Phl 303
Lecture 1: Introduction

Today's Lecture

I. Course Mechanics

II. Human Nature and the "Culture Wars"

III. The Ethics of the Course

IV. Worldviews and Philosophy

V. Introduction to Plato

I. Course Mechanics

Requirements

• Examinations: 75%
  
  • Two midterms (each 25%)
  • Comprehensive final (50% - replaces low midterm grade)
  • Non-comprehensive final -- 25%
• Cross-examination questions: 10% Must turn in at least 18. 8--100%, 7 -- 90%, etc.
• Class attendance and participation.
  • Sign in at beginning of class.
  • Sit in assigned seats.
  • Discussion section participation also counts.
  • Ditto -- class newsgroup.

Net information:

Course web site:

Texts:

• Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness
• C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
• J. Budziszewski, Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law
• Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols/ The Anti-Christ
• Phl 303 Supplemental Readings(available at Longhorn Copies, Guadalupe and 26th)

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II. Human Nature and the "Culture Wars"

American society is divided fundamentally along issues of value and meaning as never before.
James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars (Basic Books, 1991)

Divisions along denominational lines (incl. Prot./Cath./Jew) are fading. Intra-religious conflict, between traditionalists and non-traditionalists, growing.

By contrast, the differences between North and South in Civil War seem trivial.

Controversies about:

• The nature and definition of the family
• The purpose and boundaries of proper human sexuality
• The fundamental aims of education: information vs. discipline, character vs. free development
• The permissible and impermissible in dealing with life and death: abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide.
• Purpose and meaning of human life

My aim: help to transform the culture wars into the culture conversation.

Reason and civility.

Too often -- the University (i.e., higher education in the U. S.) has acted solely as a partisan in the culture wars, taking up the non-traditional side, treating the other side as benighted and ignorant.

I want a genuine conversation -- both sides are fairly represented.

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III. The Ethics of the Course

What are our aims, and how are we going to achieve them?

The central value of the course: truth seeking.

Eschew nihilism (there's no such thing), emotivisim (belieiving what make you feel good), populism (avoiding "weird" beliefs).

Main constraints on how we pursue truth: rationality, mutual respect and civility.

1. Rationality: you must be prepared to give reasons for what you believe, reasons that are at least understandable to your audience.
2. Mutual respect: each of us as human beings has a natural aptitude for truth-seeking. Moreover, we are naturally social beings -- we need each other in order to fully realize this aptitude. This does not require us to blunt the edge of disagreement, or lapse into an easygoing relativism.
3. Civility: this mutual express expresses itself in deference and humility. Criticize the ideas, not the person.

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IV. Worldviews and Philosophies

An unprecedented social and cultural decline: crime, family breakdown, teen suicide, educational failure.

Mystery: why such decline, in face of scientific advancement, economic progress?

Key: understanding human nature.

How do we grow in our understanding of human nature? Raises fundamental question about what sort of thing a human being is.

Two answers:

1. hrough an application of the scientific method. Experimentation, quantification, analysis into forces and components.
2. Through metaphysics and the exercise of the moral imagination. Literature, philosophy, theology.

What is a worldview?

A worldview is a set of life-shaping beliefs and attitudes about who we are and what is our place in the cosmos.

Every normal adult has a worldview.

Worldviews vs. philosophies.

A worldview becomes a philosophy after it has been refined through extensive discussion, examination, criticism.

Philosophy is a conversation between worldviews, carried out over many generations, with continuing reference to written records of earlier stages of the conversation.

Philosophy is a basic human need.

Sooner or later, you will do philosophy. The only question is: will you do it well or badly?

The formal study of philosophy brings you up to date in the Great Conversation, provides you with information about what the greatest minds of the past have had to say (in response to one another) on the great, perennial questions.

Is philosophy practical?

Philosophy is not everything, but it is a very significant something.

Traditional vs. Non-traditional Worldviews

Traditional	Non-traditional
Built-in purposes	No built-in purposes
Absolute values	Values relative, changing
Virtue its own reward	Virtue depends on social rewards
Related to a spiritual world	Part of the material world
Sacred texts, moral imagination	Scientific, technical knowledge suffices
Self-discipline	Freedom
Character	Information
Truth	Tolerance

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V. Introduction to Plato

Student of Socrates. Athens, 5th c. B.C.

Aristocratic family.

Parallel to modern times:

1. Traditional morals, religion (Homer, Hesiod, Aristophanes).
2. Scientific revolution in physics (Thales, Democritus).
3. Creation of social sciences, sociology, anthropology (Sophists).
4. Cultural relativism, ethical nihilism.
5. Neo-conservative reaction (Plato, Aristotle).

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