CRITICAL THINKING Ä Rudolf Hermann Lotze and

DR. JING REYES Albrecht Ritschl

Ä Friedrich Nietzsche (author of a
theory of the transvaluation of
Lesson 1: Meaning of Philosophy all values)
Ä Alexius Meinong and Christian
PHILOSOPHY von Ehrenfels
• Philosophia (Greek) — love of wisdom Ä Eduard von Hartmann
• Study of the search for the truth (Philosopher of the
6 Equally an effort to know the hidden realities Unconscious — Grundriss der
and truths about ourselves. Axiologie, 1909 or “Outline of
• A type of science. Axiology”)
• A reservoir of knowledge that can only be Ä Ralph Barton Perry’s General
understood through rigorous investigation and Theory of Value (1926) has
study. (leverageedu.com) been called the magnum opus
• Rational, abstract, and methodical consideration (large and important work of
of reality. (britannica.com) art/literature) of the new
• Fundamental dimensions of human existence and approach.
experience. Ø “A value is any object of
• SEVEN BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY any interest.”
1. Axiology (according to Britannica.com) Ø He explored eight realms of
: DEFINITION value: morality, religion, art,
< Also called “The Theory of Value” science, economics,
< Concerned with categorizing things ‘as politics, law, and custom.
good’ and ‘how good’ they are. 2. Metaphysics (according to Stanford
< The theory of axiology summarizes the Encyclopedia of Philosophy & pbs.org)
worth of something or its goodness. : DEFINITION
< Sheds light on whether one explicates, < Also called Ontology
predicts, or only tries to understand it. < Refers to an idea, doctrine, or posited
< Axiological issues relate to reality of human sense perception.
epistemological and ontological < Modern Philosophical Terminology
conjecture. Ö Metaphysics refers to studies of
< Sub-divided to Ethics and Aesthetics. what cannot be reached through
< Its significance lies in: objective studies of material reality
Ö The considerable expansion that it < Areas of study: ontology, cosmology,
has given to the meaning of the and epistemology.
term value. < The science that studied “being as
Ö The unification it has provided for such”.
the study of a variety of questions < “The first causes of things” or “things
(economic, moral, aesthetic, even that do not change”
logical) that had often been < Concerned with explaining the features
considered in relative isolation. of reality that exists beyond the physical
: ORIGIN world and our senses.
< Axios (Greek) — worth or value of < It is not easy to say/define what
something metaphysics is for two reasons:
< Logos (Greek) — signifies logic or thesis Ö (1) A philosopher who denied the
< First used by Paul Lapie (1902) and existence of those things would now
Eduard von Hartmann (1908) be considered making a
< 18th Century metaphysical assertion.
Ö Adam Smith Ö (2) There are many philosophical
Ä 18th Century Political Economist problems that are now considered
Ä Said that the term ‘value’ to be metaphysical problems that
originally meant the worth of are in no way related to first causes
something, chiefly in the or unchanging things.
economic sense of exchange : ORIGIN
value. < Meta ta Physika (Greek) — after the
< 19th Century things of nature.
Ö A broad extension of the meaning < Derived from a collective title of the
of value to wider areas of fourteen books by Aristotle that we
philosophical interest occurred currently think of as making up
during this century under the Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
influence of Neo-Kantians.
Ö Neo-Kantians
 < Metaphysics had four names: first < Philosophers attempt to construct
philosophy, first science, wisdom, and theories that are synoptic, accurate,
theology. powerful, and rationally defensible.
< 100 Years after Aristotle’s death: < Epistemologists often begin their
Ö (Probability) Andronicus of Rhodes speculations with the assumption that
Ä Titled the fourteen books “Ta they have a great deal of knowledge.
meta ta phusika” — “the after < Epistemology has two major anomalies.
the physicals” or “the ones : 2 EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
after the physical ones”. < Knowledge of the External World
< Started during the Pre-Socratics period. Ö “Vision can ply tricks.”
Ö Plotinus held metaphysical as the Ä e.g., A straight stick in water
reason in the world and in the looks bent, although it’s not.
rational human mind is only a Ö Some anomalies may seem simple
