Philosophies of the Axial Age

The Axial Age is a period from roughly the 7th - 3rd centuries, BCE, when most of the worlds existent theologies and philosophies and science are born, developed and/or written down.

The past leads to a future salvation (views of Salvation, heaven and Nirvana).

<p>The past leads to a future collapse.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Present problems are solved only give way to future problems.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The past is repeated in the future.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Systemic view</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>People make history, situations we are in now are a result of the choices people have made.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>History is a product of systems/ forces that are beyond human control (i.e History makes people).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>How human beings solve &quot;material problems&quot;.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>What system made genius’ possible and necessary.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Climate induced poverty, form bands bonded by affection, key to survival is cooperation via emotional bonds.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Shamanism</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Nature is explained in terms of the intentions of gods that occupy or represent natural object (explanation of behavior in terms of thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc.).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The economy of scale, there was now a surplus.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Structure founded on shared belief/knowledge not on emotion.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Larger scale human societies, in cities, with more people working at more diverse, specialized tasks, produces a new problem: how to coordinate human activity when emotional bonds can no longer do so.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A set of rules that is God saying to respect him and each other.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>faith-based monotheism that is less anthropormorphic.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Seeks universal standards of justice and rigidly hierarchical.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Belief Systems</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>No othering, everyone can be people of the book.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Respect authority, respect property.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Babylonian captivity of the Jewish people, writing down the commandments bonded the Jewish people when they were diasporic.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Morality is determined by the commands of God.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Does God pick the 10 commandments because they are good, just, right, true, etc.? If so, then God is unnecessary? Something else makes the 10 commandments good, just, right, true, etc.? Or is it that God picks them that makes them good, just, right, true, etc.? If so, then God is arbitrary. Some other rules could have been good, just, right, true, etc.? God, it seems, is either unnecessary or arbitrary.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Now that the God of monotheism plays the key role in modeling and underwriting an idealized human conduct, God's qualities must change, God becomes increasingly perfect!</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Act always to maximize intense, physical, pleasure now.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great, great upheaval and violence.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Act always to maximize your own physical and emotional pleasures over the long term.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Natural and Necessary: We need them to live (i.e water, food); Natural and Unnecessary, we don't need them to live, just disappointed ( fine food, luxurious houses); Unnatural: pleasures derived from social standing (power rank, position).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Each action must be judged in term of how much pleasure it produces,</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The relationship between beliefs such that if one or a set of beliefs is all true, then another must be true (If you accept the truth of whats higher up in the system, then you must accept the truth of what is lower down).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Starting with empiricism and his version of physicalism (known as Atomism) epicurus derives both a way for the individual to live (a morality) and a justification for a certain social/political order, Effectively, according to epicurus society and the state exists purely to keep the individual safe from harm, This justification for society and the state has come to be called &quot;social contract theory&quot;.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A necessary evil.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>True</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Arised at a time where older belief systems were becoming less viable, increased trading, increased poverty.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Escaping Samsara, reaching Nirvana.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The cycle of birth, growth, decay, and death and rebirth.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Focused on desire leaves us focused on what we lack, focused on what we lack is to suffer.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Eliminate the self</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Rather than stay focused on what we lack, we focus on what we are; can be done through meditation, Buddha views this as evasion rather than elimination.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>If we eliminate or drastically reduce desire, we will not spend our time focused on what we lack; minimized desire means we are still focused on what we desire (like a diet and cravings).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Rather than search for the permanent in us, he accepts that the self is impermanent and constantly changing; The existence of a permanent self is an illusion, and if we escape that illusion, then we escape the &quot;cycle of desire&quot; by eliminating the first part.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Follow this recipe (dharma) and you will do your duty (karma) thus you will get closer to wisdom in the next life.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<ol> <li>there is suffer: the cycle of desire; 2: there is an original cause of suffering: belief in the permanency of the self; 3: there is a cessation of suffering: understanding the self is an illusion; 4: there is a path to the cessation of suffering :the eightfold path.</li> </ol> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Buddhism's rules to enlightenment (Buddhist Ten Commandments).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Buddhist community.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Solitary element.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Epistemology: Cognitivism (e.g 89), Truth is available to those who seek; don't need to be specifically chosen by anyone, A certain level of education is required, and level from freedom from Samsara, Metaphysics: Process Philosophy, Change is fundamental, Reality is constantly in process (i.e changing), Morality: Deontological Renunciation (e.g. 84), Deontological: actions are either good or bad according to a set of rules, Based off of the intent— if the intent was good, so was the act, All about meaning well, Have to do the 8-fold path without the goal of Nirvana, Want to be a nice person not to escape Samsara, but because you want to be a nice person (i.e no ulterior motive), Aesthetics: ?, Politics: Communitarianism (e.g. 197-202), If you surround someone with the good— they will be good—if you surround some with the bad— they will be bad.