Introduction to Philosophy (Fall 07)

Today we discuss the third book in the Consolation. Some key points:

(a) Philosophy looks at five attempts to reduce the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of a particular type of good: wealth, recognition, power, fame, and delight.

(b) Each of these, she argues is only a fragmentary shadow of the true good, and none of them really turn out to be particularly good on their own.

(c) The true good delivers on what we expect good to give us (self-sufficiency, security, etc.) and which the fake goods only appear to give us.

(d) The true good is then argued to be divinity, and happiness is participating in Godhood.

(e) The book closes with an argument that the true good, i.e., God, governs all things with a good governance.

Keep reading the Consolation; Thursday we will look at Books 4 & 5.

For your third reflection paper, you have a choice.

EITHER:

(a) For your first page, draw a mind map, concept map, visual diagram, symbolic picture, or some other drawn representation of the philosophical ideas found in the Gorgias or one of its major arguments. Then write a page to a page and a half explaining your representation, using evidence from the dialogue itself to support your claims about its reasoning.

OR

(b) Boethius’s Consolation has a number of poems that make philosophical points. Write your own philosophical poem, on some topic found in the Consolation or on any other related topic (just a few examples: death, happiness, the good life, God, philosophy, suffering, fortune, justice), expressing your perspective on that topic. Then write a page and a half briefly explaining the perspective expressed in your poem and defending it from objections that others might make against it.

The due date for this paper is Thursday, November 8.

"There are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely, by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience; since many have the arguments relating to what can be known, but because they lack experience they neglect the arguments, and neither avoid what is harmful nor follow what is good. For if a man who has never seen fire should prove by adequate reasoning that fire burns and injures things and destroys them, his mind would not be satisfied thereby, nor would he avoid fire, until he placed his hand or some combustible substance in the fire, so that he might prove by experience that which reasoning taught. But when he has had actual experience of combustion his mind is made certain and rests in the full light of truth. Therefore reasoning does not suffice, but experience does."

Roger Bacon, from the Opus Majus. You can read more about Roger Bacon (c. 1220-1292) at the SEP.

Today we our discussion is devoted to Books I and II of the Consolation of Philosophy. Some important things to remember:

(1) The format for the work is unexpected; it’s usually reserved for satires. A question to ask yourself (one that Boethius scholars themselves haven’t wholly answered): Is something being satirized here, and, if so, what?

(2) Don’t skip the poetry: it makes important points, and raises important issues. If you think about each poem, you can usually begin to see a reason for why it is there. The poems also sometimes raise interesting philosophical issues in their own right.

(3) Philosophy’s approach to Boethius will be that of a doctor to a patient. In Book I she diagnoses Boethius’s ailment. She decides that his condition is bad enough that she can’t directly give him the harsher medicines that will cure him. So she starts with gentler medicines, palliatives: the philosophical version of painkillers. This is Book II. (Note that in II pr. 5 she says that she is increasing the strength of her medicine — but she still hasn’t reached the point of giving the harsher medicines she talked about earlier. So a question to ask yourself is: What about Philosophy’s treatment of the question changes at that moment?) In Book III Boethius will be strong enough to handle the harsher medicines.

Keep reading! We’ll look into Book III on Tuesday.

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Course Texts Online

"No one can be ignorant of the fact that this is true: the best is the best; or think that it is false. But the best is a being which is absolutely complete. Now any being which is absolutely complete, for this very reason, is an actual being. Therefore, if the best is the best, the best is. In a similar way, one can argue: If God is God, then God is. Now the antecedent is so true that it cannot be thought not to be. Therefore, it is true without doubt that God exists."

Bonaventure, De mysterio Trinitatis 1.1 fund. 29. You can read more about Bonaventure at the SEP. The above passage is Bonaventure’s version of the ontological argument, a controversial family of arguments, the most famous version of which is that found in Anselm’s Proslogion.

Today we finished the overview we started last time. We also looked at some of the background to Boethius. Today, by the way, is the traditional anniversary of Boethius’s death.

For next time, keep reading The Consolation of Philosophy; we’ll definitely do Book I and Book II on Thursday.

"There are two kinds of agent: (1) the agent to which the object which proceeds from it is only attached during the process of its becoming; once this process is finished, the object is not any more in need of it-for instance, the coming into existence of a house through the builder; (2) the agent from which nothing proceeds but an act which has no other existence than its dependence on it. The distinctive mark of this act is that it is convertible with the existence of its object, i.e. when the act does not exist the object does not exist, and when the act exists the object exists-they are inseparable. This kind of agent is superior to the former and is more truly an agent, for this agent brings its object to being and conserves it, whereas the other agent only brings its objects to being, but requires another agent for its further conservation. The mover is such a superior agent in relation to the moved and to the things whose existence consists only in their movement. The philosophers, believing that movement is the act of a mover and that the existence of the world is only perfected through motion, say that the agent of motion is the agent of the world, and if the agent refrained for only one moment from its action, the world would be annihilated. They use the following syllogism: The world is an act, or a thing whose existence is consequent upon this act. Each act by its existence implies the existence of an agent. Therefore the world has an agent existing by reason of its existence."

Averroes (1126-1198), Tahafut, Fourth Discussion. The Tahafut al-tahafut ("The Incoherence of the Incoherence") is Averroes’s refutation of al-Ghazali’s The Incoherence of the Philosophers.

Today we began to look at the medieval period. Our objective for these preliminary lectures is for you at least to know the names of some major Christian, Muslim, and Jewish philosophers in the period. I’m throwing a lot of names and dates at you in these lectures; but it’s important to keep in mind that you aren’t responsible for the dates (which are just to help give you a sense of how the different philosophers relate to you in time), and that the names are being put forward simply so that you’ll have heard them before. (The names it’s especially good to remember are those on the handout.) One of the reasons I am doing this sort of dry historical overview is that I want you to get a sense of just how complicated, tangled, and rich the medieval period is when it comes to philosophy — too many people are tempted to treat the Middle Ages as if they were uniform and monotonous ‘Dark Ages’, when the history of thought in this period is too complicated to grasp all at once. Since we will only be looking at tiny snippets of medieval thought, it’s useful to start out with a reminder of just how tiny these snippets are. So relax, and just try to get a sense of the vast, complicated, tangled sweep of thinkers and events in the period. Our reason for going through it is precisely so you won’t underestimate it.

"Do teachers hold that it is their thoughts that are perceived and grasped rather than the very disciplines they take themselves to pass on by speaking? After all, who is so foolishly curious as to send his son to school to learn what the teacher thinks? When the teachers have explained by means of words all the disciplines they profess to teach, even the disciplines of virtue and of wisdom, then those who are called ’students’ consider within thimselves whether truths have been stated. They do so by looking upon the inner Truth, according to their abilities. That is therefore the point at which they learn."

Augustine, The Teacher. You can find more about Augustine at the IEP and the SEP.

As I will be overseeing some logic make-up quizzes today, I will not be in the adjunct faculty office during my office hours today, but in E building instead.