1.What is Philosophy?
by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
What is philosophy? I want to begin this course by asking you to attempt to answer this question.
"That's silly", you're probably thinking, "we are taking this course because we don't know what philosophy is, so how do you expect us to answer such a fundamental question at the very beginning of the first day?"
Trust me. Taking just ten or fifteen minutes here at the outset to attempt to answer this question will give us a very good start on understanding what philosophy is. Now, if your mind is blank, try thinking about what we are doing right now. What is it about what we are doing right now that is different from what is done in other academic subjects?
Students. "Hmm."
Come on, who wants to be first? Don't be shy.... You know, the first time I ever taught this course, the first person who tried to answer this question ended up earning an "A"! Now, who would like to be first?
Student A. "Thinking. We are thinking. Is philosophy about thinking?"
Yes. This is indeed a central part of the philosopher's task. By the way, the second time I taught this course, the first person who tried to answer this question ended up with a "D"-so don't expect an easy "A"! A problem with your answer is that we often think in ways that could not really be called "philosophical". So, how does philosophical thinking differ from other types of thinking?
Student B. "It is abstract. There are no definite answers. Everyone has their own idea about philosophical issues, and nobody can claim to have the absolute truth."
This is a very common idea. Many philosophical arguments are indeed abstract, but isn't it also true that philosophy is sometimes very concrete and practical as well? Actually, I prefer to say there are too many definite answers to most philosophical questions. But however we choose to express ourselves, you have hit upon a characteristic of philosophical issues which makes them different from most other intellectual pursuits. No matter how many times a question is answered, it seems like there is always something that remains mysterious. This makes philosophy, at first sight anyway, quite different from science.
But let's continue observing what we are doing right now, and try to get more clues as to the nature of philosophy. Some philosophers have said that in philosophy, as in life itself, "we are building the boat in which we are floating." So, what then are we -- yes?
Student C. "Questions and answers. Does philosophy have something to do with questions and answers?"
Certainly. In fact, we can distinguish between different branches of philosophy, and even between different schools of philosophy, by observing the different types of questions asked by each. But, once again, all academic disciplines inevitably involve questions and answers. So what makes philosophical questions different from other types? What am I trying to do right now by asking you to think about the question "What is philosophy?" and why wasn't I satisfied with a simple answer, like "philosophy is thinking"?
Student D. "Because you're trying to get us to see beneath the surface of things. Everyone knows that philosophers think a lot, but you are trying to encourage us to see a deeper meaning."
Exactly. The questions asked in most other academic disciplines can be given definite answers because non-philosophical answers are usually concerned only with the surface of a thing. Philosophers, good philosophers, at least, are not satisfied until they have explored the furthest depths of the question they are asking themselves. Sometimes, in fact, philosophical ideas are difficult to understand not because they are too abstract, too far removed from our everyday life, but because they are too concrete! Sometimes philosophy touches so deeply on familiar things that we fail to understand because the subject is too close to home. Have you ever tried to look at your right eye with your left eye?
Student E. "Could you give us an example of a philosophical question?"
I'll do better than that. I will give you four examples of questions that good philosophers ask. At the same time this will introduce you to what I believe to be the four main divisions in the field of philosophy. The first two divisions are both theoretical. The first is metaphysics, and the question that defines the task of metaphysics is "What is ultimate reality?" Examining various answers to this question will be our task in Part One of this course. Part Two deals with the second division, logic, whose defining question could be expressed as "How do we understand the meaning of words?"
The last two divisions are both practical. The third could be called "applied philosophy". Now the application of meaningful words should lead to knowledge, and the English word "science" comes from the Latin word sciens, which means "knowing"; so we can call this third division science, provided we remember that we are not using this word in the same way it is normally used in everyday language. The question of this philosophical sort of science is "Where is the proper boundary line between knowledge and ignorance?". The fourth division, ontology, asks question such as "What does it mean to exist?" By asking and answering ontological questions, philosophers hope to improve our understanding of the essential characteristics of distinct types of things (e.g., animals, human beings, or God), or of types of experiences (e.g., beauty, love, or death).
