PHIL 101: final exam (JMU - Yates)
to live (& maybe die) for more than pleasures & opinions - ✔️✔️- 'Phaedo': the situation
- in death, living up to beliefs
- 'Republic': nuancing knowledge v. opinion
- opinion: sees the partial
- knowledge: sees the broader whole
William James - ✔️✔️- psychology & American Pragmatism
- truth is in the consequences
William James: beliefs - ✔️✔️1. truth in terms of what beliefs 'do' for our lives (practical
value; every future event is determined by something in the past)
2. religious belief as 'hypothesis', but not in scientific sense (the momentous option; the
forced option)
3. belief is worth it (consider how we already practice 'faith' in certain ways; if you doubt
your religion, you have doubt in your faith; is your life better if you think so?): it's worth it
to be open to possibility of God
four approaches to doing philosophy: definitions - ✔️✔️- trying to articulate clear
meanings of things - wisdom, knowledge, happiness, etc.
- definitional ambition; disagreements along the way
four approaches to doing philosophy: logic & proofs - ✔️✔️- take definitions & try to
prove them
- logistic reasoning; symbolic logic
- way of trying to argue in a reasoned out method
- words can have ethical or non-ethical meanings regardless of context; asks each side
to do more than point fingers
four approaches to doing philosophy: being visionary - ✔️✔️- philosophy is constantly
in search of new modes of meaning
- visionary imagination; creative agility
- artistry in philosophy
four approaches to doing philosophy: focusing on the practical (the moral) - ✔️✔️-
identifying which actions are right or wrong, & on what basis can we claim it
- brings clarity, criticism, & questioning to something always going on (moral
judgements)
, common denominators of the four approaches to doing philosophy - ✔️✔️- philosophy
challenges us to examine our beliefs & ourselves
- try to live a wise & more authentic life
three features of Athenian life - ✔️✔️- city
- education (kids from elite families; shaping future leaders; loosely-organized
conversations: main skill taught is rhetoric)
- Sophists: popular pragmatic teachers of rhetoric; sophisticated & pretentious (Socrates
fought them b/c they had no interest in the actual truth, only in winning arguments)
how philosophy involves cultivating one side of our lives by questioning another -
✔️✔️to cultivate the side of our ideas, reason, etc.
intellectual strength - ✔️✔️- agility in perception & thinking
- sloppy, naive prejudices - motivated reasoning
- attempt to harvest better authenticity (healthy intellectual discussion)
practicing the 'love of wisdom': technical matters - ✔️✔️- the role of assumptions &
presuppositions (technical term for assumption) - underlying ideas we trust
- criticism & argument
- philosophy in Greek as 'philein' & 'sophia' (friendship w/ wisdom)
- Queen of the Sciences (philosophy) - concerned w/ truth
the practice of Socratic philosophy - ✔️✔️- questioning guided beliefs; pressed people
to give reasoning; doing it as an act of care & for welfare of the city
- tried to get people to see presuppositions & get to a place where they don't know what
they're talking about
how Socrates is viewed - ✔️✔️- the mocking view: people thought philosophy was
ridiculous
- the angry/offended view: some men felt they looked dumb so they banded together to
push back against Socrates
- he was accused of corrupting the youth & not believing in/honoring the gods of the city
Plato's depiction of Socrates through 'dialogues': his defense ('apology') of himself as a
defense of philosophy - ✔️✔️- apology means justification/defense; the purpose of
Socrates (motivates him); knows he's going to die
- relationship between a person, their city, & knowledge
- he's teaching the audience (concerned about self-deception; believes people have the
tendency to deceive themselves by thinking they know everything - questioning gives us
life)
to live (& maybe die) for more than pleasures & opinions - ✔️✔️- 'Phaedo': the situation
- in death, living up to beliefs
- 'Republic': nuancing knowledge v. opinion
- opinion: sees the partial
- knowledge: sees the broader whole
William James - ✔️✔️- psychology & American Pragmatism
- truth is in the consequences
William James: beliefs - ✔️✔️1. truth in terms of what beliefs 'do' for our lives (practical
value; every future event is determined by something in the past)
2. religious belief as 'hypothesis', but not in scientific sense (the momentous option; the
forced option)
3. belief is worth it (consider how we already practice 'faith' in certain ways; if you doubt
your religion, you have doubt in your faith; is your life better if you think so?): it's worth it
to be open to possibility of God
four approaches to doing philosophy: definitions - ✔️✔️- trying to articulate clear
meanings of things - wisdom, knowledge, happiness, etc.
- definitional ambition; disagreements along the way
four approaches to doing philosophy: logic & proofs - ✔️✔️- take definitions & try to
prove them
- logistic reasoning; symbolic logic
- way of trying to argue in a reasoned out method
- words can have ethical or non-ethical meanings regardless of context; asks each side
to do more than point fingers
four approaches to doing philosophy: being visionary - ✔️✔️- philosophy is constantly
in search of new modes of meaning
- visionary imagination; creative agility
- artistry in philosophy
four approaches to doing philosophy: focusing on the practical (the moral) - ✔️✔️-
identifying which actions are right or wrong, & on what basis can we claim it
- brings clarity, criticism, & questioning to something always going on (moral
judgements)
, common denominators of the four approaches to doing philosophy - ✔️✔️- philosophy
challenges us to examine our beliefs & ourselves
- try to live a wise & more authentic life
three features of Athenian life - ✔️✔️- city
- education (kids from elite families; shaping future leaders; loosely-organized
conversations: main skill taught is rhetoric)
- Sophists: popular pragmatic teachers of rhetoric; sophisticated & pretentious (Socrates
fought them b/c they had no interest in the actual truth, only in winning arguments)
how philosophy involves cultivating one side of our lives by questioning another -
✔️✔️to cultivate the side of our ideas, reason, etc.
intellectual strength - ✔️✔️- agility in perception & thinking
- sloppy, naive prejudices - motivated reasoning
- attempt to harvest better authenticity (healthy intellectual discussion)
practicing the 'love of wisdom': technical matters - ✔️✔️- the role of assumptions &
presuppositions (technical term for assumption) - underlying ideas we trust
- criticism & argument
- philosophy in Greek as 'philein' & 'sophia' (friendship w/ wisdom)
- Queen of the Sciences (philosophy) - concerned w/ truth
the practice of Socratic philosophy - ✔️✔️- questioning guided beliefs; pressed people
to give reasoning; doing it as an act of care & for welfare of the city
- tried to get people to see presuppositions & get to a place where they don't know what
they're talking about
how Socrates is viewed - ✔️✔️- the mocking view: people thought philosophy was
ridiculous
- the angry/offended view: some men felt they looked dumb so they banded together to
push back against Socrates
- he was accused of corrupting the youth & not believing in/honoring the gods of the city
Plato's depiction of Socrates through 'dialogues': his defense ('apology') of himself as a
defense of philosophy - ✔️✔️- apology means justification/defense; the purpose of
Socrates (motivates him); knows he's going to die
- relationship between a person, their city, & knowledge
- he's teaching the audience (concerned about self-deception; believes people have the
tendency to deceive themselves by thinking they know everything - questioning gives us
life)
