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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Faith and Reason

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What are Faith and Reason? Faith is the belief in the truth of something that does not require any evidence and may not be provable by any empirical or rational means. Reason is the faculty of the mind through which we can logically come to rational conclusions.

Introduction
What are Faith and Reason? Faith is the belief in the truth of something that does not require any evidence and may not be provable by any empirical or rational means. Reason is the faculty of the mind through which we can logically come to rational conclusions. Faith and reason are both sources of authority upon which beliefs can rest. Reason fundamentally is understood as the principles used for inquiring subjects from a methodological standpoint, whether it be moral, intellectual, or religious. Once demonstrated, a proposition or claim is ordinarily understood to be justified or authoritative.

Faith can be described as a stance or position that a particular claim is (at least presently) not capable of demonstration by invoking reason. As such, it is believed to involve a belief system that implies, or makes, either an implicit or explicit commitment on the part of the believer. This basis for a person's faith usually is understood to come from the authority of revelation or personal conviction. This revelation is either through some kind of direct infusion, or indirectly, such as the testimony of another source, or individual.

The basic impulse or incentive for this problem of faith and reason seems to come from the fact that the applied revelation or revelations on which most religions are based are interpreted in very sacred pronouncements steeped in canonical writings, or in an established oral tradition, and backed by a "divine" authority. These writings, stemming from oral traditions are often presented, narrative, parable, and sometimes discourse. This, for some reason, has given them in turn, some measure of immunity from reasonable or rational critique and evaluation.

The Classical Period
During the Classical Period, Greek Religions, as opposed to Judaism, primarily speculated not only on the human world but also on their surrounding cosmos.

Both Plato and Aristotle expressed a principle of existence in which intellectual organization in religious thinking could metaphysically function to halt the regression of explanation. Plato expressed this in his explanation of the Forms; in particular, the Form of the Good. The Form of the Good is where all things gain their intelligibility. In turn, Aristotle rejected Plato's ideas of the Forms, expressing that Good was not able to account for various good things, instead, Aristotle appealed to the "unmoving" mover, or one who invoked motion, as an unchangeable cosmic entity.

Both of the early Greek philosophers developed different versions of theology by showing how religious beliefs can emerge from rational, or reasonable reflections. An early form of religious apologetics that demonstrate the existence of the gods can be found in Plato's Laws, while in Aristotle's Physics, arguments were given to demonstrate the existence of an unmoved mover as a timeless self-thinker from the evidence of the existence of motion in the world.

Other schools of thought, such as the Stoics and the Epicureans, derived some of their theology from the world of physics and cosmology, but differed in their views of the relationship between faith and reason. The Stoics for instance, held a cosmological view with an eternal cycle, where necessity governs this cyclic process, and is identified with Divine reason (logos), with this, God maintains order in the universe, but without an explicit purpose. We as humans are only microcosms - our souls being only emanations of the soul of the universe. The Epicureans on the other hand were very steeped in skepticism; they took a materialistic point of view, and were very anti-dogmatic. They saw no relationship between the evils in the human life and a divine guidance from the universe, and at death all human perceptions would cease.

By this time in history we began to move into the rise of Christianity (an emergence from Judaism), and although the early Christians held on to a great amount of compatibility between faith and reason, their beliefs and practices were quite different from what the Greeks and Jews had practiced for many years. Early Christian philosophers, beginning with the Christian Apologists, began to express the less important role that reason should and could play in the religious world. Tertullian began to express the ideas that had been laid down by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians proclaiming that religious faith is both "against and and above reason". He goes on to claim in his De Praescriptione Haereticorum, "when we believe, we desire to believe nothing further". He goes on to claim that Greek philosophy is unnecessary to defend the faith, and began to try to show in a rational (reasoned) way what is found in faith.

Though St. Augustine felt strongly about the efforts and ideas of the Platonists, including their ideas about the causes of things and methods of obtaining knowledge, and also on the cause of the organized universe, he will go on to state that although one does not have to be a Christian to have a conception of God, one will only be able to grasp this type of knowledge by being Christian without having to revert back to philosophy. This pattern of a beginning of the separation from equality of reason to faith continued, and St. Anselm would go on to state that one must "love God to have knowledge of him". However, reason became more important with St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas believed that one could conclude that God exists using reason alone. Reason is necessary to decide which authority ought to be believed. Like Augustine, he believed that reason alone was incomplete. Faith comes after reason and then faith allows reason to grow. Faith enables a believer to understand further truths that could not be discovered through reason alone. Reason may enable all humans to know science, but only faith informs us of the ultimate end, goal, purpose, and plan for science.

Nietzsche on Religion
Nietzsche is famous for the quote "God is dead". There has naturally been some misinterpretation of this quote. Nietzsche did not mean that there was once a real, embodied God who had died. Nietzsche probably did not care if there was a God or not. What Nietzsche did mean was that the God of yesteryear was no longer relevant. With the advent of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment we no longer needed God or religion to explain to us how to behave or why/how natural phenomena (such as floods) occur. This God was dead.

Science (and Occam's Razor)(William of Ockham was a Franscican Friar and theologian who is attributed to Occams Razor,therefore is highly unlikely that it replaced religion as this was obviously not his or the Churches intent) replaced religion as the authority when it came to questions of astronomy, geology, biology, and meteorology; it even gave us new disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and advanced mathematics. Nietzsche's view on morals did not include God or religion either. Nietzsche felt that man's foremost duty was to overcome himself. As explained in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche realized that man is still only part animal and part something more. By overcoming our inner "animal" mankind would become more than just human, something Nietzsche called the Übermensch or Over-man. He also believe that the Judeo-Christian morality was a slave-morality. Its fundamental flaw was emphasis on good intentions rather than on good results. By favoring the weak it bred more weakness.

In addition to this Nietzsche was certainly anti-religion. Nietzsche was a man who believed that man had a responsibility to live a full life. Religion was (is) antithetical to such an idea by creating sin which makes us ashamed of our natural desires, faith that makes us stupid and blind, pity rewarding weakness, and the after-life removed any reason for one to appreciate and enjoy the life they had (even those trying times). Because of this, Nietzsche felt that religion, and in particular Christianity, was evil.

Conclusion
Though we have only scratched the surface here with the relationship between faith and reason, I hope that this brief overview will encourage you to research the topic further, and expand your knowledge on the subject.

Now for your assignment(s);

Some things to ponder and write about;

Are Faith and Reason mutually exclusive?

Theology and Philosophy, are they only autonomous exercises?

OR, is there a unifying factor, something that could unite; Philosophy, Theology, Faith, and Reason.

For your final, consider the development of the ideas of faith and reason, compare and contrast the ideas from the early Greek philosophers to the Christian philosophers through Aquinas.

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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Arguments for God

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If we are going to argue that something exists, such as "God", it would make sense, in the logical form, to first define what God is. Naturally, depending on who you ask, you could acquire more than one definition. The debate concerning the existence of God raises many philosophical issues. One basic problem is there's no universally accepted definition of God. Many of the definitions of God in existence are so vague, it is certain that something exists that meets the definition, but in a striking difference, many are self-contradicting. So for the sake of argument, I will provide the dictionary based definition just to provide a basis from which to begin.

Views on God

 * 1) The Supreme Being, creator and master of all
 * 2) Any being considered as divine
 * 3) An Idol
 * 4) A person or thing made the object of supreme devotion

Common Questions
While pursuing the answer to the questions, "does God exist?" or, "can we prove that God exists?", it might help to clear some confusion by answering some common questions that are sometimes asked when debating these arguments.

First, there is the question of whether something does exist or not. In answering this question, it could be understood that something can exist and us not know it. In other words, a thing can exist whether we know it or not.

Second, there is the question of whether we know that it exists. To be affirmative in answering this question, we must presuppose that the first question is answered affirmatively. For example, we can say something does exist without knowing it, but we cannot know it exists until we know it exists.

Third, we have to question whether there is a reason for our knowledge? We may not be able to convince others of knowledge we feel we have, even by using reason. God's existence in many Christian environments is viewed as like this.

Fourth, "If this reason does exist, can this reason amount to a proof? In many cases, what we believe and the reasons for believing it, can be based in probabilities, not the existence of proof.  An example of this may be in the case of O.J. Simpson.  It is commonly believed his actions were what led to the demise of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, based on the use of reason, BUT we do not really know.  We were not there when it happened, there was no eye-witness account, and even if there was, how would you know that they were being truthful?  They could have disliked Mr. Simpson and would have said they saw him do it whether he did or not.  To observe things from this requires a great willingness to avoid bias, and not be driven to decision based on your emotional thought, or what you believe to be true.

Finally, if a proof does exists, is it based on a scientific proof, such as measurement, observation, etc.? Sound or valid proofs can exist in philosophy, but these proofs are not necessarily scientific proofs.

Arguments
In the course of asking to present arguments for the existence of God, one must presuppose that in return, for the sake of objectivity, there will be a need to present arguments that also argue against the existence of God. In this course we will present the arguments for both. There are many different arguments both for the existence of God, as well as the arguments against the existence of God. Now, there are many different arguments for the existence of God, and most of them seem to follow the same logical structure. This structure is the basic structure of a deductive argument. First, there is a major premise (P1) or a general principle. Next, a minor premise (P2) will state infomation particular to our experience that comes under that principle. Finally, the (C) conclusion will follow by applying the general principle to a particular case. Although in these arguments the conclusion states that God does exist, the premises of the different arguments are different. The arguments are like roads, from different starting points, all leading to reach the same goal, God.

