Socrates of Athens (470–399 BC): Socrates is customarily regarded as the father of political philosophy and ethics, and a main contributor to the teaching profession and to Western philosophy in general. He never wrote anything. What we know about him is through his student, Plato.
The Socratic Method is a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key concepts. The practice involves asking a series of questions surrounding a central issue. Generally, this involves the defense of one point of view against another and its oppositional. The method of Socrates is a search for the underlying hypotheses, assumptions, or axioms ( propositions that are not proved), which may subconsciously shape one's opinion, and to make them the subject of scrutiny, to determine their consistency with other beliefs. Socrates said that "wisdom is determined by the awareness of one’s own ignorance". Socrates believed that "wrongdoing is a consequence of ignorance".
Socrates said that the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development and promotion of good / to improve human quality of life rather than the pursuit of material wealth. Socrates stressed that "virtue is the most valuable of all possessions”; the ideal life should be spent in search of the Good. Being virtuous is its own reward; doing wrong is its own punishment. There is nothing worse than a bad person. He tried to define "virtue" but concluded that there is some component, only in some people (human nature), that generates / leads to virtue; that virtue can't be acquired just by experiencing it or be learned, that certain background has also to be present.  Socrates identified three categories of "good things":
1-Intrinsically good (health, knowledge, justice), 2-Good because of its consequences (pleasures), 3-Disagreeable good, but necessary (money). He also stated that "an unexamined life is not worth living", emphasizing "know thyself". And he thought that this was not an easy task, because "behind every experience, there is room for an interpretation of the meaning of that experience." He constantly asked himself  "What kind of person am I essentially? How should we live our lives? A life of satisfaction and gratification? What makes a man good? Most people live "good lives" and behave well because of  "fear of punishment and expectation of rewards".
He was once declared the wisest man in the world by the Oracle of Delphi. He was a real celebrity, but intensely disliked by the authorities.
Socrates openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during his adult life. It was not only Athenian democracy that Socrates objected, he did not believed in any form of government that did not conform to his ideal of a perfect republic led by philosophers. During the last years of Socrates' life, Athens was in continual flux due to political upheaval. Democracy was overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants. In addition to this, he favored Sparta (Athens’ enemy). These political issues led to his  trial and execution. He could have avoided the trial by abandoning philosophy and going home to mind his own business. After his conviction, he could have avoided the death penalty by escaping with the help of his friends. But he decided to stay and die, drinking hemlock, accompanied by his friend and disciples. He wanted to be consistent with his teachings: he said that the rule of law is a public expression of human rationality.

Plato of Athens (428–347 BC): Plato is one of the three great philosophers and also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the western world. Plato was a student of Socrates and was deeply influenced by his teacher's unjust death. "Platonism" is a term coined by scholars to refer to the intellectual consequences of denying the reality of the material world. He believed that there are four types of knowledge: 1-Facts of daily life, 2-Knowledge from imagination, dreams, and the unconscious, 3-Mathematical knowledge, and 4-Philosophical knowledge or Truth (Awareness of absolute / universal truths). The first kind can be known by experience / observation of reality, which is in a constant flux. The first two types are "mere opinions". Only the soul has the fourth type of knowledge and it has it as "prior knowledge" thanks to reincarnation. After the death of the body and before reincarnating in a new body, the soul gets in contact with the Truth. He said that humans are "prisoners of their senses".
Plato's Theory of Forms indicates that the sensory world / the reality which humans experience, is only a shadow of a higher realm. In this higher realm, is where the Forms or Ideas exist. The luminous brightness of the sun is only a corporeal display of the Form of Brightness. His “Forms” are seeing as ideas / images generated / created by God for the humans to see.  He argues that belief is to be distinguished from knowledge. Plato associates knowledge with the "apprehension of unchanging Forms" and their relationships to one another, which he calls "expertise". He said that what one learns experientially will only be mere opinions. And opinions are characterized by a lack of necessity and stability. On the other hand, if one derives his account of something by way of the non-sensible forms, because these forms are unchanging, so too is the account derived from them. It is only in this sense that Plato uses the term "knowledge." Plato’s most famous political doctrines are contained in The Republic. Here he says that the ideal state should be divided in three classes: Philosophers (ruling class), Warriors (protect the state), and Producers (serve the state w/ goods and services).

Plato's Cave: Prisoners have been chained in a cave all their lives, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a road, along which different people and animals walk. The prisoners only see  the shadows cast on the wall of the cave. The prisoners are unable to see the people, the real objects, that pass behind them. What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see. Such prisoners  mistook appearance for reality. They would think the things they see on the wall (the shadows) were real; they would know nothing of the real causes of the shadows. One day, a prisoner escaped and climbed to the real world, but he was dazzled by the light, he could not understand. In time, he learned the truth and decided to go back and tell his friends in the cave. They believed the visitor was crazy and should be killed, because he was a threat and was trying to alter their lives with a lie.
Message: The majority of people live with a veil over their eyes, with only a distorted vision of reality, which they will not understand even if they could see it.

See Video on Plato's Allegory of the Cave in YouTube: Click on link =>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69F7GhASOdM
An allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures or actions.
What do Plato's Cave and the films  Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), and The Island (2005) have in common?

Aristotle of Stageira in the region of Chalcidice (Macedonia) (384 BC–322 BC): The third of the great Greek philosophers, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.  Aristotle liked to walk, follow by his students (the Peripatetics = to walk) while he philosophized. The Organon is the name of the collection of his works on logic: Categories, Prior Analytics, De Interpretatione, Posterior Analytics, Sophistical Refutations, and Topics. The Organon was used in the school founded by Aristotle: the Lyceum.
Aristotle defines his philosophy as "the science of the universal essences of what is real". He said that "substance or matter and form or essence" are not separated things, but characteristics embodied in all that we perceive; this fusion is what he call "universal". One can only separate these two elements by reasoning. Human soul and body are an integral part of the person. The soul did not exist after death. His philosophic method implies the knowledge goes from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences. Real knowledge starts with studying the material world. "All men by nature desire to know"; "Humans have the cognitive ability to comprehend universal propositions" "To know something is to know the cause of it" He identified four causes: 1-Everything is made of a particular material (material cause), 2-Everything has a given form (formal cause), 3-Everything was created as a result of a process by someone with something (efficient cause), and 4-Everything was created for a reason / purpose, to achieve some potential (final cause). There was a First Cause that was not caused, which is perfect, infinite and immaterial. God / The Unmoved Mover is the first cause. "Nothing with pattern and design comes about accidentally", but for a reason / cause.
Theory of Potentiality: Everything, people included, tend to change / move toward its potentiality, from imperfection to perfection. Happiness is the ultimate goal of humankind. True happiness can only come from living a virtuous life. Moderation is a major virtue. Intellectual virtues come from teaching / learning; moral virtues come from habit"
Friendship: "Man is by nature a social animal", "Friendship is central to the existence of human relations". There are three types of friendship: 1-Friendship based on sensual pleasure (ephemeral), 2-Friendship based on utility (ephemeral), and 3-Friendship based on virtue (same values / for the friend's sake) (lifetime). A true friend is your spiritual double.
His Logic is based on the Syllogism:  a logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others arguments (the premises) that have to be compared to lead to the conclusion, or in other words putting together two truths to arrive to a third new truth ("All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal". "All soldiers are patriots. No traitor is a patriot. Therefore, traitors are not soldiers").
Government: The three best forms of government are the Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the Constitutional Republic. The worse forms are the Tyranny, Oligarchy, and Democracy (chaotic rule of the masses).
"Comedy helps people to see human absurdity foolishness".
 

Philosophical Questions

What is the origin / reason for wrongdoing? What is the essence / origin of evil?
What is the essence of virtue? Can any person become virtuous? How? Is virtue the most valuable of all possessions?
What is the best way to live our lives? What is wrong with a life full of happiness, satisfaction and gratification?
Do humans only respond to "fear of punishment and expectation of rewards"? How to define what a real good man is?
What are the weaknesses of human nature? Why do we have them?
Can an unjust / bad person achieve happiness and a flourishing life?
Why lust for power, wealth, and sex are so strong in the world?
Why good breeding can produce a worthless offspring or vice versa? Why two siblings who grew up together are so different?
Are we humans and our lives like "a charioteer pulled by both a good and a bad horse" (good / bad instincts / forces)?
Can we control the "impulses of the body" and take the right course of action by reasoning? What is the right course?
Why do we do the thing that we do? Looking for happiness? What is happiness?
Why some people are courageous and some cowards? Why some people are moderate and some extreme? Is it up to them? Can they help it?
Should we die to support our principles / truths or should we bend  in front of  the strong wind? (Socrates vs. Galileo) Is it worth it?
Is there such a thing as an unchanging truth?
Can we -common people- really know what is around us, the reality of our world?
What do Plato's Cave and the films  Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), and The Island (2005) have in common?
Why humans can be manipulated so easily?
Do most people really know themselves? How can you go beyond your public-self to understand your real-self?
Is "lady law" really "blind" and the expression of human rationality?
How can we define a true friend? Do they exist?
Do we all move toward our perfection? Why Yes / No?
 

5-Hellenistic & Roman Philosophy

Vocabulary

Antisthenes of Athens (444-365 BC): Founder of the Cynic school of philosophy. He rejected the social values of his time, often breaking with the social conventions in shocking ways to prove his point. A popular conception of the  "cynics," implies a derogatory disposition to disbelieve in the goodness of human motives. The Cynics were followers of Socrates. They wander around, using sarcasm and trying to reveal the hypocrisies of society. They also supported living a simple and primitive lifestyle. Antisthenes believed in a divine force that governs the universe.

Diogenes of Sinope, "The Cynic" (412-323 BCE): The most famous Cynic, who taught by shocking example that the wise person reduces all wants and avoids all comforts. Details of his life come in the form of anecdotes, especially from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Diogenes was exiled from his native city and moved to Athens, where he is said to have become a disciple of Antisthenes, the former pupil of Socrates. Diogenes became a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens and made a virtue of extreme poverty.

Hipparchia, the Cynic (340-?? BCE): Little is known about Hipparchia, for several reasons. She was a member of the unpopular Cynic school and she was a woman, and as such, not supposed to be involved in what the ancient Greeks perceived as the male pursuit of philosophy. She chose a life void of material possessions and artificial social conventions. According to St. Augustine, Hipparchia and her husband were said to follow this so closely that they consummated their marriage by having sex on a public porch.

Cynicism in Cartoons
Rejection of all conventions; an attitude of tired negativity and a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of other people; a distrust toward ethical and social values, institutions and authorities; pessimism; conspiracy-theory way of thinking.

Epicurus of Samos (341–270 BCE): Founder of Epicureanism, a popular school of thought in Hellenistic Philosophy that spanned about 600 years. For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain a happy, contemplative, moderate, and tranquil life, characterized by the absence of pain and fear, reading, and living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends (one of the important things in life).
He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of the body and the soul and not to be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space. They were unblushing materialists: Everything about life and the mind has to be understood in terms of material processes. He believed that everything we know, we get from the senses.
For him, desires could be divided in three categories:  1-Natural desires that are essential (food & shelter), 2-Natural desires that you can live without (sex), 3-Narcissistic desires (wealth and fame), that should be avoided.
Epicurus was a stay-at-home guy; his followers believed they should remove themselves from daily life. He recommended to "live unnoticed".
He supported gender equality and to eliminate socioeconomic distinctions.

Epicureanism in Cartoons
His ideas have been misinterpreted and altered. Today, Epicureanism is synonymous of shameful hedonism, sensuality, excess, indulgences, pleasure, lust, depravity and gluttony to achieve complete happiness.

Zeno of Citium, Cyprus (333-264 BCE): Hellenistic founder of Stoicism.
Stoicism teaches that wisdom is the greatest virtue, self-control, strength, detachment from distracting emotions and indifference to pleasure or pain allows one to become a clear thinker, level-headed and unbiased. An ascetic life is the ideal. The Stoics believed that the mind is a tabula rasa / blank slate, upon which experiences are imprinted, and then all knowledge is subjective, and so is truth. There is not an Eternal Truth, they said.
The passionate side of human nature is evil and is to be eradicated. Pleasure is not good and pain is not evil; virtue is the only good and vice the only evil. People are either totally good or utterly evil, completely wise or perfectly foolish.
Stoics were advocates of apathy in all fields but politics; some supported suicide under certain conditions. For them the rule of law is the defining mark of our humanity, installing locally what Logos does universally.
They believed in a Divinity that shapes our lives, Logos or Mind, the soul of the Universe. The individual souls all derived from this supreme soul. Everything is material, including God. Nature, the Universe, and God are the same thing => Pantheism: "God is All" and "All is God"; the universe, nature, and God are equivalent (an early form of monotheism).
"Everything happens for the best, and you can usually expect the worse. Doing your best is your own reward."

==> Stoicism was the overarching Philosophy of Rome <==

Chrysippus of Soli (280–207 BCE): Honored as the second founder of Stoicism, he initiated the success of Stoicism as the one of the most influential philosophical movements for centuries in the Greek and Roman world.

Seneca (4 BCE-CE 65): Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero.

Marcus Aurelius, the Wise (121-180 C.E.):  He was the last of the "Five Good Emperors", and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers. His work Meditations, is a quintessential distillation of Stoic thought and practice and  is still revered as a literary monument to a government of service and duty.

Stoicism in Cartoons
Austerity, moderation, self-control, detachment from material things, restrain, control of passions and emotions.

Pyrrho of Elis (360-272 BCE): He is credited as being the first Skeptic philosopher and inspiration for the school known as Pyrrhonism founded by Aenesidemus in the 1st century BC. Pyrrhonian skepticism is the philosophical position that one should avoid the postulation of final truths.

