An Introduction to Philosophy

Jon Nuttall

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780745668079
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This new textbook is a lively and highly accessible introduction to philosophy.

From the fundamental issues of philosophical thought to the latest theories in the philosophy of mind, An Introduction to Philosophy provides clear and incisive discussion of the key areas of philosophy for students new to the subject.

• Provides the tools new students need to tackle philosophical arguments themselves
• Clearly presents and explains contemporary issues and current debates
• Covers the key areas of philosophy, including perception, epistemology, metaphysics, the mind, philosophy of religion, ethics and political philosophy
• Contains numerous learning features such as introductions, summaries, questions and further reading

An Introduction to Philosophy is an ideal text for AS level, A level and first-year undergraduate students or anyone studying the subject for the first time.

1 The Nature of Philosophy

What is philosophy?

Some philosophical questions

What sort of knowledge can philosophy yield?

Three main areas of philosophy

An explanation of the term ‘metaphysics’

About the rest of this book

Summary

What is philosophy?

Two answers are frequently given to the question ‘What is philosophy?’ One is that philosophy is an activity rather than a subject – in other words, you do philosophy rather than learn about it. The other is that philosophy is largely a matter of conceptual analysis – it is thinking about thinking. Both these suggestions contain more than a germ of truth but are unsatisfactory, giving little or no idea of the content of philosophy. It is all very well to say ‘Philosophize’ or ‘Analyse concepts’, but philosophize about what and in what sorts of ways; analyse what concepts and how? The most direct way of seeing what philosophy is about is to look at the sorts of questions that philosophers think are important and how they go about answering them.

What is common to all such questions is that they are questions that can be answered only by reasoning. In other disciplines, there are various ways of finding out answers to questions – such as by studying nature or ancient manuscripts, by conducting experiments or surveys, by building a piece of apparatus or a model or by running a simulation on a computer. By and large, these are what can be termed ‘empirical investigations’. The outcomes of these investigations – new discoveries, new data – will often be relevant to philosophy, but empirical investigations cannot provide the answers to philosophical questions.

Some philosophical questions

Let us first look at the sorts of questions philosophers have considered and then see how they have tried to answer them:

Do our senses, of sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell, present us with a true picture of the world around us?

Does every event have a cause2? If every event does have a cause, is this incompatible with being able to make free choices?

We each have a body of flesh and bones, and we also have a mind; are minds separable from bodies (could we have minds without bodies)?; do minds and bodies interact and, if so, how?

We observe certain patterns and regularities in the world around us. On the basis of such, essentially limited, experiences we propose laws of nature. These laws we take to be universal, applying to the totality of objects existing in the infinity of space and the eternity of time. Indeed, perhaps we take it that our laws apply beyond this, to possible objects in parallel universes. What can justify such claims?

When we judge that someone has done something morally good (or bad), are we doing any more than expressing our own personal views? Can morality be anything other than subjective?

Is it the duty of government to try to redress the imbalance of wealth within society or does any government lack the legitimacy to do this, so such attempts at redistribution are morally equivalent to slave labour?

Some initial thoughts on these questions

The reason we cannot answer these questions by making observations or doing experiments differs in each case. For example, if we doubt our senses, what are we going to check them against? We have developed all sorts of instruments capable of making more precise and more sensitive measurements than our senses, but we rely on our senses to read these instruments. In any case, if we doubt whether our senses give sufficient evidence that objects really exist, then we must doubt the existence of the instruments themselves. When we ask whether all events have causes, we can produce examples of events that do have a cause (although philosophers have questioned even this) but we cannot observe that every event has a cause. And if it really is the case that every event has a cause, what experiments could be conducted to show this to be compatible with free will? Our actions may appear to be free, but if this feeling of freedom were an illusion, how would we ever find out?

So far, I have suggested ways in which the questions cannot be answered. Yet, what may be worrying those new to philosophy is how we are going to make a start at producing answers. First, and this is why philosophy has been described as conceptual analysis, we can try to clarify what we mean by the terms used. When we say that one event causes another, do we mean that the cause has some sort of power over the effect? What about ‘an act of free will’? Is this an act that is not affected by the events that precede it?

One of the first things we discover in philosophy is the way in which questions that at first sight look quite separate have a bearing on each other. For example, think how we might explore what is meant by ‘cause’. Perhaps we will begin by considering what looks like a straightforward example, such as the sequence of events when one billiard ball collides with another. What do we actually observe in such cases? Do we literally see one event causing the next or do we see nothing more than a succession of events? This takes us back to the question with which we started: what can the senses tell us about the world? As well as seeing billiard balls, do we also see causes? If we do not literally see a cause, how do we know about it? Do we infer it? If it is a matter of inference, is such an inference justified?

Consider the question about thoughts and bodies. The scientific theories of Newton encouraged a picture of the universe as a system of particles in constant motion, in which the idea that every event has a cause was a natural one. But where do minds fit into such a universe? Are minds also part of the pattern of cause and effect? Do mental events have causes and effects? And, if so, are these causes and effects restricted to other mental events or can they extend to physical events? If mental interactions cannot be the same as physical interactions, what sort of interactions are they?

