Philosophy 1130F/G Study Guide - Final Guide: Lucretius, Jean-Paul Sartre, Liberal Democracy
5 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Week One: Introduction
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
10:39 AM
Prof: Robert DiSalle
Grading Breakdown
• 3 essays: 15% each (5 pages, no flowery language, direct as possible)
• Tutorials: 15%
• Final Exam: 30%
What does philosophy contribute to the modern world
• Harsh opinions/utter beliefs can cause reckless actions toward others
• Positive: Einstein’s theory of relativity
“What are the patterns by which they move”
• Philosophy precedes science
• “There is no method of inquiry that systematically attempts in every case to grasp the nature of each
thing as it is in itself” -Plato, Republic
• If you are philosophically critical you have the ability to rid yourself of bias because you cannot
possibly be sure that you are entirely right, therefore you escape the danger of personal opinion
• “scientific ideas like atoms, molecules, physical forces are the same as Homeric gods” -wrong idea,
people invented gods to give up on finding out whether the world was systematic (inventions of
people to explain arbitrary world)
• If you leave the assumptions you employ unquestioned you will never have a true account of
reality, you must overcome your prejudices to find the truth, question what you and others believe
and submit to other’s questions about what you believe- Plato’s view
• Logic is deeply fundamental to everything we do but it is not enough, dialectic tells you the
premises to start off with, but often dialects come to no conclusion
• You can be logical and entirely evil
• Aristotle placed much more value in learning through experience
• “For it is owing to their wonder that they began to philosophize”-Aristotle
• Philosophical understanding of the world is above any practical understanding
• Hegel, 19th century German philosopher: Famous for dialectics
Readings
Bertrand Russell, “Philosophy for Laymen”
• “It [philosophy] can give to the individual a just measure of himself in relation to society, of man in
the present to man in the past and in the future, and of the whole history of man in relation to the
astronomical cosmos. By enlarging the objects of his thoughts, it supplies an antidote to the
anxieties and anguish of the present, and makes possible the nearest approach to serenity that is
available to a sensitive mind in our tortured and uncertain world.”
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Week 2: Infinity
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
10:51 AM
• Galileo, from Discourses and Demonstrations Concerning Two New Sciences
• “we can only infer that the totality of all numbers is infinite, that the number of
squares is infinite, and that the number of their roots is infinite; neither is the number
of squares less than the totality of all numbers, nor the latter greater than the former;
and finally, the attributes "equal," "greater," and "less" are not applicable to infinite,
but only to finite, quantities.”
• Bertrand Russell THE PROBLEM OF INFINITY CONSIDERED HISTORICALLY
• “For let us assume that the world has no beginning as regards time, so that up to every
given instant an eternity has elapsed, and therefore an infinite series of successive
states of the things in the world has passed by. But the infinity of a series consists just
in this, that it can never be completed by successive synthesis. Therefore an infinite
past world-series is impossible, and accordingly a beginning of the world is a
necessary condition of its existence; which was the first thing to be proved.”
• Nature of things-Lucretius
• “Nothing is ever gotten out of nothing by divine power.”
• “Nature dissolves everything back into its first bodies and does not annihilate things.”
• “All nature then, as it exists by itself, is founded on two things: there are bodies and
there is void in which these bodies are placed and through which they move about.”
Lucretius (Leucippus and Democritus: one of the first people to mention atoms)
• Space is an infinite void: space goes on forever
• Bodies and nature is composed of atoms moving freely in the void, colliding and
combining
• Qualitative properties (colors, smells, tastes, sounds) that our senses apprehend arise from
quantitative properties (particles that have size/shape/motion) of insensible atoms, their
motions and combinations (doesn’t mean color is not real but that instead the quality of
being a color is because of a geometrical arrangement of atoms aka quantitative properties)
• Different wave lengths being exposed in different ways that appear to the senses, the
qualities aren’t inherent in the objects your looking at they come from your own sense
physiology
Epicurus
• Atoms natural tend to fall through the voice and collisions and combinations result from
spontaneous “swerves”
• These “swerves” allow the atomistic materialistic view to be reconciled with freedom of
will
• Understanding the material origins of human life frees human beings from ignorance and
fear of death, at death the body and soul dissolve into atomic parts
• “Therefore, death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is without sensations;
and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us”
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• “Decay is inherent in all compounded things: work out your own salvation with diligence”-
Buddha
• Atom: uncuttable (Greek)
Aristotle
• Rejected Epicurus’s view
• “It’s not what has nothing outside it that is infinite, but what always has something
outside it” -we call something infinite if there is always another step beyond it,
• You cannot have a completed infinity, we call things infinity because we always move
beyond them, but this means there is no actual infinity, it’s something incomplete, there is
no set of all the numbers that are infinite
• Anything that is complete must be finite because it has an end
• This doesn’t go against mathematicians because they don’t use the actual infinite,
“the finite straight line shall be as long as they please”
• Indefinite extension, makes sense but an actual infinity does not
An elemental view of nature
• Material things are composed of the four elements
• The earth is a sphere surrounded by spheres (planets, sun, stars)
• The spheres rotate around the earth
• The big dipper swings around the north star (What’s beyond the axis? Nothing? The
end of the universe?)
• To Aristotle, that is the end of the universe, astronomically makes sense
Lucretius (the case for the infinitude of space)
• Did not believe in^ it is not the end of the universe
• Reduction to be absurd
• If the universe has a boundary, there must be something outside of it to limit it. But
nothing can be outside the universe
• He did not believe that an infinite universe can have a center
• Suppose there is an edge and you can stand there and throw a missile. If it goes
forward, then there is no boundary and you are not at the edge. If it is blocked, then
there is something outside and you are not at the edge.
• This is contradictory, either there is something blocking you and you are not at the edge, or
it’ll keep going meaning you are also not at the edge.
Theory of gravity
• As you go around the earth the direction is relative to where you are
• Lucretius couldn’t accept this idea because he didn’t believe the earth is in the center
or that space was finite
Copernicus’s Heliocentric model
• Excepted that space was finite but believed the sun was in the center
• Center of the universe is the center of the earths orbit
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Grading breakdown: 3 essays: 15% each (5 pages, no flowery language, direct as possible, tutorials: 15, final exam: 30% What does philosophy contribute to the modern world: harsh opinions/utter beliefs can cause reckless actions toward others, positive: einstein"s theory of relativity. What are the patterns by which they move : philosophy precedes science. There is no method of inquiry that systematically attempts in every case to grasp the nature of each thing as it is in itself -plato, republic. If you are philosophically critical you have the ability to rid yourself of bias because you cannot possibly be sure that you are entirely right, therefore you escape the danger of personal opinion. Scientific ideas like atoms, molecules, physical forces are the same as homeric gods -wrong idea, people invented gods to give up on finding out whether the world was systematic (inventions of people to explain arbitrary world)
