Nature of truth.
What can be believed?
Russell was a liberal, most of his work was to do with logic and mathematics. He was a celebrity in his time. On a less positive note his work was also known to be lecherous, lustful, venerous, and erotomaniac (note that he never actually wrote anything on the subject of sex). He is in fact even accused of being responsible for Hitler and Starlin, by influencing them. He was a 'magician'.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was Russell's favourite pupil. Ludwig said that logic was useless, intention is more important. Logic was a system of thought invented by Aristotle; logic was taught as a tool by which you learnt everything.
Wittgenstein did not agree with Aristotle's idea on syllogistic logic. This idea incorporates the proposition, or thing closet to the truth, as the conclusion inferred with two others.
Chris Horrie showed on of Aristotle's example:
All men are mortal
Scarates is a man
(Therefore) Socrates is a mortal
Wittengenstein believed that language had a life of it's own as a WHOLE (similair to George Orwall's 1984 with 'newspeak'). Wittegnstein said something to the effect of 'if you cannot express and idea in words it is not an idea' and 'if we cannot speak we should be silent'. Logic is merely a game, a language game, a physcological game. NOT a tool for knowledge as Aristotle said.
Note that Russell is a Atheist. He approves highly of John Locke (which we will delve into soon on in the course).
Chris Horrie shared this idea: Think of a chair, multiple different chairs, yet they fall under the same category. The ideal of a chair only exists in a non material ideal form. The David was the perfect ideal aethstetic beautiful form.
Chris Horrie gave an example of how he would summarise some of Russell's chapters:
GALILEO (1564-1642)
Born on the day that Michelangelo died, and Newton was born on the day that Galileo died. So his life was a link. Galileo spotted what Aristotle got wrong. Galileo wanted facts rather than dogma. He built a telescope, and this is what he saw:
1. A moon with mountains- up till that point it had been deemed perfectly smooth and circular.
2. He saw the phases of Venus and how the Earth is in fact not the centre.
3. He saw the milky way (ie. individual stars) but could not see separate galaxies yet.
4. He saw eleven heavenly objects (counting the moons of Jupiter as well) when there were meant to be only seven (a perfect number)
NEWTON
He used maths to calculate existence. This includes the law of gravity, that objects attract each other according to their matter. This was tested through dropping things off towers, he developed a very consistent method of 'proof'. He was however wrong because he had an insufficient telescope. Now we know that some of his laws do not apply (black spots/holes in space). As an overall thought, note that Russell writes highly of Newton, finding his philosophy on science to be very good.
FRANCIS BACON
He, like Wittegnstein, hates logic. He didn't find it at all conducive. Russell used the term 'straight jacket' to describe Bacon opinion on logic's effect on the developments of science. He wanted to shake of the influence of Aristotle.
THOMAS HOBBES
Hobbes was similar to Machievalli, in his very humanist thinking. He was one of the main philosophers who founded materialism.
DESCARTES
Descartes had a keen interest in form. He was a mathematician focusing on 'reason' and 'form'. He thought that Aristotle was 'a waste of time'. He wanted to clear away all the rubble of the Medieval times. Aristotle believe in natural slavery for example, he honestly believed that it would therefore be cruel to set a slave free for they were deemed to be in captivity. This is a ludicrous idea, and it made Descartes hate Aristotle. In terms of truth and what can be believed, Descartes states that he is certain that he himself exists. He says 'I think therefore I am'. Perhaps thinking about you and what you know and how you know it is the only think that you can be certain of. This is important for journalists (the facts, the assurity). How original are ideas anyway?
PHILOSOPHY AFTER DESCARTES
1. Idealism: how we know what we know? It is true that Consciousness comes before matter, ie 'love makes the world go round'. The Bible has many general/broad trends-idealism.
OR
2. Imperrisism: matter exists first, ie love does not make the world go round, the world makes the world go round.
A TEST TO SEE WHICH CATEGORY YOU FALL UNDER:
Imagine a tree in a forest. There is no living thing near this tree. Nothing at all, not even the smallest ant or lady bug. The tree falls over but no one hears it fall over, no one hears at all. Did the falling tree make a sound? If you say yes you ere on the Imperrisism side, saying that things can exist even without thinking.
One student asked 'what if you respond saying you cant know for sure either way'. Chris Horrie found this to be a very good/interesting question.
5 comments:
In fact I thought it was a superb question and it was a shame that we did not have time to explore that further.
I think that it is a very deep question that could lead to many avenues of condusive exploration. Ultimately, we might find that even the things renowned for being true have some sort of faults to them or counter arguments against them.
Scepticism (often wrongly called cyncism by the public) is he most important habit of mind for a journalism and I would say more generally any educated or generally useful person.
Are you saying that it is best to have a doubt in belief and religion when writing journalism?
Or is it in a broader sense the idea that knowledge in an area might be uncertain and that we should not be to specific in making conclusions and judgements too soon?
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