An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis

John Hospers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135637750
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

John Hospers' Introduction to Philosophical Analysis has sold over 150, 000 copies since its first publication. This new edition ensures that its success will continue into the twenty-first century. It remains the most accessible and authoritative introduction to philosophy available using the full power of the problem-based approach to the area to ensure that philosophy is not simply taught to students but practised by them.
The most significant change to this edition is to respond to criticisms regarding the omission in the third edition of the famous opening chapter. A brand new chapter, Words and the World, replaces this in the fourth edition - which now features a large number of examples and illustrative dialogues. The rest of the text has been thoroughly revised and updated to take account of recent developments in some areas of philosophy.

1 Words and the World

LANGUAGE AND REALITY

1. PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS

Why did she die?

She was driving down the highway when another car hit hers. The driver of the other car was going very fast, and a collision at such a speed often kills or maims the people in the vehicles. That's what happened this time. And that's why she died.

I know all that. But, I mean, why did she die?

I've just answered that question. She happened to be at that intersection just when the other car hit hers.

But why was she at that place?

She was on the way to the supermarket to go shopping. She would have passed that corner a few minutes earlier, but she was delayed because she had to turn back for something she forgot.

I understand why she was delayed. But I know to know, why did she die?

I've given you the cause of her death. But it seems that you don't want to know the cause but the purpose of her death.

Yes, I want to know the purpose.

But there may not be a purpose. That's why we speak of a “pointless, purposeless death.” If God rules all things, then God might have had a purpose in bringing about her death. I don't know what it could be, but at least I know what the word “purpose” means in this context. The woman had a purpose in driving downtown—she wanted to go shopping. And in the same way, God brought about her death and presumably had some purpose in doing so.

But I can't believe that God would want her to die or would do anything to bring it about. Perhaps God's purposes are unknowable, and we can't understand what they are.

Or perhaps there is no purpose to it at all. It just happened.

You mean by chance.

No, not chance—not like when we say that there's a 50–50 chance the coin will turn up heads. Perhaps chance in the sense that neither of the drivers intended for their cars to collide with one another. But many things aren't the result of an intention. The planets go round the sun, but not by chance—they follow Newton's laws of motion; yet that doesn't mean that they have a purpose in doing so or even that somebody “up there” has a purpose in making them go round the sun.

I don't see how it could have happened unless there was some purpose in it.

Why do you assume that? The tree falls down in a storm. This event had a cause, but as far as we can tell, no purpose. If something had a purpose, tell me whose purpose it was—that is, who it was that had the purpose.

I guess that leaves God as the one who had the purpose.

In that case, he's the one you should ask. For my part, I can't imagine why anyone would have as a conscious purpose the bringing about of the death of an innocent person. So if there was a purpose in it—a divine purpose—I can't imagine what it could have been.

Maybe it isn't the purpose I want to know. I want to know what meaning there is in what happened.

Meaning. Do you know for how many different things we use that word “meaning"?

Meaning is meaning; I want to know what meaning there is in her dying.

I'm not trying to underrate the importance to you of this tragic event. But you asked for its meaning, and I can't even try to answer that question without showing you how your question itself can mean so many things.

Such as … ?

Well, for one thing, a word has a meaning: the word “cat” means—refers to—cats. It's cats that we're talking about when we use the word. And so on for countless other words.

OK, but that's not what I'm asking for.

There are others. We sometimes use the word “meaning” when we want to know what an event portends. There's a twister in the sky; what does it mean? Tornado coming. Or what does that series of dots and dashes mean? It's Morse code for the word “repeat.”

But I'm not asking about natural signs or man-made signals either.

When one nation signs a treaty with another, the leaders of a third nation ask, “What does this mean?” That is, what will be the effects of this action? What may happen as a result? Is that what you mean when you ask, “What's the meaning of her death?"

I don't think so. I'm not asking what effects her death will have. For example, I already know that it will make her loved ones unhappy and that her children will grow up without a mother. I know these things already.

Well, then, what sort of thing would be an answer to your question? When one answer after another doesn't suit you, it may be a good idea to consider what would be an acceptable answer to the question.

If I knew that, I wouldn't be asking the question.

I don't mean that you should know the answer before you ask the question. I am saying that before you ask the question, you should know what kind of answer would suffice. For example, if I ask, “Where is he?” and someone answers, “He is visiting relatives in Montana,” that is the kind of statement that, if true, would answer my question. What I want to know is what sort of answer would suffice to answer your question.

I'm not sure. I think I want to know what meaning her death has in the scheme of things.

Do you mean, will it have widespread ramifications in the lives of other people? Maybe it will, and maybe it won't; that depends on how many people she was close to and perhaps on how well known she was in the community.

No, I don't mean just how it will affect other people.

But that would be meaning, wouldn't it—if her death inspired those around her to renew their own lives and so on? You could say that her death had meaning for others if it affected them in that way.

Yes, but I mean something more than that. I want to know what importance her death has in the scheme of things, in the plan or purpose of the universe.

