Monday, October 22, 2012
Section 14 Group 1-Autodidactic (Freud)
Well, well, well, Sigmund Freud, much like Charles Darwin, has found his way back into my life. I remember extensively studying Freud in high school Psychology. I, like many other individuals, mainly remember Freud for professing the importance of the unconscious, a perfect example being dreams. Also, Freud firmly believed that an individual's unconscious was a key factor in the decision making process. According to history, Sigmund Freud was a very "different" individual, whom some believed made a tremendous breakthrough in the world of Psychology, while others believed him to be totally insane. I am waiting to hear the different responses and views concerning Freud in our next group discussion!
Questions:
Factual: What did Freud believe the mind did to thoughts?
Discussion: Do you believe that dreams act as symbols?
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Which philosopher criticized Freud's psychoanalysis theory?
ReplyDeleteDo you think there are unconscious thoughts and actions that go on in our brains?
Hi everyone!
ReplyDeleteI hope you all enjoyed the break! Sorry I'm so last minute with this post. I kept up with the reading but my posts got behind slightly so this might be a little lengthy while I catch up.
C.S. Peirce (and William James): Chapter 28 mainly focused on William James but his work was all based on C.S. Pierce so I am going to talk about both of them. The opening idea of a hunter chasing a squirrel did an excellent job previewing the ideas of these philosophers. Pragmatism seemed to be an interesting blend of philosophies, a little skepticism, a bit of epicureanism, and some dualism. The differences from those philosophies that pragmatism has are the facts that it factual while remaining ethical. This philosophy takes a realist approach but doesn't discard other beliefs, which I find to be very refreshing in our world of philosophy.
C.S Peirce (The Influencer) and William James (The influenced):
C.S. Peirce was the mind behind pragmatism, he almost took a darwinism approach by joining science and philosophy. Peirce helped build the bridge between philosophy and scientific existence. He took the questions like "Is glass brittle?" that many philosophers would blow out of perspective by giving lengthy ideas of how "the glass isn't brittle because it might not even exist," or "the glass is a metaphor for our fragile lives," and Pierce made things simple "Yes, the glass is brittle." Pierce used "raw" philosophy, he verbalized ideas that people could understand and didn't make things more complicated than they needed to be.
William James, the writer who took the brilliant concept of pragmatism and shared it with the world. James took the ideas from Pierce and made them more simple and more in-depth. James decided that philosophy (his own at least) was, "truth is what works." James took on harder questions like "Does god exist?" and answered them similarly to the question "Is glass brittle?" He believed that there were benefits from embracing your own philosophies and using the example of God existing or not, if a person believed God exists then that person would benefit from their beliefs.
It's easy for the study of philosophy to be seen as simple ideas and merely thoughts coming from men who sit and "ponder" all day but the real depth of philosophy is so much more than that. Philosophy is the study of everything. Philosophy is science, religion, psychology, sociology, history, and politics. Philosophy is a well rounded education within one idea. I feel that chapter 28 in our book has finally given the answer to the question I've been asking myself since the semester started, "What is philosophy?"
I know that this post was lengthy but I finally had my "ah-ha!" moment and needed to share. I have math class so I can't summarize the 2nd chapter but it will be posted before class today.
Factual: Who started pragmatism Pierce or James?
Discussion: Do you agree with the ideas that "Truth is what works?"
My favorite part of the whole chapter was the idea that " truth is subjective." Just thought I should leave you guys with that.
2nd post will be up soon!
See you guys later!
So glad you like James, Journey. He was a brilliant and original thinker, and self-effacing besides. He tried to give Peirce credit, which Peirce greeted with snarly ingratitude. (He renamed his philosophy "pragmati-cism," a name supposed to be ugly enough to deter "kidnappers".
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure James thought truth per se is "subjective," but he definitely thought subjectivity is at the base of our experience of life... and that it can be life-giving.
If you want to learn more about James and pragmatism, there are plenty of great books I can recommend. I first developed an interest in his philosophy through his wonderful correspondence, published in many volumes.
And here's a terrific site worth exploring: http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/james.html.