Group 3
Section 14
In our group discussion we touched based on various meanings on what we thought philosophy was. One main item that we all agreed on was that PHILOSOPHY IS EVERYTHING. One way or another philosophy connects everything together like a family tree. Its an idea about an idea. There's no right or wrong and to explore these ideas you have to have an open mind.
Wisdom was also brought up a lot in our discussion. Maybe philosophy is a quest for wisdom? Even the meaning of the word breaks down to philo meaning love and sophy meaning wisdom. One of the floaters from another group said that they talked about the difference between Philosophy and Science. We agreed on how philosophy is more dynamic and it distinguishes other ways to address problems through a rational argument. Science on the other hand bases explanations from experiments and observations to get a concrete answer.
We also talked a little about Socrates and despite having not written anything he is considered one of the philosophers who changed how philosophy itself was conceived. He would target people who were arrogant and would undermine peoples answers. He was known for confusing his conversations with people into an unpleasant experience of realizing their own ignorance (haha). This was all for his own intellectual curiosity.
In conclusion philosophy is everything. Its about having an open mind on religion, science, faith, the ten commandments, gun control, racism, gay marriage and so on and so forth.
It sounds like your group and ours came to very similar conclusions, which is kind of nice! Naturally, I agree with pretty much you mentioned here. But, like in the case of Socrates, do you still think a person is a philosopher if they've only targeted and analyzed other people's ideas instead of creating their own? Do you feel like that's "cheating" in a way?
ReplyDeleteI think if a person is classified as a philosopher they need to have their own ideas. It is cheating in a way ,because in the end the conclusion isn't really yours if your just taking from what others have said and twisting so that it makes sense....or doesn't.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point of view Cc; however, what exactly would you classify as a "unique idea"? The only way we can even come up with our own ideas is to form them based on the experiences of others or the experiences of ourselves. If we haven't actually had as much experience with a subject as someone else, then learning from their ideas, and using them to broaden our own perspective on the subject, is extremely justifiable.
DeletePerhaps we can discuss more on this concept in class tomorrow? For the most part, nothing of anybody is original. One of my favorite quotes from a Chuck Palahniuk book elaborates on this with, " I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known".
One important concept we forgot to include in our discussion is that: philosophy is a discipline that exercises reason and logic to understand reality and answer fundamental questions about life,knowledge, reality,existance, morality and human nature,and environment.
DeleteI think we should discuss about these topics in our next class: What is the purpose and meaning of life? how do we know what we know? How do we know that God exist? Why do we worry about our future if we dont know what will happen tomorrow?
That seemed to be the conclussion we got from our class as well. We didn't really go into religon, we aproached it from a brain and mind view and wondered if they were truly different.
ReplyDeleteI feel theres no way to cheat in philosophy ideas come from any and everywhere.Its been that way from the beginning. When one has a thirst for knowledge or wisdom in which the actively pursue then and only then can they be deemed a philosopher in my opinion. I think the technique socrates used was most helpful in discovering who was a philosopher and who thought like one. Socrates commonly questioned whats society deemed acceptable or true because no one had yet to challenege, instead the athenians followed like sheep.
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