Kristi Ziemba
Philosophy 1000
Professor Teresa Welch
November 28, 2012
Class Group Discussion Paper
For this paper I am going to discuss the details of my class group discussion on which
philosopher best answered important questions about life. My group consisted of Mitchell
Suarez, Robert Weaver, Zackary Gregory, Halima Yarow, and myself. First I will provide our
individual answers to each question, then I will discuss whether or not this group discussion
changed or refined my answer to these philosophical questions, and finally I will talk about any
other philosophers that were discussed and why we felt they didn’t provide the best answer to
these questions.
The first question that we discussed was: Which philosopher has provided the best
answers to philosophy questions relating to metaphysics and epistemology? Such questions are
things like: What is reality? What is knowledge? How do we acquire knowledge? Robert Weaver
felt that David Hume had the best answer to this question. That is, that we gain knowledge
through our five senses, or our experiences, and that all our ideas can be traced. He also felt that
our own perception of our experiences play a role in the knowledge we gain. Our group overall
agreed with Robert’s answer. We then looked at Socrates philosophy, who taught that truth is
within ourselves and that we need experiences to uncover those truths. We all agreed upon his
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philosophy as well. So overall, our group decided those who taught that experience was needed,
along with our five senses, had the best answer to this question.
The second question we discussed was: Which philosopher has provided the best answers
to philosophy questions relating to ethics? Zachary felt that Immanuel Kant provided the best
answer to this question. Immanuel Kant’s philosophy was that it is our will to do good. “Kant
insisted that morality was entirely a matter of reason and good will, not, as some believe, a
matter of consequences or action.” (Soccio at page 330) He also believed that we should want to
do our moral duty out of our good will, rather than doing them for our own ulterior purposes. I
agreed for the most part with his philosophy. I do believe if your hearts intentions are good, then
it is right, even if circumstances prevent it or things changed that were out of your control. Then
Mitchell brought up the point that what may be good to one person won’t necessarily be good to
another person. He brought up the example of Hitler, and how he felt destroying the Jews was
the right thing to do, but obviously that was not the right thing to do. So we found ourselves
stuck, and concluded that most of the time a person’s good will is not something as extreme as
killing people, but it does happen. In contrast to Immanuel Kant, I felt that Plato’s view that right
and wrong must be determined by the consequence of our actions was another good answer. I
feel that if you take Immanuel Kant’s advice, to act out of good will, and pair it with Plato’s
view to look at the consequences of our actions, I don’t think we can go wrong. Halima brought
up Aristotle’s view that we need to find a mean between extremes. Aristotle believed that when
we go to extremes we will destroy our virtues. All of us agreed on this view that going to
extremes is what leads to trouble. Robert felt that Epicurus had the best answer for what the good
life consists of. Epicurus believed that the quality of our life is most important. He believed that
the highest pleasures are intellectual, and the greatest good is the peace of mind, not physical
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pleasures. Robert also tied in with this philosophy that relationships with other people is what
brings us most joy in this life. It’s not about gaining instant gratification in life. And lastly, we
discussed the Stoics view that trials in life make you stronger. Robert made a point that he
doesn’t feel that you should seek trials or pain in life to become stronger. But if you do happen to
go through something painful or hard it will make you a stronger person having gone through
that; we all agreed on that.
This class group discussion definitely opened my eyes to different things I hadn’t thought
of before. I came in to this discussion believing that Relativism, or the belief that knowledge is
determined by specific qualities of the observer, was the correct answer to the first question.
After discussing with my group, that opinion changed to we definitely need experiences to gain
knowledge. With the second question my opinion didn’t really change, but I gained new insights
that added to my opinion. So overall, I feel I gained a lot from this discussion in learning that I
agree with other philosophers as well.
Throughout our group discussion we talked about a few other philosophers that we felt
did not provide the best answers to these philosophical questions. In general we felt a lot of
philosophers we discussed at least one good point, but there were a few that we did not agree
with at all. For the first question we brought up John Locke and his view that we are all born a
clean slate waiting to be filled with experiences and ideas. We all agreed that this could not be
the case; we can see in the way a baby acts that there has to be innate ideas within us from birth.
These innate ideas allow us to learn and grow so that we gain knowledge from the experiences
we have in life and how we perceive those experiences. For the second question the philosopher
Jean Paul Sarte was brought up, who believed that we are condemned to be free and that we are
what we decide to be. A few of us in the group didn’t agree with this view. We felt that we
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should be held to some responsibility for our actions. Overall those were the only two we didn’t
feel had the best answers to the questions we discussed. In conclusion, great points were made
throughout the discussion and we were able to see how many philosophers each had a great point
to make. I feel that most of them had a piece to bring to the puzzle, and it’s our job to create a
balance of these things in our lives.