OK, if that's what you're asking, you are asking about God's purposes again. I'm not trying to answer the question, you see, I'm just trying to clarify the question. I want to know in what area the answer would lie. And it seems that you've told me —you want an answer in terms of divine purpose. Whether such an answer can be given, well, that's another question. We'll have to cover a lot of ground before we get to that.

In this imaginary conversation, we have already found ourselves involved in philosophical questions. There was a description of some facts about a car accident, but certain words were introduced that are typically “philosophical” words, such as “cause,” “purpose,” “reason,” and “meaning.” They all need to be clarified. We use these words in daily conversation, but most people don't use them very carefully or very clearly. In philosophy, we have to use them more carefully; if we do not we often just “talk past” one another and engage in pointless back-and-forth arguments that with some care could easily have been avoided. Let's consider two examples:

1. Philosophy studies reality, but so do the sciences; so in one way or another does every subject we study. And what is meant by the word “reality”? Philosophers have the thankless task of pointing out to those who want “capsule culture in three easy lessons” that such questions are not simple.

Consider the word “real”: “That's not a real duck—it's a decoy.” “It's not a giraffe out there—it's a configuration of shapes that looks like a giraffe against the sunset sky.” “That's not a real pink rat—you're having the DTs, you're hallucinating.” “That didn't really happen—it was a dream; or you were misinformed; or you read it wrong; or somebody lied.” “That's not a real problem—it's a phony one, you think there's a problem but there isn't.” and so on.¹ Each of these uses of the word “real” is different; we can identify what this occurrence of the word means when we know what it is being contrasted with, and it is contrasted with a variety of different things. For example, an imitation duck is not a real duck. Besides all that, the word “real” is often used merely as an “intensive”: “that really happened” is an emphatic way of saying “that happened.”

Thus we can't give a simple answer to the question, “What is real?” We have to go through the cumbersome and tiring business of pointing out the various things that the word “real” can mean by contrasting it with what, in that specific context, is not called real (it could change again in a different context). Is a dream real? Well, it's not like the tree out there, but it's a real experience, isn't it? To a beginner this may be bewildering, frustrating, even anger-provoking. People want simple answers to simple questions. But what they don't see is that the question isn't simple. To get them to see this is already to have taken a brief excursion into philosophy.

2. What is the meaning of life? This is often believed to be the question that philosophy must answer. But when we ask it at first, we don't see the traps within the question. “What's the meaning of that phone call?” we ask when a voice utters a few hostile words and the line clicks dead. We can be asking various questions—“Who called?” “What does the caller want?” “What does it portend for the future?”—and many other things. “What does ‘perihelion’ mean?” It means the point on the orbit of a planet when it's nearest to the sun (or of a satellite, when it's nearest to the planet around which it revolves). That's an example of the dictionary sense of the word “meaning”; it tells us how a word is used in a language. “What's the meaning of that remark?”—that is, what did you intend by it? Are you trying to communicate what I think you are? “What's the meaning of a falling barometer?” It means that a storm is on the way; it's an indicator of future events. “If everyone on board the plane was killed, what does that mean?” It means that if your friend was on board, she too was killed; that is, it logically implies it; the conclusion is inescapable if you grant the premise.

In these cases we have multiplicity of meanings (in this case of the word “meaning” itself): meaning as definition; meaning as intention; meaning as implication; meaning as purpose; meaning as import for the future; and so on. Thus, when one asks, “What is the meaning of life?,” our first task is to try to determine what information the questioner wants supplied. Does she want to know whether her life serves some overall purpose? Why she should continue living? Whether there is a pattern of events in her life that she hasn't discovered but that may be important for her future? Or what she ought to do with her life? Or perhaps whether God has created her for a reason, which she is trying to discover? “Tell me in other words what you want to know,” we may say. But doing this, especially for one who hasn't made distinctions like these and who isn't very good at articulating incoherent thoughts and impressions, may be extremely difficult—even impossible—at the start. She may feel that she is being made to go through an uncomfortable effort and concentration that isn't necessary: All she wants to know is, “What is the meaning of life?,” and here we are throwing dust in her face, forcing her to choose between alternative formulations before we'll so much as entertain her question. Understandably, this is extremely frustrating.

But until we have cut through the fog we can't get far in philosophy. Our questioner doesn't even realize that she has asked a foggy question, and wonders why we don't answer her with simple directness. Most people at this point stick with their foggy question, obtain somebody's equally foggy answer in some obscure but impressive-sounding bit of pontiflcation (“The meaning of life is to fulfill your destiny”), and then walk away satisfied. But these people have evaded the issues of philosophy.

What Is Philosophy?

Usually, when we begin the study of a subject, we are told what the subject is—what the word naming the subject is supposed to mean. Biology has to do with the study of living organisms. Astronomy has to do with the study of celestial objects, such as stars and planets. Human history has to do with the study of what people have done and suffered during the centuries.