Skepticism refers to any of the following positions:
1-the limitations of knowledge,
2-a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
3-the arbitrariness, relativity, or subjectivity of moral values,
4-a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment.

They believed that we can not know anything about anything. You only know what your perceptions tell you and we can not trust our perceptions. Don't believe what you see or hear; don't have any opinions. There is not such a thing as good or evil. They also believe in doing as little as possible.

Cicero (106-43 BCE): Roman philosopher and senator; mainly a politician in favor of the Republican government in times of civil wars. He witnessed / participated in Julius Caesar assassination, was exiled and finally executed under Mark Anthony orders. Cicero is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. Even when he is linked to the Skeptics, he really was a practitioner of Eclecticism (does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject).

Aenesidemus (1st. century B.C.E.): He revived the principle of epoché or suspended judgment, originally proposed by Pyrrho. His chief work, the Pyrrhoneia, discussed main reasons for skepticism and doubt. The most significant of his reasons for the suspension of judgment were organized into Ten "Tropes", or modes:

The reasons for epoché are given in what are often called the Ten Tropes or ten modes:

• Different animals manifest different modes of perception;
• Similar differences are seen among individual men;
• For the same man, information perceived with the senses is self-contradictory
• Furthermore, it varies from time to time with physical changes
• In addition, this data differs according to local relations
• Objects are known only indirectly through the medium of air, moisture, etc.
• These objects are in a condition of perpetual change in color, temperature, size and motion
• All perceptions are relative and interact one upon another
• Our impressions become less critical through repetition and custom
• All men are brought up with different beliefs, under different laws and social conditions

In other words, he argues that truth varies infinitely under circumstances whose importance to one another cannot be accurately judged by human observers. He therefore rejects any concept of absolute knowledge, since every man has different perceptions, and he arranges this sense-gathered data in methods peculiar to himself. An idea of truth for him thus becomes purely subjective.

Sextus Empiricus (160-210 C.E.): His philosophical work is the most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman Skepticism. He advised that we should suspend judgment about virtually all beliefs, that is, we should neither affirm any belief as true nor deny any belief as false. This view is known as Pyrrhonian skepticism. Sextus did not deny the possibility of knowledge. He advocates simply giving up belief: that is, suspending judgment about whether or not anything is knowable.

Skepticism in Cartoons
An attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity, knowledge is uncertain, continual testing, intellectual caution and suspended judgment, denial.

Neo-Platonism

Plotinus of Alexandria (204-270 C.E.): Follower of the teachings of Plato: the dichotomy of the spirit and the flesh. It is consider a pagan monotheist philosophy / religion. They believed that the One blesses creation with Nous (divine intelligence), human souls are part of this universal soul, God is an unknowable mystery beyond human understanding, and we must have faith. Neo-Platonism was a bridge between philosophy and Christianity.

Philosophical Questions

Should we trust people, in general? Are they / we hypocrites? Should we trust social and political institutions / the government?
How to define pleasure? Should we try to live a pleasant or a simple life? Is searching for pleasure evil?
Should we accept / conform to social conventions or live a spontaneous / natural life?
Is everything in which man is involved subjective? Can knowledge be objective?
How to define good & evil? Are they subjective categories?
Moderation or the sky is the limit?
Should we try to live unnoticed or to show off / attract attention?
Can we trust our senses? Define "mirage" Is that applicable to other situations?
Would it be good to eliminate socioeconomic distinctions? Everyone equal? Gap between rich / poor or Communism?
What is the greatest virtue?
Does everything happens for the best / for a reason? Should we hope for the best and prepare for the worse? Optimism / Realism?
Should we agree that doing our best is our best reward? Should we expect / demand social recognition / material rewards?
Is suicide (assisted or not) an acceptable solution under certain circumstances? Should it be legal?
Is it right or wrong to show / repress our emotions / feelings, to cry, to demonstrate passionate love / happiness in public?
 

6-Medieval Philosophy (500-1500 C.E.)

Between 600 and 1000 C.E.: Family-based traditions of Germanic people replaced Roman laws. Fear and physical insecurity led communities to seek the protection of local strongmen. New rulers of Western Europe didn’t care for urban life; most cities lost population becoming villages; Roman roads fell into disuse and disrepair; the use of coin was replaced by bartering. Self-sufficiency replaced trade. The decline of literacy made room for the growth of German traditions. Manors / Castles and agriculture became the new centers of European life. Farmers gave up their lands in return for protection. Landowners became warriors or created small armies to defend themselves. Fortifications increased until the 1100’s. Medieval society: Nobles, knights, serfs (unfree peasants). Feudalism: Land for military service & loyalty (Vassals).

Medieval Legends & Creatures (Paganism): Arthurian Legends (Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur), Dragons, Unicorns, Ogres, Fairies, Gargoyles, Legend of Beowulf, Legend of Siegfried and the Nibelungs, Legend of Lohengrin, the Knight of the Swan, Legend of Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection, the Quest for the Holy Grail, Tristan and Iseult, Legend of Damayanti, the Song of Roland, the Song of the Cid, Legends of Robin Hood and William Tell, The Stories of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and many more.

During the Middle Ages, the Christian Church consolidated itself as the faith of the Western world, replacing old pagan beliefs. Christianity, like many other religions,  professes a dogma, which is an authoritative doctrine and absolute truth not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. Dogmata or dogmas are about faith, not reason.

The development of Christianity during this period can be divided in three stages:

• Evangelization (1st. century C. E.): Missionary activity; spread from Palestine to the world.
• Patristic Period (2nd.-8th. centuries C. E.): The Church Fathers codified and systematized church dogma, choosing the four "official gospels (chronicles of the life of Jesus) and ignoring / declaring the rest ("Lost Gospels") as heretic.
• Scholastic Period (9th.-16th. centuries): Christian Philosophy evolved from Platonic and Aristotelian principles to Christian faith.

Scholasticism: A method of learning taught by the academics (scholastics, school people) in medieval universities (1100-1500). Scholasticism gets its start with early church fathers like St. Augustine who attempt to use philosophical reason to help explain the doctrine and mysteries of the church. The synthesis of Greek Philosophy and Christian Doctrine is the heart of scholasticism. The main figures of scholasticism were Peter Abelard,  John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and above all, Thomas Aquinas, whose Summa Theologica is an ambitious synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine. Another founder of scholasticism was the 11th century scholar  Anselm of Canterbury.

Medieval Universities

While the Europeans were living isolated in their castles with not interest for science or literature, the Islamic world was flourishing, Muslins lived in metropolitan cities, and Arab scientists were translating and studying Greek papers. This is probably why, during its early stages, scholasticism was deeply influenced by Islamic Philosophy:

1-Avicennism: A school of early Persian Islamic philosophy that began during the Islamic Golden Age. The school was founded by Avicenna (980-1037). He established a distinction between essence (attributes) and existence (being). Form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe. Existence must be due to an agent-cause. Existence is "an accident" that happens to the essence. God is the First Cause. The idea of "essence precedes existence". Tabula rasa: at birth, the human soul contains no thought and has merely an empty potentially for thinking. Knowledge is actualized through education and it is attained through empirical familiarity with objects in this world. But it needs the active human intellect, which he believed to be in a subjectal abstraction, by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility.

Avicenna

2-Averroism: Ideas of Arab philosopher Averroes (1126-1198):

• there are at least  two ways to reach the truth: through philosophy and through religion (they are mutually exclusive) (Double Truth);
• the world is eternal;
• the soul is divided into two parts: one individual, and one divine;
• the individual soul is not eternal;
• all humans at the basic level share one and the same intellect;
• resurrection of the dead is not possible;
• existence precedes essence
• philosophical and religious worlds are separate entities.

Classroom in an early university

The 13th and early 14th centuries are generally seen as the high period of scholasticism. The universities developed in the "cities" of Europe during this period. Rival clerical orders within the church began to battle for political and intellectual control over these centers of educational life. The two main orders were founded in this period: the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The Franciscans were founded by Francis of Assisi in 1209. Their leader defended the theology of Augustine. Bonaventure, one of his followers, supposed that reason can only discover truth when philosophy is illuminated by religious faith. Other important Franciscan writers were Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.

By contrast, the Dominican order, founded by St Dominic in 1215, placed more emphasis on the use of reason and made extensive use of the new Aristotelian sources derived from the East, and Moorish Spain. The great representative of Dominican thinking in this period was Thomas Aquinas, whose artful synthesis of Greek rationalism and Christian doctrine eventually came to define Catholic philosophy. Aquinas placed more emphasis on reason and argumentation.

 
Capuchin Friars                                        Franciscan Monks                                                       Hospitaller Monks-Soldiers

Augustinian Monks                                              Dominican Monks
 

Augustine of Hippo (354-430):

• Born in Algeria, North Africa.
• Living as a pagan intellectual, he took a concubine and converted to Manichaeism
• Led a life of a libertine during his youth
• Struggled with his sensual nature: "God grant me chastity...but not yet."
• Studied Neo-Platonism and converted to Christianity. Later, he became the Bishop of Hippo.
• Transitional figure: Bridge between classical and medieval worlds.
• Tried to "Christianize" Plato: He said that the Forms, Eternal Truths, and The Good, all came from God
• With regard to knowledge, he said that speculation and empiric knowledge need to be supported by divine illumination. There are truths beyond the reach of reason, that can only be grasped intuitively, through the grace of God.
• There is not contradiction between the fact that God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, the existence of evil, and man's free will and responsibility. God created man but decided to give him free will, choose between good and evil (not to interfere). Yet, God is here to guide us and to help if we ask him.
• Evil is not a diabolic force / devil tempting the souls of the sinful, but just the absence of good
• Time is meaningless for God, for whom this not past or future, but eternal present.
• He supported the concept of the original sin. Augustine taught that original sin was transmitted by concupiscence (a strong sexual desire; lust), making humanity a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd). The view that sex was evil was prevalent in Augustine's time.
• Faith, hope, and love are essential virtues for a full development of our humanity.
• Augustine developed a theology of just war: war is acceptable under certain conditions. Firstly, war must occur for a good and just purpose. Secondly, just war must be waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state. Thirdly, love must be a central motive even in the midst of violence
• He developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God distinct from the material City of Man
• He wrote, among many other books, Confessions
  
  
  St. Augustine

 Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109):

• A Benedictine monk, teacher, and Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Faith comes first. Understanding of the world around you is secondary.
• Anselm's Argument to prove the existence of God: if we can conceive of God he must exist.

1. God is something of which nothing greater can be thought.
2. God may exist in the understanding.
3. It is greater to exist in reality and in the understanding than just in understanding.
4. Therefore, God exists in reality. In order to deny the existence of God we most have a conception of what God is. If we have that conception, it proves his existence.


Anselm of Canterbury

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274):

• A priest of the Roman Catholic Church in the Dominican Order from Italy, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism. Father of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology.
• He tried to "Christianize" Aristotle.
• The works for which he is best-known are the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles.
• He rejected the Double Truths of Averroes: Philosophy is based on reason while theology is based on divine revelation and faith, but they are not in opposition and they are not exclusive, but they are in parallel courses. He disagreed with Augustine's role of "Divine Illumination". He considered that mankind does not need divine intervention to think profound thoughts. Aquinas argued that in all finite being (all except God), the essence (its attributes) of a thing is distinct from its existence (act of being).
• He concurred with Aristotle that reality is simultaneously both matter and form: "actuality / what it is" and "potentiality / what it will become".
• Aquinas divided knowledge into two stages:

1. Sensitive: Simple Awareness
2. Intelligent: Grasping the abstract concept:

a. Abstraction
b. Judgment
c. Reasoning

• He postulated five ways to prove the existence of God:

1. Motion is reality; for every motion there is a force to initiate it; God is the Primary Mover.
2. New things come into being all the time. For each thing there is a cause. God is the First Cause.
3. All things depend on / are the result of something else. There is something original that is not contingent of anything else for its existence: God.
4-Nature is inherently perfect. There must be something purely perfectly from which all other things descend: God
5-Order exists everywhere in the universe. There most be an intelligence responsible for this order: God.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante sees the glorified spirit of Aquinas in the Heaven of the Sun with the other great exemplars of religious wisdom. Dante also asserts that Aquinas died by poisoning, on the order of Charles of Anjou. Fifty years after the death of Aquinas, Pope John XXII pronounced Thomas a saint. It was in the First Vatican Council that Thomas was elevated to the preeminent status of "teacher of the church". The Second Vatican Council described Aquinas's system as the "Perennial Philosophy"

See everything about Thomistic Philosophy at: http://www.aquinasonline.com/Questions/

Thomas Aquinas

John Duns Scotus (1265-1308):

• Franciscan monk.
• Notable ideas: Univocity of being (the denial of any real distinction between essence and existence, contradicting Aquinas.), Haecceity (the property supposed to be in each individual thing that makes it an individual; its "thisness"), the formal distinction, a way of distinguishing between different aspects of the same thing, and the dogma of the Immaculate conception of Virgin Mary
• Agreed w/ Aquinas & disagreed w/ Augustine about the no-need for divine illumination.
• Scotus said that "will is more important than intellect"  disagreeing again w/ Aquinas (Thomist-Scotist controversy).
• Forms are to be found in the mind of God, while physical things is how they are perceived by the mind of man.
• He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought.

William of Ockham (1300-1349):

• English Franciscan friar.
• He was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the fourteenth century.
• He said that Platonic Forms and Aristotelian Universals were a lot of non sense. There is a physical reality, both animate and inanimate. Knowledge can only be acquired from the senses and certain logical conclusions: Nominalism (Only physical particulars in space and time are real. It denies the existence of a God outside space and time).
• Occam's razor, the methodological principle that says that "when all things are considered, the simplest explanation is the truest one"
• He died of the Black Plague, but his life was also in danger because of some of his ideas.
• At the time, he supported some heretical views:

  1. The Church is not infallible
  2. A pope should be able to be impeached
  3-Women should be permitted to play a more active role in Church affairs
  4-Rulers a royalty are not there by divine right, and should be replaced if the become tyrants.

