1 00:00:00,830 --> 00:00:03,690 Hi, I'm Dave Ward from the University of Edinburgh and 2 00:00:03,690 --> 00:00:06,075 welcome to the first lecture of our Philosophy MOOC. 3 00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:10,300 So in this week of the course our job is to try and 4 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:14,430 understand a bit about what philosophy as a subject is. 5 00:00:14,430 --> 00:00:16,250 So here's what we're going to do. 6 00:00:16,250 --> 00:00:19,489 I'm going to tell you what I think philosophy is. 7 00:00:19,489 --> 00:00:24,017 And then I'm going to try and illustrate that conception of philosophy by 8 00:00:24,017 --> 00:00:28,028 talking a bit about how that relates it to some other subjects. 9 00:00:28,028 --> 00:00:31,999 Then we're going to move on to thinking about how some other features of 10 00:00:31,999 --> 00:00:36,738 philosophy follow from that definition of philosophy that I'll have given you. 11 00:00:36,738 --> 00:00:41,080 Then we're going to move on to thinking about how we actually go about doing 12 00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:41,965 philosophy. 13 00:00:41,965 --> 00:00:45,570 And we're going to do that by looking at our first couple of examples 14 00:00:45,570 --> 00:00:50,030 of philosophical arguments and thinking about how we should understand them and 15 00:00:50,030 --> 00:00:50,680 criticize them. 16 00:00:51,710 --> 00:00:55,680 And finally, we're going to finish by thinking about what it might mean 17 00:00:55,680 --> 00:01:00,370 to look for the best or the right way of thinking about something. 18 00:01:00,370 --> 00:01:04,830 And we're going to look at the views of a couple of great philosophers 19 00:01:04,830 --> 00:01:07,460 from history who are going to help us think about that question. 20 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:11,950 So let's get started. 21 00:01:11,950 --> 00:01:14,050 What is philosophy? 22 00:01:14,050 --> 00:01:18,810 Well, it's a difficult question to answer, and 23 00:01:18,810 --> 00:01:22,830 I think the best answer that we can give is a very simple one. 24 00:01:22,830 --> 00:01:27,350 Philosophy is just the activity that philosophers get up to. 25 00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:33,701 So one important thing about that is that philosophy isn't just a subject, 26 00:01:33,701 --> 00:01:36,755 it's an activity that we have to engage in. 27 00:01:36,755 --> 00:01:38,390 It's something that we have to do. 28 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,230 And to really get a good sense of what it is to engage in it, 29 00:01:43,230 --> 00:01:47,110 what it is to do it, and to do it well, you're going to have to do more 30 00:01:47,110 --> 00:01:51,430 than just listen to what I have to say about philosophy this week. 31 00:01:51,430 --> 00:01:55,300 The best way to work out what that activity is all about and 32 00:01:55,300 --> 00:01:59,220 how to be good at it is going to be to work your way through the course. 33 00:01:59,220 --> 00:02:05,270 And try to engage and think about and understand all the different topics and 34 00:02:05,270 --> 00:02:08,390 problems and arguments that we're going to consider there. 35 00:02:10,060 --> 00:02:14,190 So by doing that you'll hopefully get a much better sense of what 36 00:02:14,190 --> 00:02:18,890 philosophy is all about than I'm going to be able to give you this week. 37 00:02:20,020 --> 00:02:24,540 But I can at least try and make a start on saying what I think philosophy is, and 38 00:02:24,540 --> 00:02:29,640 here's the definition that I'm going to be working with this week. 39 00:02:29,640 --> 00:02:34,550 I think that philosophy is the activity of working out the best way 40 00:02:34,550 --> 00:02:35,600 to think about things. 41 00:02:37,050 --> 00:02:39,810 So what do I mean by that? 42 00:02:39,810 --> 00:02:44,182 Well, let's clarify it first of all by thinking about how that relates it 43 00:02:44,182 --> 00:02:45,695 to some other subjects. 