giovedì 29 gennaio 2009

Tutorial # 13. Descartes’ Meditations I: Descartes’ Skepticism. Discussion Questions

The Reading for this tutorial is René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Meditation I). You are strongly encouraged to purchase:
Descartes' Mediations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies Ed. John Cottingham, Cambridge Univ Press, 2007.

Just in case, A Trilingual HTML Edition of Descartes' Meditations can be found HERE
Edited byDavid B. Manley and Charles S. Taylor.

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In Light of the reading try to think about the following questions:

  • What is skepticism?
  • Is it a “sane” philosophical attitude to approach things around us?
  • What is the role of skepticism in Descartes’ first Meditation?
  • What is an illusion (spend some time to have fun with the Visual Illusion Gallery!)?
  • Try to think of cases when your senses mislead you. Do these situations have anything in common? What does it mean that they “mislead” you? What can we conclude from this about our senses?
  • Can you be deceived that you are reading this question now?
  • Do we have a background of certain, true beliefs?
  • What is the difference between dream and reality? Think about your dreams. How do they look like?
  • If everything is a dream, would it make sense to talk of “dreams”?
  • Can we dream of dreaming?
  • When you dream, can you ask “Am I dreaming”? If so, Would that be different from dreaming of asking “Am I dreaming”? Why?
  • Are dreams necessarily unconscious?
  • How do you know that you are not a brain in a vat (see John Pollock, “A Brain in a Vat,” in Feinberg and Shafer-Landau, Reason & Responsibility, pp. 137-138)? If you were a brain in a vat and you claimed: “I am a brain in a vat!”, which state of affairs your utterance would refer to?
  • When do we know that a mathematical statement is true (and indubitable)? Consider Goldbach's conjecture: "Every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes." This statement has not been proved yet. What should we conclude, now, about its truth?

Tutorial # 13. Descartes’ Meditations I and II: Certain Knowledge of Mind. Two Links on Illusion


A sort of Platitude, but worth a look

Descartes and the Matrix


Do yo trust in your visual experience? Take a look at this...

Tutorial # 13. Descartes’ Meditations I and II: Certain Knowledge of Mind. A Joke

A Descartes joke

Rene Descartes walks into a resturant and sits down for dinner. The waiter comes over and asks if he'd like an appetizer"No thank you" says Descartes, "I'd just like to order dinner""Would you like to hear our daily specials?" asks the waiter"No" says Descartes, getting impatient"Would you like a drink before dinner?" the waiter asks Descartes is insulted, since he's a tee-totaler"I think not!" he says indignantly, and POOF! he disappeared.


By Dave Chalmers

... Like you really expected to find anything funny about philosophy? Get real.

giovedì 22 gennaio 2009

Tutorial # 12. Plato's Meno. Virtue, Knowledge and Belief. Discussion Questions

In Light of the reading (Meno, 89c-100c) and of the material below (especially the Stanford Encyclopedia entry) try to think about the following questions.

  • How do we come to know what virtue is?
  • What are the criteria for a good definition? Think about this case. What are the common features inherent to mammals, or to colors?
  • What is the value of a good definition?
  • Do you think there are no teachers of “virtue”?
  • Should we “choose” our teachers (and the teachers of our kids)? How?
  • How serious is Socrates’ conclusion that virtue is true belief (or right opinion)?
  • How does knowledge differ from true belief? Assume that smoking kills. Do you have knowledge that smoking kills, or rather a true belief? Why? Make other examples.
  • What is it about knowledge (if anything) that makes it more valuable than mere true belief?
  • Consider Socrates’ example of “the way to Larissa”.
    Is knowledge really of more practical use than true belief? Consider different way of knowing (e.g. knowing that a square has four equal sides; knowing that Family Guy is a better animated sitcom than SouthPark; knowing your way home; knowing that the human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons).
  • Is it more useful to know how livers work, or just to have a true belief about how livers work?
  • Does knowledge, unlike true belief, give you more confidence? In which sense?
  • Does Socrates reach a conclusion as to what virtue is?

Tutorial # 12. Plato's Meno. Virtue, Knowledge and Belief. Some Useful Material


# Meno on the Perseus Project

# Meno's Problem by our own Prof. Duncan Pritchard
on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

# An Outline of Plato’s Meno
by Cynthia Freeland, University of Houston


martedì 13 gennaio 2009

Tutorial # 11. Plato's Meno. Meno's Paradox - The Search for a Definition of Virtue. Discussion Questions

The Reading for this tutorial is Meno, 79e-86c.
You are strongly encouraged to purchase:
Plato, Meno. This may be read either in the translation by Adam Beresford, Protagoras and Meno, (Penguin Classics), or in the translation by Robin Waterfield, Meno and Other Dialogues, (Oxford World’s Classics).

However, good online links to Plato's Dialogues can be found at http://plato-dialogues.org/links.htm (maintained by Bernard Suzanne)

***The Meno at PerseusProject

A useful summary by Marc Cohen University of Washington

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In Light of the reading and of the above material try to think about the following questions.

  • What is Meno’s paradox?
  • Is Meno’s paradox a serious problem?
  • A man cannot inquire either about what he knows or about what he does not know? For he cannot inquire about what he knows, because he knows it, and in that case is in no need of inquiry; nor again can lie inquire about what he does not know, since he does not know about what he is to inquire”. Evaluate this argument. Give a counterexample.
  • Is it always the case that either we know what we’re looking for or we don’t know what we’re looking for? Is there an equivocation (i.e. Is “what you’re looking for” used in two distinct senses) here? How?
  • How do we know when we have succeeded in finding the right definition of something, say of what love is, or of what a chair is? Try to answer thinking about the distinction between apriori and aposteriori way of knowing.
  • Is all learning recollection?
  • What is the difference between learning to drive a car, and learning to prove a geometrical theorem?
  • Do we come to life without knowing anything at all? Do we have innate “knowledge”? How the innate interacts with perception and/or inquiry to give rise to knowledge?
  • Can Plato’s theory of recollection help provide a solution to Meno’s paradox?
  • Which way of knowing is at issue in Plato’s “argument”?
  • Consider what follows - see also the previous post. Plato’s question to Slave: What’s the length of side of the square having area of 8 units? Slave: 4 units --- Is this a good answer (good = logical and justifiable)?
  • Again consider this. Plato to Slave: So the side of the square of area 8 unit is NOT 4 units? Slave: No, it is not; Plato: How much then? Slave: 3 units --- Is this a good answer?
    Why? Or Why not?
  • Is Socrates' ‘questioning’ a mere “asking questions”? Or is he implicitly feeding the slave the right answers?

Tutorial # 11. Plato's Meno. Meno's Paradox - Meno's Slave


Plato: The Area of this square is 8 units, right?
Slave: Yes
Plato: So the number we are after is the length of the red line, right?
Slave: Yes
Plato: What is that length then ?
Slave: I do not know

From Plato Meno, 79e-86c.