Introduction to Philosophy and its Founders

Understanding the Self

• Philosophy explores fundamental questions about ourselves and the world.
• It seeks to understand morality, existence, and the nature of the mind.
• Philosophy enhances critical thinking, argumentation, communication, reasoning, analysis, and problem-solving skills.

Pythagoras

• He was the first to use the term "Philosophy" which translates to "love of wisdom".
• Philo means "love".
• Sophia means "wisdom".
• Philosophy seeks truth and meaning.
• Search involves importance, significance, value, and relevance.
• Philosophy raises numerous questions.

Ancient Greek Philosophers

• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle

Socrates

• Socrates emphasized self-knowledge is vital for a fulfilling life.
• Every person is dualistic and possesses both a body and a soul.
• Body is imperfect and impermanent
• Soul is perfect and permanent

Socrates' Two Realms

• Physical Realm: Changeable, transient, and imperfect; the body belongs here.
• Idea Realm: Unchanging, eternal, and immortal; the soul belongs here.
• Socrates believed reason should guide humans to understand who we are and who we should become.
• The soul aims for wisdom and perfection, using reason to achieve an elevated existence.
• Bodily needs hinder wisdom.
• A meaningful life requires virtue and self-knowledge gained through introspection.
• Separating the body from the soul is ideal.

Plato

• Plato, a student of Socrates, saw philosophy as self-knowledge leading to soul purification.
• He believed in the mind and soul.
• He believed Mind and soul are gifts from God

Plato's Soul

• Rational Soul: uses reason and intellect, enabling deep thought and wise choices for understanding eternal truths.
• Spirited Soul: embodies emotion and passion, including love, anger, ambition, empathy, and aggressiveness.
• Appetitive Soul: caters to basic biological needs like hunger, thirst, and sex.
• He believed Conflict arises between these elements and the Rational Soul must take charge and restore harmony.
• Genuine happiness comes from the Rational Soul controlling the Spirits and Appetites.

Aristotle

• "The soul is the essence of the self"
• Aristotle, a student of Plato, saw the soul and body as unified, inseparable aspects.
• The soul is the body's form, inseparable and essential to being.
• Rational nature should guide one towards a flourishing life.

Aristotle's Kinds of Soul

• Vegetative: encompasses the physical body's growth.
• Sentiment: encompasses sensual desires and emotions.
• Rational: distinguishes humans, enabling knowledge and understanding.

St. Augustine

• "I am doubting, therefore I am."
• He integrated Platonic ideas with Christianity.
• He viewed humankind being created in the image of God, and is always geared toward goodness.
• Knowledge of self comes through knowing God.
• Truth is knowing God.

Rene Descartes

• "I think, therefore I am."
• Thinking about the self proves its existence.

Descartes' Two Entities

• Cogito: The thinking mind.
• Extenza: The physical body.

John Locke

• "The self is consciousness"
• Locke theorized the mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth, filled primarily through sensory experiences.
• Consciousness is necessary for a coherent personal identity.

Immanuel Kant

• The self enables personality and knowledge acquisition.
• The self constructs reality and through rationality transcends sensory experience.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

• He argued the mind-body split is pointless
• Knowledge comes from subjective experience.
• The self is embodied subjectivity.

Edmund Husserl

• A German philosopher and the founder of phenomenology

Phenomenology

• The study of the structures of consciousness.
• It involves ignoring external objects to describe the contents of the conscious mind.
• Natural attitude must be suspended to reveal reality's true nature.
• Eidetic reduction sees essence
• Transcendental reduction reduces meaning to experience.

Religious Beliefs

• Love is God's activity and grace in humanity.

Self from Psychology

• Psychology studies human behavior through observation.
• It seeks to describe, understand, predict, and control behavior using objective methods.

Psychodynamic Theory

• Sigmund Freud's Perspective
• Psychoanalysis sees humans as pleasure-seeking biological beings.
• Childhood shapes adult personality.

