An Introduction to Philosophy Lecture 01: Introduction James Mooney Open Studies The University of Edinburgh j.mooney@ed.ac.uk www.filmandphilosophy.com @film_philosophy

1. Introduction
An Introduction to Philosophy: 01
© James Mooney 2012

2. What is Philosophy?

3. What is Philosophy?
The main concern of philosophy is to question and
understand very common ideas that all of us use every day
without thinking about them. A historian may ask what
happened at some time in the past, but a philosopher will
ask, “What is time?” A mathematician may investigate the
relations among numbers, but a philosopher will ask,
“What is a number?” A physicist will ask what atoms are
made of or what explains gravity, but a philosopher will
ask how we can know there is anything outside of our own
minds. A psychologist may investigate how children learn
a language, but a philosopher will ask, “What makes a
word mean anything?” Anyone can ask whether it’s wrong
to sneak into a movie without paying, but a philosopher
will ask, “What makes an action right or wrong?”
(Thomas Nagel, What does it all mean?, 1987)

4. What is Philosophy?
• Philosophy deals with very particular
types of questions.
• Philosophy attempts to answer these
questions by way of a particular
method.
• The philosophical method involves
reason, logic, and argument.

5. Argument
In philosophy, an argument is a set of statements or propositions, one of which is
the conclusion (what the argument seeks to defend), and the remainder of which
is/ are the premises (the defence).
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
P1
All (A) are (B)
All men are mortal
All women are poor drivers
P2
(x) is an (A)
Socrates is a man
George is a woman
C
Therefore, (x) is (B)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal
Therefore, George is a poor driver
An argument is valid (a good argument) iff the truth of the premises guarantees
the truth of the conclusion.
An argument is sound (a good argument with a true conclusion) iff it is valid and
its premises are true.
Example 1 (above) is a valid argument form; it will remain valid no matter what
content we replace the variables with. As such, both argument 2 and 3 are valid,
although only argument 2 is also sound. We will look at more examples of
arguments in class.

6. What are the origins of philosophy?
The Ancient Greek World

7. What are the origins of philosophy?
The Pre-Socratic Philosophers

8. What are the origins of philosophy?
Socrates (c.469-399 BCE )
‘… called philosophy down
from the skies.’ (Cicero)
Teacher of Plato

9. What are the origins of philosophy?
The Death of Socrates
(Jacques-Louis David, 1787)

10. What are the origins of philosophy?
Plato
(c.428/7-c.348/7BC)
‘the safest general characterization of the
whole Western philosophic tradition is
that it consists of a series of footnotes to
Plato.’
(Alfred North Whitehead,
1929)
Wrote 35 ‘dialogues’
Founded the ‘Academy’
Teacher of Aristotle

11. What are the origins of philosophy?
Aristotle
(384-322BCE)
Wrote on wide range of subjects (physics,
metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic,
rhetoric, politics, government, ethics,
biology, zoology)
Founder of logic
Hugely influential in terms of scientific method
‘The Philosopher’ in the medieval period
Founded the Lyceum
Tutor of Alexander the Great

12. Why do we do philosophy?
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Republic

13. Why do we do philosophy?
The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the
prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or
his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the
co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world
tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions,
and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin
to philosophize, on the contrary, we find ... that even the most everyday things
lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given.
Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to
the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge
our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while
diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases
our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant
dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating
doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an
unfamiliar aspect.
(Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, 1912)

14. Why do we do philosophy?
Thomas Hobbes’ famous political theory [...] tries to teach
us the lessons he felt had to be learnt in the aftermath of
the English Civil War; Descartes and many of his
contemporaries wanted medieval views, rooted nearly two
thousand years back in the work of Aristotle, to move
aside and make room for a modern conception of science;
Kant sought to advance the autonomy of the individual in
the face of illiberal and autocratic regimes, Marx to
liberate the working classes from poverty and drudgery,
feminists of all epochs to improve the status of women.
None of these people were just solving little puzzles
(though they did sometimes have to solve little puzzles on
the way); they entered into debate in order to change the
course of civilization.
(Edward Craig, Philosophy: a very short introduction, 2002)

15. The unexamined life
is not worth living.

16. Details
James Mooney
Open Studies
The University of Edinburgh
j.mooney@ed.ac.uk
www.filmandphilosophy.com
@film_philosophy