Guidelines In answering the ff; questions: 1 Write your name and your elass schedule (day and time) on the right side of your yellow paper 2. Be direct. (Use simple words) 3. Each question requires twenty sentences or more in a paragraph form, 4, Only handwritten is allowed, (Be mindful with your handwritten) 5. No late papers will be accepted (due date is on Aug. 29, 2019) 1. Philosophy is described, as the love of wisdom, what does It mean? What motivates philosophers especially during pre-Socratic times, to answer the question on “Who am 1"? 3. Describe the ‘self’ in light of the philosopher's perspectives Describe the Importance of ‘know thyself’ or ‘taking care of oneself’ (Socrates) in the midst of the complicity of life 5. Describe and expound; ‘The soul is the principle of life and movement’ (Plato)THE YOU? What makes you human? And what makes you, YOU? References: 1. Stumpf, Samuel Enoch and Fieser, James, Socrates to Sartre and Beyond, A History of Philosophy (7'" Edition) . Scott Alan Gary, Plato’s Socrates as Educator Human beings have lived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years. We, of course, cannot know all the experiences of thoughts of the earliest people. Still, it is reasonable to suppose that people then, as now, were driven by a desire to explain the world. The story of Western philosophy begins in a series of Greek islands and colonies during the sixth century BCE. Some originals thinkers were driven by very specific puzzles, most notably, “What are thingsreally like?” and How can we explain the process of change in things?” The solutions they gave tothese puzzles were ‘shortlythereafter dubbed “philosophy” ---- The Love of Wisdom The birthplace of Greek Philosophy was the seaport town of Miletus, located across the Aegean Sea from Athens, on Western shore of lonia in Asia Minor. The great Milesian Philosophers were Thales (c.585 BCE), Anaximander (c. 610-c.546 BCE), and Anaximenes (6, century BCE) Although the Greek people were influenced by the teachings of Homer and Hesiod, who teach Greek Traditional Mythology. (This poetic view of the world in which the gods intruded into people’s affairs. In particular, the Homeric gods would punish people for their lack of moderation and especially for their pride or insubordination, which the Greeks called Hubris. On the other hand, Philosophy for the Milesians began as an act of independent thought. Because they were motivated by the so-called basic questions, “What are things really like?” and How can we explain the process of change in things?”* Substantially, the questions depart from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod- this is the starting point of a movement toward a more scientific way of thinking. @ In point of fact, at this stage of history science and philosophy were the same thing, and only after did various specific disciplines separate themselves from the field of philosophy. ¢ The most important thing to keep in mind is the Greek philosophy from the start was an intellectual activity. It was not a matter only of seeing and believing, but of thinking and philosophy meant thinking about basic questions with an attitude of genuine and free inquiry. e Sophists — Intellectuals © The three most outstanding Sophists who emerged in Athens were Protagoras, Gorgias and Thrasymachus (5"" cent. BCE) e The Sophists were primarily practical people, and especially competent in grammar, writing and public discourse They became popular lecturers and were the chief source of new education.© They teach the art of rhetoric or persuasive speech © The power of persuasion was a political necessity in ‘the democratic Athens for anyone who hoped to rise to the level of leadership. ® The Sophist perspective of man: © Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490-c. 420 BCE) contends that “man is the measure of all things, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.” © Meaning: A person is the ultimate standard of all judgements that he/she makes. This means that whatever knowledge | might achieve about anything would be limited to my human capacities. ¢ Knowledge, Protagoras said, is limited toour various perceptions, and these perceptions will differ with each person. e Example: if two people observe the same object, their sensations would be different, because each would occupy a different position in relation to it. To say that a person is the measure of all things is, therefore, to say that our knowledge is measured by what we perceive. If something makes us perceive things differently there is then no standard fortesting whether one person’s perception is right and another person’s is wrong. @ For this reason, it is impossible to discover what is the “true” nature of anything; a thing has as many characteristics as there are peopleperceiving it. There is no way to distinguish between the appearance of a thing and its reality. @ On the theory of knowledge, it would be impossible to attain any absolute scientific knowledge since there are built-in differences in each observer, which lead each of us to see things differently. ® The Sophists, therefore concluded that knowledge is relative to each person. A brief history of Socrates ¢ Socrates’ view of man * Socrates dictum, “Know thyself’ or “taking trouble over oneself” or “taking care of oneself”© Socrates supplies a poignant metaphor for self- -knowledge --- the image of the eyes of the other as a mirror to one’s own soul © Taking care of oneself is said to yield self-knowledge, which implies sound mindedness (sophrosune), and this self-knowledge is said to be achievable through dialogue. In Plato’s symposium, Alcibiades, the young, brilliant nephew of Pericles is on the verge of reaching the age of majority. He will soon assume his rightful position alongside other Athenian citizens in the assembly and begin to advise them about the city’s affairs. ® Socrates says that ‘he knows how great Alcibiades’ ambition is; it is so fantastic that if a god were to place any limits upon his extravagant desires, Alcibiades would surely prefer to die instead of living under such fetters. Bringing to bear upon Alcibiades his now-familiar tactics for fanning the flames of passion, Socrates incites the gifted youth by declaring that he will not be able to fulfill hisaspirations without the help of the philosopher alone. (though always aided by the god) can provide (Alc. | 105e) By the term, ‘dialogue’ Socrates adopts the role of the combative cross-examiner, (question and answer style of philosophizing) the petulant “gadfly” which he claims at Apology 30e to be his divinely appointed vocation in the polis. e The role of the gadfly are the following: 1. Exhorting others to care more for aréte (excellence) than for the other goods (money, pleasure, honor), that is to get their priorities in order; 2. Examining (or putting to the test) those who say they do care; and 3. Exposing any lack of proper care that his examination reveals. e Socrates not only unmasks Alcibiades’ grandiose aspirations, he confronts him with the disheartening news that the future statesman has been poorly trained and is thus inadequately prepared to meet his ultimate rivals in the political arena.Socrates asks, “How, then, is it likely that you should know the just and unjust things, when you are in such uncertainty and have plainly never learned them from anyone nor discovered them yourself?” Socrates concludes with the assertive question, “A human being is different, therefore, from his own body?”. Introducing the notion of the soul to assist Alcibiades in proffering a definition of man, soul, or both together in equal parts. Socrates leads Alcibiades through a roof devised to convince him that SELF itself is coextensive with the soul (130ff). For Socrates, humans are nor equivalent to body. The body is ruled; we are not seeking what is ruled but what rules, therefore, humans are not body. That humans cannot be both body and soul. Human beings cannot be (essentially defined as) both body and soul unless both elements rue equally; they are not co-rulers, therefore, humans can be both body and soul least of all. Since humans are neither body nor equally body and soul, the SELF itself must be defined as soul. 130c1-3e In this way, Socrates translates the injunction “Know thyself” into the requirement to become acquainted with and to work to improve one’s soul e The more remote one’s concerns are from this acquaintance with the soul, the less one knows oneself. e Because sophrosune entails __ self-knowledge, everyone who lacks self-knowledge necessarily lacks sophrosune. (the orderliness of the soul) In the Republic, Socrates celebrates the harmony of a beautiful body and a well-ordered soul, calling it “the most beautiful spectacle for anyone who has eyes to see”. In telling ‘Alcibiades to “strive to be as beautiful as possible”, Socrates is leading the young man to see that his physical properties only serve to render him beautiful insofar as he makes himself beautiful in his whole person. e Just as the eye ‘sees itself” through its reflection in something----- most reciprocally when it fixes its gaze upon the part of another's soul in which its excellence consists, and this is wisdom. In the case of knowledge, one cannot know oneself except, by attending to the part of the psuche that enables one to now. For this is the active, ruling part ,not the irrational part. Therefore, it is by concerning oneself with the most divine part of the human being, the centerof knowing and thinking, that one discovers what is divine in mankind and therewith whatthe human being essentially is. This is how one knowoneself. Without this kind of self- knowledge that has discovered its likeness to the divine, whichis also to say, without justice and sophrosune, it will be impossible to know what part of ourselves are good and what parts are bad. One then can learn about the most excellent part of oneself only through the wisdom of another person, Who are men of wisdom? These are few exemplars of the highest human activity or they are educators in the Socratic sense not only because their task is to serve as a mirror to another's self-understanding but also because such people are must be superior in wisdom and goodness. Four steps can be delineated in Socrates overall argument: 1. Taking trouble over oneself is necessary to attain excellence in oneself.2. Excellence in oneself is necessary before one can take care of the affairs of the city. 3.The principal objective of the political art is to improve the citizens 4. Only by taking trouble over oneself can a ruler impart excellence to those ruled. A brief history of Plato e In the Republic, Plato describes the soul as having three parts, which; he calls reason, spirit, and appetite. e First, there is an awareness of a goal or a value, and this the act of reason. Second, there is there drive toward action, the spirit -which is neutral at first but responds to the direction of reason. Third, is the desire for things of the body, the appetites. * The soul is the principle of life and movement.