What then is philosophy? When we open a book with the word “philosophy” in the title, what is the subject on which we may expect it to inform us?

Unfortunately, the word “philosophy” wouldn't give us a very clear idea of what to expect. The word is used very loosely. “What's your philosophy?” someone asks. What kind of answer is appropriate for such a question? If someone responds, “Get whatever you can out of life, that's my philosophy,” is this an acceptable answer? If someone asks, “How many planets are in the solar system?” and you reply “Eight,” your answer would be incorrect but it would be an answer to the question. Is “Get whatever you can out of life” even an answer to the question asked? (It's not even clear what this statement is supposed to mean. Does it mean that one should do whatever one pleases, even if this involves harm to others?)

Everyone seems to agree on one thing, that if a question can be answered empirically, by the use of the senses, by seeing, hearing, touching, or the other senses, or setting up experiments, it is not a philosophical question. Thus,

1. Statements of ordinary perception, such as “There are three chairs in this room,” and “Most of the earth's surface is covered with water,” are not philosophical questions.

2. Questions that the sciences can answer are not philosophical questions. Physics, astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, and psychology are all empirical sciences, and their discoveries are made through observations and experiments that involve numerous aids for the senses, such as microscopes, telescopes, and spectrometers. If an experiment can settle the question, it is a scientific question and not a philosophical one.

3. Questions about what has happened in the past are not philosophical questions. “When did Abraham Lincoln die?” and “Who lived on the earth a million years ago?” are historical questions. Often we can't answer them except by consulting documents or other evidence contained in rocks, but they are all questions about what could have been observed if someone had been there at the time; sometimes there were contemporary observers (as in the Lincoln example), and sometimes not (as in the question about what occurred millions of years ago). The same considerations apply to questions about the future: we don't know the answers to most of them—not even whether it will rain in this city tomorrow—but it's to these kinds of question that our senses can provide the answers when the time comes.

4. Questions in arithmetic, algebra, and the other branches of mathematics are not philosophical questions. “How much is 600 + 500?” is a question in arithmetic; “Are there bees in this hive?” is an empirical question, to be settled by observation and not by adding, subtracting, and so on. Mathematical questions require calculation, not observation.

What, then, is left for philosophy to consider? Different answers to this question have been suggested; they all take us into much the same areas of thought, although the answers themselves are not the same. Here are the main ones:

1. Philosophy is the study of reality—but not that aspect of reality that is already covered by the various sciences. Whatever questions are not empirical and not mathematical are left over for philosophy to tackle. Not everyone agrees that there are such “leftover” questions, but whether this is so we have yet to consider. The question with which we began (“Why did she die?”) at least seems to be such a question.

2. Philosophy is the study of justification; it is concerned with how we justify the claims we make. How do you know that there is a physical world? That we're not all dreaming? That there is a God beyond the stars? That goodness and beauty really exist? That the mind is separate from the body? That time is infinite?

3. Philosophy is the analysis of various concepts that are central to our thought. For example, we speak of causes every day, but what is a cause? We use numbers, but what is a number? We speak of justice, but what is justice? We describe things as beautiful, but what is beauty? We speak of before and after in time, but what is time? We describe things as real, but what is reality?

Those who take this last view of philosophy will be most concerned with questions like “What do you mean?,” followed by some word or phrase; philosophy analyzes meanings. Those who take the second view are likely to keep asking the question “How do you know?” How do you know that what you say is true? (And what is truth?) How do you know that animals are conscious? How do you know that if Hitler had not existed, World War II would not have occurred?

So many of these questions lead into each other that we won't try to distinguish them further here. But perhaps we should make the traditional listing of the branches of philosophy, although many of them overlap: (1) logic, the study of correct reasoning; (2) epistemology, the study of the justification of claims to knowledge (the constant attempt to answer the question “How do you know?”); (3) metaphysics, the study of reality other than the reality studied by history and the empirical and mathematical sciences (it is also concerned with the categories into which human thought is said to be divided, such as substance, attribute, and number— of which more will be said in due course); and (4) the study of values, principally the good (ethics) and the beautiful (aesthetics). In all these branches of study, the questions “What do you mean?” and “How do you know?” will be constantly present.

Verbal Issues

Philosophy is full of disagreements. But to clear the decks and make our task simpler, let's first consider one kind of disagreement that, if we're not careful, will get in our way and cause needless confusion. These are verbal disagreements, disputes that seem to be about facts but are actually about the words in which the disputes are expressed. The resolution of the dispute depends not on discovering any further facts but only on coming to agreement about the meanings of the words being used in the dispute. Here is a simple example: If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, is there a sound? Thi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to the Fourth Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition
• 1 WORDS AND THE WORLD
• 2 WHAT CAN WE KNOW?
• 3 WHAT IS THE WORLD LIKE?
• 4 THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS
• 5 WHAT IS AND WHAT MUST BE
• 6 WHAT AM I?
• 7 WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
• 8 THE IS AND THE OUGHT
• Index