Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, March 7, 2016

Epictetus Section 6

1. Saydi Miller - The Life of Epictetus


2. Spencer Carpenter - The Philosophy of Epictetus


3. Lucas Futrell - Epictetus and Stoicism in Modern Times


3 comments:

  1. LAVOIE,ashley
    Phil section 4
    Essay on Descartes
    Rene Descartes was a modern man. He constantly questioned the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy. He addressed this by using his method of doubt. This meant, that everything that was impossible to doubt was therefore certain. Things like "I exist" was a certainty to him because it was beyond that method of doubt. It was absolutely certain. Descartes did say "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." I agree with this statement to an extent. I believe we shouldn’t just accept things to be. I believe an amazing thing about the human species is their love for curiosity. We are inquisitive beings that have the ability to question. If we choose to sometimes have doubt then our lives will be enriched with knowledge of outside knowledge and understanding. We will be informed and maybe sometimes a little uncomfortable or confused but that is an important key in the search for knowledge and absolute truth. Another thing Descartes said was "One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another." I believe this statement is absolutely true. The ideas you have I believe someone else has already thought of. Your philosophy has already been philosophized. I'm not sure if that’s due to us sharing so many common threads or just simply human senses. Our thought processes are all distinctly similar. Some have different philosophies but many do not. Many share common thoughts and that is what makes humans connect. That is a thread that helps people share likeness and interest in each other. The mind is a powerful tool and when combined with another strong mind with likeness. It becomes the most powerful source of ideas and spring boards for life. Lastly, Id like to discuss one more quote from Descartes. He said, "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems." I think he was trying to say everything is a cycle and for every beginning of an idea there is no end. It is a constant string of thought. Thought is fluid therefore it is never ending and constantly evolving. I believe this is a beautiful thing, the power of thought, common knowledge, and expansion off that. I believe it makes us more powerful beings when we can try to understand the deeper thinking behind our fellow humans.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LAVOIE,ashley
    Phil section 4
    Essay on Descartes
    Rene Descartes was a modern man. He constantly questioned the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy. He addressed this by using his method of doubt. This meant, that everything that was impossible to doubt was therefore certain. Things like "I exist" was a certainty to him because it was beyond that method of doubt. It was absolutely certain. Descartes did say "If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." I agree with this statement to an extent. I believe we shouldn’t just accept things to be. I believe an amazing thing about the human species is their love for curiosity. We are inquisitive beings that have the ability to question. If we choose to sometimes have doubt then our lives will be enriched with knowledge of outside knowledge and understanding. We will be informed and maybe sometimes a little uncomfortable or confused but that is an important key in the search for knowledge and absolute truth. Another thing Descartes said was "One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another." I believe this statement is absolutely true. The ideas you have I believe someone else has already thought of. Your philosophy has already been philosophized. I'm not sure if that’s due to us sharing so many common threads or just simply human senses. Our thought processes are all distinctly similar. Some have different philosophies but many do not. Many share common thoughts and that is what makes humans connect. That is a thread that helps people share likeness and interest in each other. The mind is a powerful tool and when combined with another strong mind with likeness. It becomes the most powerful source of ideas and spring boards for life. Lastly, Id like to discuss one more quote from Descartes. He said, "Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems." I think he was trying to say everything is a cycle and for every beginning of an idea there is no end. It is a constant string of thought. Thought is fluid therefore it is never ending and constantly evolving. I believe this is a beautiful thing, the power of thought, common knowledge, and expansion off that. I believe it makes us more powerful beings when we can try to understand the deeper thinking behind our fellow humans.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous9:26 AM CDT

    Renee Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician. He may be most famous for his philosophical stance on the truth. Descartes was a skeptic, but not a skeptic like Phyrro who would doubt that the edge of a cliff was really dangerous or even there at all. Descartes was a methodical skeptic. Methodical skeptic seems like a weird choice of words or an oxymoron, but it essentially means that Descartes did not take everything to be true unless it could be proven to be true. This methodical skepticism is known as Cartesian doubt. So how can a method of doubt lead to the truth? Descartes would take what was accepted as true and question that truth, he would further break down the answers and question those answers until there was no other possible reality.
    This method of Cartesian doubt is further illustrated by his dream theory. Dreams at times can be so lifelike. In the most vivid of dreams we every one of our senses are involved: we see, we hear, we touch, we taste, we smell. We even experience emotion in dreams from joy and laughter to crying. We could basically live out a whole day or even lifetime in a dream. So if dreams can be so realistic, how do we know we're not dreaming at this very moment. This is where Descartes begins his dream theory. We may be deceived by our senses, we may be in a perpetual dream state much like the matrix, but according to Descartes, the fact that we are even able to have these thoughts and question these thoughts proves our very existence. This is where we get the famous quote, "I think, therefore I am".
    I can relate to Descarts, almost as much as I relate to Anselm. Dreams have always inspired and fascinated me and I, like Descartes, have asked the question "what if I'm actually still dreaming?" I have also come to the conclusion many of times, before even knowing about Descartes and his philosophy, that if I'm aware enough to question my existence, then I must indeed exist. Otherwise, how would I even be aware of the idea of existence or aware of anything else for that matter. I am really curious to know what Descartes would have thought of Déjà vu. And although there's nothing written about his viewpoint on the subject, I would like to believe that he would have thought we are all indeed in a perpetual dream state. I would like to believe that reality is not as concrete as we're led to believe and that dreams aren't as abstract as we thought. The could perhaps be one in the same and different sides of one reality. Whatever the case may be, we have Descartes to thank for using doubt as a method to disprove the doubt of our existence.

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