* The body is an inanimate, and therefore, when it acts or moves, it must be moved by the principle of life, the soul. ¢ It is the function of the rational part of the soul to seek the true goal of the human life, and it this through evaluating things according to their true nature, © The passions or appetites might lead us into a world of fantasy and deceive us into believing that certain kinds of pleasures will bring us happiness. e Plato argued, as Socrates had before him, that moral evil is the result of ignorance. e There can be order between the charioteer and the horses only if the charioteer is in control. Similarly, our human souls can achieve order and peace only id our rational part is in control of our spirit and appetites.. A brief history of Aristotle For Aristotle, the human soul combines in itself all the lower forms of soul---- the vegetative, nutritive, and sensitive-- and has in addition to these the rational soul. The rational soul has the capacity of scientific though. Our reason is capable of distinguishing between different kinds of things, which is the capacity of analysis, and it also understands the relationships of things to each other. Aristotle contends the soul is the definitive form of the body. Without the body, the soul could neither benor exercise its functions. Aristotle says that the body and soul together form one substance. This is in sharp contrast to Plato’s explanation of the body as the prison house of the soul. Because he separated soul and body, Plato could speak of the preexistence of the soul. He could also describe knowledge or learning as the process of recollection of what the soul knew in its previous state. Plato could speak also of the immortality of the individual soul. Aristotle, on the other hand, tied soul and body so closely together that with thedeath of the body, the soul, its organizing principles, also dies. Aristotle analyzes human nature in order to discover its unique activity, saying, first of all, that our human end ‘is not mere life’, because that plainly is shared even by vegetables, and, Aristotle says, “we want what is particular to (human beings).” Next there is the life of sensation, “but this again manifestly is common to horses, oxen and every animal.” There remains then “an active life of the element that has a rational principle. He contends further that, “if the function of people is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle... then the human good turns out to be the activity of soul in accordance with virtue. ° e Since a person’s function as a human being means the proper functioning of the soul, Aristotle sought to escribe the nature of the soul. The human soul is the form of the of the human body. As such, the soul refers to the person, « Aristotle, said that the soul has two parts, the irrational and the rational. The irrational part is composed of two subparts. First, as with plants thereis vegetative component that gives us the capacity to take in nutrition and sustain our biological lives. There is an appetitive component that gives us the capacity to experience desires, which in turn prompts us to move around to fulfill desires. Both of these irrational parts of soul tend to oppose and resist the rational part. The conflict between the rational part and irrational elements in human beings is what raises the problems and subject matter of morality. Human nature (the self) consists for Aristotle not simply in rationality but in the full range covered by the vegetative, appetitive and the rational souls. Virtue does not imply the negation or rejection of any of these natural capacities. The moral person employs all of his/her capacities, physical and mental. Corresponding to these two broad divisions in human nature are the two functions of reason, the moral and the intellectual, and each has its own virtues. Moral virtues, the habits that help us follow the idle ground in response to the desires of our appetitive nature.e The intellectual virtue focus on our intellectual rather than bodily nature, chief among these is philosophical wisdom (Sophia) which — includes scientific knowledge. Three steps can be delineated in Aristotle overall argument: 1. The ultimate end of human action is happiness. 2.Happiness consists in acting in accordance with reason 3.Acting according to reason Is the distinguishing feature of all the traditional virtues. A brief history of Epicurus e Epicurus was a practical philosopher. He thought that ideas should have as much effect upon the control of life as medicine has upon the health of the body. Indeed, he considered philosophy as the medicine of the soul. @ To Epicurus, the chief aim of human life is pleasure. e Epicurus portrayed the origin of all things in a mechanical way and placed humans into the nature of things a just another small mechanism whose nature leads us to seek pleasure.