reflection of a more universal and and unproblematic at first, deeper
perfect reality beyond our limited consideration of them shows that
human reason. the opposite is true.
Ö He termed this power in the universe Ö Vision is not sufficient to give
“God”. knowledge of how things are,
3. Epistemology (according to SEP and Britannica) hence, the usage of other senses.
: DEFINITION Ä If senses are not enough,
< Epistemology seeks to understand one reason is present.
or another kind of cognitive success or Ä Reason could also be infallible
cognitive failure. (unacceptable) when one
< Recent work in epistemology is an jumps to conclusions.
attempt to understand how our Ö Sense experience is ultimately the
degrees of confidence are rationally only evidence one has for the
constrained by our evidence. existence of anything.
Ö Recent works in feminist < The Other-Minds Problem
epistemology – attempt to Ö The Problem of the Inverted
understand ways in which interests Spectrum
affect our evidence and affect our Ä Suppose a surgeon tells a
rational constraints more generally. patient who is about to
< PHILOSOPHERS’ EPISTEMOLOGIES undergo a knee operation that
Ö Plato’s Epistemology - attempt to when he wakes up, he will feel
understand what it was to know, a sharp pain. When the patient
and how knowledge (unlike mere wakes up, the surgeon hears
true opinion) is good for the knower. him groaning and contorting
Ö John Locke’s Epistemology – an his face in certain ways.
attempt to understand the Although one is naturally
operations of human inclined to say that the surgeon
understanding. knows what the patient is
Ö Immanuel Kant’s Epistemology – feeling, there is a sense in
attempt to understand the which she does not know,
conditions of the possibility of because she does not feel it
human understanding. herself.
Ö Bertrand Russell’s Epistemology – Ä Even if she did undergo the
attempt to understand how operation, it is not certain she
modern science could be justified felt the same pain because
by appeal to sensory experience. there are different types of
: ORIGIN pain.
< Episteme (Greek) — knowledge, Ö Each human being is inevitably
understanding, acquaintance. prevented from having knowledge
< Logos (Greek) — account, argument, of the minds of other human beings.
reason. Ö There can never be a science of the
< The term epistemology is no more than human mind.
a couple of centuries old. 4. Ethics Philosophy (according to Britannica and
< Long history within Western Philosophy, Cornell Law School, Legal information Institute)
beginning with the ancient Greeks and : DEFINITION
continuing to the present. < Discipline concerned with what is
: EPISTEMOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE morally good/bad and morally
< Aristotle right/wrong.
Ö “Philosophy begins in a kind of Ö Also applied to moral values or
wonder or puzzlement.” principles.
 Ö e.g., How should we live? Shall we < The language of the beautiful and ugly;
aim at happiness or at knowledge, the language of criticism.
virtue, or the creation of beautiful < The realm of the beautiful, the ugly, the
objects? If we choose happiness, sublime, and the elegant; of taste,
will it be our own happiness at all? criticism, and fine art; contemplation,
Ö Is it right to be dishonest in a good sensuous enjoyment, and charm.
cause? Can we justify living in Ö Phenomena in which there are
opulence when there are people similar principles.
starving elsewhere? < THREE APPROACHES TO AESTHETICS
< Consists of the fundamental issues of Ö The Study of Aesthetic Concepts:
practical decision making, and its major On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
concerns such as nature of ultimate by Edmund Burke
value and the standards by which Ä He attempted to draw a
human actions can be judged by right distinction between two
or wrong. aesthetic concepts: sublime
< Ethics = Morality/Moral Philosophy and beautiful.
< Ethics is more closely related to biology, Ä Has a dual purpose: (1) to show
economics, history, and the like due to how these descriptions might
its practical nature, yet remains distinct be justified and (2) to show
from such disciplines because ethics is what is distinctive in the human
not a matter of factual knowledge experiences that are expressed
Ö Ethics determines the nature of in them.
normative theories and applying Ö The Aesthetic Experience
these sets of principles to practice Ä A philosophical study of certain
moral problems. states of mind — responses,
