Introduction to World Philosophy

Donald Ross

Description

What would it be like to go back in time and converse with the great sages of China, of India, of classical Greece and Rome, of the Christian and Islamic worlds, of Europeans of the Enlightenment? This book, Introduction to World Philosophy, aims to communicate some of the excitement and "mind-stretchingness" that such an encounter would produce. It is intended to engage interested laypersons while remaining faithful to the standards of professional scholarship. It is written in an informal style yet does not talk down to the reader. Representatives from each of the five aforementioned periods are presented in pairs--one philosopher a more "head-in-the-clouds" thinker and the other a more "feet-on-the-ground" one. Besides demonstrating how each tradition offers a range of perspectives rather than a single, dominant one, such an approach achieves an optimum balance between breadth and depth. Ideas found in these texts range from mind-bending metaphysical speculation and the theory of knowledge, to questions of ethics and politics, to points of elementary logic. The whole discussion is prefaced by an extended exploration of what philosophy is. The author feels that it is important to reach out to the general public, to feed a genuine hunger out there for an accessible guide to the subject, and also acknowledge the relevance of non-Western, as well as Western, cultures to an increasingly globalized world.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528964609
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Introduction to World Philosophy
Donald Ross
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-07-31
Introduction to World Philosophy About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Acknowledgement What Is Philosophy? Ancient China Lao Tzu/Laozi, Tao Te Ching/ Dao De Jing Mencius, the Book of Mencius Ancient India The Bhagavad Gîtâ The Questions of King Milinda Greece and Rome Plato, Phaedo Lucretius, On the Nature of Things Middle Ages Augustine, Confessions Ibn Tufayl, Hayy Ibn Yaqzân Modern Europe Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Final Thoughts Suggestions for Further Reading Language Aids General Pre-Philosophical Sources Chinese Philosophy Indian Philosophy Ancient Philosophy Medieval Philosophy Modern Philosophy Lao Tzu/Laozi Mencius Gîtâ Milinda Plato Lucretius Augustine Ibn Tufayl René Descartes David Hume
About the Author
Donald Ross received his B.A. from Wake Forest University, M.A. from the University of Iowa, where he specialized in the philosophy of David Hum, and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation was on Plato’s Symposium and Phaedo. Since then, Dr. Ross has published work on Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. He also has a long history of philosophically engaging with people, both inside and outside of academia. The present book is written version of an Introductory Philosophy course Dr. Ross developed for Marymount University.
About the Book
What would it be like to go back in time and converse with the great sages of China, of India, of classical Greece and Rome, of the Christian and Islamic worlds, of Europeans of the Enlightenment? This book, Introduction to World Philosophy , aims to communicate some of the excitement and “mind-stretchingness” that such an encounter would produce. It is intended to engage interested laypersons while remaining faithful to the standards of professional scholarship. It is written in an informal style yet does not talk down to the reader. Representatives from each of the five aforementioned periods are presented in pairs—one philosopher a more “head-in-the-clouds” thinker and the other a more “feet-on-the-ground” one. Besides demonstrating how each tradition offers a range of perspectives rather than a single, dominant one, such an approach achieves an optimum balance between breadth and depth. Ideas found in these texts range from mind-bending metaphysical speculation and the theory of knowledge, to questions of ethics and politics, to points of elementary logic. The whole discussion is prefaced by an extended exploration of what philosophy is. The author feels that it is important to reach out to the general public, to feed a genuine hunger out there for an accessible guide to the subject, and also acknowledge the relevance of non-Western, as well as Western, cultures to an increasingly globalized world.
Dedication
For Patty.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Donald Ross (2019)
The right of Donald Ross to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528926218 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528926225 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528964609 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the many students I have taught at Marymount University, who have loyally served as my “guinea pigs” in developing the Introductory Philosophy course, of which this book is a written version. Additionally, I am grateful to my colleagues in the Marymount Philosophy Department—Michael Boylan, Ariane Economos, and Adam Kovach—for their friendship and encouragement. Others whom I have bounced ideas off of in preparing this book, include Jay Kimball, Marciano Mariano, and Jay Nelamangala. I also owe a great debt of a general nature to my teacher at the University of Chicago, Arthur Adkins. I would also like to thank Alexander Porcelli for his help with Ibn Tufayl’s Arabic. The many scholars to whom I am indebted are acknowledged in the footnotes, introducing each chapter.
