Commentary on Intro to Philosophy Coursera Week 1

 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. This is the beginning of a series of responses to the module of the Coursera course from the University of Edinburgh titled “Introduction to Philosophy”. The module specified is the first week module on “What is Philosophy”. In this writing I will specifically respond to the idea that philosophy is the activity of working out the right way of thinking about things. I am commenting in various portions because I want an in depth understanding of all things.

I have established that philosophy is practically the study of truths important to human existence or all of reality. I will show that my understanding is compatible with the proposed understanding by the University of Edinburgh. First, the understanding I am commenting on presupposes the existence of a right way of thinking about things. Then we must also understand what is a way of thinking about things. Next we discern whether there is a right way of thinking and if we can know it and if we can, what is that right way of thinking.

When we think about something, we often don’t just think about what is in front of us. We have other thoughts loaded, our thinking is a loaded thinking. So we think about things in certain or various ways. We can abstract this way of thinking as what relationships do we conjure of when we think of things? What other things do we think of when we think of a particular thing and what is the relationship between the primary object of thought and the secondary object of thought? 

These ways of thinking are many, and there are many ways to classify them which I do not even know. However, we shall focus on the question of the right way of thinking. What does it mean for a way of thinking to be right? There are 2 ways to interpret “right”, that is either correlating with truth or correlating with goodness. However, if we interpret right as meaning true, we must ask why we do it. Therefore, the more proper interpretation is by interpreting right as meaning good. So the question of the right way of thinking can be translated as the good way of thinking.

The good way of thinking is surely the way of thinking which leads us to good, as all good acts are acts which leads us to good. We also know from prior revelation that the Good is precisely God alone. So the good way of thinking is that which leads to God. For God exists, and we have ascertained that it is possible to know God both naturally and then supernaturally, therefore the good way of thinking is that way of thinking in concordance with God. In other words, it is the way of thinking which is based on God, centered on God, and leads us to God.

Now what if we do not presuppose God? There is a still a way to prove that there exists a right way of thinking. A right way of thinking is distinguished from wrong ways of thinking by its result in goodness. A right way of thinking leads to goodness, while a wrong way of thinking results in a lack of goodness. How does the right way of thinking lead to goodness? The right way of thinking must first lead to the truth of the matter, and by that truth one can work out the goodness and attain the goodness of the matter. Therefore, truth implies goodness. Now, we must accept that there is one reality and one truth, from which springs out one goodness. The right way of thinking is that which leads to that truth and thus to the goodness derived from that truth. If all ways of thinking are equal, that would mean there are many truths which can contradict each other. This is contradictory with the foundational presupposition that there is only one truth. Therefore, there has to be a right way of thinking.

The next question is whether such a right way of thinking is possible. We have ascertained that the One Truth is precisely God alone, and so since the knowledge of God is possible through both Natural and Supernatural Revelation, thus the right way of thinking is possible and has been discovered. As a Catholic, the right way of thinking is precisely that of the Catholic way of thinking. For only the Catholic mindset and way of thinking will lead to the Faith which saves us into eternal life. Therefore, philosophy is actually the journey towards the Catholic Faith and way of thinking. Rightly ordered philosophy will lead into the Catholic Church.

My final comment is that this understanding of philosophy as described by the course makes out philosophy as a fundamentally moral activity, which is correct. In my definitions, I define philosophy as merely the study of truths important to human existence, which leads to a lack of emphasis on the ethical nature of philosophy. However, the keyword of “important” is already indicative of the moral nature of philosophy. In fact, this definition of philosophy and the course’s definition of philosophy is fundamentally the same. The right way of thinking is associated with what fundamental nature of reality shall we associate with the particular realities we encounter with life, and the only answer to that is God. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation of the commentary on Week 1 of Introduction to Philosophy from Coursera. The distinction between philosophy and other sciences are precisely on how they view thinking. Science in general studies truths in a particular way and accepts its presuppositions from philosophy. Therefore, whatever philosophy says, science follows, and it is never the other way around. There is always a philosophical backing behind certain scientific worldviews, including the infamous scientism.

Science accepts the philosophical presuppositions given to them dogmatically and work out from them without question. Philosophy’s role is precisely to debate and question these presuppositions and revise them as they are continuously given to science. As such, science accepts a particular way of thinking and work their way from there, while philosophy investigates the ways of thinking. Of course technically no more philosophy should be done, as the Catholic Faith has been discovered, therefore all of science should be rightly ordered towards the Catholic Faith and philosophy. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation of the commentary on Week 1 of Introduction to Philosophy from Coursera. There is a sense in which philosophy is not fundamental and there is a sense in which it is truly fundamental. First, we must understand what fundamental means. Fundamental means basic, that something serves as the basis of something else. This can be translated to the concept of necessity in a certain way. However, the best analogy so far is as in the foundations of a building.

