Intro to Philosophy Class Notes

   2/25/2026 [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 a time when you thought you were wrong but turned out to be right?   Suppose we can agree on what level of justification is “good enough” to claim knowledge.   The JTB account of knowledge:   S knows that P if and only if the following conditions all obtain: 1.    S believes that P is true 2.    P is in fact true (you can’t know something that is false) 3.    S is adequately justified in believing that P is true       “The Gettier Problem”     The paper presents two counterexamples to the JTB analysis of knowledge.   Gettier’s case rests on the possibility of describing situations where a person’ belief is true, and their reasons would ...

 2/23/2026 [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] What is something you would say you are skeptical about?  Descartes’ “Archimedean point” was the principle, “I am thinking, therefore I exist.” Descartes sought to leverage this into a general infallibilist system for scientific knowledge. But it failed. Descartes’ failure was part of what motivated a turn away from infallibilism toward fallibilism. Fallibilism is the view that we can often claim knowledge even where there is a possibility that we are wrong. (We do not have to have perfect justification in order to claim knowledge.) Another driver of fallibilism is attention to ordinary language. We often claim knowledge despite the possibility of error. “I know what day it is today.” “I know I am not adopted.” “I know my cat is not a sophisticated robot.” I know that 1=1 Infallibilism appears to se...

 2/20/2026 [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 really know something, do you have to be able to explain HOW you know it?  Biggest problems for prescriptive rationality: (1)    Epistemic voluntarism (2)    Belief (cognitive) perseverance “Neurons that fire together wire together.” It is harder to dislodge an existing pattern of thought than it is to create a new one. (People are naturally disposed not to change our minds.) (“Epistemic conservatism.”) Problem of the criterion: “In order to have knowledge, you must know what knowledge is.” “In order to claim to know something, you must know what ‘know’ means.” Regress problem: If you have to know that you know in order to know, then you also have to know that you know that you know…. Same problem for belief: Suppose you believe something. Do you also have to believe that y...

2/18/2026 [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 believe space aliens have visited Earth?  Doxastic voluntarism: We choose our beliefs Epistemic voluntarism: We choose whether or not to be rational  There is some disagreement over the question of whether there can be degrees of belief or only degrees of confidence. Some people think there can be cases of “in-between belief” while others think beliefs can shift depending on circumstances. Some examples: Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe that bridge is safe? For our purposes, let’s assume that belief consists in an attitude toward a claim to take it as true. Doxastic attitudes: -    Belief -    Disbelief -    Suspension of judgment  What is truth? The most common account is the correspondence theory: A claim is true if it corresponds to the facts (accur...

 2/16/2026 [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] Is there such a thing as being “too rational”?  What, exactly, is rationality? Aristotle distinguished theoretical reason (episteme: what you think/believe) and practical reason (phronesis: how you act/choose).  These correspond to epistemology and ethics. The main topic this week is epistemology. “Thought moves. For it to move ‘well’ is rationality.” The core of Aristotelean science was observation and classification. This echoes Plato’s theory of Forms. The fact that different things can somehow be thought of as the same makes it possible to formulate RULES. Rules, by their very nature, are general (applicable to different cases on the basis of their similarity). One sense of understanding something is to be able to think of it in terms of the rules that apply to it. This is the heart of Plato...

 2/13/2026 [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 have any bad habits?  In philosophy (as in other areas), choosing between alternative positions is largely a matter of deciding which problems you are willing to inherit. A common objection to both compatibilism and hard determinism is that they are inconsistent with responsibility/accountability.  This is because of the “’ought’ implies ‘can” principle. If I have murdered Bob, why isn’t appealing to determinism a compelling defense? The challenge for compatibilists (and HDs) is to propose a model of accountability that is consistent with determinism. As usual, it can be helpful to ask, “What, exactly, is it to hold someone accountable for what they do?” Accountability is generally associated with punishment.  Two models of punishment: -    Retributivism -    Cons...

 2/11/2026 [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] Is free will all-or-nothing or does it come in degrees? Compatibilism affirms that determinism could be true but we could still have free will. A better expression of compatibilism is that the truth or falsity of determinism is irrelevant to the question of whether or not we can have free will. Compatibilists reject the alternatives principle as being part of what defines free will. Rather, compatibilists think that the concept of free will needs to be defined in some other way than in terms of alternatives. Compatibilism is mainly motivated by the ‘Reasons Principle’: S performs A freely at T only if A is consistent with the totality of reasons S has at T for acting.   Compatibilism suggests that what really matters to a choice being “free” is that it is consistent with our internal motivations for...

 2/9/2026 [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 insects have free will?   What, exactly, is free will? Is free will compatible with determinism? Yes: Compatibilism No: Incompatibilism What, exactly, is determinism? Combination of two causal principles: Universal causation: Every event must have a cause. Causal uniformity:  Strong: Given exactly the same causes, the exact same effects must follow. Weak: Given relevantly similar causes, relevantly similar effects follow. LaPlacian demon: (Pierre LaPlace) Given a complete knowledge of the state of material reality at some time and perfect knowledge of the laws of nature, every subsequent event would be perfectly predictable. Incompatibilists say that if determinism is true, then there is no free will. So, for them, the whole question is whether or not determinism is true. Two varieties of incompat...

 2/4/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.] Do you think all the suffering that exists in the world is deserved?   Strongest versions of Free Will Defense depend on a revised concept of omnipotence. Omnipotence: A being B is omnipotent if and only if for any logically possible state of affairs S that does not depend on the free will of some creature, if B wills S then S exists. Free will good = a good that results from the exercise of someone’s free will. It’s better if I do a good thing of my own free will than if I am compelled to do it. A world in which a significant number of free will goods exists is better than a world in which only compelled goods exist. It is at least logically possible that the current world which contains both free will goods and free will evils is better than any world God could have created in whi...

 2/2/2026 [Philosophy Club every Monday, 4-5 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")] [Challenge for today: Try to think of (and possibly ask) at least one question.] If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?   Argument from Evil Logical Argument from Evil – It is logically impossible that both God and evil exist Traditional attributes of God (despite being beyond understanding): Omnipotent = all-powerful Omniscient = all-knowing Omnibenevolent = all-good “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” (Epicurus) A being B is omnipotent =df. If B wills some logically possible state of affairs S, then S exists. Stone paradox: Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Suicide paradox: Could God commit suicide?   LAE: 1.    If God...