Philosophy : an introduction to the art of wondering

722 Pages·2012·11.56 MB·English

by  James Lee Christian

Philosophy
An Introduction to the Art of Wondering
ELEVENTH EDITION
JAMES L. CHRISTIAN
Professor Emeritus, Santa Ana College
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Prelude
The following pagesmay
lead youtowonder.
That’s reallywhatphilosophy
is—wondering.
Tophilosophize
is towonder aboutlife—
aboutright andwrong,
love andloneliness, waranddeath.
It istowondercreatively
aboutfreedom, truth,beauty,time
andathousandother things.
Tophilosophize is
toexplore life.
Itespecially meansbreaking free
toaskquestions.
Itmeansresisting
easy answers.
Tophilosophize
istoseekinoneself
thecouragetoask
painful questions.
But if,bychance,
you havealready asked
all yourquestions
andfoundalltheanswers—
if you’resure youknow
right from wrong,
andwhether Godexists,
andwhatjusticemeans,
andwhywemortalsfear andhateandpray—
if indeedyou havecompletedyour wondering
aboutfreedom andloveandloneliness
andthose thousandother things,
then thefollowing pages
will wasteyour time.
Philosophy isfor those
who arewilling tobe disturbed
with acreativedisturbance.
Philosophy isfor those
who stillhave thecapacity
for wonder.
Dedication
Edwin Prince Booth
Thank you for showing me why we must tirelessly seek out the profoundly human
element in all historic events since only therein can their meaning be found.
Arnold Toynbee
In memoriam: October 22, 1975
Thank youforthepassion toseeallexistenceasasinglephenomenonwithoutlosing
sight of the most minute details—this cave painting, this footnote, this flower in this
crannied wall.
Herman and Anne
In memoriam: April 22 and 27, 1987
Thank you each for a parent’s love and more. There are no words to express my
appreciation of you both.
Lori
Thank you for teaching me that survival is one thing, living is quite another.
Credit, Blame, and
Acknowledgments
From the Preface to the First Edition, February 1973
I have written this book for my philosophy students … and for all who are caught
up in the wonderment of life—its mystery, its enormity, its diversity.
Allofus wonder, sometime oroften, aboutour place intheworld. Whatwe are
asking is how we can relate most happily to ourselves, to others close about us, to
fellowcreatureswithwhomweshareourdelicateplanet,andtoourmind-boggling
universe. We burn with an urgency to know and understand, but we often despair
of finding a way to turn our knowledge into insight and wisdom.
A philosophy text should offer cautious counsel to all who would seek intelli-
gent, nonpartisan guidance on the life-and-death questions of human existence.
EliotAronson notes thatsomany ofour students ask us whattime it is,and we
respond by presenting to them the history of time-keeping from waterclocks to
wrist-watches. By the time we finish, they have turned elsewhere to ask their
questions.
And J. B. Priestley hurts when he reminds us that the man who shouts “My
house is on fire!” may not be able to define precisely what he means by my and
house and is and on and fire, but he may still be saying something very, very
important.
From the Preface to the Second Edition, January 1977
Thisbookis ateaching instrument,a collectionofteaching materialswhich,atone
point or another, raises most of the classical problems of philosophy as well as
many contemporary and relatively new philosophical questions. All materials in
this book can be employed analytically and synoptically, to perform the numerous
tasks required by classroom philosophic activity.
Some chapters include empirical data that we would normally subsume under
Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, and the like. It helps enormously, I have found,
if philosophy students have a fund of shared information, however brief, on
a few specific problems before they plunge into a philosophic discussion of
them.
v
vi Credit,Blame,andAcknowledgments
From the Preface to the Third Edition, January 1981
My gratitude continues to the many individuals acknowledged in the first and sec-
ond editions. Now, I’m indebted to many more, especially to Dr. Robert W. Smith
for being a travel-guide in many worlds and co-conspirator in this one; and for
strength and friendship.
From the Preface to the Fourth Edition, August 1985
Each evening one of our local television stations plays its off-the-air theme con-
taining the words “The world has gone through a lot today.” This is my sentiment
as the years pass and new revisions of this textbook are published. I am astounded
at how much the world has gone through during each interim, how much it has
changed, how many new world-views are in the offing, how much new knowledge
has been gained, and how much new understanding has been made possible. It’s
bewildering, of course, but very exciting.
From the Preface to the Fifth Edition, January 1990
My gratitude continues to numerous individuals who gave time and strength to
previous editions of this book, and I would like to say thank you once again to
them: Court Holdgrafer, Robert Putman, Ray Bradbury.
To a special group of people—perplexing innocents all, but wise; changing but
never changing: Cathy, Dane, Carla, Marcia, Sherrie, Reinar, Laurie, Shawn,
Shannon, Linda. I love you all.
From the Preface to the Sixth Edition, October 1994
Mostofustodaydon’tliketheworldverymuchandwouldliketoreiteratePlato’scon-
victionthattherecanbenopeaceuntilstatesmenbecomephilosophers,orviceversa.
We would like to say to the world, “Look, there are better ideas to live by.” For
instance, Voltaire said he might disagree with others’ ideas but that he would fight
to the death for their right to express them. Aristotle reminds us that the function
of government is to provide safe environment so that we can all work to achieve
eudaimonia, a state of well-being in which we can grow as human persons and
actualize our creative energies.
Marcus Aurelius warns us not to worry about the perceptions of others, but to
tend to our own honesty and integrity. Chuang-tzu gently chides us for worrying
so much about what others think of us that we forget who we are. Thoreau
reflected, “If I am not I, who will be?”
Symmachusremindsusthatwewillneverfindthetruthbyfollowingoneroadonly,
andThomasMertonshowsusthattherearemanypathstothetopofthemountain.
Bergson spent his life telling us we must learn to be compassionate in our
empathetic concern for others. Francis of Assisi exhorts us to sense the pain we