Philosophical Questions

Are there absolute truths?
Are faith and reason mutually exclusive?
Did the medieval philosophers succeed synthesizing Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine? Was scholasticism without contradictions?
Assuming that God exists, does he communicates with the human mind? Do you believe in divine illumination (intuition, premonitions)? Why yes / not?
Did monastic orders, as part of the Church, help or hurt philosophy?
Should monks / priests renounce sex? What is wrong with sex? Is it evil?
Do you believe in free will? Do things happen by chance? Why yes / not?
Why God allows bad / evil things to happen to innocent / good people? Define "pure innocence" & "inherited / innate evil"? Do they exist?
Should someone pay for the sins of another? Original Sin?
Define "just war". Does it exist? Give examples.
Can the existence of God be proven? What is faith? Is it good or bad? Do you have faith in anything?
Is there such a thing as a "saint"? The Church says that to become a saint you have to perform miracles. Do you believe in miracles? Why yes / not?
Is will more important than intellect or vice versa? Why?

7-Renaissace, Humanism, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Empiricism & Rationalism

Vocabulary

Clear and distinct criterion	Rene Descartes's criterion of truth, according to which that, and only that, which is perceived as clearly and distinctly as the fact of one's own existence is certain.
Cogito, ergo sum	"I think, therefore I am"; the single indubitable truth on which Descartes's epistemology is based.
Double aspect theory	The idea that whatever exists is both mental and physical; that is, that the mental and physical are just different ways of  looking at the same things.
Dream conjecture	The conjecture, used by Descartes, that all experience may be dream experience.
Dualism	Two-ism; the doctrine that existing things belong to one or another but not both of two distinct categories of things,  usually deemed to be physical and nonphysical or spiritual.
Empiricism	The philosophy that all knowledge originates in sensory experience.
Epistemological detour	The attempt to utilize epistemological inquiry to arrive at metaphysical truths.
Esse est percipi	Latin for "to be is to be perceived," a doctrine that George Berkeley made that basis of his philosophy Only that which is perceived exists; Berkeley held, however, that the minds that do the perceiving also exist.
Evil demon conjecture	The conjecture used by Descartes that states For all I know, an all-powerful "god" or demon has manipulated me so that all I take as true is in fact false.
Extension	A property by which a thing occupies space; according to Descartes, the essential attribute of matter.
Idealism	The doctrine that only what is mental (thought, consciousness, perception) exists and that so-called physical manifestations of things are manifestations of mind or thought.
Materialism	The theory that only physical entities exist, and that so-called mental things are manifestations of an underlying physical reality.
Modified skeptic	A skeptic who does not doubt that at least some things are known but denies or suspends judgment on the possibility of knowledge about some particular subject.
Monad	From the Greek word meaning "unit." Pythagoras used the word to denote the first number of a series, and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz used the word to denote the un-extended, simple, soul-like basic elements of the universe.
Parallelism	The doctrine that there are two parallel and coordinated series of events, one mental and the other physical, and that apparent causal interaction between the mind and the body is to be explained as a manifestation of the correlation between the two series.
Perception	A modern word for what Thomas Hobbes called "sense," the basic mental activity from which all other mental phenomena are derived.
Rationalism	The epistemological theory that reason is either the sole or primary source of knowledge; in practice, most rationalists maintain merely that at least some truths are not known solely on the basis of experience.
Representative realism	The theory that we perceive objects indirectly by means of representations (ideas, perceptions) of them.
Skepticism	The doctrine that true knowledge is uncertain or impossible.
Subjective Idealism	The theory describes a relationship between human experience of the external world, and that world itself, in which objects are nothing more than collections of sense data in those who perceive them. The view that physical objects, properties, and events exist only in the mind. Only the Mind exists.
Tabula rasa	Latin for "blank tablet"; also, John Locke's metaphor for the condition of the mind prior to the imprint of sensory experience.
Thought	According to Descartes, the essential attribute of mind.

Renaissance: A cultural movement that spanned from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence and spreading to the rest of Europe. Among its characteristics there was a resurgence of learning based on classical sources, flourishing of the visual arts, and gradual but widespread educational reform. During this period the New World was discovered, which brought a lot of wealth to the European powers involved and a major increase in trade.

Nicholas Cusa (1401-1464): Roman Catholic cardinal from Germany (Holy Roman Empire), a philosopher, jurist, mathematician, and an astronomer. He challenged the rigidity of Scholasticism and created the paradox that he called "learned ignorance", utilizing Socrates' belief (I only know that I know nothing) and questioning the knowledge of the Middle Ages.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) Mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist born in Toruń, Prussia, Poland. He was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive Heliocentric theory, which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe. He is considered starting point of modern astronomy and one of the beginners of the Scientific Revolution. He published his book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543, just before he died, maybe to avoid facing the wrath of the Church.

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600): Italian priest and philosopher. He was a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe, supporter of the Copernicus ideas which challenged the dogmatic doctrine of the Church. He also wrote extensive works on the art of memory, a loosely-organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. He is considered a martyr for modern scientific ideas, because he was imprisoned by the Church, tortured, and burned at the stake for his beliefs.

Giordano Bruno

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include the invention of the telescope and consequent astronomical observations supporting the discoveries of Copernicus and Bruno. Galileo has been called the "father of modern astronomy," He was called by the Inquisition, was forbidden to teach the heliocentric theory, and later on forced to recant his ideas.

Humanism: An intellectual movement that was a crucial component of the Renaissance. Initially, a humanist was simply a scholar or teacher of Latin literature. By the mid-15th century humanism described a curriculum — the studia humanitatis — comprising grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied via classical authors. Humanists mostly believed that, although God created the universe, it was humans that had developed and industrialized it. The humanists were often opposed to philosophers of the preceding movement of Scholasticism; in a way,  they took some ideas form classic Sophists in the sense that "man is the measure of all things". They believed in the potential and abilities of man, without divine intervention and his right to try to achieve happiness in his lifetime and not just after death, in paradise.

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536): Dutch Renaissance humanist and a Catholic Christian theologian. He satirized and condemned the hypocrisies of his time in his book The Praise of Folly. He was considered the "Prince of the Humanists." Erasmus lived through the Reformation period and he consistently criticized some contemporary popular Christian beliefs. In relation to clerical abuses in the Church, Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Protestant Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road disappointed and even angered many Protestants, such as Martin Luther, as well as conservative Catholics.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet and playwright, but, foremost, he was a Civil Servant of the Florentine Republic, considered one of the main founders of modern political science. He is most famous for his political treatise, The Prince, a work of realist political theory. He rejected the Platonic and Aristotelian notions of the ideal state and also believed that the infusion of the ideas of the Church in politics was impractical. He said that "The end justifies the means..." "...power  and control are the objectives of a prince (politician, ruler), not compassion and justice"..."lying is perfectly acceptable"..."inspiring respect is secondary to instilling fear"..."Patriotism is the premier morality of a prince..."

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535): English lawyer, author, and statesman. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, in which he described the political system in an ideal, imaginary island nation. This system was based on the principle "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one". He became a member of the House of the Commons and a close friend of King Henry VIII, who appointed him as Lord Chancellor (1529–1532).When the King tried to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, the friendship ended. More was a devout Catholic and for the Church divorce was illegal. He was beheaded in 1535 when he refused to sign the Act of Supremacy that declared King Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Erasmus                                                         More                                                                     Machiavelli

Protestant Reformation:
(We will study this more in depth as part of Christianity, in the second semester, in World Religions)

Christian reform movement in Europe which is generally deemed to have begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. As a historical period, the Reformation ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; however, many of the denominations that arose during that period continue to exist and Protestantism constitutes one of the branches of Christianity today. Many people were disturbed by false doctrines and malpractices within the Church, particularly the sale of indulgences. Another major conflict emerged because of the practice of buying and selling church positions (simony) and what was seen at the time as considerable corruption within the Church's hierarchy. This corruption was seen by many at the time as systemic, even reaching the position of the Pope.

Martin Luther (1483-1546): Priest and professor of theology, born in Eisleben, Saxony, Germany (Holy Roman Empire). Luther strongly disputed Church's claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms meeting in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the emperor. Luther emphasized "internal experience" of faith (any Christian could "talk to God" in prayer, without the need of priests) and taught that salvation is a free gift of God and received only by grace through faith in Jesus as redeemer from sin, not from good works. He taught that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and he opposed clerical celibacy.

John Calvin (1509-1564): French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the religious system  called Calvinism. Originally a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530. He published  his seminal work Institutes of the Christian Religion while in exile in Switzerland, in 1536. Like Luther, he talked about the "individual spiritual experience" and reiterated that all you need is in the Scriptures / Bible. He supported the idea of predestination (before the creation God determined the fate of the universe and people throughout all of time and space). Nothing that we do will change our destiny. Calvin suggested that people should live austere, industrious, and frugal lives in his concept of  Protestant Work Ethics, that eventually led to the emergence of Capitalism.
He suggested that society should be organized in a theocracy (government ruled by religious leaders). These leaders will be divided in four categories:

• Pastors: Five men in charge of religious matters

• Teachers: Group in charge of teaching Church doctrine

• Elders: Twelve men in charge of supervising what people do in the city

• Deacons: Group in charge of taking care of the sick, widows, orphans, and the poor.

Luther                                                                                                            Calvin

The Printing Press:

German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg developed it around 1440. Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. The impact of Gutenberg's printing press in Europe was comparable to the development of writing, the invention of the alphabet or the Internet, as far as its effects on society. It made knowledge accessible  for millions. It made possible the reproduction and spread of the ideas and works of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution, and Reformation.

Counterreformation

Period of Catholic revival from the pontificate of Pope Pius IV in 1560 to the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648. It was a comprehensive effort, composed of five major elements: Doctrine, Ecclesiastical or structural reconfiguration, Religious orders (Society of Jesus or Jesuits, founded by Ignatius Loyola), Spiritual movements, and Political dimensions.
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life by returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ. It also included the creation of the Spanish Inquisition, the institutionalization of censorship in the form of the Index Forbidden Books, and the persecution of Protestants in Europe. All this was the result of the Council of Trent (1545-1563, in twenty-five sessions).

Rationalists & British Empiricists

==> The first act of epistemology is the separation of subject and object and to determine whether knowledge is possible or not and how the subject knows about the object <==

Rationalism is an epistemology position supporting that reason is the real source of knowledge. The criteria that the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive. The belief that you can know things without experiencing them.

René Descartes (1596–1650): French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He developed the Cartesian coordinate system and Analytical geometry. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy".

Two elements compose reality (dualism); he called them: Thinking substances (our mind) & Extended substances (our body). Some of our ideas come from sensory experiences (not to be trusted) and other ideas previously existed in our mind (innate ideas). Notions of morality, math, logic, and the idea of God are innate ideas.

He believed that a body without spirit could still function, like a robot.

Knowledge of eternal truths (including mathematics) could be attained by reason alone; the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. Conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. A rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about reality. Nothing which cannot be recognized by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. He tried to find a method of scientific discovery (Discourse on Method):

• Accept nothing as true, except what presents itself w/ an irresistible clarity;

• Divide each problem into as many smaller steps as possible;

• Work on the solution of the smallest problem to the solution of the most complex problem;

• Test the general solution w/ persistence. Reason alone determines knowledge and this can be done independently of the senses.

He had doubts whether he was awake or dreaming (Dream Hypothesis). He suggested the possibility of the existence of an Evil Demon who makes us believe that what we see is the reality (Demon Hypothesis). He tried to prove the existence of God using a type of reasoning similar to Anselm's Argument:

• I am imperfect; if I were my own creator I would be perfect. Therefore, I did not create myself. Who did? God.

• Even when I am not perfect, I have an idea of what perfection is. Where does this idea come? From a perfect being: God.

His famous dictum, cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am).

Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677): Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish origin. His main work, which is an attempt to correct Descartes’ dualism and formulate a materialist and monist epistemology, is entitled Ethics. Answering a question of knowledge, his answer is more ethical than an epistemological. God did not create Nature, Nature is God. This is Pantheism (God is present in all things). He called Him / It the "infinite substance". This substance can change shapes into various forms that he called modes. He denied the existence of the soul after death and supported the idea of predestination. Like Descartes, Spinoza considered that human passions are an obstacle to in the way to achieve inner peace.

Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716): German philosopher and mathematician; he invented infinitesimal calculus and the binary system.  He rejected Cartesian dualism and Spinoza's Pantheism. In Leibniz's view there are infinitely many simple substances, which he called "monads". Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, both inanimate and animate things. Only God has access to all the monads.He restored the idea of God-the-Creator as opposed to Spinoza’s God-as-Nature, transforming man into the creation of God. He is capable of knowing all the systems of the universe. Humans only have access to a piece of the puzzle called reality.
"Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself". Unless there is something in place (soul / reason??) to organize the experiences, they will count as nothing. Knowledge is not just a collection of sensations pulled together.

Leibniz's rules of logic that govern reality are:

• The Principle of Non-contradiction: Contradictions are inherently false (contradictory statements cannot both at the same time be true; if one is true, the other is not; one of the two must be true).

• The Principle of Sufficient Reason: Everything happens for a reason, though it may remain a mystery for you.

• The Principle of Predication: Everything that predicates a thing is part of what that thing is.

• The Principle of the Identity of the Indiscernibles: everything is unique. Nothing is exactly alike.

• The Principle of the Best World: This is the best of all possible worlds.

