"Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don't know."
~Bertrand Russell
“Philosophy is the science which considers truth.”
~Aristotle
~Bertrand Russell
“Philosophy is the science which considers truth.”
~Aristotle
This course is an introduction to scientific and philosophical thinking for humanities students - indeed, global humanities students. And, as is typical in both science and philosophy, the course revolves around questions. What is knowledge? How do we tell right from wrong?
Does it make sense to say we have free will? What is consciousness? And how do we get to know about the world outside?
Thinking about such questions is interesting in its own right, but in this course our discussion of such topics has a deeper purpose: to help you learn to think more systematically, and more critically, about how we as human beings come to know anything. There are many claims to knowledge. For example, we increasingly rely on technology, and the science which grounds it, but what is the source of scientific knowledge, and how is it established? And is such knowledge different in kind from the knowledge sought in the humanities? What kind of answers are possible here? Are there universal answers? Are are we always imprisoned by language, culture and education - by our identities? Once again, we are being lead into a series of philosophical questions...
Does it make sense to say we have free will? What is consciousness? And how do we get to know about the world outside?
Thinking about such questions is interesting in its own right, but in this course our discussion of such topics has a deeper purpose: to help you learn to think more systematically, and more critically, about how we as human beings come to know anything. There are many claims to knowledge. For example, we increasingly rely on technology, and the science which grounds it, but what is the source of scientific knowledge, and how is it established? And is such knowledge different in kind from the knowledge sought in the humanities? What kind of answers are possible here? Are there universal answers? Are are we always imprisoned by language, culture and education - by our identities? Once again, we are being lead into a series of philosophical questions...
Lectures:
- What do these big words mean?
- Knowledge
- Engineering morality
- Mind
- Free Will...?
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Learning about the world
- Science as social knowledge
- Fake news, fake science, fake truth
- And what did we learn from all this...?
Textbooks:
The lectures will raise many questions - and the emphasis will always be on encouraging you to think about them critically. To help you in this task are two - very different - textbooks. The first of these is Simon Blackburn's "Think"; the second is Stephen Law's "The Philosophy Gym''. Simon Blackburn's book will provide you with useful background to many of the major issues raised in the first half of the course. Stephen Law's book, on the other hand, will offer you a series of short, punchily written (and entertaining!) series of philosophical workouts to get your mental muscles nicely toned, and each week I'll be indicating which chapters are particularly relevant. It is important that you read (and think about!) both these books.
Think: An Introduction to Philosophy, Simon Blackburn, 1999
A useful book, and important for the first half of the course. Simon Blackburn discusses a number of key philosophical topics, in a down to earth and accessible fashion. This book should help you get your philosophical bearings, and will be a useful supplement to the early lectures. |
The Philosophy Gym, Stephan Law, 2003
This book addresses, in an accessible style, many interesting issues (ranging from gay sex, vegetarianism, and what art is through to where the universe came from and what numbers are). Yes, it's a gym! So get training! |
Further Reading:
However "Think" and the "The Philosophy Gym" won't give you everything you need. An important part of learning to think philosophically, is to read original works of philosophy, and to find philosophical issues in other texts. So we will also read some original texts, namely: (part of) René Decartes' Meditations, Naomi Oreskes' The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We are Not Wrong?, Norwood Russell Hanson's Seeing and Seeing As, and Plato's Euthyphro. So if you want some idea of where the course is heading, perhaps start by checking out the two textbooks, and then move onto the texts below.
Meditations, Rene Descartes, first published 1641
René Descartes is generally regarded as the first modern Western philosopher, and his Meditations on First Philosophy (first published in 1641 in Latin) remains a key text: the questions he asked, the answers he gave, and his arguments remain influential to this day. |
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change: How Do We Know We’re Not Wrong? Naomi Oreskes, 2007
In the second part of the course we will be asking what scientific knowledge is and why we place confidence in it. This paper, written by a leading historian of science (and the author of Merchants of Doubt) is a detailed examination of a case that many people (particularly in the United States) have no confidence in whatsoever: the claim that human activity is causing global warming. |
Seeing and Seeing As, Norwood Russell Hanson, 1969
Can we see neutrally? Or is what we see linked to what we believe? In this extract (Chapter 6 of his book Perception and Discovery) Norwood Hansen shows how what we observe is affected by theory. So is it really so straightforward to say that 13th century astronomers saw the same as a modern astronomer does today? And if not, just how can science based on knowledge obtained by 'observing the world'? |
Euthyphro, Plato, circa 399 BCE
Euthyphro is one of Plato's early dialogues, and an excellent introduction to his writing. It is a short dialogue between Socrates and a (rather annoying) character called Euthyphro on the nature of piety, and the role God plays (or rather, apparently doesn't play) in this concept. |
Resources
- Tired of reading philosophy? Why not listen to it instead! The Philosophy Bites site offers a large number of podcasts on a wide range of topic. Sit back and relax; listen and learn.
- The blogosphere is a good place to find out what philosophers like to talk about - and also to get some feeling for the good side and the bad side of academic philosophy. Here's some blogs you may find useful: The Splintered Mind, New Apps, Feminist Philosophers, Pea Soup, Daily Nous, and Crooked Timber.
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website is a valuable resource. It contains advanced materials on a wide variety of philosophical subjects, written by leading philosophers.
- Google Scholar is great place for hunting down information about papers, books, authors and citations.
- The PhilPapers website is a run by enthusiastic and well-organised volunteers. A great place to find philosophical papers.
- The JSTOR website is another happy hunting ground for interesting papers.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy website is an interesting site with some useful links. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy - a very useful and readable little book - was written by Simon Blackburn, the author of Think.
- Here you can find the website/blog of Stephen Law, the author of "The Philosophy Gym".