Wisdom An introductory course in philosophy Professor Standen Saint Michaels College Philosophy The Love of Wisdom A good starting point to thinking about what philosophy is is to look at and try to understand that the word philosophy ID: 377035
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Slide1
Pursuing
Wisdom
An introductory course in philosophy
Professor Standen
Saint Michael’s CollegeSlide2
Philosophy: The Love of Wisdom
A good starting point
to thinking about what philosophy is, is
to look at and try to understand that the word philosophy
mean
s in its original language. It’s
from the ancient Greek words,
φιλο
, for “love of”
and,
σοφί
α, meaning “wisdom”, thus, philosophy becomes the love of wisdom and
s
ince ancient Greece, searchers for wisdom were called philosophers…Slide3
The First Philosopher?
It is commonly believed that the person to coin the word “philosopher” was the great mathematician, mystic, musician and founder of a religion
, Pythagoras
(
Πυθ
αγόρας) of Samos (570-495 BCE). The term encompassed all that he did as geometer, astronomer, musician, theologian, medicine and science. Think how even today, when you get a terminal degree in any one of those fields, you get a Ph.D. a doctorate in PHILOSOPHY.Slide4
Hinduism
In the Vedic—the earliest Hindu tradition—sages (seers), sought to grasp truth in all its manifold possibility. In the Katha Upanishad, a young student,
Natchiketa
, is taught by the god of death, Yama.
Natchiketa
asks death if one survives past bodily death.Slide5
Yama’s Response
Once one is no longer distracted and tempted by desires, pleasures, power and wealth, Yama reveals to
Natchiketa
the difficult nature of truth
that few understand and that is that the interior self, ATMAN, is NOT distinct from the absolute self, Brahma. Once one knows this one understands TRUTH. But…Slide6
“as narrow as a razor’s edge”
"Rise, awaken, seek the wise and realize. The path is difficult to cross like the sharpened edge of the razor (knife), so say the wise.“~Christopher Isherwood
18. The self is not born, it dies not; it sprang from nothing, nothing sprang from it. The ancient is unborn, eternal, everlasting; he is not killed, though the body is killed.Slide7
Wisdom
The Sacred symbol, OM
! ॐ,
is the key to wisdom , and synonymous w/BRAHMAN;
Wisdom is to understand that the interior, private self, ATMAN, is indistinguishable from the absolute self, BRAHMAN;
Failure to grasp this claim and live by it, means you are doomed to repeat the cycle of birth and re-birth, Samara;
Knowing this frees one, like
Nachiketa
, from reincarnation.Slide8
Some key concepts:
Brahman: Absolute ground of beingShakti: Divine motherShiva: God of destruction and salvationVishnu: Supreme god
Krishna: 8
th
avatar of Vishnu
Moksha: Release
Samsara: Cycle of rebirth
Jiva
: Interior self
Atman: Individual
Karma: Action
Dharma:
P
urpose
Yoga: Knowledge or practiceSlide9
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the Katha Upanishad:
Yama, the lord of Death, promised Nachiketas, the son of Gautama, to grant him three boons at his own choice. Nachiketas, knowing that his father Gautama was offended with him, said, “O Death! let Gautama be appeased in mind, and forget his anger against me: this I choose for the first boom.” Yama said, “Through my favor, Gautama will remember thee with love as before.” For the second boon,
Nachiketas
asks that the fire by which heaven is gained be made known to him; which also Yama allows, and says, “Choose the third boon, O
Nachiketas
!”
Nachiketas
said, there is this inquiry. Some say the soul exists after the death of man; others say it does not exist. This I should like to know, instructed by thee. Such is the third of the boons. Yama said, “For this question, it was inquired of old, even by the gods; for it is not easy to understand it. Subtle is its nature. Choose another boon, O
Nachiketas
! Do not compel me to this.”
Nachiketas
said, “Even by the gods was it inquired. And as to what thou
sayest
, O Death, that it is not easy to understand it, there is no other speaker to be found like thee. There is no other boon like this.” Yama said, “Choose sons and grandsons who may live a hundred years; choose herds of cattle; choose elephants and gold and horses; choose the wide expanded earth, and live thyself as many years as thou
listeth
. Or, if thou
knowest
a boon like this, choose it, together with wealth and far-extending life. Be a king, O
Nachiketas
! On the wide earth I will make thee the enjoyer of all desires. All those desires that are difficult to gain in the world of mortals, all those ask thou at thy pleasure;—those fair nymphs of heaven with their chariots, with their musical instruments; for the like of them are not to be gained by men. I will give them to thee, but do not ask the question of the state of the soul after death.”