¢ Epicurus contends that pleasure is the standard of goodness. People have an immediate feeling of the difference between pleasure and pain and of the desirability of pleasure. © He writes, “we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again.” Feeling is as immediate a test of goodness or badness as sensation as the test of truth. ® To our senses pain is always bad and pleasure always good, just as seeing tells us whether something is in front of us or not. ein order to guide people to the happiest life, Epicurus emphasized the distinction between various kinds of pleasures. It is clear that some desires are both natural and necessary, as in the case of sexual pleasure. Still others are neither natural nor necessary, as for example, any type of Juxury or popularity. e He writes, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean pleasures of profligates and those that consist of sensuality, as is supposed by freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. For it is not continuous drinking and reveling, nor theSatisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy able, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit. ¢ The ultimate pleasure human nature seeks is repose, by which Epicurus means the absence of bodily pain and the gentle relaxation of the mind. This sense of repose can be most successfully achieved by scaling down our desires, overcoming useless fears, and, above all, turning to the pleasures of the mind, which have the highest degree of permanence. A brief history of Stoicism e The Stoics maintain that happiness through wisdom, a wisdom by which to control what lay within human ability and to accept with dignified resignation what had to be. © They further claim, “Do not demand that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well,” because we cannot control all events, but we can control our attitude what happens. It useless to fearfuture events, for they will happen in any case. But it is possible by an act of will to control nothing our fear. We should not, therefore, fear events-in a real sense we have ‘nothing to fear but fear itself.” The stoics are famous for the saying that people contain a spark of the divine within them. By this expression they meant that, in real sense, a person contains part of the substance of God. God is the soul of the world, so also a person is a material being who is permeated by this very same fiery substance. However, a persistent problem in Stoic philosophy is the problem of freedom because as we observe that the Stoic notion of nature is fixed and ordered by God's reason. It may be true that actors do not choose their roles. But what is the difference between choosing your role in the drama, on the other hand, or choosing your attitude on the other? It could very well be that god not only chose you to be a poor person, but also cast you as a particularly disgruntled poor person. Question: Do attitudes float around freely and wait to be chosen by the passing parade of people, or are they a much a part of person as eye color?e The Stoics stuck doggedly to thelr notion that attitudes are under the control of a person’s choice, and that by an act of will we can decide how we shall react to events. But they never provided a satisfactory explanation for the fact that providence rues everything while at the same time providence does not rule our attitudes. Happiness is not a product of choice; it is rather a quality of existence, which follows from agreeing to what has to be. Freedom, therefore, is not the power to alter our destiny but rather the absence of emotional disturbance. A brief history of Rene Descartes « Descartes used the method of doubt in order to find an absolutely certain starting point for building up our knowledge. Having set out in his Rules that we should never accept anything about which we can entertain any doubt, Decartes tries to doubt everything. He says, because | wished to give myself entirely to the search after truth, | thought it was necessary for me to reject as absolutely falseeverything concerning which | could imagine the least ground of doubt. ® Descartes said, nothing more is proved by this truth, “1 think, therefore | am,” than the existence of my thinking self. My doubts still remain about the existence of my own body and about anything else that is other than my thinking. ° To say “I think therefore | am” is to affirm my existence; but what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, affirms, denies, willsrefuse and which also imagines and feels.” ¢ What is there about the proposition, | think, therefore | am?” /i came to the conclusion that | might assume as a general rule that the things which we conceive very clearly and distinctly are all true. @ In this context, clear means “that which is present and apparent to an attentive mind,” in the same way that objects are clear to our eyes. Distinctnessrefers to “that which is so precise and different from all other objects that it contains within itself nothing but what is clear.¢ The whole drift of Descartes’ thought is in the direction of dualism — the notion that there two different kinds of substances in the nature. ¢ We know substance by its attribute, and since we clearly and distinctly know two quite different attributes namely, thought and extension, there must be two different substances, the spiritual and the corporeal or mind and body. ¢ Descartes tried to give the human body a mechanical explanation and at the same time preserve the possibility of the soul’s influence upon human behavior through the activity of the will, Humans therefore unlike animals, are capable of several kinds of activities. We can engage in pure thought, our minds can beinfluenced by physical sensations and perceptions, our bodies can be directed by our minds, and our bodies are moved by purely mechanical forces,