Introduction Aristotle

1 Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)
- student of Plato (427 – 347 BC),
- teacher of Alexander the Great

2 Philosophy of Aristotle
- Universalist: studied and taught all subjects available at the time, on logic, on physics and science (physics, meteoroloy, on the heaven, on the soul, on the sleep, on memory, on animals etc.), on philosophy (Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric, Poetics and others)
- Philosophical Framework:
i) Shares with the early Wittgenstein the "empirical" starting point
ii) But he perceives (all) things as goal-directed (teleological) and draws further conclusion from this experience that leads to his conception of ethics (unlike the early Wittgenstein).

3 Nicomachean Ethics: Overview
3.1 Naming: Dedicated or edited by his son Nicomachus
3.2 Structure: The Nicomachean Ethics consists out of ten books. It can roughly be divided in three parts:
a) general ethics (book 1): the study of the good/highest good
b) virtues (book 2-4): the golden means, moral virtues
c) ethics in the context of society (book 5-10): justice, intellectual virtues, friendship, politics

Seven General Points about Philosophy

1 How does Philosophy get started?
With questions. Being astonished. Not taking things for granted.

2 Philosophy is a systematization of question

3 Interdependence of Philosophizing and History of Philosophy
Need for both aspects: The questioning, critizising, asking your own questions and the study of the history of philosophy, exact reading of philosophical texts.

4 Systematization of Philosophy with Immanuel Kant
Every philosopher will give another account of organizing the field of philosophy. Kant's systematization provides a short and clear account:
i) What can I know? - Epistemology
ii) What should I do? - Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy
iii) What may I hope for? - Philosophy of Religion
iv) What is man? - Anthropology
For Kant, answering the first three question will answer the fourth one. In the Ateneo syllabus question iv) is tackled before ii) and iii)
What might be the explanation for that?

5 Method of Philosophy - Analysis of Concepts

6 Philosophy arises from the "Lebenswelt"
Philosophy, as well as science in general, arises from concrete questions in a particular historical, cultural and social context. Although aiming at universal truth, the perspective of the question is embedded in a certain culture. This has to be kept in mind when reading philosophy.(E.g. the rise of bioethics in the Western World from the 70s onwards would be an example of the cultural relatedness of science )

7 "Sapere Aude!" (Kant) - Dare to know!
Kant writes in "Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?":
"Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding.”

Questioning Wittgenstein

1 Concept of Science
The problem of Wittgenstein is his concept of science. What can be said by means of the picture theory is very limited. Even sentences of logic cannot be accommodated. Should science (and especially philosophy) not try to explain the phenomenons of our life rather then say something about a limited area of our life?

2 Criticizing Wittgenstein from his later philosophy
Is perhaps the scientific language not the only language which has meaning? The later Wittgenstein argues that there is a plurality of languages (or language games, as he calls it), that are equally valid: “The speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. [There is a] multiplicity of language games ...: Giving orders, and obeying them. Describing the appearance of an object ... Reporting an event. Speculating about an event. Forming and testing a hypothesis... Making up a story; and reading it. Play-acting... Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.
It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used ... with what logicians have said about the structure of language. (Including the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.” (Philosophical Investigations, §23) All these language games follow their own logic and their own rules.

3 What is the task of philosophy?
We have to decide between a philosophical theory on logicist or empiricist premises and our every day understanding of moral language. Should we deconstruct and deny an important aspect of our life? Or should we try to explain the phenomenons that surround us and decide our life? (The question would also be what are we doing in the “philosophy of the human person”? We try to give an account of the phenomenons that surround us.)

For further discussion please consult also the Entry on Wittgenstein in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (See link list)