However, when we say philosophy is fundamental, we must ask, fundamental to what? If we say it is fundamental to reality, that is not true, God is fundamental to reality, but not philosophy necessarily. If we say it is fundamental to human existence, that may be true and may not be true. In the way it is not true, a person typically does not need to study deep philosophy to live well or even to be saved. Yet a person who is saved without the practice of philosophy is most usually someone who has already been in the Faith since the beginning. A person who seeks to convert must practice some sufficient amount of philosophy to enter the Faith.

Yet since the human race in general was once outside of the Faith or more accurately left the Faith and had to reenter the Faith, then they had to practice philosophy as a common race to reenter the Faith. It is then Tradition of Natural Revelation known as philosophy which aids mankind in accepting the true Faith and thus being able to reach their true Goodness that is God alone. It is by that Tradition of Revelation as well that humanity has reached the current level of progress also the ease of access towards God through the Church. Therefore, in the greater picture, philosophy is fundamental to the eternal goodness of mankind.

Philosophy is also fundamental in the sense that below anything there is always some philosophy lurking around. In the end of all the foundational chains, there is a single foundation to everything above it, and this is the core of philosophy, that is God. So you can always ask further about the reasons of anything until it reaches their final sufficient reason, either God or an agent with free will, which they themselves still owe their existence to God.

From the idea that philosophy is fundamental to human goodness, we derive the idea that philosophy is important to human goodness. In particular, philosophy might not be necessary for all individuals to reach God, but in general, man cannot receive Supernatural Revelation without first making a stairway through Natural Revelation. Therefore, philosophy is clearly important to human goodness and that is their attainment of God. However, philosophy is not absolutely important in a universal manner. What I mean is, there is some philosophy which is only important for some people and not for every person. However, most of philosophy and the core of philosophy is certainly important for everyone as it has been defined, it studies the truths important to human existence and all of reality, and that it studies the right way of thinking. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation of the commentary on Week 1 of Introduction to Philosophy from Coursera. How do we practice philosophy? Classically, we say that philosophy is done by argumentation. Arguments are basically just a set of statements which are divided into the reasons for our belief or premises, and the belief we are trying to reason that is a conclusion.

The idea of arguments are presuppositional in my understanding of the matter. When I do philosophy, I do argue, but I don’t make my arguments explicit as in a proper form of premises and conclusions. I simply state the reason behind my beliefs and let it be in that kind of writing. It is certainly a raw and crude way of philosophy, which I desire to improve in the future. When I say arguments are presuppositional, I mean that the argumentative method is so utterly fundamental to philosophy that there is really no other way around it. You either provide a reason to your beliefs, or you don’t. Without reason, all beliefs are arbitrary and truth is impossible to attain. Yet such is not the case, therefore we must have reason.

What is reason though? Reason is simply the fulfillment of the truth of a particular matter. What I mean by this is that if such and such is true, what makes it true? What element or component of that idea or matter which determines it to be true? In my own system, I would say it this way. In what way is the idea or belief identical to the categorical criterion or criteria of truth such that we can say that the belief belongs within the category we call truth? That is the foundation of the idea of arguments, that all true beliefs and ideas have a property which fulfills the categorical criteria of being truth. This property is what we call reason or premise.

 

For an argument to be valid, the reason for the belief has to actually support the belief. That is, if the reason for the truth of the belief is true, then the belief must be true. However, for an argument to be sound, that is valid and the belief is actually true, then the reasons or premises have to be true as well. So from this description we can infer that beliefs can be supported by other beliefs. We believe something is true because we believe another thing is true. There is another way we can believe in something, that is to say we believe because we have “seen”. To “see” here simply means that we have direct contact with the object of our belief such that we can immediately believe in that object without needing mediation from other beliefs.

This is an additional comment about the mechanism of reasoning by other belief. When we base our beliefs on other beliefs, we recognize that all beliefs are founded in another belief. Even the fundamental belief of awareness comes from itself, it is a self-evident belief. Now beliefs create a system of beliefs which are in general patterns of reality. When we see into reality and try to ascertain how a part of reality fits into our belief system, we observe how it coheres into the patterns. As such, philosophy can be said to be largely about discovering patterns and applying those patterns where applicable. It is to discover an order, a law so to speak. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation to the commentary of Week 1 of the Introduction to Philosophy course from Coursera. In the section I am commenting on, there is a demonstration of the nature of arguments using the famous argument of free will, or lack thereof. The argument goes as follows. The past determines the future. We are part of the present, which is the future relative to the past. We cannot control the past. Therefore we cannot control anything.

The argument can be proven false from the falsehood of the premises or from the structure of the argument. By structure I mean whether the truth of the premises guarantee the truth of the conclusion. I would attack this argument by attacking the premise that the past determines the future in an absolute manner. Then again, this argument does not really attack free will. It attacks one form of free will, the arbitrary free will, but not the determined free will. However, as the Church upholds the doctrine of arbitrary free will, I would still attack this argument. The past does not determine the future in an absolute way, this is proven from the fact that arbitrariness and randomness is proven to exist in the universe, therefore the past determines the future to a certain extent but not absolutely.

