To Be A Woman

What is a woman? My seminar class was on gender roles. And I suppose I have yet to completely figure this question out. I learned what are typical feminine and masculine characteristics, but I also learned the characteristics are this way because woman are supposed to be feminine and men are supposed to be masculine and how these characteristics are instilled beginning in childhood. They were many feminine men and masculine women. But what makes a woman? Reading The Second Sex, I'm still not too sure. Does it truly matter whether one is a woman or a man? I'm not sure I'll ever know what exactly a woman and a man is, forgoing sexual body parts.

Sartre and Psychology?

Now I know that psychology was branched off from philosophy. I would still like to say that some of what Sartre said struck me as psychological. When he was explaining how existentialism is optimistic and not pessimistic, the example he used to describe it, reminded me of things that I had learned about in psychology. People attribute their own failures to external factors and their successes to internal factors. In terms of the example he gave, he showed how people will comfort another by saying they are this way because they were born this way or the environment they lived in made it so. I think Sartre touches on how this is not the case. Although I personally believe it all plays a role, Sartre comments that it can be changed. And on this, I do agree with him.

Kierkegaard Contradcitions?

Kierkegaard went through a lot of pain when he gave up his fiancée. He thought he was not suit to the life of a husband and a pastor. Although giving up the life of a pastor was easier than giving up his fiancée, it seems he really did not want to give up his fiancée at all. The readings say he was surprised when she became engaged to another man. It seems he believed God would give her back to him like Abraham was given back his son. It was as though despite what he wanted, he always though that she would be given back to him through divine means. I guess I'm not understanding what he really wanted. He did not think he was suit to the life of being a husband, but he was upset when she was engaged to another man and this contradiction confuses me. I suppose my question is what did he really want?

Majority = Happiness

I disagree with Bentham. I don't think all forms of happiness are equal. Just because the majority is happy does not mean that the minority does not matter. I think of the Civil Rights Movement when people were happy with segregation. Certainly not all were happy, but the majority were. Today, there is a greater number of people who are happy once laws, attitudes, and behaviors were changed. Although racism is very much still alive today, I believe that Bentham's view of the majority is untrue. Just like how the majority didn't see racism as a problem many years ago, many still do not see it like this now. They do not think of it as a problem that exists today or they say they are"color-blind." However, just like those many years ago, change will happen where race does not come into play and people are not discriminated against and that is when happiness will be equal.

Mills

Mills said, "It is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a foot satisfied." I'm not sure if I agree with this or not. It does make sense to me that, and I do agree, that is is better to experience both - to wallow in the mud and study philosophy. However, if you are satisfied what need is their to search for more? What need is their to become dissatisfied with what you have? Does this not mean that you are always searching and never reach a point where you are completely satisfied? Where you can be happy with what you have experienced? Does this mean that life will never be satisfying?

Dreams

Watching House reminded me of Inception. It showed me how Descartes is everywhere. In Inception we learn how in a dream we do not remember how we got to a place. In House, we watched as House kept walking up and down the staircase. When I first watched this episode years ago, I had thought he was just trying out his leg, happy that he could walk. But I learned later that it was his way of figuring out what was a hallucination. I never understood it before until I watched Inception, and Descartes has also helped me understand dreams more and how our sense, perception, and judgment are impaired, and how they can not be fully trusted.

Senses

I don't understand how Descartes was bale to go over his arguments without senses and by simply just thinking. I however do understand how the senses can deceive you. Sometimes dreams seem so real that when I wake up, I'm confused as to whether or not I'm dreaming now or whether I was dreaming before. But that requires thought process too. To determine whether life is the dream, or whether the actual dream was a dream. So if thinking just as deceiving as the senses? I guess in my mind there is no way that it is possible for there not to be any doubt, depending on the situation. But then again, since I said depending on the situation, I'm also saying I'm wrong. I'm not sure if there is a way to not include the senses or thinking without someone having a doubt as to whether or not your claims are reliable.

Cause and Effect

As we talked about cause and effect in class in class and what started it all I remembered the questions people always ask. The question of whether the chicken or the egg came first. I remembered that I had read an article months ago, about how scientists have found out that the chicken came first.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/14/chicken-egg-mystery-finally-cracked/

There's a video on this other link.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38238685/ns/technology_and_science-science/

It amazes me that scientists were able to find out the answer to this question. I remember as a little girl I'm constantly ask myself did the seed come first or the plant, the chicken or the egg, ect. I now have one question answered.