In this course we will have the opportunity to consider each of these questions in turn, so it might be helpful to see their relationship to each other as a whole. One of my favorite teaching aids, as you will soon discover, is to use diagrams-especially crosses, triangles, and circles-to express the ideas we are discussing in a simplified but systematic form. In Week V we will see that each diagram is constructed according to a specific logical pattern. But for now we can just treat them as an easy way of seeing the relationships between sets of terms. Let's use a cross as a kind of "map" for our course by plotting the four branches of philosophy onto its four end points, as shown below:
Figure I.1: Four Branches of Philosophy
We will, of course, ask many other philosophical questions during this course, but these four deserve to be regarded as fundamental.
Student F. "At several points today you have referred to 'good philosophers'. This sounds rather presumptuous. Do you mean to imply that there are some 'bad philosophers'? What gives you the right to judge whether or not another person's ideas are good or bad? After all, everyone has a right to their own opinion!"
True. But the difference between good and bad philosophers has nothing to do with "opinion". It has to do with reasons. Reason gives all of us the ability to distinguish between good and bad, although making this distinction need not involve an attitude of condemnation. So I would say: yes, there are some bad philosophers. In fact, it seems all too often as if the bad ones unfortunately outnumber the good ones! So don't be surprised if you hear me using such expressions throughout this course. But again, I hope you won't take offense. The words "bad" and "good" here are not intended as moral judgments. Instead, for me these terms refer to philosophers who see the task of philosophy in a balanced way as opposed to those who believe philosophy has either a very narrow or a very broad scope of proper interest. Let me explain more fully what I mean by this distinction.
The task of doing philosophy can be understood in three ways. The first views philosophy as the process of using logical thinking to solve difficult problems by clarifying our concepts. In twentieth century western philosophy, the school of "analytic philosophy", which in one form or another dominated the English speaking world for most of that century, typically adopted this notion as its hallmark. Analytic philosophers tend to regard philosophy as a specialized kind of scientific profession, sometimes explicitly rejecting the notion that it should be closely related to our daily life.
The second type of philosophy takes the opposite approach, by viewing philosophy as a way of life, so that the philosophic task focuses on understanding the nature and purpose of human existence in all its complexity. In twentieth century western philosophy, the school of "existentialism", which in one form or another dominated the non-English speaking world for most of that century, typically adopted this notion as its hallmark. Existentialist philosophers tend to regard philosophy as a general discipline including almost anything that can help us live a truer, or more "authentic" life; but in the process their accounts of what such a life involves are often so obscure that the average reader has considerable difficulty understanding what it's all about.
The third type of philosopher recognizes that both of the above two notions are necessary for a proper conception of the philosophic task. A good philosopher follows this third way, by insisting that the goal of clarifying concepts is to point toward a certain way of life, and that the account of this way of life must be expressed clearly and must avoid the many obscurities into which such accounts often fall. For a philosophy that is not viewed as a way of life begins to look more like a technical science. And a philosophy that does not require a rigorous attempt to clarify concepts begins to look more like a mystical religion. But philosophy, at least good philosophy, is neither a science nor a religion, but a unique discipline that synthesizes aspects of both. As such, it exists, as it were, on the boundary line between the two. Hence we can picture the relationships between these three types of philosophy by mapping them onto a simple triangle, as follows:
Figure I.2: Three Types of Philosophy
By the way, there are probably just as many (or few!) "good" analytic philosophers as there are "good" existential philosophers. A good analytic philosopher is one who can clarify language without losing sight of the ultimate aim of learning to live a better life. By contrast, a good existentialist philosopher is one who can direct our attention to this ultimate aim without merely obscuring the truth by using unclear or misleading language. My point is that the best approach is to see philosophy as not rooted primarily in either of these two tasks on its own, but as necessarily holding both in balance.
The first hour is drawing to a close now, but we have time for one more suggestion as to how we can answer our main question. I wonder if anyone has a different sort of answer from the ones we have been considering so far. For philosophy is many things, and we have really only scratched the surface of possible answers.
Student G. "I've always thought philosophy has something to do with wonder."
What sort of wonder? Do you mean just looking up at the sky and daydreaming? Or do you have in mind transporting yourself into a purely imaginary world, as in the story, Alice in Wonderland?
Student G. "I'm not sure. I was just thinking of wondering as a way of being curious about the truth. Aren't philosophers interested in trying to find out why things are the way they are?"
