2/13/12

Today we talked about the difference between self interest and being selfish. Selfish is when acting based on own self interest and being self interested is acting based on your own health. An example would be not crossing the road during rush hour so you don't get hit out of self interest, or not crossing the road to help someone in danger and being selfish. But then there is also different ways of acting selfishly by doing nothing when you should. We used the example of someone watching a baby drown and doing nothing about and not having to go to jail based on that action. Should the person that watched the baby suffocate have to pay the same price as the person that put that life in the water? Thinking about it, it doesn't take action to act selfish, being selfish can include doing nothing at all. We live in a society that we won't harm one another, but we won't go out of our way to help one another either. We use little sayings like, "I didn't mean too!" that make us seam less involved or that there was little that we could have done to help another when in reality we could have made a difference.

2/9/12

In my class we talk a lot about what makes us human, more specifically what makes us different from animals. An example would be how both animals and humans can move freely without the need of another force, which seperates us both from plants that need the wind or another force to move them. But than what do we have that animals don't have? Now don't forget that we are animals, but with concious thought. We are able to think of questions and problem solve, we do have animal desires but we are the only species that has reason. Reason is a driving force for almost everything we do, thinking abbout what is the best way to get something done or how to solve a problem. Arostotle believe that every human body is just the shell for a soul, which defines us as a person and without the human body the soul would not be able to survive. But the soul is not a "thing", it is an enity all of it's self. It is invisible but it makes that we classify as ourselves as being human.

2/8/12

What helps you lead a happy life, is it all of the money you gain or all the friends you make? Well if you ask Aristotle he would say that to lead a happy life you have to reflect and lead a life of reason. There should be no passive enjoyment only the use of reason. Plato believed that we needed to escape the cave to see the light and find the truth, but Aristotle believed that we didn't need to get out of the cave, only see what is in front of us. But being human, it is in our nature to be social animals, but because of this nature does that not allow us to exercise reason alone and still be happy? Aristotle believed that if you couldn't test your virtues by yourself, that the interaction with others help you learn. To be good to yourself is be thought to be living the "good life", but if we don't help others we are not acting human based on our nature because we can't survive alone. We can't funtion on our own, think about it; would wouldn't be able to brush your teeth without someone getting the water to work in the sink or making your tooth brush and tooth paste. We are dependent on others from birth until death.  

2/7/12

What makes a tree a tree? I kept asking myself that when I was walking outside if I  believed that it was possible that there is a form of a tree in a different universe. Just thinking about that there can be forms of everything living in a different universe that was better than the beings here literally made my head hurt. But than I was thinking what literally makes a tree a tree? Is it just because we call it trees or is it the properties that science has proved that has made us call a tree a tree. But if science has proven all that a tree is, than how is there a better form if we have proven what a tree is? Oh! And if there is a God, does only him know what a tree is or has he given humans the power to find out what a tree is? And what about miracles, is it a God that makes them happen or just a fact of unproven nature? I like to believe that there is something bigger than us that makes things happen and that a tree is a tree because we are given the thought process to figure out what makes something what it is.

2/6/12

Today in class we talked a lot about what powers the universe. This is a question that philosophers have been asking for centuries. Aristotle believed that caused power the universe, and when I heard that I had no idea what that meant. But think about it, if nothing caused something to be set in motion than there would be nothing to happen at all. Some believe that God is reason for the things that happen in the universe, but Aristotle didn't really believe in a God that could make everything in motion. We can't prove the existence the existence of a God, but we can prove effect that happen based on cause and effect. One of the most known back and forth questions using this effect is the question, "What happened first, the chicken or the egg?" Somehow this question came up in class and it helped make sense of what we were talking about. 

2/2/12

When talking about belief or knowledge, we tend to think of them hand in hand. But believe it or not there is a difference; knowledge is justified belief, meaning it has something to back it up. Belief is believing in something and having no proof to back it up. The reason people tend to correlate the two is because sometimes we fall victim to false beliefs, or believing what we want to believe. When this happens we fall victim to losing what is real and what is what we want to see. Plato believed that if you know the truth than you will always be good, and that is where the concept of believing whatever you want to believe is the truth and how that can lead you down the wrong path. With this idea that if we know the truth than we will do no wrong, can we condemn those who do bad things if all their lives they were taught what they were doing was the right thing and in that there was truth and understanding in their actions? I like to think that I know the truth with some things, but when hearing how we sometimes that your truth might not be the right truth, but than what again what is the right truth? Who makes that call?

2/1/12

Ignorance is bliss, this very common sentence holds a lot of truth is a lot of people's lives We fear the things that we don't understand and what we don't know. For example, we tend to fear the dark because we don't know what's lurking in the shadows. But what about when those fears start holding you back from leading a better life. The metaphor of the man chained to the back of the cave is a good example. The chain's represents the things that hold us back life being "blissfully ignorant", the authorities, and our own habits. Habits was a chain that really interested me because I never really thought how the way that we do things can push us more into the cave than helping us progress in life. But there are more than these few examples that hold us back, anything that fights us from leading an examined life is considered a chain. It is hard to fight these chains because sometimes it involves changing the way you live life as you know it and by instinct we fight that. But as Plato said, "There is more to the world than shadows in a cave".