An additional comment on the argument of free will is about the relationship between free will and God’s Knowledge. In the eyes of God, everything is within one big present point of existence. However, foreknowledge is not predetermination of events. Regardless since God sees everything as a definitive reality, that means reality has been predefined by itself since the beginning of its creation, and God knows that. However, it is not God who predefines everything, it is the agents of free will such as angels and us humans who predefine our own destinies. Our choices are free yet defined in eternity. As such, the Catholic Church has no problem in her compatibilist doctrine, that there is a fixed reality, yet that there is still freedom. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation of the commentary on Week 1 of the Introduction to Philosophy course from Coursera. Philosophy has always been moral in character, this is attested by the course statements as well, down to the definition of philosophy. Therefore, argument alone is insufficient, that argument must serve a purpose in reality. This is what the philosopher Hilary Putnam calls “vision”. Vision is simply the moral end of a philosophical problem or argument. It is how life and societies must be ordered.

It may help us in criticizing philosophical arguments by discovering their actual purpose or moral significance. That is actually simply stepping back and questioning the presuppositions of the argument. What does the argument presuppose about morality and the purpose of humanity? By examining those presuppositions, we can understand the argument better and if necessary, criticize it and destroy it in a better way as well. There is not much I can say here, it is all rather self-explanatory. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. A continuation of the commentary of Week 1 of the Introduction to Philosophy course from Coursera. I tend to dislike Hume because of his skeptical attitude, but the death of his ideas shall certainly be fruitful. He is certainly wrong to be skeptical towards the existence of a right way of thinking and whether we can grasp it. The truth of my arguments regarding the right way of thinking is sufficient to defend itself from Humean skepticism.

Hume’s empiricism does not help either, that only empirical judgements are true or meaningful or valid sources of knowledge. Investigations into our thoughts as abstract objects and thus having a higher nature than empirical objects will reveal much about the nature of reality. After all the immediate object of reality is not anything separate from reality but really our awareness and perceptions. Everything else is either presupposed or follows from that awareness and perception. His claims about the weakness of sensation is actually interesting though, as follows.

When we observe causation, it is a mental addition to the perception of reality. Reality is change, but that is all, no true causation can be implied from there. On this aspect, he is actually correct. We cannot truly be certain on what causes what from one state to another state. However, when we speak of causation in theistic terms, it refers to the higher cause of things which are derived from asking the question of what causes the world as a whole in the first place. The cause of individual events may be undetermined, but the great cause of the world must be determined in an absolute necessity. The world begins, because of what? The only possible reason is God.

When we observe the self, it is also a mental addition to our perception of reality. Hume’s arguments flies in the face of the classical understanding of perception. If there exists perception, there has to be a perceiver. It is strange that Hume would argue against the self when in fact, he is an empiricist relying on a clear marker of the self, that is the body. It would be more interesting if Hume was trying to make the point that the distinction between the self and the non-self is less true than what we have always been thinking. In that sense, there is a truth to that. However, until I encounter the full breadth of Hume’s arguments, I cannot do anything about it.

Hume leads his skepticism to the bitter end, that there is not much that we can know about the world, or if there is anything that can be known about the world properly at all. Of course this flies in the face of modern science and logic. He claims that these ways of thinking exist, but we cannot know whether they are the right way of thinking or not. His skeptical atheism does not help to the contradiction with what I have established that is the theocentric way of thinking, or the Catholic mindset and the Catholic Faith. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen. The last part of the commentary on Week 1 of the Introduction to Philosophy course from Coursera. There will be a time, which is soon, when I shall comment and attempt to comprehend the entirety of Kant’s works, which has an infamous reputation. However, this final part will address him in a very brief way as presented in the course module.

I can’t really comment much because I myself do not possess sufficient intellect to comprehend Kant’s thesis that the habits of our mind, or the rules of our thought has to be the rules of our world as well. I might be able to discern something like that if I make the effort. Yet this commentary is not supposed to be so deep. In any case, Kant’s final conclusion is that there is a right way of thinking about things and we can discover that through reason. I am certain that the details of his conclusion is somewhat different from my understanding of the theocentric way of thinking as the right way of thinking.

However, the module did mention that we cannot imagine a world which does not work according to the ways of thinking. For example we cannot imagine a world which does not operate according to space and time, it is simply nonsensical. Yet there is something which does not operate according to space and time, that thing is called God. Even so, God is an exception from this world, He is in fact outside of this world. Even then, we can still express God in terms of space and time, or the incomprehensible lack thereof. Attributes such as eternity and omnipresence shows God’s relationship to space and time.

It seems possible to reason that the ways of our thought are necessary laws of the world, I just do not know how precisely. A possible way I perceive is reasoning that all we have is the perception of this world instead of the actual world itself, which is possibly God alone. The world might be another way, but then our perceptions would be entirely different. It is possible to be unbound by space and time, but then we would be angelic beings or perhaps even God if we are omniscient. The way we perceive the world reveals the world itself. It seems that is the thesis Kant wishes to present. With this, the commentary is finished. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, amen.