What Is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? That is itself a philosophical question, and not an easy one to answer. To begin our exploration, let me recount a storyThe Tale of Two Emilies. I once had a student whose name was Emily. She was having some scheduling issues and needed to get them resolved by the dean, Dr. Draghi. On several occasions, she expressed frustration to me that it was next to impossible to schedule an appointment with him. This was an urgent matter in her estimation, and she was getting increasingly impatient with her inability to arrange a meeting. One day, a few weeks later, I was thinking about her problem and decided to email her to see if things had improved. I knocked off a short missive, typed “emily” on the “To” line, and hit send. A few hours later, an email from Emily popped up in my inbox. It began, “I don’t even know who Dr. Draghi is.” I thought, “Well, that’s a bit harsh.” I knew she had been frustrated, of course, but I wasn’t sure that her problem really warranted that degree of dismissiveness. It struck me as an overreaction, but I read on. The statements in the email got more and more bizarre, and after each one, I would pause and try to understand it within the context of Emily’s problem. Yet each time, I could see what she was trying to say. It all added up to a rather rambling and disorienting explosion of frustrationor so I thought. Then, I got to the last line. It read, “Your Cousin, Emily”! At once, all became clear. I had fallen, once again, as I’m sure you have too, into the auto-complete trap. The email I thought I had sent my student really went to my cousin in California. That explained why she didn’t “even know who Dr. Draghi is” as well as all the other outlandish statements in the email. It all became so clear in that split second.
The moral of the story is that all of our experiences are colored by assumptions that we make, assumptions that define the surrounding context. Looked at from the perspective that it was my student responding, “I don’t even know who Dr. Draghi is” sounds like saying, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen Dr. Draghi that I’ve practically forgotten who he is.” Looked at from the perspective that it was my cousin, however, “I don’t even know who Dr. Draghi is” means exactly what it says. So, as the philosopher Immanuel Kant insightfully pointed out, our experiences are never just the passive reception of data about the world; they are interpreted by assumptions that we make. We always do this, but because they are assumptions, we are usually not aware of them. After all, we are focusing our attention on the matter at hand, not the presuppositions we bring to the table that provide the context for interpreting it. But it is always useful to be aware of our assumptions, if for no other reason than to recognize that they might be erroneous, as in The Tale of Two Emilies.
Now one would hardly call my assumption that the author of the return email was my student a philosophical position. But philosophical claims are like that. Philosophical questions are all about assumptions too. How, then, do they differ from the assumption recounted in the story above? Aristotle has something very useful to say here. Imagine that various branches of human knowledge could be expressed in a set of deductive systems, complete with definitions, fundamental axioms, and theorems derived from those definitions and axioms. The theorems could all be proven given the definitions, axioms, and other, more basic theorems. But what about the axioms themselves? I’ll leave aside the definitions, taking for granted that we can define terms however we want to. But, I ask again, what about the axioms? How can we prove that they are true? We can’t derive them from more fundamental axioms because if we could, they would no longer be the basic axioms of the system, but would instead be derived theorems. So establishing the fundamental axioms of a deductive system must be completely distinct from establishing the truth of theorems within the system. It is an enterprise of an entirely different order.
Yet one could object at this point and point out that many of the sciences are not totally deductive in nature. Perhaps they could be expounded deductively, but the process of discovery in the case of many of the sciences is through observation and experimentation. Many of our basic theories, on this view, would be the result of inductive generalization from these activities. Yet even here there are assumptions. For instance, how do I know that inductive generalization actually works? I drop a ball today and it falls to the ground, but how do I know it will do so tomorrow? I simply assume it will. For that matter, how do I know that my observations actually correspond with the way the world really is? Maybe I’m dreaming. I don’t think I am, but how can I be sure? In fact, the whole of empirical science could be set out as a collection of deductive systems, and within those systems there would still be axioms that could not be proven from theorems within the system.
Aristotle’s point is that the discussion of the fundamental axioms of knowledge is just as different from other human quests for knowledge as the deductive sciences such as mathematics ar