Nachiketas
said, “All those enjoyments are of yesterday. With thee remain thy horses and elephants, with thee the dance and song. If we should obtain wealth, we live only as long as thou
pleasest
. The boon which I choose I have said.” Yama said, “One thing is good, another is pleasant. Blessed is he who takes the good, but he who chooses the pleasant loses the object of man. But thou, considering the objects of desire, hast abandoned them. These two, ignorance (whose object is what is pleasant) and knowledge (whose object is what is good), are known to be far asunder, and to lead to different goals. Believing this world exists, and not the other, the careless youth is subject to my sway. That knowledge for which thou hast asked is not to be obtained by argument. I know worldly happiness is transient, for that firm one is not to be obtained by what is not firm. The wise, by means of the union of the intellect with the soul, thinking him whom it is hard to behold, leaves both grief and joy. Thee, O
Nachiketas
! I believe a house whose door is open to Brahma. Brahma the supreme, whoever knows him obtains whatever he wishes. The soul is not born; it does not die; it was not produced from any one. Nor was any produced from it. Unborn, eternal, it is not slain, though the body is slain; subtler than what is subtle, greater than what is great, sitting it goes far, sleeping it goes everywhere. Thinking the soul as
unbodily
among bodies, firm among fleeting things, the wise man casts off all grief. The soul cannot be gained by knowledge, not by understanding, not by manifold science. It can be obtained by the soul by which it is desired. It reveals its own truths.”Slide10
ConfucianismSlide11
Confucius
孔子
One of the oldest philosophical traditions it originated in the so-called spring and autumn period of classical Chinese civilization.
Kung-fu-tzu
(Confucius) (551-479) and his “golden rule” offered a version of a deontological (i.e. rule-based) ethic found in every major world religion today… Confucians often use the “
G
olden Rule” to define Jen:
"do
to others as you would
wish
done to yourself."
[Slide12
Key concepts:
. Jen or Ren 仁
:
Virtuous
behaviour
. When his student Yan
Hui
asked him to define Jen,
Confucius said: "One should see nothing improper, hear nothing improper, say nothing improper, do nothing improper."
Li 禮: Propriety; Etiquette, Proper roles.
Filial Piety 孝: Respect.Slide13
JenJen
(wren): human heartedness; goodness; benevolence, person-to-person-ness; what makes man distinctively human (that which gives human beings their humanity
). Jen is a moral quality that sets us apart from other species. Slide14
LI
There are several ways to grasp the concept LI, but essentially it is the proper way to treat oneself and others in:Using the right words ( truth: fitting the right word)Doctrine of the mean: avoiding extremes
Respect in the 5 cardinal relationships *:
Father-child
Husband-wife
Sibling-sibling
Friend-friend
Ruler-ruled
* ReciprocitySlide15
TaoismSlide16
The Old Man 老子
Lao-Tzu (6
th
C BCE). Lived during the decline of the
Z
hou dynasty and criticized the
confucian
philosophy. Worked as a librarian.Slide17
Key concepts:
Following the Tao is to emphasize Wu-E
ei
(action through non-action),
naturalness,
simplicity, spontaneity, and
practice the
Three
Treasures
: compassion, moderation, and humility
.
Tao 道 :
Path, way, channel, ontological ground of being.
Te
德 : Power, virtue, comes from mastery of the Tao.
Wu-Wei
無爲
: Non-action, spontaneity, effortlessness.
Tzu-Jan
自然
:
Naturalness, primordial state of all things and beings.
P’u
樸 : Uncut woodSlide18
Tao Te Ching
Reportedly written by Lao Tzu, scholars believe it is a later
compliation
of 81 chapters. The famously difficult first lines:
道可道非常道
(
dào
kĕ
dào
fēi
cháng
dào
)
"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao"
名可名非常名
(
míng
kĕ
míng
fēi cháng míng)"The name that can be named is not the eternal name."Slide19
BuddhismSlide20
Key concepts:Dharma
धर्म : The Buddha’s teachingsSangha: The community of buddhists
(
Bhikkus
)
Atmana
: Self ( Thus,
anatman
: no self)
Buddha: The awakened
Nirvana (Moksha): Extinguishment;
Enlighenment
Samsara: ReincarnationSlide21
Siddhartha
Siddharthra
Guatama
was born in present day Nepal in 563 BCE to the
Shakya
Tribe
547 marries cousin and has boy,
Rapula
Ventures outside Palace and sees
Indra
masquerading as the
Four Sights
:
Disease
Old Age
Death
MonkSlide22
Joins ascetics
In 534, abandons family to seek enlightenment and spends years as ascetic.
