Chapter One Review of Wolff Text

Philosophy is defined as the systematic, critical examination of the way in which we judge, evaluate, and act, with the aim of making ourselves, wiser, more self-reflective, and therefore better men and women. The Wolff text begins our evaluation of philosophy with Socrates, born in 469 B.C., Socrates had a habit of asking questions that both annoyed established government leaders and caused various people to evaluate their lives. In the course of time he gathered followers around him who believed in his method of self-examination. One of these followers was a man named Plato, through Plato we know of Socrates life, death, and contributions to philosophy because Socrates himself never wrote anything. Some of the contributions that Plato attributes to Socrates are the dialogue between the question and answer method that Socrates used came to be know as the Socratic Method. He also put forth four key principles that Socrates believed in. Socrates four key ideas were: 1. The unexamined life is not worth living. 2. There are principles of though and action that must be followed to live good lives. 3. The truth lies within each of us. 4. Although no one can be taught the fundamental principles of right action and clear thinking, they can be helped along by people who have been there before. The Wolff text goes on in the history of philosophy by explaining the study of philosophy can be divided into two great branches, the study of the human condition and the study of the world or universe or the cosmos. The earliest philosophy encompassed all the sciences (like

Jessica Minton

Philosophy 101-40

biology) and as the other sciences developed and expanded they broke away from philosophy and developed into the branches of science we know today. While the conclusions reached by the early philosopher/scientist may not make sense to us today based on our current scientific knowledge the thought process they used to come to these conclusions still makes sense. Philosophers have latter tried to unite these two branches of philosophy. The first attempt to unify these two branches was by the Stoics. The Stoics claimed the natural world exhibits a rational order that can be explained by appeal to the existence and operations of reason. This idea was incorporated into the basis of many of the religious philosophers latter found. This unifying idea helped to found the idea of natural law that God or the power of reason created the universe in accord with a rational idea. Marcus Aurelius is one of the greatest know Stoics from this time. A second method of unification was developed by seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophers. They believed that the universe is vast and the best way to understand the universe is to understand the way in which we know rather than what we know, so by understanding the finite mind we can understand the infinite universe. These philosophers were divided into empiricist and rationalists. Empiricist believed that all knowledge comes from the five senses so all we can know is what our five senses will allow. Rationalists believe that some of the knowledge comes from reason and is unaided by the senses so we can know more than what the five senses allow. This interest in knowledge lead to the study of the minds capacity for knowing called epistemology. Over the course of the history of philosophy there has been an emphasis on three characteristics: rationality, universality, and objectivity. Rationality is the minds ability to

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Philosophy 101-40

present arguments and evidence in support of the belief. Universality means that it will apply for everyone, everywhere. Objectivity is being true to the way the world really is not reflecting on the inner nature. Not all philosophers agree good philosophy is all of these three things, but the majority of philosophers claim that these three ideas are actually interconnected and are the defining marks of good philosophy. There were three key elements to Kuhn's paradigms that I saw in the text. The first was the normal science the paradigm that supplies the foundation for most or all of the practice in that particular field. It is the one that is most emulated and seems to be the most like thinking inside the box. The next is scientific revolutions (thinking outside the box) which result in a paradigm shift where the normal science is overtaken with the new. Then there seems to be under the section The Response to Crisis a suggestion of a fixed state where one is unwilling or even incapable to make the shift from one paradigm to another.

Jessica Minton

Philosophy 101-40