What I’ve learned from IB Philosophy this year

Herclitus -

• “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.

Tao Te Ching - passage analysis, line-by-line

VI

The spirit of the valley never dies.            17
This is called the mysterious female.
The gateway of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,
Yet use will never drain it.

(found on p.10 of our versions)

"The spirit of the valley never dies."
I interpret this line to mean that the "valley" is the portal between heaven and earth - the gateway, of sorts, to both all beginnings and ends. And it never dies because it doesn't exist in the sense that we thinking of it as existing, that is, with a definitive time line. It both is and isn't, it exists and it doesn't. It is the yin and the yang and it shall never "die" because it will never live in the same way a human is said to "live."


"This is called the mysterious female."
The two key words here are "mysterious" and "female," each of them having important meanings. Firstly, mysterious. It is" mysterious" because it is beyond human comprehension. It doesn't exist in this "middle kingdom," instead, it exists more of a in-between, a transport to the there and the not there. "Female" is important because it is the source of life and birth. Thus, by having a "mysterious female" we have this portal which gives us "birth" into our next stage, but we don't understand the process nor the portal itself.

"The gateway of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth."
As I alluded to earlier, this is a gateway or portal of some kind, and it exists between heaven and earth. It is the called the "root" because of a few things. One, "root" has a distinct relationship to nature, which is very important in the Tao Te Ching because nature is the best manifestation of the Tao in this world. Also, root is the source of something, and thus this gateway being the source to both heaven and earth means that it is the method to which to can travel and experience both, achieving a little bit more comprehension in adherence to the way.

"Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,
Yet use will never drain it."
This line was the most difficult for me to interpret. "Use will never drain it" refers to the fact that even though you may pass through this portal, you cannot ever deplete it, or stop it from doing its job. The use of the word "drain" also implies that it cannot be used up in any sense of the word. Literally, it cannot be diminished at all, because it cannot be taken from. It is "dimly visible" because it is hard for us to understand, impossible actually, the ways of the Tao. It is "visible" but not truly knowable, or clear, because we do not truly understand the Tao either. It only "seems" as if it were there, but we can never be sure because we can never really understand exactly what the Tao is or it;s purpose. It's beyond human comprehension.

First day of Class

This was our first day of IB Philosophy, 3rd Period, with Mr. Summers. We discussed our first three questions about Sophie's World, eventually ending up with the question, "What defines reality?"

Also, our quote of the day was "Reason is the slave of the passion." - D. Hume

From this quote, we stated that Hume would prefer instinct and reaction over reason and response.