Descartes                                                              Spinoza                                                               Leibniz

British Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from experience, through the senses.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626): English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, and author. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. He established an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry, the Scientific Method and studied the world as an empirical observer. He developed the conception of Nature as the object of experiment and investigation by the human subject. In order to truly understand this world, we must be aware of certain obstacles or impediments he called Idols. He identified four types of Idols:

• Idols of the Tribe: The sense of self-importance that people have about their role in the world.

• Idols of the Cave: Our tendencies to generalize based on our limited personal experiences.

• Idols of the Marketplace: The imperfections of our language and means of communication.

• Idols of the Theater: The inherent flaws of philosophy.

He exhorted fellow scientists to get rid of their books and dedicate their efforts to empirically explore their environments.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): English philosopher, remembered today for his work on political philosophy.

Hobbes, Bacon’s pupil, continues the evolution of empiricism by a consideration of how the action of matter on the sense organs generates thought in the mind.
His 1651 book Leviathan (a sea monster or Satan) established the foundation of the social contract theory. He did not believe in the Divine Right, but that rulers are chosen by the collective and unconscious masses. He saw society as part of the natural world, which is ruled by laws.
He thought that a society without order would self-destruct. Man's natural state is "savage anarchy". He endorsed a very strict / dictatorial monarchy to control society.
Mankind is rooted in selfishness. Life is about the survival of the selfish; life is nasty, brutish, and short. We should to save mankind from itself.
Altruism is a myth. There are not charitable actions or unselfish acts. Those actions are only to feed the ego.
He said that ours is a mechanistic and materialistic universe. He was probably an atheist.

  
Bacon                                                                         Hobbes

John Locke (1632-1704): English philosopher and physician. The only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori, based upon experience. Locke said that the  human mind is a tabula rasa, a "white paper," on which the experiences derived from sense impressions as a person's life proceeds are written. There are two sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. In both cases, a distinction is made between simple and complex ideas. Sensation is identified as the connecting medium between Nature and consciousness. The objective existence of the material world is not questioned, nor is the validity of the impressions made by Nature upon the senses deemed in any way problematic. The mind is a passive organ of Nature.
He is also one of the most influential Enlightenment thinkers, classical republicans, and contributor to liberal theory and the social contract theory. His  influence is reflected in the American Declaration of Independence (mankind is endowed to certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). The system of Capitalism is an expression of his principles. Different from Hobbes, Locke saw the contract to protect the rights of the individuals, not to repress them.

George Berkeley (1685-1753): Irish philosopher. A different, very extreme form of empiricism in which things only exist as a result of their being perceived. God fills in for humans in doing the perceiving whenever humans are not around to do it (Tree in the forest). The object exists only by virtue of the subject. Anything humans may see in nature is the language or handwriting of God: He put all the perceptions in the human brain. What we perceive is only in our minds. Reality is only a group of ideas! This type of empiricism would later come to be called Subjective Idealism (Subjective idealism is monist, because it states that only the Mind exists (matter is improvable as an independently objective reality external to subjective perceptions). Berkeley proves that if all that is given to consciousness is sensation, then “logically” there is no sense in the concept of knowing of anything beyond sensation. Berkeley rejects the value of knowledge absolutely — science is impossible.

David Hume (1711-1776): Scottish philosopher, economist and historian. He is presented in the histories of philosophy as "The Great Skeptic". All knowledge derives from sense experience. He divided all human knowledge into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact. All of people's ideas are derived from their  sensations. Ideas are therefore the faint copies of sensations. Knowledge is always mediated by our sensations; we never have immediate knowledge.
He maintained that all knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, cannot be conclusively established by reason. He argued that theory cannot be trusted, only experience will tell. “It may look great on the drawing board, but will it work in practice?”
Hume rejected the existence of the individual self: "You do not exist". People are only a "collection of different perceptions".
Hume is the founder of Utilitarianism in Ethics, declaring that the satisfaction of human needs is the sole criterion of morality. Passion must rule reason.

Locke                                                                      Berkeley                                                       Hume

Philosophical Questions

Is it harder or easier to deal with "learned ignorance" than to deal with a "tabula rasa"? Why?
Do we have innate ideas like we have instinctive drives?
Is there such a thing as "the middle road" in philosophy or in politics? Why yes / not? or You have to be with me or against me.
Does the end justify the means? In love like in war anything is valid? Anything in the name of patriotism?
Compare / Contrast: Dying in the name of science (Bruno) vs. Dying in the name of the Church (More) The same?
Predestination or Free Will or both?
Could we say that God is Nature and Nature is God? Why yes / not? How to define God?
Torture to obtain a confession?
What is reason? What is logic? What is common sense? Can we all do it / have it? How is it acquired? Nature or Nurture?
Are there eternal truths?
Are human passions a good thing or a bad thing? An obstacle to achieve inner peace? What is inner peace?
What is man's natural state? "Savage anarchy"? Is mankind rooted in selfishness? Is there real and sincere altruism?
Is life "nasty, brutish, and short"? or A beautiful gift? Is it good living longer? Pros / Cons? How long would be enough?
Assuming that knowledge is possible, is it finite or infinite? How much can we know about the infinite universe? How much is that from the total?
In what way if any are sensations / perceptions different or similar from ideas, beliefs, and feelings? What is the connection, if any, among them? How the last three compare to each other?

8-Enlightenment, German Philosophy, Marxism, Positivism, Utilitarianism, and more.

Vocabulary

Absolute, the	That which is unconditioned and uncaused by anything else; it is frequently thought of as God, a perfect and solitary, self-caused eternal being that is the source or essence of all that exists but that is itself beyond the possibility of conceptualization or definition.
Absolute Idealism	The early-nineteenth-century school of philosophy that maintained that being is the transcendental unfolding or expression of thought or reason.
Absolute Idealists	Fichte, Johann Gottlieb; Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich; Shelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joeseph von.
Act-utilitarianism	A form of utilitarianism (subscribed to by Bentham) in which the rightness of an act is determined by its effect on the general happiness.
Behaviorism	The methodological principle in psychology according to which meaningful psychological inquiry confines itself to psychological phenomenon that can be behaviorally defined; the theory in philosophy that when we talk about a person's mental states, we are referring in fact to the person's disposition to behave in certain ways.
Categorical imperative	Immanuel Kant's formulation of a moral law that holds unconditionally, that is, categorically; in its most common formulation, states that you are to act in such a way that you could desire the principle on which you act to be a universal law.
Conceptualism	The theory that universals are concepts and exist only in the mind.
Copernican revolution in philosophy	A new perspective in epistemology, introduced by Immanuel Kant, according to which the objects of experience must conform in certain respects to our knowledge of them.
Ding-an-sich	German for "thing-in-itself" a thing as it is independent of any consciousness of it.
Idealism	The doctrine that only what is mental (thought, consciousness, perception) exists and that so-called physical manifestations of things are manifestations of mind or thought.
Materialism	The theory that only physical entities exist, and that so-called mental things are manifestations of an underlying physical reality.
Noumena	In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, things as they are in themselves independent of all possible experience of them.
Phenomena	In Kant's philosophy, objects as experiences and hence as organized and unified by the categories of the understanding and the forms of space and time; things as they appear to us or, alternatively, the appearances themselves.
Phenomenalism	The theory that we only know phenomena; in analytic philosophy, the theory that propositions referring to physical objects can, in principle, be expressed in propositions referring only to sense-data.
Realism	The theory that the real world is independent of the mind.
Rule-utilitarianism	A form of utilitarianism (subscribed to by John Stuart Mill) in which the rightness of an act is determined by the impact on the general happiness of the rule or principle the action exemplifies.
Thing-in-itself	English for Ding-an-sich a thing as it is independent of any consciousness of it.

18^th. & 19^th. Centuries: Enlightenment, German Idealism, Utilitarianism, Marxism, Positivism, Evolutionism, and Psychoanalysis

French Enlightenment:

Term used to describe the ideas and events of the eighteenth century (1700’s), in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority.

Among its principles or goals were: more freedom for common people, self-governance, state of law, liberty, individual rights, and the principles of deism. The Enlightenment marks a principled departure from the Middle Ages of religious authority toward an era of rational discourse and personal judgment, republicanism, liberalism, naturalism, scientific method, and modernity.
The Enlightenment led to the American and French Revolutions.

Montesquieu (1689-1755): Social and political thinker and jurist.

Master Work: The Spirit of the Laws.

Main Interest: Political Philosophy.

Main Ideas: Separation of Powers (executive, legislative, and judicial) System of Checks and Balances, Relativism (what is true/good/valid for a person/nation may not be the same for others).

Famous Quotes: “Power ought to serve as a check to power”
                          “There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice”.

Voltaire (1694-1778): Writer, essayist, and philosopher.

Master Work: Candide, ou l'Optimisme

Main Interest: Social Reformer

Main Ideas: Civil liberties, freedom of religion, speech and trade. Virulent anti-Christian. Deist (There is a God, creator of the universe, but He does not interfere in anything).

Famous Quotes: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him”
                          “History is a pack of lies we play on the dead”
                          “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

Rousseau (1712-1778): Philosopher, writer, and composer.

Master Works: Emile: or, On Education and The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right

Main Interests: Political Philosophy and Education

Main Ideas: General Will (inalienable rights of every man), Simplicity of Humanity (primitive people are superior to civilized societies; the more development, the more corruption and vice), Academic Freedom and Spontaneity in Education, Social Contract (Like John Locke, he believed that a government can only be legitimate if it has been sanctioned by the people. It was against the idea of the divine right of monarchs).

Famous Quotes: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.”
                          “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.”

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu  François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)                      Jean Jacques Rousseau

German Idealism:

Philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. German idealism was born of the need to retain a variation of the concept of God after Kant had demonstrated its senselessness.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Philosopher

Master Work: Critique of Pure Reason

Main Interests: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Ethics, Logic.

Main Ideas: Transcendental idealism: There are two worlds: Phenomenal world (what we experience through our senses) & Noumenal world (the reality beyond our senses). The phenomenal world is chaotic. The human mind brings order and structure to this chaos. The mind shapes the world as we perceive it. We have intuitive hints of the nature of the noumenal world. God, universal justice, and immortality are part of that world.
We can never grasp the true nature of reality. There are several types of judgments / knowledge: Analytic (the truth can be determined within itself) and Synthetic (the truth has to be determined by external action). Transcendental or a priori (based upon reason alone, independently of all sensory experience) and Empirical or a posteriori (grounded upon experience and are consequently limited and uncertain in their application to specific cases). All we can know is the mental impressions that the outside world, which may or may not exist independently, creates in our minds; our minds can never perceive that outside world directly: A combination of Rationalism & Empiricism, in which reason plays the main role.
The categorical imperative is the central aspect of his moral philosophy: Morality can be defined as one ultimate commandment of reason, or imperative, from which all duties and obligations derive. A categorical imperative denotes an absolute, unconditional requirement that asserts its authority in all circumstances, both required and justified as an end in itself. "Act only according to that maxim whereby your actions should become a universal law." In Kant's view, a moral act is one that would be right for any person in similar circumstances to those in which the agent finds themselves when they execute it.

Famous Quotes: “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
                           “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play”.
                           “... if I remove the thinking subject, the whole material world must at once vanish because it is nothing but a phenomenal appearance in the sensibility of ourselves as a subject.”

Hegel (1770-1831): Philosopher; the most famous disciple of Kant.

Master Works: Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and Elements of the Philosophy of Right.

Main Interests: All branches of philosophy (he developed a comprehensive system, in an integrated and developmental way, to explain the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy)

Main Ideas: He called reality the Absolute: In its physical state it is nature; in its spiritual form it is the mind. The Absolute is constantly evolving (dialectic). This evolution is caused by a conflict of opposites (Thesis vs. Anti-thesis = Synthesis). The synthesis is a new thesis. Finite things don't determine themselves, because, as "finite" things, their essential character is determined by their boundaries, over against other finite things. Only the Absolute is infinite.
Historical movement (process or progress) is also the result of conflicting opposites. Society consists of a collective consciousness which moves in a distinct direction, directing the actions of its members. Evolution and history are part of an orderly and rational process.
Man’s ability to reason, however limited and finite, makes possible a progression of the Absolute toward self-knowledge.
Art, religion, and philosophy are the activities that humans do best. Christianity is the best religion. One most conform to the dictates of society.

Famous Quotes: “Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights”.
                          “The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom”.

Immanuel Kant                                                    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860): Philosopher, atheist pessimist.

Master Works: The World as Will and Representation

Main Interests: All branches of philosophy.

Main Ideas: Reality is one thing: Will. In Nature, Will is manifest in the survival instincts. The universe is an evolving entity. The world is the physical representation of the Will. Will is random, irrational, and often destructive.
Schopenhauer believed that humans were motivated only by their own basic desires: Will to Live. Will is a metaphysical existence which controls not only the actions of individual, intelligent agents, but ultimately all observable phenomena. His analysis of will led him to the conclusion that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be fulfilled. Then, life is full of misery and pain. Consequently, he favored a lifestyle of negating human desires, similar to the teachings of Buddhism, an ascetic life to neutralize the nasty Will.
A temporary way to escape pain is through aesthetic contemplation. Music presents the will itself, not the way that the will appears to an individual observer.
We are aware of our Will and suffer from that knowledge: the more we know, the more the pain.
Schopenhauer's moral theory proposed that of three primary moral incentives, compassion, malice and egoism. Compassion is the major motivator to moral expression. Malice and egoism are corrupt alternatives. Love is an illusion: Will’s desire to survive via procreation of the species.
He was a proponent of limited government: the state should "leave each man free to work out his own salvation". Schopenhauer shared the view of Thomas Hobbes on the necessity of the state, and of state violence, to check the destructive tendencies innate to our species.
Schopenhauer believed that a person inherited level of intellect through one's mother, and personal character through one's father.

