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Introduction

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    Two philosophers walk into a bar. If they weren’t so lost in thought, they would have seen the bar before they walked into it. That is the stereotype of the philosopher: head in the clouds, detached from reality, overthinking everything and thereby doing stupid stuff no normal person would ever do. This stereotype is not entirely true….not entirely.

    Now, it is true that philosophers do think differently about things, but that is because they often do something that is quite abnormal – they think about things. Most of us go through life just accepting things the way that they are. Indeed, whenever someone suggests changing things – even if it would be a change to our benefit – we naturally become agitated and try to stop the change. Humans are wired that way. And THAT is one of the reasons why philosophers are so darned annoying. (…one of the reasons.)

    Philosophers ask “why?” about things that everyone else simply accepts. We don’t defer to tradition. We don’t defer to power. We don’t defer to laziness. We authentically want to know why and whether there could be another way of thinking about things.

    An old friend once said that if you ask “why?” once – “why is the sky blue?”, “why do we have two arms?”, “why do we think we know more about things we actually know less about?” – then you are a scientist. If you ask “why?” twice – “why is that the answer?”, “why is that how we go about determining the answer?”, “why do we all think that?” – now you are a philosopher. If you ask “why?” more than twice, then you are just a three-year-old annoying your mother. Philosophy is the study of the second “why?” questions.

    A second stereotype about philosophy is that when trying to answer these second “why?” questions, just say whatever you think. It’s philosophy, no one is wrong. It’s just your opinion.

    If you believe that, YOU are wrong. Philosophy is not just about believing whatever you happen to believe. It is about determining what reasons we have in support of various beliefs. Philosophy is about rational belief, that is, figuring out why we should believe claims we may or may not want to believe. It is the giving of strong reasons in support of our beliefs that makes it philosophy. While philosophy may force you to challenge some of the things you believe (even things you believe deeply), it will bolster other beliefs by showing you not only that you do believe it, but why you should believe it. If you simply want to spout unsupported opinions…that’s why we invented the internet. If you want to question your beliefs, if you want to determine whether there are legitimate grounds for believing what you believe, if you want to subject each and every one of your beliefs to rigorous critical scrutiny, then you are philosopher.

    So, what is philosophy? Let’s answer this question by doing something philosophers do all the time – drawing a distinction. The word “philosophy” can mean two different, but related things. Philosophy is both an activity (something you do) and a subject (something that is).

    Philosophy as an activity is the giving and assessing of reasons in support of the claim that everyone should believe some particular proposition. To philosophize is not to simply come up with ideas. To philosophize is to try to justify those ideas or to determine whether someone else’s proposed justification actually works.

    In this way, what philosophers do is argue. The term argument here does not mean what we usually take it to mean. In philosophy, an argument is not some kind of disagreement or confrontation. The term argument, for us, is a technical term. An argument is a set of sentences such that one sentence, what we call the conclusion, is claimed to follow from the other sentences, what we call the premises. The conclusion is the claim that is being argued for. It is what someone is trying to convince you of. The premises are the reasons being given why you should believe the conclusion.

    Consider the following argument:

    All U.S. Presidents have been Martians.

    Lyndon Baines Johnson was a U.S. President

    Therefore, Lyndon Baines Johnson was a Martian

    The conclusion here is “Lyndon Baines Johnson was a Martian.” That is the point of the argument. That is what the argument is trying to get you to believe. Why should you agree with that? According to the argument, because LBJ was President of the United States of America and all U.S. Presidents have ben Martians. Those reasons are the premises.

    Do those premises give you good reason to believe the conclusion? No. Lyndon Baines Johnson was NOT a Martian (he was a Texan). But, at the same time, there does seem to be something right about that argument. What is it? THAT takes us to our second meaning of “philosophy.”

    Philosophy as an activity is the framing and evaluating of arguments. But lots of studies give and evaluate arguments. Scientists do it. Historians do it. What makes the activity an instance of philosophy is the sort of question.

    Scientists and historians are interested in empirical questions. A question is empirical if it says something about an observable aspect of the world. Consider the claim, “You have a nose.” That is an empirical claim. If you want to know whether it is true or false, there are several sorts of routes you could take to gaining evidence. You could look in a mirror. You could reach up with your hand and feel your face. These are observations. Any question that can be answered through making observations is empirical.

    While empirical questions will matter in philosophy, philosophical questions are not themselves straightforwardly empirical. We leave those to the scientists and historians. Philosophical questions are ones for which we give arguments that do not depend completely upon observation. The technical term we use for such questions is a priori. “A priori” simply means before experience.

    Suppose you turn on the television and see the local news weather report featuring staff meteorologist Karl Popper. Karl guarantees that his forecast is 100% accurate. He says, “Tomorrow it will rain or it won’t. Back to you, Bob.” Is Karl correct? Is his forecast 100% accurate? Well…yes. But only because it was an a priori truth. We don’t need to look out the window tomorrow to know whether the sentence is true or not because it is always true no matter what. We thought he was going to make an empirical claim, maybe “tomorrow, it will rain.” That would be empirical because we would have to check outside to see if it was the case or not.

    “Tomorrow, it will rain or it won’t” is an a priori claim that is a priori because it is trivial. But not all a priori claims are vacuous like this. Consider the sentence, “It is morally wrong to set your roommate on fire for fun.” That is a sentence that is a priori and not vacuous – especially for your roommate. This is the sort of proposition that philosophers study. We want to know whether it is true. (It is.) But more importantly, 5 we want to know WHY it is true. What makes that sentence true? It is not an empirical matter. This is why you don’t have a lab section in your philosophy class where you have to bring your roommate, lighter fluid, and a match. We don’t have an ethic-o-meter. We need something else. What we need is a priori argumentation.

    These sorts of questions and arguments fall into four general categories: logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. These are the four branches of philosophy. This is the second meaning of philosophy – philosophy as a subject.

    Logic is the study of rational argumentation. It examines the nature of arguments themselves and what propositions follow from what propositions. Metaphysics is the study of reality. What exists? Epistemology is the study of knowledge. What can we know? How do we gain knowledge? Axiology is the study of value judgements. It has two subfields. Ethics is the study of value judgements concerning the rightness and wrongness of free human acts. Aesthetics is the study of value judgements concerning art. Is this beautiful? Is that a work of high quality?

    These five categories (logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics) will form the structure of this book. In each section, we will explain in detail what each study is and then we will examine contrasting arguments around a question in each field that is a philosophical question raised by humor.

    Philosophy may be difficult, but it is also fun. Especially when the topics you consider are themselves fun. Philosophy may be no joke, but it does not mean there are no jokes in philosophy.

    How many philosophers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Don’t ask me, I’m a philosopher and that’s an empirical question. (Now, you get that joke. See, you’re learning.)

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