Intro to Philosophy Class Notes

  12/4/2025 [Please complete the course evaluation.] What is your most useless talent?     What, exactly, is art ?   As with many concepts, dictionary definitions are inadequate. (Example: “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects” – Merriam-Webster)     Some forms of art do seem to involve skill or technique.   (La Pieta by Michelangelo) (Great wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai) Other works of art emphasize ‘creative imagination’:   (Les Voyageurs by Bruno Catalano)   (Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen) But then there are pieces of art that don’t seem to require either skill or creative imagination (though the crucial question is what, exactly, is meant by ‘creative imagination’):   (My bed by Tracy Emin)   (Artist’s shit by Piero Manzoni)     (Untit...

  12/2/2025 Is Batman Bruce Wayne?   Is this statement TRUE?   Batman = Bruce Wayne   Correspondence theory of truth: A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts.   Problem of fictional truth (truth in fiction)   “Sherlock Holmes was a plumber.”   Fictional truth involves a statement being true “in a story.”   What is it to be true in a story?   S is true in a story if and only if the story says that S. (S is represented as an assertion in the text.)   Implied truths in works of fiction?   Stories/texts can be contradictory.   “The following is a true story.”   “Sherlock Holmes was human.”   David Lewis: S is true in a text T if and only if S is true in the possible world that is most similar to the actual world in respect of T.   It is true in the Batman stories that Eric Sotnak is a philosopher.   S is true i...