Pursuing - PowerPoint Presentation

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