Happy Halloween!

Take a base if you wear a costume to class. Take two if you bring the teacher a treat. 

"The modern holiday comes from an age-old tradition honoring the supernatural blending of the world of the living and the world of the dead. Halloween is based on a Celtic holiday called Samhain. The festival marked the start of winter and the last stage of the harvest, the slaughtering of animals. It was believed that the dark of winter allowed the spirits of the dead to transgress the borders of death and haunt the living.

Eventually, Christian holidays developed at around the same time. During the Middle Ages, November 1 became known as All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day. The holiday honored all of the Christian saints and martyrs. Medieval religion taught that dead saints regularly interceded in the affairs of the living. On All Saints' Day, churches held masses for the dead and put bones of the saints on display. The night before this celebration of the holy dead became known as All Hallows' Eve. People baked soul cakes, which they would set outside their house for the poor. They also lit bonfires and set out lanterns carved out of turnips to keep the ghosts of the dead away." WA

“All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks, in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.” Nietzsche 

The power of costume... Halloween Horror & Philosophy (TTBOOK)... Trick or Treat with Socrates...Zombies in Philosophy

Dennett summary

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wE8Y1g8yz0&feature=youtu.be

        I recently watched a lecture by Daniel Dennett (Thank you for the suggestion Dr. Oliver) titled From Bacteria to Bach (Radbound Reflects). Dr. Dennett, walks us through his thought process on how the brain works and the possibility of consciousness being a byproduct. He does so by exploring and giving examples of both evolution and biological processes being the cause of consciousness.

In his lecture, Dr. Dennett spends the first few minutes explaining the difference between evolution and intelligent design, “You’ve got to think of it as R&D, research and development. It’s a design process exploiting information in the environment to create, maintain and improve the design of things. R&D takes time and energy. Lots of energy, billions of years and uncountable trillions of failures in order to gradually optimize the design of these (cells) most organisms are made of. And there are two types of R&D, natural selection and intelligent designers. Now, evolution is purposeless, foresightless, extremely costly, slow where as intelligent design is purposeful, somewhat foresighted, governed by cost considerations and is relatively fast. But, as slow as evolution is, it’s brilliant.” He goes on to give the example of how countless time scientists will come across something in nature and not understand it’s purpose. It may look messy, or irrational or random or without function, only to eventually stumble upon its true meaning and purpose or function which shows, in the words of Dr. Dennett paraphrasing Francis Crick, “Evolution is cleverer than you are.”

As the lecture continues, Dr. Dennett begins to explain how comparing the products of evolution and intelligent design can support his theory. He compares a termite castle mound to the La Sagrada Familia (a church in Barcelona). When comparing the two side by side (both structures built by animals), it is hard to deny the similarity in construction. So much so it admittedly startled me. How can a group of termites build a mound that could be mistaken as the shadow of a magnificent church constructed by the brilliant Gaudi? They are both constructed by animals, however one animal seems to be clueless without any deeper thought on why they do what they or what they do where as the other does. As pointed out in the video, there is no boss termite, no architect termite, no blueprints, etc. yet they are able to build an incredible structure. In the case of La Sagrada Familia, there were thinkers and builders and designers and assistants and workers and all sorts of intelligent designers involved and the product, yet again, is incredible. Now here is where Dr. Dennett initially lost me, but I think I understand what he is trying to say. He makes the comparison, if a termite colony which is comprised of, say, 70 million clueless termites, and your brain is full of 86 billion even more clueless neurons. How do you get a Gaudi type mind out of a termite colony brain? Meaning, a group of termites will never be able to produce what Gaudi’d brain produced, but why if Gaudi’s brain is just a bunch of clueless neurons communicating somewhat with each other just like a mound of termites? The answer according to this lecture are tools. “A termite mound is much like a bare brain, it doesn’t have any tools” (Dennett, Redbound). Intelligent designers have tools, such as language, actual physical tools they can use to build and construct and forethought. We acquired these tools over time by means of cultural evolution through technology.

Dr. Dennett goes on to explain how this evolution of culture is ultimately what brings us from competence without comprehension to competence with comprehension. Through the development of things like math, inventions, language and ideas, over time this cultural evolution advances our minds and gets passed on from brain to brain.

