Intro to Philosophy Class Notes

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...

   3/16/2026 [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]   What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten? Leibniz’s mill thought experiment:   …It must be confessed that perception and that which depends upon it are inexplicable on mechanical grounds, that is to say, by means of figures and motions. And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work one upon another, and never anything by which to explain a perception. Thus it is in a simple substance, and not in a compound or in a machine, that perception must be sought for. (Leibniz, Monadology §17)   What WOULD “exp...

 3/13/2026 [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 believe a machine could ever really think?   Early AI holds that to think is to give the “right” sorts of outputs in response to the “right” sorts of inputs. If the mind is not observable, then what criteria determine whether or not someone or something is thinking? Behaviorist approaches say it can only be behavior. If something acts like it is thinking, we have to say that it is. Of course, “acts like” must be construed broadly. Turing Test: If a computer gives the same kinds of outputs in response to inputs as a human being, then the same reasons I say the human is intelligent should make me concede that the computer is intelligent. Multiple realizability (the same function can be performed by different things – sometimes radically different) Input-output (or “black box”) functionalism (st...

   3/11/2026 [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]   Are you able to form mental images (pictures)?   Both identity theory and functionalism are physicalist : (they are consistent with the thesis that only physical things exist)   Descartes: The foundation of knowledge is INTROSPECTION. (Our minds are like eyes that “look at” our ideas.)   The dominant view after Descartes is that to think is to have IDEAS.   Representational theory of mind/cognition. Thinking consists of “inner” mental objects (ideas) by means of which we represent what is “outer” (things in the world).       After Newton, science becomes primarily about observation and measurement. Can there be a SCIENCE of Psychology? (Some have thought not)   The mind appears to be unobservab...

 3/9/2026 [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 you believe animals have souls?   History of the concept of the soul What is the soul supposed to do? 2 primary functions concepts of soul were intended to perform: -    Explain life (difference between living and non-living things) = vitalism (soul = principle of life): something needs to be added to a body to have life -    Explain cognition/consciousness/reason/self Today, no one in the sciences accepts vitalism The view that the soul explains (or is need to explain cognition) is now generally called “dualism” Rene Descartes argues that the mind/soul is a distinct substance from the body (and can exist without it): -    Substance dualism -    Interactionist dualism -    Cartesian dualism -    Mind-body dualism What are the arguments for mind...

   3/6/2026 [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]   What is one thing you’d have to see to believe?   Suppose we accept that inductive inference is reliable (as it seems we should).   That is, we can, in good conscience, accept that:      The future will continue to resemble the past.     Nelson Goodman suggests that we still have a problem.     Imagine that one day space aliens land on Earth in search of emeralds.   Because emeralds have the most beautiful color – “ gr ue ”.   In the alien language, “ gr ue ” means “ green if observed before 1/1/2027 and blue thereafter.”   They also like sapphires, because sapphires are “ bl een ” – blue if observed prior to 1/1/2027 and green thereafter.     As an...

   3/4/2026 [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]   Are you at all superstitious?     Hume notes that cause-effect pairs are not analytically connected (we can’t know the effect by analyzing the cause or vice-versa).   If causes and effects are not analytically connected (logically necessary), then what OTHER type of connection can there be?   Can there be another kind of necessity than logical necessity? (Physical necessity?)   Where COULD the idea of physical necessity come from in experience?   How do we learn causal connections?       Ivan Pavlov     Hume says we learn cause-effect relations by “custom” (or habit).     Hume claims that the connection between cause and effect isn’t really necessary. It just ...

   3/2/2026 [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’s an example of a dumb thing to do? (Bonus if it’s something you’ve actually done.)   There are two basic types of reasoning: Deductive and inductive.     Deductive reasoning is based on logical relations that make “perfect inferences” possible. An inference connects the premises of an argument to a conclusion (The conclusion is inferred from the premises). In a deductive inference, IF the premises are true, the conclusion MUST also be true (purely as a function of how logic works).   Example:   1. Maureen plays Bridge every Tuesday. 2. Today is Tuesday. 3. Maureen plays Bridge today.     Inductive reasoning: In an inductive inference, if the premises are true, the conclusion is PROBABLY true. ...