● Review the articles and content within them

● Postmodernism / Modernity
● Aristotle statement: There is only one world.
● Nietzsche = slides
● Don’t worry too much BUT Descartes: goal of reason, trying to find the truth, highlights
reason for knowledge and/or truth, essence of being rational

Sample Essay Response to Explain Bertrand Russell’s text.

1. Introduction (2-3)
a. About the arthur - “characters of the article”
b. Be specific and precise about the title and/or theory
c. Highlights something to help the professor know that you know what you are
talking about and show understanding
2. Explain the article (10 sentences)
a. Development
b. Should show that you know what the article is about
3. Your Own Examples (2 sentences)
a. Application part
4. Conclusion (2 sentences)
a. Provide a connection
i. Compare and contrast
*Conclusion and examples will be subjective

Philosopher Text Theory

Plato Republic ● Theory of Ideas.

- The Cave (Allegory) ○ The soul is rational because
it knows the ideas.
○ The soul belongs to the
World of Ideas.
○ Soul: Religious and
Scientific Experience.
○ The soul is:
■ Immortal
● The union of the soul-body is not
natural for the soul.
○ Body is corruptible and
dies.
● Principle of rational knowledge.
○ Its task is to purify itself and
to get ready for the
contemplation of ideas.
 ● The soul, in its union with the body,
is impure.
● These impurities come from
corporal needs. The soul must be
in control of these needs.

Virtues
● Wisdom
● Courage
● Moderation
● Justice

The Cave
● According to Plato, the prisoners in
the cave . .
○ Acquainted with shadows of
objects cast by a fire they
can't see
○ Don't see each other, but
only each other's shadows
○ Hear only echoes, which
bounce off of the wall they
face
● What will happen to the prisoners
immediately after they leave the
cave, according to Plato?
○ They will be pained and
unable to see the things
whose shadows they'd seen
before
● How does Plato think our situation
is like those of the prisoners in the
cave?
○ Were acquainted with the
visible realm but can
achieve knowledge of the
intelligible realm
● What do the shadows on the cave
wall represent for the prisoners?
○ Physical objects and reality
● What do the objects outside the
cave represent?
○ Forms/reality
● When someone enlightened
returns to the cave, Plato says
he/she will be:
○ Laughed at since she/he
could not see
● Plato: in the world of knowledge the
idea of good appears last of all.
 *In the allegory, the soul is going to the
intellectual word or world of ideas.

Socrates ● Being ignorant is to mistake the

appearance of good for the reality
of it. All evil is caused by
ignorance.
○ A criminal is not guilty,
rather is ignorant.
● Moral Intellectualism: Identify virtue
with knowledge.

Aristotle Equality
● According to Aristotle, fairness is
treating equals equally and
unequals unequally.
● The treat equals equally part
means, for a professional investor
like Madoff, that all his clients get
the same deal: those who invest
equal amounts of money at about
the same time should get an equal
return
● The other side of fairness is the
requirement to treat unequals
unequally.

Theory of Human Nature

● Everything can be explained by its
telos - or purpose.
● What distinguishes man from
animals is the use of reason, so it
is man’s natural purpose to be
rational.
● Acting rationally means acting
virtuously.
● The activity which affords most
opportunities to display one’s virtue
is politics - understood as ordering
society well for all.
● Man is naturally social, political,
and moral.

Harris Sacred Cow (~1960s) Cultural materialism: Marvin Harris

theory; cultural differences are based on
materialistic circumstances
 ● Contextualized with the idea of
how/why we make decisions
● Culture, emotion, and reason
● How culture shapes our decisions
● EXAMPLE: eating grasshoppers in
Mexico, social rules (kissing in
Europe, shaking hands, etc.);
India’s sacred cow

Kant Enlightenment (1784) ● We currently live in an age of

Enlightenment
● Guardians include a book,
physician, pastor (restrict people’s
freedom)
● Rules and formulas are not
beneficial to one’s enlightenment -
“designed for reasonable use...or
rather abuse”
○ Compares immature people
to livestock
○ Members of a machine
should follow the machine's
orders and not act for
themselves
● Motto of Enlightenment: Have
courage to use your own
understanding

Other Important Concepts From Him

● Wanted to understand how our
belief system works in philosophy
● We need to emerge from our
self-imposed immaturity; because
we do not want to think for
ourselves; easier to “hold hands”
and follow others and what they are
doing
● Have the courage to use your own
understanding
● Private v. public use of reason
○ Private: always restricted
(how you can think or
express yourself in a private
setting
■ If you are a priest,
you should not say
“God does not exist”
■ Kant: outside of
church, in the public
 sphere, publish it but
not in the private
setting
○ Public: should be free at all
times; exercise your thought
in a public/general space
● Civil disobedience = Kant would be
against because as a German, you
have to follow the laws but free to
publish what you want about those
laws

Russell The Value of Philosophy ● Contrasts with postmodernism

(1912) ● Contributes to his main argument
that philosophy's main initiative and
objective is to create questions -
thrives on questions. (more
important than answers)
● Think from a societal perspective
● Philosophy aims primarily at
knowledge but becomes a separate
science.
● Uncertainty makes philosophy what
it is, science is certain and has
answers proven.
● Philosophy is able to suggest many
possibilities, and has a value.
● Knowledge = form of union of Self
and not-Self; Philosophy is to be
studied.
● Differences with postmodernism:
○ Start with the "non-Self" and
through contemplation and
understanding, the "Self"'s
boundaries are enlarged
and grow, can become a
union
○ LEC. NOTE: "see as God
might see, without a here
and now, without hopes and
fears...and...desire of
knowledge -- knowledge as
impersonal, as purely
contemplative..."

Nietzsche ● Nietzsche viewed moral codes as

myths, lies, and frauds created to
mask forces operating beneath the
surface to influence thought and
behavior. (“God is dead”)
 ● challenged the foundations of
Christianity and traditional morality
○ Life-affirmation

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER

● Life = the will to power: desire is to
dominate and reshape the world to
fit our own preferences and to
assert our personal strength to the
fullest degree possible.
● Struggle: individuals achieve a
degree of power commensurate
with their abilities. Darwin.
● Equality and Christianity =
mediocrity
● Also against Socrates

MAIN IDEA AND THEORY

“Nietzsche claimed the exemplary human
being must craft his/her own identity
through self-realization and do so without
relying on anything transcending that
life—such as God or a soul.”

Rawls VEIL OF IGNORANCE

● The idea that when you set up
rules for resolving dilemmas, you
don’t get to know beforehand which
side of the rules you will fall on.
● Rawls suggests that you imagine
yourself in an original position
behind a veil of ignorance. Behind
this veil, you know nothing of
yourself and your natural abilities,
or your position in society. You
know nothing of your sex, race,
nationality, or individual tastes.