The Theseus Paradox - The Ship of Theseus - Made by Plutarch ● Theseus - Famous for slaying minotaur - Greek mythology character - He did a voyage in killing the minotaur - After many years, the parts have been wrecked - To continue commemorating, its wrecked parts have been replaced - “Is the newly upgraded ship still the ship of Theseus?” - What if someone made a ship out of the discarded parts of the hip? Is this the ship of Theseus? - So which one by essence is the ship of theseus? - Everything about you is changing but what holds you together? Socrates - Never wrote anything - But his words are written by his student, Plato - Loves questioning - Father of Western Philosophy - Met the Oracle of Delphi, the oracle of Delphi told him that “no one is wiser than Socrates.” - When people give him an answer, he still kept on asking -> Dialectic or Socratic method - No one is wiser than me, because at first, no one is truly wise ● Docta Ignorantia - Doctrine of ignorance - Everything you believe that you know, you actually don’t know - “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Plato - Answers Socrates’ questions - The Dialouges of Plato ● Dualism/Two-Worlds Theory - The Allegory of the Cave ● World of Forms - Real, true, perfect ● World of Matter - Imitation of the world of forms - Imperfect, temporary St. Augustine ● - Medieval Era Rise of religion and faith ● St. Augustine - Tries to seek someone greater than him - “My soul is restless until it finds its rest on you.” - Human as we are, what we are going after is happiness - Happiness is the ultimate end of man, everything that a man does is purposed towards happiness. - Love bring as much closer to happiness - To be human is love - Love brings us close to God which is love himself - To love another person is to see the face of God Rene Descartes *Modern Era* ● Rationalism - Focuses on human reason instead of the divine ● Rene Descartes - Father of Modern Philosophy - Tutor the royals and noble family in France - Has difficulty in sleeping due to sched in tutoring so he doubted if he is asleep or dreaming - Alo doubted his existence - He held on to mathematics (sleep/awake it’s still the same) - He developed the Cartesian Plate ● Methodic DOubt - Doubting everything ● The only thing we cannot doubt? - We cannot doubt that we are doubting - Doubt is the only thing we cannot doubt ● Faculty that doubts - Mind = it thinks ● Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am. - I think, therefore I exist. Thinking affirms existence I am = I exist George Berkeley - “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, will it make a sound?” - Does our existence rely on being perceived? ● Esse est percipi - To be is to be perceived ● God - Ultimate perceiver Søren Kierkegaard ● Existentialism - Focuses on human existence - Focuses on freedom of choice ● Søren Kierkegaard - Father of Existentialism - “Essence perceds existentialism.” ● Theistic existentialism - There is God in his equation Jean-Paul Sartre - “Existence precedes essence.” - You were born, you mold your essence after. ● Atheistic - No God in the process Albert Camus - Life is absurd! ● Absurdism - Focuses on the absurdity of existence ● The Myth of Sisyphus - Sisyphus cheated death - Punished by gods bu uplifting the rock/boulder ar the top of the hill - The punishment will end if he will manage to put it uphill - But, it is a repetitive/eternal punishment kay nagahulog balik ang bato as it almost reach the peak - No matter where you arrive at in life, everything just role downs at again ‘cause we all die at the end. Mangamatay ra japun ta! Life doesn’t have to be meaningful, because life is absurd. “The struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Life is absurd! :( (x) Life is absurd! :D (/) Trying is the absence of meaning Don’t find it, live with it! - Numbers are what make up reality. Pythagoras Man is by nature dualistic-matter and form. Plato The purpose of the self is to love. Augustine The self must be examined, to make life worth living. Socrates Everything comes from the Boundless. Anaximander The self thinks, therefore, it exists. Descartes Human existence is pointless. Camus Everything comes from water. Thales Reality, including the self. comes from air. Anaximenes One has the freedom to be what one wants. Sartre No man can ever step into the same river twice. Heraclitus The meaning of one's self is already present before birth. Kierkegaard To exist means to be sensed by the others, Berkeley He was accused of impiety and corrupting the minds of the young. Socrates Everything must be in constant moderation. Aristotle Philosophy Socrates Socrates was a Greek philosopher and one of the very few individuals who shaped Western thought (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). However, unlike the other philosophers during his time, Socrates never wrote anything. Knowledge about Socrates is through second-hand information from the writings of his student Plato (another of the most influential Western thinkers) and historian Xenophon (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). Socrates was known for his method of inquiry in testing an idea. This is called the Socratic Method whereby an idea was tested by asking a series of questions to determine underlying beliefs and the extent of knowledge to guide the person toward better understanding (Maxwell, 2015). Socrates was described to have gone about in Athens questioning everyday views and popular Athenian beliefs. This apparently offended the leaders in his time. He was then accused of impiety or lack of reverence for the gods and for corrupting the minds of the youth. At 70 years old, Socrates was sentenced to death by drinking a cup of poison hemlock (Brickhouse & Smith, 2007). Some of Socrates ideas were ● The soul is immortal ● The care of the soul is the task of philosophy. ● Virtue is necessary to attain happiness Socrates believed that philosophy had a very important role to play in the lives of the people. One of his most quoted phrases is, "The unexamined life is not worth living.” According to Socrates, self-knowledge or the examination of one's self, as well as the question about how one ought to live one's life, are