UTS

• In man's pursuit of knowledge and truth, thinkers for centuries have searched for explanations and reasons for everything that exists around him
• In Athens of Ancient Greece, approximately 600 BCE, marked the birth of Philosophy (literally, 'love of wisdom') as it influenced Western thought and still has until today
• Greek philosophers in Miletus chose to seek natural explanations to events and phenomena around him instead of seeking for supernatural explanations from the gods as what was passed down through the generations
• These philosophers observed changes in the world and wanted to explain these changes by understanding the laws of nature. Their study of change led them to the idea of permanence
• Another group of philosophers shifted their search and focused on man. They sought to understand the nature of human beings, problems of morality and life philosophies
• Socratic method


  Involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a thing
• Socrates: 'I CANNOT TEACH ANYBODY ANYTHING. I CAN ONLY MAKE THEM THINK'
• True self (according to Socrates)


  Not the body but the soul
• Theory of Forms (Plato)


  Forms refers to what are real, they are not objects encountered with the senses but can only be grasped intellectually
• Plato's Forms


  • Ageless and eternal
  • Unchanging and permanent
  • Unmoving and indivisible
• Plato's Dualism


  • Realm of the Shadows (changing, sensible things which are lesser entities and imperfect)
  • Realm of Forms (eternal, permanent and perfect things which are the source of all reality and true knowledge)
• Plato believed that knowledge lies within the person's soul
• Plato's view of the soul

  • Reason (rational, motivation for goodness and truth)
  • Spirited (non-rational, will or drive toward action)
  • Appetites (irrational, desire for bodily pleasures)
• Plato equated ignorance with evil
• Plato's Theory of Being


  To know is to be, the more the person knows, the more he is and the better he becomes
• Plato illustrated his philosophy of the search for knowledge using the 'Allegory of the Cave'
• According to Plato, only the Forms are real, what people see as shadows in the cave are not real
• Plato's Theory of Love and Becoming


  • Love is the force that paves the way for all beings to ascend to higher stages of self-realization and perfection
  • Love is the way of knowing and realizing the truth
  • To love the highest according to Plato is to become the best
• St. Augustine's view on God and man's relationship


  • God's commands and his judgment of what constitutes good and evil
  • Man as sinners who reject/go against a loving God's commands
• St. Augustine's Two Realms


  • God as the source of all reality and truth
  • The sinfulness of man
• St. Augustine's view on love


  • Real happiness can only be found in God
  • All things are worthy of love but they must be loved properly
• Descartes introduced the Cartesian method and invented analytic geometry
• Descartes' System


  The human mind has two powers: Intuition and Deduction
• Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum

  I think, therefore I am
• Descartes' Mind-Body Problem


  The body is like a machine controlled by the will and aided by the mind
• Locke's view on knowledge


  Knowledge results from ideas produced a posteriori (from the senses), contrary to Descartes' innate ideas
• Locke's view on the mind at birth


  A 'tabula rasa' (blank slate)
• Locke's Three Laws


  • Law of Opinion
  • Civil law
  • Divine law
• Hume's Impressions and Ideas


  The mind receives materials from the senses and calls it perceptions: Impressions and Ideas
• Hume was credited for giving empiricism
• Hume's Principles


  • Resemblance
  • Contiguity
  • Cause and Effect
• Hume believed that the self is just a product of imagination
• Kant's view on knowledge


  Knowledge is a result of human understanding applied to sense experience
• Kant's view on God


  The kingdom of God is within man
• Freud's Topography of Mind

  Id, Ego, and Superego
• Freud's Life and Death Instincts

  • Eros (life instinct)
  • Thanatos (death instinct)
• Ryle's view on the mind-body problem


  The mind-body problem is a philosophical nonsense, the mind is not a non-material substance but just the brain
• Ryle's Types of Knowledge


  Knowing-that and Knowing-how
• The Churchlands state that the self is real and is responsible for a man's thoughts, feelings, and behavior
• Merleau-Ponty's view


  • The human body is the primary site of knowing the world
  • Consciousness, the world and the human body are all interconnected as they mutually perceive the world
  • Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor is it purely interpretation