The Death of God

& the Meaning of Life

Robert Shaw
Victoria University
Community Continuing Education

Announced overview
Galileo and Newton struggle with truth and inaugurate
the modern era. This course provides participants
with an opportunity to discuss our era and those who
defined it. It draws upon the work of Newton, Kant,
Nietzsche, Heidegger and Heelan.

Our day
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Preliminary
Before the Death of God
After the Death of God

Part 1

Preliminary
Julian Young
The story told
The nature of our enquiry

Part 1

The story told

The foundation of Western
belief
Certainty

Modern science
Life without meaning
The history of progress

Part 1

Julian Youngs book

Part 1

The nature of our enquiry

Epistemology living with knowledge

Metaphysics the foundation of your way

Ontology what there is to live with
One reality
Two realities dualisms
Three realities
7

Part 2
Before the Death of God
Homer Life with the Gods
Plato The Republic
Modern Science
History
What is science?
Technology
Significance
Kant
8

Part 2

Homer Life with the Gods

Pan-Hellenic culture (common Greek way)
Closed, finite world
Fundamental law: governed by fate, no caprice or chance

What
would their
slogan be?

Duties, but not rights

Purse honour though action (examples)
Gods as guide & intervene, no distinction between religion
and life

Part 2

Homer Life with the Gods

Pan-Hellenic culture (common Greek way)
Closed, finite world
Fundamental law: governed by fate, no caprice or chance
Duties, but not rights
Purse honour though action (examples)
Gods as guide & intervene, no distinction between religion
and life

10

Part 2

Homer Life with the Gods

Bicameralism (two-chambers)
Until 3,000 years ago
The human brain was in two parts
- speak (right)
- listen and obey
Julian Jaynes
Princeton 1976
Though just happens
Spontaneous hearings
3,000 years ago

11

Part 2

Before Plato
Parmenides
Pythagoras
Socrates

First
That something IS appears in non-contradictory
statements
All IS NOT statements involve a contradiction because
they contain an element of IS
Second
Any statement is Doxa (opinion).
If a statement can be brought to a point where it
contradicts itself it IS NOT.
Third
All mortals can do is accept Doxa.
We depend on sensory evidence.
Parmenides brings to philosophy:
Logic
Importance of existence
Truth (not Doxa) is the province of the Gods

12

Part 2

Plato

13

Part 2

Plato
427 BC

Plato is born at Athens, Greece.

407 BC

Plato meets Socrates, abandons aspiration to be playwright.

403 BC

Plato turns away from politics toward philosophy.

399 BC

The execution of Socrates by the Athenians.

398 BC

Plato flees to Megara with other followers of Socrates.

c. 398 BC - c. 380 BC Plato travels in Egypt, Cyrene, Italy, Syracuse and Sicily.
380 BC

Plato founds his Academy outside of Athens.

367 BC

Plato's second trip to Syracuse.

361 BC

Final attempt by Plato to make Syracusan king a philosopher-king.

347 BC

Plato dies at his Academy.

14

Part 2

Plato: The Academy

Mosaic buried in Pompeii 79 AD
From 1 BC
Critical thinking taught

15

Part 2

Plato: The Republic

Third century manuscript, earliest

c 380 BC (1713 text)

Socratic dialog
Ten books
Major advances
Use of reason
Justice
Individual
Utopia
Analysis of society
Political theory
Education
Epistemology / ontology
Appearance & reality
Doctrine of forms
Allegory of the cave
Integration of thought

16

Part 2

Plato: The Republic

Prologue

I.1. 327a328b. Descent to the Piraeus

I.2I.5. 328b331d. Cephalus. Justice of the Older Generation
I.61.9. 331e336a. Polemarchus. Justice of the Middle Generation
I.101.24. 336b354c. Thrasymachus. Justice of the Sophist
Introduction
II.1II.10. 357a369b. The Question: Is Justice better than
Injustice?
Part I: Genesis and Order of the Polis
II.11II.16. 369b376e. Genesis of the Polis
II.16III.18. 376e412b. Education of the Guardians
III.19IV.5. 412b427c. Constitution of the Polis
IV.6IV.19. 427c445e. Justice in the Polis
Part II: Embodiment of the Idea
V.1V.16. 449a471c. Somatic Unit of Polis and Hellenes
V.17VI.14. 471c502c. Rule of the Philosophers
VI.19VII.5. 502c521c. The Idea of the Agathon
VII.6VII.18. 521c541b. Education of the Philosophers
Part III: Decline of the Polis
VIII.1VIII.5. 543a550c. Timocracy
VIII.6VIII.9. 550c555b. Oligarchy
VIII.10VIII.13. 555b562a. Democracy
VIII.14IX.3. 562a576b. Tyranny
Conclusion

IX.4IX.13. 576b592b Answer: Justice is Better than Injustice.

Epilogue
X.1X.8. 595a608b. Rejection of Mimetic Art
X.9X.11. 608c612a. Immortality of the Soul
X.12. 612a613e. Rewards of Justice in Life
X.13X.16. 613e621d. Judgment of the Dead

17

Part 2

Plato: The Republic

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Aristocracy

Head

Guardians rule

Meritocracy or proto-technological state

Paternalistic
Timocracy

Chest

Spirit rules

People who love honour

The warriors rule

City state Spata

Security

G Bush
Oligarchy

Stomach

Emerges from the tension between economic status and

honour

Divides the rich and poor

Creates criminals and beggars

Rich plot against the poor and visa versa

Democracy

Stomach

The poor win

Desire rules

People become downtrodden

Tyranny

Outcome of excessive freedom

Commoners invest power in a an elected demagogue who

becomes corrupted by power

Leaders have a small group of loyal supporters for protection

and control of the masses.