Eudaimonia In Relation To Buddhism

I disagree with happiness being the end. Maybe I think of it in Buddhist terms where there is desire, and as long as you have a desire for something you will suffer. To be content, to reach happiness, one has to fulfill a desire or desires. However, usually, doesn't one desire lead to another? I had always thought of it in this way. One can reach happiness, but eventually becomes bored or unsatisfied as time passes. So how can a person remain happy? Isn't that also a desire as well, which can cause you to suffer? Perhaps I'm looking at this too much in Buddhist terms.

What is Friendship?

As we went over in class different kinds of virtues and what they really are, I find myself questioning whether what I think friendship is. You always hear in movies, read in books, and hear people say what friendship is and how they make friends with another person or even how someone is not really your friend if they are doing something against you. For me, friendship is loyalty, truthfulness, to be there when he/she is needed, to listen, to be good, and various other qualities. But I wonder now is that truly friendship? A bad person can be loyal. They can be truthful in their own mind. They can listen and fit the other qualities. Maybe not all of them, but every person has their faults. No one is perfect. Can I say someone is being my friend when there's no universally applicable definition for it? What is friendship?

Philosphy and Race

Although I would never have thought before that philosophy could deal with race, I learned through the readings for my Race and Ethnic Conflict class that it can deal with it, not necessarily the subject of philosophy, but how philosophy teachers were the majority mentioned in the readings for that class to be teaching those types of classes. It makes a lot of sense to me now, because the teachers in the readings were talking about how to justify and argument in a class like that when things get heated and emotional, and how a person can realize how unfair they are being, and more than that, how what they are saying is racist when they realize what they are saying when they are arguing with another has no premises at all to be backed up with. Through this they often times realize what meaning what they are saying holds and are able to become a better person because of it.

Class Synopsis for Wednesday 01/26/11

Milesians, Thales, Anaximender, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Pythagoreans ---26^th January 2011.

Class Synopsis

Wednesday’s class focused on five different philosophers and what they thought the arche, meaning origin, was. Thales believed the arche was water. He was an epistemological optimist, saying knowledge is possible. Origin is unity and because of this, water must be the arche. Water exists in all living things. It is life-giving and runs through everything like the mind. Water cannot be destroyed, and so because the mind is like water, the mind is immortal. In relation to the Phaedo, the mind is immortal.

Anaximender believed the arche was indefinite, and said that which cannot be defined or limited, made definite. In this way he was an epistemological pessimist. All definition is futile, so finding an arche was futile since it can not be defined. There was appreciation in recognizing the mystery of people, and therefore the mystery of arche.

Anaximenes, however, was a metaphysical and epistemological optimist. He believed the arche was air. Like Thales, Anaximenes said all things are a certain amount of air, rather than water. Knowledge is not just abstract, but certainty. Because of Anaximenes, scientists look for measureable certainty.

Xenophanes was an epistemological pessimist. He had a denial of anthropomorphic gods, and he was the first to speak about monotheism. Monotheism was discussed before Christianity began. Xenophanes also believed there is no complete knowledge for man.

The last philosopher we covered was Pythagoras said the arche was numbers and that “all is number.” The world is not only rational, but also mathematical. In this way, like Anaximenes who believed in measurable certainty, he believed all things can be determined with an exact certainty. Everything is related in a unified whole, like all numbers are one. A definition is good and indefinite is evil. Anaximender believed the opposite, because he believed there is mystery in the indefinite. In relation to the Phaedo, numbers can not be destroyed just like the soul can not be destroyed, and the soul is man’s real nature.

Arguments

What is an argument? I had always thought arguments were easy to start and quite simple in understanding how to argue. I had not realized that there were different types of arguments whether it be sophistic, socratic, valid, or invalid, and so on and so forth.

It makes me wonder whether the arguments I have had in my life or have heard and seen were ever really arguments at all. Do people who think they are aruging aware that they might not even be arguing at all? Are they aware that perhaps what they think is a justified argument is not backed up by any premises? Learning about arguments has given me a new insite on how to argue and hopefully be able to tell others what they are arguing about is not a real arugment and on how to argue with someone.

Defining Me

In class as we went over what defines an object, it made me question what defines a person. As we took apart what makes a desk a desk, and how removing some characteristics kept it a desk and then made it an object that was not a desk, I began to question what can I take away from myself that will keep me as Saty to others without others telling me, "You're not yourself," or "You've changed." What defines who I am? How can people say, "You're not yourself," when a person can changes their features, manner of speech, appearance, and personality from childhood throughout adulthood? I wonder how many times people have thought I have changed when I was acting myself instead of covering myself with a mask to the world. Am I Saty with my mask on or without it? Furthermore, is what makes me me, what others think or what I think defines me? Is my essence, my appearance, defined by me or others? I have come to realize the trouble of the question of 'Who am I?' more thought than I have ever given it before.