Indeed they are! In fact, the word "philosophy" itself comes from two Greek words that mean "love" (phileo) and "wisdom" (sophia). So philosophy refers quite literally to a passionate search for the truth and for its proper application to our lives. Just as you have suggested, this search must be fueled by the fire of "wonder". I was not joking, by the way, when I referred to Alice; her story is full of interesting philosophical ideas!
Well, we have obviously not yet finished answering our question. Indeed, the question "What is philosophy?" should be kept at the back of our minds throughout the entirety of this course. If we were able to answer it completely today, then we could all quit here and the remaining thirty-five lectures would be redundant. But this is far from being the case. Instead, I want to suggest to you that by the end of this course you will (hopefully) know less about philosophy than you did before you came to class today!
I say that because, as we shall see, philosophy actually begins with the recognition of ignorance. The reason for beginning an introductory course by studying metaphysics is precisely that metaphysics can teach us the difference between what we can and cannot know. Only when we have learned this will we be prepared to learn from logic how we go about gaining an understanding of words. In particular, logic should teach us the difference between what words mean when they refer to something we can know about, and what they mean when they refer to something of which we are necessarily ignorant. Once we have this theoretical foundation to build on, we can apply our new understanding in practical ways. We do this by reaching out for truth and knowledge that is relevant to human life, and this search for a true "science" is properly called the love of wisdom. By loving wisdom we can enter into the fourth stage of the philosophical task without being "lost in wonderland", so to speak. For the final task is to learn truly to appreciate the wonder of silence. In a sense, all philosophy begins with silent wonder. Yet, as we shall see in Part Four of this course, it ends in silent wonder as well.
This gives us plenty to think about for the first lesson. I'll conclude simply by adding that the four tasks I've just described correspond exactly to the four "branches" of philosophy listed in Figure I.1 , and can be mapped onto the same cross, as follows:
Figure I.3: The Four Goals of Doing Philosophy
Each of these is best regarded as a never-ending task, rather than as a requirement that must be completely met before going on to the next stage. For this reason, we can think of them as the complementary goals we should set for ourselves at each stage of doing philosophy.
2.Some Guidelines for Writing Insight Papers
Insight is the foundation stone of all philosophical ideas. Without insights people would be devoid of creativity, always remaining more or less the same, in a relatively thoughtless world not unlike that of the animals. Where animals have instinct, human beings have the potential for insight. Hence one of the most important lessons to learn in any study of philosophy is what an insight is and how to develop the ability to have insights for oneself. We will discuss the nature of insight at several points during this course. The most important of these appear in Lectures 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, and 28 (pp. 81-82, 102-108, 131, 142, 183, 217-219) and ought to be read before you begin writing your first paper. But the skill of having insights can arise only through practice. For this reason, your responsibility as a student in this course centers primarily on the task of writing a series of "insight papers". Whether you are reading this book as an assignment for your philosophy class or simply for your own interest, I hope you will take seriously the importance of responding to what you read by writing something for yourself. This will give you the opportunity to practice doing philosophy by recording the results of your own reflections on a given philosophical question or issue. The guidelines I shall suggest in today's lecture are intended to assist you in choosing an appropriate topic and writing good insight papers.
At the end of each chapter or "week" (i.e., after each set of three lectures recorded in this book), I provide four pairs of "Questions for Further Thought/Dialogue", with some blank space in case you want to jot down a few notes as you think about each question. You may wish to use these as topics for some of your insight papers, though any topic is acceptable, provided you treat it in a philosophical way. In either case you should not search through this book for a "set" solution to the problem you choose to reflect and write about. Insight papers are a record of your own insights, not mine-though of course, you might find it helpful to use the contents of my lectures as a springboard for developing your own unique way of thinking.
Insight papers are by far the most important aspect of this course, because they complement the lectures and readings with a real, personal experience of philosophizing. Where relevant, students' insight papers are therefore used as the basis for class discussions. The task of discussing the implications of the issues raised in various papers is often interesting enough to occupy most of any given class hour. The remaining time is devoted to a discussion of questions arising out of the textbook and other readings assigned for that day. This means that from the second class session onwards every student is expected to read the relevant lecture in this book before the class hour to which it corresponds. It would also be helpful for you to read at least some of the texts listed in the "Recommended Readings" sections each week. These are usually arranged in order, starting with shorter or more specific texts that were mentioned in the lectures, and ending with more lengthy and/or general texts that will assist you in exploring more deeply the implications of the topics discussed in that week's lectures. These readings should also serve to stimulate insights and can often provide good topics for insight papers.