Famous Quotes: “After your death you will be what you were before your birth”
                          “Change alone is eternal, perpetual, and immortal”
                          “Compassion is the basis of morality”
                          “It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain”
                          “Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world”

Nietzsche (1844-1900): Controversial Philosopher and classical philologist fond for the use of metaphors (ask us to picture one thing as being the other = “the world's a stage”) and aphorisms (original thoughts in a laconic and easily memorable form = "Life is short”). He was a pessimist atheist and nihilist (the idea that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented). Nietzsche did not develop his thought into a system, but as a group of not related / connected ideas. Nietzsche was no Nazi; he vigorously opposed German nationalism, as he rejected all mass movements, but his sister was a Nazi supporter. He became insane in 1889 and lived his remaining years in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900. Some biographers speculate that syphilis may has caused his eventual madness.

Main Works: Human, All Too Human, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil.

Main Interests: Morality, Religion, Epistemology, Psychology, Ontology, and Social Criticism

Main Ideas: Life is an eternal recurrence: Time is infinite and cyclical. The universe has been recurring and will continue to recur in a similar form for an infinite number of times: The eternal return of all events. For people, this does not involve reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies
Repudiation of Christianity & the Revaluation of all Values: Christianity is not merely a religion but the predominant moral system of the western world. It inverts nature and is hostile to life because it elevates the weak over the strong, it limits and lowers humankind potential, it is full of revengefulness (the Last Judgment), and it is indicative of an "obtuseness to the question of truth". Sex is, in Nietzsche's thought, a very fundamental affirmation of life, and Christianity recommends chastity, which is against the natural instincts of humanity. God is dead (Religion is no longer a viable source of wisdom).
Apollonian and Dionysian impulses (dichotomy / struggle between the principles of society versus individualism, light versus darkness, or civilization versus primal nature). Dionysian debauchery would be beneficial for all.
Will to power or Superman: The main driving forces for man should be achievement, ambition, independent thinking, and striving to reach the highest possible position: reach for the sky; get rid of any obstacle at any price. Real life occurs in a realm beyond good and evil. The Superman should reject humility, inhibition and passivity. Nietzsche referred to the common people as the rabble or the herd. He valued individualism above all else => Bullies are the good guys. Compassion and protection of the weak are wrong.
Epistemological Perspectivism: All ideas take place from particular perspectives. There are many possible paradigms (philosophical or theoretical frameworks) which determines that any possible judgment of truth or value that we may make is not to be trusted = no way of seeing the world can be taken as definitively "true".
Master-slave morality: 1-Master morality is the morality of the strong-willed. What is good is what is helpful; what is bad is what is harmful. For strong-willed men, the 'good' is strong and powerful, while the 'bad' is the weak, cowardly, timid and petty. 2- Slave morality is a reaction to oppression, it villainizes its oppressors. It is characterized by pessimism and skepticism. The essence of slave morality is utility: the good is what is most useful for the whole community, not the strong.
About Women: Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love...Women are not capable of friendship; they are cats and birds. Or at best cows... Everything about woman has one solution: pregnancy; Women, one-half of mankind,, are weak, typically sick, changeable, inconstant...

Famous Quotes: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”; “Faith: not wanting to know what is true” “After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands” “In heaven, all the interesting people are missing”.
                           “That which does not kill us, makes you stronger.”
                           “All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”
                           “Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies”
                           “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”
                           “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more”
                           “Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul” “Fear is the mother of morality” “He that humbles himself wishes to be exalted” “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man”
                           “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule”
                           “Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes” “Love is not consolation. It is light”

Arthur Schopenhauer                                                  Friedrich Nietzsche

Utilitarianism

Philosophical movement that supports the idea that the moral worth of an action is based on its utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure. It is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. Utilitarianism is described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number of people".

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832): English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer.

Main Works: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Main Interests: He is best known for his utilitarianism, for the concept of animal rights, the development of welfarism, the idea of separation of church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, end of slavery, abolition of physical punishment for children, right to divorce, and decriminalization of homosexual acts. He also made two distinct attempts during his life to critique the death penalty.
He is probably best known in popular society as the originator of the concept of the panopticon (a type of prison where the guards / warden. can observe all the prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched).

Main Ideas: What the majority perceives as pleasure and comfort should be the desired status quo. Public policy and laws should serve the greater good. Punishment to criminals should be severe enough to be a deterrent. He recommended the “greater amount of happiness for the greatest number of people”. The more happiness an act provides, the more moral it is”: Happiness = Morality. 
The Felicific Calculus (an algorithm formulated to calculate the degree of pleasure that a specific action is likely to cause):

• Intensity: How powerful is the pleasure?
• Duration: How long lasting is the pleasure?
• Certainty: How guaranteed is the pleasure?
• Proximity: How close is the pleasure?
• Fecundity: Will this pleasurable activity generate additional pleasure?
• Purity: How pain-free is this pleasure?
• Extent: How many other citizens will experience this pleasure?

Famous Quotes: “All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil”
                           “Every law is an infraction of liberty”
                           “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong”

John Stuart Mill (1808-1873): English philosopher, political theorist, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament.

Main Work: On Liberty
Main Interests: Political philosophy, ethics, economics, and inductive logic.

Main Ideas: The nature / quality of pleasure should be classified in two levels: higher (happiness) & lower (contentment). Mill argues that intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to more physical forms of pleasure. The Harm Principle (each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others).
Despotism is an acceptable form of government for those societies that are "backward". Social Liberty was Mill’s idea about the protection from the tyranny of political rulers, including social tyranny or the tyranny of the majority.  Minimal government interference into personal lives is ideal; the state should intervene only when some people are a danger to others. Free speech is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. Mill supported universal suffrage and extra voting power to university graduates, on the grounds that they were in a better position to judge what would be best for society.
Mill is also famous for being one of the earliest and strongest supporters of women's liberation: strict laws protecting wives from spousal abuse

Famous Quotes: “I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them”
                          “A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction”
                          “A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature”
                          “All good things which exist are the fruits of originality”
                          “Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative”
                          “I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized”

Jeremy Bentham                                             John Stuart Mill

Positivism: Philosophy that holds that the only authentic knowledge is that based on actual sense experience. The concept was first coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857), widely considered the first modern sociologist, in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 20th century, logical positivism sprang up in Vienna and grew to become one of the dominant movements in American and British philosophy.  The positivist view is shared by technocrats who believe in the necessity of progress through scientific progress and by naturalists, who argue that any method for gaining knowledge should be limited to natural, physical, and material approaches. In psychology, a positivistic approach is favored by behaviorism (Ivan Pavlov, 1849-1936, conditioned behaviors & B.F. Skinner, 1904-1990, theory of reinforcement). Comte was also one of the leading thinkers of the social evolutionism school of thought, together with Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who coined the phrase "survival of the fittest".

Darwinism: Charles Darwin (1809-1882) developed the theory according to which all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through the process he called natural selection. His 1859 book On the Origin of Species established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. The term has been manipulated to describe evolutionary concepts, including earlier concepts such as Malthusianism (political/economic thought of Rev. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) who said that unchecked population growth is exponential while the growth of the food supply is arithmetical, leading to a catastrophe) and Spencerism. In the late 19th century it came to mean the concept that natural selection was the mechanism of evolution. Around 1900 it was eclipsed by Mendelism (genetics / hereditary process) until the modern evolutionary synthesis unified Darwin's and Gregor Mendel’s (1822-1884) ideas.

Social Darwinism: The term was derived from Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and applied to social evolution to demonstrate that differences in development among nations or regions are the result of the existence of inferior and superior people. Competition among individuals, groups, nations, drives social evolution in human societies and the outcome of this competition for limited resources leads to the "survival of the fittest". Then, colonialism is a normal / natural result of this process.

 
Charles Darwin                                      Thomas Malthus

Marxism:

This political philosophy is usually divided in three main parts:  Philosophy (Dialectical Materialism), Social history (Historical Materialism) and Marxist Economics. Marx and Engels never wrote a comprehensive work on dialectical materialism, but separated papers / books to which Lenin, later on, added more ideas / books. Here, we will only address the philosophical component: Dialectical Materialism.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

Vladimir I. Lenin (1870-1924)

Main Works  (Marx & Engels): The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto.
                                    (Marx): Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Theses on Feuerbach ,  Das Kapital (edited by Engels), and  Critique of the Gotha Programme.
                                   (Engels): Anti-Dühring.
                                    (Lenin): Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Three Sources & Three Component parts of Marxism, and Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic

Main Interest: Political and Social Philosophy: destruction of Capitalism, victory and spread of Communism. Philosophical dialectical materialism.

Dialectic Materialism 

Its sources were the philosophical ideas of Ludwig Feuerbach (materialism) and Hegel (dialectic).

Main Ideas: Philosophical materialism explains that there is only one material world. There is no Heaven or Hell. The universe, which has always existed and is not the creation of any supernatural being, is in the process of constant flux. The material world is not only developing, but also a connected integral whole. Everything is connected to everything and interacting with everything. The universe is the vast unity of everything that is, everywhere it shows us only matter in movement. Motion is the mode of existence of matter.  Everything is moving, changing, either rising and developing or declining and dying away. Any equilibrium is only relative, and only has meaning in relation to other forms of motion.
Human beings are a part of nature and evolved from lower forms of life.  With humans emerged human thought and consciousness. The human brain alone is capable of producing general ideas / thinking. Therefore matter, which existed eternally, existed and still exists independently of the mind and human beings. Things existed long before any awareness of them arose or could have arisen on the part of living organisms. For materialists there is no consciousness apart from the living brain, which is part of a material body. A mind without a body is an absurdity. Ideas are simply a reflection of the independent material world that surrounds us.
Knowledge is an active reflection of the objective world, which is the only source of knowledge. The process of cognition is based on practice. Practice is both the point of origin, the basis of the process of knowledge, and the criterion of truth or correctness of knowledge. Practice is the action of people transforming nature and society. All ideas are taken from experience, are reflections - true or distorted - of reality. Cognition happens / goes from living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice. Theory without practice is pointless, practice without theory is blind.

Laws of Dialectical Materialism:

The Law of Passage of Quantitative into Qualitative Changes: Dialectics comprehends things in their connection, development, and motion. Change or evolution does not take place gradually in a straight smooth line: slow and cumulative quantitative changes lead to sudden qualitative changes by breaks in continuity, leaps, catastrophes and revolutions.

The Law of the Unity and Conflict of Opposites: The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites, like in a magnet        (+ / -): cold-heat, light-darkness, birth-death, riches-poverty, association-dissociation of atoms, excitation-inhibition, concentration-irradiation, induction-deduction, analysis-synthesis, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above-below, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on. The fact that two poles of a contradictory antithesis can manage to coexist as a whole is regarded in popular wisdom as a paradox. The contradiction is the source of all movement and life. Contradiction is the motive force of development. The opposites are mutually exclusive but at the same time presuppose each other. The contradictory character of the opposites causes a struggle between them, which causes development, motion. Equilibrium is only temporary. There are internal & external contradictions; the internal are the decisive ones in development.

The Law of the Negation of the Negation:  This law reveals the direction or tendency of development. It shows how the old is replaced by the new, but the new does not completely replace the old but retains the best of it. This process is at the same time a change (negation) and continuity or connection between the old and new, the past and present. At the same time, anything new will eventually become old and will be replaced (Negation of the Negation). This process happens continuously, ad infinitum. Development is not one of a straight line upward but a spiral-like process, where the movement comes back to the position it started, but at a higher level.

Categories of Dialectical Materialism:

Individual & Universal: Every object and person possesses a number of particular / distinct, intrinsic features; they are the individual or particular. Anything particular or individual, however, does not exist by itself; it is connected with other objects and phenomena. The universal is that which is present in many individual / particular objects, their general features. The individual and the universal coexist in a dialectical unity: each individual is connected with the universal, the individual contains the universal, and the universal exists only in the particular.

Content & Form: Content is the sum-total of elements and processes constituting a given object or phenomenon. Form is the structure / organization of the content; it is not something external, but inherent in it. The unity of the two is inseparable. There is not content in general like there is no pure form without content. Content is very active while form are more stable. Content is constantly changing and in time it will cause the form to change. When an old form becomes obsolete for its content, it will be replaced. The content determines the form. On the other hand, the diversity of forms makes content richer.

Essence & Phenomenon: Essence is the chief, internal, and stable component / element / process of an object. Essence determines the nature of the object. Phenomenon is the outward, direct expression of essence, the form in which it is manifested. Essence appears phenomenally, phenomenon is essential. Essence is revealed in each phenomenon, even if we can see it or not. Phenomenon does not exhaust essence. Essence is not seen on the surface; it could be disclosed only as a result of a comprehensive study.

Cause & Effect: A phenomenon which precedes and gives rise to another phenomenon is a cause. The phenomenon produced by the action of the cause in the effect. Causality is a general and universal law inherent to reality. Everything has a cause! Cause & effect are inseparably connected. A cause leads to an effect which becomes the cause of another effect, and so on. (C => E =C => E=C => E)

Necessity and Chance: Necessity is a phenomenon or event that under definite conditions must take place. Necessity is stable and comes from the essence and internal nature of the phenomenon. In contrast, chance does not need to happen. In the given conditions, it might occur or not and it might proceed in one way or another. Chance is unstable and temporary. But chance is not without a cause. Necessity and chance can become into one another in case that the conditions change. Necessity is in the main direction, the trend of the phenomenon, but it is surrounded by many possible chances.

Possibility & Reality: Every necessity starts as a chance, as a possibility that becomes a reality. Possibility is the group of prerequisites and factors that mature and develop for a phenomenon to arise or happen. Reality is the achieved or realized possibility. Possibilities are in constant motion: some grow while others diminish. There are abstract / formal (unlikely to happen under certain circumstances) and real possibilities.

