UNDERSTANDINGSELF Socrates - was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. -Was a moral philosopher. He was not interested in mathematics or science but was concerned with the quality of his soul and that of others. Socrates' philosophy examines how we should live. This led him to discussions on various virtues, things like wisdom, justice, courage, piety, and so on. - A legendary figure even in his own time, he was admired by his followers for his integrity, his selfmastery, his profound philosophical insight, and his great argumentative skill. He was the first Greek philosopher to seriously explore questions of ethics. - he Theory of Opportunity — In Socrates' Theory of Opportunity, he touched on who was meant to gain knowledge and who should attend a form of school. He rejected the idea of gaining knowledge just for the sake of it and preferred people to gain knowledge that they could apply to their lives or professions. Plato - Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. In Athens, Plato founded the Academy, a philosophical school where he taught the philosophical doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. - Plato believed that reality is an imperfect reflection of a perfect ideal called the Forms. He demonstrates the effect of this dual reality and the need for education in his Allegory of the Cave. Like the dualism of reality, Plato also believed that humans are of a dual nature: body and mind. - As a matter of fact, in many of his dialogues, Plato contends that the true self of the human person is the “rational soul”, that is, the reason or the intellect that constitutes the person's soul, and which is separable from the body. - Plato is one of the most important Greek philosophers. He founded the Academy in Athens. His works on philosophy, politics and mathematics were very influential and laid the foundations for Euclid's systematic approach to mathematics. - He is best known for his theories of Forms, known as Platonism. In this philosophy, Plato rejected the materialism common to ancient philosophy in favor of metaphysics. He believed in the existence of an immaterial world of perfect objects and Forms (ideas). Saint Augustine -From ancient thought Augustine inherited the notion that philosophy is “love of wisdom an attempt to pursue happiness—or, as late-antique thinkers, both pagan and Christian, liked to put it, salvation—by seeking insight into the true nature of things and living. E14_GWAPO_SI_EARL_PASUNOD_BE_CALCULUS -According to Augustine, the earth was brought into existence ex nihilo by a perfectly good and just God, who created man. The earth is not eternal; the earth, as well as time, has both a beginning and an end. Man, on the other hand, was brought into existence to endure eternally. - His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions (c. 400) and The City of God (c. 413–426), shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought. In Roman Catholicism he is formally recognized as a doctor of the church. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (French Philospher) - Born March 14, 1908 - Died May 3, 1961 in Paris, France -Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. -Merleau-Ponty emphasized the body as the primary site of knowing the world, a corrective to the long philosophical tradition of placing consciousness as the source of knowledge, and maintained that the perceiving body and its perceived world could not be disentangled from each other. -Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961), French philosopher and public intellectual, was the leading academic proponent of existentialism and phenomenology in post-war France Rene Descartes(French Philospher) Born: March 31, 1596, Descartes, France Died: February 11, 1650, Stockholm, Sweden -René Descartes (1596-1650), the first of the modern rationalists, laid the groundwork for debates developed during the Enlightenment. He thought that the knowledge of eternal truths could be attained by reason alone (no experience was necessary). -He is also credited with the development of Cartesian dualism (also referred to as mind-body dualism), the metaphysical argument that the mind and body are two different substances that interact with one another. -René Descartes was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Mathematics was central to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. John Locke Born: August 29, 1632, Wrington, United Kingdom Died: October 28, 1704, High Laver, United Kingdom E14_GWAPO_SI_EARL_PASUNOD_BE_CALCULUS -John Locke's philosophy inspired and reflected Enlightenment values in its recognition of the rights and equality of individuals, its criticism of arbitrary authority (e.g., the divine right of kings), its advocacy of religious toleration, and its general empirical and scientific temperament. - John Locke FRS was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". - Often credited as a founder of modern “liberal” thought, Locke pioneered the ideas of natural law, social contract, religious toleration, and the right to revolution that proved essential to both the American Revolution and the U.S. Constitution that followed. - In politics, Locke is best known as a proponent of limited government. He uses a theory of natural rights to argue that governments have obligations to their citizens, have only limited powers over their citizens, and can ultimately be overthrown by citizens under certain