The lecture continues on with more of this but to be honest, I was getting frustrated and admittedly hit pause and went to the internet. Dr. Dennett had yet to explain HOW consciousness exists. What is actually going on in the brain that makes us aware. He may have answered it in the lecture at a later point but my frustration was getting the best of me. So I started looking online and found somewhat of an answer. Neural Darwinism. Neural Darwinism is Gerald Edelman’s theory which suggests the human body is capable of developing and creating necessary complex adaptive systems from sensory feedback from the body through events and experiences. His experiments, which Edelman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology in 1972, showed how the population of lymphocytes capable of binding to a foreign antigen is increased by differential clonal multiplication following antigen discovery. (Edelman).

This is suggesting that consciousness is the adaptation of the human body to its surroundings, environment and experiences out of necessity for survival and continuation of the species. And it is here that I sit with a heavy heart. This makes sense but I cannot help but feel a sense of loss. This view to me seems to take the awe and wonder out of consciousness. Perhaps it is my naive mind that there could be or should be some grandeur explanation behind why we are here and why we are the holders of our own awareness. There is an innate need in me to long for a greater meaning behind our existence. There has to be some cosmic key we have yet to discover that will explain our true meaning and purpose as to why we are here and what we are meant to do, doesn’t there? Or am I finally figuring out I am guilty of having the ego centric mindset that humans are in some way responsible due to our higher level of consciousness for this world and in turn the understanding of our place on it, the worlds place in the universe and in turn the universe itself. Dennett’s view an Edelman’s explanation is understandable but deflating.

“Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection: Gerald M. Edelman, (Basic Books; New York, 1987); Xxii + 371 Pages.” Artificial Intelligence, Elsevier, 10 Feb. 2003, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0004370289900040.

Reflects, Radboud. “From Bacteria to Bach I Lecture by Philosopher Daniel Dennett.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Oct. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wE8Y1g8yz0&feature=youtu.be.

Schopenhauer and his sidekick "Atman"

"His closest relationships are now with a succession of poodles, who he feels have a gentleness and humility humans lack... He acquires a new white poodle and names her Atman, after the world-soul of the Brahmins..." Consolations of Philosophy

Reminds me of...

But he's still fun to read. He's often clever and amusing, and he's frequently right.

• “The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.” 
• “Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.” 
• “Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.” 
• "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” 
• “We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.” 
• “A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.” 

When he's wrong, though, he's way wrong.

• “What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.” 
• “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?” 

The great rational optimist and cynical pessimist, ultimately (like us all) in the same boat. "Shipwreck is a permanent possibility," said William James...

Schopenhauer on Hegel:
“But the height of audacity in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously been known only in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity, and will remain as a monument to German stupidity.”

Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, trans. Haldane-Kemp (The World as Will and Idea, vol. 2), London: Kegan Paul, p. 22.

==

William James on Hegel:

Some "Hegelisms" James came up with, when reading Hegel while ingesting nitrous oxide:

What's mistake but a kind of take?
What's nausea but a kind of -ausea?
Sober, drunk, -unk, astonishment.
Everything can become the subject of criticism—how
criticise without something to criticise?
Agreement—disagreement!!
Emotion—motion!!!
Die away from, from, die away (without the from).
Reconciliation of opposites; sober, drunk, all the same!
Good and evil reconciled in a laugh!
It escapes, it escapes!
But——
What escapes, WHAT escapes?
Emphasis, EMphasis; there must be some emphasis in order
for there to be a phasis.
No verbiage can give it, because the verbiage is other.
Incoherent, coherent—same.
And it fades! And it's infinite! AND it's infinite!
If it was n't going, why should you hold on to it?
Don't you see the difference, don't you see the identity?
Constantly opposites united!
The same me telling you to write and not to write!
Extreme—extreme, extreme! Within the extensity that
'extreme' contains is contained the 'extreme' of intensity.
Something, and other than that thing!
Intoxication, and otherness than intoxication.
Every attempt at betterment,—every attempt at otherment,—is a——.
It fades forever and forever as we move.

{297}

There is a reconciliation!
Reconciliation—econciliation!
By God, how that hurts! By God, how it does n't hurt!
Reconciliation of two extremes.
By George, nothing but othing!
That sounds like nonsense, but it is pure onsense!
Thought deeper than speech——!
Medical school; divinity school, school! SCHOOL! Oh my
God, oh God, oh God!