very important concerns because only by knowing yourself can you hope to improve your life (Rappe, 1995). Socrates believed that you as a person should consciously contemplate, turn your gaze inward, and analyze the true nature and values that are guiding your life. He added self-knowledge would open your eyes to your true nature; which contrary to pop culture, is not about what you own, how many "Likes” you get in your social media posts, or how successful you are in your career. In fact, your real self is not even your body. According to Socrates, the state of your inner being (soul/self) determines the quality of your life. Socrates said existence is of two kinds: 1. The visible, and 2. The invisible The visible existence changes while the invisible existence remains constant (Connolly, 2017). According to Socrates, this is the state of the human being. The body, which is visible, changes; the other part, the kind that is invisible to humans yet sensed and understood by the mind remains constant. In the Socratic Dialogue, Plato wrote what Socrates said about the body and the soul: "When the soul and body are together nature assigns our body to be a slave and to be ruled and the soul to be ruler and master” (Hamilton et al., 1961; Organ, 1986). However, Socrates said that the body was a reluctant slave, and the soul gets dragged toward what is always changing. This would leave the soul confused (Organ, 1986). Socrates also believed that the goal of life is to be happy. How does one become happy? According to Socrates, the virtuous man is a happy man, and that virtue alone is the one and only supreme good that will secure his/her happiness. Virtue is defined as moral excellence, and an individual is considered virtuous if his/her character is made up of the moral qualities that are accepted as virtues, i.e., courage, temperance, prudence, and justice (The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). According to Socrates, even death is a trivial matter for the truly virtuous because he/she has realized that the most important thing in life is the state of his/her soul and the acts taken from taking care of the soul through self-knowledge. Oriental Philosophy - Removed the idea of an individual self And view in a greater scheme HINDUISM ● Henotheistic religion Henotheistic: believe in one great deity- Brahman Brahman - The absolute - Encompasses everything - Manifests itself into different gods and goddesses: ● Brahma - The God of creation ● Vishnu - The God of preservation ● Shiva - The God of destruction ● - Ones destroyed something, it restore it to something else - Ex. stone -> sand - Behind our changes Atman - The soul, spirit - Manifestation of Brahman - Find within everything ● “Namaste!” - The being in me, acknowledges the being in you - The Atman in me, recognizes the Atman in you ● Each of us have Atman within us - Each of us have infinite worth no matter who we are ● ● Always acknowledge the Atman Hinduism- aspires to be reunited with the Brahman PRINCIPLES/TEACHINGS ● Dharma - Moral obligation - Thing needed to comply to go back to the ultimate perfect state - Changes from time to time - Depends on the context - The basis of karma ● Karma - Cause and effect - Whatever you have done/sown, will be the same energy that will bounce back. ● Samsara - The endless cycle between birth and death, and rebirth - Basis of reincarnation is your karma (if you did good/bad) ● The goal is to be liberated and rise above the endless cycle… so Hindus would always aspire for Moksha - Liberation from endless cycle between birth and death, and rebirth - The Atman will be liberated from the limits of the flesh ‘til the Atman will go back to the Absolute which is the Brahman. So this is the ultimate end/goal of the Hindus. ● Always follow your Dharma so you will have good Karma. Always gather these all good Karma, so that in facing another Samsara, we’ll be better than this so that eventually we will attain Moksha. BUDDHISM ● Sidhartha Gautama - Buddha - Human who attained enlightenment - nobel/royal before - In his middle age, he witnessed the different sufferings in life outside the castle - He mediated under Bodhi tree and get enlightenment - Bodhi tree - where “Buddhism” originated - He realized these: ● 4 Noble Truths 1. There is suffering - Each of us is suffering from something 2. Suffering has a cause - And that is attachment 3. There is a way to end the suffering 4. The way to end suffering i though the Noble eightfold path ● 8 ways to get to end the suffering: 1. Right understanding 2. Right intention 3. Right speech 4. Right action 5. Right living 6. Right effort 7. Right attentiveness 8. Right concentration The best way to end suffering is through detachment. It's the way we feel about things that makes us suffer. Look at things objectively. Be mindful about things. You have the power to go beyond that suffering. Take everything as they are. The end of suffering is about detachment. Acknowledge it, then let it go. How would you prevent a drop of water from drying up? - Put it in the ocean Thus, place the self into the world. Psychological Notions of the Self ● Cognition - knowing, remembering, understanding, communicating, and learning. - Makes us truly humans ● Psychology - The scientific study of how people behave, think, and feel. ● Cognitive - “Of relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering. ● Jean Piaget - Best known for his pioneering work in child development - Also pioneered comprehensive the “Theory theory about of Cognitive Development”, a the development of human intelligence. - The theory deals with knowledge itself and how humans gradually acquire and use it. - Cognitive development is a progressive reorganization of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience in consistency on what they already know and what they discover in their environment and then adjust their idea accordingly. - Claims that cognitive development is at the center of the human organism ● 3 Basic Components to Piaget’s Cognitive Theory 1. Schemas/scheme - Are mental organizations that individuals use to understand his or her environment and designate action. - Our brain gathers information and classifies it according to a specified area in our brain. - Building blocks of knowledge that helps us understand our environment and the actions that we encounter every day. And upon learning, we describe the process to adapt this new information. There are two processes: a. Assimilation - The application of previous concepts to new concepts. b. Accommodation - Happens when people encounter completely new information or when existing ideas are challenged. - The child will then adjust his/her understanding and form a new schema to accommodate that new information. 