Carpe Diem

Over break my mom and a bunch of her friends from college got together and made T-shirts that had Carpe Diem on them with the year they graduated from school. They told me that this stood for there experience in college and how they would alway live in the moment. After her explaining that to me I automatically thought about learning about Carpe Diem in philosophy. I really enjoyed the quote by Marcus Aurelius that went something like this, "Leave the past behind you, entrust in the future and act in harmony with nature." And now that I am in college I think about living in Carpe Diem and how hard that would be due to grades. We all have to dwell on the bad test grade we just got and look to the future to make up for the bad grade and work to make up for it. But I like the way Seneca puts it, "In this moment all the world belongs to me!" This is very true, I can live this moment anyway I would like, I can sit around being lazy or go and work hard in school and then I can entrust in the future.

Class Synopsis

In class on Wednesday we briefly talked about medieval philosophy and the proof of God’s existence. We learned about the three main arguments: cosmological, based on the existence of the world, design, based on the theological order of the world, and ontological, based on the concept of God. On Friday we got to the meat of each argument. Starting off with cosmological, we learned about the ancient cosmological philosophers arguments. The first argument made was by Plato and Aristotle describing everything that exists must have a cause. This argument led to the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which consists of three parts: Whatever has a beginning must have a cause, the universe came to exist and, therefore, the universe must have been caused to exist. An Arabic philosopher, Avicenna, argues everything must have a reason or cause, but if it does not then it exists out of necessity, if not, it is a contingent being, but there cannot be an infinite amount of reasons for the contingent beings. The Anslem cosmological argument states everything must exist through something. Aquinas’s argument explains God is the cause of existence, meaning there cannot be infinite causes; something must be first in order for there to be a cause of the present. There are many questions that go along with a cosmological argument, but as human being we need to know why and God is said to be the cause to ensure our happiness.

Cosmological arguments help us understand why the world exists; yet a design argument describes why the world has certain features. The theological approach states everything in the world has a purpose, while regularity states if something is irregular think of a miracle. I thought it was really interesting in class when we talked about Cicero looking up at the stars, and thinking those stars are put in their certain spots on purpose; they are not randomized. Because Aquinas believes God is the cause of existence he argues, “Nature ruled by and ‘intellect’ which gives order to nature.” This leads to the Aristotelian causes: material, efficient, formal and final. There are also many questions critiquing design arguments: the thought of multiple Gods, God being too anthropomorphic, order being only a product of human life, and more.

The last argument we talked about was ontological; explaining the meaning of God makes God an absolutely necessary being. According to Anslem of Canterbury the word God signifies, “Something which nothing greater can be thought.” God is the idea that entails reality, if no one can conceive a thought greater than there must be a God. We ended class talking about Gaunilo’s objection to ontological arguments through his Perfect Island criticism. Benedictine Monk contended that just because we have an idea of something does not mean that there is anything in reality that corresponds to it. Human being have many notions of unreal objects. In class we related his criticism to the definition of a cat. This definition may be the best definition in the world; however, there is no proof that the cat exists.

Sex and the City

In class today we talked about how Sex and the City is degrading to women. These women are supposed to be strong by not relying on men; however, each character in some way does rely on men. I have never thought about Sex in the City this way. Last semester I wrote an essay on Sex and the City and why men do no watch the show. I found this article about how men do not want to see women playing roles like men. The men especially do not like Miranda and Samantha, the two characters that have the most man-like roles. This is because women are not supposed to act this way, they are breaking out of women social norms. And at the end of the series these women are all with men. They have to end the show like this because this is what people want to see. They want a happy ending, and for women the happy ending is the couple together happily in love.

Choosing to not Choose

The way Satre explains intersubjectivity caught my attention, "We are what we are not and not what we are." Yes, I am a student but I am also not a student. I am also a sister, friend, daughter, golfer and so on. We all have many identities in life and we share these identities in different way to different people, being with others. The way I act on the golf course is not the way I act around my friends. In class someone brought up, "but I am a whole different person around my grandma." But in reality you are not a whole different person, you are a different identity. You choose your identity through free choice and the decisions one makes. I have met a lot of people that blame why they are lazy, or drink too much, or are over weight because of certain aspects in life. It is interesting to realize these people choose to think that. They say they have no chose, but these people are choosing not to choose.