The most coherent and articulate sentence which came was this:—

There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.

This phrase has the true Hegelian ring, being in fact a regular sich als sich auf sich selbst beziehende Negativität. And true Hegelians will überhaupt be able to read between the lines and feel, at any rate, what possible ecstasies of cognitive emotion might have bathed these tattered fragments of thought when they were alive. But for the assurance of a certain amount of respect from them, I should hardly have ventured to print what must be such caviare to the general.

William James, On Some Hegelisms
==

Arts & Letters Daily search results for “schopenhauer” (5)

2013-07-11 | John Gray against humanism. Influenced by Schopenhauer, Conrad, and an abiding cynicism, the philosopher has lost hope for mankind more »

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2014-03-13 | Schopenhauer called noise 'the most impertinent of all forms of interruption,' and he was right. Thus our obsession with silence: the new luxury good more »

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2013-10-23 | Schopenhauer dismissed dignity as 'the shibboleth of all perplexed and empty-headed moralists.' But the notion has been revived as a liberal ideal more »

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2010-01-01 | 'Hitler kept Schopenhauer''s works in his knapsack through WWI, so he claimed. Too bad that he couldn''t actually spell the philosopher''s name' more »

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2018-01-27 | Philosophers haven’t had much to say about middle age, but Schopenhauer is an exception. His view of the futility of desire -- getting what you want can make you unhappy -- illuminates the darkness of midlife more »

HEGEL

2011-01-01 | Darwin has displaced Hegel as a political thinker, suggests Francis Fukuyama. Is this the end of the end of history? more »

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2016-08-02 | A philosophy of education. Influenced by Hegel and Darwin, John Dewey launched a revolution that overthrew the methods of the day. Hannah Arendt was not pleased more »

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2017-07-26 | The tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Habermas has given way to slick performers. Is German philosophy exchanging profundity for popularity? more »

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2014-12-04 | For an apostle of alienation, Herbert Marcuse sure was a media star. To think his unsettling blend of Hegel, Marx, and Freud ended up in Playboy more »

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2011-01-01 | Hegel goes west. In the 1870s, an odd idea took hold on the American frontier: History had a direction, and it pointed toward St. Louis more »

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2018-05-12 | For Plato, uprightness made us human; for Kant, people were inherently bent; Hegel worried about stiffness. Why does posture attract such philosophical attention? more »

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2017-05-12 | Since Hegel, philosophers have declared the end of art, meaning that no further progress is possible. In that sense, it’s a good thing: Art is now free to be anything more »

KANT

2018-05-12 | For Plato, uprightness made us human; for Kant, people were inherently bent; Hegel worried about stiffness. Why does posture attract such philosophical attention? more »

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2014-07-08 | What would Kant do? His maxims, applied to ethical quandaries, seem contradictory, incoherent, a mess. But there's another way more »

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2012-11-29 | Harvard wants to enroll the next Homer, Kant, Dickinson. But how likely is it that future philosophers, critics, and artists will be admitted? more »

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2015-02-23 | At least since Kant said the 'true strength of virtue is a tranquil mind,' anxiety has been something to avoid. Was he wrong? more »

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2015-04-09 | Feeling distracted, as if advertisers, Facebook, and Apple had colonized your mental space? Is silence ever harder to find? Blame Kant more »

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2015-08-21 | Kant is associated with optimism, ambition, progress. But he suffered from depression and “general morbid feelings.” His last word: “Enough” more »

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2018-08-15 | Kant believed that beautiful art “must always show a certain dignity in itself.” Alfred Brendel disagrees. He believes in musical jokes  more »

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2018-09-14 | In 1791, a depressed Austrian woman wrote to Kant seeking advice. She later killed herself. Oh, the folly of asking philosophers for practical advice more »

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2015-04-18 | John Searle has a bone to pick with Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Kant. He blames them for the basic mistake of modern epistemology more »

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2017-01-14 | Because the study of logic ended with Aristotle, Kant believed, the field had run its course. But what was logic for in the first place? more »

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2016-04-22 | Philosophy has been overrun by Kant and by moralistic rules. We need a version that appeals to people — we need a return to Hume more »

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2018-09-06 | Hobbes, Hume, and Kant alike sympathetic to the thought that “there must be something more,” and sensitive to the limits of speculating about God more »

