...Philosophy Wroclaw, 2009-12-18 Institute of Electronics Wroclaw University of Technology What is Philosophy for Fernando Wieliczko Wednesday 17:05 First year Philosophy should not be seen as a subject or a specified study like medicine, biology or physics. Philosophy is present in our lives and in our decisions. It changes the way we look through physical objects or even human thoughts. Philosophy is present in the past, which is the history, in the present and in the future. We can clearly see how present it is to every human thought. When we discuss about ethics, we discuss about Philosophy; when we discuss about politics, we also discuss about Philosophy. Philosophy is behind the decisions we make, it is behind the laws of a State for example; because one day, someone, or a group of people, faced a bad situation, or saw the possibility that this same situation would happen in the future, and decided to make a law, so that people would live better in the society. When they made the law, they had to think and understand that a law would prevent that bad situation to happen again, or even for the first time, which makes of them thinkers. If they think, they exist, that makes of them and all of us philosophers: “I think, therefore I am” – by René Descartes. Some people work so hard to make so much money but they forget that the money stands for their own comfort. So if they work too hard, they end up having not much time to relax...
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...and to die, but how do you know that the soul is a soul that already existed? How do you know that the soul isn't obliterated when you die and that a new soul is born with a new body? In Phaedo Plato uses dialogue to explore all these ideas,which are formed through reasoning. All that he thinks is not told explicitly but discovered by questioning and use of the intellect. In the exact way that he describes, the question is not asked, what do you see, its always what do you think. The processes of thinking things through leads you to the arguments he presents for the immortality of the soul. Socrates never tells me what to think he only presents ideas and allows the conversation for my own thinking to develop. The process of reading this is in line with the way of life for a philosopher who is seeking truth. Even in his last moments, Socrates is taking time to discuss these ideas with his colleagues. If this is what he is doing before he dies, this is another way he shows me that this is the proper way to live. The body can’t exist without soul but the soul can exist without the soul. The body needs its opposite since it is mortal. But the soul being immortal does not need body to reach beyond itself. This is why Socrates views death in a positive light. He seeks lives in the soul which is done through understanding and the intellect and this is the life of a philosopher. opposites. In the generation of the idea of the opposites you need the idea of "after having been" for...
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...Role and Functions of Law LAW / 421 July 18, 2012 Role and Functions of Law Law has a vital and important role in our society. Law is somehow rules created and applied by the government system for peace and order in the society. Law is intended to be interpreted and applied as correctly it was intended to, reasonable and just. Every law has its purpose, and there are many laws for every situation. This also applies to business. There are many laws addressed for the business environment and for every situation in it. The purpose of this laws in business, are intended to ensure that all business related issues and situations are running properly, without affecting their businesses and customers, and/or any consequences in between. In the case of companies, laws are addressed for them to comply correctly and properly with the function and purpose of their business, employees and customers. There are also in the business environment, the labor area, laws that are intended to protect the employees and their right as workers. And there are also many laws addressed to protect and ensure the best interest for the customers. But in business and more importantly addressed to companies, there are laws that prevents them to dominated markets too aggressively and/or completely, or controlling it at all. These laws are mostly as monopoly’s laws, which are addressed directly to prevent any monopoly action or state from any company. These normally are intended for bigger or larger...
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...But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young. For this reason their nurture and occupations should be fixed by law; for they will not be painful when they have become customary. But it is surely not enough that when they are young they should get the right nurture and attention: since they must, even when they are grown up, practise and be habituated to them, we shall need laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the whole of life; for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments rather than the sense of what is noble. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, chapter 10) This is a very important quote coming from Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, chapter 10, where Aristotle tries to explain that most young people don’t tend out of their own nature to act virtuous. But not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t know to act in this way. We need to train, drill, and educate the youth of this generation to act in a virtuous way. Aristotle believes children should be taught at all times whether at school or at home to act in the correct ways. When these children are young they need education and habituation, Aristotle preaches throughout Book X, chapter 10. Virtue naturally brings pleasure at virtuous acts, but its active exercise, as needed for happiness, depends to...
