Not every philosopher agrees on what philosophy is but they do agree on the Etymology and Topical Etymology Philos Sophia the love of wisdom Topical Logic The science of good reasoning and inference Metaphysics The study of fundamental structure of reality Example free will god Ethics Meta ethics What morality is Normative ethics What should we go do Applied ethics Policy right or wrong Arguments Premises and Conclusion Guarantee deductive argument if than argument premises guarantee the conclusion Probability inductive argument should be true cannot quarantine it Fallacies Irrelevant Reason Topic changes from topic one to topic two Ad hominem against the person unless the person is the premises topic Strawman Takes someone s argument and makes it look bad weakens it principle of charity don t misrepresent opponent s arguments Authority inappropriate field no consensus Liar Paradox example this statement is false if the statement was false then it would be true never used directly by Socrates Euthyphero s Arguments Dilemma E That which is agreeable to the gods Not specific enough the gods may disagree with each other E That which is loved by all the gods Consensus E Which comes first Is it pious because it is loved by the gods or is it loved by the gods because it is pious Either x is pious because the gods love x then piety is arbitrary or the gods love x because x is pious then piety does not mean that which is loved by the gods C Either piety is arbitrary or piety is not that which the gods love S Is piety a part of justice E Yeah I guess S Which part E The gods deal with piety Human beings deal with the rest S How exactly E There is a giving and receiving between the gods and human beings Russell Practicality concerns Science Main Conclusion Philosophy is still valuable even if it doesn t solve practical problems or give us knowledge A Philosophy is supposed to expand our conception of what is possible Without philosophy we would be trapped in a box and our mind isn t open to new possibilities B Philosophy is a cure for dogmatism If we don t engage in philosophy our only alternative would be to be dogmatic Refuse to acknowledge new views C Helps is to combat anthregsentrism Meaning that we are not the center of the universe Philosophy does not lead to the acquisition of knowledge according to Russell it is a controversial view Possible Alternatives You can deny Russell s contention that philosophy does not lead to knowledge You can also deny Russell s characterization of philosophy as impractical Which would make you a pragmatist Inescapability you can still divide philosophy into two parts and say this side is valuable and this side isn t It may turn out that some fields of philosophy are valuable and others are not Try and distinguish the valuable vs non valuable philosophy which is a challenge Philosophy of Religion Positions Theism view that there is at least one god monotheism pantheism belief that universe is god and polytheism Atheism denial of theism can be positive affirms the claim that there isn t a god or negative doesn t affirm the claim that there isn t a god Agnosticism strong no one knows whether there is or isn t a god or weak they don t know whether here is or isn t a god Arguments for and Against Cosmological Argument universe needs a cause for its existence can be called first cause argument and that cause is god for Ontological Argument Just by thinking about the concept of god you know that god has to exist some try and substitute something for got and use the same reasoning called a parody argument for Problem of Evil there is evil in the universe and god will prevent it from existing against Incompatibility of Traits Argument tries to show that god has traits that are inconsistent with each other example omnipotence he can create an environment where he is not all powerful against Teleological Argument the argument from design to show purpose telos purpose for Analogical Argument Human Artifacts Things in nature Artifact Designer Design Other Philosophy of Religion Topics Religions language how we can characterize in human terms beings that we would never come across St Thomas Aquinas says that we can only really use analogies Miracles Epistemological concerns David Hume suggested that people making mistakes and lying happens a lot more than violations of nature so if someone were to tell you a miracle you may assume that people are either lying or made a mistake Immortality survival of death metaphysical questions and questions of value is this something we would even want Pluralism we need to come to terms that there are many views traditions around the world Pluralism vs Exclusionism Palley s Argument from Design An important distinction for minimal theism Thought Experiments First Premise Human artifacts are complex good for something working towards some purpose and they are designed Second Premise Things in nature are complex and good for something Conclusion Things in nature are designed inductive argument Flaws Objection 1 Even thought we don t know who designed the watch or about the designer we can still know there was a designer Objection 2 flaws in the watch not talking about what kind of designer there is and it doesn t undermined the conclusion that there is a designer Objection 3 The watch has useless features that do not have a purpose Objection 4 No person in their right mind would say that the watch simply came about by chance Objection 5 It is equally ridiculous that it came by a principle of order the objects that make up the watch have a natural tendency to make up the watch Objection 6 in nature we have a desire to find the design which is not a feature of the thing itself but we cannot put that towards the watch we would not conclude we just want to find the design of the watch Objection 7 We do not want to simply say the laws of nature brought the watch about Objection 8 It would be ridiculous to say that we just don t know where the watch came from Self replicating watches suppose that the watches were more like us and had the ability to produce more watches Observation 1 We would be even more impressed with this watch and the designer would be a smart human being Observation 2 We should acknowledge that this watch came from another one but that cant just be it there was a design behind the self replicating construction Observation 3 we might have reason to believe that watches have been around for a long time so if it was