Due to the overwhelming number of these arguments we will limit this study to many of the most substantial. These arguments will be based and described in the following context.

Metaphysical Arguments (For the existence)
 * 1) Cosmological
 * 2) Ontological
 * 3) Pantheistic

Empirical Arguments (For the existence)
 * 1) Teleological
 * 2) Moral
 * 3) Trancendental

David Hume was one of the great empiricists, especially in the area of the philosophy of religion. The ability for empiricism to produce sceptic conclusions that concern our knowledge of God was greatly apparent in the work of Hobbes in which he holds on to similar empiricist principles concerning the foundations of human knowledge. One of the most apparent aspects of the position that Hobbes takes on this subject is his claim that we have no idea of God and this can make our comprehension of him difficult. In his writing "Leviathan" he states: "Whatever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor concieve infinite swiftness, infinitie time, or infinite force, or infinite power... And therefore the name of God is used, not to make us concieve him (for he is incomprehensible, and his greatness and power are inconcievable)but that we may honor him. Also because whatsoever... we concieve has been percieved first by sense, either all at once or by parts, a man can have no thought representing anything not subject to sense"... (Hobbes Leviathan, 3.12) center text

What is fundamental to Hume's entire empircist idea in "A Treatise of Human Nature" is his "copy principle", or the claim that"all our ideas, or weak perceptions, are derived from our impressions, or strong perceptions, and that we can never think of any thing which we have not seen without us, or felt in our minds" Hume goes on to observe that this discovery is one of considerable importance for "deciding all controversies concerning ideas""whenever any idea is ambiguious, he continues" we always have "recourse to the impression, which must render it clear and precise" Humes goes on to say that if any philosophical term has no idea annexed to it, Hume suggests that we can always ask "from what impression that pretended idea is derived? If no impression can be produced, we must conclude that the term altogether is therefore deemed insignificant. Given the significance of the "copy-principle" in the phylosophical system that Hume presents, and it clear revelance to the debate of the idea of God that we have, it is suprising to find that in the Treatise, Hume rarely mentions our idea of God, or even provides any kind of a detailed account of the nature and the origin of this idea. It would be a grave mistake though, to assume that that these problems of theology as they concern our idea of God, are not in Humes mind, but to neglect this topic in the face of the continuing debate and the clear revelance to Hume's philosophy in the writing of the Treatise, which clearly conveeys a sceptical idea or message. It may be argued that Hume's delivery or presentation of his theory of ideas in his writings of the Enquiry shows that the sceptical reading is not as obvious maybe as it appears. In this context Hume seems to use the idea of God to describe or illustrate his copy- principle. Hume states:

...When we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from precedent feeling or sentiment. Even those ideas, which at first view, seem the most wide of this origin, are found, upon a nearer scrutinty to be derived from it. The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise, and Good Being, arises from the reflecting on the operations of our own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and wisdom.(EU 2.6/19).

Hume feels the account of our idea of God, as has been presented in this passage, follws simply Locke's line of reasoning. Our idea of the existence of God is very complex and comes from very simple ideas steeped in the reflections on the way of operations of our own mind which upon we argue without limit. These remarks given in the Enguiry about the very nature and the origins of our ideas of God could be construed to show that the theory of ideas that Hume presents, such as the ideas in the Treatise, has no clear sceptical implications( this seems to follow alog Hobbeisan lines)but contrary to these views, there is a good reasonto conclude that Hume's Lockean description of our idea of God appears to really be less that sincere.

Hume continues on to show that the "optimists" of God in trying to deal with these difficulties actually are degrading God with the implication that God resembles them in any way to strive to make him more understandable or "comprehensible". What is more important than this, is that in the Enquiry XI Hume presents a critique of our conjectures about the nature of God and the attribute he may have, based in the evidence of design in the world. Hume stresses the point that God's being is "so different, and so much superior" to our human nature that we are not capable to form a distinct or precise idea of his nature and/or his attributes, much less in any way one based in our own percieved qualities or our characteristics. Hume states:

...The Diety is known to us only by his productions, and is a single being in the universe, not comprehended under any species or genus, from whose experienced attributes or qualities, we can, by analogy, infer any attribute or quality in him...(EU, 11.26) Hume later on goes on to remark that God is "a Being, so remote and incomprehencible, who bears such less analogy to any other being in the universe that the sun to a waxen paper, and who discovers himself only by some faint traces of outlines, beyond which we have no authority to ascribe to him any attribute or perfection"(EU11.27)If no impression can be produced, then we must conclude " the term altogether insignificant". Clearly then, there is a closely knit connection between the sceptical implications of Hume's empiricists theory of ideas, as based in his copy-principle, and then with his related critique of of the argument for God's existence from design. A basic or fundamental point trhat seems to emerge from all of this, is that Hume seems to agree with Hobbes that in our idea of God tends to follow the same path of that of a blind man trying to obtain the idea of fire.

Hume continues his critques of arguments for God's existence. One of Hume's more explicit assaults is in his writings in the Dialogues Part IX, in these writings he mentions Clarke and reduces his argument to a mere few sentences.

...Whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence, it being absolutely impossible for anything to produce itself, or to be the cause of its own existence. In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we must either go on in tracing an infinite sucession, without any ultimate cause at all, or must have recourse to some ultimate cause, that is necessarily existent...(D,90) It is also essential to his argument to prove that the necessarily-existen being cannot be of unintelligent inactive matter matter. Clarke's argument that is being expressed by Hume, is rooted on the contingency for the existence of matter and a particular form of the world.

Clarke writes: Ant particle of matter, it is said, "may be concieved to be annihilated; and any form may be concieve to be altered. Such an annihilation or alteration, therefore is not impossible.(D91)

Clarke provides another argument that is not mentioned by Hume in the Dialogues to show that it is quite impossible for matter to truly be"the final and original being" it states that we cannot explain the origin of motion and intelligence in the world if matter is the first, original self existing being. The basic principle idea that Clarke is relying on to come to this conclusionis,once again that "nothing can come from nothing". The principle in this case is seems to be interpreted that it is inplying "in order of causes and effects, the cause must always be more excellent that the effect"(Demonstrations,38) On this account, it is virtually impossible that "any effect could have such perfection, which was not in the cause" Clarke and other like-minded thinkers, using the basis of this principle(described as the causal-adequacy principle) these thinkers attempt to maintain that it is possible to demonstrate for certain that matter and motion are not able to produce thought and intelligence. So therefore, the self-existent being must be intellectually, immaterial being, they claimed that to suppose the contrary would be just plain contradiction.

Hume on Miracles- Miracles are an essential and even a fundamental part of many of the monotheistic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity, Islam etc.) The observance or the account of miracles as presented in the scriptures of elsewhere in religious writings, are supposed to confirm the authenticity and even the authority of scripture and the prophets, but most importantly, establish that God has revealed himself to humans beings through the demonstration of these special acts or events. From Christianity's point of view there is one miracle that is particulary of significance, and that being the resurrection of Christ. To doubt or question the validity or truth of this event is fundamentally to doubt the very core and distinct meaning and the doctrine of the Christian religion. It would be to cast doubt on the claim that Christ is God and the saviour of human kind. A major concern that Hume has, as is presented in SectionX of the first Enquiry, was to discredit these miracle claims if this kind. According to Hume's description "a miracle is a violation of a law of nature"(EU,11.12/114)More specifically Hume states it is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Diety, or by the interposition of some invisible agent(EU, 11.12) As defined, amiracle may occur without any person observing it, in other words, it may be completely unknown. Hume adds that a miracle is not only a violation law of nature,but also requires the direct activity of God or some "invisible agent" is a significant requirement.Nevertheless, the key issuefor Hume's critique of miracles, is whether or not we ever have reason to believe on the basis of testimony that a law of nature has been violated. Hume's arguments lead to the conclusion that we never have reason to believe miracle reports are passed on to us.

Hume seems to interpret a law of nature must involve a uniform regularity of events. We discover or "experience" laws of nature on the basis of our "experience on constant conjunctions of events or objects.

Empirical Arguments (Against the existence)

 * 1) The problem of evil.
 * 2) Argument from Inconsistent Revelations
 * 3) Argument from Poor Design
 * 4) Argument from Non Belief

Deductive Arguments (Against the existence)

 * 1) The Omnipotence Paradox
 * 2) Argument from free-will
 * 3) Transcendental argument for non-existence
 * 4) Theological Non-Cognition

Inductive Arguments (Against the existence)

 * 1) Atheist- Existentialist

Let us first look at the Metaphysical arguments. Metaphysics(Metaphysical) by definition is the branch of philosophy that investigates questions concerning the nature of reality and that moves beyond scientific inquiry to exploring questions about self, God, free will, and the origins of the universe. Named after a book by Aristotle for the study of questions left over after the study of this world, "physica" or nature.

