Notes from Edinburgh's Introduction to Philosophy
Note: These notes are from Ongoing Course. I will update them as I go along.
Table of Contents
What is Philosophy?
Philosophy is the activity of working out the right way of thinking about things.
Distinguishing between thinking about things and working out the right way of thinking about things. In the second case, you step back from what you’re doing, and ask questions about it – what it presupposes, and whether it’s the right way to go about things.
physics → we investigate physical reality by constructing experiments, measuring, formulating theories
philosophy of physics → we might ask: ‘What do we mean by “physical reality”?’; ‘How do experimental results confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis?’, or; ‘What distinguishes a good scientific theory from a bad one?’
thinking from inside, from an arm chair. Many classical philosophical problems (e.g., ethics, logic, metaphysics) are explored in this way. Ex. “What is justice?”
thinking from outside, taking external evidences/proofs into consideration. Hume’s empiricism—he argued that knowledge should be based on sensory experience rather than pure reason. “How does consciousness arise from the brain?”
WHYYYY???? . STEPP BACK, step back more, trying to answer the why?? or what needs to be involed to answer the question = Philosophy
Just making random questions being philosophical doesn't make it an important one. A point to be noted.
Philosophy has close relationship with a lot of other subjects
an argument, in philosophy, is just a sequence of evidence and reasoning designed to support a particular conclusion.
Though trying to construct and assess arguments in favour of some view or conclusion is a crucial part of philosophy, there is more to the subject than this
One lesson here is that we should bear in mind the ‘big picture’ when putting forward or criticizing philosophical arguments
David Hume (1711-1776): Causation.The Self. Our minds shape how we see the world, but we can’t be sure if that’s how things truly are. Our minds add meaning to what we experience, but we don’t know if it reflects reality.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): There is a "right way" to think about the world, and we can discover it by using reason carefully. The way we think isn’t just a mental habit—it’s also how reality itself is structured.