- “No man ever steps in the same river twice”
- Flux and constant change are the thread of life.
Parmenides -
- Change is impossible and existence is both timeless and unchanging.
Hume -
- You can only assume that the sun is going to rise tomorrow, you don’t KNOW it is.
- Reason always is rooted in our passions, first and foremost.
- You have to trust your sensory perceptions, because you need to be aware of your surroundings in order to get anywhere.
- If you ignore the context under which you are operating, then you are lost.
Descartes -
- To “know” anything, you must first doubt everything.
- Only by looking at the limitations of your knowledge can you realize any truths about the world.
- There is so much to be gained from thinking rationally about a subject, trying to anlzye it without bias and without subjectivity.
Nietzsche -
- By existing, you have the will to exist, you want to exist, and nobody can take that away from you.
- The Church, or any other powerful institution like it, will always look to control people. Life is about going through a process of self-affirmation and realizing your own value and worth.
Kierkegaard -
- How to look at events from a teleological perspective, and how to recognize the limitations of that sort of thinking.
- How to live in the moment.
- Your existence in this very moment, the fact that you are alive, conscious, and can make decisions is something that is absolutely incredible.
Plato -
- The importance of justice.
- Why do people act well?
- Because they need to be just.
- But WHY?
- How important it is to look at all sides of an issue to reach a consensus, because if you only approach something from a single viewpoint, you lose the valuable aspect of preventing a completely insular view.
Marx -
- You only get out of something what you put into it.
- Your identity is based off of your job because how else can you identiy yourself, if not by that which you contribute to this world?
Hegel -
- You cannot live as a hermit, you must integrate yourself to others.
- You are not dependent on others to form your identity, but you only realize yourself by connecting and talking with others.
Buddhism -
- You do not exist in a bubble - everything is a part of something else.
- We do not exist as seperate beings; we need to rid ourselves of the notion of the Western Ego.
- “If we look closely at both the concepts of defiled and immaculate, we return to the notion of inter-being.”
Kant -
- Treat others how you want to be treated.
- Respect other people’s autonomy.
- Look at other people not as a means to an end, but as end-in-themselves.
Wittgenstein -
- Never generalize anything - everything exists as a unique instance.
- There are certain things that cannot be expressed through words.
- The best kind of learning is experiential learning.
In conclusion, in philosophy, you can have both the essence and existence. Both the Dao and the self. Both oneness and a soul. In philosophy, it’s all about what you want to do with your life, and the choices you make. It’s about realizing what surrounds you, and realizing that you are a part of it. Philosophy, like life, is all about inspiration.
