Philosophical Reflection SUMMARY - Detailed Summary of All Lectures
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Philosophical Reflection
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Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen (RU)
This document contains a detailed summary of Philosophical Reflection. It includes all text discussions and 90% of the time a literal quotation of all that is said in the lectures. My grade was a 9.1 with this summary
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Why are language and communication a philosophical problem in ancient Greece, especially for
Plato?.....................................................................................................................................................2
The philosophical problem of being and appearing...............................................................................3
Plato’s Text Ion (Discussion Socrates with Poetry/Rhapsode Ion) TEXT.................................................3
Plato: Allegory of the Cave.....................................................................................................................5
Plato: Republic (Plato’s Problem with Poets, Care of the Soul)..............................................................6
Plato: Philosophers (Socrates) vs Sophist (Care of the Soul) TEXT..........................................................7
Plato: Phaedrus (Socrates vs Phaedrus, art of Speaking Well) TEXT.......................................................7
The Modern Age/ Modern Philosophy.................................................................................................10
Immanuel Kant.....................................................................................................................................11
Francis Bacon........................................................................................................................................11
Descartes..............................................................................................................................................12
Descartes’ ‘doubt experiment’ (Thinking Thing), Evil Genius...............................................................12
Descartes: Get outside our minds........................................................................................................12
Descartes: Language & Communication...............................................................................................13
John Locke (Testimony)........................................................................................................................13
Locke’s Empiricism, Blank slate, Complex ideas...................................................................................14
Locke: Radford – John Locke, Communication in two Senses TEXT......................................................14
Locke: Standard view of Communication vs Social view of Communication SUMMARY......................16
Locke’s Account of Knowledge – Impact of the Focus on the Subject TEXT.........................................16
Locke: A Mist Before Our Eyes, Communication Breakdown (TEXT)....................................................17
Interpretation.......................................................................................................................................18
Perspectivism.......................................................................................................................................18
Relativism.............................................................................................................................................19
Perspectivism, Relativism & Absolute Truth.........................................................................................19
Marx & Freud & Nietzsche about the subject and Perspectivism.........................................................19
Nietzsche: the Word does not Express the Essence – Perspectivism & Relativism...............................20
Nietzsche: Interpreting Human Reason, On Truth And Lies In Extra Moral Sense................................21
Nietzsche and Nihilism (Platonism and Christianity) TEXT....................................................................21
Nietzsche: The Nihilism of Christianity (TEXT)......................................................................................22
Nietzsche: The Nihilism of Platonism....................................................................................................23
Hermeneutics: Why Do We Need Interpretation? Locke: A Mist Before Our Eyes, Communication
Breakdown, Perspectivism...................................................................................................................23
Dilthey on Cultural Objects as Expression of Perspective & Interpretation..........................................24
,Kant: Distinction in Human Knowledge (Natural Sciences & Metaphysical Knowledge), Our Use Of
Reason: Does God Exist?......................................................................................................................25
Dilthey: Human Freedom & Free Will...................................................................................................25
Dilthey: Natural Sciences (General Laws) vs Humanities (Meaning, Interpretation)............................26
Dilthey’s Hermeneutics (Lived Experience, Expression, Understanding)..............................................26
Monet’s Impressionism........................................................................................................................27
Gademer: Truth & Method (event)......................................................................................................27
Gademer vs Early Modernity: Tradition................................................................................................28
Gademer: Prejudice, Tradition and Question in Interpretation............................................................28
Gademer: Hermeneutical Experience: Fusion of Horizons (including Locke & Nietzsche)....................29
Gademer: Anticipation of Completeness..............................................................................................29
Gademer: Text Analyse “Truth and Method” about authority/prejudices TEXT..................................30
Arendt: Unique Perspective, Birth........................................................................................................31
Arendt: Not What, But Who, Banality of Evil........................................................................................32
Arendt: Speaking/Speech and Action...................................................................................................32
Arendt: Insecurity rather than Security, Craftsman-model/Model of the Carpenter...........................33
Arendt: Second Birth............................................................................................................................34
Arendt: Political Philosophy, Uncertainty, Human Freedom................................................................34
Arendt: Text Analysis TEXT..................................................................................................................35
Plato
Does not trust democracy as a political model: people in general lack understanding in
what is going on
“The city state should be rules by a philosopher king”
Why are language and communication a philosophical
problem in ancient Greece, especially for Plato?
The Sophists are focused only on the question of persuasion and not truth. According to Plato,
they miss the genuine aim of communication, which is to find the truth of the subject matter
that you are discussing. The means of communication is a dialog, because a dialog helps us
better to find the truth and it less likely to deceive us.
Rhetorics and Sophists have a different aim of communication, namely to persuade. The art of
Rhetorics is the art of persuasion. They use long speech in which you try to convince your
audience that your conviction about a certain problem is the right one. You don’t listen to
your audience, you don’t wonder if your audience have a question, you just try to convince
them. According to Plato, it is very hard to distinguish a sophist from a philosopher, there is a
genuine problem there: language can deceive us. Sophist can appear to be people that know
something, but they are only interested in persuasion. In this case we are deceived by
language.