44 00:02:45,695 --> 00:02:50,945 So one question that you might have immediately about that definition is, 45 00:02:50,945 --> 00:02:55,462 don't all subjects try and think about things in the right way? 46 00:02:55,462 --> 00:03:00,558 Okay, from astronomy to zoology, everything tries to think 47 00:03:00,558 --> 00:03:06,346 about whatever topic or domain it's concerned with in the right way. 48 00:03:06,346 --> 00:03:08,567 And I think that that's true. 49 00:03:08,567 --> 00:03:13,113 But I think that what the philosopher needs to say in response to it is to 50 00:03:13,113 --> 00:03:18,125 distinguish between the activity of getting on with thinking in a particular 51 00:03:18,125 --> 00:03:22,363 way and the activity of stepping back from that way of thinking and 52 00:03:22,363 --> 00:03:25,550 working out the right way to think about things. 53 00:03:27,210 --> 00:03:31,607 So it's that distinction between thinking in a particular way and 54 00:03:31,607 --> 00:03:36,081 working out whether some way of thinking is the right way that I think 55 00:03:36,081 --> 00:03:41,264 corresponds to the distinction between some particular academic subject and 56 00:03:41,264 --> 00:03:43,877 doing philosophy about that subject. 57 00:03:45,958 --> 00:03:49,530 So let's take physics as an example. 58 00:03:49,530 --> 00:03:54,566 If you're a physicist, then you do things like collect data, 59 00:03:54,566 --> 00:03:57,950 do measurements, 60 00:03:57,950 --> 00:04:02,850 construct experiments and try and build theories on that basis, okay? 61 00:04:02,850 --> 00:04:06,758 When you're doing that, you're getting on with the activity and 62 00:04:06,758 --> 00:04:10,126 the way of thinking that's characteristic of physics. 63 00:04:10,126 --> 00:04:13,857 But we can step back from the activity of doing physics and 64 00:04:13,857 --> 00:04:18,480 thinking in that way that we do when we're doing physics. 65 00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:22,390 And we can ask questions like, what is it for 66 00:04:22,390 --> 00:04:25,720 data to confirm or refute a theory in physics? 67 00:04:26,790 --> 00:04:31,331 What are we doing when we're trying to measure reality? 68 00:04:31,331 --> 00:04:33,613 And what does it even mean to try and 69 00:04:33,613 --> 00:04:38,039 understand reality in terms of its basic physical constituents? 70 00:04:39,770 --> 00:04:44,930 So when we step back from the actual process of doing physics in that way and 71 00:04:44,930 --> 00:04:48,380 start asking questions about the ways of thinking and 72 00:04:48,380 --> 00:04:52,800 the ways of carrying on that we're employing when we're doing physics. 73 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:56,890 Then we're making the transition from doing physics to doing 74 00:04:56,890 --> 00:04:59,050 the philosophy of physics. 75 00:04:59,050 --> 00:05:03,473 We're stepping back and trying to work out the right way of thinking about things. 76 00:05:06,153 --> 00:05:09,884 So for our second example I want to think about medicine. 77 00:05:09,884 --> 00:05:13,636 Specifically I want to think about the way they would have practiced or 78 00:05:13,636 --> 00:05:16,930 thought about medicine in Medieval times. 79 00:05:16,930 --> 00:05:19,376 So in those times, as I understand it, 80 00:05:19,376 --> 00:05:22,565 they tried to explain all different diseases, and 81 00:05:22,565 --> 00:05:27,550 tried to treat all different diseases in terms of what they called four humors. 82 00:05:27,550 --> 00:05:33,370 So there was blood, black bile, phlegm, and yellow bile. 83 00:05:33,370 --> 00:05:36,276 And if you had anything wrong with you, 84 00:05:36,276 --> 00:05:41,121 then they tried to understand that disease in terms of some kind of 85 00:05:41,121 --> 00:05:45,455 imbalance of those four humors and treat it accordingly. 86 00:05:45,455 --> 00:05:50,370 Now obviously, we don't think about medicine in that way anymore. 87 00:05:50,370 --> 00:05:54,240 We don't think that that's the right way to think about diseases 88 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:55,770 and their treatment. 89 00:05:55,770 --> 00:06:00,040 So how can that change in our way of thinking come about? 90 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,490 Well one way it could come about is just by us asking questions about what it 91 00:06:04,490 --> 00:06:09,830 really means for a disease to be an imbalance of black bile and 92 00:06:09,830 --> 00:06:12,380 yellow bile or whatever. 