inflict on the animals with whom we share our planet; and Schweitzer insists that
a truly ethical individual will extend his compassion to all living creatures, not just
to members of his own tribe.
There are better ideas than we hear on the networks and, like Plato, we become
impatient. But then Toynbee suggests we remember that it wasn’t our parents who
Credit,Blame,andAcknowledgments vii
made the world; Caesar admonishes us to make haste slowly—festina lente; and
JosephCampbelltellsusthatthislifecanbewonderfuljustasitiswhenwediscover
thatweareallontheHero’sjourney.Nietzschereassuresusthatthehumanracewill
become nobler, fret not; and Ray Bradbury urges us to dream of great futures and,
with courage and imagination, to work for them and make them happen.
From the Preface to the Seventh Edition, January 1998
A few years ago I was asked by a questioner in an audience if I could select, from
thegreatphilosophers,thethreestatementsthatIthoughttobethemostprofound
(ormeaningfulorsignificant—Idon’trecalltheexactword).Atthattimemymind
came up with three prosaic proverbs. But, should I be asked the question today, I
would submit the following as being, not merely profound, but urgently relevant:
(cid:129) from Antisthenes the Athenian Cynic: “When states can no longer distinguish
good men from bad men, they will perish.”
(cid:129) from Abraham Maslow: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to
treat everything as if it were a nail.”
(cid:129) fromLarryNiven,thesciencefictionwriter:“Thetroublewithlivingonaplanet
is that it tends to make most of the inhabitants think small.”
To these I would now add this haiku from Masahide:
Since my house burned down,
I now own a better view
Of the rising moon
From the Preface to the Eighth Edition, March 2002
Since the last edition of this book, many of us have had to make adjustments in
our values and priorities. Our nows have become more precious. Life, at its heart,
is Greek tragedy, and over the last few million years nothing has changed. There
are fundamental flaws built into human thinking, the most dangerous being our
ontological habit of thinking with big abstractions that keep us from dealing with
the singular, the individual, the concrete, and the real. This too is not about to
change.
There are great multitudes of good and decent people out there in the world
who belong to the category of creators rather than destroyers. But they are not
the ones who are most visible or most audible, not the ones who talk mindlessly
and endlessly on television, not the ones who have a judgmental reaction to every-
thing that differs from their way of seeing. They make up a beautiful though silent
community. But they are there.
While my wife, Lori, and I were lunching in a restaurant one day, she said to
me, “How can you not feel alive if you are creating?”And Bergson once wrote,
“Where joy is, creation has been.” This may be, for many of us, as near an answer
to the meaning of life as we will find in this life. You’re alive as long as you’re
creating. Ray Bradbury insists that it matters not what happens in the world;
your moral obligation is to keep on creating. It is the greatest of privileges to strive
to belong to the community of creators.
viii Credit,Blame,andAcknowledgments
From the Preface to the Ninth Edition, January 2005
I came across the following passage from the Dalai Lama that nicely captures one
essential purpose of this book. He observes that people think of him as a religious
figure.…
I am, however, Tibetan before I am Dalai Lama, and I am human before I am
Tibetan. So while as Dalai Lama I have a special responsibility to Tibetans, and
as a monk I have a special responsibility toward furthering interreligious har-
mony, as a human being I have a much larger responsibility toward the whole
human family—which indeed we all have.
Thispowerful statementnicelyrepresentsthekindofphilosophicgrowthimplied
by synoptic philosophy. Synoptic thinking seeks wider perspectives and the wisdom
thatcomesfromachievingthoseperspectives.Oncewebecomeawareofthefactthat
each of us is encapsulated in our own egocentric predicament, we cannot but
become restive with this limiting condition. Philosophy’s goal has always been to
seek the truth, without reservation and without bias as to what that truth may be
or where it may be found. It seeks the truth by rising above “sidedness.” The Jains
ofIndiahaveadoctrinecalledsyād-vāda,the“perhapsmethod”;itteachesthatthere
are 353 sides to every issue, and one must not close on any issue until all 353 sides
havebeenexplored.Ifweareearnestaboutfindingthetruth,thismetaphorsuggests
we can’t avoid considering others’ worlds.
From the Preface to the Tenth Edition, June 2007
Duringthelifetimeofthisbook,muchintheworldhaschanged,andchangedfast.
But, as it relates to philosophy, two things have remained unchanged: the ongoing
accumulation of knowledge and the steady persistence of philosophic insight. As
regards the first, the twentieth century saw an explosion of new information that,
in the long history of the human mind, is staggering. The Presocratic philosophers
ofthefifthcenturyBCaskedquestionsabouttheoceans,fossils,storms,plantsand
animals,thestars,Sun,Moon,humans,atoms,andsoforth—andcouldnotanswer
them. Today, thanks to the sciences, we have volumes of information about all
these subjects that each of us can use to create our own personal worldviews.
Now ponder the fact that most of this information was accumulated during the
lifetime of many of us and is available to all of us. We live in a new world unim-
agined by our ancestors.
The story of philosophy—not as content, but as method—is intact and is as
strong as ever. This critical enterprise has persisted relatively unchanged for more
than two millennia. It is a continuous account of the progressive analysis of, and
liberation from, fashionable illusions, a slow dissolution of mythologies, and the
gradual loosening of long-held truths that were found to be false. It is the story of
ever-deepening understandings put into the records by men and women who
strove to see more clearly and were compelled to share what they saw.
During the preparation of this tenth edition, I came across two books that I
want to recommend to all who seek a vision of the Big Picture. One is Life’s
Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe by Simon Conway Morris
(Cambridge University Press, 2003). It provides a rich, fact-filled background for