metodichka_dlya_filos

МІНІСТЕРСТВО ОСВІТИ I НАУКИ УКРАЇНИ ОДЕСЬКИЙ НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ УНІВЕРСИТЕТ ІМЕНІ І. І. МЕЧНИКОВА

Students’ Guide To Philosophy

Методичний посібник з читання англомовної літератури за фахом

для студентів І-ІІІ курсу філософського факультету денного та заочного відділення

Одеса

2014

Ф579

УДК 811.111:17(075.8)

ББК 81.432.1я73

Ф579

Друкується за рішенням Вченої Ради факультету РГФ Одеського національного університету імені І.І. Мечникова (Протокол №8 від 18 березня 2014 року).

Укладач:

Л.М. Філюк – кандидат філологічних наук, доцент.

Рецензенти:

Н.П. Михайлюк – кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри іноземних мов Національного університету «Одеська національна юридична академія»;

О.К. Пеліван – кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри теоретичної і прикладної фонетики англійської мови Одеського національного університету імені І.І. Мечникова.

Відповідальний редактор:

Н.П. Віт – канд.філол.наук, доцент, зав. кафедри іноземних мов гуманітарних факультетів Одеського національного університеу імені І.І. Мечникова

Методичний посібник «Students’ Guide To Philosophy» для студентів I-III курсу філософського факультету денного та заочного відділення. / уклад. Л.М. Філюк. – Одеса: 2014. – 76 с.

Методичний посібник «Students’ Guide To Philosophy» для студентів I-III курсу філософського факультету денного та заочного відділення містить професійно-спрямовані тексти з англомовних джерел та широкий спектр лексико-граматичних і комунікативних вправ. Опанувавши поданий матеріал, студенти зможуть не тільки читати, розуміти й перекладати іншомовні тексти за спеціальністю, але й формулювати свої власні думки в усному та писемному мовленні та вільно висловлювати їх у фаховому середовищі.

Ціллю посібника є формування стереотипних навичок роботи з філософським текстом для поглиблення знань з англійської мови і філософії зокрема.

При укладанні методичного посібника «Students’ Guide To Philosophy» використані наукові роботи з історії філософії сучасних іншомовних видань.

© Філюк Л.М., укладання, 2014

	CONTENTS
UNIT 1. The introduction to Philosophy		4
UNIT 2.	Ancient philosophers and the world	15
UNIT 3.	Philosophers of the Middle Ages	31
UNIT 4.	Philosophers of the Renaissance	41
UNIT 5.	Philosophy of Modern time	51
GLOSSARY		62
PROPER NAMES		70
EXPRESSIONS IN LATIN		72
SOURCES		73

UNIT 1

THE INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

KEY WORDS

Aethetics

the study of the nature of beauty, concepts and judgments arising from our appreciation of the arts or the wider class of objects considered moving, or beautiful.

Axiology

the study of the whole field of values.

Epistemology

theory of knowledge.

Ethics

the study of the concepts involved in practical reasoning: good, right, duty, choice etc..

Experience

1)a stream of private events, known only to the possessor;

2)knowledge and skill gained through the time spent doing a job or activity.

Logic

the general science of inference.

Metaphysics

a part of philosophy that involves of what is real and what is outside of the physical world.

Philosophy

the study of theories about the meaning of things such as life, knowledge and beliefs.

Speculative (philosophy)

based on guesses or on a little information, not on facts. transcendent

not limited or influenced by negative attitudes, thoughts, or feelings.

1.1 WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Although people in the Western World have philosophized for more than 2500 years, the exact nature of philosophy is still a matter of dispute. Philosophy began originally as a curious mixture of scientific, theological, magical and ethical explanation of the common and uncommon features of the world. The early Greek thinkers, such as Thales, Heraclitus,

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Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and others, thought of philosophy as we now think of contemporary science. They assumed that through philosophical reflection the nature of the world would be revealed to them. Thales, for example, invented an ingenious hypothesis about the fundamental composition of the universe. He believed that all objects are variations of one basic ingredient — water. For water, he argued, if heated becomes steam, and thus all entities which are gaseous, such as the atmosphere, can be described as rarefied water: water in its natural state is a liquid, and all things which flow must be made of it; and finally, if water is cooled sufficiently it becomes a solid, ice.

It seemed plausible, therefore, that all solids must be condensed forms of water. Thales, with a minimum amount of factual information, was able by reflection to devise an ingenious hypothesis to account for such diverse things as the gaseous, liquid and solid characteristics of the earth.

Subsequent philosophers, pursuing substantially the same method (i. e. reflection) devised even more striking theories. Democritus, for example, worked out a crude version of the atomic theory some 2000 years before careful investigation could produce any empirical confirmation of it. As mans curiosity about nature grew, and as knowledge of it increased, explanations became both more sophisticated and more satisfactory. In time, the study of nature became an activity which broke away from philosophy, and a new discipline was developed called science. But this, it should be pointed out, is a comparatively recent development.

