Classic Readings in Philosophy

By Stan Baronett

The overriding rationale behind this book is the desire to enrich the lives of college students by introducing them to philosophical thinking in an accessible and engaging manner. The classic selections were chosen to provide personal moments of reflection as students embark upon a journey into philosophy.

The opening section,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alinea Learning
• Release date: Mar 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987853115

Book preview

Classic Readings in Philosophy

Stan Baronett

Alinea Learning

Boston

Alinea Learning

Boston, Massachusetts

Published in the United States by Alinea Learning, an imprint and division of Alinea Knowledge, LLC, Boston.

The Role of Philosophy, and the section introductions, Copyright © 2023 by Stan Baronett

All the other readings are in the Public Domain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of Alinea Learning. Reprint requests should be addressed to [e-mail].

Visit our website at www.alinealearning.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print book ISBN: 979-8-9878531-0-8

eBook ISBN: 979-8-9878531-1-5

Cover copyright © 2023 by Carly Baronett & Stanley A. Baronett

Table of Contents

Part One: The Role of Philosophy

Part Two: The Value of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell

The Value of Philosophy

Part Three: Reality

Plato

The Divided Line, and The Cave

Aristotle

First Principles

Margaret Cavendish

Observations

John Locke

Primary and Secondary Qualities

Gottfried Leibniz

The Building Blocks of Reality

George Berkeley

To Be Is to Be Perceived

David Hume

Commit it to the Flames`

Mary Shepherd

Ideas

Immanuel Kant

Regarding an External World

Part Four: Knowledge

Plato

Knowledge Is Recollection

Aristotle

A Writing Tablet

Augustine

The Possibility of Deception

René Descartes

Doubt and Certainty

John Locke

Knowledge Derives from Experience

Gottfried Leibniz

Deep Inside

Mary Astell

Degrees of Clearness

David Hume

Matters of Fact and Relations of Ideas

Immanuel Kant

The Possibility of Experience

Charles S. Peirce

The Fixation of Belief

Part Five: God

5A. Can God’s Existence Be Proved Based on Experience?

Plato

The Beginning of Everything

Thomas Aquinas

The Five Ways

Gottfried Leibniz

Sufficient Reason

George Berkeley

The Author of Nature

William Paley

The Watchmaker Argument

David Hume

Against the Watchmaker Argument

5B. Can God’s Existence Be Proved Independent of Experience?

Anselm of Canterbury

The Existence of God

René Descartes

The Idea of God

Anne Conway

On God

David Hume

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

5C. Why Do Suffering and Evil Exist?

Gottfried Leibniz

The Existence of Evil and Suffering

George Hayward Joyce

The Problem of Evil

David Hume

Suffering and Evil

5D. Belief

Blaise Pascal

The Wager

Damaris Cudworth Masham

A Natural Inscription

Friedrich Nietzsche

God Is Dead

William K. Clifford

The Ethics of Belief

William James

The Will to Believe

Part Six: Mind and Body

René Descartes

Mind and Body

Margaret Cavendish

A Double Perception

Anne Conway

One and the Same Thing

William James

Does Consciousness Exist?

John Locke

Identity and Diversity

David Hume

I Am a Bundle of Perceptions

Part Seven: Free Will

John Locke

Free Agents

Baruch Spinoza

Everything Happens Out of Necessity

David Hume

Of Liberty and Necessity

Immanuel Kant

Freedom of the Will

Paul-Henri d’Holbach

A Series of Necessary Moments

Part Eight: Morality

Plato

Why Should We Be Good?

Aristotle

Virtues

David Hume

Morality Is Determined by Sentiment

Immanuel Kant

Duty

John Stuart Mill

The Principle of Utility

Friedrich Nietzsche

A Free Spirit

Thomas H. Huxley

Evolution and Ethics

Part Nine: Political and Social Philosophy

Plato

Apology

Plato

Should I Obey the Laws?