Keeping in mind the following guidelines should help you read more insightfully:
1. Don't worry if you do not understand every word and every sentence.
2. Instead, focus on locating and trying to understand the main points.
3. Underline the main points, and try to catch the general flow of the argument.
4. Excessive underlining will defeat the purpose and make review too difficult.
5. For short definitions of key terms, refer to the Glossary at the end of this text.
6. Interact with the text. If you disagree, write your reasons in the margin; if you agree, write something like "yes!" If it reminds you of something else, make a note of this; if you're confused, write "?", then ask for clarification in class.
7. When you find an interesting passage in the textbook, spend more time on it, then seek out Recommended Readings or ask the lecturer for further references.
8. If a passage is boring you, try to read faster or just skim until you reach a more interesting part. You can form a quick idea of the content by reading the first few and last few paragraphs and the first sentence of every paragraph in between. (Use this for extra, Recommended Readings, not for the textbook!)
9. Most importantly, be confident in your own ability to understand. Adopt the Enlightenment's motto as your own: Have courage to use your own reason!
Philosophy must be learned freely and with a minimum of external compulsion, so this course does not absolutely require extensive reading in the classical texts. However, the lectures below often refer to many of these texts, so it is assumed that anyone who is, or comes to be, motivated from within to do philosophy will make an effort to become familiar with as many of these additional readings as possible.
Here now are brief answers to the most basic questions students typically ask as they seek to understand the nature and purpose of writing down their insights:
What? An insight paper is a short record of your own thoughts, ideas, and reasoning on any topic, provided you can treat it in a philosophical way. Preparing and writing such papers is one of the most important aspects of this class. You should therefore write an insight paper after having one or more periods of at least fifteen minutes of concentrated thinking or meditating (pondering) on something philosophical. In addition to the questions given at the end of each week, here are a few examples of the kinds of subject you might choose to ponder: any question or issue raised in these lectures or discussed in class; a question about the meaning or nature of something; a theory or argument put forward by some philosopher you have read about; an object or idea which you think is beautiful or unusual; an experience you regard as philosophically profound; etc.
How? Be concise! Don't think that longer papers will always get better results. This is not true. Sometimes several sentences might be enough to demonstrate that you have a significant philosophical insight. Anything that is not directly related to the insight itself should be summarized or omitted. Your paper should devote as little space as possible to describing background information, such as other people's ideas. Most of the space should be devoted to your own reflections, criticisms, analysis, ideas for possible answers, etc. As a general rule, you should think in terms of one side of a standard sheet of paper as being long enough. If you need to use two pages, please help to preserve trees by writing on both sides (front and back) of one sheet of paper.
How many? Write as many insight papers as you can! If you are using this book as a textbook for a class, consult the syllabus for details on the number of required insight papers, their due dates, and other more specific guidelines.
Why? The purpose of the insight papers is for you to practice the skill of doing philosophy, by allowing you to explore philosophical ideas in depth. So you should write them with this in mind. Ask questions that drive your thinking below the surface, such as "why?", "what does it mean?", "how do I know?", "what is it?", etc. Do not simply repeat someone else's ideas. You can mention other people's ideas (e.g. the theories of some philosopher you have studied), but try to do this as briefly as possible. Most of the paper should be devoted to an explanation and analysis of your own ideas. Both creativity and careful argumentation will be highly valued, as well as clarity and orderliness. The mere statement of your own opinion, with no reasons given for support, is not satisfactory. Opinions can be mentioned as a starting point for further inquiry, but genuine insights are more than just undefended opinions.
What next? The insight papers should be used as the basis for discussions, both inside and outside of class. The former will require some papers to be read (anonymously) in front of the whole class. (If you ever write something you would not want to be read in class, you should write somewhere on your paper "Please do not read this in class, because..." and explain the reason.) Normally, the papers will be returned at the end of the next class session; the key points will be underlined, and some relevant questions or comments will be written on your paper. These do not necessarily reflect the lecturer's own point of view, but are intended to help you think more deeply about the issues raised.
