the structure of the world emily thomas (cerss). what is philosophy?
TRANSCRIPT
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The Structure of the World Emily Thomas (CERSS)
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What is philosophy?
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What is philosophy?
‘The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.’ (Russell, 1918)
Philosophy can be defined by...
1) Aims to produce a theoretical understanding of
mankind and the world
2) Method ‘armchair investigation’
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What is philosophy?
Philosophy
Ethics Political philosophy
Philosophy of
language
Epistemology Logic Metap
hysics
3) Subject matter• general and fundamental questions about existence
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What is metaphysics?
‘Metaphysics involves intuitive knowledge of improvable starting-points (concepts and truth) and demonstrative knowledge of what follows from them.’ (Aristotle, 340BC)
Metaphysics
Ontology Philosophy of space & time Causality Modality Composition
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Distinguishing Appearance & Reality
'We all start from naive realism, i.e., the doctrine that things are what they seem. We think that grass is green, that stones are hard, and that snow is cold. But physics assures us that the greenness of grass, the hardness of stones, and the coldness of snow are not the greenness, hardness, and coldness that we know in our own experience, but something very different.’ (Russell, 1950)
We can distinguish between Appearance and Reality by
i) empirical investigation ii) rational enquiry
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Structuring the world using ‘part & whole’
Applying the notion of ‘part and whole’ to the world at large
Examples: My arm is a part of my body This jigsaw piece is a part of the jigsaw This thread is a part of this piece of cloth A branch is a part of this tree
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Monism versus atomism
Parmenidean Monism (approx. 515-440BC) The fundamental structure of the world is the Whole
Atomism (approx. 460-380BC) The fundamental structure of the world is the Parts
‘By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colour: in reality atoms and void.’ (Democritus, approx. 350BC)
Monism
Pluralism
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A (very) brief history of monism and pluralism
E.g. Spinoza (1677) versus Leibniz (1714)
Bradley (1893) versus Russell (1903)
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The contemporary debate
We can formalise the notion of a proper part as follows:
Pxy = An object, x, is a proper part of a larger object, y, if some part of y is distinct from x
The part-whole relation has the following attributes:
x y z ((Pxy & Pyz) → Pxz) = Transitive x y (Pxy → ¬Pyx) = Asymmetrical x (Pxx) = Irreflexive
z
y
x
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The contemporary debate
This allows for strict partial orderings.
Universe
Galaxies
Planets
Living organism
s
Molecules
Simples?
Mountains
Moons
Galaxies
Stars
Individual suns
Gas molecules
Simples?
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The contemporary debate
Contemporary Monisms
The Whole is spacetime The Whole is an ultimate mereological
fusion
versus...
Contemporary Pluralisms
The Parts are everyday objects The Parts are the subject of fundamental
physics
Super-substantivalism
Priority monism
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The structure of the world
How do we determine which of these proposed accounts are correct?
Engage in conceptual analysis
Test theories for internal logical consistency
Critically examine the arguments for each account
See how they fit with science, our pre-theoretic intuitions and commonsense