Let’s work together to explore some of the major philosophical schools of thought. For 8 am Tuesday, please pick one item from the list below. For your post, research the school of thought and provide a synthesized overview. Include central tenets, prominent practitioners, developers, and perhaps detractors and their arguments. It would also be helpful if you presented a representative argument as a form of object lesson for us, your pupils. We will use class on Tuesday and your next post to practice applying these philosophies to different situations, examining ourselves as philosophical knowers and ferreting out the resultant knowledge questions.
Schools from which to choose (no doubling up): Empiricism, Rationalism, Structuralism, Existentialism, Skepticism, Romanticism, Stoicism.
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ReplyDeleteStructuralism
ReplyDeleteA practice of interpretation that looks to distinguish the structure of the mind through basic elements. The belief that the key to acquire knowledge about the brain and its functions was to break it down. By analyzing behavior, culture, experience based on relationships and human cognition and the force between them.
Wilhelm Wundt, one of the first to discover structuralism, created the first psychological laboratories in 1879. As a practitioner following Wilhelm Wundt, Titchner popularized the technique called “introspection” in attempts to understand the conscious mind by having a person look inside themselves and try to understand their reactions and emotions to experiences.
Structuralism was later discovered by Ferdinand de Saussure in the late 1920’s. His explanation: “De Saussure proposed that languages were constructed of hidden rules that practitioners known but are unable to articulate. In other words, though we may all speak the same language, we are not all able to fully articulate the grammatical rules that govern why we arrange words in the order we do. However, we understand these rules of an implicit (as opposed to explicit) level, and we are aware when we correctly use these rules when we are able to successfully decode what another person is saying to us (Johnson 2007: 91).”
Northrop Frey looks at structuralism with a literature twist. He looks at how Western literature falls under his four mythoi.
1. Theory of modes (tragic, comic, and thematic)
2. Theory of symbols
3. Theory of myths/ archetypal criticism
4. Theory of genres/ rhetorical criticism
Michael Rescorla, wrote an article abut his opposition to structuralism through Computational Implementation: “I defend anti- individualism about computational implementation: relations to the social environment sometimes help determine whether a physical system realizes a computation.”
http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Structuralism
http://www.philosophy.ucsb.edu/people/profiles/faculty/cvs/papers/against.pdf
Rationalism
ReplyDeleteRationalism is a belief in which everything must be based on reasons. Rationalists do not believe in sensory experience. It is very important for rationalists to use reason and logic to understand the issues in the world and come to a rational conclusion. Because of their belief, the rationalists question the existence of religions and supernatural powers since they do not seem to have solid scientific evidence. Thus, most rationalists are either atheists or agnostics. Rationalism is strongly related to science because science is the study based on precise process and clear evidence. Every step requires a reason; otherwise, the outcome is not true or reliable.
The term "rationalism" was first used by philosophers such as Plato and Socrates. During that time period, rationalism did not have much to do with observation; instead, it is related to the understanding of common sense in order to work out a problem logically. In the 16th century, Descartes created a new era for rationalism. He began with the things that he was certain, and use logic trying to prove the things that were first considered uncertain. In modern time, rationalists tend to combine both the logical reasoning of rationalism and the observation of empiricism.
Rationalism is simply criticized by the definition of reason. It is doubtful to decide what is true and can be used as reason; sometimes the boundary between certainty and uncertainty is vague. In the 19th century, John Stuart Mill argued that many certainties can be uncertain. He used the example of two straight lines. Why can't two straight lines enclose a space? Is it based on logical inference or experience? Also, it is almost impossible to eliminate sense experience from approaching the world. However, most philosophers who believe in rationalism attempt to only rely on the fundamental concepts in the world.
http://newhumanist.org.uk/rationalism
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rationalism
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/492034/rationalism/68603/Challenges-to-epistemological-rationalism
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Deletehttp://rationalist.org.uk/articles/2921/taking-on-the-miracle-mongers
Delete“Taking on the miracle mongers”
This article talks about an event happened in India in 2012. There is a status of Jesus pinned on a large crucifix in a church, and the water is dripping from his nail to the ground. It was viewed as a holly place because of the water, and the church claimed that Virgin Mary had appeared there in the mid-16th century. Due to this “miracle”, many religious believers came to this church, and prayed there. However, Sanal Edamaruku, the President of the Indian Rationalist Association, did not believe that, and agreed to investigate the reason of the dripping water. After he came to this church, he found out that there is some scientific ways that could explain this phenomenon easily. After his discovery, he was threatened by a couple of Catholic organizations. They believed that he blasphemed their religion. As a result, he must leave India, but he has attempted to appeal his case to the Supreme Court in India, and fought for his rationalist scientific ideas.