It may be less obvious that questions about moral judgements or political duties relate to questions about causation or the reliability of our senses, but there are connections. If every action is caused, and if this is incompatible with free will, where does this leave moral judgements? If we treat human actions as events, like any other sort of event, do they become inappropriate objects of moral judgement? Further, making a moral judgement is itself an event, caused by preceding events; does this mean that a moral judgement is simply another fact? Even if moral judgements are evaluations, the ability to make correct evaluations depends upon knowing some facts. But how do we find out the facts? Is our knowledge based on what we see, hear, touch, etc.? If so, then anything which casts doubt on the ability of our senses to give us knowledge of the world is liable to throw doubt on our ability to make moral, and political, judgements.

The last two of our original set of questions also give rise to further questions. If moral judgements are not simply the expression of personal opinion, then what are they and what are they based upon? How do we discover what is good or what our duty is? Do we discover these things through some sort of moral sense (analogous to the way in which we find out about objects in the world by using our senses of sight, hearing, etc.), through a process of reasoning, or in some other way?

Asking a philosophical question invariably leads to other philosophical questions. To add to the difficulties, there is no solid foundation on which to start building answers. Philosophy commonly questions beliefs that we usually take for granted. Philosophy may even try to question the process of reasoning itself. It is hard to begin to answer a question when nothing can be taken for granted. Perhaps this also adds to the excitement of philosophy!

What sort of knowledge can philosophy yield?

If philosophical questions can be answered only by reasoning, can philosophy be pursued independently of a study of the world? Historically, this has not been the case – many of the philosophers of the past were not engaged purely, or even in some cases primarily, in philosophy. Scientific discoveries trigger philosophical speculation, while theoretical confusion in science creates the demand for philosophical analyses.

That such a relationship exists between science and philosophy is a contingent matter. This observation might provoke a deeper question: is it possible to arrive at knowledge without relying on our senses? The knowledge we gain from experience is called ‘empirical knowledge’. Knowledge that is independent of sense experience is termed ‘a priori knowledge’. The knowledge that black is black is a priori knowledge; it can be had independently of our senses telling us what things are black or even of the experience of anything black. Our senses tell us that grass is green, but we do not have to observe anything to know that black is black. (Whether we could understand the sentence that expresses the truth that black is black without experience of the world is a separate matter.) Are other sorts of a priori knowledge possible? If the answer is ‘yes’, we would look to philosophy to provide this knowledge.

Three main areas of philosophy

There are many ways of dividing up the subject areas of philosophy. None of them is entirely satisfactory, since there will always be topics that cut across or fail to fit neatly into the divisions. None the less, we begin to get a better idea of the scope of philosophy by considering the following three broad areas.

First, metaphysics. This area of philosophy deals with the ultimate nature of reality. Is the everyday world real? If not, what is the nature of the reality that lies beneath the world of appearances? What is the nature of the space-time framework within which we and the objects around us appear to exist? Given that something exists, why that and not something else? Why that and not nothing? Why is there change? How can there also be permanence through change? Do the things that exist fall into different types, such as minds and bodies? If there are minds, are there disembodied minds? Is there a God?

Second, epistemology. Here the concern is with whether and how knowledge of reality is possible. What are the limits to our knowledge? Can we rely upon sense perception to tell us what the world is really like? Is there an unknowable reality lying behind appearances? Does science give us knowledge of a deeper reality? Does science give us knowledge at all? Can our powers of reasoning give us knowledge? Can our powers of reasoning at least correct errors that might arise from the senses? Are there other sources of knowledge, for example, ones that would enable us to perceive values or know the true nature of God?

Third, the areas of moral and political philosophy. These areas deal with how we conduct ourselves within the world. What is there, if anything, to guide our conduct? Should we follow our feelings? Can our reason tell us what is right and wrong? Can reason tell us what political institutions to set up? Do we have obligations to the political institutions that exist in the society in which we find ourselves? Are the only values the ones that we, as individuals, create for ourselves?

There are, of course, other ways of dividing up the subject. (The above scheme is based on one suggested by Anthony Quinton in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy.) As we shall see in a moment, some schemes include epistemology as a part of metaphysics. Some separate out moral and political philosophy. Logic will often appear as a separate branch of philosophy. A more detailed analysis would produce many more branches of philosophy, some of which are highly specialized. The above is not intended to define philosophy but simply to give a broad picture that can be refined at a later date.

The order in which the three areas have been set out above might suggest an order of priority: what there is, what we can know about it and what we do about it. A moment’s reflection will show this to be too simple. For example, how can we tackle the questions as to what there is without first investigating the limits of our knowledge? Are we not in danger of making grandiose claims about ultimate reality only to discover that we have no way of knowing such ultimate reality, not even whether it exists? Coming from the other direction, we may feel that moral and political questions are the ones that should ...