7耶鲁公开课死亡字幕.docx

1、7耶鲁公开课死亡字幕7 耶鲁公开课死亡字幕Death: Lecture 7 TranscriptFebruary 6, 2007 backProfessor Shelly Kagan: Weve begun to turn to Platos dialogue Phaedo, and what I started doing last time was sketching the basic outlines of Platos metaphysics-not so much to give a full investigation of that-clearly were not going

2、 to do that here-but just to provide enough of the essential outlines of Platos metaphysical views so that we can understand the arguments that come up later in the Phaedo, basically all of which or many of which presuppose something-certain central aspects about Platos metaphysical views.The key po

3、int behind his metaphysics then was the thought that, in addition to the ordinary empirical physical world that were all familiar with, we have to posit the existence of a kind of second realm, in which exist the Platonic-as theyre nowadays called-the Platonic forms or Platonic ideas. The sort of th

4、ing that perhaps we might call or think of as abstract objects or abstract properties. And the reason for positing these things is because were clearly able to think about these ideas, and yet, we recognize that the ordinary physical world-although things may participate in them to varying degrees-w

5、e dont actually come across these objects or entities in the physical world. So that we can talk about things being beautiful to varying degrees, but we never come across beauty itself in the actual empirical world. We are able to talk about the fact that two plus one equals three, but its not as th

6、ough we ever come across numbers-number three itself-anywhere in the empirical world.A further point that distinguishes the empirical world from this- this realm of Platonic ideal objects-is that indeed they-theres something perfect about them. They dont change. In contrast, physical objects are con

7、stantly changing. Something might be short at one point and become tall at another point, ugly at one point and become beautiful-like the ugly duckling. It starts out ugly and becomes a beautiful swan. In contrast, justice itself never changes. Beauty itself never changes. We have the thought that t

8、hese things are eternal, and indeed, beyond change, in contrast to the empirical world. In fact, if you start thinking more about the world from this perspective, the world we live in is crazy. Its almost insanely contradictory.Plato thinks of it as crazy in the way that a dream is. When youre caugh

9、t up in the dream, you dont notice just how insane it all is. But if you step back and reflect on it, Well, lets see, I was eating a sandwich and suddenly the sandwich was the Statue of Liberty, except the Statue of Liberty was my mother. And shes flying over the ocean, except shes really a piece of

10、 spaghetti. Thats how dreams are. And when youre in it, it sort of all makes sense. Right? Youre kind of caught up, but you step back and say, Thats just insane. Well, Plato thinks that the empirical world has something of that kind of insanity, something of that kind contradictoriness, built into i

11、t that we dont ordinarily notice. Hes a basketball player, so hes really, really tall, except hes only six feet. So hes really, really short for abasketball player. This is a baby elephant, so its really, really big-except its a baby elephant, so its really, really small.The world is constantly roll

12、ing-this is a Platonic expression-rolling between one form and the other. And its hard to make sense of. In contrast, the mind is able to grasp the Platonic ideas, the Platonic forms; and theyre stable, theyre reliable, they are-theyre law-like and we can grasp them. They dont change; theyre eternal

13、. Thats, as I say, the Platonic picture.Now, its not my purpose here to try to argue for or against Platonism with regard to abstract entities. As I suggested in talking about the example of math last time, its not a silly view, even if its not a view that we all take automatically. But in thinking

14、about math, most of us are inclined to be Platonists. We all do believe something makes it true that two plus one equals three, but its not the fact that empirical objects-We dont do empirical experiments to see whether two plus one equals three. Rather, we think our mind can grasp the truths about

15、numbers. Plato thought everything was like that. Well, Im not going to argue for and against that view-just wanted to sketch it, so as to understand the arguments that turn on it.So for our purposes, lets suppose Plato was right about that and ask, what follows? Well, Plato thinks whats going to fol

16、low is that we have some reason to believe in the immortality of the soul as, again, as we indicated last time, the picture is that the mind-the soul-is able to grasp these eternal Platonic forms, the ideas. Typically, were distracted from thinking about them by the distractions provided by the body

