The Philosopher Café

June 29, 2005

I. Book/Media Discussion – 6:00 – 6:10

o Plato, The Republic

Probably Plato’s best known and referred to book. It is essentially a political treatise but touches on many other areas of Plato’s philosophy including metaphysics.

o Aristotle, Metaphysics

This is the book from which metaphysics gets its name. This book explains Aristotle’s theory of the causes of things.

Books Read by meeting attendees:

Capitalism and Social Progress – Questions the western definition of progress.

Philosophy for Dummies – Recommended as it was easy to follow.

Philosophy Made Simple – On the recommended list, this reader really liked it.

Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by Richard Rorty – Rorty is a well known contemporary philosopher of the Pragmatist vein. Recommended by reader.

Audio Lecture Series: The History of Philosophy available at the Ayn Rand bookstore on the web.

II. Discussion: What is there? 6:10 – 6:30 PM

· Things that take up space, i.e. matter

· Love, emotions, concepts, these are not material but still real

· Things we sense via sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing induction based on this

· Non observable things such as quantum physics

· Science, faith, authority. Some disagreed with this and a discussion on whether or not science and faith were opposed ensued. Some felt that science opposed faith and other felt that science often used faith.

· Intuition/ Subconsciously known things.

· Insight or reason based things.

· Passing moments, Time

· Absolute Being, i.e. God, as defined by Spinoza

· Change

III. Introduction – Theme is Metaphysics 6:30 – 7:00 PM

Definition: It’s all about things or everything. The key question is ‘What is there?’

Other questions: What is the true, underlying nature of reality?

Drinking cup. Bryan pretended to spill a cup of water but it is faked. Questions perceptions.

What’s wrong with our senses?

- How do we know they reflect the real world?

- Are they passive/objective? Kant

- Our experiences versus what’s out there.

§ Example: Build your own deep sea sub.

· The algae monster

· Echolocation

· Sound for touch, i.e. heat

· Visual for Sound

· Computer Generated Image

Dependence on Epistemology: The philosopher’s approach to epistemology drives his or her view of metaphysics.

Socrates -> Plato -> Aristotle

Plato (or is it Socrates):

o Forms versus what we see.

§ For everything we see, there is a perfect version of it in another universe or world.

§ These perfect versions are called forms.

§ Real objects are just poor copies of the forms.

§ Basis on general verses particular, i.e. dog versus Fido.

§ Parable of the Cave.

o Forms are the real world but we just see shadows of these.

o The man who saw the real world is the philosopher who gleaned the truth which Plato believed could only be accomplished via long study and reflection. Truth is in all of us as we once were in the world of forms but we forgot it.

o Example: Poem or song awakens an insight where you think “That’s it exactly but I never knew how to express it.”

Aristotle

o Considers the theories of reality based on matter such as theory of atoms and rejects these as incomplete since they only tell you what things are made of but not how they came into being.

o Aristotle attempts to answer why there are things, i.e. how they came into being.

o Material cause is the material such as wood. He says that the wood has potential to be a boat but that is not enough. Something must be done to make it realize the potential, i.e. a boat builder needs to shape the wood into a boat. This he calls efficient cause. “

§ Material Cause – “If boats were already in the wood, we would have boats by nature.”

§ Formal Cause – The form or essence or design.

§ Efficient Cause – The primary source of change, the builder.

§ Final Cause – The purpose, the end to which the thing is done. For example, I built a pool to keep cool.

Relationship of causes: So hard work is the efficient cause of fitness, since one becomes fit by means of hard work, while fitness is the final cause of hard work, since one works hard in order to become fit.

o Thus Aristotle looks to the creator behind the creation. In the man made world, this leads to “If there is a watch, there must be a watch maker and the watch maker is the real cause behind the watch’s existence.” In the natural world, this seems to lead to “If there is a tree, there is a tree maker, i.e. God.” Therefore, there must be a creator of the natural world. This would seem to be a precursor to theology but Aristotle was not Christian as he lived three hundred years before Christ. He did not define a great deal about this God but just seems to point to the necessity of His existence. This is not stated explicitly but seems to be implied.

o Essence

§ Fish – swims

§ Man has reason

Other: Empiricism, Pragmatism/Radical Empiricism and Positivism

Empiricism looks always for concrete evidence but matched up with experience. It would generally discount many relatively common yet unexplained phenomena such as ghosts, religious experiences, ESP.

Radical Empiricism as defined by the American Philosopher William James, stresses experience over science. James said that any science that denies human experience is no science. However, this only applies when there is enough examples of a phenomena to be more than a fluke. Therefore, ghosts, religious experiences and ESP would be worthy of more investigation.

Positivism is the “Spock” like approach or living all of life as a scientist. The main character of the movie “A Beautiful Mind” acted like this. He tried to rationally calculate the most logical manner a mate would be attracted to him thereby alienating most women. Positivism typically rejects anything that does not fit into the scientific explanation of the world, i.e. the supernatural, ESP and religious experiences.

Discussion Question: 7:00 – 7:30 What is there that is permanent?

· Moon and sun but more from a poetic or traditional perspective

· Energy

· The Universe

Issue of Permanence: Analogy of the ship.

Is everything like a river? Stream of consciousness.

Bryan’s ending comments:

o Problem of defining what there is.

o Problem of impermanence.