The Philosophy of Socrates

• Philosophy began in Athens, Ancient Greece around 600 BCE.
• "Philos" means love, and "Sophia" means wisdom.
• Philosophy involves understanding elements, mathematics, heavenly bodies, atoms, and man.

Socrates

• Socrates was an Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar, and Teacher.
• He was a mentor of Plato
• Socrates is considered the main source of Western Thought.
• Socrates didn't write; his works are known through Plato’s writings (The Dialogues).

Socratic Method

• The Socratic Method, also called dialectic method, is a method of inquiry using questions to find the correct definition of a thing.
• Its goal is to bring a person closer to the final understanding of a concept.

Socrates’ View of Human Nature

• "The unexamined life is not worth living" suggests that the soul, not the body, is the true self.
• Touching the soul means helping the person discover their true self.
• He thought people become wiser by self-reflection, continuous learning, seeking, and repeated questioning.

Plato

• Plato, originally named Aristocles (428-348 BCE), founded The Academy.
• He authored over 20 Dialogues, with Socrates as the main character.

Theory of Forms

• The Theory of Forms states that the physical world isn't the real world; ultimate reality is beyond the physical.
• Forms are abstract, perfect, unchanging concepts in the Realm of Forms.

Characteristics of Forms

• Forms are ageless and eternal.
• They are unchanging and permanent.
• Forms are unmoving and indivisible.

Plato’s Dualism

• The Realm of Shadows has changing, imperfect physical things.
• The Realm of Forms contains permanent, perfect things, the source of reality and knowledge.

Plato’s View of Human Nature

• Humans possess an immortal, rational soul created in the image of the divine.
• People are intrinsically good; ignorance equals evil.

Three Components of the Soul (Tripartite Soul)

• Reason: rational, motivates goodness and truth.
• Spirited: non-rational, the will or drive toward action.
• Appetites: irrational, desires for bodily pleasures.

Plato’s Theory of Love and Becoming

• The Allegory of the Cave represents shadows of reality.
• "The more the person knows, the more he is and the better he is."
• "Love is the way by which a person can move from a state of imperfect knowledge and ignorance to a state of perfection and true knowledge."
• "Love is the way of knowing and realizing the truth. And to love the highest is to become the best."

St. Augustine of Hippo

• St. Augustine of Hippo was a Christian Philosopher.
• He initially rejected Christianity because it didn't answer his questions about moral evil and suffering.

St. Augustine’s View of Human Nature

• Understanding Human Nature involves: God as the source of truth, and the sinfulness of man.

The Role of Love

• "God is love and he created humans for them to also love."
• Disordered love means loving things believed to bring happiness, but wrongly.
  • Physical objects lead to greed.
  • Lasting and excessive love of people leads to jealousy.
  • Love of self leads to pride.
  • Love of God is the supreme virtue and brings real happiness.

Rene Descartes

• Rene Descartes is the Father of Modern Philosophy and a Rationalist.
• He used scientific methods and mathematics in philosophy.
• He created the Cartesian Method and Analytic Geometry.

Two Powers of the Human Mind

• Intuition: the ability to directly apprehend certain truths.
• Deduction: discovering the unknown by progressing from the known.

Descartes’ View of Human Nature

• "Cogito ergo sum" means "I think therefore I am."
• The cognitive aspect is the basis for the existence of the self.

The Mind-Body Problem

• The soul/mind (the self) is separate from the body.

John Locke

• John Locke focused on how the human mind acquires knowledge.
• He believed knowledge comes from ideas produced a posteriori through experience.
• Tabula Rasa means the mind is a "blank slate".

Locke’s View of Human Nature

• Morals, religious, and political values come from sense experience.
• Morality involves choosing or willing the greatest possible good.
• Moral Good depends on conformity or nonconformity to some law.
  • Law of Opinion
  • Civil Law
  • Divine Law

David Hume

• David Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• After reading John Locke, he lost faith in religion.

The Human Mind

• The mind receives materials from sense, called perceptions of two types:
  • Impressions: immediate sensations of external reality.
  • Ideas: recollections of impressions.

Principles of Association

• The Principle of Resemblance
• The Principle of Contiguity
• The Principle of Cause-and-Effect

Hume’s View of Human Nature

• Other philosophers called human nature the soul but Hume calls it the Self
• Hume believed there's no sense impression of self, so the idea of self comes from within.
• The self is imagination; no "personal identity" exists behind changing perceptions, therefore, the unchanging self is nonexistent.

Immanuel Kant

• Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, East Prussia (Western Russia).
• He was the founder of German Idealism.
• He wrote: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment.

Kant’s View of the Mind

• The mind actively participates in knowing, not just passively receiving sense experience.
• The external world conforms to the mind, not the other way around.

Kant’s View of Human Nature and the Self

• Transcendental Apperception unites experiences into coherent consciousness.
• People experience the self as a unity of impressions organized by the mind.
• "The kingdom of God is within man."

Sigmund Freud

• Sigmund Freud was an Austrian Neurologist.
• He pioneered Psychology.
• He founded psychoanalysis (treating psychopathology through dialogue).
• He studied the unconscious mind, hysteria, free association, dream analysis, hypnosis.

Levels of Mental Life

• Unconscious: drives beyond awareness, motivating actions.
• Preconscious: not conscious but easily becomes so.
• Conscious: mental elements in awareness.

Provinces of the Mind

• Id: seeks pleasure (pleasure principle).
  • Eros: life instinct.
  • Thanatos: death instinct.
• Ego: in contact with reality (reality principle).
• Superego: moral and ideal aspects (moralistic/idealistic principle).

Freud’s View of Human Nature

• An individual is a product of their past lodged in the subconscious.
• Life involves balancing life and death forces.

Defense Mechanism

• Defense Mechanisms are unconscious strategies to protect from anxiety.
  • Repression
  • Denial
  • Projection
  • Displacement
  • Regression
  • Sublimation
  • Reaction Formation
  • Fixation
  • Introjection

Gilbert Ryle

• Gilbert Ryle was an English Philosopher.
• He contradicted Cartesian Dualism.
• "Ghost in the Machine" suggests consciousness depends on the brain.

Ryle’s View of Human Nature

• Man has free will, used to judge actions.
• Two types of knowledge:
  • Knowing-that
  • Knowing-how

Patricia and Paul Churchland

• Patricia and Paul Churchland are Canadian Philosophers.
• They combined Neurology and Philosophy (Neurophilosophy).
• Neurology studies the nervous system.
• "There isn’t a special thing called the mind. The mind is just the brain." ~ Patricia Churchland
• Brain = Self

Churchland’s View of Human Nature

• Abnormal brain physiology leads to deviant thoughts, feelings, actions.
• A normal brain facilitates socially accepted behavior.
• A compromised brain leads to aberrant behaviors.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

• Maurice Merleau-Ponty was a French Phenomenological Philosopher.
• He was a Philosopher of the Body.
• He argued that the human body is the primary site of knowing the world.

Merleau-Ponty’s View of Human Nature

• The Body-subject concept represents human nature.
• Phenomenology directly describes the human experience.
• Perception is the background of experience, guiding actions.
• Perception is not constant.