I think that this article is a great example of the relationship between rationalism and religion. Religion plays an important role in India, and many people follow the orthodox practices of the religion. Nowadays, more people are either atheists or agnostics, and they begin to use scientific reasons to explain some religious “miracles” appeared in India. They use their logic to work out the problems, and in some cases, deny the existence of these miracles. This idea follows the concept of rationalism because rationalists only rely on solid evidence and their reasoning. I feel that this is a continuous debate especially in modern society. Most people now have the right to express their own opinions, but sometimes, the “truth” is still not acceptable by other groups of people such as the religious men in this case. From a rationalist’s point of view, some religious belief may be unreasonable, and they cannot stand that, but on the other hand, the religious belief can be an essential part of some other people’s lives.
http://frankenromantic102.blogspot.com/2010/04/three-basic-tenets-of-romanticism.html
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism
http://www.users.muohio.edu/mandellc/eng441/romcrt.htm
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture16a.html
Romanticism is the belief that products of the uncultivated popular imagination could equal or even surpass those of the educated court poets and composers who had previously monopolized the attentions of scholars and connoisseurs. The three basic tenets of romanticism are: 1) the universe is a single unified whole 2) the universe is full of values, tendencies, and life and 3) reason, objectivity, and analysis radically falsify reality by breaking it up into disconnected lifeless entities. Prominent practitioners include Delacroix, Goethe, Schiller and Victor Hugo.
It’s difficult to give one individual or even a group of people credit for creating Romanticism. The philosophy became wildly popular in Germany and France in the 1770s. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences.
Detractors:
Harold Bloom, ed., Romanticism and Consciousness (1970): The central spiritual problem of Romanticism is the difficult relation between nature and consciousness, and its prime historical problem the relation between changing concepts of nature and the French Revolution. The leading formal problem results directly from these spiritual and historical stimuli, and is a problem of innovations in literary form: in questions of aesthetic theory, verbal mode, verse forms and metrics, and the new genres or modifications of genre that appeared. (147)
Arthur O. Lovejoy, "On the Discriminations of Romanticisms" (1924): The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying "movements" in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of them so hopelessly as the category "Romantic.”
Empiricism is a philosophy of thought that is based around the idea that sensory perception is the only possible way of knowing.
ReplyDeleteJohn Locke, one of the leading practitioners of empiricism, described it in a particularly famous essay of his: "If you doubt this, see whether you can by words give anyone who has never tasted pineapple an idea of the taste of that fruit. He may approach a grasp of it by being told of its resemblance to other tastes of which he already has the ideas in his memory, imprinted there by things he has taken into his mouth; but this isn’t giving him that idea by a definition, but merely raising up in him other simple ideas that will still be very different from the true taste of pineapple."
The main point he is driving at is that the only way one can know the taste of a pineapple is to go ahead and actually taste it. No words or sentences are ever going to provide a person with the knowledge of a pineapple’s taste. The basis for empiricism lies in the argument. Only when we experience an object using our senses do we really gain knowledge of it.
Empiricists tend to reject the idea that human beings are born with innate knowledge. They believe that humans are born having no knowledge and are “blank slates” that can only learn through observation and experience. Empiricists also completely disregard religion because they consider anything that cannot be experienced to be meaningless.
The first hints of empiricism date back to Aristotle in the years mid-300 BC. He developed an empiricist philosophy of thought as an explanation for the blank state of the human mind at birth. Aristotle provided the foundation for empiricism which was further developed by Islamic philosophers such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina and then by Italian philosophers during the Renaissance. The philosophy of Empiricism was applied to music by Galileo’s father, Vincenzo Galilei, to create new instruments and solve existing problems. Empiricism was also popular in Britain during the 17th century where practitioners like John Locke and Francis Bacon wrote numerous works detailing human nature and the method in which they obtained knowledge; through sense perception.
Empiricism is often regarded as the antithesis of Rationalism. While Empiricism is based on human observation, rationalism is based on intuition and skills of deduction unrelated to the five human senses. René Descartes came up with a method that would result in absolute truth using only intellect and none of the human senses. These rationalist theories, based on deduction and logic, disagree with the theories of empiricism.
http://philosophy.about.com/od/Philosophical-Theories-Ideas/a/Empiricism_In_Defence_of_the_Senses.htm
http://www.theoryofknowledge.info/sources-of-knowledge/empiricism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/
http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/lockess1.pdf
DeleteThe piece of empiricist writing I chose is an excerpt from John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”. I chose a few paragraphs from Chapter II of Book I which deals with the human brain’s lack of innate speculative principles in the mind.
The chapter concerns the state of a child’s mind when it enters the world. Since John Locke is an empiricist and empiricists believe that all humans are born with no innate knowledge, Locke expounds on his reasons and theories for a child’s “blank slate”. One of his main arguments is his argument of color. It would be impossible to form an idea of color had we not been born with eyes that could perceive it. Through the power of sight, children can develop the idea of “color”. Locke describes eyesight as “a power to get those ideas through the eyes from external objects.” This idea can be applied not only to eyesight, but to every aspect of sense perception as a way of knowing. If we can explain through ordinary activity how our knowledge of something came to be, then it cannot be innate. If we can observe color, then the idea of color is not innate. If we can hear sound, then the idea of music is not innate. If we feel pain in our stomachs, the idea of hunger is not innate. If the entire world agreed that there are certain innate qualities which a human possesses, then that would be further proof that humans are not born with innate knowledge. According to Locke, there are no principles upon which every man agrees. Any principle which accepts agreement is false. A child or an “idiot” (in Locke’s words) is not imprinted with certain principles or thoughts that everyone else is aware of. Therefore, that information is not imprinted upon their mind. There have been counter arguments stating that these principles may be imprinted upon the mind while the mind has no knowledge of its existence, but since this point cannot be proved or observed, then it is irrelevant.
