P: Pragmatism & Positivism, pp. 200-211:

Pragmatism is the philosophical school of thought associated with Dewey, James and Pierce, that tries to mediate between idealism and materialism by rejecting all absolute first principles, tests truth through workability and views the universe as pluralistic. Pragmatism believes that philosophy is an instrument used by living individuals who are wrestling with personal and social problems and struggling to clarify their standards, directions, and goals. It suggests a confidence in the ability and power of the mind to make the world over. The universe is pluralistic and unfinished: the human intellect can make its ideals a reality. Dewey, James, and Pierce believed that ideas can actually lead the way in human life. The truth of an idea lies in its capacity to get us through life in a desirable way. All thinking strengthens or secures some human interest. Pragmatism goes against any belief that limits what the human mind and will, can accomplish. The future is limited only by aspiration and that is limited by the human capacity to slough off inherited beliefs in eternal truths- pragmatism looks to the future. It denies sharp distinctions between matter and mind, science and morals, and experience and reason. John Dewey believed that all philosophy arises out of people’s continual struggles to deal with social and moral problems. He made two important observations: 1) we cannot understand a philosophy without an awareness of the social forces that have produced it. And 2) any philosophy or doctrine has worth only to the degree that it helps people resolve their problems. “Philosophy originated not out of intellectual material, but out of social and emotional material,” –John Dewey. The Pragmatic Method is a way to discover what our ideas mean by studying their consequences in actual experience. Any judgement must be rooted in the things of experience that are meaningful to humans. Any view of reality is tied to the values inherent to social traditions. Pragmatism allows no certainties. The pragmatic method indicates a certain criteria for determining what is real. William James argued that people recognize a number of realities and among them are the worlds of sense experience; of scientific knowledge; of belief and opinion; and of the transcendent, the religious, or the spiritual. Reality is what stimulates and interests us, and our interests will ultimately determine what our reality is. An objection to pragmatism is whether it erases the distinction between the structure of the mind and the structure of the universe, between the knowledge of facts, and the existence of facts apart from our knowledge. Do the pragmatist beliefs mean that there is no antecedent order in the world? Positivism- Positivism is the view that only analytic and synthetic propositions are meaningful. Logical positivism concentrates on language and meaning, and is a reaction to the dispute between idealists and materialists. According Alfred J. Ayer (one of the most influential logical positivists), philosophers have to be extremely careful to ensure that they are not speaking nonsense, and almost all metaphysics is mere nonsense. He divided all meaningful propositions into two classes; those which concern “relations of ideas” (tautologies) and those concerning “matters of fact” (empirical hypothesis). Tautologies are propositions in which the meaning of the predicate is part of the meaning of the subject. They do not give us any real information about the world, but only about the meanings of words, whereas empirical statements can be verified by some imaginable observation. These statements DO give us information about the world. Ayer argued that if a statement is neither of these two, than it is meaningless and nonsensical. For the fact that a conclusion does not follow from its putative premise is not sufficient to show that it is false. No statement which refers to a “reality” transcending the limits of all possible sense-experience can possibly have any literal significance. Philosophers in general use words to express feelings and not to represent facts about the world. A major objection the views of logical positivism, is that the basic” criterion of meaning” is and unproved assumption. There is also the argument that if logical positivism was judged by its own “criterion of meaning,” that it would turn out to be meaningless itself.

Q: Antirealism, pp. 211-218:

HW: Define antirealism. Why do some argue that antirealist do not care about changing or reforming the world? What is Putman’s argument all about?

R: Phenomenology, pp. 218-224:

What is phenomenology?

S: Existentialism, pp. 224-230:

Existentialism : A twentieth-century philosophy that denies any essential human nature; each of us creates our own essence through free action. Few notes on Existentialism : Unsympathetic to science, Suspicious of scientism, wary of applying scientific method to solve economic and political problems. Existentialists find self-definition in the commitment to act and deed. Three existentialists discussed in this chapter : Soren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paule Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Kierkegaard Energizing force behind his philosophy : the need for certainty; Concerned with clarity of what he is to do; emphasis the words of I, me and my life Wants to know what God expects of him Deeply religious and thought of what it means to be a Christian According to Kierkegaard, reality cannot be separated from existence : ‘To exist is to struggle, to face opposition, and to experience passion; to exist to make decisions, not to flounder.’ Big question asked by Kierkegaard: ‘what is really real?’ Jean-Paul Sartre: Felt that believing in God was no longer possible. Big quote from Sartre :’ the existentialist thinks its very distressing that God does not exist.’ Through Sartre’s eyes, there is NO fixed human nature and we are free to be what we choose. Believes reality exists in phenomena Two kinds of reality to Sartre : the being of consciousness and the being of what appears to consciousness(phenomena) Simone de Beauvoir Greatest female existentialist philosopher Agreed that humans are not determined and must take responsibility for what they truly are. Argues that women are simply non-males who relate to males. Pretty much saying womens accept their role and forgo their freedom to define and make themselves.