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2015-05-13 | From the Greek philosophers to Kant and beyond, theories of the cosmos have been proposed and discarded. Has the expansive debate finally slowed? more »

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2016-05-20 | Kant declared fashion "foolish." To Kierkegaard, outer garments kept us from ascertaining inner truth. But clothes are a form of thought, freighted with meaning more »

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2017-07-26 | The tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Habermas has given way to slick performers. Is German philosophy exchanging profundity for popularity? more »

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2017-11-02 | Kant thought entire civilizations incapable of philosophy. Derrida said China had no philosophy, only thought. Why did Western philosophy turn its back on the world? more »

BENTHAM

2018-02-17 | The comprehensive John Stuart Mill. He was out to combine Bentham with poetry, the Enlightenment with Romanticism, and to span the entire philosophy of his time more »

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2015-09-25 | The science of well-being is a pernicious project based on a mistaken assumption: that we can engineer our own happiness. Blame Jeremy Bentham more »

Madam Secretary says Vote!

Study Guide for Philosophy Test 2 for H01

Exam 2 to be drawn from the odd-numbered quiz questions in October
I've put all the quizzes since the first test together and the quizzes we all came up with for our presentations. It is all the presentations up until this Thursday, November 1. I couldn't find Sunny's though. Good luck!

M1/T2 - Skepticism, LH 3; Dickens, "Tramps" (JW); FL 17-18

1. What was the main teaching of skepticism? ("Scepticism" in Br. spelling)

2. How did Pyrrho feel about the senses? 

3. Where did Pyrrho visit as a young man and probably encounter influences for his philosophy?  

4. How did Pyrrho say you could become free from all worry? Does Warburton think this would work for most of us?

5. How does modern skepticism differ from its ancient predecessor?

6. What is the opposite of skepticism?

7.  What is a "favorite fiction" of the first "tramp" Dickens describes?

8. What does the "tramp" with the "perplexed demeanor" do with the money (half-a-crown) given to him? 

9. What theme park opened in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century?

10. Who was Robert Love Taylor and what did he lecture about?

11. What 1915 movie contributed to the growth of the KKK? 

12. What do southerners turn away from, according to The Mind of the South?

13. What was foolish, according to the modernist New Theology of the early 20th century?

14. How did Christian modernists reconcile scripture with science?

15. What happened in Dayton TN in the summer of 1925, and what did Clarence Darrow say about "what Tennessee had done"?

16. What was the "cultural impact" for each side of the Scopes trial?

W3/T4

LH 4-5 

1.    According to Epicurus, fear of death is based on what, and the best way to live is what?

2.    How is the modern meaning of "epicurean" different from Epicurus's?

3.    What famous 20th century philosopher echoed Epicurus's attitude towards death?

4. How did Epicurus respond to the idea of divine punishment in the afterlife?

5. What was the Stoics' basic idea, and what was their aim?

6. Why did Cicero think we shouldn't worry about dying?

7. Why didn't Seneca consider life too short?

8. What does the author say might be the cost of stoicism?

9. What gave Gissing peace while he was walking "penniless and miserable?"

10. What is it that "creates the world about us?"

FL 19-20

11. One writer of The Book of Progress likened the effect of a motion picture to the effect of what? 

12. Newspapers and magazines are the "first foundations" of what?

13. What two "fantasies" did the suburb satisfy?

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14. What two locations are described as invented paradises?

M8/T9 - Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas LH 6-8; Morley, "Sauntering" (JW); FL 21.

LH

1. How did Augustine "solve" the problem of evil in his younger days, and then after his conversion to Christianity? Why wasn't it such a problem for him originally?

2. What does Boethius not mention about himself in The Consolation of Philosophy?

3. Boethius' "recollection of ideas" can be traced back to what philosopher?

4. What uniquely self-validating idea did Anselm say we have?

5. Gaunilo criticized Anselm's reasoning using what example?

6. What was Aquinas' 2nd Way?

JW

7. In light of his "city annotations," Morley compares himself to what famous author?

8. Morley's philosophy of people says that they are interesting mostly because of what? 

FL

9. By the end of the '50s how much TV did the average American watch?

10. Who was the Steve Jobs of his era?

11. Of what was Disneyland "more or less a replica"?

12. What fantasy did Hugh Hefner promote?

13. Who was our "ad hoc national Pastor-in-Chief"?

14. In the second year of Eisenhower's presidency (1954), what was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance?

