 So here we are in the real world This is the world that we live in the world that we want to try to know and Pretty much through Not least all recorded human history. We've been interested in trying to understand the world If we're not the reason then how to try to live in it Now in ancient Greece the poets Proceeded the philosophers and trying to provide an explanation or even at this point The philosophers didn't really exist. They were pretty much just the poets Now, you know the book mentions to we got Homer and Hesiod and Homer You know saw the world he looked around the world and he did recognize that there was kind of a causal order that there was some kind of regularity to the seasons and You know we poured water on the ground on a seed with seed sprouted into a flower and so on so forth however There was a lot of probably there's a lot just of suffering in the in the world for Homer He thought probably too much suffering for there to be any kind of sense or meaning or a Moral order to the world He didn't think the world was very good for people Now on the other hand you have Hesiod then Hesiod also recognized that there was regularity to the universe but where Homer saw a kind of Corruptness to the world Hesiod thought that there was still an underlying moral order You know Homer thought that well both Homer and Hesiod thought that the gods were in control of the world of the universe and Homer thought that The gods were capricious and fickle a lot like people and Hesiod well Hesiod thought that there was still an underlying order an underlying moral order So today we we do kind of contrast both of these Both of these views there are still people that hold both of these views all at the same time So we really can't You know fault Homer and Hesiod for having these kinds of these there are plenty of people today Who what we might call on the one hand to be pessimists those would be like Homer and on the other hand would be Optimist those would be like Hesiod Now like I said these Homer and Hesiod preceded the philosophers the philosophers did something different than the poets To understand who the philosophers Were in contrast to the poets It'll be kind of helpful to understand their motivations Now philosophers were different than the poets What for one thing they're very different from the poets and that the philosophers didn't try to appeal to the gods to explain the universe They try to appeal to what we can know what we experience Philosophers are the word philosopher literally Transmated literally translated means lover of wisdom Now we don't understand wisdom too well In our culture I mean one way to think about wisdom is comparing it to knowledge and wisdom is not knowledge At least under some senses of the term Knowledge you know the contents of knowledge will be something like facts right if you open up your textbook That's full of knowledge most of your professors if not all your professors have a lot of knowledge to have information of a lot of facts Wisdom is not necessarily knowledge Wisdom uses knowledge, but it's not necessarily knowledge the closest that we get to Knowledge sorry wisdom in our culture and like I said we don't do it very well The closest we get to wisdom in our culture is something like this health self-help section in Barnes and Noble and pretty much every book Written in that section is really bad There's a lot of nonsense frankly now wisdom is The you know investigating how to live well Wisdom is how to live well. We might even call it the secret to happiness This is what the philosophers were interested in And this is what they were trying to do when they first asked questions about the world about the universe Another really significant difference or a really significant difference between the poets and the philosophers was the use of reason now reason we can probably best understand is using experiences and inferences to draw conclusions The poets really didn't use Reason to do that the philosophers were really the first they tried to Take what they knew from the experiences and draw inferences about the truth The poets on the other hand used emotion and drama Now I'm not Saying these things an emotion and drama necessarily bad, right? I mean there are plenty of people that do there are plenty people that argue for the primacy of reason over Emotion and there are plenty people who argue for the primacy of emotion over reason In most cases are pretty much all cases if someone is arguing for the primacy of reason they themselves tend to be very cerebral and For the people that argue for the primacy of motion they themselves tend to be very emotional So I'll let you draw whatever conclusion you want from that. I am not saying that You know reason is necessarily better than emotion. That's a topic for class perhaps All I'm saying is that there is a significant difference the way we usually identify today is something like the difference between the mind and the heart and Trying to investigate the world through the mind is more or less the way of the philosopher trying to investigate the world through the heart is more or less the way of the poet Now as I said that philosopher is very interested in and trying to Investigate how to live well But there are lots of topics in philosophy besides that And there's a very long list of topics in philosophy besides that and we can pretty much group them under four