93 00:06:12,380 --> 00:06:17,630 So we might just ask ourselves whether we really understand what it means to 94 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:23,570 make that identity claim that a disease just is that. 95 00:06:23,570 --> 00:06:29,860 Or we might look at all the other things in the body that seem to also be important 96 00:06:29,860 --> 00:06:35,850 to our physical health and treatment and curing of disease and think that 97 00:06:35,850 --> 00:06:39,490 there seems to be a lot of evidence that they seem important to our health as well. 98 00:06:39,490 --> 00:06:42,120 So there are things other than blood and bile and 99 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:45,250 phlegm that are important to being healthy. 100 00:06:45,250 --> 00:06:47,310 How does our medical theory explain that? 101 00:06:48,700 --> 00:06:53,620 Or we might just notice that our ways of treating diseases and 102 00:06:53,620 --> 00:06:58,040 trying to cure people according to this framework really aren't very successful. 103 00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:05,070 So different ways in which we might be prompted to revise our conception 104 00:07:05,070 --> 00:07:11,010 of what the best way of thinking about diseases and how to treat them are. 105 00:07:11,010 --> 00:07:14,370 So notice from the quick discussion of physics and 106 00:07:14,370 --> 00:07:19,890 that quick discussion of Medieval medicine that it looks like there are a couple of 107 00:07:19,890 --> 00:07:25,423 different ways that we can be prompted to revise our way of thinking about things. 108 00:07:25,423 --> 00:07:31,702 Revise our conception of what the best way of thinking in a particular domain is. 109 00:07:31,702 --> 00:07:36,827 One sort of way can be making that revision from the insight, 110 00:07:36,827 --> 00:07:42,260 so making that revision from just thinking about the subject. 111 00:07:42,260 --> 00:07:47,750 So when I was talking about philosophy of physics, I was talking about 112 00:07:47,750 --> 00:07:53,900 asking questions such as, what is it for data to confirm or to refute a theory? 113 00:07:55,050 --> 00:07:59,570 And those are questions that can change the way that we think about physics just 114 00:07:59,570 --> 00:08:03,330 from the armchair, if you will, okay, just by thinking about them. 115 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:10,220 In the case of medicine I suggested that one way that we might be prompted 116 00:08:10,220 --> 00:08:15,150 to revise our medical framework was by thinking about whether or not we really 117 00:08:15,150 --> 00:08:21,049 understand what it means for a disease to be an imbalance of different humors. 118 00:08:22,266 --> 00:08:27,140 So again, that'd be what we might call a challenge to our way of thinking 119 00:08:27,140 --> 00:08:28,560 from the insight, right? 120 00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:33,180 We don't have to go out and be confronted by the world to 121 00:08:33,180 --> 00:08:36,590 change the way that we're thinking about things in those cases. 122 00:08:38,380 --> 00:08:40,920 But another way that we might be prompted to 123 00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:43,860 change the way that we are thinking about things is from the outside. 124 00:08:44,930 --> 00:08:49,780 So this is probably particularly clear with the example of Medieval medicine. 125 00:08:49,780 --> 00:08:54,675 So presumably one of the reasons why we don't subscribe to that way of thinking 126 00:08:54,675 --> 00:08:59,351 about diseases and their treatment anymore is because we just noticed that 127 00:08:59,351 --> 00:09:01,668 it wasn't very successful, okay. 128 00:09:01,668 --> 00:09:04,210 When we try and understand diseases and 129 00:09:04,210 --> 00:09:09,061 treat diseases by thinking about them and acting towards them in that way, 130 00:09:09,061 --> 00:09:13,080 a lot of people seem to die, and we don't seem to do very well. 131 00:09:14,550 --> 00:09:18,400 We might think that we can think about similar examples in physics. 