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...belief, truth and justification to define knowledge as in classical theory, yet, the Gettier’s theory by questioning knowledge that justifiably believe one of the true proposition and dismiss the other is necessary and sufficient add-on to the classical theory to redefine knowledge. First of all, according to Plato’s theory of knowledge, that knowledge is justified true belief, or as Gettier concluded Plato’s classical theory of knowledge as: “ S knows that P if and only if P is true; S believes in P and S is justified in believing P” (Gettier 1). In the Meno, written by Plato, he believes that knowledge appears to be more valuable than true belief. As what I learned in class about Plato’s idea of knowledge, he implies Meno that true opinion “is no less useful than knowledge.. They are worthless until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why” (Plato 96d). Additionally, in the Meno, Plato makes the comparisons between the true belief versus knowledge in finding the way to Larissa are the...
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...Socrates Socrates was accused of many things in the Athens market. Socrates was accused of being a man who makes the worse argument into the stronger argument. A man who knows about the heavens and earth and therefore any one who believe this must not believe in the gods. Socrates was accused of being an atheist. Most of the people that followed him around his quest were inquisitive. Where as most adults would walk by Socrates with his “annoying question” the youth stopped to see what he had to say. The youth became his followers when he went out to ask questions that undermined society. Therefore, Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth. I do not believe that Socrates was guilty. For the fact that he was not responsible for the way, other people used what he said. Socrates is the seeker of self-knowledge. He poses the question, “how can I know about the world if I do not know who I’m”. Then the society says, “know thyself”. These two sayings sound alike but society has something else in mind, know thyself means that you must know your place in society. Socrates wanted people to find out who they were by themselves and not let society tell them who they were. You have to know how you think and act in certain situation to know yourself. Knowing yourself in a sense helps you in fact know the world. Socrates might have believed it takes time to know yourself rather than just saying you know who you are. Therefore, Socrates went out to find an answer to the question...
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...Maria Panzo Phil 1301 03-31-12 Socrates was accused of denying the gods and of corrupting the young. The first of these charges rested upon the fact that he supposed himself to be guided by a divine sign. The second, Xenophon tells us, was supported by a series of particular allegations: (a) that he taught his associates to despise the institutions of the state, and especially election by lot; (b) that he had numbered amongst his associates Critias and Alcibiades, the most dangerous of the representatives of the oligarchical and democratically parties respectively; (c) that be taught the young to disobey parents and guardians and to prefer his own authority to theirs. The false images of Socrates arose because people misunderstood his true activity. Socrates explains this activity by relating a story about the Delphic Oracle. The Saying of the Delphic Oracle- A friend of Socrates' went to the Oracle and asked the priestess "Who is the wisest of mortals?" and the priestess replied: "Socrates is the most wise." The Testing of the Delphic Oracle - After some hesitation, he sought to show the saying wrong by finding someone wiser than he. He began to question various people, including politicians, poets, and craftsmen.. The Truth of the Delphic Oracle - After "testing" the saying of the god, Socrates became aware of the truth of the saying that "Socrates is most wise" -- it can be expressed as follows: Socrates was most wise because he was Aware of his ignorance. In the course...
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...Punishment In Plato’s The Republic, Socrates has many conversations with people in order to further understand concepts such as justice and the way things are ideally supposed to be done. When I think about justice the definition that comes to mind is: the administration of a just action because of an unjust or immoral act being done by a human or group of humans. The issue of proper punishment has also been discussed in those conversations with Socrates and his peers. There must be a punishment for immoral or unjust actions committed by any human otherwise everything in our world would turn into complete chaos. In Socrates’s time people believed heavily in the afterlife and that his or her actions on Earth determined the quality of that life. The gods played a huge role in deciding the fates of everyone depending on how one lived while one was alive. If one lived an unjust and reckless life then it will show because the gods in one’s afterlife will punish him or her. Socrates states, “…bad people are wretched because they are in need of punishment, and that in paying the penalty they are benefited by that god.” There is a problem with waiting until the afterlife for people to be punished because then there would be no order in society. Bad people who are actually bad can get away with living well in the afterlife because during their Earthly life they gained enough wealth to pay the gods to give them a good afterlife. Meanwhile the good people of the world who did a bad...
