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.

Closing Statement for Perfect Societies Debate

Tyranny is just one puffed-up guy who lusts for power, destroying everything in his path without regard for anyone or anything else. It is the ultimate embodiment of a selfish megalomaniac.

Democracy is just a bunch of old guys who also lust for power, doing everything they can to secure their power, and enacting policies in favor of that, not in favor of what the people actually want. It’s just a thinly disguised high school popularity contest.

The Republic is simply Plato’s ideal society. It’s one guy, at one time, who thought this one crazy idea could work. Who in their right mind would buy into the idea that you have a “function” to fulfil, much less the idea that these “gold-hearted” Guardians know exactly what your function is? The Republic is Plato’s well-intentioned society, but with major realistic drawbacks which contribute to its illegitimacy, and utter impracticality.

Oligarchy is a collection of people who believe that their money entitles them to be completely superior beings. They base everything they do off of wealth and material gain, not caring at all about the people, and lusting completely for just two more coppers to rub together.

Timarchy, on the other hand, is an historically effective and advanced form of government.
Yes, we have slaves.
Yes, Plato argues that we have intellectual limitations, that we exploit the lower class, and that we have private greed.
And yes, we don’t have the close-knit “traditional” family.

But if any society will dare to say that they don’t have any problems, then they are flat-out lying. The issues and problems that we have are real, and they are troublesome. But like the timarchic character that we are, we will confront them head-on, and attempt to fix them.

Because we have a lot of great aspects. We are ambitious, athletic, energetic, and loyal, with a system that has gender equality, fosters courage, promotes discipline, encourages stability, keeps structure as well as order, and is militarily excellent in all capacities. Our military strength is awe-inspiring. Look at the the Zulus, look at the samurais, look at Israel’s military staying-power, look at Sparta.

Timarchy is a society which produces sound individuals and a stable state.

To conclude, I’d like to leave you with a quote from Aristotle,
“We make war that we may live in peace.”

Severus Snape

So, while reading Plato's Republic, on page 45, I read Glaucon's account of the perfectly "just" man - and got that eureka! moment. This description came when Glaucon was saying that one needed to have a perfectly just man and a perfectly unjust man, and judge them against each other to determine which was indeed happier. And his description of the perfectly just man was strikingly similar to many movies and TV shows that I have seen. "Our just man must have the worst of reputations for wrongdoing even though he has done no wrong". My first two thoughts were Severus Snape from Harry Potter and House, played by Hugh Laurie in the TV series, House.
Both of these characters are ones whom you only learn about their amazing sense of ethics in very short bursts or at the very end of their life. Their entire "justness" is concealed in their "UNjustness" - and Glaucon argues that the truly just man is always SEEN to be unjust, while the truly unjust man is seen to be just.
The fact that this idea is still prevalent in modern society is a testament to its accuracy. I personally always thought that Snape was just the most self-serving coward who lacked any ethics at all. He is then, at the end of the books, shown to be the one who, in fact, has some of the highest ethical standards.
House plays this mean doctor who seems to be all in it for himself. He shows no empathy for anyone else and actually delights in their misery. However, every now and then there are slight glimmers of him in which you realize, wow, he is actually super-empathetic and CARES so much - but he has to hide it under this shell of aloofness and cruelty.
I just wonder if there is any credence to this theory. Are the people who actually seem to not care at all some remarkable human beings, while some other angelesque people are, in fact, quite malicious? It seems to be the case with most politicians at least. Or is there a more murky, not as clear-cut definition of the "just" and "unjust" person?

Classroom discussion (9/15) and Sophie's World questions 7-10

Will write more on this later.

Class Discussions on 9/13/11 and Sophie's World Questions 4-6

"The hardest kind of thinking is thinking about thinking" Anna, aged 9

This was our morning quote, which prompted our discussion on metacognition. Also known as Introspection or reflection, this is the process of thinking about what thinking is.

There were some good points made, especially by Maddy, "What do blind people dream of?" and by Jasmine, talking about our blindfold experience and how things were suddenly "in the forefront of your mind."

This prompted me to think about Plato's world of ideas, and world of the senses. I wondered, what did blind people dream of? Could they imagine colors, and shapes? What credit did this give to Plato's world of ideas? Can you ever discover something without relating it back to something else for a frame of reference?

Emma also made a comment about how the premise of Sophie's World (questions 4) is about the "top hat, and the white hairs of the rabbit." She stated that Hilde's father wants her (Hilde) to be on the very tips of the fur.

Also on question 4, Jasmine made a comment about how no one is too young to think about the philosophical topics discussed in the book, and how these are actually some of the most important things to discuss - about who we are, what are purpose is, etc.

Lastly, Anne stated that Philosophy matters to everyone.

Question 5:

I stated my thoughts that one of the author's beliefs was women's rights. I think this because of the frequency of times that Alberto brings it up when discussing his plethora of philosophers.
Emma - I think the author made the subject a girl to show how women can also think critically.
Kevin - More women actually go to college than men.
Helen - Even though women can be more educated, you look at Forbes list of top 100 CEO's and they're almost all men ( referencing Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers)


Question 6:
Luke- Free will is illusion- look at Sophie within her world
Alex - How is anything we perceive, even if it's all an illusion, any less real, at least to us?
Maddy - Sophie and Alberto think they have free will, but do they really influence anything?


This last question got me to thinking about free will. Do we actually have free will or not? Is there such a thing as destiny? Do our choices matter? I was talking to Alex about this, and we thought, that maybe there is a sort of fate, but it's not all-encompassing. Maybe, as Hegel believes, there is this "world spirit" which ultimately leads us to this end point, but there are a couple different choices for us to choose from. It's like a combination of free will and destiny, but with limits on all your choices. For example, I have the choice or option of jumping out my window right now, but it's quite rainy, and I'm warm and cozy at the moment. So that is something that is so unlikely to happen that it actually limits my choices. Maybe free will DOES exist, but in stricter sense than we imagine.