I agree with John Locke to a certain extent. I believe that all of the knowledge, aside from human instinct, we accumulate is not innate. A blind person cannot gain an idea of color. Darkness is all he/she knows and ever will know. There are certain tangibles and intangibles which we cannot describe to gain an understanding of. They are all things related to sense perception. We cannot describe sight to someone who cannot see, we cannot describe sound to someone who cannot hear, we cannot describe physical feelings to someone who cannot feel, we cannot describe an odor to someone who cannot smell, and we cannot describe taste to someone without taste buds. However, we also experience sadness, happiness and other emotions. These other emotions are not directly tied to our five senses. While we may use our senses to indicate our feelings and let them be known to others, feeling comes from the mind. Humans are born with feeling and have natural reactions to actions which hurt them or make them happy.
Existentialism
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to say for certain what the beliefs of existentialists are, because most people who are viewed as existentialists deny it themselves. Existentialism is like “a spirit or aura” because existentialists are not as concerned with what they say, but how they act. These actions are based on the idea that everyone has free will and with this free will they must take responsibility for their actions. Existentialists think every decision they make has repercussions and these repercussions change everything. This can cause great anxiety for existentialists because everything they do has a large responsibility and at most times cause a burden. This responsibility does not come from societal or cultural laws/rules, each person must make their own decisions and find their own meaning of life. Some questions that most existentialists are faced with are things “such as death, the meaning of human existence, the place of God in human existence, the place of self-reflective conscious knowledge of one's self in existing”.
Pre-movement thinkers-
•Soren Kierkegaard: named a religious philosopher, “the single individual”; the individual is more important than the masses.
•Fredrich Nietzsche: named an anti-Christian, wrote a thesis on the death of God, if his theory is correct then there will be a collapse of any theistic support for morality, a “self-legislating individual is nothing but a herd animal that has trained itself to docility and unfreedom by conforming to the “universal” standards of morality”
Thinkers of the movement-
•Jean-Paul Sartre: named an atheist, Nausea and No Exit
•Martin Heidegger: 1927 Being and Time
•Albert Camus: named an atheist, The Stranger
I believe that we read most books to learn a lesson about life, but if The Stranger is centered on the idea that life is meaningless unless you give it meaning then why are we reading a book? If this is true then that means the reader is searching for a meaning in life, or a characters life, which is contradictory to existentialism.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/existentialism.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/
http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/existentialism/whatis.html
http://www.tomgreening.com/existential_Poems.html
Deletehttp://philosophynow.org/issues/32/Existentialism_and_Literature
DeleteSkepticism!
ReplyDeleteWe use it every day, yet do we really know what it means? Skepticism can basically be defined as "incredulity: doubt about the truth of something." But Stanford wasn't happy with that answer. Nor should they be! Turns out, there are a bunch of different types of skepticism. The main distinction is between Philosophical Skepticism and Ordinary Incredulity.
Ordinary Incredulity occurs when someone is doubtful about something, bu there are ways of removing the doubt. i.e. Steve asks Ann to go over to his house and see his new hamster. When Ann arrives, she sees the rodent and is doubtful that it is, in fact, a hamster and not some other rodent. Ann removes this doubt by researching hamsters and finds that Steve's "pet" does not, in fact, meet the criteria. Ordinary Incredulity. The far more interesting one, however, is not Ordinary Incredulity, it is Philosophical Skepticism. In Philosophical Skepticism, ones doubt has no limits or boundaries, and is never removed!
Skepticism originated in two major schools: The Academic and the Pyrrhonian. The Academic gets its name from Plato's Academy, and was inspired by the remark attributed to Socrates, "All I know is that I know nothing." This school believes that nothing can be known, and gave birth to the modern agnostics as well as many other critical thinkers. According to this school, both our senses and our reason are relatively unreliable, so we can truly have absolute truth or know real knowledge.
The Pyrrhonian school did not claim that knowledge was impossible but suspended judgement on theoretical questions to avoid mental discomfort. Convenient, huh?
http://skeptoid.com/skeptic.php
http://www.rit.org/essays/history.php
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/#PhiSkeVsOrdInc
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/conveying-the-sadness-in-japans-stoicism/
ReplyDeleteThis article is about the aftermath of earthquakes in Japan. They are saying that journalist are having difficulties in expressing emotion, and also the people of Japan had a hard time dealing with it. They are "unwilling to be the center of attention" because they are such modest people. This is proven because it was difficult for photographers to get close with people. It was said that the Japanese don't like getting other people upset about things- they believe people should stay calm and so there is no "ripple effect or fear." people. -“We have a newborn baby. The hardest thing is that the baby cries at night and it upsets other people beside us.” This article is about the hardship of trying to show emotion without being a burden to others.
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20060801170800738
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brookner-romanticism.html
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/skepticism-as-eharmony-defends-its-matchmaking-algorithm.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
ReplyDelete