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SAN DIEGO MESA COLLEGE
PHIL 107
CRN: 46602
SPRING 2015
INSTRUCTOR: PROF. NINA ROSENSTAND
REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN NATURE
Study guide, FINAL EXAM
Prof. Rosenstand’s office: SB311P
Office hours: MTWTh 11:15-12:30 and by appointment
Messages to Prof. Rosenstand: (619) 388-2407
E-mail: nrosenst@sdccd.edu (e-mails will be answered during Prof. Rosenstand’s office hours.)
Website: http://classroom.sdmesa.edu/nrosenst
STAY INFORMED ABOUT POSSIBLE CHANGES TO THE READINGS AND TEST DATES. CHANGES, IF ANY, WILL BE
POSTED ON THE WEBSITE.
FINAL EXAMINATION:
Tuesday May 19, 9:35: final exam
Thursday May 21, 9:35: final meeting. Finals and 3rd papers returned. Attendance is mandatory. Noshows lose 2 points off their final exam.
FORMAT OF FINAL
Objective test. Use a scantron Form #882. Please use pencil #2. Make sure your scantron answers are
clear and unambiguous; otherwise the scantron machine can’t read them. Read the question carefully.
You may write on the test. 30 questions, each worth 2 points: 15 true/false questions, 15 multiple choice
questions. This test is worth 60 percent of your final exam. NO BOOKS, NO NOTES ALLOWED.
Plagiarism policy: Using open book, electronic devices or notes during the test, or consulting with other
students, will result in an F on the test, and will be reported.
Readings:
THC Ch.7: “A Sense of Self” pp.241-253 + Narrative: Memento
THC Ch.8: “Stuck Between Good and Evil?” pp.274-281, 281-288 (Plato & Aristotle), 305-315
(Nietzsche)
Narrative: The Myth of Sisyphus
Course Reader: Damasio, Self Comes to Mind pp.25-32
Course Reader: “Art and Science Peer Into the Mind”pp.41-45
Key Issues; the test questions will all refer to this list, directly or indirectly. (Remember to read the
reviews at the end of each chapter for an overview!)
CHAPTER 7
John Locke: Our self resides in our
consciousness and memories. Criticism: What if
we lose our memory? What if we have false
memories?
Inspired by Locke: the reductive identity theory:
a person’s identity is identical to his/her
memories and consciousness
Repressed memories: no longer assumed to be
accurate
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Sigmund Freud: Our self is divided into id,
ego, and superego. We have no conscious access
to our Unconscious/Id.
David Hume: We have no experience of a self
without content; my self is always a perception,
so there is no underlying “self.” When we die,
our self is annihilated.
Immanuel Kant: We have a transcendental self
that is the condition for all experiences, so we
can’t experience it.
Paul Ricoeur: We have a story-telling
(narrative) self, and we become better people
when we understand ourselves through telling
our own story. Solves Locke’s problem of
missing memories.
Tribal philosophy: usually a sense of self is tied
to the community, not the individual
Buddhism: the notion of an underlying self is an
illusion. 4 Noble Truths: Suffering; attachment
to life; cessation of suffering; the way to end
suffering.
Buddhism: 3 essential characteristics of human
life: suffering, impermanence, a lack of self.
Names are important for human identity;
knowing a name implies power.
Rumplestiltskin: example of the power of
knowing a name.
Narrative
Memento: Leonard has lost his short-term
memory: Is he still himself? He doesn’t know
what he has become. Example of how Locke’s
definition of “self” is inadequate, and how
Ricoeur’s narrative self applies.
CHAPTER 8
Traditional symbolism: the two voices in us
advocating good deeds (“the angel”) and bad
deeds (“the devil”)
Joseph Campbell, mythologist: even today we
have myths making sense out of life. Example:
Star Wars.
“The Meaning of Life”: Rosenstand’s 4
approaches: There is Meaning: (1) The
Meaning is knowable (religious views,
Aristotle), 2) we don’t know it yet; There is no
Meaning: 3) we create our own meaning, 4)
there is no meaning at all.
Crisis of meaning: 1) Bertrand Russell: we
must have courage to realize we’re just a
collection of atoms. The meaning of life we
create is the human freedom to think. 2) Sartre:
We are responsible for creating a meaningful life
in the face of absurdity. 3) Camus: We must
learn to choose our absurd life, like Sisyphus.
Life After Death: The near-death tunnel
experience. A.J.Ayer’s vision.
The Tibetan Book of the Dead: “Bardo” =
between death and new incarnation
Plato:
Socrates’s student
Theory of forms; Dualism
Plato believed in reincarnation; the soul returns
to the Forms
The true nature of reality: unchanging. Inspired
by Pythagoras and Parmenides
Heraclitus taught that reality is change: “You
can’t step into the same river twice.”
3 elements of the soul: reason, willpower
(passion), appetites
Reason ought to control willpower, which ought
to control appetites. The charioteer analogy.
Box 8.3: “The body is a prison” theory: soma
sema
Nietzsche
Ricoeur: The three masters of suspicion: Marx,
Freud, Nietzsche
Metaphysics: inspired by Heraclitus: everything
is change.
Critical of Plato and Christianity, and
somatophobia: “Pie in the sky,” hostile to life.
“God is dead”
The Overman and the herd mentality;
resentment of the master. “Good and evil” is
herd-mentality.
Elisabeth Nietzsche: edited her brother’s works,
inserted anti-Semitism
The story of Elisabeth Nietzsche’s colony of
“pure Germans” in Paraguay
The eternal return of the same: What if life
repeats itself endlessly? Would you still want to
do it over again? = test of love of life.
Narrative:
Camus’ Sisyphus: absurdity of life (rolling the
stone—but one must choose it)
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Salmon Reader: Damasio, Self Comes to Mind
3 Levels of self: the protoself (brain stem), the
core self, the autobiographical self
Biological and sociocultural homeostasis
The purpose of consciousness: to keep the body
in homeostasis
So: any living thing with a brain stem has a
basic sense of self (broad definition of
consciousness)
Salmon Reader: “Art and Science Peer Into the
Mind”pp.41-45
Free will is a reality, because free will is more
than a split-second decision
Damasio is compared to Merleau-Ponty
Damasio: a 4th level of self: the reflective self
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NOTES