Lesson 2

• Socrates once claimed that '"The unexamined life is not worth living"'
• Types of Essentialism

  • Mereological Essentialism
  • Ethical Essentialism (Modal Absolutism)
  • Epistemological Essentialism
  • Sociological Essentialism
  • Educational Essentialism
• Existentialism


  A philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will
• According to the existentialists, for individuals alienated from God, from nature, from other people and even from themselves, what is left at last but NOTHINGNESS
• It is the venue for pursuing an unexamined life by reflecting your issues and problems in life, which are philosophical in nature.


  Philosophical inquiry
• Philosophical inquiry can help you gain a deeper and broader perspective about: -.


  • How you live
  • What you live for
  • Why you live
• Philosophical inquiry is not because of the definitive answers, but through the process of:


  • Reflecting
  • Contemplation
  • Inquiry
• According to Bertrand Rusell , philosophy primarily aims at knowledge.
• According to Cheyenne, "Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons with his moccasins."
• Philosophizing means "searching for meaning." which should not merely be a theoretical exercise.
• Philosophizing must also guide us to a deeper understanding of "oneself", in which one has to be open-minded to know something as it is and act upon it as it should be relevantly within priorities.
• Four Uses of Philosophizing

  1. A way to reveal the truth about the different stages of life and everything associated with it.
  2. To reveal the fulfillment of the purpose of each stage of life.
  3. To express the way to the realization of these things in a relevant way to obtain the best compromise of what we all face in life.
  4. To find an avenue for full and unrestricted expressions of philosophical sentiments and stands concerning contemporary issues.
• Essentialism suggests that "you have an essence"
• Certain set of core properties that are necessary.

  ESSENCE
• Answer in an answerless word

  ABSURDITY
• It is the view that objects have their parts essentially.


  MEREOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM
• In Mereological Essentialism, if an object loses or gains a part, it would effectively cause to exist in that it would not be the same object anymore.
• It is the claim that some things are wrong in an essential or absolute sense.


  Ethical Essentialism or Modal Absolutism
• It is the view that all entities have intrinsic properties that can be discerned by reason.


  Epistemological Essentialism
• Ethical essentialism breaks a: -moral law and not merely an: - constructed one.


  • Universal
  • Objective
  • Natural
  • Adventitious
  • Socially
  • Ethically
• Epistemological essentialism is sometimes attributed to Aristotle.
• It is a sociological theory which states that positions, gender, sexuality, face, ethnicity, fixed traits...


  Sociological Essentialism
• It is an educational (as opposed to philosophical) theory.


  Educational essentialism
• Educational essentialism states that children should learn the traditional basic subjects and that there should be learned thoroughly and vigorously.
• Educational essentialism states the importance of 3Rs:


  • Reading
  • Writing
  • Rhythmetic
• General characteristics of existentialism:


  1 Existence before essence.

  2 Reason is unable to deal with the depths of life.

  3 The encounter with nothingness.
• In reason is unable to deal with the depths of life, there are two parts:


  • Reason is relatively weak and imperfect (people do not often do the "right" thing)
  • There are dark places in life, which are "non-reason", to which reason scarcely penetrates.
• We commit acts which seem to defy reason, to make no sense.


  Non reason
• The kind of knowledge that philosophy aims at is the kind of knowledge that gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind that results from a critical examination of the grounds of a person's convictions, prejudices, and beliefs.
• This is because anybody who philosophizes is going to transcend the world of work, which the worka-day world is our present world of utility, of functionality, of accomplishments, as one report for work day-in and work day-out.
• In Existence Before essence, Existentialism gets its name from an insistence that life is only understandable in terms of an individual's existence, his particular life experience.