132 00:09:18,400 --> 00:09:23,428 So perhaps the sorts of discoveries that were made in quantum mechanics 133 00:09:23,428 --> 00:09:27,890 at the start of the 20th century might give us examples here. 134 00:09:29,550 --> 00:09:33,939 One way you might think about those discoveries is that they 135 00:09:33,939 --> 00:09:38,063 appear to give us results just by looking at the world and 136 00:09:38,063 --> 00:09:42,485 doing experiments on it and observing what we found there. 137 00:09:42,485 --> 00:09:46,841 That seem to show that we had to really change quite fundamentally some of our 138 00:09:46,841 --> 00:09:49,850 notions about how we understand the world. 139 00:09:49,850 --> 00:09:54,010 So you might think that some of the results from quantum mechanics put 140 00:09:54,010 --> 00:09:59,670 pressure on basic intuitions that we have about what it is for 141 00:09:59,670 --> 00:10:01,820 one thing to be able to cause another. 142 00:10:01,820 --> 00:10:06,590 So there might be results in quantum mechanics that suggest that one thing can 143 00:10:06,590 --> 00:10:10,875 instantaneously affect another thing that's very far away from it and 144 00:10:10,875 --> 00:10:13,910 that doesn't seem to have any connection to it. 145 00:10:13,910 --> 00:10:17,395 There might also be some results from quantum mechanics that suggest that 146 00:10:17,395 --> 00:10:21,784 a thing can be like a wave in some respects, but 147 00:10:21,784 --> 00:10:24,680 like a particle in some other respects. 148 00:10:24,680 --> 00:10:28,710 Whereas it seems that according to our common sense conception of reality, 149 00:10:28,710 --> 00:10:32,750 a thing can be either a wave or a particle but not both. 150 00:10:33,820 --> 00:10:36,000 So that's a very quick and 151 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:41,110 crude characterization of some stuff about quantum mechanics. 152 00:10:41,110 --> 00:10:46,740 But it's just by way of example to suggest how the world 153 00:10:46,740 --> 00:10:51,320 can throw up reasons for us to change our way of thinking about things, 154 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:56,820 just as surely as we can get reasons just by thinking about it from our armchair. 155 00:10:58,710 --> 00:11:03,590 And so it's that feature of philosophy, the feature that 156 00:11:03,590 --> 00:11:08,520 by taking our ways of thinking about things out into the world and 157 00:11:08,520 --> 00:11:13,640 testing them against the world, we can be prompted to change and revise them. 158 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:17,020 That means philosophy has this really close relationship with a lot of other 159 00:11:17,020 --> 00:11:18,730 subjects. 160 00:11:18,730 --> 00:11:23,592 So in our two examples we've seen how it can have a close relationship with physics 161 00:11:23,592 --> 00:11:25,360 and with medicine. 162 00:11:25,360 --> 00:11:28,740 By getting on with the business of doing physics and 163 00:11:28,740 --> 00:11:33,870 doing medicine, we can be given reason to step back and 164 00:11:33,870 --> 00:11:38,605 think about or rethink what we think are our best ways of understanding the world. 165 00:11:38,605 --> 00:11:41,806 And this goes for a whole lot of other subjects as well. 166 00:11:41,806 --> 00:11:44,287 So for example, in a future week of the course, 167 00:11:44,287 --> 00:11:47,960 we're going to be thinking about some issues in the philosophy of mind. 168 00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:52,847 And we're going to see how developments in artificial intelligence and 169 00:11:52,847 --> 00:11:56,242 computer science led to people stepping back and 170 00:11:56,242 --> 00:12:01,731 trying to think about new ways to think about what it actually is to have a mind. 171 00:12:04,828 --> 00:12:09,730 So in this section I've suggested that philosophy is the activity of stepping 172 00:12:09,730 --> 00:12:14,410 back and working out the right way of thinking about things. 173 00:12:14,410 --> 00:12:19,383 And I started off by saying that philosophy, in an important sense, 174 00:12:19,383 --> 00:12:22,140 was an activity, not just a subject. 175 00:12:22,140 --> 00:12:26,040 So far I've tried to say a little bit about what that activity is and 176 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:28,560 illustrated it with a couple of examples.