Aristotle

A Political Animal

Thomas Hobbes

Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, and Short

John Locke

For the Good of the People

Catharine Macaulay

Observations on Revolution

John Stuart Mill

Liberty

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Workers of the World, Unite!

Mary Wollstonecraft

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Part Ten: Art and Aesthetics

Aristotle

Tragedy

Henri Bergson

An Animal Which Laughs, and is Laughed At

George Santayana

A Pledge of the Possible

Arthur Schopenhauer

Art Takes Away the Mist

Part Eleven: Does Life Have Meaning?

Epicurus

In Waking or in Dream

Arthur Schopenhauer

The Vanity of Existence

William James

Is Life Worth Living?

Bertrand Russell

Fate is Subdued by the Mind

Preface

The overriding rationale behind this book is the desire to enrich the lives of college students by introducing them to philosophical thinking in an accessible and engaging manner. The classic selections were chosen to provide personal moments of reflection as students embark upon a journey into philosophy.

The opening section, The Role of Philosophy, provides a general introduction to philosophy. It uses real-life examples to illustrate how philosophical thinking touches all aspects of our lives, and how it is connected to other academic disciplines. Thereafter, each philosophical area, such as the nature of reality, knowledge, God, free will, and morality, has its own introduction offering further framework and context. These features allow students to connect with the content in an intuitive, natural manner. The surrounding narrative is designed to be conversational and comprehensible. The intent is to furnish a clear path through the material that enables readers to get started in understanding each philosopher’s ideas and arguments. The table of contents presents each instructor with the opportunity to choose a set of readings that matches the individual needs of each class.

The goal of any introduction to philosophy anthology should be a selection of readings that stimulate us. Since there are thousands of possible readings that one can choose from, every anthology must make choices. The editing process for this anthology was driven by the need to include material that is challenging, yet accessible. The emphasis on classical readings reveals the rich and varied history of philosophy, and it provides a foundation for understanding modern philosophers’ ideas and writings. The readings are long enough to develop important philosophical issues, yet short enough to concentrate on a few topics. The readings are meant to stimulate immediate reflection and offer a platform for discussion.

Part One: The Role of Philosophy

Lively conversations often jump from one topic to another. You probably have experienced being part of a spirited discussion where, at some point, you wondered how the conversation wound up talking about something that seemed to have no connection to where the discussion started. On another occasion, perhaps you were looking for one thing on the Internet and, after several links, you found yourself reading something that seemed far away from where you began. This common occurrence points to the interrelatedness of knowledge.

Philosophy has been defined in many ways, such as the quest for knowledge, the love of wisdom, the search for truth, or the asking of ultimate questions. Since philosophers do ask questions and propose answers, in a general sense they are similar to scientists, physicians, lawyers, engineers, economists, psychologists, and those in many other professions. Since each of those fields developed its own methods and criteria for acquiring knowledge, in one sense the knowledge of one field is independent of the others. However, even though each field has its particular area of questions and phenomena that it studies, ultimately all knowledge is connected. In fact, interdisciplinary studies attempt to build bridges between different academic fields by recognizing that research in one area can often provide what is missing in another area, or shine a new light on the outstanding questions, or even open up completely new avenues of research.

Philosophy plays an important role in all aspects of intellectual activity. In fact, every major scientific discipline was once part of philosophy. Physics, chemistry, biology, and astronomy are studied by those we now call scientists, but they were originally called natural philosophers (meaning that they studied the nature of the physical universe). While many people may imagine Albert Einstein working in a laboratory or gazing through a telescope, his theory of relativity was born from a thought experiment that was inspired when he envisioned flying through space at the speed of light.

After graduating from college, Einstein worked as a clerk in the Swiss government patent office. One day, while he was riding home on a streetcar, Einstein noticed the time on a large clock tower. He knew that the information he received from the clock—let’s say the time was 6:05—travelled to his eyes by light rays. From this simple everyday event, Einstein made a leap of imagination. He wondered what would happen if he jumped on the light ray that carried the time information. He realized immediately that, for him, the time on the clock tower would always be 6:05, because no other light rays could catch up to him. But even more remarkable, Einstein knew that the time on his pocket-watch would keep running as normal. Against the prevailing view of the concept of time, Einstein’s radical new idea was that time is not absolute; it is relative to our perspective.