Doctrine of three: head, chest, stomach

The Soul
1. Reason
2. Spirit (spirited, zest)
3. Desire (appetite for food, sex )
Castes of society
1. Governing
2. Protective
3. Productive

18

Part 2

Plato the cave

The Republic
The true world view
Appearance
Reality
Doctrine of forms

19

Part 2

Plato: The Republic

20

Part 2

Plato: To Christianity

Nietzsche:
Christianity is Platonism
for the masses

21

Part 2

Plato: Christianity

Imagine yourself there

Questions:
What is life like in this situation?
What underpins ordinary living?

22

Part 2

Modern science

23

Part 2

Modern science
History
Galileo
Newton
Physics
Paradigm for science
Physicists view
Philosophers view
No progression
Greek science
Medieval science
Modern science
24

Part 2

Galileo
Born Pisa, 1564
Jesuit education
Studied medicine
Mathematics
Law of the pendulum (famous)
Trial (1633-1616)
The telescope
How to sell science

25

Part 2

Newton & truth

1664, 22 years-old
Trinity College
Questiones qudam Philosophi
(Certain philosophical questions)
Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica
veritas
(Plato and Aristotle are my friends, but truth is
a better friend)
29

Part 2

Newton & modern optics

1642 1727
1666

William Blake
1804
Precision
Colours in the rock
Defy description
Indicate imagination

30

31

Part 2

Newtons optics

32

33

34

35

Part 2

What is science?
Traditional
Positivist science
Science is a body of theory
Mirror of reality
Alternatives
Human being
Without truth constructivism
With truth Hermeneutic philosophy of science
36

Part 2

Kant
Born 1724
Died 1804

37

38

39

Part 2

Kant: dualism?

Two things fill the mind with ever new

and increasing admiration and awe, the
more often and perseveringly my
thinking engages itself with them: the
starry heavens above me and the
moral law within me.

40

Part 2

Kant metaphysics
Philosophy of mind

Consciousness

Youtube Kants song

41

Part 3
After the Death of God
Nietzsche
Heidegger
Dreyfus & Kelly

Searle
Objectivity & subjectivity
Intentionality

42

Part 3

Nietzsche

43

Part 3

Nietzsche

44

Part 3

Nietzsche

The person
Metaphysics
Ethics
God
Women
Eternal return
45

Part 3

Nietzsche

46

Part 3

Nietzsche: The death of God

YouTube

47

Part 3

Nietzsches ethics

Without God
Eternal return / recurrence

48

Part 3

Nietzsches ethics

You are going to women?

Then dont forget the whip.

49

Part 3

Martin Heidegger

50

Part 3

Martin Heidegger
1889-1976
South - West Germany
1909 Jesuit novice
1927 Being & Time

51

Part 3

Heidegger & Hitler

1933

Hitler, Chancellor of Germany

Heidegger elected rector of Freiburg University
& joins NSDAP (famous address)

Does the person contaminate the work?

52

Part 3

Western metaphysics
The essence of an age
The Greeks
Temple
Art
Gods

The Middle Ages

Modernity
Truth
Technology

53

Part 3

Heideggers metaphysics
Truth: Two notions

Correspondence

Disclosure

54

Part 3

Heideggers metaphysics

55

Part 3

The event of truth

Of disclosure
All beings time & space
Special instance science
Discovery

Of correspondence
Many formulations
Reality is alignment with description
Symbols with symbols

56

Part 3

Dreyfus & Kelly

How to escape
anyone who is done with indecision and waiting, with expressionlessness
and lostness and sadness and angst, and who is ready for whatever it is that
comes next; anyone with hope instead of despair, or anyone with despair that
they would like to leave behind, can find something worthwhile in the pages
ahead. (xi)

Hidden history of the West (89)

What matters?
Modern ways & modern burdens
Multiplication of decisions
Memory
Bordom
David Foster Wallace nihilism

What happened?
Moby Dick

59

Part 3

Dreyfus & Kelly

Gods are like moods.

They attune us.
When Aphrodite is around all that
matters is the erotic.

Be open
http://youtu.be/UpQHxJQrg1E
Conversations with History - Hubert Dreyfus
and Sean Dorrance Kelly (SD).mp4

60

Part 3

David Foster Wallace

http://youtu.be/mLPStHVi0SI
Charlie Rose interviews David Foster
Wallace, 1-4 (SD).mp4
Ways to read:
http://infinitesummer.org/archives/215

61

Part 3

Our escape
Moby Dick

62
http://youtu.be/F73Kt1_FEn8

63

Bonus

John Searle
Ontology
There is only one reality
Objectivity & subjectivity
Understanding in science
Unified theory - reduction
Social sciences
Husserls denial
How to see differently
Experience
Allowing
Reading
64

Bonus

John Searle
Ontology
There is only one reality
Objectivity & subjectivity
Husserls denial
How to see differently
Experience
Allowing
Reading
65

Bonus

66

Bonus

Epistemology & Ontology

67