The question that is probably on the mind of most student readers at this point is: how are insight papers going to be graded? (Non-student readers may wish to skip this and the following paragraph.) Of course, different teachers will inevitably have different criteria for judging the relative merits of such assignments. My own practise is to look for a balance between creativity, clarity, and critical rigor (i.e., examining the pros and cons of a variety of possible viewpoints). A rough grading scale can be based directly on these three criteria, as follows. An "A" paper will be one that is strong in all three areas. A "B" paper should be either strong in two areas, but rather weak in the third area, or strong in one area and mediocre in the other two. Likewise, a "C" paper could be either strong in one area and weak in the other two, or mediocre in all three areas. A "D" paper will not be strong in any of the three areas and will be significantly lacking in one or two areas. And a paper will fail if it is weak in all three areas; this usually means most or all of the paper has been merely copied from some other source, or that the paper consists of nothing but the description of a story, event, etc., with no attempt whatsoever to reflect on its implications.
Sometimes when I teach Introduction to Philosophy I use a "pass-fail" method to grade the insight papers: papers receive a tick if they contain enough philosophical content to have earned at least a "C" and a minus if they are below that level. (In this case, I also give a plus to reward papers that are of an exceptionally high standard.) The advantage of this method of assessment is that, by decreasing the pressure some might feel to write something just in order to impress the teacher, it tends to give students a greater sense of freedom to select topics that genuinely interest them. The disadvantage, of course, is that some students may not put as much effort into the exercise as a result of knowing that a mediocre paper will receive the same grade as an excellent one.
On the assumption that most readers will be interested in learning to write better insight papers, regardless of whether (or how) they are graded, I shall devote the rest of today's lecture to a series of suggestions for improving your skill in this area. The first is that you should not choose a topic for your paper until you have the experience of insight when reflecting on a given topic. If you have not had the experience, then devote more time to your reflections: developing a receptivity to insight is a discipline that takes time! My point here is that you should resist the temptation to treat insight papers merely as essays, by selecting a topic randomly and then trying to concoct an "insight" just to make your paper look good. If your mind is consistently open and reflecting on issues of your concern, then eventually insights will come; selecting one of these for the topic of your paper will ensure that you have a topic that interests you more than if you simply choose a random philosophical question or issue that you happened to stumble across by accident.
Once you have had an insight and chosen a topic on that basis, you should do more than just state what your insight is. That is, you should not be satisfied merely to ask a question and then give the "right" answer. Instead, you should analyze the validity of your insight by considering objections other people might make and providing reasons to support your position. Such an approach will prevent your insight from looking like nothing but an expression of your opinion. For the same reason, you should consider a variety of possible positions-perhaps even all possible positions, if you can. That is, you should consider the issue from as many different perspectives as possible.
This term, "perspective", will turn out to be one of the most important technical terms in this entire course. A perspective is a way of looking at something, or a general context for interpreting an issue, and determines to a large extent what kind of answer will be given. An important lesson to learn as early as possible in your philosophical education is that the same question can have different right answers, if a different perspective is being assumed. Much more will be said about this as we proceed through the course.
The comments I write on student insight papers are usually intended to assist in this process of seeing the issue from a variety of perspectives. As a result, what I write does not necessarily represent my own view; more often I merely ask a question that I think the paper has neglected and should therefore be taken into consideration if/when any further reflection is done on that topic. If you are not reading this book as part of a class, then I suggest you find a philosophically-minded friend with whom you can exchange insight papers. Read and comment on each other's papers regularly, with the aim of assisting each other in thinking more deeply about the issues in question.
I focus so much attention on gaining awareness of different perspectives because of all philosophical skills, this is the one I believe is most significant in preparing us for living a good life. Socrates' famous claim that "an unexamined life is not worth living" (see Lecture 5) is true only if a person has an effective way of examining his or her life. Such self-examination has two distinct aspects, relating to the conscious and unconscious aspects of nature. This course deals only with insights and perspectives relating to the former. I offer a separate course on dream interpretation and personal growth that deals primarily with the latter (see DW). In the present course as well as its sequel, awareness of perspectives is the key to an effective method of self-examination. Without it, our insights will never be anything more for us than a set of biased preconceptions that we believe without knowing why we really believe them, or what the options are. But with such an awareness, we can even learn to accept certain preconceptions as legitimate, when the perspective they support can be seen to be superior to other options. This issue of preconceptions is, in fact, of fundamental importance to understanding the nature and function of philosophy. I shall therefore devote all of the next lecture to examining that topic in more detail.
