Philosophy
1: Introduction to Philosophy
Los Angeles Pierce College
Department of History, Philosophy, & Sociology
Lecture
Notes for Plato's Theaetetus (201c
to 210d)
0) "Understanding" Spanish
1)
Second Essay Prompt
2)
Writing Tips and Generic Margin Comments
3) Searle's
Chinese Room
4) Plato's Theaetetus
5) Group Exercises Along the Way
1)
Second Essay Prompt:
http://www.christopherlay.com/introsecondessayprompt.html
2)
Writing Tips and Generic Margin Comments
http://www.christopherlay.com/EssayWritingTips.htm
http://www.christopherlay.com/GenericMarginComments.htm
3) Searle's Chines Room
Searle (1999, ÔThe Chinese RoomÕ, in R.A. Wilson
and F. Keil (eds.), The MIT Encyclopedia of the
Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.):
"Imagine a native English speaker who knows no
Chinese locked in a room full of boxes of Chinese symbols (a data base)
together with a book of instructions for manipulating the symbols (the
program). Imagine that people outside the room send in other Chinese symbols
which, unknown to the person in the room, are questions in Chinese (the input).
And imagine that by following the instructions in the program the man in the
room is able to pass out Chinese symbols which are correct answers to the
questions (the output). The program enables the person in the room to pass the
Turing Test for understanding Chinese but he does not understand a word of
Chinese."
"The point of the argument is this: if the man
in the room does not understand Chinese on the basis of implementing the
appropriate program for understanding Chinese then neither does any other
digital computer solely on that basis because no computer, qua computer, has anything
the man does not have."
4) Plato's Theaetetus
What is knowledge?
This is a metaphysical question about an
epistemological concept. We'll
employ logical analysis to answer the question.
Group
Warm-Up Exercise
Each group selects an everyday object to focus in
upon, then answers the following questions. What would it mean for someone to have:
0) no knowledge (none at all) about your
object?
1) have bad knowledge about your object?
2) have good enough knowledge of your object?
3) really good knowledge of your object?
4) perfect knowledge of your object?
5) divine knowledge of your object?
Be prepared to present your group's findings to the
class.
Socrates and Theaetetus proceed as follows.
Hypothesis
Knowledge consists of true judgments with
accounts.
Accounts
Things accountable are knowable, and things
unaccountable are not knowable.
What is knowable?
But how are we to distinguish knowable from
unknowable?
Socrates'
Dream
Primary elements have no accounts.
Complexes have accounts.
Primary Elements
Can only be named.
We cannot predicate being to them, since
predicating being to them would be more than naming them.
Unaccountable
"[I]t's impossible that any of the primary
things should be expressed in an account; because the only thing that's
possible for it is to be named, because a name is the only thing it has.
Elements Summed
Up
Elements have no account, are unknowable, but are perceivable.
Complexes
Composed of primary elements woven together.
Accounts
Accounts are "a weaving together of names."
Complexes
Summed Up
Complexes are knowable, expressible, and we can
give judgement so of them.
True
Judgement w/out an Account
"Now when someone gets hold of the true
judgement of something without an account, his mind is in a state of truth
about it but doesn't know it; because someone who can't give and receive an
account of something isn't knowledgeable about that thing."
Knowledge: True Judgement w/an Account
"[I]f he gets hold of an account [in addition
to a true judgement], then it's possible ... for him to be in a perfect
condition with respect to knowledge."
Application
to Language
Consider some elements and complexes in
language.
"[I]s it the case
that syllables have an account but letters don't?"
"Socrates" First syllable = "so"
"so" = "s" + "o"
"s" + "o" = account of "so"
Yet ...
"[H]ave we shown
that a letter isn't knowable but a syllable is?"
Have we?
Letters qua
Elements / Knowable
"[I]f it's necessary to know each one in order
to know the two of them, then it's absolutely necessary that anyone who is ever
going to know a syllable should first know its letters."
Syllables
qua Emergent Being
Or do syllables have their own kind of being?
Here, "a complex is one kind of thing which
comes into being out of each set of elements that fit together."
Is this new kind of thing such that it will thus
not have parts?
Group Exercise
The purpose of this exercise is to help you
understand the difference between parts and wholes
and to help you understand the difference between parts and sums.
Directions:
a) count off to seven
b) get into the groups corresponding to your
number, making sure to sit in circles
c) briefly introduce yourselves and assign roles
for each member (e.g., leader, presenter, question answerer, fact checker,
etc.)
d) craft an example of a mere sum (which has parts
but is nothing more than an accumulation of those parts)
e) craft an example of a whole (which has parts but
is more than just an accumulation of those parts)
f) prepare a brief explanation
g) present your findings to the class
On Having
Parts
Sum
v.
Whole
Either
a "whole is the parts" (sum),
or
a whole "is some one kind of thing which has
come into being out of the parts and is different from all the parts"
(whole).
Theaetetus goes for the latter
Sum Whole
Sum
Sum = all the things [that make up the sum]
Number &
Sum
Number of things
=
The Sum
=
All the things [that make up the sum]
Numbers &
Parts
The number of things = the parts
Parts
Having parts = consisting of parts
All of the parts = the sum
Wholes
If wholes were all of the parts, then wholes would
be sums, but ...