Philosophy also played an important part in the development of many of the most recent social science disciplines. For example, philosophers’ writings have been the source of psychology, sociology, political science, and economics, to name just a few subjects. Given this, it is not surprising that philosophical questions still echo throughout most modern academic fields.

It is not difficult to see the interrelatedness of knowledge. Let’s look at just one example—the problem of crime. Imagine that your brother was rushed to a hospital after collapsing at home. At the hospital you are informed that he has died, and an autopsy is going to be performed in order to find the physical cause of death. The results of the autopsy can be used to help answer your question, Why did my brother die?

Scientific advances in forensics, human pathology, chemical analysis, and many other fields allow medical examiners to often pinpoint a precise cause of death. Now suppose that you are told that a lethal dose of an illegal drug was found to be the cause of your brother’s death. Your initial reaction might be one of astonishment, especially if you had no knowledge of any drug use by your brother. Perhaps you would need more assurance that there was not some mistake made by the medical examiners, or with the lab results.

When you ask how the physical cause of death has been determined, you are asking questions about knowledge. The area of philosophy that investigates these kinds of questions is called epistemology. The root word episteme means to know, and the suffix -logy means the study of, so epistemology is simply the study of knowledge. This branch of philosophy has developed a close relationship with science because scientific advances have become the hallmark of knowledge of the physical world. Therefore, questioning how we know the cause of death would get at the scientific reliability and validity of forensic science, which in this case determines the physical cause of death.

We ask epistemological questions whenever we ask questions such as these:

How do you know that he died of a drug overdose?

How do you know that the plane crash was caused by pilot error?

How do you know that cigarettes can cause lung cancer?

How do you know that increasing literacy and education reduces racism?

How do you know that massive doses of Vitamin C have no effect on the common cold?

The epistemological foundation of scientific knowledge of the physical world is also part of the next stage in our investigation—to determine how the drug entered your brother’s bloodstream. At this point, law enforcement will get involved in the investigation in order to determine whether the drug was self-administered or whether your brother was the victim of a murder. If the police suspect foul play, then evidence is sought that might lead to the perpetrator. Centuries ago, proving murder was quite difficult. If there were no eyewitnesses to a crime, then objective evidence was hard to gather. And even eyewitness accounts are often unreliable evidence.

In the late 1800s, an interesting hypothesis was developed to help in crime detection. It was known that the eye acts like the lens of a camera; in fact, cameras and film were developed to mimic the way our eyes work. When our eyelids are raised, light strikes the outer part of our eyes and signals are sent to the brain. In a camera, when the shutter opens, light strikes the lens and is projected onto film, which records the picture. It was conjectured that since our eyes act like cameras, then they might record the last image seen by a murder victim. The murderer’s image should be recorded somewhere in the victim’s eye. The problem was how to develop the image. Various techniques were developed, none of which worked. Although the hypothesis proved to be unfounded, the idea has been used in novels and was given a humorous depiction in the movie Wild, Wild West.

Over the course of the last one hundred years, advancements in crime detection were developed. Fingerprint evidence was one of the first tools used successfully in criminology. Scientific methods for determining blood type proved valuable, and recently, DNA analysis has been introduced. Of course, all these inventions had to be validated as being reliable objective evidence. If a method does not pass scrutiny in the scientific community, it will probably not be admissible in a court of law. For example, lie detector results are typically not admitted as evidence because the process has not been proven to be a reliable source of objective evidence.

