A training guide for your mind, showing how you think in clear, analytic, and powerful ways
Studying philosophy
Changes you as a person
Inspires you to be more thoughtful, open-minded, attuned to complexities and subtleties of life
Makes you more willing to think critically about yourself and life's important issues
Makes you less willing to accept superficial interpretations and simplistic answers
Helps you develop understanding and insight to make intelligent choices and fulfill your potential
Philosophy
Provides the conceptual tools required to craft a life inspiring in its challenges and rich in its fulfillment
Philosophy is not intended to limit your options or dictate your choices
Student's responsibility
Explore, reflect, think critically, and then create yourself in the image you have envisioned
Philosophymeaning of:
The study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that involves answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the world we live in
Self
A unified being, essentially connected to consciousness, awareness and agency (or, at least, with the faculty of rational choice)
Socrates
First martyr of education, knowledge, and philosophy
His philosophy underlies the importance of the notion "knowing oneself"
A person's acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of acquisition of knowledge
Possession of knowledge is a virtue, ignorance is a depravity
Knowing ourselves lies in our own abilities and wisdom
Understanding ourselves is through internal questioning or introspection
Socratic Method
Asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions
Socrates was charged with corruption of minors and died as a martyr that fought against ignorance and narrow-mindedness
Socrates' view on happiness
Men's goal in life is to obtain happiness, which motivates us to act towards or avoid things that could have negative effects in our lives
Plato
Student of Socrates, followed the idea of knowing thyself
Founder of the Academy, a place where learning and sharing of knowledge happens
Wrote literature on politics, human nature, and established the idea of virtue and intelligence
Believed a person who follows truth and wisdom will not be tempted by vices and will always be correct/moral/ethical
Believed in the division of a person's body and soul which forms the person as a whole
3 Parts of the soul (Plato)
Appetitive soul (driven by desire and need to satisfy oneself)
Spirited soul (courageous part, competitive and active)
Rational soul (the drive of our lives, the conscious mind)
St. Augustine
Believed God encompasses us all, and everything will be better if we are with God
Rejected the doubtfulness of the academy in which one cannot or should not accept ideas from others
Emphasized that we may not be able to give our agreement to everything other people tell us, but we can still agree to those who we are from our own perception
Believed that teaching the church and establishing our sense of self with God identifies the essence of our existence and role in the world
Rene Descartes
Father of modern philosophy, used systematic and early scientific method to aid his ideas and assumptions
Believed in modern dualism or the existence of body and mind and its importance to one's existence
Proponent of the "methodical doubt" (continuous process of questioning)
Known for the statement "cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am)
Believed the body and its perceptions cannot fully be trusted or can easily be deceived, so we should focus on the mind to perceive who we are
John Locke
Father of Classical Liberation, his works paved the way to several revolutions to fight the absolute powers of monarchs and rulers
Believed the experiences and perceptions of a person are important in the establishment of who that person can become
Stated that a person is born with knowing nothing and is susceptible to stimulation and accumulation of learning from experiences, failures, references, and observations
David Hume
Focused on empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism
Explained that the Self is the accumulation of different impressions and does not exceed the physical realm
Believed there is no permanent self because impressions of things are based from our experiences where we can create our ideas and knowledge
Immanuel Kant
Established that the collection of impressions and different contents is what it only takes to define a person
Believed the awareness of different emotions, impressions and behavior is only a part of ourselves
Emphasized that a person who fully understands the self has a certain level of consciousness or sense that uses our intuition which synthesizes all the experiences, impressions and perceptions of ourselves
Sigmund Freud
Father of psychoanalysis, believed man has different constructs of personality
Conceptualized the different levels of consciousness (conscious, preconscious, unconscious)
Believed we are a by-product of our experiences in the past and our actions are driven by the idea of resisting or avoiding pain, and are molded from our need for pleasure or being happy
Aspects of personality (Freud)
Id (child aspect, attention on self-gratification)
Superego (conscience, inclination to uphold justice and do what is morally right)
Ego (mediator between id and superego, operates within the boundaries of reality)
Gilbert Ryle
Used behavioristic approach, believed self is the behavior presented by the person
Explained the self is exemplified in his "ghost in the machine" view (man is a complex machine with different functioning parts, and the intelligence, and other characteristic or behavior of man is represented by the ghost in the said machine)
Paul Churchland
Believed the self is defined by the movement of our brain, a constant movement of the brain can be the basis of who the person is
Focused on the philosophy of "eliminative materialism" and understanding the different neural pathways, how they work, and what implications are those movement to people is a measurable classification on one's behavior
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Known for his works on existentialism and phenomenology, coined the idea of phenomenology of perception (unity of the function of the mind and the body)
Regarded that the body and mind are not separate entities but rather those two components is one and the same
Believed the perception guides our action based from our experiences, and the self could be established by the perceptions we have in the world
Thomas Aquinas
Explained that Man is composed of two parts: Matter (the "common stuff that makes up everything in the universe") and Form (the "essence of a substance or thing")
Believed the soul is what animates the body and makes us humans