Intro to Philosophy Class Notes

 4/10/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408] Do you think it is possible to change how fast time seems to pass (the subjective sense of how fast time passes)?   What, exactly, is time? Time is the measure of change. Is time possible WITHOUT change? In the absence of something that changes that can serve as a “clock” there can be no passage of time. For time to pass is for time to pass relative to some changing thing that “measures” (or observes) it. If all “clocks” were to stop and nothing existed by which the passage of time could be marked, then it makes no sense to talk about time PASSING at all. Sydney Shoemaker’s frozen regions thought experiment Suppose the universe was divided into three regions, each of which experiences a “local freeze” During a local freeze, the frozen region has no changes taking place within it   A local freeze las...

 4/8/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408] If you COULD travel into either the past or the future but the trip had to be ONE WAY: a)    WOULD you opt to time-travel at all? b)    Which “direction” would you travel?   If presentism is true, then neither the past nor future exist as possible destinations for time travel. Modus ponens If A then B A Therefore B Modus Tolens If A then B Not B Therefore Not A Here is a related concern: How is motion through time (even at the normal rate) possible if the future doesn’t exist? How is any change at all of any sort possible under presentism? (How is it possible for something that exists to become something that doesn’t exist or for something that doesn’t exist to become something that does exist? ) Empirical arguments against presentism: -    Special relativity shows that there ...

 4/6/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408] How fast does time pass?   What is time? Time is often compared to space Time line Time is often considered to be symmetrical with respect to past and future Does time have a direction? There are different conceptual models of time There are three dominant models of time: 1.    Presentism (only the present exists) a.    The past used to exist but doesn’t anymore b.    The future will exist but doesn’t now c.    The present exists, but not for long (Analogy: novel written in disappearing ink) 2.    Fixed past open future (growing block view) a.    The past is “fixed”. What has happened is a permanent part of history and has as KIND of reality. b.    The future is open (undetermined). What is going to happen is not yet fixed. c.  ...

 4/3/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408] Have you ever (to your knowledge) had a false memory?   The “chain of stages” account of diachronic identity across changes: The abstract idea of a single persisting thing is applied to a collection of material parts under a common “manner of organization” and where a minority of parts are replaced at each “stage” of the thing’s history. For Locke, personal identity over time works the same way, but with conscious states instead of material parts. Human body != person Soul != person Consciousness (conscious being) = person Memory is especially important for Locke’s view. Locke says that identity is preserved so long as one’s consciousness can be extended backwards. Most commentators interpret this as memory. I am the same person today as yesterday because I can remember things from yesterday as havin...

   4/1/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408]   Can you think of something that can’t be thought of?     “I am not the man I was.” -       Ebeneezer Scrooge (in A Christmas Carol )       Scrooge’s claim is strange. Let x = The ‘I’ of the present Let y = The ‘I’ of the past   Scrooge seems to be saying “x is not y.”   But at the same time, the pronoun “I” appears twice and appears to refer to the same person: “ I was y but now I am x.”   The most plausible reading is really something like this: “I used to be a jerk, but I’m not anymore.” Or: “I used to have the properties of a bad person, but now I have the properties of a good person.”   That is, the moral properties Scrooge identifies are not essential...

3/30/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Bioethics Club: Mondays from 5:30pm-6:30pm in Leigh Hall 408] If you could choose whether or not to be reincarnated, but with no memory at all of your previous life, how would you choose?   Problems of identity What, exactly, is identity? Strict identity is usually explained in terms of Leibniz’s Law Leibniz’s Law is the combination of two principles: Identity of indiscernibles: If x and y have all the same properties, then x =y. (All difference is a difference in properties. For x and y to be different, one must have a property the other doesn’t have.) Indiscernibility of identicals: If x=y, then there are no properties that one has that the other doesn’t have. LL: x=y if and only if x and y have all the same properties. X = 4 Y = 2+2 Z = 1+1+1+1 X = Superman Y = Clark Kent Synchronic identity: Identity at a single time. Diachronic identity: identity at differ...