Now suppose that after a thorough investigation, it has been determined that your brother was murdered, and someone is arrested. The next step is the murder trial, the legal aspect of the crime. Criminal trials rely on both the physical evidence (the epistemological questions) and the logical arguments of the prosecution and the defense. Here we can see the difference between the concept of proof and that of beyond a reasonable doubt. Criminal trials do not offer proof in the mathematical and logical sense of valid arguments, which are defined as arguments where the conclusion follows with necessity from premises. Instead, the prosecution must establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, a concept that has within it the idea of uncertainty. In fact, the concept is not precisely defined by judges when they give directions to juries. Jurors are told to use their consciences when deliberating. (In contrast, civil trials rely on a weaker standard, referred to as the preponderance of evidence, which is based on the probable truth or accuracy of the evidence.) The jury must decide the strengths and weaknesses of both the defense and prosecutor’s arguments. This is both an epistemological issue (e.g., the physical evidence and expert testimony) and a logical issue (e.g., deciding which is stronger—the prosecution’s argument or the defense’s argument). In other words, the amount of doubt that exists in the minds of the jurors.

If the trial ends with a guilty verdict, then it enters the punishment phase. Here the philosophical questions concern the areas of ethics and political philosophy. Any determination of punishment must be grounded in morality, and, since this is a legal case, philosophical questions regarding laws and governments play a big part as well.

There is a fictional story that cleverly illustrates some of these related issues. A man has been found guilty of a crime and is about to be sentenced. The judge asks the defendant if he has anything to say before she announces the sentence. The man says the following:

I admit that I committed the crime. However, I took an introduction to philosophy course and we studied the issue of free will. If humans have free will, then they have ethical choices for which they are responsible. So, if I freely chose to commit the crime, then my punishment can be justified. But, if humans have no free will, if our behavior is completely determined, like everything else in the physical universe, then we do not choose to commit crimes—we cannot help ourselves. If that is so, then we should not be punished for doing something we were predetermined to do. I have come to believe that we do not have free will. Therefore, judge, you should not punish me.

Upon hearing this, the judge says the following:

I also took an introduction to philosophy course, and I have thought about the same issues. In fact, I even came to the same conclusion as you—I believe that we do not have free will. Therefore, I am sentencing you to life in prison—but I am not choosing to do it, my decision has been completely determined.

The story also introduces another area of philosophy—metaphysics. This branch of philosophy deals with what are often called the ultimate questions of reality. These include questions regarding the nature of reality, the existence of God, whether or not humans have free will, and whether mind and matter exist.

There are other types of philosophical questions that are connected to this case. For example, suppose after your brother’s death, you go to your religious leader and ask the same question you asked in the hospital—Why did my brother die? If your religious leader responds by saying that your brother died from a lethal dose of an illegal drug, you would be surprised. Even though the question is the same, you are not seeking a physical cause answer, you already have that. Rather, you are now seeking some guidance regarding the reason or purpose of your brother’s death; you need to make some sense of the meaning of his death. You might even begin asking yourself some important questions: Does life have any meaning, or is it absurd? Would a good God allow suffering and evil to exist? As you can see, these questions are quite different from those we have been considering.

Philosophy touches on all aspects of life. Our hypothetical example, about a death and a crime, illustrates the philosophical aspects of epistemology, science, law, logic, ethics, politics, government, metaphysics, and the meaning of life. On any given day you will find many additional examples of philosophical issues at work in your local and global community. To understand the interrelated aspects of the important questions of life requires contemplating the philosophical questions that lie at the heart of all human understanding. This contemplation involves challenging personal assumptions and conventional wisdom—very powerful skills. The ancient Athenian government found them so powerful and threatening that it condemned Socrates to death by drinking a cup of hemlock. There is no hemlock in the following chapters, just nourishing food for thought that is valuable for all career paths and other worldly pursuits.

Part Two: The Value of Philosophy

The goal of this book is to lay the groundwork for appreciating philosophy and its ideas. To help us, Bertrand Russell’s The Value of Philosophy, provides a clear and useful way to understand philosophy’s value. Although Russell placed this piece at the end of his short book, The Problems of Philosophy, we will use it to begin understanding how philosophy is intimately connected to everything we do and experience throughout our lives. In that sense, Russell addresses our futures.