A Leap of Faith

I thought it was interesting in class when we talked about in order to truly have faith one must see that it is not ethical and not universally applicable. One must risk their own faith in order to have faith. This relates to the leap of faith. When two people are in love they take this leap of faith to be with each other. They do not know if it will work out in the end, there is no evidence to support this matter. One must doubt this faith in order to have the truest faith. To recognize this doubt allows one to take this leap of faith. We hear the phrase "leap of faith" all the time but before this the phrase meant very little to me. I understand now all that comes with a leap of faith, the doubting and the weighing of options. Once the leap has been made one has made a commitment to oneself.

Acting Good for the Consequences

This week we discussed Glaucon and his three different kinds of good through good itself and through the consequences. I thought it was interesting how the majority of people fall in the category "not good in itself, but only for the consequences." We brought up the example of studying and how one does not study for the benefit of studying itself, but for the A in the class or exam. This makes me think back to grade school when parents and teachers would explain to their children and students how one should always study because of the benefits in the long run. Our brains have been trained to fall under the third category of good. This also could relate to sports and how the player does not enjoy practicing for hours and hours, but enjoys doing well in the game and his or her team winning.

Color Blind

Last friday in class we talked about different categories of perception. The question came up "Are we color blind?" A person may live their life not knowing they are color blind because they have always looked at life through these eyes and they have nothing in comparison. I have always thought about the idea of one persons perception of purple may be different than another persons perception of purple. This led to the idea that we can only experience the world through a particular group of categories: time and space. Everything we do involves time and space. Time and space both shape our perceptions. It is impossible for us to even think of something that does not involve time or space.

Purposeful Design of the Natural World

In class on Friday we talked about three different arguments for the proof of God's existence. The argument that caught my attention the most was Design Argument. Cicero explained, "What could be more clear or obvious when we look up at the sky and contemplate the heavens, than that there is some divinity or superior intelligence." We compared this to ourselves looking up at the stars on a clear night. All the stars are in a purposely designed order. Which corresponds with the idea of God creating the earth with a purposeful design and that there is an order to nature. If this correct then by cutting down forests or polluting water, we are destroying this meaningful order; which cannot be in good favor of the natural world.

Pursuit of Happiness

In class this week we discussed the pursuit of true happiness; however, there are many different definitions of true happiness. Is happiness a feeling, health, wealth etc. We tried to give our own definitions of happiness, for a sick person, health may be his true happiness. For a poor person, wealth may be his idea of true happiness. It depends on the person. Also, one needs to have the knowledge of happiness to fully understand the concept of happiness. But then again, different people have different knowledge of happiness. It is like the concept one has to feel pain to feel pleasure. Does on have to encounter sadness to understand happiness?

Life After Death?

In class this week we talked about how Pythagoreans believed "all is number." I thought it was really interesting how we looked at 3 is 1 because it is one thing. Anything that is a unified whole is number one. This conversation led to the unity of people and how our bodies are irrelevant but our essence is a number. Man's real nature is his soul, and his soul is immortal. Or the fact that my life before this could have been the king of England or even a bird. I have always been taught not to believe in reincarnation because of my religion; however, it is a question that is very interesting to me. Do our souls really live forever? And are they transfered to another living creature after death? Im trained to believe they go straight to heaven, hell or purgatory. These theories cannot be proved but I do wonder where are souls do go after we die.

Fallacies

In class on friday we talked about some common fallacies. I remember in high school learning about different fallacies. The appeal to tradition fallacy has always been interesting to me, how if a product is has new written on it it must be better. Or it can be looked at if something is a tradition then that is the way it should be. People tend to stick with what has always been and follow traditions because this seems to be the right thing to do. People do not want to try new things. The example given in class was people tend to eat more ice cream in the summer and the rape rate goes up in the summer; therefore, ice cream causes more rape. Obviously, that is ridiculous and in no way ice cream could cause rape. There are so many common fallacies that people tend to follow, its interesting learning about them and realizing how many people follow them.

Ignorance

In class this week I was really intrigued by the different types of ignorance. I have seen a lot of double ignorance in my life. To me, this is the worst type. It really bothers me when people think they know something and nothing else is right besides what they think to be. Politics, for example, is somewhere double ignorance can be found. People tend to pick sides. Simple ignorance can also easily be found. I do admit at times I can be like this; however, I do try to be virtuously ignorant as much as possible. I am ignorant to a lot of things in this world and I hope to keep learning more and lessen this ignorance.