Famous Quotes:
Marx: “Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state”
           “Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity”
           “Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand”. “Religion is the opium of the masses”.
           “Revolutions are the locomotives of history”
           “Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand”
           “The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
           “The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite”

Lenin: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”
           “Crime is a product of social excess”
           “There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience”
           “When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state”

Karl Marx                                                          Friedrich Engels                                                Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)

 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): Austrian psychologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is known for his theories of: the unconscious mind, the structure of the psychic apparatus: Id, ego, and super-ego, the defense mechanism of repression, the theory that sexual desire is the primary motivational energy of human life, the use of free association, his theory of transference (unconscious redirection of feelings for one person to another) in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires (Freudianism).

Freud

Philosophical Questions

Is everything relative or are there some absolute things /concepts / values?
Assuming there is a God, is He involve in human activities or He does not interfere?
Why did Voltaire say that "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him? Do you agree or not? Why?
"History is packed of lies..." Why? Explain
Are simple / primitive people better (in any way) than "civilized people? Does civilization bring corruption and vice?
Does History have a direction? Is History a cycle? Define progress. Do new technologies equal progress?
Should we conform to social rules?
Are humans only motivated by their basic desires?
"The more we know, the more we suffer? Do you agree / disagree? Why?
Is compassion against natural laws (survival)? Does it slow down the strong?
Should the strong / smart reach for the sky at any cost, getting rid of any obstacles in his way?
Is God dead / Does religion have become an obstacle? Does religion is intrinsically bad?
Is physical punishment necessary some times? Is the death penalty right or wrong?
Should laws be based on the "greater good"? Why? What about the needs / rights of the few / minority?
What type of pleasure is better: physical or intellectual?
Should university graduates / better informed people have extra voting power or certain political privileges? Why?
Is happiness based on the satisfaction of our desires?
Should the theory of "survival of the fittest" be applied to society / people?
Will the theory of Malthus eventually become true?
Matter is eternal, always has existed and always will, say the Marxists. What is the difference between this and God?
Could there be a "special content" present in every form?
If everything has a cause -according to the Marxists- what caused the first cause?
What is wrong with dialectical materialism?
Are revolutions intrinsically bad or are they necessary to bring social change?
Is sexual desire / love the primary motivational energy of human live?
Can we interpreter our dreams?

9-Phenomenology & Existentialism

Vocabulary

Authenticity	A way of understanding the essential nature of the human being by seeing it as a totality.
Bad faith	In the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, essential self-deception or lying to oneself, especially when this takes the form of blaming circumstances for one's fate and not seizing the freedom to realize oneself in action.
Continental philosophy	The philosophical traditions of continental Europe; includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and critical theory.
Existentialism	A tradition of twentieth-century philosophy having its roots in the nineteenth century but coming to flower in Europe after World War II; of central concern is the question of how the individual is to find an authentic existence in this world, in which there is no ultimate reason why things happen one way and not another.
Nihilism	The rejection of values and beliefs.
Phenomena	Things as they appear to us or, alternatively, the appearances themselves.
Phenomenological reduction	A method of putting aside the ordinary attitude toward the world and its objects in order to see the objects of pure consciousness through intuition.
Phenomenology	A tradition of twentieth-century Continental philosophy based on the phenomenological method, which seeks rigorous knowledge not of things-in-themselves but rather of the structures of consciousness and of things as they appear to consciousness.
Transcendental phenomenology	An epistemological method that seeks the certainty of a pure consciousness of objects in the transcendental ego.

Phenomenology

It is a philosophical method developed in the early years of the twentieth century by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and a circle of followers at the universities of Göttingen and Munich in Germany. Phenomenology is primarily concerned with the study of the mind and making the structures of consciousness an object of systematic reflection and analysis. These philosophers believe that the mind can think of things that do not exist. They are not concerned with the material reality or the outside world.

Existentialism: A reaction to social ills. Individualism, freedom, anxiety, absurdity, alienation, atheism, taking responsibility for your actions, pessimism.

Existentialism takes human thinking, behavior, feelings, and his / her conditions of existence as their subject of study.  Existential philosophy begins with a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Existentialist thinkers focus on the question of concrete human existence and the conditions of this existence rather than hypothesizing a human essence. A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the actual life of the individual is what constitutes his or her "essence" instead of there being a predetermined essence. It is often claimed in this context that a person defines himself.
Anxiety or even anguish is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be the price of experiencing freedom and being responsible. Your past is what you are in the sense that it co-constitutes you.
Existentialists insist on the absurdity of the world and the assumption that there exist no relevant or absolutely good or bad values. Concept of the Absurd: There is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. The world is amoral and unfair. There is no such thing as a good person or a bad thing, anything (good or bad) could happen to anyone (what happens happens).
The theme of authentic existence is common to many existentialist thinkers: one has to "find oneself" and then live in accordance with this self. They emphasize action, freedom, and decision as fundamental and reject reason as the source of meaning.

Founder: Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Denmark. He was a literary figure who used irony to make his points. He saw paradox as the constant of his time. He wrote many books under a pseudonym to enable his readers to concentrate on the message instead of on the messenger. He celebrated the individual over the crowd. He thought that in important issues the opinion of the majority is always wrong, that the individual should decide by himself and ignore what society thinks and stand up for his beliefs despite the pressure. Alienation and ostracism, anxiety and fear are the normal results of living this life. Religion if useless. There are the objective and subjective truths. Objective: Something is true whether you know it / believe it or not. Subjective: What is true for you may not be true for someone else. He considered that we can only trust the subjective truths.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976): He was an influential German philosopher, professor and rector of the University of Freiburg. His best known book, Being and Time, is considered to be one of the most important philosophical works of the 20th century. Heidegger remains controversial due to his support to Nazism.

Main Ideas: Try to understand the Being: The question is what is the" being" itself? "Being in Time" means the "human entity". The Being is always changing. We can only be sure about our being, our existence. Hopelessness, despair, sense of a meaningless life, and angst came with the Industrial Revolution, which is turning humans into a race of automatons. "Gestell" means the "essence of technology"; his conclusion regarding the essence of technology was that technology is fundamentally enframing (The essence of technology, in the Heideggerian sense, is the supreme danger because it prevents us from having a proper understanding of our own being). Being has been reduced to "a world of objects". Humans are arrogant and destructive when we call ourselves the masters of nature. We are living in a period (20th. Century) of cultural destitution, social dissolution, and intellectual impoverishment.

Major Works: Being and Time

Famous Quotes: "Language is the house of the truth of Being", "Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man", "Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being", "The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking", "Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?".

Main Figures: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980): France,  Albert Camus (1913-1960): France, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881): Russia, and Franz Kafka (1883-1924): Czech Republic, Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), Spain, Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955): Spain. Literature as a better way to present philosophy!

Albert Camus: Journalist, writer, philosopher, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1957), member of the French Resistance against Nazi occupation of France, and critic of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, agnostic.

Main Works: The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus.

Main Ideas: The world is a silly and ridiculous place and existence is meaningless and absurd (there is no reason for things being the way they are). People seek order in a cold and chaotic world and find only indifference and despair. People are in denial, wasting their lives with stupid optimism. Self-deception has become the norm.  Humans tend to remain strangers to one another; they live solitary existences. Suicide is an option to waste & absurdity, but he rejected it, suggesting rebellion and struggle instead. Man, with his indomitable spirit and ability to survive, can bear any burden. People could find some happiness by accepting the things they can not change. The struggle of Sisyphus: Frustration, the absurd hero, the waste of energy and effort for nothing, the curse of Mankind. Society is of little help, there is no God: you are on your own.

Sisyphus

Jean-Paul Sartre: Novelist, dramatist, philosopher, political polemist. Like Camus, member of the French Resistance. Political Leftist. He was also offered the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he refused to accept it: He felt it would compromise his integrity as a writer. Atheist.

Main Works: Being and Nothingness, No Exit, and Nausea.

Main Ideas: Men should rebel against their impersonal societies, by taking responsibility for their actions. You are totally alone, and on your own. Freedom is both a blessing and a burden (responsibility). Conformity is a refuge for cowards. All is in chaos. To live an authentic life is to struggle to maintain your individuality and dignity in a world of bureaucrats, automatons, and nothingness.   No Exit (A man, a lesbian, and a "dumb blonde" meet in Hell): People are irrational, life is absurd.

Sartre                                                                                                          Camus

Famous Quotes:
Camus: "A guilty conscience needs to confess", "A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world", "Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken", "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?", "Don't believe your friends when they ask you to be honest with them", "Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day", "Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better", "He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool", "Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is", "Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear", "The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth", "The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind", "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide", "To be happy we must not be too concerned with others", "What is a rebel? A man who says no", "You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them".

Sartre: "Existence precedes essence", You are what you make of yourself", "Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does", "Acting is happy agony", "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you", "Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess", "If you are lonely when you are alone, then you are in bad company", "Life begins on the other side of despair", "All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure".

Philosophical Questions

Is there a meaning in life? What is it?
Are we little Sisyphuses wasting our lives for nothing?
Who are you? Are you what you do, the result of your actions? What about ideas or feelings you did not transform into actions?
Is the world / people absurd or there are common sense, fairness, and reason in this world? Why yes / not?
How do the existentialists define freedom and authentic existence?
Can we be totally ourselves all the time or should we pretend sometimes? Do we wear a mask? Why?
Are anxieties, pain, alienation, and ostracism the price to experience freedom?
Are there some absolute and universal values? Give examples.
Can the opinion of the majority be wrong? Why yes / not?
Are religion and faith useless?
What is the trend in our world? Coldness, indifference, chaos, and despair or Warmth, care and concern, order, and joy and hope?
Is society ruled by bureaucrats and automatons? Do leaders really care about common people?
Is conformity a refuge for cowards? Should we obey or rebel?
Is there an exit / a solution for our problems? Is mankind beyond help?
Analyze this: “The need to be always right is the sign of a vulgar mind”
Analyze this: “Acting is happy agony”
Analyze this: "If you are lonely when you are alone, then you are in bad company"

10-American Philosophy & Analytic Philosophy

Vocabulary

American Transcendentalism

It began as a protest against the socio-cultural situation and the state of intellectualism at Harvard university and the doctrine of the Unitarian church. It comprised a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalism became a coherent movement with the founding of the Transcendental Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 1836. Transcendentalism was rooted in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (and of German Idealism) as an alternative to the Lockean "sensualism". The Transcendental group began to publish its flagship journal, The Dial, in July 1840. Among them there were philosophers, writers, psychologists, naturalists, etc.

Main Ideas: An ideal spiritual state is one that 'transcends' the physical and empirical reality and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. Their nature-loving ways bordered on Pantheism. They called nature the macrocosm (God or the Over-Soul) and the human soul the microcosm. Humans mirror nature. They valued instinct over intellect. They were interested in the philosophies of China and India. Many of them live in a commune they called Brook Farm, in Massachusetts. They were strongly individualist. All things are divine and every person has access to the Over-Soul.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): American essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid 1800s, while he was seen as a champion of individualism and prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson declared the literary independence of the United States and urged Americans to create a writing style all their own and free from Europe. Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. His views, the basis of Transcendentalism, suggested that God does not have to reveal the truth but that the truth could be intuitively experienced directly from nature. He supported the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay.

Main Works: Nature, The American Scholar, Representative Men, The Conduct of Life, Society and Solitude.

Famous Quotes: "A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature", "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience", "All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen", "America is another name for opportunity", "Earth laughs in flowers", "Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact", "Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff".

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862): American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He supported the idea of simple living in natural surroundings (he built and lived for two years in a cabin at Walden Pond) and of  of civil disobedience to an unjust government (he influenced many public figures and reformers like Mahatma Gandhi, president John F. Kennedy, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King). Thoreau was an early advocate of recreational hiking and canoeing, of conserving natural resources on private land, and of preserving wilderness as public land. Thoreau was also one of the first American supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution. He was not a strict vegetarian, though he said he preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. He rejected materialism and lived modestly, near poverty, in isolation. He was seen as an eccentric.

Main Works: Reform and the Reformers, Civil Disobedience, Walden, Life Without Principle, and many more.

Famous Quotes: "Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something", "An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day", "Be true to your work, your word, and your friend", "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves", "Goodness is the only investment that never fails", "I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude", "In wilderness is the preservation of the world".
 

Ralph Waldo Emerson                             Henry David Thoreau

Pragmatism

1 : A practical approach to problems and affairs.
2 : An American movement in philosophy in the late nineteenth century founded by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by its practical consequences. Through the early twentieth-century it was developed further in the works of  John Dewey (mainly an educator who believed in students' learning by performing tasks related to their own interests). He supported the idea that the school is the central institution of our democracy.

They rejected the idea that there is such a thing as fixed, absolute truths. Instead, the say that truth is relative to a time, place, and purpose and is ever changing. Every proposition of ontological metaphysics is meaningless. Truth is the opinion of all who investigate a matter agree on; truth is what it works. To determine the meaning or the truth of an idea you must evaluate its usefulness.

Other important aspects of pragmatism include:

1-Anti-Cartesianism (Descartes was a major figure in 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume): the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body.
2-Instrumentalism: human activity and thoughts should be instruments to solve practical problems.  Thinking is not a search for truth but an activity aimed to solve individual and social problems.
4-Verificationism: a statement can be shown to be correct by way of empirical demonstration; it rules out religion, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethical sentences as meaningless.
5-Conceptual relativity: universals exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality.
6-Fallibilism: all claims of knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken.
7-High regard for science.