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...Math was always the class that could never quite keep my attention in school. I was a daydreamer and a poor student and applying myself to it was pretty much out of the question. When I would pay some attention I would still forget the steps it had taken me to find the solution. So, when the next time came around I was lost. This probably came about because as a kid I wasn’t real fond of structure. I was more into abstract thought and didn’t think that life required much more than that at the time. I was not interested in things I had to write down and figure out step by step on a piece of paper. I figured I could be Tom Sawyer until about the age of seventy two. My thoughts didn’t need a rhyme or reason and didn’t need laws to keep them within any certain limits. The furthest I ever made it in school was Algebra II and I barely passed that. The reason wasn’t that I couldn’t understand math. It was more that I didn’t apply myself to the concepts of it, or the practice and study it took to get there. I was always more interested in other concepts. Concepts that were gathered by free thinkers, philosophers, idealists. Now I knew that a lot of those figures I read about tried their hand in the sciences, physics, and mathematics in their day, but I was more interested in their philosophical views on everyday life. It was not until I started reading on the subject of quantum physics and standard physics that I became interested in math. The fact that the laws of standard physics...
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...The Socratic dialogues deal with the definition of certain types of virtue, and how these specific virtues (for example, courage or piety) fit in to the overall definition of doing good and living by the correct moral standards. The dialogues of the Apology and the Crito deal with the trial and sentencing of Socrates, facilitating a discussion about an individual's morality in abiding by the law. Socrates does show us that civil law should be treated as a moral obligation, by proving that to ignore the rule of law would be to commit moral wrong. He then qualifies this by illustrating that lawfulness is not always equal to virtuousness, and explaining how to remain virtuous without damaging the authority of the law. Further examination of his arguments in regards to civil disobedience reveal inconsistency and the necessity for further development. SOCRATES' MORAL OBLIGATION TO CIVIL LAW In the Crito, Socrates gives an explanation about why he must remain in his jail cell and accept his sentence by using moral reasoning. The most important facet in his argument is the claim (which the interlocutor Crito quickly agrees to) that it is never justified to do evil. No matter what has been suffered before, no matter what good comes of it, doing wrong is unacceptable to Socrates any way you put it. He clearly states the underlying principle for the rest of his argument will be that "neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right" (Crito 49d/e). ...
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...Stoicism Class: Intro to Moral Reasoning By: Erykah Harrison Due: 04.29.2011 The period after Alexander the Great also known as the Hellenistic period is when Stoicism surfaced and became the philosophical preference of many Greeks and non-Greeks. The beginnings of Stoicism lie with Zeno of Citium, a student of the Cynic philosophy Crates, who established his own philosophical school in 300 BCE. Since Zeno taught in a stoa in Athens, his philosophy became known as Stoicism. Diogenes Laertius incorporated the content of Zeno’s successors, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, to provide a brief outline of Stoic philosophy in the third century called Lives of Eminent Philosophers. According to Diogenes, Stoicism falls into three parts: reason, physics and ethics. Zeno was the first philosopher to make this tripartite division and other Stoic philosophers, including Chrysippus followed. These three philosophy divisions are interdependent and therefore cannot be study without touching on all three divisions. Stoicism’s three divisions are complicated in theory. According to Zeno, the goal of life is to “live in agreement with nature, which is to live according to virtue.” This essential injunction to live at one with nature, the ‘harmonious logos' according to Zeno, still persists today. When lives in harmony with nature, they gain peace of mind and the reward of virtue. Zeno believed that humans gravitate toward virtue in pursuit of self-preservation. Physics, or Nature...