Wholes sums
But
Are wholes sums?
When There's
Nothing Missing
Sum exists "when there's nothing missing."
Sum =
Whole?
Whole is "that from which nothing at all is
missing."
If there's something missing from some thing, then neither a whole, nor a sum exists .
So, sum = whole?
On Being
Knowable
If a complex is not composed of elements (if a
complex is a whole), then it doesn't have elements as parts.
But then wouldn't a complex be as unknowable as an
element?
Restatement
& Conclusion
"Now you remember that a short time ago we
were accepting something which we thought was a good thing to say: namely that there is no account of the
primary things of which everything else is composed, because each of them
itself, but itself, is, as we said, incomposite, and
it isn't correct to add to it, not even by saying 'is' about it, or 'this,'
since that would be to mention things different from it and not proper to it;
and it's that reason, we said, that makes it lack an account and be
unknowable."
"And now the complex has fallen in the same
class as the element, given that it doesn't have parts and is a single kind of
thing?"
Dilemma
If this is the case, then elements and complexes
are either equally knowable or equally unknowable.
Equally Knowable
"So if, on the one hand, the complex is a
plurality of elements and a whole, with them as its parts, then complexes and
elements are knowable and expressible in accounts to just the same extent,
since it has turned out that all the parts are the same thing as the
whole."
Equally
Unknowable
"And if, on the other hand, it's a single
thing without parts, then a complex and an element lack an account and are
unknowable to just the same extent; because the same reason will make them
so."
In the
Face of a Dilemma
"So if anyone says that a complex is knowable
and expressible in an account, and an element the opposite, let's not accept
it."
Learning
Support
Consider knowing one's ABC's: "That when you were learning you
spent your time doing nothing but trying to tell the letters apart, each one
just by itself, both when it was a matter of seeing them and when it was a
matter of hearing them, in order that you wouldn't be confused by their being
put into arrangements, whether spoken or written."
Elements, thus, are more knowable than
complexes.
"[T]he class of
elements admits of more knowledge that is far clearer, and more important for
the perfect grasp of every branch of learning, than the complex."
The
Question at Hand
"[W]hat, exactly, is
meant by saying that an account, if added to a true judgement, becomes the most
perfect knowledge."
"[T]ell me, what,
exactly, are we intended to take 'account' as signifying?"
Sense One
/ Expressions
"The first would be making one's thought plain
by means of speech, with expressions and names"
Problem
for Sense One / Expressions
"On those lines all those who make some
correct judgement will turn out to have it with an account, and there will no
longer be any room for correct judgement to occur apart from
knowledge."
Sense Two
/ Elements
"[B]eing able, when
one is asked what anything is, to provide the questioner with an answer in
terms of its elements."
Wagon
Example of Sense Two / Elements
"'Wheels, axle, body, rails, yoke.'"
"[I]t's impossible, he'd think, to give an
account of anything in a knowledgeable way until, as well as one's true
judgement, one can go through each thing element by element."
Problem
with Sense Two / Elements
"So there's such a thing as correct judgement
with an account which oughtn't yet to be called knowledge."
[Consider the so-called Chinese Room.]
Sense
Three / Differentness
"Being able to state some mark by which the
thing one is asked for differs from everything else."
"[I]f you get hold of the differentiation of
anything, by which it differs from everything else, then some people say you'll
have got hold of an account"
Problems
with Sense Three / Differentness
"[W]hen I was merely
judging [about what Theaetetus is], wasn't it the case that I had no grasp in
my thought of any of the things by which you're different from anything
else?"
Theaetetus:
"Apparently not."
"So I had in my thought one of the common
things, none of which you have to any greater extent than anyone else
does."
Theaetetus:
"Yes, that must be so."
"But, for heaven's sake, in such conditions
how on earth could it be you that I had in my judgement any more than anyone
else?"
...
"[I]t won't, I think, be Theaetetus who
figures in a judgement in me until precisely that snubness
has imprinted and deposited in me a memory trace different from those of the
other snubnesses I've seen, and similarly with the
other things you're composed of."
"So correct judgement about anything, too,
would seem to be about is differentness."
Group Exercise
Position
1: I have a well-developed argument, and I stand in need of a colleague who has
one too, so that we may engage in objection-finding activities together. Find two like you.
Position
2: I think I know what I'mma gonna
argue. Find three you.
Position
3: I do not have an argumentÐperiod.
Find four like you.
Group
Work Summary: In groups discuss your individual essay's argument, and then work
on coming up with an objection to either your thesis or your support for your
thesis.
Step
0 (in one minute): Identify yourself as being in position 1, 2, or 3.
Step
1 (ten minutes): Individually, write out your argument on a piece of
paper. As best you can, distinguish your conclusion from your premise(s).
Step
2 (ten minutes): In groups (corresponding to your position), discuss (or
invent) your individual arguments, in turn.
Step
3 (ten minutes): In groups, offer your colleagues, in turn, possible objections
to either their theses or their support for their theses.
Step
4 (ten to twenty minutes): In your original (pre-group) seats, we
collectively discuss the fruits of our labor.