kinds You know metaphysics epistemology ethics and logic metaphysics is basically What is real epistemology is how do we know ethics is how are we to live our life and logic is how to make good differences You might wonder, you know for a group of people interested in learning how to live Well, why they would even bother investigating the rest of these other kinds of fields Well, you really can't escape these other questions when you're trying to figure out how to live well If you're trying to figure out, you know, what is the good life for a person? Well, you have to answer what is a person and that's a question of metaphysics and even Asking the question or you're trying to give this definition of what a person is very quickly the question becomes well How do I know that? Can I know that? Well, that's epistemology you know ethics is Really interested in this pretty much is interested in this overall question trying to answer how we are to live our lives Well, so we ask what is the good life? What does it mean to have a good life? And then finally logic is is pervasive to the whole Spectrum because we always want to have good conclusions. We always want to have conclusions that give us the truth So philosophers are different from The poets in some really significant ways They're a lot like Hesiod and or at least some of them are a lot like Hesiod and and trying to say that there is this moral order There is a meaning to existence But as opposed to the poets philosophers don't often appeal to anything like the gods or any traditional notions of the gods They don't try to appeal to any kind of revealed texts like, you know the first covenant the Y'all like that, you know the like any of the books of the old of the first Testament any of the books of the New Testament the Bhagavad Gita They don't know tried to appeal to The Quran anything like that And so they didn't appeal to the Greek gods at the time instead. They're appealing to What we can know from experience and influence So to the first philosopher We're gonna look at is Thales and to get an idea what Thales is doing We kind of have to put ourselves in his situation. Remember this is ancient Greece They didn't have a whole lot of knowledge or what we call knowledge today They didn't have an explanation for what everything is So to understand what's going on. I mean look at look at what's happening over here We've got a wide variety of things, right? We've got a lot of different We got some flowers. We got some Well, this shows my lack of knowledge of botany. We've got some trees. We got some large flowering plants We got some mostly leafy plants things like this now. We can understand all of these We try to explain all these are to find all of these as plants So that part's simple enough, but there's more than best than plants here. We've got plants So you've got brick. We've got natural stone. We got cement and mortar. We've got air We we have there's you can't see it, but there's water in the ground There's different elements or mint. Excuse me minerals in the ground There's me. There's my sunglasses and my hat You know the sunglasses the hat me the plants the brick the mortar the cement the minerals the water there These are all very different things very different things Now here's the question if we have all of these wide and varied things, how come they work together so well? Are they Just sort of pre-programmed to work that way and if so what's doing the programming? If they were just fundamentally different kinds of things Wouldn't there be more chaos? You know this there's actual order to the universe if we're just dealing with fundamentally different kinds of Particles or laws or whatever there wouldn't be anything to begin with So that's that's Thali situation. He's looking at the world and says hey, there's a wide variety of things since they're Existing together in the same way in this order in this universe They must be Fundamentally of the same kind of thing just how we look at all of these all this greenery here and we say fundamentally They're all the same kind of thing. They are plants Well, he pushes it further plants air water stone you me all of it must fundamentally be the same kind of thing in essence what he's doing is he's saying all of these defined things all of these existing things Must be explained or known in terms of one One thing is going to explain all of it now. We agree with Thali's project. We do the same thing today We try to explain all of this in terms of matter and we try to we try it even further to try to understand What matter is? So this is Thali's really big insight wide variety of things all of it can be explained in terms of one so Thali's is trying to explain Describe what fundamentally underlies everything what everything has made up the stuff you'll be today. We call it matter What is Thali's thing? Well Thali's thinks It's water water Fundamentally makes up everything everything at its essence at its core Is water? Now before you laugh or snicker too much at Thali's remember a few things now you may Believe that all of matter is fundamentally made up of atoms which are made up of protons neutrons electrons and so on and so forth but you have the benefit of 25 centuries or so of Human investigation you are standing on the shoulders of giant giants and by the way Thali's is one of those giants So also remember Thali's lived in Miletus, which