The Cosmological Argument (for existence of God)
The Cosmological Argument is an argument that uses reason (logos) to make an inference of alleged facts about the world (cosmos) to imply the existence of a unique or "Supreme Being", particularly, God. One adherent to the cosmological argument was Leibniz, who argued that the world was filled with beings that depended on another being for their existence, and that the necessary being for all other being's existence was God.(1)

The Ontological Argument (for existence of God)
This argument attempts to support God's existence from a source based other than the mere observation or existence of the world. Basically, these basis come from a priori, analytical premises that reach a conclusion that God exists. Leibniz also employed an ontological argument for God's existence: He argued that God existed because it was possible for God to exist. In Leibniz's words, "Since nothing can prevent the possibility of what is without limits, without negation, and consequently without contradiction, this by itself is sufficient for us to know the existence of God a priori."(1)

The Pantheistic Argument
This view broadly defines God's existence by making the claim, "God is everything, and everything is God". It bases that everything purports a certian unity, and that unity is all inclusive and in some sense "divine" and exists from only one "Being" (God).

Now we will cover empirical arguments for the existence of God. The word "empirical" by textbook definition is "that which can be proven or disproved by sensory experience".

Teleological Argument
Teleological, from the Greek word "telos" meaning "purpose" or "goal". There are a few classical versions of the design argument. One is those of St. Thomas Aquinas and his "five ways". The fifth argument is the argument from design, the other four are first-cause arguments. The argument starts with a major premise; there must be a designer, The minor premise is the existence of design throughout the universe. The conclusion is that there must be a "universal designer".

The Moral Argument for God's existence
Moral arguments for the existence of God may be defined as a group of arguments in the history of western philosophical theology that possess ideas of the character of moral thought. They tend to cite facts that are evident to the human experience, and they will argue that such facts are best explained by the hypothesis that there is a God with the attributes ascribed to him by tradition.

Transcendental Argument
This argument attempts to prove that the Christian God is the precondition of all human experience and knowledge, by trying to demonstrate the impossibility of the contrary. Robert Lewis Dabney attempts to explain the impossibility of the contrary stating, "A truth is not necessary, because we negatively are not able to conceive the actual existence of the opposite thereof;but a truth is necessary when we positively are able to apprehend that the negation thereof includes an inevitable contradiction. It is not that that we can see how the opposite comes to be true, but it is that the opposite can not possibly be true(Systematic Theology).

Conclusion
Assignments:

 * Read Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways
 * Define how the concept of faith relates to the ideas of the Christian philosophers and how they use it to affirm their arguments for the existence of God.
 * To the best of your ability, write a 3-5 page paper outlining the development of the idea of God from the Greeks to the early Christians, and how the arguments for his existence developed and changed over the centuries.

Bonus Question: Based on your current knowledge concerning arguments for and against the existence of God, develop your own argument for God's existence; Then develop an argument against it. Good Luck!

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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/The Problem of Evil

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Reading Questions

 * 1) How do concepts change over time?
 * 2) What was the ancient concept of Evil, and what is its modern counterpart?
 * 3) Why does the existence of Evil deny the existence of God?

Terms
Hellenes is a term for either ancient or modern Greeks (used in this fashion to note that at the time the nation/national identity of Greece did not exist)

B.C.E. Before Common Era.

Introduction
The problem of evil is not a simple topic, nor is it free from the fetters of religious interpretation and influence. For our purpose we shall begin with the simple aspect of a definition and look at how its concept has evolved, but before we do that we must note that all aspects of ancient philosophy that we have access to today have been translated and interpreted, in some cases, many times before it reaches us. All philosophical thought is based on the search for reasons why and how the world works. These reasons for things are based on observation and then filtered through the observers experiences, thus these reasons develop and evolve based upon the experience or knowledge of those interpreting them. For example concepts such as Metaphysics and Epistemology existed in ancient times but they were not termed as such because there were no terms for them as we know them today. So if we were to talk to an ancient philosopher about their work on "metaphysics," for example, they would have no idea or frame of reference for what we're talking about because that term doesn't exist to them. It has been said by many an atheist that because evil exists there can be no God. This is known as the "Problem of Evil". On the other hand, I believe most people would agree, atheists included, that good is the opposite of evil. If evil proves that God does not exist, then by the same token, the existence of good must prove that God does exist. If hate disproves God, then love proves Him; if violence disproves God, then compassion proves Him; if revenge disproves God, then forgiveness proves Him. There must be an explanation, therefore, of God's co-existence with evil or non-existence in spite of good.

There is perhaps, the possibility that God is a combination of both good and evil (dualism). The atheist's argument does not hold true if God is evil. I would argue, however, that God is the ultimate cause of good and evil, and God is good. While evil is not the doing of God, it is ultimately caused by Him. This is because He is omnipotent, the Supreme Being. Nothing takes place without His knowledge or permission; if it did, then He would not be omnipotent-He would not be God. In the words of the famous apologist, C.S. Lewis, ...Christianity asserts that God is good; that He made all things good and for the sake of their goodness; that one of the good things He made, namely, the free will of rational creatures, by its very nature included the possibility of evil; and that creatures, availing themselves of this possibility, have become evil.

He explained the apparent irony in this way: Is this state of affairs in accordance with God's will or not? If it is, He's a strange God, you'll say: and if it isn't, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?

But anyone who has been in authority knows how a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, 'I'm not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You've got to learn to keep it tidy on your own.' Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy Bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That's against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trades union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people don't do it. That isn't what you willed, but your will has made it possible.2 Nevertheless, we must remember that God did not create evil. But God created everything, right? Yes, but evil is not a thing. Evil is real, but it is not a real thing. For example, you might have a weak leg, but it is not the leg itself that is evil, but the weakness. The weakness (evil) is not a thing, but a condition. Thus, God did not create evil; He allows it. Lewis explains that "evil is a parasite, not an original thing. The powers which enable a bad man to be effectively bad are in themselves good things - resolution, cleverness, good looks, existence itself."3

So our problem is this: Why does a good and all powerful God allow evil? First, we must realize that even an omnipotent Being cannot do the impossible. C.S. Lewis once noted that making God the subject of an irrational statement does not make it true. Indeed, God cannot create a square triangle, "undo the past," or make a stone bigger than He can lift. This is the reason why God cannot immediately eliminate evil. For at the same time, He would make it impossible to accomplish other goals which are important to Him.

If God were to suddenly wipe out all traces of evil, free will would be lost, and we would become animals. As animals, we would have the capacity to like God, and to react to Him, but we would not have the capacity to truly love Him. This would defeat the purpose for which man was created. The atheist fails to consider that God may be dealing with evil progressively. If that is the case, and I believe it is, then God is doing as the atheist insists, but He is doing it over a period of time. In the end, God will do away with all evil.

Does free will necessarily involve God letting us do as we please, even if it is contrary to His will? In all practicality, it does. C.S. Lewis explains: We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them.

Evil and Good
We must first ask the question, “What is evil?” Most modern dictionaries define Evil as morally bad or wrong, wicked, depraved, causing pain harm or trouble. As such it is heavily bound in ethics, to the ancient Hellenes, however Evil was disorder/chaos, anything that disrupted the structure of their lives. One extreme example of this is that in Sparta it was illegal to get sick. The Hellenes equated order and structure with goodness, as it helped their lives function and protected them, on the same token disorder, chaos and anything that disrupted that was bad and thus Evil. With the conception of Socratic Ethics and Platonic Forms (around 400 B.C.E.) these concepts gained a more moralistic tinge to them that has stuck with them ever since, as can be seen in the difference between Hellenistic and Modern definition of the word, simple disorder versus a lack of morality. I refer to these ancient philosophers because they had a profound influence on the formation of church doctrines at and around the formation of the Christian church for whom "The Problem of Evil" is an issue. The Christian philosopher Augustine worked much of Plato's works into church doctrine, about 1000 years later Thomas Aquinas brought the works of Aristotle into Christian doctrine. These works vastly influenced the formation and early life of the Christian church.