The problems of philosophy are timeless. They touch all our lives. In the hustle and congestion of life—especially in the information age in which we live—the profound philosophical questions can get lost amidst the torrent of data immediately available every instant. But sooner or later quiet introspection reaches all of us. It may be triggered by a tragedy, or by a sense of loneliness; it can even happen in moments of happiness and bliss. At those times, having an intimate connection to the important ideas that have been thought about, wrestled with, and argued over for centuries, provides a way of appreciating the complexity of life and the incredible human capacity for understanding.

Bertrand Russell

The Value of Philosophy

It will be well to consider what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fact that many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is impossible.

This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. This utility does not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be primarily sought.

But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavor to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called practical men. The practical man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton’s great work was called the mathematical principles of natural philosophy. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of philosophy. There are many questions—and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life—which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true. In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey of human knowledge, and to form an opinion as to its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value—perhaps its chief value—through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleaguered fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.

One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps—friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad—it views the whole impartially. Philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-assertion, in philosophic speculation as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity.

For this reason greatness of soul is not fostered by those philosophies which assimilate the universe to Man. Knowledge is a form of union of Self and not-Self; like all union, it is impaired by dominion, and therefore by any attempt to force the universe into conformity with what we find in ourselves. There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us. This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self. What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.

The true philosophic contemplation, on the contrary, finds its satisfaction in every enlargement of the not-Self, in everything that magnifies the objects contemplated, and thereby the subject contemplating. Everything, in contemplation, that is personal or private, everything that depends upon habit, self-interest, or desire, distorts the object, and hence impairs the union which the intellect seeks. By thus making a barrier between subject and object, such personal and private things become a prison to the intellect. The free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, calmly, dispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge—knowledge as impersonal, as purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain. Hence also the free intellect will value more the abstract and universal knowledge into which the accidents of private history do not enter, than the knowledge brought by the senses, and dependent, as such knowledge must be, upon an exclusive and personal point of view and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.

The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man’s deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man’s true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.

Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy: Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

Part Three: Reality

Introduction

As you might expect, each area of philosophy has developed ways of talking about the questions and issues that fall under its domain. Yet in this respect, philosophy is no different from any other attempt to understand the world. All academic disciplines, businesses, and nearly every kind human endeavor or enterprise has its own set of technical terms. For thousands of years, philosophers have asked important questions: What is reality? Is reality one thing or many things? These are general questions about the nature of reality.

For most nonphilosophers, reality comes in two flavors: matter and mind. In other words, most people would say they have both a brain (physical; composed of matter), and a mind (nonphysical). One person might believe that her mind can exist independently of her brain, while another person might hold that his mind dies along with his brain. Some people are partial to the mental world (thoughts and ideas), while others prefer the physical world (sensations and motion).

We might ask, Can reality be conceived or understood directly through reason (the mind)? On the other hand, we may ask, Can reality be perceived or experienced through our five senses (matter)? Some people have even asked, Are we even capable of understanding reality?

In many ways, these questions and concerns are the most fundamental of all. After all, if we cannot determine the nature of reality, then how can we ever understand how knowledge is possible? In other words, if we cannot grasp reality, then our knowledge is about—what? For example, if your are a materialist (someone who believes that reality consists of physical objects), then you probably believe that some truths about reality can be known through experience (through the five senses). On the other hand, if you are a rationalist, then you probably believe that some truths about reality can be understood through reason alone (independent of sense experience).

Even at an early age, humans seem inclined to these questions. Although a child’s questions may be simple (especially the all-encompassing Why?), they affirm Aristotle’s opening sentence of his book, Metaphysics: All men by nature desire to know. 

