• Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) believed that man is able to act only out of self-interest. Schlick recognized the appearance of unselfish behavior, but claimed even such behavior occurred only because of unrecognized self-interest.

Challenges to the Traditional Rationalist View

Feminism• The traditional view seems to be sexist in that it

assumes that reason is male and emotions are female (e.g. Aristotle & Augustine) By calling for the subjugation of emotions to reason, does the traditional view take a gender bias?

• Some feminist philosophers repudiate the traditional rationalist view and reject reason as the basis of human nature. Others agree that reason is primary and say the view only needs to be modified to remove gender bias and to acknowledge that reason is gender neutral.

• Genevieve Lloyd suggests that the issue is even more fundamental and may be near impossible to resolve. Read your text on page 73 carefully!! We will discuss this passage in class next week.

Challenges to the Traditional Rationalist View

• Aristotle claimed that since barbarians were less rational than Greeks, it was justifiable to rule and enslave them because they were less human.

• Caveat Emptor: Such an assertion does not logically follow from Plato.

II the Rationalist View Racist?

Darwinism

• Evolutionary theory claims that random variations and natural selection make species evolve. To many, this suggests that humans are not unique and that there perhaps is no special purpose to human life.

Charles Darwin – 1809–1882

• Darwin does not himself take a position on the question whether God exists.