The Problem of Evil
There is an unexpected, or perhaps misplaced, annexable conclusion extractable from the classic Problem of Evil and that is the case for Manichéism. From "the Holocaust, why didn't He stop it? (a) He couldn't or (b) He wouldn't?" we get: He's not all-powerful or He has His Reasons: Things far Beyond our Tiny Minds. The problem comes in part from our ascribing to Him the attribute (among others) of Infinite Goodness. The question arises, could he choose to be Bad? If He is after all Omnipotent, I suppose He could. It's no business of human beings if He got fed up with the 'Loving Father' image. And we're told again and again in the Bible ('I am what I am')that it's not for us to doubleguess Him. If one argues it's impossible for Him to be Bad, because His Nature is Good(ness), we're presuming to know His Nature and defining it for Him. Two equal principles of Good and Evil answer these conumdrums more logically than the One (Flawed) Good God who knows and sees all. Auschwitz was the work of men, and so in fairness it is more difficult to pull Him up over that. But the recent tsunami in the Indian Ocean was 'natural' and it is phenomena such as that, -earthquakes and so on that really stretch the inventiveness of the Good God apologists. The Manichéan has no problem with this. The problem of evil is that an omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent God (these features are commonly associated with “God” in monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judiasm and their derivitives) can not exist in the same world with “real evil.” For example one common argument is that “…God knew about the Holocaust and could have prevented it, but didn’t…” The logical solution to this problem is to weaken one of the premices, such as saying that the murder of thousands isn’t evil or that God doesn’t care about humans. Either way a weakening of one of the premises negatively effects the stability of monotheistic religions and that in a nut shell is the problem of evil. Some philosophers have concluded that an infinitely good, powerful, and just God is compatible with the existence of evil. One of these philosophers was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716). On the assumptions that God exists and is infinitely good, just, and powerful, Leibniz reasoned that God must have created the best possible world. He went on to argue that evil is a necessary component of such a world. In his work titled Philosopher’s Confession, Leibniz describes the creation of the world. The creator’s intellect is a combination of eternal, unchanging ideas. Everything in the world is an instance of one of these ideas. When God created the world, he chose from among his ideas to create the most harmonious combination. The evil in the world is like a dark, gloomy spot in a great painting; without the gloomy spot, the painting would not look as good. The darkness accents the bright portions. Leibniz realized he needed to do some more reasoning to resolve the problem of evil, so he dealt extensively with this issue in his Theodicy, a work in which he discusses God’s goodness, free will, and the existence of evil. In this work, Leibniz made a distinction between two kinds of will: Antecedent (coming before) and consequent (following as a result). God antecedently wills for everything to exist in a perfect state, but not all things can exhibit perfection while coexisting with other things, so God consequently wills that the combination of things in the world be as perfect as possible. It is this incompatibility of things in their perfect states that Leibniz reasons to be the root of evil.

David Hume- In Hume's writings "Dialogues", Hume considers an argument in the form of "Epicurus's old questions" which to Hume remain unanswered. These questions are: Is God willing to prevent evil but unable to do so? If this is the case, then God is not omnipotent. Is God able to prevent evil but unwilling to do so? then he is malevolent(or at the least less that perfectly good). If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why is their evil in the world?. These questions have imposed a great amount of thought over the centuries, and what seems to be at stake here is possible vindication of God and his/her moral attributes that are thrown into the face of the existence of evil. If this cannot be done, then the case for theism in any Christain Orthodox form will collapse under the scrunity. There are several strategies available to a theist to try and defuse this problem. One strategy that may be used is to completely deny that evil really exists, or the reality of evil, and then insist that the evil we witness or experience in our world are "goods to the universe" which are a necessity in obtaining a perfectly good "whole". In other words, these evils are only relative to our own individual, narrow, human perspective, but when veiwing the world or universe as only one system the removal of such "evils" or worldly "afflictions" would only produce a even greater set of ills or completely diminish the good in the world.

This strategy could be possibly be lead to interpretation as either there are no real evils in this world, but evils of necessity. Hume takes the view that this strategy is contrary to the overall human experience. The distinction between good and evil in reality, whether in the physical or moral sense, depends on "the natural sediments of the human mind". These distinctions, when based on feelings, cannot be altered or amended " by any philosophical theory or speculation whatsoever"(EU,8.34-5/101-03).

In the dialogues, Hume opens his discussion of the problem of evil by having Philo(the sceptic)describe a catalogue of suffering and misery in this world. He starts his discussion with the suffering of animals, such as the strong that prey on the weak and so forth, and continues to move on to the subject of human suffering in its many forms such as illness, disease, emotional strife and grief, even describing religion (superstition) as a source of immense fear and anxiety, but despite this enormous catalogue of human suffering, despair and grief, we as humans still find we have a fear of death, that would obviously put an end to such a miserable experience. Hume states,"we are terrified, not bribed to the continuance of our existence"(D99). The conclusion that Philo seems to draw from this is that "the course of nature tends not to human or animal felicity" which brings us back to "Epicurus's old argument and questions"(D100)

It would seem that it is not Hume's intention to show that the reality of evil proves that God is not or cannot be both omnipotent and perfectly good, but that we are likely in no position to claim that we could know what God will correct or rectify in or of this world(i.e. rectify the unjust distribution of good and evil). We may hope or even imagine that possibly something better may be bestowed upon us, but the present phenomena do not seem to give license a hypothesis of this kind as of yet.(EU,11.21,24.)

The central emphasis or idea in Hume's discussion of evil in the Dialogues is to demonstrate how this kind of theodicy can fail.

...I will allow, that pain or misery in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Diety, even in your sense of these attributes: What have you advanced by all these concessions? A mere possible compatilibility is not sufficient. You must prove the pure unmixed, and uncontrollable attrubites from the present mixed and confused phenomena, and from these alone(D103) Philo will go on to attempt to point out that even if the phenomena were :pure and unmixed they are still finite and so insufficient to prove God's infinite perfection and goodness. The phenomena of nature are, in any case, not only finite, they are a mixture of good and evil, so any effort to prove God's power "infinite power and goodness" steeprd in this basis is really a hopeless task. Here Philo claims to "triumph"(D202, Later, Philo returns to this point.

...as this goodness is not antecedently established, but must be inferred from the phenomena, there can be no grounds for such an inference, while there are so many ills in the universe, and while these ills might so easily have been remedied, as far as human understanding can be allowed to judge on such a subject. I am skeptic enough to allow, that the bad appearances, notwithstanding all my reasonings, may be compatible with such attributes as you suppose:but surely they can never prove these attributes.(D113)

It is now clear the subtlety in the argument of Hume. There is no need for the skeptic to infer a forceful argument that has the aim to prove that God cannot exist on the basis of the real existence of evil in the world. All that Hume the skeptic need to is to in some way that the theist is to establish or prove God's attributes of infinite power and goodness given the evidence of creation as we seem to observe it. What must be done by the theist to meet this challenge head on is to try and show that all evil exists in this world is necessary and really unavoidable. It is very clear that the theist is in a difficult position to try and support this claim..

Hume's concession that evil and God's existence are compatible may tend to take on the appearance of another effort to retreat from a stronger skeptical position.

Conclusion.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Are our beliefs about God incorrect or do we just not have all the pieces of the puzzle. It is my oppinion that given time and experience we shall come up with information or a new perspective on this issue and it’s concept will once again change, such is the evolution of the human expierence, human intellect and human spirituality. After decades of neglect, the language of evil has been reintroduced to public life in the rhetoric used by political leaders in the early twenty-first century. Some political theorists, too, have argued that a revival of the language of evil is required to maintain a sufficient outrage at genocide, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and threats to the ecological stability of the planet.

Shared indignation at the worst things people do seems to be all that remains of a shared normative view of the world. But does this justify reviving the language of evil? Feminist scholars are not the only ones to caution against so quintessentially dualistic a concept. Evil allows no compromise. But the history of human societies shows that it is almost always the other who is demonized. Perhaps what Carl Gustav Jung called a "morality of evil"—an integration through honest recognition of the capacity for evil in human nature—is safer.

The modern problematic of theodicy, with its confidence in reason and shared conceptions of the good, may not survive our postmodern age. As long as we try to make moral sense of the world and of human life, however, "evil" will remain a challenge and a temptation.

God is not the author of evil. [8] However, God does reward and punish on the basis of good and bad behavior. Therefore, God does bring judgment and calamity (either directly or through human authorities) on those who rebel. [9] God will ultimately judge all people, since rebels will not be allowed in the new, perfect creation.

Test Yourself. Choose the best option.
{ To the ancient Hellenes what was evil? - Something Wicked + Disorder - The French - None of the above
 * type=""}

{ What is the Problem of Evil? - A lack of concern for ones fellows. - Moral depravity in society. + An omnipotent, omniprescent, benevolent God can not exist in the same world with “real evil.” - Bad Cheese
 * type=""}

{ To the ancient Hellenes what was good? - Order - Faith + Both a and d - Structure
 * type=""}

{ Why is the problem of evil important? + Because it calls into question long standing beliefs about the nature of god? - It is the supreme conflict of the spititual universe. - All of the above. d) It isn't.
 * type=""}

{ Put Aristotle Socrates and Plato into the correct order chronologically. - Who are these Guys - Plato, Socrates, Aristotle - Aristotle, Socrates Plato + Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
 * type=""}

{ Why is it important to look at things in the terms and environment in which they were created? + Because we may have a different frame of reference for things today than was present at their inception. - It is unimportant because concepts do not change over time. - So we do not get confused with poorly translated texts. d) None of the Above.
 * type=""}

{ Which Philosopher listed below most influenced Augustine? - Aristotle + Plato - Socrates - Thomas Aquinas
 * type=""}

{ Which ancient Philosopher listed below most influenced Aquinas? + Aristotle - Augustine - Plato - Socrates
 * type=""}

{ About how long after Augustine was it before Aquinas? - 18 hours - 7 light years + 1000 years - 6 months
 * type=""}

{ Who were the Hellenes? - The French - Christians - Philosophers + Ancient Greeks
 * type=""}

Important People.
Socrates - Athens 469-399 B.C.E Plato - Athens 427-347 B.C.E

Aristotle - Athens 384-322 B.C.E Augustine - Tagaste 354-430 C.E  Thomas Aquinas - Italy 1225-1274 C.E

For Additional Information
See the Wikipedia entries for Evil, God and the aforementioned philosophers. Also take a look at the section on Presocratics and Socratics if you haven't already.