3.Philosophy as Myth
Once there was a tree, and her name was "Philosophy"....
Throughout this entire course I would like us all to treat this little one-line story as if it holds the key to the nature of philosophy. We can express the same idea in the more philosophical form of an analogy by saying "philosophy is like a tree". In either case, we are assuming as a given-an unquestionable starting point for all our inquiries-that the nature and constituent parts of trees give us clues as to the nature and constituent parts of philosophy. Like any genuine presupposition, there is no way of defending this starting point with incontrovertible proofs; the best we can do is to believe in its truth and value, and then explore its various implications. If the final result is less than satisfactory, we can always discard the presupposition and start again with some new hypothesis. But in the meantime, I shall return to this analogy on repeated occasions during this course in hopes of gaining deeper and clearer insights into the discipline we call "philosophy".
This means the assumption that there was once a tree called "Philosophy" will serve as the myth that guides and holds together the various ideas we will be discussing. The word "myth", when used in this way, does not mean "a false story or belief", as it ordinarily does in its everyday English usage. Rather, I am using it here in the special way some anthropologists use it in their descriptions of the primitive origins of religion. Today I want to explore this new sense of the word "myth", not only so that we can understand more clearly what it means to say the "tree of philosophy" will serve as our myth, but also because, as we shall see, the origins of philosophy itself are to a large extent rooted in this special type of mythological thinking.
In the first chapter of Myth and Reality, Mircea Eliade, one of the past century's most influential scholars in the scientific study of religion, provides a good explanation of the way myths function in primitive societies. Since the meaning he assigns to the word "myth" is quite similar to the one I want us to assume, I would like to highlight several of the important points he makes. First, he defines a myth as an old story about the origin of the world or the things in the world, which in some way explains why human existence is the way it is, or why one's own cultural norms have developed the way they have. The myth of Prometheus, for example, tells us, among other things, about the origin of fire. A society's customs relating to sexuality, family relationships, and death are among the most common subjects of its myths.
The actors in these myths are usually gods, other supernatural beings, or heroes with superhuman powers. Unfortunately, this tends to obscure for the modern reader the fact that these stories functioned primarily as models for human behavior. Nevertheless, during the twentieth century there were numerous attempts to show that ancient myths tell the story, so to speak of Everyman. The psychologist Sigmund Freud, for example, argued that the myth of Oedipus, the man whose fate it was to kill his father and marry his mother, tells the story of the childhood experience of every little boy, not just those who lived in ancient Greece. (See Lecture 8 of Dreams for further details.) Likewise, whenever we read an ancient myth, it is helpful to regard all the characters as, in one sense or another, telling the story of who we are. If I read a myth as a story of myself, then what once seemed aloof and irrelevant suddenly takes on a new meaning.
According to Eliade, primitive tribesmen regard their myths as the truest of all true stories. Their truth is demonstrated repeatedly by the fact that reenacting the myths in the form of rituals gives the people power over nature. At the same time, the ritual repetition of the story keeps the myth alive in the hearts and minds of the people. Indeed, the people seem to have two distinct types of stories: those relating events that took place in the ordinary lives of the people and those relating events that took place in a special "mythical time" (sometimes referred to as "dream time"). The German language distinguishes between these two types of stories by using the word historie to describe ordinary stories and the word geschichte to describe stories with special, deeper meanings. The word heilsgeschichte refers to a special "sacred history" that exists, as it were, on a different plane from ordinary history.
Although Eliade's account is quite accurate as a description of the myths found in primitive cultures, I would like to suggest that, with some rather slight revisions, we can recognize a mythological element in any and every human culture, including our own. First, instead of limiting myths to old stories, I suggest that we regard as a myth any belief, story, or proposition that functions in the same way the old stories function for primitive peoples. In other words, anything we use to explain why things are the way they are, or anything we use as a model for our behavior, might be regarded as a myth. This eliminates the requirement that the characters in a myth be so far removed from us that the story is intrinsically unbelievable to modern scientific ears.
