UTS Lesson 1

• Understanding the Self
• Philosophy


  Love of wisdom
• Philosophy


  • It is a science of all things that exist in their ultimate nature or cause through the aid of human intellect alone
• Philosophy started centuries before Christ when earliest thinkers began to wonder things and questioned the 'basic stuff', primary substratum or 'arche' that explains the ultimate nature of all thing around them
• Ionian Philosophers


  • Thales
  • Anaximenes
  • Anaximander
• Thales


  The basic stuff is water
• Anaximenes


  The basic stuff is air
• Anaximander


  The primary substratum is indeterminate for nobody can determine what particular thing is the basic stuff
• Socrates was the first philosopher who ever engaged in the systematic knowing or questioning of oneself
• Socrates


  "The unexamined life is not worth living"
• Socrates was born in Athens in approximately 469 BC
• Socrates' father was a sculptor, his mother was a midwife. His wife Xantippe bore him three children
• Socrates' teaching was not formally held inside the four walls other classroom but on the street corners
• Socrates' teaching was for free, knowledge was not for sale
• Socrates


  He is also being described as a market philosopher because of his proclivity for engaging youths to discuss things, using the answer and question method in Agora (market place)
• Socrates' philosophy


  An examination of 'Our Existence in the Universe' is the focus of his philosophy
• Socrates' maxim


  "an unexamined life is not worth living"
• Socrates' philosophy


  The answer to the question 'who am I' is being exemplified by his maxim, leading to the optimistic and pro-active perspective of life for the life worthy to live is a life full of examinations such as challenges trials difficulties, doubts/questions, uncertainties, and the like
• Socrates' philosophy


  There is an urgent call to examine one's life, for it is in the examination that we can know ourselves
• Plato's view of man

  Man is a pure mind. Man's existence was first in the realm of ideas and exists as a soul. There was soul first before man's body. This soul has knowledge by direct intuition and all these are stored in his mind. He already has knowledge of everything (omniscient). However, once he came to the material world or the world of senses, he forgot most of what he knew. This resulted in lack of knowledge or ignorance which causes problems to man
• Plato's dialectic method


  A sort of maieutic process, an intellectual midwifery of trying to draw truth out of the pupil's mind through question and answer (Q&A) or conversation method. The ultimately aim of an exchange of question and answer is to make the person remember all the knowledge that he has forgotten, including his former omniscient self
• Socrates was arrested and condemned to die because of two charges: (a) Impiety, because of not worshipping the gods of the state and introducing new and unfamiliar ways of worshipping, and (b) Corruption of the minds of the young who would flock around him
• Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, and founder of the Academy, now considered as the prototype of the modern university
• Plato's philosophy


  The dichotomy of the Ideal world/ the world of Forms and the Material world is the important fragment of his philosophy. The world of Forms is the permanent and unchanging reality. The Material world is what we see around us and just a replica of the real world found in the world of Forms
• Plato's view of man

  Human beings are composed of two things; a body and a soul. Soul is the true self -the permanent, unchanging Self. The changing body, however: or what we see in the material world is not the real self but only a replica of our true Self
• Plato's philosophy


  Man, in his present earthly existence, is only an imperfect copy of his real original self. The perfect man, a soul or pure mind in the realm of ideas, knew all things by direct intuition, and had all this knowledge stored in his mind. However, because of his banishment into this world of sense, he blurred, or forgot all or most of what he knew
• Plato's solution


  The solution to his present problems caused mostly by ignorance of lack of knowledge, can be found by knowing and constantly recalling his former self and his perfections, and by constant imitation of his ideal exemplar by the practice of virtue. And so once again man can regain his perfection which he lost during his long earthly exile and his imprisonment in the body as punishment for sin through constant recollection (inward contemplation) and imitation (practice of virtue) of his former perfect self
• St. Augustine was born in November 13, 354 CE at Tagaste, Numidia (now Souk-Ahras, Algeria)
• St. Augustine's father was Patricius who was a government official, once a pagan but converted to Christianity. His mother was Monica who was a devout Christian and was canonized by the Roman Catholic as a saint
• St. Augustine lived with a woman who bore him a son named Adeodatus which is in Latin means "the gift of God"
• St. Augustine later on became a priest and bishop of Hippo (northern Africa) and was awarded as Doctor of the Church, the title given to the defenders of the Church
• St. Augustine's view of man

  Man is a great mystery
• St. Augustine's philosophy


  Our world (world of materials) is not our final home but just a temporary home where we are just passing through. Our real world is found in the world where there is permanence and infinity that World is where God is. Only God is fully real -as the unchanging, permanent being and he sees God as the ultimate expression of love
• St. Augustine's view of man

  Man is in fact, created in the image of God. He has an immortal soul whose main pursuit is to have an everlasting life with God
• St. Augustine's philosophy


  It reconciles and brings together to an admirable synthesis and harmony the wisdom of Greek philosophy and the divine truths contained in the scriptures
• St. Augustine's philosophy


  The idea of the Good of Plato is revealed, to Augustine as the living reality, God
• St. Augustine's view of God

  God is love; and since according to Plato, Morality consist in the constant imitation of the divine model, Augustine following his great predecessor and educator, teaches that morality consists in love since it is love that makes us like unto Love (God)
• St. Augustine's view of life

  Life to Augustine is a dialectic movement towards love. Virtue, which is the art of living rightly and well, has been defined by Augustine as 'the order of love'. A virtuous life is a dynamism of the will which is towards love, while a wicked life is a constant turning away from love
• St. Augustine's view of love and justice

  To love God means necessarily to love one's fellowmen and to love one's fellowmen means never to do harm to another or as the golden principle of justice requires, to do unto others as you would others do unto you. Love and justice, the two foundation stones of individual as well as social ethics
• Rene Descartes, a French Philosopher, is considered to be a Father of Modern Philosophy and a brilliant scientist and mathematician