circumstances. Immanuel Kant Born: April 22, 1724, Königsberg Died: February 12, 1804, Königsberg - According to Kant, both of these theories are incomplete when it comes to the self. According to him, we all have an inner and an outer self which together form our consciousness. The inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the physical world - His moral philosophy is a philosophy of freedom. Without human freedom, thought Kant, moral appraisal and moral responsibility would be impossible. Kant believes that if a person could not act otherwise, then his or her act can have no moral worth. - Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western philosophy. - At the foundation of Kant's system is the doctrine of “transcendental idealism,” which emphasizes a distinction between what we can experience (the natural, observable world) and what we cannot (“supersensible” objects such as God and the soul). Kant argued that we can only have knowledge of things we can experience. - Kant's most famous work, the Critique of Pure Reason, was published in 1781 and revised in 1787. It is a treatise which seeks to show the impossibility of one sort of metaphysics and to lay the foundations for another. His other books included the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790). David Hume Born: May 7, 1711, Edinburgh, United Kingdom Died: August 25, 1776, Edinburgh, United Kingdom E14_GWAPO_SI_EARL_PASUNOD_BE_CALCULUS - Hume was an Empiricist, meaning he believed "causes and effects are discoverable not by reason, but by experience". He goes on to say that, even with the perspective of the past, humanity cannot dictate future events because thoughts of the past are limited, compared to the possibilities for the future. -David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. - One of the most lasting contributions of Hume's discussion of the passions is his argument that human actions must be prompted by passion, and never can be motivated by reason. Reason, he argues, is completely inert when it comes to motivating conduct, and without some emotion we would not engage in any action. - Hume's most famous contribution to philosophy is perhaps his sceptical scrutiny of the concept that causality was some mysterious form of physical process. He argued that causality was rather a method of reasoning used to explain a variety of physical Sigmund Freud Born: May 6, 1856, Příbor, Czechia Died: September 23, 1939, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom - Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it. - Sigmund Freud's theory suggests that human behavior is influenced by unconscious memories, thoughts, and urges. This theory also proposes that the psyche comprises three aspects: the id, ego, and superego. The id is entirely unconscious, while the ego operates in the conscious mind. -Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and introduced influential theories such as: his ideas of the conscious and unconscious; the id, ego, and superego; dream interpretation; and psychosexual development. Gilbert Ryle Born: August 19, 1900, Brighton, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom Died: October 6, 1976, Whitby, United Kingdom -Though best known and often identified with his work on concepts of mind, Gilbert Ryle (b. 1900–d. 1976) was no monoglot. He was a broad thinker, with broad influences, invested in various philosophical issues—perhaps chief among them, the status and methods of philosophy itself. Gilbert Ryle was a famous 20th century ordinary language philosopher who authored The Concept of Mind. His field, ordinary language philosophy, asserts that problems and false assumptions develop as we distort meanings of words. E14_GWAPO_SI_EARL_PASUNOD_BE_CALCULUS -Gilbert Ryle was a British philosopher, principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "ghost in the machine." He was a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers who shared Ludwig Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems -He was especially well-known for his definitive critique of the Dualism of Descartes (for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the machine") and other traditional mind-body theories. -However, having made the case for an integrated mind/body perspective on the human self, Ryle then focuses his attention primarily on human behavior. From his perspective, the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a person to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances. Paul Churchland Born: October 21, 1942 (age 80 years), Vancouver, Canada Paul Montgomery Churchland is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind -Rather than dualism, Churchland holds to materialism, the belief that nothing but matter exists. When discussing the mind, this means that the physical brain, and not the mind, exists. Adding to this, the physical brain is where we get our sense of self. -Churchland's identity theory is that there are subnetworks of the brain, operating in an essentially connectionist fashion, which correspond to – in fact can be identified with – states of sensory consciousness (colours, sounds, smells, etc.). -Rather than dualism, Churchland holds to materialism, the belief that nothing but matter exists. When discussing the mind, this means that the physical brain, and not the mind, exists. Adding to this, the physical brain is where we get our - E14_GWAPO_SI_EARL_PASUNOD_BE_CALCULUS