One of the things philosophers have tried to answer is the long-standing question of the status of abstract concepts (also referred to as the problem of universals).  Abstract concepts are contrasted with individuals. For example, you are a particular individual human being, and so are your parents, friends, and each person you happen to meet. So we can say that individual humans exist. But what about humanity? Does that universal abstract concept refer to anything that exists, or is it just a mental construct? Similarly, you can draw a picture of an individual triangle, or recognize one when you see it. But does the universal abstract concept triangularity refer to anything that exists? Similar questions can be asked of the concepts goodness, beauty, and honesty. David Hume denied that abstract entities exist because our immediate experience gives us particulars, not universals. For example, I perceive this particular blue object, and some other particular blue object—but I never perceive blueness. Therefore, reality consists of the particulars of immediate experience. 

Plato held that abstract terms refer to the world of Ideas or Forms, which are eternal and changeless, and which can only be grasped by reason. For Plato, only the Ideas truly exist, while everything given through sense perception—the world of experience—is an illusion. Opposed to this idea are nominalists—philosophers who deny the existence of abstract entities. Nominalism holds that abstract concepts are merely terms that we use for convenience sake, by which we group together things with similar characteristics.     

A realist holds that reality exists independent of our perceptions. There are different versions of realism. Platonic realism argues for the existence of universals (abstract entities). But another type of realism argues for the independent existence of a physical world outside us. A third type, called Aristotelian realism argues that, although universals exist, they are subject to (depend on) our experience of particular entities; that is, they arise from our ability to generalize. On the other hand, idealism holds that reality consists of mind and its ideas. For example, George Berkeley argued that all objects of perception are ideas in a mind.

Finally, there are several specific areas each with its own name and its own set of questions and concerns. For example, ontology is the study of what there is (sometimes whimsically referred to as the furniture of the universe). An ontological theory might describe the basic and fundamental categories of existence (the furniture), and the relations between those categories. Another area is cosmology, the study of the origin of the universe and its evolution. We will encounter these concepts, along with philosophers’ theories and answers to the most fundamental questions of all.     

Plato

The Divided Line, and The Cave

In the following passages, Plato creates two vivid pictures. The first passage, The Divided Line, shows how we are capable of going beyond the physical world of opinions and beliefs, so we can reach the realm of knowledge and reason. The objects of the visible physical world are fleeting and forever changing; thus, they are subject to error and doubt. Our minds are also capable of understanding the world of Forms, an eternal and unchanging world which we are able to grasp through reason.

  Plato offers a different presentation of his thoughts in the second passage, The Cave. Here Plato weaves a fantastic story that indirectly reveals the thought that our sensations delude us about the true nature of reality. Thus, we must use reason and contemplation to gain a true understanding of ultimate reality.

The Divided Line

There are many different things in the world we call beautiful and many we call good. The reason we can bring all the various instances under one term is that they can be captured under a single Idea, which is the essence of each. Further, things in the physical world are seen but not known, whereas the Ideas are known but not seen. It is by means of sight we see the visible things, and with hearing we hear, and with the other senses perceive the other objects of sense. Do you agree, Glaucon?

I agree, Socrates.

But without the addition of some other nature there is no seeing or being seen.

How do you mean?

Unless there is a third nature specially adapted to the purpose, the owner of the eyes will see nothing and the colors will be invisible.

Of what nature are you speaking?

Of that which we call light. Light enables the eye to see and the visible to appear.

You mean the Sun?

The sun is not sight, but the author of sight. Now just as the Sun is related to things in the visible world, the Good in the intelligible world is related to the mind.

  Will you be a little more explicit, Socrates? 

The eyes see dimly when a person directs them toward objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, when seen at night; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them. But when they are directed towards objects on which the sun shines, they see clearly.

Certainly.

And the soul is like the eye; when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul understands and is radiant with intelligence. That which imparts truth to the known and the power of knowing to the knower is what I call the Idea of Good. This is the foundation of truth in so far as it becomes the subject of knowledge. Light and sight may be said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, truth may be said to be like the Good, but not the Good; the Good has a place of higher honor. Would you say that the sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, but of generation and nourishment and growth?

Yes.

