Introduction to Philosophy

Today we finished up a few things with regard to Aquinas before mentioning William of Occam and John Duns Scotus. The end result was Scholasticism which was criticized by D'Israeli as arguing over such things as "How many angels could dance on the head of a pin?" Which question I made the first quiz question. I also mentioned Frances Bacon who was Thomas Hobbes' teacher. We started reading Descartes' Meditations remembering the reference to Augustine's reply to the skeptics in our texts. (Was this the model Descartes used for the Meditations?) We discussed the answer to his Cartesian doubt - Cogito ergo sum. Which, apart from the problem of the nature of the res cogitans moved on to a version of the Ontological Argument that then led to concluding that what is clear and distinct must be true. That is, mathematics is the new model for scientific knowledge. With this the modern period begins and intellectuals cast off the faith in the Church authorities. Which brings up the issue of the Reformation(s). We briefly discussed Martin Luther and his 95 theses, the impact on this through John Knox on the Scottish Enlightenment and eventually the Whig political ideas that resulted in the Revolution against Britain and the founding of the United States. Also note the Gutenberg press which made the Bible more affordable, and the translations into the languages of the people added to that, with the emphasis in Protestantism that everyone should be a good Christian, not just the clergy. Descartes also was a friend of Galileo who famously gives us the conflict over the Cosmological models - solar centered model instead of the earth centered. (I argue a contemporary position called Modeling that views each model as a tool and useful as long as it works for the purpose intended. So the only mistake is thinking that since one model is true the others must be false. They are not! We can accept multiple models realizing the apparent conflicts are not an issue. With regard to the earth centered model, I also mentioned solar centered, Einstein Light Cone, Brian Greene Fabric of the Cosmos, and the galactic model which views the solar system as moving around the galactic center. The second quiz question was does the earth go around the sun or does the sun go around the earth? Hobbes was next and we read some of the text to emphasize how amazing he was for his day.