W/10/Th11 - Machiavelli, Hobbes, LH 9-10; Belloc, "The Brienzer Grat" (JW)FL 22.

LH
1. What did Machiavelli say a leader needs to have?

2. Machiavelli's philosophy is described as being "rooted" in what?

3. The idea that leaders should rule by fear is based on what view of human nature?

4. Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes?

5. What fear influenced Hobbes' writings?

6. Hobbes did not believe in the existence of what?

JW7. Belloc says that "no one should attempt great efforts without" what?

8. Where does Belloc realize he is after the fog has cleared?

FL
9. Where was the New Age philosophy/lifestyle invented?

10. What central New Age tenet did Jane Roberts "channel," and from whom?

11. What "sudden and enthusiastic embrace" helped turn America into fantasyland?

12. What bestseller whose popularity announced the mainstreaming of fantastical beliefs did Andersen's mother read?

W17/Th18 - Montaigne, Descartes, & Pascal, LH 11-12; FL 23-24. 

1. What state of mind, belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR, What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned?

2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming?

3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.")

4. Pascal's best-known book is _____.

5. Pascal's argument for believing in God is called ________.

6. Pascal thought if you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______."

7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets.

8. What was the "takeaway" for '60s academics who turned away from reason and rationalism?

9.  How did UCLA psychologist Charles Tart get tenure?

10. Tom Wolfe said the Jesus People of the '60s were what?

11. What bestselling "nonfiction" book by Hal Lindsey predicted the looming apocalypse?

12. Even though his basic religious beliefs were not much different from Pat Robertson's and Jerry Falwell's, _____ seemed moderate by comparison.

Spinoza, Locke, & Reid, LH 13-14; FL 25-26.

1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______.

2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings.

3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion.

4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.

5. Locke said _____ continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall.

6. Locke's articulation of what natural rights influenced the U.S. Constitution?

7. What happened after the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) adopted its founding document in 1962?

8. Who were our first gun rights absolutists?

9. When did Kurt Andersen realize fantasy would now rule pop culture?

10. What pharmacological development, "available everywhere by 1965," made sex less "real"?

11. Cosmetic surgery is linked to the start of what new "national fantasy?"

12. What did Sci-fi writer Phil Dick say that "fake realities will create?"

Berkeley, Voltaire & Leibniz, Hume, & Rousseau, LH 15-18;FL 27-28. 

1. What English poet declared that "whatever is, is right"?

2. What German philosopher, with his "Principle of Sufficient Reason," agreed with the poet?

3. What French champion of free speech and religious toleration wrote a satirical novel/play ridiculing the idea that everything is awesome?

4. What 1755 catastrophe deeply influenced Voltaire's philosophy?

5. What did Voltaire mean by "cultivating our garden"?

6. Was Voltaire an atheist?

7. (T/F) Hume thought the human eye so flawless in its patterned intricacy that, like Paley's watch, it constitutes powerful evidence of intelligent design.

8. (T/F) Hume's view was that it's occasionally more plausible to believe that a miracle (the unexplained suspension of a law of nature) has happened, than not.

9. Rousseau said we're born free but everywhere are in ____, but can liberate ourselves by submitting to what is best for the whole community, aka the _______.

10. Who pretended to slap and body-slam the head of the WWF on stage before entering politics?

11. At what annual event do adults go to the desert and dress up as unicorns, birds, mermaids, geishas etc.? 

12. What are the "two underlying Fantasyland features?"

13. Who was a hideous and tragic victim of "Kids 'R' Us Syndrome?

14. Andersen links widespread "images of fantastical sexuality" with what normalization? 

M29/T30 - Kant, Bentham, Hegel, Schopenhauer LH 19-23; FL 29-30

1. Kant said we can know the ____ but not the ____ world. 

2. What was Kant's great insight?

3. What, according to Kant, is irrelevant to morality?

4. Kant said you should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this view the ____ _____.

5. Who formulated the Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find him today?

6. Who created a thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates to human motivation?

7. What did Hegel mean when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been reached in his lifetime?

8. What Kantian view did Hegel reject?

9. What is Geist? When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge?

10. What "blind driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including us)?

11. What did Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire?

FL 29-30
12. For what American president was "the world of legend and myth a real world"?