,When it comes to communication, the other opponent for philosophers are poets. According
to Plato, the discussion with poets concerns the question about knowledge. Do the poets really
know anything? Philosophers question poets by saying that poets cannot offer us a scientific
explanation based on theory and rationality. With poetry, it is not clear what the aim of this
type of communication is.
The philosophical problem of being and appearing
When we use our senses, we get an impression about how reality is, but it’s only an
impression. Whether we actually see how reality really is, is just a question.
Language appearance: when we speak about things, someone else can get a certain idea about
how it is. But someone else can give a whole another explanation, he will give a different
appearance about the same thing. We can use language to let something appear in a certain
way. How can we distinguish between the two?
We only get an appearance about what is at stake, we can’t see what is actually the case.
When you want to get to know something, you mostly only get an appearance, so not the
actual truth. Thanks to language and communication you get to know something, but it is only
an appearance of what is the case.
When you use your rationality alone, you can get to a genuine knowledge of being.
Senses can deceive us, but our rational capacities cannot deceive us.
Plato’s Text Ion (Discussion Socrates with
Poetry/Rhapsode Ion) TEXT
Ion is a rhapsode: someone who knows the poems of one poet very well, and can sing the
poems to the audience very well. Ion knows the poems of Homer very well.
The discussion between Socrates and Ion is about the Art of Poetry. What is poetry?
The aim of Rhetorics is to persuade the other, the aim of poetry is less clear.
Socrates:
“and you have to learn his thought, nut just his verses!”: Socrates suggests that the rhapsode
does not only know the words of Homer’s poetry, but actually he learns his thoughts that he
put into his poetry. So he suggests that the poet has thoughts and knowledge that he puts into
his poetry and expresses by the words of his poems.
“no one would ever get to be a good rhapsode if he didn’t understand what is meant by the
poet”: the rhapsode understands something and has a certain form of knowledge.
“A rhapsode must come to present the poet’s thoughts to the audience; and he can’t do that
beautifully unless he knows what the poet means.”: poets are about knowledge and thoughts,
and rhapsodes, in order to present the poetry to an audience, must be at home in these
thoughts.
The question is: does the poet actually know something?
Two types of knowledge: scientific vs. technical knowledge
Technical knowledge is to know how.
, Socrates: do Ion and Homer have scientific/theoretical knowledge or technical knowledge?
Socrates:
“Now I’d just like an answer to this: Are you so wonderfully clever about Homer alone – or
also about Hesiod and Archilochus?”
Ion only knows something about Homer, he is only inspired when he is singing Homer’s
poetry. This is an important indication for Socrates concerning the question of knowledge.
Socrates believes that knowledge is always general. Ion claims that he has knowledge about
poetry, yet he only knows the poetry of Homer, so does he really know anything about
poetry? If Ion would really understand poetry and really understand the thoughts expressed in
poetry, then he would have general knowledge. Then this knowledge would not only be
applicable to Homer, but also other poets. According to Socrates, Ion does not have genuine
knowledge.
Socrates: “Is there any subject on which Homer and Hesiod both say the same things?”
Ion: Yes, I think so. A good many
Socrates: Then, on those subjects, would you explain Homer’s verse better an more
beautifully than Hesiod’s?
Poetry is about something. Knowledge is always general, if you have the radical knowledge,
then you recognize it in all poets, not only in Homers’.
Claim from Socrates: Whether Homer himself has knowledge. Homer the poet does not know
the art of military (the subject they talk about), he only offers us an appearance without
genuinely knowing what warfare is. There is a lack of knowledge.
Socrates: I am going to announce to you what I think that is. As I said earlier, that’s not a
subject you’ve mastered – speaking well about Homer, it’s a divine power that moves you, as
a “Magnetic” stone moves iron rings. This stone not only pulls those rings, if they’re iron, it
also puts power in the rings, so that they in turn can do just what the stone does – pull other
rings – so that there’s sometimes a very long chain of iron pieces and rings hanging from one
another. And the power in all of them depends on this stone. In the same way, the Muses (God
of poetry) makes some people inspired herself, and then trough those who are inspired a
chain of other enthusiasts is suspended. You know, none of the epic poets, if they’re good, are
masters of their subject; they are inspired, possessed, and that is how they utter al those
beautiful poems.”
According to Socrates, Ion does not have mastery over a certain subject. He does not know
the thoughts of Homer. He does not even know the art of poetry. He does not have knowledge
about the subject, because then he would understand it in other poems, and he does not know
the ‘know how’, because if he would know how to write a good poem, he would also be able
to act upon that on other poets. The alternative: it’s a divine power that moves you, as a
“Magnetic” stone moves iron rings. The magnet first pulls the first iron ring, and transfers its
magnetic power to it, so that the first iron ring starts attracting the second iron ring and so on.
So when Homer speaks, he’s like an iron ring on which the God’s work as magnets, and he
transfers that to the rhapsode, who transfers it to the audience. Inspiration and enthusiasm: the
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