Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Philosophy and ethics for Baccalaureate

Language Games

A language game is the use we make of a term to mean something. For example, the term "white" can be used to mean, among other possible uses, "white is the clearest of all colors."

Therefore, the set of language games in which a term appears would be the meaning of that term: the meaning of a word is its method of use.

• Each of the "language games" in which a term appears is the ruling that indicates the "logical" or "grammar" of that term: what makes sense and what does not make sense to use that term, moves allowed and which are not.
• These rules are further instructions for learning this term: learning these rules involves learning the contents of that term and understanding their conceptual load, i.e., knowing how to use it correctly.

Concept and Types of Substance

Three realms have discovered reality: God, or the infinite and true; I, or the thinking thing; and material things. Infinite substance, thoughtful and extensive. "Substance" is only applicable to God, but it can be applied to other beings that we perceive clearly and distinctly and that do not need anything else, except God, to exist. How do we perceive substance? By perceiving attributes, qualities of the substance that cannot exist by themselves, and each substance has its own essence. Res cogitans (thinking substance): thought; Res extensa (extended substance): extension.

Demonstration of the Existence of God

Causation argument applied to the idea of Infinite God:

1. Theory of the objective reality of ideas.
2. From nothing,

Definitions

Universe

All that exists, apart from which there is nothing.

Scientific Paradigm

A model of the scientific worldview that predominates in each historical stage.

Nature

The set of realities that form the entire universe, excluding anything artificially produced by humans.

Principle

The start, beginning, or cause from which something originates.

Hypothesis

A supposition or tentative scientific explanation proposed to interpret or provide solutions to certain facts.

Postulate

An unprovable proposition whose truth is accepted provisionally as a starting point for studying a problem when an absolutely true starting point cannot be found.

Define

Determining what something is by extracting the common characteristics of all individuals within the same...

Descartes' Methodical Doubt and the Foundation of Knowledge

Mental contents systematically subjected to methodical doubt will be:

1. The lessons learned.
2. The data of the senses (sometimes deceptive). This leads us to doubt the experience of the outside world. It even makes us doubt the existence of our own body, because we know it only through the senses.
3. Our experiences (as we say, anything other than the fruit of a dream). In many cases, it is impossible to distinguish waking from sleep, since the latter are presented to us as vividly as the experiences we have when awakened.
4. Our own thinking (and sometimes thoughts are also a source of deception, or perhaps an evil genius is deceiving me). The conception that has doubled in the period is free omnipotence,

Myth - Logos:

In the 6th century BC, a new set of ideas appeared in Greece. Rational thought emerged to explain the world, human beings, and their behavior. This challenged the power of mythological explanations, favoring explanations based on a new, rational method. This new method is characterized by:

• Having a critical attitude.
• Using criteria, principles, and logic when arguing.
• Justifying and providing arguments.

Relationship between Science and Philosophy:

Originally, philosophers were called "physicists," and their subject was Nature. While the forces of nature were personified, their performance was unpredictable and capricious. A clear example of the relationship between science and nature is that Democritus was a philosopher who defended...

Anthropological Dualism: Body and Soul

Amdo's aspects of anthropological dualism (body and soul) are different, but a continental union. Each person occupies the body temporarily and then is reincarnated.

Plato

For Plato, man is composed of body and soul. The soul is pure, divine, and eternal, while the body is material, temporal, and not divine. The body is a kind of rush to the soul, which wants to get rid of it in two ways:

• Through Philosophy (spiritual effort)
• Through Death

However, the soul survives and can be incarnated in another body.

Aristotle

Aristotle has a biological conception of man, who says he is an inseparable unity of body and soul, which is the vital principle.

Descartes

For Descartes, the soul is an ego (I) that thinks: Ego cogito

Census Suffrage and Restricted Suffrage

If suffrage means the ability to participate in electing political representatives, then restricted suffrage is the limitation of this right due to failing to meet required conditions. Census suffrage refers to the economic conditions needed to make such choices.

Rule of Law

The Rule of Law encompasses:

1. Rule of law as an expression of general will.
2. Division of powers.
3. Legality of the administration to act according to law under the control of the judiciary.
4. Rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals and a legal guarantee of the rule of law.

It opposes any absolutist, authoritarian, or totalitarian state.

Legality vs. Legitimacy

• Legality: Refers to the set of rules in a community that constitutes positive law.

Contractarian Theories: A Comparison

Classic contractarian theories share these elements:

1. The state of nature is the starting point: Imagine humanity without political organization.
2. The social contract is a necessary artifice: Ideal situations are unattainable, so civil society must be built from an artificial contract between individuals.
3. The political system is founded on the legitimacy of the contract: The rules of the social contract shape the resulting state.

Hobbes: The Contract of Submission

1. In the natural state, humans tend to satisfy their own desires, using reason to achieve their ends. This leads to a state of war of all against all, which is unsustainable.
2. The contract obliges individuals (now subjects) to give all freedoms to a sovereign

Anthropological Theory: Plato's Doctrine of the Soul

For Plato, the soul is prior to man. It existed before his earthly life and will continue after death. The union between soul and body is accidental, temporary, and the body is mortal, but the soul is not. The soul is embodied and conditioned. He founds the division of social classes in society on the tripartite nature of the soul. These three parts: concupiscible, irascible, and rational, in some, fight each other and represent different aspects of the psychological activities of man: appetites, passions, and reason.

The noble and very human soul, the rational soul, is immortal, and its attachment to the body prevents it from living a life of successive incarnations. It suffers and only stops...

Signs and Symbols: Animals and Language

1.1. Signs and Symbols: The animals of the earth. Esanahidun, the only man with a language to communicate. Languages always bring two types of elements: words (vocabulary) and rules (grammar). In language, words are signs, something that indicates something else. A sign adheres to what it indicates, and the well-established relationship between the sense of convenience is called da. Objects are also created, as well as things and events, which become signs for us. Furthermore, a sign indicates something beyond the immediate sense, something visible and hidden: these are symbols. The relationship between signs and what they indicate is conventional, while the relationship between symbols and what they symbolize...