PHIL 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Cebes, Type Physicalism, Intellectual Property
3 May 2018
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Department
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History of Ancient Philosophy
10.05 Lecture Notes – Phaedo and Meno
- What kinds of philosophical questions would the existence of souls help answer?
o Consciousness
o Questions about morals
o Afterlife
o Identity theory questions
- What philosophical advantages are there to positing the existence of souls?
o Normative questions – seems to make sense of morality
o Kind of some sort of category for immaterial stuff
o Intuitively appealing since it makes sense that we have something intangible in
us
- What philosophical disadvantages are there to positing the existence of souls?
o Ca’t erif or falsif – scientific legitimacy
▪ Mind/body problem – problem of saying how the mental parts of you are
related to the material parts of you
▪ Nomological dangler
o Ad hoc explanations for questions
Plato on the soul:
- Seat of moral virtues – how to live a moral life
o Cultivation of virtues, which modified or purified your soul
- Responsible for life – vital function
- Explanation of cognitive properties – thinking, perception, sensation
o Plato attributed our intellectual properties to our soul
Phaedo – dialogue in which Socrates is executed by drinking hemlock
Early dialogues – shorter, focused on ethical dilemmas
- Leave readers in a state of puzzlement
Middle dialogues – longer, deal with much more complex, metaphysical questions about the
nature of things
- About the nature of knowledge, reality, the soul, the universe
- Broader questions about the fundamental structure of reality
PHAEDO
- In the beginning, Cebes gives the common view about the soul, that the soul dies along
with the body
- Ancient theory of the cycle of the soul
- All things come to be from their opposite states
- Comes to the conclusion that our souls exist in the underworld
- Clial arguet for the iortalit of the soul
- How can the population of the world increase?
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Document Summary
What kinds of philosophical questions would the existence of souls help answer: consciousness, questions about morals, afterlife. What philosophical advantages are there to positing the existence of souls: normative questions seems to make sense of morality, kind of some sort of category for immaterial stuff. Intuitively appealing since it makes sense that we have something intangible in us. Seat of moral virtues how to live a moral life: cultivation of virtues, which modified or purified your soul. Explanation of cognitive properties thinking, perception, sensation: plato attributed our intellectual properties to our soul. Phaedo dialogue in which socrates is executed by drinking hemlock. Early dialogues shorter, focused on ethical dilemmas. Middle dialogues longer, deal with much more complex, metaphysical questions about the nature of things. About the nature of knowledge, reality, the soul, the universe. Broader questions about the fundamental structure of reality.