Works Sited can be found here.
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Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Epistemology

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Epistemology Introduction
The Greek word episteme is the root of the English word Epistemology. This philosophical term is commonly associated with the inquiry for truth and knowledge. Greek philosophers seeded the study, and from this cultivation of thought stems the growth of many sciences. The meaning of the word has three distinctions. First, epistemology can be the quest for true and scientific knowledge as opposed to opinion or belief. Secondly, reality is an organized body of thought. Lastly, sometimes referred to as the “first philosophy” epistemology is the understanding of the divine. Restated, epistemology has three focuses, a practical application, an applied science, and a theological approach. As stated the roots of epistemology are in Greece. Therefore, a better understanding of the fertility of the subject requires a brief historical account of the conditions in which the Greek philosophers lived. The first groups of philosophers are referred to as the Pre-Socratics. They include the Milesians, Ionians, Eleatics, Atomists, and Sophists. Important to this historical analysis is how the categorical grouping changes from geographical to ideological. The change is overlain by the conditions in society enabling Athens to become the center of reflection, instruction, wisdom, and government. The first philosophers were residents of prosperous cities; the fact they traveled allows for speculation that they were well off enough to do so. Apart from trying to improve methods in farming and other occupations, these men were in economic positions that afforded time for reflective thought. Their reflections about nature produced conceptual questions, laying the foundations for philosophy in a non-empirical study of existence, knowledge, and value. Important to their conclusions about nature is the fact they were based upon non-scientific methods of observation. However, speculation of these men’s lives is chiefly based on a few primary documents written by the philosophers themselves, but more on secondary sources, oral traditions, and the known historical events.

Historical Background
The peninsula of Greece, or Hellas, is located on the Aegean Sea. Ecologically the climate is very favorable for human habitation, but the land is rocky and very hard to work. Nevertheless, agriculture became widespread and early civilizations flourished. The three civilizations of the Bronze Age were the Minoan, Cycladic, and Helladic. These civilizations became the first high civilizations on the European continent; they developed great palaces and the writing known as Linear A and Linear B. On the island of Crete, the Mycenaeans rose to supremacy, and consequently the Aegeans are referred to as Mycenaeans. The significance of the Mycenaean culture was in its likeness to Homeric culture, as evidenced by the armor, weapons, and imagery found at the palace at Knossos. The 1600-1450 B.C. community, shown by grave artifacts, engaged in trade among Greece, Crete, and Troy. However upon invasion and various natural disasters the Mycenaeans plummeted into a dark age around 1450 B.C. This led to population shift to the Ionian Isles (215 Britannia). This collapse of civilization is still not completely explained. It has been speculated that Knossus and the other cities were overwhelmed by a volcanic eruption from the sea. The collapse, however, noted in Egyptian records, was compounded by drought, climate change, harvest failure, epidemic and civil unrest. The Dorians, a nomadic people, invaded around the end of the Dark Ages, 900 B.C. In the 5th century A.D., an early Greek historian, Thucydides, writes about the Trojan Wars. Thus, written history contains a 400-year gap consisting of a compilation of oral traditions claiming that the Dorian invasion was the war between Troy and Sparta, resulting in a return of Hercules' descendants. The Dorians were traditional enemies of the Ionians. (For further reading Britannia Macropedia) During the Archaic period (900B.C.) tensions created by war, economies, and religion influenced society. Trade expanded, the first Olympic Games began in 776 B.C., and gathering communities or Synoikismos developed in geographically secured regions atop alluvial plains surrounded by impassable mountains. Thucydides speculated that sanctuaries to the gods became monumentalized as early as the 8th century BC. In any case by 6th century, cultural figures such as Lycurgus, author of the Spartan constitution, and Solon of Athens, demonstrate a society that had moved beyond subsistence and was ordered enough for viable trade and economic stratification. The diversity of economics gave rise to tyrants as well during the 6th century. Thus the first laws attempting to structure society were the Draconian Laws of 621BC. These laws were harsh and savage. By 594 BC, the laws were replaced by Solon, the poet and statesman; his Laws were more forgiving of society and allowed the liberty of self-expression. Paramount to the birth of western philosophy were the conditions of the times. The cultivation of epistemology, as we will see, was a process of civilization's boom and bust cycles. During times of economic stability, conditions were prosperous enough to develop thought.

The Foundational Philosophers
Miletus, a Greek colonial port city, is home to Thales (624-545 B.C.). He is recognized as the first philosopher since the written and oral records of western philosophy can be traced to him. A summary of Thales contribution to philosophy suggested that all things are full of the Gods, but that by some nature or principle all things come into being. He evidences this by the magnet because it moves iron it must possess a soul. The arche or prime mover for Thales was water because the “seeds of everything have a moist nature.” Aristotle frames this in Metaphysics, “the first philosophers…of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things; that of which all things consist…the element and the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed” (Metaphysics 983, 5-10) Although his argument is based on observation of the natural world, Thales plants the seed that develops into the quest for knowledge, scientific and divine. The concept that everything comes from an arche and thus returns to an arche is monism or belief in one substance. Next was Anaximander (610-540 B.C.) writes On Nature, of which only a few parts survive. “they give justice and reparation to one another for their injustice in accordance with the arrangement of things.” 19 Collectively his contribution was the universe originated from the apeiron or the boundless. Therefore the arche, or ultimate underlying substance, must be something other than the four elements of earth, fire, water, and air as if anyone was limitless it would destroy the other. Anaximander is laying the foundation for theology and the quest to identify the divine. Interestingly enough the next of the philosophers, the Ionian, Pythagoras was not even a mathematician. Rather he focuses on a doctrine of metempsychosis or belief that the soul is immortal. He believed the ordering of the natural world was in accordance with mathematic relationships and harmony. His teaching promoted a strict way of life including a strict vegetarian diet since his ideology incorporated that each human and animal soul is reborn. His successor Heraclitus agreed with the Milesians on the cyclic nature of stuff, but claimed the arche was fire and that the flux in nature allowed the contraries of hot and cold to change each element into each other. This applies to ideas as well for instance without strife there is no justice or without war there is no king. “on must realize that war is shared and “Conflict is Justice, and that all things come to pass (and are ordained?) in accordance with conflict.”(Longman) This harmony of conflict sustains the world under a law of process and opposition. Logos, or proportion as used in the common language of the Greeks, was the standard for all things. However, he also uses it in a more technical term in which logos is an underlying organizational principle of the universe…this principle, though is hidden and perceptible only to the intelligence.”(Peters) Therefore, Heraclitus is particularly important to the establishment of logos as a foundation in Stoicism, Christianity and epistemology because only through the journey to knowledge is the divine revealed. The Eleatic, Parmenides, 5th century physician, conceptualized the on or being is neither changeable nor divisible and cannot be created or destroyed. Further, he alludes to the dualistic nature of the cosmos in his Opinions. In this discussion he states the difference between that which is and that which cannot be as me on, or nonbeing. In epistemology it is only the being that can be named or identified. Therefore, there can be only one original being and everything else is illusory. Thus, everything is actual or perceived, likewise either true or false. His conclusions about being are highly contested by Plato. Anaxagoras (500-428 B.C.), a Milesian, moves, during the consolidation of intellectuals and power, to Athens. He concluded that nothing can come into being or perished. All things are ultimate realities of the four elements, taking the shape of the dominant element and creation was a mixture of elements stirred by nous, or father of all substances. Everything is as it is perceived, no fissure between appearances and reality. Most importantly he believes the mind does not mix with things because it is too fine, this separation constructs a foundation for mind and body dualism. Empedocles rejects monism. He claims rather forces love and strife coupled with the four elements is the motivation for existence. There exist divine gods that are immortal and powerful but they do not influence being. In conclusion, these pre-Socratic philosophers deposit the origin of uncertainty that develop into the study of epistemology. The pre-Socratics believed all things to be made of matter; in that only through reason of sense perceptions can knowledge be found. Heraclitus fostered this hypothesis, but subsequent philosophers moved towards a concept that everything was in flux.

The Germination of Epistemology
The next set of contemporaries impact the world of inquiry. They develop styles of writing and rhetoric that challenge the beliefs and authorities in civil society.

Democritus, the Atomist wrote over fifty works that were destroyed by Christians in the 4th century A.D. Democritus expanded the Parmenidean concept of the atomon, or an indestructible, indivisible material of one true substance into a complex mixture of atoms that collide and adhere to each. Democritus and Leucippus hypothesized that there exists either a void of non-being or spatially full of being. In other words, nothing happens randomly rather it is structured by three differences in atoms and their attraction to each other. This is shape being rhythm, order being contact, and mode being position. These constructs are known by senses. Size and shape of the perceptible world is only perceived by senses and are thus named out of convention, or nomos.

This concept of nomos gives foundation to the Sophists’ argument between convention and nature. Sophia meaning wisdom was what the Sophist sought. Chrysippus believed the four virtues--temperance, courage, justice, and wisdom--were naturally occurring and not a convention. Virtue or arete was the means by which happiness was to be found. Protagoras, the most famous of the Sophists, stressed while keeping the appearance of virtue, one may use four types of speech (wishing, asking, answering, and commanding) in the power of persuasion. Unfortunately, this approach was misconstrued as a means for financial gain and helped to discredit the moral objective of the Sophist. Protagoras states, “man is the measure of all things”; by this he analyzes everything humans perceive makes the only reality like Plato's cave, in accordance with sense perception and convention. The Sophist contribution was to engage the question of justice, or dike, dikaiosyne, in an ethical or moral debate. Hence, the Sophist may be considered the first to raise the epistemological question how much of what we think we know about nature is objective and how much is human convention.