was a city on a coastline Water was quite literally the ebb and flow of life your day revolved around the times You know when you look around today water is everywhere I mean we know that this is we know this right here is an artificial spring But there are springs that you find in nature which resemble this alive water seems to just flow Out of the ground water falls out of the sky You are something like 80% water when when you are cut you bleed liquid comes out Without water things die the shrivel up they no longer exist It's not hard to think that water is in everything and somehow constitutes everything So Thali's is really not that crazy What Thali's is doing is he is using observation What he's trying to do to say look if If there's something that explains everything if there's some fundamental reality everything Then everything has got to have this in common And when he looked out in the world the thing that he saw that everything hadn't had most in common Was water Thali's was using observation to draw inference Does that sound remotely familiar to things that we do today? So Thali's thinks that he is going to find this One thing that unites everything that explains everything with water Annex Amanda was Thali's student now. It's kind of a kind of a tradition Amongst philosophers that the students Questions every checks the teachers teachings We're kind of like the dark Jedi that way So Annex Amanda Rejected Thali's teaching that everything was water Now what he didn't reject was that there's something that fundamentally unites everything that there's something that explains everything He didn't reject it. He thought that there was something for which everything else is made He just didn't think it was water But he did something a little bit interesting instead of bringing some other kind of fundamental stuff to the table Annex Amanda questioned. Well, what would it mean to say that any of these things? Can explain everything else? So let me let me try to get it Everything that you see that you experience that your taste touch or feel You have because it's a defined thing. It's a limited thing All right, it has edges. It has qualities There's something about it, which makes it that thing and specifically not something else So water liquid sometimes cool clear tasteless It has a certain chemical compound dihydrogen monoxide This is what makes water water and what makes water water is what makes it is what it's something that makes me different I am constituted of water, but I've got so much more going on. I'm made up of so many more things And I have qualities that water could never have water cannot perceive things water can't have senses So when we define something We're saying not only what it is, but what it is not we're providing a limit to that thing Everything you would perceive everything you experience is a limited thing. It's a defined thing So Annex Amanda wonders well, what how are these defined things? Supposed to explain everything else because when you provide a definition for something you provide a definition in terms of something else What is water dihydrogen monoxide? What is that? Well, there's hydrogen. There's oxygen There's die for two mono for one hydrogen. We got two atoms of hydrogen one one atom of oxygen So then we now have height water defined in terms of two one hydrogen oxygen and atoms So we need to find you get a probably at least one more thing that needs to be defined If not a bunch of other things that need to be defined So here's Annex Amanda to Thales Thales is hey everything's water Well, he says okay What's water? Oh, well waters is cool liquid stuff that gives life and it falls from the sky. Okay. Well now what's life? What's be what's liquid? What's the sky? Annex Amanda says any time you offer a definition to explain something you provide is something else that needs to be explained He doesn't think that any defined thing can do it water Can't explain everything else because I still need to explain water So any time you bring a defined thing to do any of the explaining you're running into this problem You're already providing a further need for an explanation and very quickly this sets up an Infinite regress of explanation and what I mean by that is You know use the water example. Well, I've defined water in terms of one two hydrogen oxygen and atom Well, what's one? Well one is not two one is singular one is Not the exit and you know not nothing, right? Well, then that's a further definition needs to be defined Well, then what's to well two is one more than one so it's relying on the definition one which itself needs a further definition Well, what's hydrogen? Well, you got a contrast hydrogen probably We're really tempted to do today to define hydrogen is in terms of one proton one neutron and now we got to define proton and neutron Oxygen same thing. We're going to give it in terms of its Atomic structure, which is going to include an electron now we're going to define what an electron is So with the infinite regress of explanation, whatever you provide as an explanation itself needs to be explained Can I ever explain anything? Well, think about it. You know if everything that you provide as an explanation itself needs an explanation You wonder if there's ever an explanation to begin with Right everything you provide as an explanation needs to be explained If you say well, not everything