Of course, not every explanation of reality is a mythical one, so it is important to recall Eliade's criterion concerning the truth value of a myth. However, I think we should reject his claim that a myth represents the truest of all true truths. Instead, I believe the defining feature of a mythical belief, as far as its truth value is concerned, is that its meaning makes it beyond question. That is, for the person who is "living in a myth", the question as to whether the story or belief or idea is true or false is irrelevant. The myth just is. In other words, it is accepted at such a deep level that the person never even thinks about questioning it. (This revised view of the truth value of a myth is depicted by the diagram shown in Figure I.4.) This does not mean that people who live in a myth are unable to ask any questions about the meaning of their myth. On the contrary, discussion of such questions usually plays an important role in societies governed by a particular myth. The only question that never arises is the basic question of whether or not the myth itself is true.
Figure I.4: The Truth Value of a Myth
People who live in a myth typically respond with confused amazement when someone questions their belief. Eliade's claim that a myth is believed to be the "truest" of all true stories rests on a misunderstanding of this response. For as the primitive tribesman instinctively knows, the notion of "truth" is not really appropriate when referring to myths. To ask a person about the "truth" of their myth is to misunderstand what it means to say it is a myth. Claims such as Eliade's result more from anthropologists reading their own preconceived ideas into their data than from the actual intentions of the primitive peoples. For our purposes, therefore, the term "myth" will refer to any belief whose meaning is so intimately connected with a person's way of life that the person never considers asking the question "Is it true or false?"
I hope you now understand more clearly what I mean when I say the story of the tree named "Philosophy" will be the myth that guides this course. I mean that I want you to accept the analogy, "philosophy is like a tree", as being true without question. Moreover, I want the picture of the tree of philosophy to serve as a model to guide your reflections on what philosophy is. For in so doing, you will find you have a power to understand philosophical insights that is beyond what most beginners would experience. But before we begin exploring some of these insights, I want to say something about the mythical origins of philosophy itself.
The histories of most cultures look back to an original "golden age" when human life was significantly different from the way it is now. And the longing for a return to this golden age (often closely related to the "dream time" or "mythical time" mentioned earlier) is the impetus for much cultural change. For the early Hebrews, the golden age was the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve "walked with God in the cool of the evening". For the Chinese people in the age of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), the golden age was the period of the "sage kings", when China was ruled with wisdom and benevolence. Since western philosophy, which will be the primary focus of this course, began in ancient Greece, it is most significant for us to note that the Greeks also believed in a golden age. Let us therefore look briefly at the history of ancient Greece in order to gain some understanding of how philosophy was born from myth.
Some scholars believe the dream of the golden age in ancient Greece referred back to the Minoan-Mycenaean culture, which had ended by the time of the Trojan War (circa 1200 B.C.). This age was the inspiration for the making of the Greek myths (see MM 87-89 and BM 213-215,278). The next major development in Greek history was "the creation of the Homeric epics [c.900 B.C.], which derived their material from this complex of myths" (MM 88, BM 464). These epics converted the unorganized mass of myths into a poetic form, rendering their meaning more apparent (BM 256f). But human consciousness had not yet developed into the form we know it today. According to Jaynes, our modern "subjective conscious mind" replaced a more primitive way of thinking "in the sixth century B.C." (259-260,285-286)-that is, at about the same time as the appearance of the first philosopher in ancient Greece, named Thales (c.624-c.546 B.C.). There then followed three centuries of intense philosophical activity in Greece, culminating in the work of a philosopher named Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). Aristotle's work was significant because, as we shall see in Lecture 6, he was the first major Greek philosopher to develop something like a "scientific" point of view, in the modern sense of that term. If we place these major developments on a time line, this rough sketch of ancient Greek history looks like this:
Figure I.5: The Cycle of History in Ancient Greece
The three hundred year gaps between each of the major changes represented in this diagram are, of course, only approximations of the dates when these changes actually occurred. Nevertheless, it is significant that history itself suggests to us such a regular pattern of development. The pattern is, in fact, reminiscent of the face of a clock, consisting as it does of twelve parts (hours/centuries) grouped into four quarters. (In Week V we will examine the logical structure of this pattern, which also provides the basis for the systematic organization of the chapters in this book.) Interestingly, this whole period of ancient Greek civilization is itself regarded by some as a "golden age"-a fact suggesting that this pattern is one that repeats itself indefinitely. If so, then a good way to picture the relationships between these four developments would be to map them onto a clock-face (i.e., a circle divided into four quadrants).