The greatest influence on Plato will be Socrates. Wisdom is the cardinal virtue. In practice the Socratic Method is based on conceptualizing that understanding your knowledge is limited. This understanding creates the ground for an endless search for knowledge and in turn brings people to self realization. In the Phaedo (96b), Socrates distinctions two types of knowledge, opinions and truths. In this quest for knowledge, Justice is the underlying faculty for all subsequent exploration.

Plato in his quest for justice inadvertently structures the path to truth and knowledge. His main goal was ethics, but from this search develops epistemology. Plato’s first argument in epistemology is made between true belief and knowledge. “You argue that a man cannot inquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to inquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to inquire.”(Meno 80e) Plato uses a theory of recollection (anamnesis) to build on Pythagorean theory of rebirth. He poses knowledge is innate in “then it must, surely have been before we began to see and hear and use the other senses that we got knowledge of the equal itself, of what it is, if we were going to refer to the equals from our sense-perceptions.” (Phaedo 75b-76) In other words, these innate ideas Plato refers to are ideas that found their way in a mind without the mind needing to experience anything. Furthermore, he argues that not everything is known through the senses, “Well, but we ourselves are part body and part soul…then soul is more similar than body to the invisible, whereas body is more similar to that which is seen.” (Phaedo 79b) Another discussion between the opinion and truth, “so wouldn’t we be right to describe the difference between their mental states by saying that while this person has knowledge, the other one has beliefs?” (Republic 476d)

Philosophers have argued for and against the existence and/or possibility of innate ideas for ages. Those that reject innate ideas are most commonly empiricists; rationalists are the most common adherents. For an idea to be innate, it had to exist forever or be “implanted” somehow after the birth of a mind. Gottfried Leibniz held an extreme position on innate ideas, arguing that they were the only ideas in existence. This belief stemmed from his belief that simple substances (out of which everything is made) cannot be influenced by the environment; they have “no windows” through which they could be influenced by neighboring substances. Since minds are made of simple substances (which he called monads), they also can not be influenced by the environment; they cannot “experience” anything from the outside. This means that all the ideas that a mind has are innate. Leibniz argued that innate ideas (which may be more accurately called "perceptions" in Leibniz's terms) existed from the beginning of time, when God set them in motion. We can perceive things going on outside us only because God designed us to have accurate ideas about things going on in the universe at the same time that those things are actually going on. This connection between the ideas/perceptions of our minds and what's actually going on outside us is made possible by the pre-established harmony between them, which God set up in the beginning.

In his allegory of the cave, Plato explains “The point is that once you become acclimatized, you’ll see infinitely better than the others there; your experience of genuine right, morality, and goodness will enable you to identify every one of the images and recognize what it is an image of.” Moral leadership is discussed here. For Plato, justice and civic morality was his goal. To explain he uses the Diagram of the Line. What grounds Plato’s forms is ethics by the eide this was a reality beyond human sensibility that was beyond the flux of the cosmos. In the Timaeus he constructs that the world had a creator “In virtue of this reasoning when he framed the universe, he fashioned reason within soul and soul within body, to the end that the work he accomplished might be by nature as excellent and perfect as possible…that this world came to be, by the god’s providence, in very truth a living creature with soul and reason.” (Timaeus 30B-C) “The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue and about everything” (Meno 81c) Soul is the bridge between the two realms of being and becoming. Below diagrams the connections to civil society as Plato tries to create in the Republic. Three faculties the Tripartite:
 * Soul-faculties
 * Polis-classes
 * Ethics-values
 * Leaders-wisdom-rational
 * Warriors-courage-spiritual
 * Artisans-self discipline-appetitive

Together they make justice or utilitarianism as the goal to maximize happiness. Consequently, the foundations to feudalism are diagrammed in The Great Chain which represents a moral order. Plato’s dialectic style of writing differs from rhetoric, as the approach is to enlighten, rather than persuasive. For him the end product or telos is the structuring of an ethical city of virtue, Plato conceived a hierarchal structure in which the nous or intellect was the supreme reality or form. The above arguments of how we come to know what we know are the historical birth to epistemology.

The Branching of Epistemology
Aristotle was a student of Plato for twenty years. He became the teacher of Alexander the Great, whose conquest introduces many new ideologies in Greece. Aristotle establishes his school the Lyceum in Athens where the focus is on biological studies. In that he becomes the father of categorical logic, in which science classifies stuff into taxonomies. This process requires rigorous and disciplined study to place things where they belong. Therefore, Aristotle disregards Plato’s Forms for Essences. His observation of natural things suggest that they perform the function and have the potential to change and thus only by intellect can one distinguish between reality and things of convention or belief. Consequently, he concludes that something’s are self evident. He observes through language man reflects the world in terms of subjects and predicates. The problem is self-awareness by accident or indispensable and key to understanding. For Aristotle reason was the way to self- knowledge, movement was caused by a first principle and thus our capacity to actuate. Aristotle bridges the gap between potentiality and actuality through nature. As with other sciences he treats knowledge as an organized body of thought in which it has its own taxonomy. In Metaphysics 1025b-1026a, he first divides Episteme into three groups. The first two are praktike, or action, as in how we make a choice, poietike or techne, meaning an applied science, or practical application of skill. The last, theoretike is again divided into three categories, mathematike, physike, and theologike. These will inquire on the divine, nature, and mathematical sciences. Consequently, it is Aristotle that broadens the branches of epistemology.

Change in direction of Epistemology
Following the death of Alexander the Great, society is thrust into a power vacuum. Three philosophies, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Skepticism try to cope with the civil despair. Their individual goals are similar to the above philosophers in that happiness is the ultimate goal. Although virtue is still the foundation for hedonism, from hedone the Greek word meaning pleasure, the conceptualization was a misinterpretation of the philosophy and later will cause persecution and perversion of the term. Consequently, individual happiness takes precedent over community, western civilization to reverts to rampant superstition, chaos and religious fundamentalism.

Epistemology after the Middle Ages
John Locke (England 1632-1704) is to be equally credited and blamed with the idea that the issues of theory of knowledge of first philosophy, must come first in philosophy, although this became clear with Descartes Cartesian method. Basically “unless we are clear about our capacities for gaining knowledge, we are likely to waste our time in controversies over matters that are beyond our grasp and end in confusion.” Locke’s goal was not lofty it was simply to clear out some of the garbage (misconceptions and absurdities) that had accumulated on the grounds of philosophy. To this end he set about discerning how our minds work, and from where the contense of our mind comes for the purpose of mitigating disputes weather religious or political. In short, how do we think and from where do our ideas come. To quote Locke himself “It is ambitious enough to be employed as an underlabourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish which lies in the way to knowledge.” It is clear from these quotations (as well as from his works) that he had a conservative opinion of the capacities of human understanding, and that there are some things that we are incapable of understanding.

Kant says
A Priori Concepts: Most empiricists argue that concepts are derived from sensory stimulant and thus there can be no concept without the corresponding sensory stimulus, and it is through this stimulus that the meanings  of the concepts are given to the observer. Kant argued that this was absurd, because he argued that through the experience itself the concept could be conveyed; the grounds for understanding the concept are in the experience itself. The mere sensation of something can not contain concepts, the concepts can not be formed until the sensation is transformed into "mental action." In the concept lies the understanding of said concept ... it is like once you put the concept into thoughts then it becomes understood correctly.

Transcendental idealism: In his Critique of Practical Reason Kant says, "all objects that can be given to us can be conceptualized in two ways: on the one hand, as appearances; on the other hand, and things themselves." This means that we have knowledge of appearances, not how things are in themselves. Kant also says that these categories can be applied to "phenomena" but not to "noumena."

Phenomena and Noumena: Kant says that "phenomena" are objects that are possible experience; essentially the stuff we can experience, the world around us. "Noumena" are objects that are knowable through thought alone, and it therefore doesn't make sense to describe them as experiences. Keep in mind that Kant also say that Noumena are to be used only negatively, this means that it is there only to designate the limit of knowledge. Break it down like this ... Phenomena are the world of the sense, and the noumena are the world of our understanding.

Conclusion
Epistemology grew out of a social concern relative to the environment and conflict surrounding communities, although Greece was at its high culture, structure within society allowed the liberty of thought. The root of epistemology is in the minutest aspects of our very existence. The very genesis of how reality is constructed, has given rise to conventions for expressing our origin and the forms in which we give name to. Thus sprouts a critical reflection regarding the source and essence of the body superimposing with our natural surroundings. This process of potentiality to actuality births the metaphysical root of epistemology. Clearly the Pre-Socratics planted these questions, but it was Plato, schooled by Socrates civic virtue, that turns his quest to establish a moral society into a theological concept. Since Plato’s epistemology evolved from the exploration of the apparent, imagined, and the recalled. Thus the character of awareness and how we acquire knowledge say without experience, prior, as opposed through the senses, posterior, expands the subject of epistemology.