Similarly, the Good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge to all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the Good is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power. You have to imagine, then, that there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intelligible world, the other over the visible world. May I suppose that you have this distinction of the visible and intelligible fixed in your mind?

  I have.

Now take a line which has been cut into two unequal parts, and divide each of them again in the same proportion. One of the main divisions refers the visible realm, and the other to the intelligible realm. Compare the two subdivisions of each main division in respect of their clarity or lack of clarity, and you will find that the first section in the sphere of the visible consists of images. And by images I mean shadows, and reflections in water and on smooth surfaces. Do you understand?

Yes.

Imagine, now, the other subsection in the visible realm to include physical objects—animals and everything that grows or is made.

I understand.

Both sections of this main division provide different kinds of information to our senses. The image is a copy of the physical, so it is a kind of illusion. The physical is the source of belief.

Can you explain that.

An image, such as a shadow, doesn’t provide knowledge of the physical object that is the source of the shadow. Physical objects provide more information to us regarding the visible realm, but since those objects are always changing, there is no permanence in the physical world. Thus, we have only beliefs about this realm.

I understand.

We can now consider the subdivisions in the intelligible realm. Those who study geometry and arithmetic assume odd and even numbers, and different kinds of angles. They write numerals, and they draw lines and squares and triangles; these exist in the visible realm. But when we do this we are not thinking of these drawings; we are thinking of the Ideas which they resemble; numbers, and absolute squares and triangles which can be understood only with the mind. The drawings and numerals are only a means to think about and understand the things we draw. For example, in geometry we can deduce certain things about the angles of a triangle, or calculate the area of a square. We can talk about the nature of triangularity, not just the simple line drawing.

That is true.

And when I speak of the other subdivision of the intelligible, I mean the kind of knowledge that only reason itself can attain—what are called Ideas, or Forms if that term is easier for you to grasp.

I understand you, perhaps not perfectly, for you seem to me to be describing a task which is really tremendous. You say that the Ideas or Forms are contemplated only through reason.

You have understood my meaning. And now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul—reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, belief to the third, and opinion of shadows to the last. And let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth.

The Cave

Let me show in a story how far our nature is either enlightened or unenlightened. Imagine human beings living in an underground cave where they have been from childhood. They have their legs and necks chained so they cannot move. They are prevented by the chains from turning round their heads; thus, they can see only a wall directly in front of them.

There is a wide walkway above and behind the chained people where a fire is kept blazing. Along this walkway other people walk between the fire and the prisoners chained below. As the people above walk back and forth, they cast shadows on the wall in front of the chained people, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

Imagine, Glaucon, that the people walking in front of the fire carry all sorts of objects, statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone, which appear as shadows on the wall in front of the prisoners. And some of the people who are carrying objects are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, Socrates, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, Glaucon. And when the prisoners converse with one another, wouldn’t they suppose they were naming what was actually before them, having learned the words from those speaking above and behind them?

Yes, they would, Socrates.

And would the prisoners think that when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the shadow instead?

No question.

To the prisoners, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

And now imagine what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk toward the light outside the cave, he will suffer sharp pains. The glare will distress him, and he will be unable to recognize the reality of physical objects which in his former state he had seen only as shadows. And then imagine someone saying to him that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now that his vision is turned toward real existence, he has a clearer vision—what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them—will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

    Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, he will experience pain in his eyes which will make him turn away. And perhaps he will focus instead on the shadows that the objects cast, which were to him real existence.

True.

And suppose that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities. It will take time to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves. Then he will gaze upon the light of the Moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the Sun or the light of the Sun by day. But eventually he will be able to see the Sun, and not mere reflections of it in the water; he will see it in its own proper place, and he will contemplate it as it is.

Certainly.

He will then be able to understand that this is what gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he can now behold.

Yes, he would first see the Sun and then think about its role in vision.

And when he remembered his old place in the cave, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would pity them?

Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them?

I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live again in that miserable manner.