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...“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness: but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”- Plato (BC 427-BC. 347) Greek Philosopher. This quote as to what Plato said in a sense is true to this day. Every child is genius when it comes to learning. Various students are better learners in areas of interest such as Mathematics or philosophy. Today, educators challenge students to discover new topics and encourage them to gain further knowledge in the areas of interest. Consequently, this could bring about curiosity in areas normally the student may have given less attention to. This is the philosophy of Plato. He believes a superior educator will be able to draw out those talents in students. Philosophy has been integrated in the history of education from the beginning of time. The use of philosophy is applied to everyday living, education, politics and economics situations. The branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of reality and existence is known as metaphysics. Metaphysics is concerned with the question of nature of the person or the self. It addresses such questions as whether human nature is basically good, evil, spiritual, mental, or physical. (Webb, Metha, Jordan. Pg. 50) Metaphysics is an essential component element of teaching. Children are taught by their parents the ethics of what is acceptable in society. This encourages the child...
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...Plato was born around the year 428 BC in Athens. His father died while Plato was young, and his mother remarried to Pyrilampes, in whose house Plato would grow up. Plato's birth name was Aristocles, and he gained the nickname Platon, meaning broad, because of his broad build. His family had a history in politics, and Plato was destined to a life in keeping with this history. He studied at a gymnasium owned by Dionysios, and at the palaistra of Ariston of Argos. When he was young he studied music and poetry. After the Peloponnesian War, his mother's brother and uncle tried to persuade him to join in the oligarchical rules of Athens. Instead, Plato joined his two older brothers in becoming a student of Socrates. The trio of Plato, Socrates (his teacher) and Aristotle (his student) they laid the fundamentals of Western philosophy. Socrates has a large influence of his thinking and teachings. Plato began his philosophical career under the guidance of Socrates. When Socrates died he traveled to Egypt and Italy studied in Pythagoras and then remained as an advisor for the rulers of Syracuse. When he returned to Athens around the age of forty, Plato founded a school in Athens, in a grove sacred to the demigod Academus, called the Academy, where he tried to impart the Socratic style of teaching to his students. It was, in effect, a university of higher learning, which included physical science, astronomy, and mathematics, as well as philosophy. In addition to presiding over the Academy...
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...Was Socrates a Sophist? (20 mark) Sophists were known as teachers of rhetoric, philosophy and virtues. They were well known in ancient Greece for making the weaker argument the stronger and for speculating on sciences that went against the ‘gods’. They were often regarded as intellectuals as the word sophism derived from the word ‘sophos’, meaning wise man. In the latter years of Socrates’ life he has often been regarded as a Sophist but there are many evidences which prove he is not. Firstly, Sophists were teachers who charged a fee for their efforts and instruction. This was the case as they were said to be the only ones who were wise, and were giving people knowledge to benefit from and better themselves with. Socrates on the contrary did not establish a fee or a payment; he on the other hand went out on his own will to question the people about virtues. His regular trips to the Agora reinforce this point as he was simply looking for people to question about matters with no answer, with no intention of taking money or making people wiser. Nonetheless, although Socrates did not ask for money from his interlocutor, he would sometimes be rewarded through hospitality such as, foods and places to stay. This was however the choice of his ‘student’ whether or not they wanted to pay him in such a way, which distinguishes Socrates from the Sophists. Additionally, the Sophists were skilled in elaborate argumentation; were they would try and make the argument they were focusing on...
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...into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts. As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55). The first five speeches bond with each other. Each of them mentions the opinions of the former one in order to either support or against them. However, just like the elements of a beautiful picture, they fail to show us the integration of love. Socrates’ speech does that. It contains the sides mentioned before, and uniquely views Love from a dynamic aspect. Phaedrus Phaedrus is the first one to give a speech to praise love. He begins his speech with the claim that Love is a primordial god, with no parents. Hence there must be some human benefits that are due...
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