Freud's Structures of Mind

• Id: Operates at unconscious level and contains basic impulses
• Ego: Operates mainly at conscious level andExecutive mediating between id impulses and superego
• Superego: Operates mostly at preconscious level and Contains ideals and morals striving for perfection

Anxiety

• A distressing emotion with feelings of fear and restlessness

Types of Anxiety

• Reality anxiety: Fear of real events.
• Neurotic anxiety: Fear of id's impulses.
• Moral anxiety: Fear of violating moral codes.
• Defense Mechanisms
• Unconscious strategies to cope with anxiety.

Types of Defense Mechanisms

• Projection: Attributing unacceptable traits to others.
• Distortion: Misinterpreting the environment to fit desires.
• Identification: Adopting powerful figures' traits.
• Intellectualization: Using logic to avoid emotions.
• Regression: Reverting to earlier development stages.
• Sublimation: Substituting unacceptable impulses with positive actions.
• Dissociation: Disconnecting from one's identity or memories.
• Displacement: Redirecting feelings to a less threatening target.

Alfred Adler's Psychology

• It promotes social contribution and individual happiness.

Adler's Personality

• It focuses on striving for superiority and overcoming inferiority feelings through compensation.
• Inferiority Complex
• A feeling of inadequacy compared to others.

Concepts of Adler

• Family Constellation
• Defines each member's role It consists of parents, children, and extended family, influencing lifestyle choices

Birth Order

• affects the interpretation of self relative to siblings.
• Only children may struggle with cooperation.
• Oldest children receive initial parental focus.
• Second-borns may be competitive.
• Middle children may feel caught between siblings.
• Youngest children are often pampered

Behaviorism

• John B. Watson's Theory
• Watson founded behaviorism based on the study of overt behavior, emphasizing environmental control over genetics.

Key Points of Behaviorism

• Learning occurs through conditioning and environmental interaction.
• Responses to stimuli shape actions.

Principles of Behaviorism

• Principle of frequency/exercise states more repetitions strengthen responses
• Principle of recency states recent actions are most likely repeated
• Consistency enhances learning.

John B Watson Experiment

• Conditioned emotional responses in Little Albert
• In classical conditioning learning is demonstrated through associations.

Skinner's Operant Conditioning

• Based on rewards and punishments that shapes behaviour.

Skinner's Key Points

• Reinforcement encourages repeated behavior.
• Consistency enhances learning.

Elements of Conditioning

• Positive reinforcement: adding to the situation
• Negative reinforcement: taking a stimulis away
• Neutral operants: no effect
• Punishers: decreases behavior

B.F. Skinner

• Theorized about operant conditioning and utopian societies.
• Operant conditioning happens when we make behavioral changes based on experiences that resulted in rewards or punishments
• Behaviour which is reinforced tends to be repeated
• Behavior which is not reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished
• Positive reinforcement is when reinforcement strengthens a behaviour, by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding
• Negative reinforcement is when the removal of an unpleasant reinforcer can also strengthen behaviour.

Observational Learning

• Albert Bandura's theory of replicating observed behaviors.
• This is often called "modeling" and "social learning"

How Observational Learning Occurs

• Attention is needed to be paid in order learn
• Retention is storage of info in the brain
• Reproduction allows the ability to mimic
• Motivation in order to mimic a behavior
• We don't model the behavior of all people equally.

Neuroscience of Mirrior Neurons and PET scans

• PET scans reveal activates of the wayy we perform actions
• Discovery of mirror neurons in the brain

Bobo Doll

• Bobo Doll of Bandura studied if the children would mimic the actions of adults
• The children mimicked what the adults actions

Cognitive vs. Behavioral

• Bandura one said the behavioral approach ignoring the ability of the mind to think for itself.

• Behavioral Learning Learning is the result of interacting with forces in the environment

• Cognitive Learning Learning can happen in the mind without directly interacting with the environment