In turn, his student, Aristotle, lays the foundations for epistemology as a model discipline that will incorporate the practical application of science and the work ethic required for thought to be based in the real as opposed to the belief. Altogether, the goal of early philosophy was to seek a virtuous society that could live harmoniously for the ultimate tranquility of each individual within a community.

Questions

 * 1) Why is the historical setting important to the development of epistemology?
 * 2) What contribution does Heraclitus make to epistemology?
 * 3) Why is sense perception a controversial subject relative to the concepts of epistemology?
 * 4) How does Parmenides poem influence the division with in the question of knowledge?
 * 5) How do Plato’s Diagram of the Line and The Allegory of the Cave demonstrate the difference between opinion and truth?
 * 6) What bridges the two realms of being and becoming as described in the above scenarios?
 * 7) How is the arche interpreted by the Pre-Socratics, Sophist, and Plato?

John Locke: Main Works (Publication Dates)
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Treatises on Government (1690)

Thoughts on Education (1693)

Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)

Greek Vocabulary
(Familiarize with these terms as used then.)

Aisthesis, Anamnesis, Apeiron, Arche, Arete, Doxa, Eide, Episteme, Logos, Nous, Praktike, Psyche, Rhoe, Skepsis, Sophia, Techne, Telos, Theoretike

Epistemology Related Terms
First Philosophy: Epistemology

Epistemology: from ancient Greek “episteme” or “Knowledge,” a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, how it is acquired, and whether true knowledge is possible.

Experience: Sensation and Reflection

Sensation: Knowledge about external stuff based on our senses

Reflection: Perceiving, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing etc.

Substance: Something we know not what

Modes: Accidents or incidental properties

Power: Disposition to affect other things

Links
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedo.html

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.html

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/mirror/classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform

http://radicalacademy.com/phillocke.htm

http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/lock.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/


text:
Historical Introduction to Philosophy/Truth, Objectivity, and Relativism

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Before we begin, it is prudent to go over the basic course procedures. The information provided is intended to give a basic outline of the main philosophical positions on the topic and give the student an idea of what to expect from and take out of the reading. Each philosopher will have a link to a website that will provide background information on their lives and summaries of their philosophical positions that should provide more help in understanding their works. The reading questions should be reviewed before reading the selection in order to help guide your focus, because most of these works are not easy to get through. As another note, some on the full text wesites for the readings are not the best translations, so purchasing a copy of the texts is often times inexpensive, and always reccomended. And of course, most importantly, have fun!

Knowledge and Truth
Before discussing the philosophical debate on truth, it is first important to briefly review the two general distinctions between types of knowledge. These distinctions are concerned with how knowledge comes to be known--either independently of experience, or based on experience. These distinctions are purely epistemological, and are “a priori” and “a posteriori” knowledge, respectively.

A Priori Knowledge From Latin meaning literally “from what comes before”, a priori knowledge is characterized by its independent relationship from experience, which includes, but is not limited to, innate knowledge. This type of knowledge is arrived at through thought and reason alone. Common examples include: 'All bachelors are unmarried men' and 'All triangles have three sides'. In both of these statements, you need not refer to any particular experiences to determine whether you know the statements are true--they are true by virtue of their meaning, an assessment that was arrived at through reason. A priori knowledge is philosophically linked to analytic thought mostly through the works of Kant, and later Quine. Analytic propositions are true by their meaning alone and do not rely on any fact about the world. The concept of necessary truth is also linked to a priori knowledge because the negation of a priori statements produce a contradiction on the basis of their meaning alone, which remains constant regardless of how the world may happen to be. A priori knowledge, for the sake of simplification, is therefore always true or false.

A Posteriori Knowledge From Latin meaning literally “from what comes after”, a posteriori knowledge is characterized by its dependence on both reason and experience. Common examples include: 'That bachelor is tall' and 'That triangle is red'. The truth of falsity of these statements cannot be determined without observing the actual, real-world state of the bachelor and the triangle. Of course, one must use reason to understand the correspondence of the meaning of bachelor and triangle to the things observed, but the essential meaning of the statements is not contingent upon this relationship. Like a priori is linked to analytic thought, a posteriori is linked to synthetic thought, in which truth is characterized by its meaning but also by the state of relevant facts about the world. Contingent truth is therefore also linked to a posteriori knowledge because the truth of the statement is dependant upon what the world is like, and this world need not be any particular way at all.

This distinction between types of truths in modern philosophy was first made clear by Gottfried Leibniz (1646 – 1716). Leibniz used the term “truth of reasoning” to refer to statements of truth based on reason, and the term “truth of fact” to refer to statements of truth based on empirical data.(1) This later influenced David Hume’s distinction between “relations of ideas” and “matters of fact.” Immanuel Kant later made the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements of truth that we are familiar with.(2)

These concepts will be revisited in discussions about that kinds of things can be true based on our ability to know them. For further reading on the distinctions, relevance, and examples of a priori and a posteriori knowledge, refer to the following links: A Priori and A Posteriori Analytic and Synthetic Statements

What is truth?
Epistemological concerns with truth are extensive to say the least. Generally, they can be characterized by their interrogation of what it means to know something is true, what sorts of things can be true, and what truth is. These questions are generally addressed by seeking the answer to one in order to explain the other. There are several theories that set out to determine what truth is by answering what sorts of things can be true and what knowing this truth means. The majority of these theories have enjoyed more extensive development in the twentieth century, but the Correspondence Theory of Truth attributes its development in the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle and both addresses and responds to key ideas about truth: justification and belief.

Socrates, largely in response to the empty wisdom the Sophists espoused, positioned wisdom, first and foremost, as the awareness of your own ignorance. By avoiding the unethical characterizations of knowledge of the self-serving Sophists, Socrates was able to connect his lack of and subsequent search for knowledge to virtue, the most important of all being arete (excellence). He believed that knowledge was innate, and by questioning in a form that would become famously known as the Socratic dialogues. He was also very careful to separate knowledge from true belief, because truth requires some sort of justification for the belief.

Wow! Your first reading assignment! Before begining, it may be useful to read over some tips on reading and understanding philosophical texts. And now we begin.

Please read Plato's Meno, in which Socrates examines the nature of virtue, with these questions in mind:

1. What is the relationship between knowledge and virtue? 2. What is the difference between knowledge and true opinion?

Please prepare short (1 paragraph) responses to the questions with quotations from the text to support your answers.

Plato believed that knowledge was innate, making the search for such a matter of recollection of the knowledge your soul had when it was floating in the realm of the forms. This recall was triggered by the process of questioning similar to the Socratic method developed by his mentor. Like Socrates found knowledge of goodness necessary for virtue, Plato placed the Good as the highest form and the form in which all other forms participated in in varying degrees. Wisdom, then, was the recollection of the knowledge of Good in order to participate more in the form of Good.

Please read Plato's Republic with these questions in mind:

1. Why does Plato believe there are three distinct parts of the soul? 2. What does the Allegory of the Cave reveal about Plato's views on knowledge? What then can we infer about his views on the nature of truth?

Please prepare short (1 paragraph) responses to the questions with quotations from the text to support your answers.

Aristotle, being more scientifically inclined in his investigations of the nature of things, finds the highest good of human existence to act in our nature as rational beings and, well, be rational. He describes wisdom, therefore, as being able to rationalize about things in the world both in regards to practical actions and in finding happiness through virtue.

Oh, you will have more reading. Just wait.

Correspondence Theory of Truth
This theory explains truth by its relationship to the way the world is, stating that truth is determined by its correspondence to a fact that exists in the world. This theory is commonly associated with the positions of classical philosophy, but it is most famously established in Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he defines truth as “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true”. This quote does not specifically establish the importance of the relationship between truth and the world, it does lay the foundations for the importance of relationships of what is. In his work Categories, Aristotle begins to flesh out the things that make statements true. Reading Assignment:

Please read Aristotle’s Categories with these questions in mind: 1. What support for the basic tenants of Correspondence Theory can you find in Categories? 2. Why is the definition of the word ‘is’ important to Aristotle?

Is that a fact?
Yes, the term fact has snuck its way into our discussion, and of course, it cannot be denied a grand entrance. A fact, insofar as The Correspondence Theory allows, facts can be mind-dependent or mind-independent entities (a priori or a posteriori knowledge). This becomes a problem because of the relationship between a proposition and a fact. “Mexico is south of the United States” is a proposition. And it is a fact. But it cannot be both without being circular and therefore fallacious, leading critics or Correspondence Theory to complain that facts are whatever true propositions must correspond to in order to be true.

Coherence Theories
Moving the justification of truth away from its specific relationship to the world, the Coherence Theories of Truth are characterized by their justification of a true proposition because of its relationship to other propositions. This theory evokes a more common-sense style approach to how we determine what is true--the process of determining truth is a recursive reference to what we already hold to be true in order to ascertain whether this new proposition is true, or more specifically, whether or not it coheres with our established beliefs.

What about belief?
Belief, roughly, is our attitude towards what we regard to be true or false. Linking what it is to be true with belief can, however, be quite problematic, because it allows for me to believe something and you to not believe something, which violates the law of non-contradiction, which always holds more philosophical weight than theories that violate it. The idea of belief, and the distinction of beliefs from knowledge will be further discussed with regard to Objective Knowledge.