< Legal Context – how individuals choose attitudes, emotions.
to interact with one another. Ä Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790; The
< Philosophy – what is good for the Critique of Judgement) by
individual and for the society; Immanuel Kant – located the
establishes the nature of duties that distinctive features of the
people owe themselves and one aesthetic in the faculty of
another judgement, where we take up
: ORIGIN certain stance toward objects,
< Ethos (Greek) — character. separating them from scientific
< Mores (Latin) — customs. interests and our practical
< MYTHS concerns.
Ö Protagoras by Plato Ä Philosophers distrustful of Kant’s
Ä Zeus took pity on the hapless theory of the faculties tried to
humans. To make up for these express the notions of an
deficiencies, Zeus gave the “aesthetic attitude” and
humans a moral sense and the “aesthetic experience”.
capacity for law and justice.
Ö Louvre in Paris
Ä Black Babylonian column with
a relief showing the Sun god,
Shamash, presenting the code
of laws to Hammurabi (d. 1750
BCE)
Ö Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)
Ä God giving the Ten
Commandments to Moses
(14th-13th Century) on Mount
Sinai.
5. Aesthetics/Esthetics (according to etymonline
and Britannica.com)
: DEFINITION Ö The Philosophical Study of the
< Science which treats of the conditions Aesthetic Object.
Ä Reflects the view that the
of sensuous perception.
problems of aesthetics exist
< Philosophical study of beauty and taste.
< Closely related to the Philosophy of Art, primarily because the world
concerned with the nature of art and contains a special class of
the concepts in which individual works objects toward which we react
of art are interpreted and evaluated. selectively.
 : ORIGIN Ö The Nyanya School of Indian
< Ästhetisch (German) — of things, Philosophical Speculation is based
perceptible. on texts known as the “Nyanya
< Esthétique (French, derived from Sutras” of Aksapada Gautama (2nd
German) Century B.C.)
< Aisthetikos (Greek) — of or perception Ö Its methodology of inference is
by the senses, perceptive. based on a system of logic
< Popularized by the English translations (induction-deduction that moves
of Kant. via generality) that subsequently
Ö Kant reclaimed the word after has been adopted by most of the
Alexander Baumgarten had taken it other Indian Schools.
in German to mean “criticism of < Modern Logic
taste” during the 1750s Ö Descends mainly from Ancient
< Walter Pater used it in 1868 to describe Greek tradition.
the late 19th Century movement that Ö Both Plato and Aristotle conceived
advocated “art for art’s sake” of logic as the study of argument
< Whewell proposed to name it and from a concern with the
Callesthetics (the science of the correctness of argumentation.
perception of the beautiful) Ä Aristotle
6. Logic Philosophy (according to & produced six words on
philosophybasics.com) logic, collectively known
: DEFINITION as “Organon”. The first of
< Study of reasoning, principles, and these, “Prior Analytics,”
criteria of valid inference and being the first explicit
demonstration. work in formal logic.
< Attempts to distinguish good reasoning & Espoused two principles
from bad reasoning. of great importance in
< New and necessary reasoning logic: the Law of
(Aristotle) Excluded Middle (every
Ö New – allows us to learn what we do statement is either true or
not know. false), and the Law of
Ö Necessary – conclusions are Non-Contradiction (that
inescapable. no statement is true or
< Logic investigates and classifies the false).
structure of statements and arguments, & Most famous for
both through formal systems of introducing syllogism
inference and through the study of (term logic)
arguments in natural language. & Peripatetics – Aristotle’s
< Deals with propositions that are followers.
capable of being true and false. < Immanuel Kant argued that logic
< Covers core topics such as the study of should be conceived as the science of
fallacies and paradoxes, as well as judgement, so that the valid inference
specialized analysis of reasoning using of logic follow from the structural
probability and arguments involving features of judgements.
causality and argumentation theory. : TYPES OF LOGIC
< Has three major things: < Formal Logic
Ö Consistency – none of the theorems Ö Traditional or philosophical logic.
of the system contradict one Ö The study of inference with purely
another. formal and explicit content.
Ö Soundness – system’s rules of proof Ö Logical Calculus (formal system) –