Even as late as the nineteenth century, university courses in physics, for instance, were described as 'natural philosophy'. Now science itself has been fragmented into a host of subdisciplines; each science, so to speak, has selected some aspect of nature for intensive study — physics, for example, deals with the nature of inanimate objects; botany with plants, astronomy with celestial phenomena, and so on. Nevertheless, all these scientific activities, as different as they are from one another, each utilize a common method: a method which is too complex accurately to be described here, but which not only employs reflection about the world, but more importantly which also involves the patient observation of and experimentation with it. The main presupposition of scientific activity is that it is only through such observation of, and experimentation with, the objects in the world (as well as reflection about them, of course) that we can acquire accurate information about the characteristics of these objects. Put briefly, knowledge of the world can be acquired only through the use of scientific method.

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I. Practise reading the following words and find the sentences with

them in the text:
accurate [ʹækjərɪt]	Pythagoras [p(a)ɪʹƟægərəs]
acquire [əʹkwaɪə]	rarefied [ʹreərɪfaɪ]
Anaxagoras [ænæksʹægərəs]	sophisticated [səʹfɪstɪkeɪtɪd]
celestial [səʹlestʃəl]	subdiscipline [ʹsʌbˏdɪsɪplɪn]
Democritus [dɪʹmɒkrɪtəs]	substantially [səbʹstænʃ(ə)lɪ]
Heraclitus [hɪərəʹklaɪtəs]	Thales [ʹƟeɪlɪ:z]
hypothesis [haɪʹpɒƟɪsɪs]	theological [Ɵɪəʹlɒdʒɪk(ə)l]
inanimate [ɪnʹænɪmɪt]	utilize [ʹju:tɪlaɪz]
plausible [ʹplɒzəb(ə)l]

II. Answer the questions to the text:

1.What did the early Greek philosophers think of philosophy?

2.What method did the early philosophers utilize to reveal the

theory?

3.What sentence illustrates that development of a new discipline called “science” is a comparatively recent development?

4.What method did subsequent philosophers use to devise their philosophical activity?

5.What is the main presupposition of scientific activity?

III. Give Ukrainian equivalents for the following wordcombinations:

the nature of philosophy, to reveal the nature, to deal with a subject matter, to argue the theory, to acquire an information, empirical confirmation, the behavior of objects, to result in knowledge, a host of subdisciplines, sophisticated explanation, to break away from philosophy, to pursue a method, an ingenious hypothesis, the observation of the world, to treat concept.

IV. Give English equivalents for the following word-combinations: cучасна наука, предмет спору, суттєво відрізнятися від, проводити досліди, наукове пояснення, ретельне дослідження, розробляти теорію, застосовувати метод, будова всесвіту, складна система, комплексний метод, якості землі, сутність філософії,

наступні філософи.

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V. Put the words in the following sentences into the correct order:

1.The use of scientific method / can be acquired / only through / knowledge of the world.

2.Began / philosophy / as a curious mixture / of the common and uncommon features of the world / of scientific, theological, magical and ethical ‘explanation’.

3.He / that all objects are variations / of one basic ingredient – water

/believed.

4.Does / philosophical activity / result in / what kind of knowledge?

5.Importantly / this method / from philosophical activity / differs.

VI. Find the statement which is not given in the text:

1.Posterior philosophers pursued reflection.

2.Scientific method is the same as philosophical activity.

3.Swas fragmented into subdisciplines by the ancient philosophers.

4.A discipline called ‘science’ is a comparatively recent development.

VII. Choose the word which is the synonym to the word ‘sophisticated’ and confirm your idea by the information from the text:

a)complicated;

b)simple;

c)developed;

d)ordinary.

VIII. Choose the statement which is true to the text:

1.Philosophy intends to give us knowledge about the world though it doesn’t perform experiments, doesn’t patiently observe behaviour of animate or inanimate natural objects.

2.Only the philosophy can discover new facts for us.

3.A method utilized by scientific activities involves only the patient observation of the world.

4.It was quite evident that all solids would be condensed forms of

water.

1.2 THE FIELDS OF PHILOSOPHY

There are several fields or areas of investigation. Not all lists of the fields of philosophy would agree, but most of them would almost certainly

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include six: metaphysics, epistemology, value-theory, ethics, aesthetics, logic.

Metaphysics means, usually, the study or theory of reality. It should be mentioned that sometimes the word "metaphysics" is used in a narrower way to concern only transcendent reality, that is, reality which lies beyond the physical world and cannot therefore be grasped by means of the senses. Therefore, supernaturalists do metaphysics in the first sense because they raise the question of reality, and they do metaphysics also in the narrower sense because they believe in supernatural or transcendent reality, say, God. On the other hand, materialists do metaphysics in the first sense because they too raise the question of reality, but their belief is not metaphysical in the narrower sense because they deny that anything is real except matter.