Of Justification
Epistemological justifications for Coherence Theories suggest that we essentially cannot know if a proposition corresponds with the world because we cannot know what is beyond our own beliefs, but we can adequately ascertain whether or not something is consistent with our beliefs. There are of course several criticism to Coherence Theories of Justification, the principle one being that it does not necessarily follow that because a proposition cannot be known to correspond to reality that it does not correspond with reality.

The Problem of Justified True Belief
Truth and knowledge are intricately related because you must have knowledge of something to determine truth, and something must be true in order for it to be knowledge. Enter Justified True Belief, a traditional philosophical position on knowledge and truth that goes something like this: In order to know something, one must first believe that a proposition is true, because if you don't believe something you do not have knowledge of it. Secondly, this belief must be true, because you wouldn't believe it if it wasn't, and for reasons of a third element: justification. Justification is of course, a condition to ensure that belief is not just a matter of luck, but there are reasons for this belief. Philosophy diverges on what kinds of reasons fulfill this condition, but in general the belief should rationally follow from reliable evidence. This effectively sets up a conditional triumvirite in order to determine knowledge that reflexively relies on and determines truth.

Of course, this is perhaps too simplistic to be useful. There are cases where justification does not ensure that belief is not because of luck, known specifically as the Gettier Problem.

There's more.

Later Positions on Truth.
Augustine of Hippo enters God into the picture when it comes to defining truth, although not without reference to the methods of early philosophers. Here is a helpful outline provided by Wikipedia that explains Augustine's view of truth. And that's all the reading you have to do. For now.

1. Truth Exists:-It is self-defeating to deny the existence of truth. If someone claims that “Truth does not exist”, then we can counter by asking if the claim is True or False. If the claim is False, then Truth Exists, and if the claim is True, then Truth Exists.

2. Truth is Unchangeable:- It is impossible for truth to change. What is true today always has been and always will be true. All true propositions are immutable truths. Pragmatic views of truth that imply that what is true today may be false tomorrow are untrue. If truth changes, then pragmatism will be untrue tomorrow, if indeed it could ever be true.

3. Truth is Eternal:- By extension of its Unchangeable nature, Truth must be Eternal. Even if every created thing ceases to exist, Truth will continue to exist. But suppose someone asks, “What if truth itself should someday perish?” Then the truth that “Truth has perished” would still exist eternally. Any denial of the eternity of truth turns out to be an affirmation of its eternity.

4. Truth is Spiritual:- The existence of truth presupposes the existence of minds. Without a mind, truth could not exist. The object of knowledge is a meaningful thought which resides in one or more minds.

a. Truth is Not a function of Matter:- The existence of truth is incompatible with any materialistic view of man. Materialists believe that all thinking and reasoning is merely the result of the motion of particles in the brain. But one set of relative physical motions are not truer than another set. Therefore, if there is no mind, there can be no truth; and if there is no truth, materialism cannot be true. Truth cannot be a function of the position of material objects because if a thought was the result of some physical motion in the brain, no two persons could have the same thought. A physical motion is a fleeting event different from every other motion. Two persons could not have the same random motion, nor could one person have the same random motion twice.

b. Truth is Not a function of Time:-If thoughts were the result of physical motions in the brain, memory and communication would be impossible. We are able to recall the past because we have minds and not because of the motion of particles in our brains. Thus, if one is able to think the same thought twice, truth must be independent of time.

c. Truth is Not a function of Space:- Truth is independent of Space as well. Not only does truth defy time and matter; it defies space as well. For communication to be possible between two or more people, the identical truth must be in two or more minds at the same time. If, in opposition, anyone wished to deny that an immaterial idea can exist in two different minds at the same time, his denial must be conceived to exist in his own mind only; and since it has not registered in any other mind, it does not occur to us to refute it!

5. Truth is Superior to the human mind:-By its very nature, truth cannot be subjective and individualistic. Truth is immutable, but the human mind is changeable. Even though beliefs vary from one person to another, truth itself cannot change. Moreover, the human mind does not stand in judgment of truth; rather truth judges our reason. While we sometimes judge other human minds (as when we say, for example, that someone’s mind is not as keen as it should be), we do not judge truth. If truth and the human mind were equal, truth could not be eternal and immutable since the human mind is finite, mutable, and subject to error. Therefore, truth must transcend human reason; truth must be superior to any individual human mind as well as to the sum total of human minds. From this it follows that there must be a mind higher than the human mind in which truth resides.

6. Truth is God:-We have seen that Truth exists, is unchangeable, eternal, spiritual, and is superior to the human mind. But only God possesses these attributes. If we substitute the word “God” for the word “Truth” in the list of attributes, we see that:

God Exists- God is Unchangeable- God is Eternal- God is Spiritual- God is not a function of Space, Time or Matter- God is Superior to the human mind- These attributes apply equally to Truth and God, and only to Truth and God. Truth and God are identical. Truth and God are convertible. Truth is God. God is Truth.

No created thing possesses the attributes of Truth or God. There can be no True propositions about created entities, including numbers, geometric patterns or so called “laws” of science because they are all dependent on Space, Time or Matter. The only true propositions are about God. In other words, Knowing Truth is Knowing God. Truth is Knowledge of God.

Gottfried Leibniz defined truth as a proposition in which the predicate is contained in the subject. The predicate is what is claimed to be true, and the subject is that which the predicate claims truth about. When I propose that “I am a dog,” the subject of my proposition is me, and the predicate is am a dog. This happens to be false, because the predicate is not contained in the subject (there is no dog-ness in me). Leibniz argued that there must be a sufficient reason for why a thing is the way it is. This he called the principle of sufficient reason. Note that this does not directly imply determinism. If for every predicate there are predicates that together are sufficient for explaining it, as Leibniz argued, it does not necessarily follow that a certain collection of predicates was necessary to explain the predicate which they sufficiently explain.(1) To illustrate, Leibniz would argue that the events in Hitler’s life (perhaps being an insecure bully) were sufficient to explain his behavior as a leader. However, those events were not necessary to bring about Hitler’s behavior as a leader; he could have experienced very different things, and still have demonstrated the same behavior as a leader.

Knowledge and Objectivity
The relationship between knowledge and objectivity is essentially defined by our perception. In the most basic sense, knowledge is objective if it exists independent of the perceiver's perception of it. This statement is simple enough, but it implies within it complicated determinations about our abilities to perceive objects. If something were to be objective, it must exist independent of our awareness of it, whereas something is subjective if it relies on our perception in order to be, like colors only exist the way they do because they are seen. Subjective knowledge, then, refers only to knowledge of one’s own state, because that is the only knowledge that relies on our perception in order to be. The state of someone else, for instance, does not rely on our perceiving it, but in their own perception of it, and that perception alone. This affords subjective knowledge special epistemological status because it is the only form of immediate knowledge.

The Case for Objectivity
Plato, of course, believes that there is an objective reality, found in his theory of the Forms. These Forms are therefore the highest forms of knowledge because they exist in the most "real" way possible.

Aristotle, to be difficult, believes in what Plato what consider a subjective reality. He still believes in an idea of the Forms as essences of things and that these are the most objective reality, but rejects the idea that we can know anything (perfectly and objectively) that we don't know by experience, and we cannot experience the essences. Now what are these Forms, you ask? Well, read:

Plato's The Divided Line and Allegory of the Cave (yes, you have read this before, but now look at the idea of the Forms) A helpful site can be found here.

Aristotle's Metaphysics at evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/aristotle01.htm

You know what you are looking at in these readings (foundations for objectivity), and it is a lot of reading. No questions for this section.

Relativism
Everyone has heard the phrase, "It's all relative" mumbled in a dismissive tone, and as far as most philosophical positions go, they are just as annoyed with things being "relative" as you are. Because "everything is relative" it is hard to even characterize the general posisiton on relativism except for a few general tenets: 1. Views or opinions (this inculdes moral and ethical positions) are relative to a certain perspective, and 2. There is no privlidged (or correct) perspective.

Relativism lends itself easily to criticism, because following its very own logic, the view that relativism is wrong is as valid of a viewpoint as the view that relativism is correct. This fruitless recursivity is perhaps what is most problematic about relativism because it does not encourage, in a real and meaningful way, the pursuit of knowledge because all possible knowledges are the same (including contradictory knowledges) and therefore there is no objective form of knowledge.

Relativism emerged with the Sophists, most famously with Protagoras, who was acknowledged by Plato in his dialogue, Protagoras at evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/plato_protagoras03.htm. Please read the selection and identify the characteristics of relativism you see atributed to Protagoras's arugments.

As philosophy progressed, relativistic thought persisted, although it did not begin to emerge as a powerful position until the 20th century.

But that is another class. Until then, here is an interesting site with rather compelling arguments for relativistic thought. Are you convinced? Please compose a short (2 page) essay arguing for or against all or some of the arguments for relativism.

And it's over. Congratulations!

Works Referenced:

1) Monadology

2) Types of Truth

3) Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

4) The Philosophy Pages

5) Standford Enyclopedia of Philosophy

6) The Relativist

7) Wikipedia

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