will never allow a false inference used to derive one expression
from a true premise. (conclusion) from other expressions
Ö Completeness – there are no true (premises).
sentences in the system that cannot Ä Axioms – Self-evident
be proved in the system. proposition, taken for granted.
: ORIGIN Ä Theorems – derived using a
< Logos (Greek) — idea, argument, fixed set of inference rules and
reason. axioms, without any additional
< Ancient India assumptions.
Ö ‘Nasadiya Sukta’ of the Rig Veda < Informal Logic
contains various logical divisions Ö Recent discipline which studies
that were later recast formally as natural language arguments and
the four circles of Catuskoti. attempts to develop a logic to
 assess, analyze, and improve < Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy
ordinary language. Ö reducing the issue of police brutality
Ö “Day-to-day reasoning”. because you personally haven’t
Ö Used for general-purpose experienced it or asserting that
communication, as distinguished racism isn’t real because you have
from formal languages. black friends.
< Symbolic Logic < Ad Hominem Fallacy
Ö Study of symbolic abstractions that Ö Attacking the person making the
capture the formal features of argument, instead of the argument
logical inference. itself.
Ö Deals with the relations of symbols Ö Comes from the Latin, meaning
to each other, often using complex against the man.
mathematical calculus in solving Ö e.g., stating that someone is
intractable problems that uneducated, therefore their opinion
traditional formal logic is not able to is invalid or calling someone a
address. snowflake instead of engaging in
Ö Divided to two sub-branches: an informed discussion.
Ä Predicate Logic – system where 7. Political Philosophy (according to cs.mcgill.ca)
formulae contain quantifiable : DEFINITION
variables. < Study of fundamental questions about
Ä Propositional Logic or Sentential the state, government, politics, liberty,
Logic – formulae representing justice, property, rights, law, and the
propositions can be formed by enforcement of a legal code by
combining atomic propositions authority.
using logical connectives. < Often refers to a general view, or
< Mathematical Logic specific ethic, belief, or attitude, about
Ö Application of the techniques politics that does not necessarily belong
of formal logic to mathematics and to the technical discipline of philosophy
mathematical reasoning, and, < THREE CONCERNS OF POLITICAL
conversely, the application PHILOSOPHY:
of mathematical techniques to the Ö Political Economy
representation and analysis Ö The Demands of Justice in
of formal logic. Distribution and Punishment
Ö Earliest use of mathematics and Ö The Rules of Truth and Evidence that
geometry in relation to logic and Determine Judgements in the Law.
philosophy goes back to the
Ancient Greeks such as Euclid, Plato, EPOCH PHILOSOPHY
and Aristotle. • DEFINITION AND ORIGIN
: TYPES OF FALLACIES 6 Epochē (Greek) — suspension of judgement.
< Red-Herring Fallacy 6 Principle originally espoused by nondogmatic
Ö Diverting away from the actual philosophical Skeptics of the Ancient Greek
argument by bringing up another Academy
issue. : Views the problem of knowledge as
Ö e.g., using incidents of black-on- insoluble, proposed that, when controversy
black crime or civilians killing police arises, an attitude of noninvolvement
as a reason to do nothing about should be adopted to gain peace of mind
racism or police brutality. for daily living.
< Straw-Man Fallacy 6 20th Century
Ö Arguing against an oversimplified or : Edmund Husserl (founder of
distorted version of your opponent’s phenomenology) first employed the term.
argument. : He saw it as a technique than that of
Ö e.g., distorting the #blm movement abstraction and the examination of
by saying that its supporters hate all essences, that serves to highlight
police and white people. consciousness itself.
< False Dilemma Fallacy • MAJOR EPOCHS OF PHILOSOPHY
Ö Turning a complex issue into an 1. Pre-Socratic Philosophy
argument between two inherently : Ancient Greek Philosophy and schools
opposed sides. contemporary/before Socrates.
Ö e.g., reducing the issue of police : Schools that does not have his influence.
brutality to supporting the police or : Physiologoi
supporting black people, instead of < Physical or Natural Philosophers
acknowledging that you can < Presocratic Philosophers
constructively do both. : PHILOSOPHERS
 < Parmeneides of Elea