Epistemology is the study or theory of knowledge. Some philosophers think that the fields of metaphysics and epistemology are, in a way, the pillars of all the rest. Is it possible that how you answer the questions epistemology asks will determine your whole philosophical outlook?

Value-theory or axiology is, obviously, the study of value. It should be noted that this area of investigation does not involve any particular sort of value, but value of all sorts – the value of tables, steaks, political ideologies, laws.

Ethics, on the other hand, is concerned with a particular sort of value, namely value as it applies to personal actions, decisions, and relations; it is concerned with moral value.

Aesthetics is also the study of a particular sort of value, namely, the values involved in art and our experience of beauty.

Logic is a tool which philosophers employ as they set about to investigate these issues. Aristotle was the first to formulate in a systematic way the principle of right reasoning, and the writings in which he did this (his "logical" writings) came to be called the "Organon", which in Greek means "instrument" or "tool." However in recent years, with the rise of mathematical and symbolic logic, logic itself has become for many a proper object of philosophical study.

In addition to the standard fields of philosophy some further areas should be mentioned, namely, where philosophical concern relates itself to other disciplines.

Examples are the philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of education, and philosophy of law and so on.

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I. Practise reading the following words and find the sentences with

them in the text:
aesthetics [ɪ:sʹƟetɪks]	ideology [ˏaɪdɪʹɒlədʒɪ]
concern [kənʹsɜ:n]	investigation [ɪnˏvestɪʹgeɪʃ(ə)n]
determine [dɪʹtɜ:mɪn]	issue [ʹɪʃu:]
Epistemology [ˏepɪstɪ(:)ʹmɒlədʒɪ]	logic [ʹlɒdʒɪk]
[ˏɪpɪstəʹmɒlədʒɪ]	Metaphysics [metəʹfɪƟɪks]
ethics [ʹeƟɪks]	transcendent [trænʹsendent]

II. Answer the questions to the text:

1.How many fields of philosophy are mentioned in the text?

2.Which field is concerned with moral value?

3.Who was the first to formulate the principle of right reasoning in

Logic?

4.Who denies that anything is real except matter?

5.What is the difference between Ethics and Aesthetics?

III. Give Ukrainian equivalents for the following wordcombinations:

from a different standpoint, transcendent reality, beyond the physical world, means of the senses, to do metaphysics, pillars of all the rest, particular sort of value, to apply to personal actions, to be concerned with, to be involved in art, to employ a tool.

IV. Give English equivalents for the following word-combinations:

зони дослідження, підняти питання, у більш вузькому значенні, філософський погляд, з іншого боку, досліджувати проблеми, власне об’єкт філософського вчення, принцип правильного мислення, крім того, мати відношення до інших дисциплін.

V. Find in the text the words with the similar meaning and translate these sentences into Ukrainian:

fields, to contain smth. as a part, to completely understand, a very important part of (a system/theory), a subject/problem, to use.

VI. Match the names of the fields of philosophy with the issues they deal with:

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Field of philosophy	Issue
Metaphysics	The study of value.
Epistemology	The study of beauty and art.
Axiology	The study of knowledge.
Ethics	The tool of philosophical investigations.
Aesthetics	The study of reality (sometimes also the study of
Logic	transcendent reality).
	The study of moral value, right and wrong.

VII. Find the statement which is not given in the text:

1.Ethics and aesthetics are properly sub-fields of value theory.

2.Materialists deny that anything is real except matter.

3.Ethics is concerned with moral value.

4.Axiology doesn’t involve any particular sort of value.

VIII. Copy out 6-8 key-sentences from the text and get ready to retell the text in brief.

1.3 PHILOSOPHICAL MOVEMENTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY

In the twentieth century, several influential philosophical movements have developed. Some contemporary theorists, Saul Kripke (1940) for instance, think that philosophy is and ought to be concerned with an analysis and investigation into the most general features of the world — the concepts of identity, personhood, natural kinds. W. V. O. Quine sees philosophical activity as a theoretical extension of science; that the difference between what a philosopher does or ought to do and what a scientist does are merely differences in emphasis and interest. In the end of the twentieth century a lively debate has been generated about the nature of philosophy, whether it is a substantive discipline with results that give us information about the world or whether its problems are unique and are basically different from those of science. In the first part of the century three important movements laid the groundwork for what followed in the second part. These are logical atomism, logical positivism (or logical empiricism) and ordinary language philosophy. In various forms they are still with us today, having resonances in the work of Donald Davidson, Hilary Putman, Richard Rorty, Daniel Dennett and others. Unquestionably, the single most influential philosopher in the second half of the century is Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). He is considered to be the greatest philosophical genius of the twentieth century, thought of philosophy as an

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