Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Philosophy and ethics

Wittgenstein's Philosophy: Language and Ethics

The Role of Philosophy in the *Tractatus* and *Philosophical Investigations*

According to Wittgenstein, philosophy encourages the clarification of propositions and aims to avoid misleading forms of common language. It is not a science; philosophical propositions, being meaningless, are created by the misunderstanding of language. The method is to "say nothing except what can be said, and whenever someone would say something metaphysical, to demonstrate that he has not given meaning to certain signs." These statements are meaningless as they attempt to exceed the limits of language and the world, and nothing can be said about the world in its entirety. Silence on this field sets the stage for the... Continue reading "Wittgenstein's Philosophy: Ethics and Language Analysis" »

Fundamental Values and Societal Harmony

• The value of life
• Duties to the community
• Power and its exercise
• The citizen and the weak
• The afterlife, death, and gods
• Ways of resolving conflicts
• Property, its ownership, and distribution
• Sexuality, procreation, and family
• Dealing with foreigners and differences

Assessing solutions: Human beings need to know the best solutions, which better respect the fundamental values of humanity and can provide a more just social reality.

• Morality: It is the system of rules governing coexistence in a society. There are many moral and cultural systems.
• Ethics: It is the part of philosophy that reflects on these issues and tries to rationally develop a universal morality, valid for all cultures.

The Search for Optimal Solutions

The... Continue reading "Ethical Problem-Solving: Universal Moral Principles" »

Dissatisfaction with Traditional Teachings

Descartes expressed dissatisfaction with the teachings at La Flèche, including scholastic philosophy and Aristotelian science. He sought a more solid foundation for philosophy, a criterion to distinguish true knowledge from falsehood. This criterion, he believed, could be found in non-traditional thinking, specifically the mathematical model of analytical geometry.

Analytical Geometry

Descartes believed that if algebra could solve geometric problems, a general method could be found to solve problems in any science. One of his philosophical objectives was to find this universal method for attaining truth.

The Tree of Philosophy

Descartes saw no distinction between scientific and philosophical knowledge,... Continue reading "Descartes' Philosophy: A Method for Truth" »

The Conditions of Possibility of Science

The problem is, can metaphysics become a science? It would require that metaphysics fulfill the same conditions that both existing sciences, mathematics and physics, meet. For a trial to be regarded as scientific, it must meet two conditions: increasing our knowledge and possessing necessary and universal validity. A trial to increase our knowledge has to be a synthetic view, and the character of necessity and universality could not come from experience. Experience only provides contingent truths of fact and individuals. That is, the necessity and universality of a trial can only be established outside of experience, or a priori. In conclusion, scientific judgments must be synthetic a priori judgments.... Continue reading "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Conditions of Science" »

Nietzsche (1844-1900)

1. Critique of the Foundations of European Culture

Nietzsche's philosophy departs from the assertion that Western culture is fundamentally decadent. This decadence, he argues, stems from inherent flaws present from its inception. To address these problems, he proposes a critique of Platonic dogmatism and the elimination of the core error: the opposition of culture to life and instinct.

Western culture, according to Nietzsche, is built upon three inverted worlds, the values of which are symptoms of decadence. These are:

• Dogmatic Philosophy
• Christian Religion
• Traditional Morality and Science

1.1. Critique of Morality

Nietzsche's most profound critique targets Western morality, which he views as unnatural and opposed to life. He... Continue reading "Nietzsche: Decadence of Western Civilization" »

"I Think Therefore I Am": Descartes' First Principle

"I think, therefore I am." This text reflects Descartes' discovery of the first principle of philosophy. In the first lines, Descartes expresses doubt regarding the testimony of the senses. This is the first level of methodical doubt, invalidating any scientific certainty and the apparent evidence of external reality to thought. From the third line, the text reflects the second and third levels of doubt: the inability to distinguish waking from sleep, and the risk of error even in the simplest truths of geometry or mathematics. This is the application of methodical doubt to reasoning itself. However, as Descartes reaches this level of depth in implementing doubt as a method, a radical enlightenment... Continue reading "Descartes' Cogito: Understanding 'I Think Therefore I Am'" »

Vitality: Nietzsche's Philosophy

Defending life as the full and real existence of human beings.

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of thinkers established a philosophy centered on the exaltation of the vital and affective, in contrast to the excessive rationality of Hegel's idealism or the scientific positivism of Comte. They defended irrationalism and the affirmation of life as the fundamental reality of human beings.

Reason is not the exclusive faculty for understanding reality; poetic inspiration, intuition, instinct, prophetic vision, and the unconscious are also important.

A Critique of European Cultural Values

Nietzsche saw 19th-century culture (dogmatic philosophy, religion, and morality) as the decline of a Christian-bourgeois society... Continue reading "Nietzsche's Philosophy: Vitalism and Critique of Morality" »

Contemporary Philosophy: The 19th Century Context

Contemporary philosophy extends from the early 19th century to the present day. The most visible feature of this period is the lack of unity in its problems and approaches. Therefore, one cannot speak of a unified vision for this stage of philosophy, as the variety and disparity of interests and philosophical movements, motivated by profound and rapid societal changes, became its only common characteristic.

This article focuses on the 19th century. While historically known as the century of revolutions, from a philosophical perspective, the 19th century is defined by the rise of idealism and the subsequent reactions against it.

This period of philosophy can be broadly divided into two main stages:... Continue reading "19th Century Philosophy: Idealism, Critiques, and New Movements" »

Aristotle's Core Philosophical Concepts

Metaphysics: The Study of Being

Being and Substance

Aristotle observed that the concept of "being" has multiple meanings. However, he argued that these meanings ultimately relate to a primary concept: substance (ousia). Substance is fundamental because it exists independently, serving as the underlying subject for its various properties or accidents (e.g., quality, quantity, relation). Accidents cannot exist on their own but must belong to a substance.

Categories

The Categories represent the different fundamental ways predicates can apply to a substance, classifying the types of accidents and also including what Aristotle termed secondary substance (universal concepts like genera and species, e.g., "human"... Continue reading "Aristotle's Metaphysics, Ethics & Hellenistic Philosophy" »