< Zeno of Elea

3. Medieval Philosophy
< Giorgias

2. Ancient Philosophy
 6. Contemporary Philosophy
4. Early-Modern Philosophy

5. Modern Philosophy

PROPOSITIONAL LOGIC
• Also known as sentential logic or statement logic.
• Branch of logic that studies ways of joining and/or
modifying entire sentences to form more
complicated propositions as well as the logical
relationships and properties that are derived from
these methods of combining or altering statements.
• Simplest statements are considered as indivisible
units.
• The most thoroughly researched branch of
propositional logic is classical truth-functional
propositional logic, which studies logical operators
and connectives that are used to produce
complex statements whose truth-value depends
entirely on the truth-values of the simpler statements
making them up.
• Largely involves studying logical connectives such
as the words “and” and “or” and the rules
determining the truth-values of the propositions
they are used to join.
• Truth-functional propositional logic is that branch of
propositional logic that limits itself to the study of
truth-functional operators.
: Classical (or also called “bivalent”) truth-
functional propositional logic is that branch of
truth-functional propositional logic that
assumes that there are are only two possible
truth-values a statement:
 < (Whether simple or complex) can have: grandfather," is valid logically, but it is untrue
(1) truth, and (2) falsity, and that every because the original premise is false.
statement is either true or false but not 6 Premise – Major claim.
both. • Inductive Reasoning
: Classical truth-functional propositional logic is 6 Extracts a likely (but not certain) premise from
by far the most widely studied branch of specific and limited observations.
propositional logic, and for this reason, most of 6 There is data, and then conclusions are drawn
the remainder of this article focuses exclusively from the data; this is called inductive logic
on this area of logic. (University of Illinois)
6 Specific – General
6 Based on Observations.
6 The reliability of a conclusion made with
inductive logic depends on the completeness
of the observations.
6 You have a bag of coins; you pull three coins
from the bag, and each coin is a penny. Using
inductive logic, you might then propose that all
of the coins in the bag are pennies."Even
though all of the initial observations — that
each coin taken from the bag was a penny —
are correct, inductive reasoning does not
guarantee that the conclusion will be true.

DEDUCTIVE VS. INDUCTIVE REASONING

• Deductive Reasoning
6 Used to reach a logical and true conclusion.
6 Also known as deduction.
6 Basic form of reasoning.
6 Based on Theories.
6 Starts with general statement, or hypothesis,
and examines the possibilities to reach a
specific, logical conclusion.
6 General — theory — specific — observations
(Dr. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller)
6 There is first premise, then a second premise and
finally an inference (a conclusion based on
reasoning and evidence).
6 Syllogism – common form of deductive
reasoning.
: The major premise "Every A is B" could be
followed by the minor premise, "This C is A."
Those statements would lead to the
conclusion "This C is B."
: e.g., All spiders have eight legs. A tarantula
is a spider. Therefore, tarantulas have eight
legs." For deductive reasoning to be sound,
the hypothesis must be correct. It is
assumed that the statements, "All spiders
have eight legs" and "a tarantula is a spider"
are true. Therefore, the conclusion is logical
and true. In deductive reasoning, if
something is true of a class of things in
general, it is also true for all members of that
class.
6 Deductive conclusions are reliable provided
the premises are true, according to Herr. The
argument, "All bald men are grandfathers.
Harold is bald. Therefore, Harold is a