Imagine once more, such a person coming suddenly out of the Sun and replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

To be sure.

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in talking about the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, would he not seem ridiculous? Others would say of him that up he went up and beyond and came back without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to free another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

No question.

This story illustrates an important argument. The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will grasp my meaning if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intelligible world. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the Idea of Good appears last of all, and is seen only with a great effort. And when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intelligible; this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

I agree.

Moreover, you must not think that those who attain this great understanding are unwilling to descend to human affairs. As long as they exist in human form, they are drawn back to the world of sensations. Nevertheless, they continue to use reason whenever they can to ascend into the upper world. This desire of is very natural, if our allegory may be trusted.

Yes, very natural.

And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to the evil state of man, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner, if, while his eyes are blinking and before he has become accustomed to the surrounding darkness, he is compelled to fight in courts of law, or in other places, about the images or the shadows of images of justice, and is endeavoring to meet the conceptions of those who have never yet seen absolute Justice?

Anything but surprising.

And one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes: either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye. And he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.

Our argument shows that the power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already. And that just as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of the soul be turned from the world of becoming into that of being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the brightest and best being—the Good.

Aristotle

First Principles

All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses. By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced. Experience is knowledge of individual things, art is knowledge of universals, and actions are all concerned with the individual. A physician does not cure man, he cures Socrates or some other particular man. Yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience. For men of experience know that a thing is so-and so, but do not know why, while the others know the why and the cause. And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach. Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the why of anything—e.g., why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot.

The point of our present discussion is this: that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things. Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what kind are the causes and the principles, the knowledge of which is Wisdom. Now of these characteristics, that of knowing all things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under the universal. And these things, the most universal, are on the whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the senses.

We have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first cause), and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we mean the substance, i.e., the essence; in another the matter or substratum; in a third the source of the change; and in a fourth, the purpose.

It is right that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth, for the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action. Now we do not know a truth without its cause. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth.

But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind. For neither can one thing proceed from another, air from matter, ad infinitum; for example, flesh from earth, earth from air, air from fire, and so on without stopping; nor can the sources of movement form an endless series. Similarly the final causes cannot go on ad infinitum. But if the kinds of causes had been infinite in number, then knowledge would have been impossible; for we think we know only when we have ascertained the causes, but that which is infinite cannot be gone through in a finite time.

The subject of our inquiry is substance; for the principles and the causes we are seeking are those of substances. For if the universe is of the nature of a whole, substance is its first part. Sensible substance is changeable, and as change proceeds, there must be something underlying the change; something persists, namely, the matter. And since that which is has two senses, we must say that everything changes from that which is potentially to that which is actually, e.g., from potentially white to actually white.

Everything that changes is something, and is changed by something and into something. That by which it is changed is the immediate mover; that which is changed, the matter; that into which it is changed, the form. Some things can exist apart and some cannot, and it is the former that are substances. And therefore all things have the same causes, because, without substances, modifications and movements do not exist.

There is a science which investigates being as being and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature. Now this is not the same as any of the so-called special sciences; for none of these others treats universally of being qua [as] being. They cut off a part of being and investigate the attribute of this part; this is what the mathematical sciences, for instance, do. Now since we are seeking the first principles and the highest causes, clearly there must be some thing to which these belong in virtue of its own nature. Therefore it is of being as being that we also must grasp the first causes.

There are many senses in which a thing may be said to be, but all that is is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and is not said to be by a mere ambiguity. Everything which is healthy is related to health, one thing in the sense that it preserves health, another in the sense that it produces it, another in the sense that it is a symptom of health, another because it is capable of it.

So, too, there are many senses in which a thing is said to be, but all refer to one starting-point. Some things are said to be because they are substances, others because they are affections of substance, others because they are a process towards substance. It is clear then that it is the work of one science also to study the things that are, qua being. But everywhere science deals chiefly with that which is primary, and on which the other things depend, and in virtue of which they get their names. If, then, this is substance, it will be of substances that