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Confucius</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>For the virtuous, rules are unnecessary, For the vicious, rules are useless.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Plato wrote what Socrates said down.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Plato agrees that Socrates’ execution was politically motivated, but what had happened to the citizens that allowed them to be so corrupt, Plato's answers: the sophists.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Group of itinerant (traveling) teachers who teach rhetoric (persuasive speech), They claim to be able to teach a citizen how to &quot;make the weaker case the stronger&quot;,</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A belief (a claim about the world that is) true (a correspondence between that belief and the world that is) justified (proof or evidence of the correspondence).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>True</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>A set of objects that do not change.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>True</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Reality is composed of 4 levels, Each level is logically and causally dependent upon the one above, If the one above did not exist, the one below could not exist, But this relationship is asymmetrical, The one above could exist without the one below.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Likeness (e.g Paintings, pictures, drawings)</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>All human beings start out at the bottom of the cave, Some humans manage to escape, When they do, they come to have knowledge, not mere opinion.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Love of the physical beauty shared by many individuals— erotic love, Love of physical beauty in another individual— erotic love, ↓ Love of Beauty in Customs and Institutions, Love of intellectual beauty in individuals, ↓ Love of beauty itself... what all of the beautiful objects below shared, Love of beauty in knowledge, When you go up the ladder you leave behind pain.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The cave is the realm of love and loss, birth, decay and death, The cave is therefore filled with pleasure and pain, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, In other words, the cave is samsara, Diotima offers is a way not to lose the self, What Diotima offers is a way to possess what you desire forever!</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Charioteer: Reason, The Bad Horse of Desire, The good horse of will, Each part of the person has its proper purpose; desire must be informed by and controlled by other parts of the chariot, In order for the chariot to move; the horse must both be going in the direction under the guidance of the charioteer, Intellect must dominate, be it also needs will.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>In order to escape the cave, we must put reason in control of the self, This is not an abandonment of self, It is a reconfiguration of self, If we follow desire, then we are doomed to stay in the cave, If we follow reason, then there is the possibility of escape.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Call those who have already escaped the cave &quot;philosophers&quot;, As far as plato is concerned, philosophers, for their own good, must return to the cave to try and do two things: Determine who in the cave can get out, Tell those who cannot get out, for the good of everyone, what to believe and how to behave</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Gold (Represents intellect/reason), Silver (Represents will), Bronze (represents desire), Some people have more gold than others, Reason works with will to dominate desire.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Gold: rulers, Silver: soldiers, Bronze: everything else</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>It is hierarchical (guardians→ soldiers→ workers), It is elitist, It is paternalist (the people at the top function as parents), It is authoritarian, Not an inherited power structure.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>All inequalities are done away with; but there is inequality based on &quot;metal&quot;.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>All expression, including that of artists , must be strictly controlled, Art must become an engine of propaganda for the state, This will be the one way the population who is not Gold can be controlled.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Epistemology: Rationalism: believe pure reason, Metaphysics: Dualism: Reality is bifurcated, Morality: Deontology: Do your duty, In order to be a good person we must do our duty, Duty is defined by following what reason tells us, Politics: Paternalism: Follow Authority, Allegory of the metals, Aesthetics: Communitarian: Art must lie well, His view of art is that it is a lie that can serve us badly or well, Noble Lie: if it can attach people to this system; it does work, Only good art is art that binds people together.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Polypennesian war.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Zhou dynasty, warring states period.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Emphasis on one zone will produce disharmony and imbalance.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Translated as ritual what is meant by ritual is something more like civility or etiquette.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Everyone is equally deserving of respect, everyone is morally equally (unless they are failing to perform Li with Ren); but everyone is not equal.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>To live in our own time we must compare, via analogy, our time with the ideal past, The harmony of today, in every zone, depends upon each of us living how people like us lived in a previously harmonious time, The central subject is history.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Epistemology: Historicist, To know in our time we have to look to the past, Metaphysic: Naturalist, Not a big emphasis on the supernatural Historically inflected, supernatural doesn't play the pivotal role that it plays for others, Not concerned so much with the transcendent as with whats around, Not concerned so much with the transcendent as with whats around, Morality: Deontologist, Performance of duty is important, Doing your duty given your role in a zone, Performing your duty well is in light of history (whether you are doing it well), Aesthetics: Classicist, Art in terms of a set of classics See valuable art as a manifestation of those classics, The role of art is to be innkeeping with the spirit of the past, Politics: Paternalist, The state is about a certain paternal relationship.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Increase technology, increase war, same time as Confucius.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>True</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Metaphysical Interpretation: that the Tao is a thing or substance (e.g. 7, 16), 2. Al's Epistemic Interpretation: that the Tao is about a way of knowing (e.g 14, 17), We are going to focus on interpretation 2.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Knowledge that fails to provide knowledge how (ex. Cooking based upon a recipe, Dancing based upon counting steps, Sport performance and coaching).</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>The Taoist Master is a moral coach, 1: Do not find the Tao in talk 56: The genuine master is somebody who can do the thing.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Practice.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Self consciousness.</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>Practice and not forcing it.</p> Signup and view all the answers