Renounces
ascetisim
and seeks “middle way”.Slide23
Buddhahood
Meditates under the Bodhi tree (
ficus
religiosa
) for 49 days and achieves
boddhimandala
or enlightenment and thus avoiding the cycle of suffering.Slide24
Four Noble Truths:
1. All existence (
dukkha
) is suffering
2. Suffering
coems
from desire
3. Desire may be stopped
4. To stop desire become mindful and practice the 8-fold pathSlide25
Eightfold PathSlide26
Santideva’s Perfections
GenerosityProprietyPatienceEffort
Meditation
Wisdom
These are the qualities that you would perfect as you fulfill the 8–fold path. The come from
Santideva’s
(8
th
c Indian philosopher)
BodhisattvacharyāvatāraSlide27
Ancient Greek Wisdom: Philosophy vs. MythopoeticsSlide28
The Birth of philosophy
“Philosophy,” Bertrand Russell once said, "is the no-man’s land between science and theology, exposed to attacks from both sides
". In his magisterial, “
A History of Western Philosophy,”
he writes, “All
definite
knowledge — so I should contend — belongs to science; all
dogma
as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack by both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy
.” Slide29
Thales of Miletus: The Grandfather of Philosophy ( circa 624-546 BCE)
Thales is considered to be the founder of philosophy for
his attempts
to use unaided human reason to explain the nature of natural phenomena. AS such, we can say that philosophy began on May 28, 585 when he successfully predicted an eclipse. He also believed that water was the fundamental constituent of all things…Slide30
Pythagoras
Pythagoras, it was believed, coined the word philosophy...
Russell, writes, “Pythagoras was
intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived... Mathematics, in the sense of demonstrative deductive argument, begins with him, and in him is intimately connected with a peculiar form of mysticism. The influence of mathematics on philosophy, partly owing to him, has, ever since his time, been both profound and unfortunate
.”Slide31
It all adds up…
Have you ever been intrigued by math, numbers? How can mathematical models predict nature? Why are there such things as Fibonacci Numbers? Pythagoras reasoned that the whole world was number. Why lucky 7? Or why do buildings not have a 13
th
floor?Slide32
Heraclitus of Ephesus (535-475 BCE): “Things Fall Apart: The Centre Cannot Hold”
Heraclitus argued that his
predecessors
failed to account for
the unity in
the universe. Rather he posits an underlying principle
(Logos
)
according to which all things are
unified as one. Opposites exist and
are necessary for life, but they are unified in a system of
balances
.
Logos is a kind of continual flux or change symbolized best by
fire. Thus the world is not to be identified with any particular substance, but rather with an ongoing process governed by a law of
ever-present change, chaos.
The underlying law of nature also manifests itself as a moral law for human beings. Heraclitus is the first
philosopher
to go beyond physical theory in search
for
metaphysical
foundations.
“You cannot step twice in the same river.”Slide33
Parmenides (circa 515 BCE): The Same old, same old.
In contradistinction to Heraclitus, Parmenides argued that change is illusory; rather, everything stays the
same.
In his only surviving work,
On
Nature
,
Parmenides
describes two views of reality. In "the way of truth"
(
Alethea
-
ἀ–
λήθει
α) he explains how
reality—the what-is--
is one,
timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging. In "the way of
opinion (
Doxa
),"
he explains the world of appearances, in which one's
senses lead one
to conceptions which are false and deceitful. These ideas strongly influenced the whole of Western philosophy
, and most notably Plato.Slide34
Zeno of Elea (ca. 490–430 BC)
In a foot race between feet-footed Achilles and a hapless tortoise, you’d place your bet on Achilles, right?
Zeno developed a powerful form of argument—the argumentum ad absurdum-to defend Parmenides’ claim against the atomistsSlide35
The Atomists
In the 5
th
Century, a number of like-minded philosophers developed a position known as Atomism.
Therse
thinkers such as Democritus, Leucippus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras all believed that the Universe could be subdivided into smaller, constituent particles that they called ATOMS (
from Gk.,
ἄτομον
, meaning un-
cuttable
). That’s 2,200 years before Boyle and Newton!Slide36
The Sophists
Sophists (from Greek
σόφισμ
α, meaning wise) were iteneratnt eachers who traveld from polis to plis teaching the skills needed to be successful in court life—rhetoric, and argumentation. They became unfairly identified with ethical
relativism and specious reasoning.
Among
the Sophists, Protagoras,
Gorgias
,
Prodicus
, Hippias,
Thrasymachus
,
Callicles
,
Lycophron
, Antiphon, and
Cratylus
are the most well-known
.Slide37
Plato (427- 347 BC)
“All of philosophy is Plato, Plato all of philosophy.” –R.W. Emerson
“The safest
Generalizationof
Western philosophy is that it is a series of footnotes to Plato.” –A.N. WhiteheadSlide38
Aristotle ( 384-322)
Aristotle was born in Stagira, Macedonia and would spent 17 years as first a student and
thena
teacher at Plato’s Academy. After he
elft
Athens, he became the tutor to Alexander (the Great) and returned to Athens to start the Lyceum.Slide39
Hellenistic Philosophy (323-31 BCE)
After the death of Alexander and until he rise of Roman culture, the ancient world was in the throes of violent change and philosophers responded by developing varied responses to how to achieve the good life.EpicureanismCyrenaicism
Cynicism
Skepticism
Stoicism
Neo-Platonism
Eclecticism