you know some things are just explained in it of themselves Like then you prove then you're talking about something that doesn't have a definition Okay, and we'll get to that in a second But if you try to say that everything that offers an it that's offered as an explanation itself needs to be explained One wonders if there's ever an explanation to begin with and that's what an infinite regress of explanation is We could even call it an infinite regress of definition if you really want to So an X Amanda looks at this promises. Yeah, Thali used to tell me what water You know that water constitutes everything, but I still don't know what water is water explains everything, but I don't know what water is Give me whatever to find thing you want I'm still gonna want to know what that is and you're gonna create the infinite regress of explanation Infinite regress of explanation can't do any explaining now. Obviously. We can't explain everything around us. So Annex Amanda says If there's something that explains everything else around us explains all these defined things It can't itself be a defined thing What doesn't have a definition what doesn't have a limit is What explains everything else and he calls this the boundless The boundless the boundless has no edges The boundless has no limit The boundless has no quality It has no weight It has no structure because all these are limits And yet the boundless is the most real thing Because all these defined things in some way Come from the boundaries It's a beautiful day outside. Thank the boundless And you might wonder how anything like the boundless could be conceivable. Well, Annex Amanda has his reasons And something like the boundless pops up time and time again and human intellectual history And we'll see that later on through the semester Now I'm not going to provide Annex Amanda's actual argument and provide a reconstruction of his argument using more less Contemporary terms and rules of reason I'll provide this argument using number proposition form This it will help with ease of reference and and to see where to see where conclusions are drawn from So the first proposition just is Faley's insight that if everything is going to be explained in terms of the one right then it's something that everything has in common The second proposition is Annex Amanda's contribution That you know if there's going to be this Defined there's going to be this explanation of the defined thing that it itself this explanation thing cannot itself be defined The third proposition is that if it's not defined then it's limitless being it's the boundless Now so far just these first three are premises. These are just these initial reasons Might even say intuitions offered as evidence The fourth premise is an inference drawn from the previous three Now notice the parenthetical notation I have here The parenthetical notation shows Where this inference comes from it comes from the first three and it's using a rule called hypothetical syllogism Hypothetical syllogism is real simple If we have these conditionals if p then q right conditional is if p then q if we have if p then q and If q then r they mean fur if p then are So for example if something's if an animal is a dog then it's a mammal If an animal is a mammal then it's warm-blooded So we infer if something is a dog then it's warm-blooded The fifth proposition is just the assertion that we all believe today that all these defined things can be explained In the sixth proposition is that therefore all of this is the boundless It's the boundless. It's unlimited reality Now if you're gonna reject the conclusion Since this is a since this is a deductively valid argument if you're gonna reject the conclusion if you're gonna reject the boundless You got to reject one of the premises And you can't reject a premise That's inferred from others. You got to start with the premises that are just taken as basic just taken at the first So maybe think about that Which of those premises do you reject? Annex Amenes was Annex Amanda student and Just as Annex Amanda turned on his teacher Annex Amanda's turns on Annex Amanda I'm just kidding really but Annex Amanda did reject Annex Amanda did reject Annex Amanda's conclusion and Likely you do too Right. Remember when I was describing the boundless Yes, I was not describing the boundless right because the boundless can't be described the boundless is incomprehensible You can't have a picture of it in your head. You can't even define it. Why because it's something that can't be defined And this is something that Annex Amanda's can't let go of so look Annex Amanda You know he so here's Annex Amanda say hey Annex Amanda. What is everything and Annex Amanda says it's the boundless Annex Manus is great. What's the boundless Annex Amanda says I cannot tell you Wait what? How does that explain anything? How does that offer a definition or? Describe the fundamental reality of it at all. It doesn't help me want one bit whatsoever You probably reached the same conclusion I tell you that everything is the boundless and you think now they can't be because there is nothing that the boundless is like It's actually not to be sure it's everything Right the balance is everything. It's unlimited reality so to Say that what explains everything is a self unknowable Doesn't help you one bit and trying to understand all of reality And this is something that Annex