T: Freedom & Determinism, pp. 231-240: Determinist View - Everything that occurs happens in accordance with some regular pattern or law. Human actions are part of this casual chain of nature, and are determined. Determinist’s say that there is only one path leading from the past through to the future. Three Arguments on the View of Reality: 1. All events and actions are casually determined by previous events and the laws of nature. 2. Casual determinism rules our human freedom and personal responsibility. 3. So humans are not free, nor are they personally responsible for what they do. Darrow’s view: That everything in the universe is governed by rigid laws of casuality. These laws ensure that everything that has to happen happens. Libertarianism Theory-People have control over what they do and are free to choose to act other then they do. We choose whether to give into emotion and desires, we allow things to influence us, because we are ultimately free. Three Arguments on the View of Reality 1. Human’s are free and are personally responsible for what they do. 2. Human freedom and personal responsibility rule out casual determinism. 3. So human actions are not casually determined by previous events and the laws of nature. Sartre’s view: Human’s project from a present that exists to a future that does not exist yet. So human’s can stand apart from the world as it is and can conceive and be moved by what does not yet exist. Compatibilism Theory- Attempts to reconcile freedom and responsibility with determinism. It saves freedom by redefining it. Compatibilism rejects the view of determinism rules out freedom and responsibility. Instead, casual determinism is compatible with freedom. Three Arguments on the View of Reality 1. Human actions are casually determined by previous events and the laws of nature. 2. Casual determinism does not rule out freedom and personal responsibility. 3. So human’s are predetermined and can be free and personally responsible for what they do. Kant’s View: We are stuck with two different ways of looking at human reality. Two ways of understanding ourselves and our world. Kant does not see any way of escaping these two very different ways of viewing ourselves.

U: Is Time Real?, pp. 241-247:

HW:Describe the nature and sensation of time? What is the difference between subjective and objective time? How might the flow of time be described as an illusion?

V: Chapter 4: Philosophy & God, pp. 276-282:

We may believe we know what religion is but do we really? In this chapter questions are asked like ‘what is religion?’, ‘Where is God?’, ‘does God exist?’ and so on. Many people believe they know what religion is but it all depends on the choice between belief and unbelief. You can see this in the parable by John Hick ...

...  Two men are traveling together along a road. One of them believes that it leads to the Celestial City, the other that it leads nowhere; but since this is the only road there is, both must take it. Neither has been this way before; therefore, neither is able to say what they will find around the next corner. During their journey they meet with moments of refreshment and delight and with moments of hardship and danger. All the time one of them thinks of his journey as a pilgrimage to the Celestial City. He interprets the pleasant parts as encouragements and the obstacles as trials of his purpose and lessons in endurance, prepared by the king of that city and designed to make him a worthy citizen of the place when at last he arrives. The other, however, believes none of this, and sees their journey as an unavoidable and aimless ramble. Since he has no choice in the matter, he enjoys the good and endures the bad. For him there is no Celestial City to be reached, no all-encompassing purpose ordaining their journey; there is only the road itself and the luck of the road in good weather and in bad.

In this parable there is one man who made the choice to believe and the other to not believe. This parable tells the story of life, and how your going to live through the good and the bad, but in the end that is when you can truly make your decision as to whether or not you believe in religion and God. The two men in the parable will turn the last corner and it will be apparent that one of them has been right the whole time and the other wrong. Hicks parable implies the choice to accept or reject religious beliefs, and it will not be validated until the end of your journey through life and even though there is no right way to define religion, everyone seems to know what it is. When you hear the word religion, many people associate it with church, synagogues, mosques, or a belief in God… but many religions do not have a belief in God.

Professor Ninian Smart suggests that religion has 6 dimensions:
1). Doctrine, or a set of beliefs about the universe and its relation to the supernatural such as the belief that there is a single God who created the universe, or the belief that the universe is controlled by the law of karma    2). Experience, or an emphasis on events in which the believer feels immediately and strikingly the presence of God or of a supernatural dimension.    3).  Myth, or a set of stories that convey sacred or special meaning, such as the story of Adam and Eve. 4). Ritual, or acts of worship, prayer, sacraments, and readings of sacred scriptures    5). Morality, or a set of rules and precepts that we believers are enjoined to follow.    6). Organization, or an organized social group that preserves and perpetuates the religion.

Religion springs from our unending search for meaning and fulfillment. Many people are searching for religious experience. They want an intense personal relationship with creation, and possibly the creator, its like the saying seeing is believing. Theology is the rational study of God, including religious doctrines. Many people confuse it with philosophy, but what philosophers do is instead they approach God and religious beliefs without assumptions, because assumptions must themselves be proved.

W: Arguments for God's Existence, pp. 283-290 :

HW: Describe Anslem’s ontological argument and Aquinas’s cosmological argument? Do you agree there is a first cause to the universe? Why?

X: Alternatives to Religion, pp. 291-301:

Atheism:  as an explicit position, either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects theism. When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism. Although  theism is often equated with irreligion, some religious philosophies, such as secular theology and some varieties of Buddhism such as  theravada, either do not include belief in a personal god as a tenet of the religion, or actively teach nontheism. Practical atheism can take various forms:  * Absence of religious motivation-belief in gods does not motivate moral action, religious action, or any other form of action; * Active exclusion of the problem of gods and religion from intellectual pursuit and practical action; * Indifference-the absence of any interest in the problems of and religion; or * Ignorance-lacking any idea of gods.

Agnosticism: is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims - particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality - is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience perceived by that individual. Logically a person must belong to one and only one of these 3 mutually exclusive categories:  1. You believe the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims -particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of god, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality- can be known. 2. You don't believe the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims -particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of god, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality- can be known. 3 . You have doubts about the  philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims -particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of god, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality- can be known, though that doesn't necessarily make one officially Agnostic, but rather simply exhibiting agnostic doubt, which does not have to disqualify a belief that one can actually know truth.

Y: Belief & Mysticism, pp. 302-309:

HW: What does James mean by a “live hypothesis”? What is mysticism? What view of reality and human nature does mysticism require?

Z: Western Theology, pp. 309-318:

HW: What is Tillich’s objection to theism? Describe Keirkegard’s view of religion.