Sunday, April 29, 2012

Is an unexamined life worth living?

Today's assignment was to read Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy, 'Chapter XV: The value of philosophy' and the section from Plato's Apology where Socrates gives a speech defending himself against the charges of "corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other daimonia that are novel".

We were then asked to post on the question "Is an unexamined life worth living?".

My response was as follows:

To answer this question I believe it is helpful to explain what we mean by "worth". For a life to be worth living it has to either have a purpose and go some way to achieve that purpose, or have some value to someone / something.

On both these points I don't see why in principle an unexamined life could not have either purpose and/or value.

Before addressing the question of whether life has to be examined before it has worth, I would like to consider whether life has any purpose in itself.

Survival machines
Richard Dawkins argues that the universe has no purpose, at least not one that we know about. In his book 'The Selfish Gene' he argues that the fundamental purpose of life is really the survival of our genes. Our bodies are "survival machines" for our genes. He writes "survival machines began as passive receptacles for the genes, providing little more than walls to protect them from the chemical warfare of their rivals and the ravages of accidental molecular bombardment". In this sense, the purpose of life is to propagate our genes, an as such an unexamined life has as much worth as an examined life. What matters is survival.

Purpose and value is a human construct
As an atheist, I do not believe that life has any purpose other than the purpose we provide for it ourselves as rational, sentient, reflective and emotional creatures.

Dawkins goes on to explain how humans have evolved into social beings. Our brains have grown to give us the ability to think and reflect. We have gained the power to overcome our mechanistic history and organise ourselves into societies that ascribe purpose, worth and value to different things.
Socrates comes across as intellectually arrogant in The Apology. He argues that "daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living". Yet he gives us little support for this proposition, other than his eloquence.

As an example of an unexamined life that I believe is worth living I would argue that great musicians or great sportsmen who do not reflect on life, but do provide great pleasure for others, are leading lives that are worth living.

What is philosophy?

Today I was posed the following question, following my contribution yesterday on the issue 'What is philosophy?'

"Lawrence is quite right about philosophy being characterized by specific questions (paying attention to logic etc. is definitely part of it, but as you say, this is not specific to philosophy). My question to you both then is, what is really specific about philosophical questions? (traditional or otherwise)"

This is my response:
"I agree that this is a very interesting - and also difficult question. I have to confess that I'm struggling to provide a good answer.

A few months ago I read an article about philosophy and theoretical physics discussing the 'philosophy is dead' argument that Simon mentions. This time the antagonist was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking. I have to confess that ever since I tried to read Hawking's unintelligible 'Brief History of Time' I have taken everything he says with a pinch of salt, but it does raise some interesting questions relevant to the current debate.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/what-happened-before-the-big-bang-the-new-philosophy-of-cosmology/251608/

The topic of the article is 'What happened before the big bang?' Hawking argues that philosophy / philosophers can no longer contribute to these enquiries. He writers:
"How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Traditionally these were questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead," Hawking wrote. "Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics."

In support of Hawking's point of view I briefly discussed the interaction between philosophy and physics with Oxford's Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics Frank Close when he was in Edinburgh recently attending the Edinburgh International Science Festival. I asked Professor Close if he, as a theoretical physicist, worked alongside philosophers and believes that philosophy can contribute to his discipline. Professor Close explained that there is a joint undergraduate school of physics and philosophy at Oxford, but also agreed that to "do" theoretical physics, students have to be comfortable with high-level mathematics.

This got me thinking about the difference between theoretical physics, mathematics and philosophy. The key difference between all three is the type of questions they address, but I'm still struggling to define this difference other than by listing the questions for each discipline.

We can't simply say that philosophy is unique in addressing the 'big' questions, because theoretical physics addresses some of the biggest questions of all. Unless, of course, we say that by addressing these questions physicists are doing philosophy....which seems to be a bit circular.

Is it true that philosophers no longer tend to try and construct all-consuming theories about the way that mankind understands the world, along the lines of Descartes, Hume, Kant and Wittgenstein? If it is true then do we have to accept that philosophy is, if not dead, at least very different from how it was in previous centuries?

I'm looking forward to reading some more recent philosophy as we proceed through the course to try and provide an answer to this."

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Introduction to Philosophy Course Begins

Sorry for the radio-silence, have been busy at work etc. I will return to David Hume in due course.

The introduction to philosophy online course began last Wednesday and will last 10 weeks.
Week one is about general introductions and starting to hit the reading list / join in the forum discussions.

First assignment was to make a post on the subject "What is philosophy?" and then to begin the reading list. My answer to the question is as follows:

"I sometimes think it is easier to define philosophy in terms of what it isn't rather than what it is. It isn't a pure science such as physics or biology or a pure art such as painting or writing music. It isn't a practical skill such carpentry or computer programming or a game such as football or chess. It isn't a set of faith-based beliefs such as religion or a set of political beliefs such as socialism.
Finally, for me philosophy isn't even a way of doing something, even thinking.
For me philosophy is an enquiry, even a search, and is defined by the type of questions it addresses.
Philosophy enquires into fundamental questions of knowledge and belief. What do or can we have knowledge of? What do we believe about ourselves and the world around us and how can we justify these beliefs? What is truth? What is good? What is just? For all of these questions philosophy tries to find answers but most of all philosophy tries to find better ways of providing answers to these questions."

First item on the reading list is the introduction to Simon Blackburn's 'Think', which I am currently reading.