2. Adaptation - Involves the child’s learning processes to meet situational demands. 3. Stages of Cognitive Development - Reflects the increasing sophistication of the child’s thought process. ● 4 Stages of Cognitive Development 1. Sensorimotor Stage - 0-2 y/o - We develop through movement and experiences our five senses - Becoming curious of everything - The child continues to move, increasing physical mobility resulting to increase of cognitive development - Realization of objects - Primitive understanding of cause-and-effect relationships - Objective permanence When decreased development happen - We become impulsive that cannot decide directly - We become attention-seeker - Poor motor skills - Careless - ego-centric 2. Preoperational Stage - 2-7 y/o - Lots of fantasies - Learns to speak - Loves to play pretend - Ask many questions - The birth of primitive reasoning - The intuitive age - Ego-centric - Categorizing symbolic functions - Child uses language and symbols, including letters and numbers - Egocentrism is evident - Conservation marks the end of preoperational stage When decreased development happen - We become the dreamer, not the doer - Lazy - We tolerate immaturity - Ebay going, happy-go-lucky person - Goal-driven personality - Introvert 3. Concrete Operational Stage - 7-11 y/o - Discover logic - E.g. sorting objects in certain order - Learning to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - Child demonstrates conservation, reversibility, serial ordering, and a mature understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. Thinking at this stage is still concrete - Focuses on the logic - We draw conclusions and make generalization - Emphasizes inductive reasoning - We realize that we are unique among other people When decreased development happen - Narcissistic - Selfish - Extrovert in negative way - Subjective that violets norm 4. Formal Operational Stage - 12 and above - We become formally operational - Can think more rationally about abstract concepts such as success and failure, love and hate; and hypothetical events - Understanding of our identity and morality - Understand why people behave the way they do resulting to more compassion - Final stage of cognitive development - Focuses on abstract concept - Morality and identity confirmation - We give importance to compassion - Rational individual - The individual demonstrates abstract thinking, including logic, deductive reasoning, comparison, and classification When decreased development happen - Irrational - Break law - Lower elf-esteem that develops regret along the way ● Dr. Susan Harter (1999) - Detailed the emergence of self-concept and asserted that the broad developmental changes observed across early childhood, later childhood, and adolescence could be interpreted within a Pigeatian framework. ● Harter’s Self-Development Concept 1. Early Childhood - The child described the “self” in terms of concrete, observable characteristics such as physical attributes, material possessions, and preferences. - When she wants what she wants will describe her personality - 0-5 y/o 2. Middle to Later Childhood - The self was described in terms of trait-like constructs that would require the type of hierarchical organizational skills characteristic of logical thought development. - 6-12 y/o - Like being kind, anti-social, intro or extro 3. Adolescence - According to Harter, this is the emergence of more abstract self-definitions such as inner thought, emotions, attitudes and motives. - 13-16 y/o - Introspection 4. Emerging Adults - The marked characteristic of “self” for emerging adults is having a vision of “possible self”. It is the “age of possibilities”. - Widens our imagination and motivates us to our grand dreams - More realistic and positive when reaching 28-33 y/o ● William James - Father of American Psychology ● I-self - Is the pure ego - It is the subjective self - It is the “self” that is aware of its own actions - Initiator of behavior - Sense of being unique - A sense of continuity - you are the same person yesterday and today - Sense of self-awareness - consciously knowing what is going around you ● Me-self - The self that is the object - It is the “self” that you can describe such has your physical characteristics, personalities, social role, or relationships, thoughts, feelings - Self as an object - Being part of the environment - Empirical self - Enhancing relationship with the society - Verified b experiences - 3 dimensions: 1. Material - Physical appearance and extensions of it such as clothing, immediate family, and home - Like datu ka kung naa ka branded clothes, etc. 2. Social - Social skills and significant interpersonal relationships 3. Spiritual - Personality, character, defining values ● Carl Ransom Rogers - Was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology. - “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ● Humanistic approach - innate drive to self-actualization ● Ideal Self - Notions influenced by your parents - What you admire in others - What the society sees as acceptable - What you think is in your bet interest ● Real Self - The person you actually are - How you behave right at the moment of a situation - Who you are in reality - How you think, feel, or act at present ● The Importance of Alignment - When there is a great inconsistency between your ideal and real selves or if the way you are is not aligned with what you want to be, then you experience a state Rogers called incongruence. - He added that incongruence could lead to maladjustment. - Maladjustment: inability to react successfully and satifcatotily to the demands of one's environment kaya nagkakaroon ng insecurities along the way.