Amanda's couldn't accept Annex Amanda's rejects Annex Amanda's conclusion and likely you do too. We're pretty much the sketch that I just gave earlier Now we're gonna look at a reconstruction of Annex Amanda's argument pretty much every argument we look at the semester will be reconstruction Now Annex Amanda's provides basically or what we're gonna provide is a reductio out of certain now reductio is an argument Where it's sole purpose is to prove that some proposition is false All right How do you do that? Well first you assume it's true. Wait, what? Yeah. Yeah, you assume it's true Okay, and from the assumption that it's true You derive some kind of silly implications some silly conclusion or maybe sometimes you Follow or you I'm sorry you derive something that's just blatantly false Okay, and or maybe sometimes you derive a direct contradiction Direct contradiction is both the assertion of a proposition and it's denial. So if your Assumption implies Rex is a dog and Rex is not a dog. Well, then there's something wrong with your assumption namely it's false Annex a minute does what we're gonna look at is pretty much what Annex Amanda's does and it's a reductio Against the idea that there is the boundless. So the first proposition is just the assumption Just the assumption that there is the boundless and this is what explains That this will explains everything else it explains all to find things The second proposition is pretty straightforward is what we were talking about earlier. It's like if something is not defined That is not comprehensible That's not comprehensible the third proposition takes this incomprehensibility and implies that it can't explain incomprehensible things can't explain The fourth proposition is again using hypothetical syllogism and the second and third just like if something is is Not defined then it can't explain So we had the fifth proposition then and this follows by modus ponens And it's just the conclusion that the boundless cannot explain Well, the sixth proposition uses a rule called conjunction introduction a conjunction is real simple All it does is it takes two propositions to put them together with the word and So if you conclude that Rex is a dog and wreck and you can and you also conclude that Rex is a mammal Then you can infer Rex is a dog and Rex is a mammal simple So the sixth proposition just is this and you know basically says the boundless explains that the boundless cannot explain That's a contradiction since we derive this contradiction from the initial assumption the last proposition is the conclusion and the conclusion is that the boundless it's false that the boundless is undefined and it explains So an Ximenez has rejected an Ximander's Idea of the boundless the boundless reduces to absurdity. He constructs a when we saw a construction of reductiate absurdum against an Ximander's claim So we're back at this question. What is it that fundamentally constitutes all of reality? You're looking at it It's air air is even more Present than water you cover it you deprive something of air it dies Water falls from the air So really not you know, so for any reason you think that water might be the fundamental Fundamental thing that makes up all reality. Well air precedes water It's there. It's everywhere things motion off of air to become water water falls to the ground water becomes earth Earth becomes fire fire Returns to air Well, that's a lot to take in one day I don't know about you But talking about all these ideas kind of warned me out. What do we looked at? looked at the idea It's early philosophers trying to fundamentally to explain Everything to unite everything in terms of the one they at least said it was water An Ximander provides an argument saying look you can't if you can't explain Or unite all the defined things in terms of one of the things that needs to be defined So what explains where unites everything is the boundless? Boundless is at best difficult to accept One thing you can't understand it. That's part of what it means to be the boundless An Ximander and Ximenez rejects and am enters an Ximander's conclusion because of that We saw that argument Now as I said With these arguments you have to reject you can't just reject the Conclusion and walk away. You have to reject one of the premises so if you reject An Ximander's argument if you if you buy what an Ximenez has to say and shows that the idea the balance is drives this contradiction then you still have to show Which of the premises that an Ximander's thinks is true is actually false. You have to provide your own argument Suppose you side with an Ximander An Ximenez provides a reductio Concluding that the boundless is impossible because it drives this contradiction So if you read if you side with an Xim and Ximander and reject an Ximenez you still had to reject a premise And that's where the hard work comes in Is everything explained in terms of some one defined thing or is it explained in terms of the limitless? You can't accept both One of the other and that's what makes philosophy interesting Your beliefs have consequences Even some of the simple beliefs that you have have deep consequences And the hard work It's not figuring out. Oh, it's the least figure out was true and false. That's part of it the other hard work is Figuring out what you can accept. Oh, I know I've had a long day. We'll talk about these ideas some more in class