If we now recall the fact that our modern (A.D.) calendar starts at the point where Figure I.5 leaves off (namely, at the birth of Jesus, albeit, not in Greece), then we can see that the best way to map this time line onto a circle is to proceed backwards (putting the 9:00 term in the 3:00 position and vice versa), just as our reckoning of B.C. dates goes in the reverse order of our reckoning of A.D. dates. This gives us the map of four interrelated human thought forms shown in Figure I.6.
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I want to end today's session by suggesting a more general way of understanding how these four ideas-myth, poetry, philosophy, and science-relate to each other. For it would be a mistake to think their relationship is nothing but an accident of history. There is actually a logical basis for their relationship, as depicted by the diagram shown in Figure I.7. Living in a myth |
Figure I.6: Four Thought Forms in Ancient Greece
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is like living inside a circle without knowing anything about the existence of the circle itself. This is because mythological thinking is ignorant of all boundary lines. Poets withdraw themselves from the circle of myth just enough to recognize the existence of the boundary line. Poetry attempts to express the myth in such a way as to enable its meaning to be understood by those who live completely outside the boundary. Hence the poet lives on the boundary. Philosophers, by contrast, step completely beyond the boundary line; yet they remain close enough to the "circle" of myth to recognize the reality and significance of the "hidden meaning" contained in the myth's poetic expression. The philosopher attempts to explain that meaning in a more literal or objective way: whereas the poet
Figure I.7: A Map of the Four Human Thought Forms
can write poetry without explicitly questioning the myth, the philosopher must question the myth. That, indeed, is one of the main tasks of philosophy. Scientists differ from philosophers by withdrawing themselves so far from the realm of myth that they are no longer able to see the presence of any hidden meaning whatsoever. Whereas the philosopher questions the truth value of the myth (i.e., remains open to the possibility of seeing truth revealed in it), the scientist rejects the myth as nothing but a "false story" (see Figure I.4). Scientists live so far away from the myth that, if they see the circle of myth at all, it appears to be only a point way off in the distance, with no meaningful content.
Obviously, the everyday use of the term "myth" derives its meaning from our modern culture's tendency to put absolute trust in science. Yet ironically, our way of using this key term reveals that science itself shares some of the same characteristics as myths, such as ignorance of the boundary lines. And this raises the question as to whether or not the four basic thought forms might function as a cycle, whereby science itself, when taken to an extreme, becomes another form of myth. With this in mind, one of our main tasks in this course, if we are to become good philosophers in the present climate, will be to call into question the exclusive rights of the scientific world view over our minds. Next week we will therefore begin by examining the cyclical nature of these four human thought forms in more detail. We will then pay special attention to the developments in ancient Greece, where two of the most influential systems of philosophy were produced, systems that typify the two main ways of doing philosophy (cf. Figure I.2) so effectively that they continue to bear the fruit of insight to this day.
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT/DIALOGUE
1. A. What is philosophy?
B. How is philosophy like a tree?
2. A. What is a question, and why are they important in philosophy?
B. How is philosophical self-examination different from other types?
3. A. Is having philosophical ideas enough to make you a philosopher?
B. What is insight?
4. A. Could humans have been conscious before philosophy existed?
B. What are some of our modern myths?
RECOMMENDED READINGS
1. Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
2. Gary E. Kessler, Voices of Wisdom3 (Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1998[1992]), Ch. 1, "What Is Philosophy?", pp.1-11.
3. Richard Osborne, Philosophy for Beginners (New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, Inc., 1992).
4. Robert Paul Wolff, About Philosophy5 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992[1976]), Ch. 1, "What Is Philosophy?", and Appendix, "How to Write a Philosophy Paper", pp.1-37, 452-472.
5. Roger L. Dominowski and Pamela Dallob, "Insight and Problem Solving", Ch. 2 in R.J. Sternberg and J.E. Davidson (ed.), The Nature of Insight (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), pp.33-62.
6. Mircea Eliade, Myth and Reality (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964), Ch. One, "The Structure of Myths", pp.1-20.
7. Richard A. Underwood, "Living by Myth: Joseph Campbell, C.G. Jung, and the Religious Life-Journey", Ch. 2 in D.C. Noel (ed.), Paths to the Power of Myth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp.13-28.
8. Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Chs. I.3 and II.3, "The Mind of Iliad" and "The Causes of Consciousness" (BM 67-83, 205-222).
Send comments to the author: StevePq@hkbu.edu.hk
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