13. What made it possible, beginning in the '90s, for "cockamamie ideas and outright falsehoods" to spread fast and wide?

14. What percentage of Americans say they never doubt the existence of God?

15. What was Augustine's instruction, 1,600 years ago?

PEER QUIZZES

Philosophy of King Solomon

1. What is the origin of the word “Qohelet” and what is the literal translation of the word?
2. What does Solomon say is the beginning of wisdom?
3. How many wives was Solomon said to have? How many concubines?
4. Solomon’s life seemed to be long on what, while also being short on what?
5. Solomon found understanding wisdom, folly, and madness to be what?

Confucianism

1.     When was Confucius born?

2.     What is the golden rule of Confucianism?

3.     What is one of the five principal relationships?

4.     Which principal relationship is still widely important in Eastern cultures?

5.     When Confucius died did he believe that his teachings had made an impact?

Aristotle and happiness

1. What did Aristotle believe was the purpose of life?

2.  How did Aristotle believe someone could be truly happy?

3. What is the Golden Mean?

4. Who did Aristotle believe happiness depended on?

Lao Tzu

1.    What does Lao Tzu translate to in English? 

2.    What is the name of the book that recorded Lao Tzu’s teachings and philosophical ideas? 

3.    Name one thought of Taoism. 

4.    What theory encourages non-action or the natural flow of things? 

5.     What is Lao Tzu’s philosophy? 

Zen Buddhism

1)     What is the form of meditation most used in Zen Buddhism called?

2)     What is the name of the “best” position of meditation?

3)     Zazen is insight into the nature of what?

4)     Your body, when it comes to breathing, is a what?

Sei Shonagon

1.    During what period was Sei Shonagon alive? 

2.    How many years did she serve in the imperial court? 

3.    What book did Sei Shonagon write? 

4.    What did she often find beauty in? 

5.    What feeling do most of Sei Shonagon’s entries leave the reader with? 

Jesus Christ

1.     What year, according to historians, was Jesus Christ born?

2.     How many days did it take for Jesus to resurrect from the dead according to the Bible?

3.     Jesus used many what to provide to help teach?

4.     According to Christ, what are the two most important commandments?

5.     Self-control is part of the “_______ of the ______”.

John Calvin 

1.             What was Calvin's most important work?

2.             What was one of Calvin's central beliefs?

3.             How did Calvin feel about philosophy?

4.             What city was Calvin forced to leave?

5.             What did Calvin study in college?

Martin Luther

1. At what age did Luther was become a delegate for the Catholic Church 

2.    What vow did Luther make in 1505?

3.    What date did Luther join the monastery? 

4.    What did Prince Fredrick III  Ban??

5.    What was the Psalm that enlightened Luther?

This I Believe

1.    What is one of the branches of success?

2.    What is one principle and its opposite that life is centered on?

3.    What is autosuggestion?

4.    What is the most important step we can take towards our intrapersonal success?

5.    What philosopher guides my interpersonal views of effectiveness?

6.    What is much more effective than independent effort?

Philosophy Under the Sea!

1. Which philosopher does Joseph J. Foy compare SpongeBob SquarePants to?

2. Aristotle believes we can only be truly happy by doing what?

3. Which philosopher is Patrick Star compared to?

4. How does John Stuart Mill categorize pleasure? Which view does Patrick best fit according to Foy?

5. Who is the Squidward of philosophy?

6.    How do Schopenhauer and Squidward, "temporarily escape the miserable existence that life is"? 

Steve Jobs

1.     In what year was Steve Jobs born?

2.     Did Jobs attend college?

3.     What did he often describe himself as?

4.     Jobs said that death is the “_____ ____ _______ of ______”

5.     What saying does he not necessarily believe in?

6.     What was the “single best thing that could have ever happened to him?”

Twin Peaks
 1.) What is the place that Cooper hopes to reach in order to gain information on Laura’s murder?

 2.) To be successful in coming to know oneself by way of the Black Lodge, you must be pure of what and sure in who?

 3.) In what text does it say that coming to know oneself will allow one to fulfill all desires?

 4.) What book is a guide for souls in the afterlife?

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