17、-the desire for food, drink, sex, what have you, sleep. But by distancing itself from the body, the mind, the soul, is able to better concentrate on the forms. And if youre good at that, if you practice while youre alive, separating yourself from the body, then when your body dies, the mind is able

18、to go up to this Platonic heavenly realm and commune with gods and other immortal souls and think about the forms. But if youve not separated yourself from the body while in life, if youre too enmeshed in its concerns, then upon the death of your body your soul will get sucked back in, reincarnated

19、perhaps, in another body. If youre lucky, as another person; if youre not so lucky, as a pig or a donkey or an ant or what have you.So your goal, Plato says, your goal should be, in life, to practice death-to separate yourself from your body. And because of this, Socrates, whos facing death, isnt di

20、stressed at the prospect, but happy. Hes happy that the final separation will take place and hell be able to go to heaven.The dialogue ends, of course, with the death scene-Socrates has been condemned to death by the Athenians, and it ends with his drinking the hemlock, not distressed but rather sor

21、t of joyful. And the dialogue ends with one of the great moving death scenes in western civilization and as Plato says-lets get the quote here exactly right-Of all those we have known, he was the best and also the wisest and the mostupright.Just before the death scene, theres a long myth, which I dr

22、aw your attention to but I dont want to discuss in any kind of detail. Plato says its a story; its a myth. Hes trying to indicate that there are things that we cant really know in a scientific way but we can glimpse. And the myth has to do with these sort of pictures I was just describing where we d

23、ont actually live on the surface of the Earth of in the light, but rather live in certain hollows in the dark where were mistaken about the nature of reality. Some of you who are maybe familiar with Platos later dialogue The Republic may recognize at least what seems to me, what we have here, is a f

24、oreshadowing of the myth of the cave, or the allegory of the cave, which Plato describes there as well.Our concern is going to be the arguments that make up the center of the dialogue. Because in the center of the dialogue, before he dies, Socrates is arguing with his friends. Socrates is saying, Lo

25、ok, Im not worried. Im going to live forever. And his disciples and friends are worried whether this is true or not. And so the heart of the dialogue consists of a series of arguments in which Socrates attempts to lay out his reasons for believing in the immortality of the soul. And thats going to b

26、e our concern. What Im going to do is basically run through my attempt to reconstruct-my attempt to lay out the basic ideas from this series of four or five arguments that Plato gives us. Im going to criticize them. I dont think they work, though I want to remark before I turn to them that in saying

27、 this Im not necessarily criticizing Plato. As well see, some of the later arguments seem to be deliberately aimed at answering objections that we can raise to some of the earlier arguments. And so it might well be that Plato himself recognized that the initial arguments arent as strong as they need

28、 to be.Plato wrote the dialogues as a kind of learning device, as a tool to help the reader get better at doing philosophy. They dont necessarily represent in a systematic fashion Platos worked out axiomatic views about the nature of philosophy. It could be that Platos deliberately putting mistakes

29、in earlier arguments so as to encourage you to think for yourself, Oh, this is-heres a problem with this argument. Theres an objection with that argument. Some of these, Plato then may address later on. But whether or not he does address them-were not doing Plato any honor, were not doing him any se

30、rvice, if we limit ourselves to simply trying to grasp, heres what Plato thought. We could do the history of ideas and say, Heres Platos views. Arent they interesting? Notice how they differ from Aristotles views. Arent they interesting? and move on like that. But thats not what the philosophers wan

31、ted us to do. The great philosophers had arguments that they were putting forward to try to persuade us of the truths of their positions. And the way you show respect for a philosopher is by taking those arguments seriously and asking yourself, do they work or not? So whether or not the views that a

32、re being put forward in Socrates mouth are the considered, reflective judgments of Plato or not, for our purposes we can just act as though they were the arguments being put forward by Plato, and we can ask ourselves, Do these arguments work or dont they?So Im going to run through a series of these arguments. Im going to, as Ive mentioned before, be a bit more exegetical than is normally the case for our readings. Im going to actually pause, periodically look at my notes and make sure Im remembering how I think Pla