Philosophy 1110

Frequently Asked Questions

(1) How should I study for this course?

The best way I know is the following: After each lecture, when you go home that night,

(a) copy your class notes on a clean sheet of paper, and try to fill in the gaps from your memory, while your memory of the lecture is still fresh. Then look through the “clean” notes, and see if there is anything you don’t understand. If there is, make a note of what it is, and ask me in class or during office hours;

(b) Write a short paragraph (at most 10 sentences) summarizing what you learned that day. You can show me these summaries if you want to make sure that you are getting the right idea. For example: “The word miracle does not have one meaning--it has at least 5 different meanings. The first 3 we discussed in class do not help justify any theological argument--or so my teacher argued. The 4th was supposed to have a hidden contradiction, and therefore is useless. But the fifth was OK. Then, the teacher argued that miracles in this 5th sense requires direct observation of God participating in human affairs, and said that these makes the Argument from miracles useless. He said if you can see directly see God doing things, what do you need miracles for?”

(c) Read the assigned material if any. If there is an passage, sentence or word you do not understand, make a note and ask me in class. Once again, try to summarize what you take to be the key points in the reading. A 5-page reading assignment should not take more than half a page to summarize.

All of this should take no more than 1 to 1.5 hours (assuming normal reading and writing skills). This is consistent with what I told you guys at the beginning of the year, i.e., that assuming that you are an average person like the rest of us, you should expect to put in minimally 3 hours of studying a week, and come to see me at least once every two weeks during office hours to get a passing grade in this course.

(2) I understand things until someone asks a question. Then I get lost.

Basically, questions introduce another level of complexity. Not everyone can grasp this higher level of complexity. But some students can. How many at an given time just depends on the question. It would not be fair to hold back students who can follow the questions. We try to achieve a balance between time spent on what can be comprehended by the majority and what can be comprehended by a minority. As time goes by, more students will be able to follow the responses to questions.

(3) People ask questions that do not relate to the subject.

They do relate. I would not discuss them in class if they did not relate (I would say, “ask me that after class”). Because they raise the discussion up to a higher level of complexity, not everyone can see how they relate. We have to limit the time we spend talking about things that are above the level of some students. At the same time, if we do not work on this level some of the time, it is unfair to the students who can, and the rest will not be challenged to improve their ability to understand the complex ideas that determine how they perceive reality.

(4) The class seems worthless when it seems like we never get a straightforward answer, never prove anything, and criticize everybody’s opinions. If philosophy is not a guessing game, when do we find out what the facts are?

Short answer - when you develop your ability to do philosophy. Long answer - Life is a guessing game. We are always just guessing at what the facts are, whether we are doing science, philosophy, or whatever. But some guesses are more rational, more reasonable, more sensible, more coherent, less problematic, less reasonable to spend time questioning than other guesses. Learning to think philosophically is learning how to discover which philosophical claims are the most reasonable. Learning to think scientifically is learning how to discover which scientific claims are the most reasonable. Since we cannot know with complete and absolute certainty that anything is a fact, what we are trying to do is to make the best guesses possible as to what the facts are.

Also, you have to consider the difference between a very general question like “Is there Freedom?” and a much more specific question like “Is this argument for freedom sound?”. The first of these is much more difficult to answer than the second--and it is quite often possible to answer the second type of question in philosophy with a high level of certainty. But the same is true about science. Consider the following two questions: “Is space infinite?” and “Is this bridge going to stand up?” Obviously, science is able to give a clear-cut answer to the second much more than it can to the first.

(5) Where does opinion end and fact begin?

Strictly speaking, every true statement is a fact, whether we can prove it is a fact or not. This means that opinions that are true are facts. This means that beliefs that are true are facts. However, people generally do not use “fact” as just described. Many people use “fact” in a way that introduces incoherence and confusion into their understanding of reality. Many people use “fact” for something that they think everyone can see is obviously true (“it is raining outside right now,” for example), and “opinion” for what people disagree about (things whose truth is not obvious to everyone, “nothing is art unless it provokes emotion,” for example). Some people use “fact” for what they think can be verified by conducting a scientific experiment (for what is tested for truth of falsity by using the scientific method). They use “opinion” for things that cannot be tested by applying the scientific method (though usually only for things people disagree about). Such people treat many claims about what happened in the past as opinions rather than as facts, for example. Using “fact” and “opinion” in this way, consider this: Every fact depends on the truth of a lot of philosophical assumptions. If these assumptions cannot be facts, how can the statements that depend on them be facts? Someone’s ability to know the facts depends on her philosophical assumptions. If these assumptions are just opinions, how can anyone know what the facts are? Since something is called a fact when someone thinks it is obviously true, its just an opinion that it is a fact. Where does this leave facts?

(6) When something does not have 10 different meanings, its easy to understand.

The problem is, we are dealing with philosophy as it applies to the real world. If we ignore the different meanings that apply to what we are talking about, we will be fooling ourselves into thinking that we understand something we do not understand.

(7) It is hard to separate what I agree with from what I do not agree with.

Yes, this is hard. You will get better at it if you practice.

(8) What is the purpose of trying to punch a hole in our own ideas.

To see if your ideas can be improved. And both human history and each person’s individual history indicate that our ideas can take a lot improvement!

(9) I have a problem putting a structure to what we have learned.

It takes awhile for a structure to develop. You have to internalize the concepts, not just learn about them. This takes time and practice. Most students say it starts coming together towards the end of the semester.

(10) How do you know what is right?

At an introductory level you can discover what the philosophical problems are, what confuses you about them, how little you really understand of them, and that you cannot yet formulate adequate reasoned judgments about their solutions. These philosophical problems that you discover you do not fully understand are about very important ideas. These ideas determine how you experience the world. You take them for granted, and yet many of these ideas are seriously messed up. This makes it important to discover your present limitations. Most people who are taking their first introductory level philosophy class find that they cannot reach adequate solutions to the important philosophical problems presented in the class. Developing the ability to comprehend and evaluate comprehensive solutions to the philosophical problems you are being exposed to requires more scholarly experience than you can get in an introductory course. An introductory course shows you the sorts of things some people can understand and evaluate that you cannot understand or evaluate as yet. It is up to you to decide whether you want to continue you studies of a particular philosophical problem after this course is over so that you can develop your ability to possess a reasonable view about which solution is the best solution to the problem.