Do Mountains Exist? Ontology and other Pesky Philosophical Problems
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Announcements:
(1) Term paper advice: please email all requests to each TA as well as the instructor for the best chance of a response
(2) One handout today
A. “Ontology”: the study of being, the study of existence
B. Do mountains exist?
[FILM EXCERPT FROM]:The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, (1995).
See also: P.F. Fisher and J. Wood, 1998. “What is a Mountain? or the Englishman Who Went Up a Boolean Geographical Concept But Realized It Was Fuzzy.” Geography 83 (3): 247-256.
What is a gestalt? “a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena so integrated as to constitute a functional unit with properties not derivable by summation of its parts” (Webster’s).
J. Jastrow, Fact and Fable in Psychology (1900).
Also discussed by Ludwig Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations (1953).
interpetation
“aspect-seeing”
“theory-laden”
perception
IV. Another gestalt switch picture:
Boring, Edwin G., 1930. “A New Ambiguous Figure.” American Journal of Psychology 42: 444-5.
Leeper, Robert, 1935. “A Study of a Neglected Portion of the Field of Learning: The Development of Sensory Organization,” Journal of Genetic Psychology 46: 41-75.
John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, primary and secondary qualities
Samuel Alexander, Beauty and Other Forms of Value, tertiary quality
Aristotle and “natural kinds”
Patterns of events in nature as secondary qualities; the pattern is only apparent to a perceiver. E.g. pictures are perceivable as a ‘pattern’
This leads to the idea of “Emergent properties”: life. Color. Taste. Mind. Patterns.
Objects or entities that exist by virtue of a relation to something else. A bachelor is only such by relation to married people. Sibling. Species. Beauty, integrity, and/or stability. Community.
“Real Beauty”
Left off here until next class: will cover VI and VII on Friday
Does beauty exist?
Do wetlands exist?
Do species exist?
Does landscape exist?
Do such things as community, stability, balance, or ecological integrity exist?
See reading for next week: Shrader-Frechette, K. S., and Earl D. McCoy. "How the Tail Wags the Dog: How Value Judgments Determine Ecological Science." Environmental Values 3 (1994): 107-20.
But see also:
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. "Ecological Theories and Ethical Imperatives: Can Ecology Provide a Scientific Justification for the Ethics of Environmental Protection?" In Scientists and Their Responsibility, edited by William R. Shea and Beat Sitter, 73-104. Canton, MA: Watson Publishing International, 1989; and
Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. "Practical Ecology and Foundations for Environmental Ethics." The Journal of Philosophy 92, no. 12, December (1995): 621-35.