Main Works:
-Charles Sanders Peirce: Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, The Essential Peirce.
-William James: Principles of Psychology.
-John Dewey: Thought and its Subject-Matter, The School and Society, The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, Democracy and Education, Human Nature and Conduct, The Public and its Problems, Art as Experience, A Common Faith, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry

Famous Quotes
-Charles Sanders Peirce:
"Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment", "Generality is, indeed, an indispensable ingredient of reality; for mere individual existence or actuality without any regularity whatever is a nullity. Chaos is pure nothing", "The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit".
-William James:
"A chain is no stronger than its weakest link", "Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does", "Belief creates the actual fact", "Man can alter his life by altering his thinking", "Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices", "Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power", "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated", "The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it".
-John Dewey: "Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another", "Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself", "Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes", "One lives with so many bad deeds on one's conscience and some good intentions in one's heart", "Skepticism: the mark and even the pose of the educated mind", "The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative", "The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better", "The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action", Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live".


Charles Sanders Peirce                William James                             John Dewey                            

 Analytic Philosophy

Analytic Philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate mainly English-speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in the 20th century.

The term "analytic philosophy" can refer to: interest in the natural sciences, linguistics, and formal logic.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): English philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian and social critic. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his protégé Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's most important logicians. Russell was imprisoned for his pacifist activism during World War I, campaigned against Adolph Hitler, for nuclear disarmament, criticized Soviet totalitarianism and the United States of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." He was an educator, teaching in China and he was the headmaster of Beacon Hill School in England

Main Works: Principia Mathematica, On Denoting, and The Problems of Philosophy.

Main Ideas: Empiricism. Everything we know must be acquired through sensory experience. The outside world has a reality of its own and exists whether we see it or not. He reminded the world of the many atrocities committed in the name of God. He supported freedom of sexual expression. Science as the best source of knowledge. He created the system of Logical Analysis or Logical Atomism: a concept could be deconstructed in its parts to make easier its study. The concepts of Mathematics can be defined in terms of concepts of Logic: Logicism.

Famous Quotes: "A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live", "A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation", "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness", "Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd", "Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race", "Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame", "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric", "Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery", "Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom", "Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure", "I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world", "I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine", "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong", "It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this", "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly", "Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives", "Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones", "None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear", "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons", "Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know", "The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts", "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd", "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge".

Ludwig  Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He helped inspire two of the century's principal philosophical movements: the Vienna Circle and Oxford ordinary language philosophy. Wittgenstein is considered by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.

Main Works: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP) and Philosophical Investigations.

Main Ideas: Language is composed of things he called propositions, which could be broken down into less complex propositions, until you arrived at some basic truths. Similarly, the world is composed of myriad complex facts that can be broken down again and again until you arrived at an atomic fact. We perceive facts and turn them into thoughts. Thoughts are expressed in language = propositions. We simplify language into atomic sentences. Language is an expression of facts; it has no meaning in itself. An expression' meaning is based on how the expression is used more than by what the words in it refer to.

Logical positivism is the name given to Russell's and Wittgenstein's ideas (Analytical Philosophy) (also called logical empiricism and neo-positivism) by the members of Vienna Circle. This group grew from the discussions of a group called the "First Vienna Circle" which gathered at the Café Central before World War I. After the war, Hans Hahn, a member of that early group, helped bring Moritz Schlick to Vienna. Schlick's Vienna Circle, along with Hans Reichenbach's Berlin Circle, propagated the new doctrines more widely in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Main Ideas:

• The positivist view is that there are no specifically philosophical truths and that the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.  As a result, many analytic philosophers have considered their inquiries as continuous with  those of the natural sciences.
• The view that the logical clarification of thoughts can only be achieved by analysis of the logical form of philosophical propositions.
• The rejection of sweeping philosophical systems in favor of close attention to detail, common sense, and ordinary language.
• The concept of "verifiability criterion of meaning": If it can't be verified, it is meaningless. Ontological, Moral and value statements are empirically meaningless.

  
Bertrand Russell                           Ludwig  Wittgenstein        

Philosophical Questions

Does the spiritual state  transcend the physical and empirical reality?
Is instinct more powerful than intellect?
Is God everywhere and in every living creature? Are we all divine?
Were American Transcendentalists an early version of the hippies?
Analyze: "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves"
Is there such a thing as a fixed absolute truth?
Define "truth". Is it  what it works, what is useful?
Should human activity and thoughts be only instruments to solve practical problems?
"The creative spirit and the ideas of lunatics are not so far apart; many lunatics were actually visionaries and dissidents" Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
"In the western world the employment of torture has just switched the destructive emphasis from the body to the soul" What do you think about this?
Are we always trying to find differences between us and  other people (racially, politically, economically) to say that we are normal or better and the others are abnormal or below us? Why people do that?
Analyze this: "Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd"
Is language an effective or a flawed means of communication? Why?
Why do you think that so many atrocities have been committed in the name of God? Is it God, religion, or men to blame?
Analyze this: "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness"
What is the message in the following quote? "I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong"
If it can't be verified, it is meaningless. Ontological, moral and value statements are empirically meaningless. Do you agree or disagree? Why?
 

11-An Era of Suspicion. Structuralism vs. Deconstruction.

Vocabulary

Critical theory	A philosophical method that seeks to provide a radical critique of knowledge by taking into account the situation and interests involved.
Ding-an-sich	German for "thing-in-itself" a thing as it is independent of any consciousness of it.
Hermeneutics	Interpretive understanding that seeks systematically to access the essence of things.
Logical positivism	The philosophy of the Vienna Circle, according to which any purported statement of fact, if not a verbal truism, is meaningless unless certain conceivable observations would serve to conform or deny it.

An Era of Suspicion:

Some Continental philosophers during the years of the Cold War (1945-1990) saw as suspicious the content of existing theories about the meaning of right & wrong, the nature of language, the possibility of human self-understanding, the appearance of metaphysical systems, the existence of absolute truths, etc. They considered that these theories were biased, that they were trying to manipulate ideas / people for a reason. They supported liberalism, minority groups and freedom of speech; they were against ideologies, labeling people, and the idea of objectivity in social issues. Among these Continental philosophers were Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty (an American).

                                                    Cold War's Suspicion, Prejudice & Confrontation

Today’s Intolerance, Opportunism, Violence, Hate, Lack of Faith

Did the first lead to the second?

Jürgen Habermas (1929-   ): He is a German philosopher and sociologist, professor at the University of Frankfurt, involved in the tradition of critical theory (the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities). He is perhaps best known for his work on the concept of the public sphere (a space for critical discussion, open to all, where private people come together to form a public whose "public reason" would work as a check on state power). His work focused on the foundations of social theory, the analysis of advanced capitalistic societies and democracy, the rule of law in a critical social-evolutionary context, and contemporary politics. Habermas's theoretical system is devoted to revealing the possibility of reason, emancipation, and rational-critical communication in modern institutions. He is associated with The Frankfurt School (a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy associated with the original Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt am Main), which rejected the material determinism of Marx and rejected Positivism and any possibility of a value-free social science. He considers that human beings should be seen as subjects interacting with other subjects, sharing inter-subjective experiences. He believes in emancipatory knowledge, one concerned with critical theory. He has said that (any) ideology misrepresents and distorts the truth and makes use of arbitrary power in society. According to Habermas, a variety of factors are resulting in the decay of the public sphere, including the growth of a commercial mass media, which turns the critical public into a passive consumer public. He proposes the "ideal speech situation" in which persons are free to speak their minds without fear to be blocked. He supports the work of countercultural groups: feminism, liberation movements, minority groups, etc.

Major Works: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, On Social Identity, Legitimation Crisis, The Theory of Communicative Action, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, The Inclusion of the Other, and Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe.

Famous Quotes: "Each murder is one too many", "From a moral point of view, there is no excuse for terrorist acts, regardless of the motive or the situation under which they are carried out", "One never really knows who one's enemy is", "The state is in danger of falling into disrepute due to the evidence of its inadequate resources".

Structuralism

It is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze a specific field (for instance, mythology, sociology, anthropology, psychoanalysis, literary theory and architecture) as a complex system of interrelated parts with its underlying rules and conventions. It began in linguistics with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). But many French intellectuals perceived it to have a wider application, and the model was soon modified and applied to other fields. It has been criticized for its anti-humanism, in opposition to the Sartrean existentialism that preceded it. Among the leader structuralism's theorists were Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan.
There are four common ideas regarding structuralism: Firstly, the structure is what determines the position of each element of a whole. Secondly, structuralists believe that every system has a structure. Thirdly, structuralists are interested in 'structural' laws that deal with coexistence rather than changes. And finally structures are the 'real things' that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning.

Paul-Michel Foucault (1926-1984): He was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. Foucault's work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse has been widely discussed. He was openly gay and died of toxoplasmosis as a result of AIDS.

Main Works: Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, Death and The Labyrinth, The Order of Things, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality.

Please, see:   http://www.michel-foucault.com

Main Ideas: Truths and knowledge have changed over the centuries from age to age and from culture to culture: black is white and wrong is right depending on the powers that be.
                   The creative spirit and the ideas of lunatics are not so far apart.; many lunatics were actually visionaries and dissidents.
                   In the western world the employment of torture has just switched the destructive emphasis from the body to the soul. Prisons do not rehabilitate criminals, but reinforce the criminal life.
                   People have always practice "othering":  finding the differences between them and  other people (racially, politically, economically). They are normal and the others are abnormal.
                   He saw History as a series of discontinuous created realities or "epistemes", merely a construct of the social discourse and not "absolute truths" at all.    

Famous Quotes: "As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end", "In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating", "Madness is the absolute break with the work of art", "The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us".

                           "Othering" or "Labeling"

Deconstruction

It is the name given by French philosopher Jacques Derrida to an approach (whether in philosophy, literary analysis, or in other fields) which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or impossible. Deconstruction generally attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point. Derrida refers to this point as an aporia in the text.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004): He was a French philosopher born in Algeria, from a low-middle class Sephardic Jewish family, who is known as the founder of a movement known as Deconstruction. His work had a profound impact upon literary theory and continental philosophy. There was a major controversy about an honorary degree that he finally got from Cambridge University as part of which he was accused of being a charlatan. Many Anglo-American philosophers don't support his writings / ideas.

Main Work: Of Grammatology.

Main Ideas: His field was Linguistics, the study of language. Language is a flawed means of communication. The reader or listener can't never know what the author / speaker really means. There are infinite interpretations of any statement. Deconstruction: breaking down any statement to show that everything in it is inherently false.

Famous Quotes: "As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene", "We are all mediators, translators", "Who ever said that one was born just once?", "The first problem of the media is posed by what does not get translated, or even published in the dominant political languages".

Richard Rorty (1931-2007): American philosopher, born in New York to parents involved in politics. He was admitted to the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen (15) and received his PhD from Yale University in 1956 (25 years old). He served two years in the army, and then taught at Wellesley College for three years, until 1961. Thereafter, for 21 years he was a professor of philosophy at Princeton University.  In 1982 he became Kenan Professor of the Humanities at the University Of Virginia. In 1997, Rorty became professor emeritus of comparative literature and philosophy at Stanford University.

Major Works: The Linguistic Turn, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.

Main Ideas: He disagreed with the concept that philosophy could find "the truth". He joined the ranks of American Pragmatism and supported the ideas of American political liberalism, saying that our "absolute values" are human constructs. For him, objectivity is a fiction and the idea of truth is a myth. People cannot step outside of their own perspective to evaluate their constrains. Standards of evidence and knowledge are just starting points and relative to one's culture.

Famous Quotes: "Truth is simply a compliment paid to sentences seen to be paying their way", "Solidarity is not discovered by reflection, but created. It is created by increasing our sensitivity to the particular details of the pain and humiliation of other, unfamiliar sorts of people", "My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law", "There is nothing to be known about anything except an initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other things".

   
 Paul-Michel Foucault         Jacques Derrida                                                     Jürgen Habermas               Richard Rorty

Philosophical Questions

Can anything human be impartial, objective and unbiased?
Is there any "absolute truth?
Is Habermas concept of the public sphere possible / practical? Why?
Are the mass media and commercial ads  turning the critical public into a passive consumer public?
Are bureaucracies, institutions, corporations and other socio-economic and political structures supportive to human / popular needs or have they become creatures fighting for their own interests?
Are the spirit and the ideas of lunatics far apart from the wisdom of visionaries and dissidents?
Has the employment of torture just switched its destructive emphasis from the body to the soul in our prisons?
Do our prisons rehabilitate criminals or do they reinforce the criminal life?
Analyze this: "People have always practice "othering":  finding the differences between them and  other people (racially, politically, economically). They are normal and the others are abnormal". Do you agree / disagree? Why?
Has History been a journey toward progress? How should we define progress?
Do any text or conversation contain irreconcilable and contradictory meanings? Do they always have more than one interpretation and therefore understanding anything cannot go beyond a certain point?
Is language a flawed means of communication? Can we ever know what the speaker / author really means?
Is everything  human / social inherently false?
 

12-Post-Colonial Thought

Vocabulary

Ethnophilosophy	A systematically descriptive method of investigating the philosophical concepts that are important in a culture, especially a culture which is primarily transmitted through unwritten stories, rituals, and statements of belief.
Existentialism	A tradition of twentieth-century philosophy having its roots in the nineteenth century but coming to flower in Europe after World War II; of central concern is the question of how the individual is to find an authentic existence in this world, in which there is no ultimate reason why things happen one way and not another.
Feminism	Movement in support of the view that men and women should have equal social value and status.
Gender	A person's biological sex as constructed, understood, interpreted, and institutionalized by society.
Pan-African philosophy	A cultural categorization of philosophical activity which includes the work of African thinkers and thinkers of African descent wherever they are located.

Colonialism in the Third World (Asia, Africa, and Latin America). Historical Background.

• A history of slavery, systematic marginalization, and repression.
• Africa and pre-Columbian America had not a written philosophy, but oral traditions and religious beliefs. Asia had strong philosophies older than those brought by the West: Asian people considered European ideas crude and simplistic.
• Europeans used technological superiority to impose domination.
• Colonial activity went beyond simple extraction of wealth: violent physical subjugation, cultural transformation / imposition of European languages, values, and beliefs / systematic destruction of indigenous culture & traditions, change of natural borders, social dislocation, etc. Deep cultural traumas.
• Deception, Broken agreements and Genocide.
• Europeans used local wealthy elites to support authoritarian regimes and oligarchies to continue exploitation after independence in alliance with the church.
• Lines between religion and philosophy were very hard to draw.
   

Thinkers, Revolutionaries & Movements

1-Africa: Leopold Sedar Senghor, Poulin J. Hountondji, Albert Memmi, Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Chaikh Anta Diop, and Desmond Tutu.
1.1-Movement: Pan-Africanism (Many different approaches in both content & methods). Anti-Apartheid Movement (South Africa) against racial segregation. Afrocentrism (study of the heritage and influence of African cultures)
2-African-Americans: Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Cornel West.
2.1-Civil Rights Movement
3-Latin America: Carlos Astrada, Francisco Miro Quesada, Frantz Fanon, and Fidel Castro.
3.1-Movement: Liberation Theology. Movement: Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America (Cuba).
4-Asia: Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sun Yat-sen, Ho Chi Minh.
4.1-Movement: Nonviolence Resistance. Non-Aligned Movement: "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."
5-Feminism: Gloria Watkins (bell hooks), Sonia Saldivar-Hull, Gerda Lerner, and Stephanie Coontz.

Major Ideas:

• Challenge the uncritical notions of progress brought by the West.
• The concept of Negritude (Leopold Sedar Senghor): African roots, oral traditions; an African distinctly epistemology, different from the Europeans.
• Against Ethno-Philosophy and Negritude in Africa (Poulin J. Hountondji): Break with the past and develop a program for the future.
• Master-slave dynamics. The idea that what the master brings to the slave affects also the master.
• Disagreement on how to integrate indigenous traditions into a modern philosophical project.
• Appeal for Social Justice and Change.
• Re-write their History.
• The struggle for national independence also includes fighting against racism and equality for women.
• Perspectivism:  The idea that all perception and conceptualization take place from a particular perspective.
• Nationalism, National Identity.
• Satyagraha: Clinging to Truth (Clearing the perceptions of prejudice; using yoga, acquiring tools for scientific investigation, practicing virtues like giving, nonattachment, and mental purity, repudiation of human inequalities and promotion of nonviolence) developed by Gandhi.
• The international market system as the major force for injustice to promote domination.
• Search for cross-cultural commonalities: Think globally.
• Civility, Religion and non-violent resistance. Many political leaders were also religious leaders (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr.).
• Create more compassionate societies, eliminating prejudice (Cornel West).
• Anti-Imperialism and some variations of Marxism-Leninism / Maoism.
• Replace the bourgeois mentality that supports the colonial / neocolonial mentality with social justice, equality, and a sustainable democracy (Carlos Astrada).
• 1960-80: Revolution, Guerrillas, Violence vs. Violence (Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro).
• Today: Search for Moderation, Democracy and Integration. Pragmatism: Avoid confrontation that brings suffering; against ideologies that claim having the truth, against dividing humanity (Miro Quesada).

 
Gandhi                                    Mandela                                    Dr. King                                      Ho Chi Minh   

Famous Quotes:
-Gandhi: "Strength doest not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will", "A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave", "A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes", "A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people", "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind", "Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding", "Be the change that you want to see in the world", "Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances", "Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies".
-Mandela: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world", "I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man", "I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent", "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner", "It always seems impossible until its done", "Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will", "Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated", "There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires".
-Dr. King: "A man can't ride your back unless it's bent", "A man who won't die for something is not fit to live", "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom", "At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love", "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear", "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle", "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase", "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed", "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.", "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"
-Malcom X: "The true criterion of leadership is spiritual . Men are attracted by spirit. By power, men are forced. Love is engendered by spirit"
-Desmond Tutu: "You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor".
-Ho Chi Minh: "It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me", "Nothing is more precious than independence and liberty", "You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win".
-Cornel West: “A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue”, “Who wants to be well-adjusted to injustice? What kind of human being do you want to be?”, “The crisis in black America is threefold...economic...political...and spiritual”, “There's a parallel between the killing fields of the slave ships ... and the killing fields of the Super Dome.”

Philosophical Questions

Should third world people forget the past and start from zero?
Should they re-write their History?
Trying to recover your roots and history will hold you down?
Are racism, colonialism, and male chauvinism connected? Why yes / not?
How what the master do to the slave affects also the master?
Does every culture / ethnic group have its own perspective of the historical events?  Why?
Why religion, civil rights, and national liberation have been connected?
Is it feasible today to use nonviolent resistance to achieve national liberation?
Is it right / fair to fight for your independence using violence?
What would be more reasonable / practical: reforms or revolution? Why is freedom never voluntarily given by the oppressor?
"Violence begets more violence, creating a never ending cycle of destruction" Is that true?
Have colonialism and racism ended?
Why was Marxism an appealing alternative to colonialism? Why is that not the case anymore?
Analyze this quote: "Strength doest not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will"
Is it possible to achieve unity in Africa, or in Latin America, or in any other region? Why?
Analyze this quote: "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner"
Analyze this quote: "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it."
Analyze this quote: "You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor".
Analyze this quote: “The crisis in black America is threefold...economic...political...and spiritual”

 

World Religions

Units

1-Understanding Religion
2-Indegenous or Oral Religions
3-Ancient & Medieval Mythologies
4-Hinduism
5-Buddhism
6-Jainism & Sikhism
7-Zoroastianism
8-Shinto
9-Judaism
10-Christianity
11-Islam
12-Alternative Paths
13-Religion Today

1-Understanding Religion

Vocabulary

Agnosticism	The position that holds that the existence of God cannot be proven.
Animism	A worldview common among oral religions (religious with no written scriptures) that sees all elements of nature as being filled with spirit or spirits.
Atheism	The position that holds that there is no God or gods.
Dualism	The belief that reality is made of two different principles (spirit and matter); the belief in two gods (good and evil) in conflict.
Immanent	Existing and operating within nature.
Monotheism	The belief in one God.
Non-theism	Not asserting or denying the existence of any deity; unconcerned with the supernatural.
Pantheism	The belief that everything in the universe is divine.
Polytheism	The belief in many gods.
Transcendent	Not limited by the physical world.

Defining Religion:

It is difficult to define Religion because of the varied sets of ideas, traditions, practices, etc of the more than 4,200 different existing faiths in the world.

A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural being, force, quality or deity, that gives meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience. (Wikipedia).

Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Religion has created a huge mass of literature, art, debate, hate, wars, persecution, and love. Schism is a common phenomenon in almost every religion. Religion has always been in some type of debate / contradiction / alliance with  governments, with political groups, with science, with philosophy, and other components of society. The etymology of the word religion means "reconnecting".

Studying Religions

First religious manifestations appeared during the prehistory. Religions historically "evolved" from animism, to polytheism, to monotheism. Recognizing our subjectivism and bias is important to study religion. We will not judge religions, but respect them all. All religions are equally worthy of study. The academic study of religions started in the 1800's. The study of religions in a comparative and historical sense is not to validate or disprove them or to enhance our own belief. Religion is part of culture:

• It helps to round out a person's education;
• It facilitates a better understanding of people;
• It promotes tolerance and appreciation of differences
• It contributes to develop an appreciation for the arts
• It could guide one's own religious quest

Why is Religion important? It serves many human needs:

• It helps to unite people, offering companionship and a sense of belonging to a group
• It brings meaning to our lives
• It offers answers to our deepest questions: Who are we?, Where did we come from?, Where are we going?
• It provides structure for caring for the needy
• It help us to deal with our mortality and prepare for death
• It gives us a sense of our place in the universe
• It gives us inner peace, comfort and hope
• It is a source of security
• it is a way to deal with our anxieties and unknown future

Key Elements to Compare Religions (Series of Videos from "The Great Courses")

• Belief System: Creation, Beginning and End of the Universe, Human purpose / place in the universe
• Connections with the Divine: Praying, Meditating, etc.
• Afterlife
• Community
• Leaders
• Recruitment
• Scriptures
• Myths or Stories
• Rituals
• Ethics or Rules
• Emotional Experiences
• Symbols, Statues, Paintings, Music, Sacred Objects, Incense
• Sacred and Profane
• Exclusiveness and Inclusiveness: Foods, Places, Practices, etc.
• Roles of Males & Females.

The Originating Holiness: Many different names (Brahman, Dao, Great Spirit, the Absolute, the Divine, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, etc). Polytheism or Monotheism, Pantheism, Deism, Agnosticism, or Atheism. God is immanent or transcendent or both.

Symbolism: Many scholars think that religious symbols point to some structure that underlies all religions.

Water: Spiritual cleansing (Hindus bath in the Ganges river; Christian baptism; Jews for purification, Muslims before praying).
The Sun: Health
A Mountain: Strength
A Circle: Eternity, Unity
Ashes: Death (Tribal religions in dance ceremonies; Christians in Ash Wednesday; Hindus for asceticism and detachment).
Dreams: Messages from God, a key to the future.
Bat: A symbol of good fortune in the East, it represented demons and spirits in medieval Europe.

Butterfly: Reminds Christians of the amazing transformation that takes place through Christ's redemption and regeneration.

Cow: It symbolized the sky goddess Hathor to Egyptians, enlightenment to Buddhists, one of the highest and holiest stages of transmigration (reincarnation) to Hindus.

Crescent Moon: A symbol of the aging goddess (crone) to contemporary witches and victory over death to many Muslims. In Islamic lands, crescent can be seen enclosing a lone pentagram.

Frog: A symbol of fertility to many cultures. The Romans linked it to Aphrodite, the Egyptian to the shape-shifting goddess Heket who would take the form of a frog. To the Chinese, it symbolized the moon -- "the lunar, yin principle" bringing healing and prosperity.[1]  Since frogs need watery places, their image was often used in occult rain charms.

Lizard: Its "sun-seeking habit symbolizes the soul's search for awareness." To the Romans, who believed it hibernated, the lizard meant death and resurrection.

  Phoenix: A universal symbol of the sun, rebirth, resurrection and immortality.

  Spider: Linked to treachery and death in many cultures.

Pentagram: A standard symbol for witches, freemasons, and many other pagan or occult groups. To witches, it represent the four basic elements (wind, water, earth and fire) plus a pantheistic spiritual being such as Gaia or Mother Earth. The pentagram is also used for protection, to banish energy, or to bring it to you, depending on how it's drawn.

Hexagram: When surrounded by a circle, it represents the "divine mind" (a counterfeit of God's wisdom) to numerous occult groups through the centuries. Many still use it in occult rituals. But to Jewish people, it is their Star of David.

Spiral: Linked to the "circle". Ancient symbol of the goddess, the womb, fertility, feminine serpent force, continual change, and the evolution of the universe.

Triangle: Associated with the number three. Pointing upwards, it symbolizes fire, male power and a view of God. (See "pyramid"). To Christians, it often represents the Trinity. Pointing down, it symbolizes water, female sexuality, goddess religions and homosexuality.

Up: Male Down: Female

Some Disciplines related and ways of Studying Religions

1. Mythology
2. Theology
3. Anthropology
4. Sociology
5. Hermeneutics
6. History of Religions
7. Study of one Religion
8. Comparative Religion

Key Theorists of Religion

 n      James Frazer (1854-1939): Scottish anthropologist and author of “The Golden Bough”: Religion is an intermediate state between magic and science.

 n      William James (1842-1910): American psychologist and philosopher: religion brings meaning and vitality to people’s lives; it grows out of psychological needs.

 n      Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): Austrian psychologist, father of psychoanalysis: Religion is the result of a projection of childhood experience. It is an attempt to deal with anxieties.

 n      Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961): Swiss psychoanalyst and Freud’s disciple, author of “Modern Man in search of a Soul...” Religion grew out of the individual’s need of personal fulfillment (individuation), to understand their place in the universe and prepare for death.

 n      Rudolf Otto (1869-1937): German theologian, author of “The Idea of the Holy”: Religion emerges when people experience the sense of the holy.

 n      David Émile Durkheim (1858-1917): French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. He argued that religious behavior is relative to the society in which it is found, and that a society will often use a religion to reinforce its own values.

 n      Wilhelm Schmidt (1868-1954): Austrian ethnographer and philologist who argued that all humankind once believed in a single High God and that to this simple monotheism later beliefs in lesser gods and spirits were added.

 n      Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917): English anthropologist. Tylor is considered a representative of cultural evolutionism. Religion is the result of seeing spirits in control of the natural forces and the fear of the power of those spirits.

 Some Orientations of Religions

n      Sacramental—emphasizes ritual

n      Prophetic—emphasizes belief and morality

n      Mystical—emphasizes sense of oneness with god or the universe

 Varied Attitudes among Religions

 n      Sacred reality (God)—transcendent or immanent

 n      Universe—created or eternal

 n      Nature—perfect or imperfect

 n      Time—cyclical or linear

 n      Human beings—central or part of nature and society

 n      Words and scriptures—valuable or inadequate

 n      Exclusiveness vs. Inclusiveness

Religions that we will study in our course:

1. Indigenous or Oral Religions: Animism and Shamanism.
2. Ancient & Medieval Mythologies
3. Hinduism
4. Buddhism
5. Jainism & Sikhism
6. Zoroastianism
7. Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto
8. Judaism
9. Christianity
10. Islam
11. Alternative Paths: Modern Wicca & Druidism, Yoruba faiths and practices (Santeria & Voodoo), Scientology, Baha'i, Sorcery, and Spiritism.
12. Religion Today