Enlightenment Role-play Reflection

By: Mai Parewa Pichayamarin 5961225 1105

The role play that we did is based on the historical philosophers that we have covered
in Unit 1. Students need to express their thoughts and actions toward certain things as if they
were their chosen philosopher. So their ideas and actions must reflect off the philosopher that
they chose. As for me, I chose to perform as John Locke, the English philosopher and
physician. The reason I chose him is because I personally like his way of thinking. He highly
value the rights and freedom of people. This can be obviously shown from his thought on the
government.John Lockes thought on the governments role is that the ultimate aim of the
state is just to preserve the quiet and comfortable living of the citizens in the society.
However, it has nothing to do with the peoples soul, Religion is a personal choice and it
should be the peoples decisions to choose their own religion, of what to believe.
The plot of our role play is that there are seven well-known philosophers who leap
through time to the modern age, 2017. They all can only go to three out of six locations, in
their limited free time before an appointment with the Dutch King at Thai restaurant, See
You At Noon. The seven philosophers are divided into 2 separated group before they will all
meet each other. The first group (four philosophers) meet at the Vredespaleis, Netherland. At
first they all do not get along very well. Mary Wollstonecraft wants to enter the Vredespaleis,
but Jean-Jacques doesnt want. Jean-Jacques do not care what Mary thinks. However,
Wollstonecraft thinks that womens right should be value too. In contrast to Jean- Jacques
who doesnt seem to really care about it. So this makes them to argue. However, after John
Locke (played by me) reconcile, the situation grows less tense and becomes better. They all
ended up entering the Vredespaleis. Then on to the second group of philosophers. The
philosophers are guided to the New church and Mauritshuis which are the destinations that
they decide to go by the traveler, the local citizen of the city. After that, all of the seven
philosophers meet at the Parkstraat road. At first, Locke, Hobbes and Kant argue about where
they should go for the remaining time before meeting the king. In order to solve the conflict,
Martin Luther suggests that we should follow the rule of the majority, democracy, by voting.
At the end, it turns out that John Locke wins the votes and so everyone decides to go to the
Binnenhof de Ridderzal for the remaining time. I have learned a lot of things from this
activity.
(Answer as John Locke) So if you ask me about my impression of what I saw. I must
say that I have had a very great time. Although, we philosphers fought due to our differences.
That is totally normal. I am really glad that I got a chance to meet all other six very well
known philosophers. We got to share our thoughts, ideas and learned through our differences.
It has been such a long time since I get to express and share my point of views with the
others. I highly value everyones thoughts. It was such a great opportunity for me to learn
new things, things that I havent acknowledge before. Now I am full of inspirations to write a
new essay. I would make sure to include those new ideas which I learned from the other
philosophers. I still could not believe that I got to travel through time to the very present day
of 2017. It is 300 years since I got to see the world out there again. My goal to the Binnenhof
De Ridderzal, the heart of Dutch politics was also accomplished. It is one of the top 100
Dutch heritage sites that I really want to visit as my ideas greatly influenced the European
democratic traditions. The heart of it which is the Ridderzal (Hall of Knights) is very
beautiful. I wish I could capture all the things that I saw.
To conclude, this trip taught me loads of new things. I got to learn and gain a better
understandings of others thoughts and ideas through their point of views. I learnt through the
diverse characteristics of others. Each philosopher had different thoughts, ideas, the way they
thought was very different. Their ideas heavily reflected off through their speech and actions.
I also got to know and learn about the famous heritage site at the Hague, Netherlands,
through the conversation with the other philosophers. I also gained new knowledge of the
places that I had visited. This as well gave me a sense of how Medieval Europe was shape by
Christianty, warfare and feudalism. The locations which some of the philosophers wanted to
visit were museums, medieval palace and churches. Those sites were built and influenced in
the medieval period. This clearly reflected of the medieval time, the way people lived back
then. During the medieval time, people often went to the church and relied on it. Many
ceremonies were also held there. Martin Luther which was one of the great philosophers that
Ive met recently heavily impacted and had great contributions toward the Medieval Europe.
He reformed the unjust practices of Catholic church and translated the New Testament to
German. This induced the people to read and write more. Moreover, he encouraged the bible
teaching to people by forming Christian school. Martin Luther shared the same idea for
education reformation as in the Renaissance movement. Other philosophers besides, Martin
Luther also contributed to a lot of things. Thomas Hobbes left an everlasting influence on
political thought. His idea of people being selfish and brutal and his thoughts on the role of
government led to more investigations such as by John Locke. After the Revolution, his ideas
also influenced federalists in arguments to adopt the Constitution. He thought that all people
should have equal rights and nobody should have more power over anyone else. So after the
Enlightenment period, many different ideas of the philosophers lead to Renaissance and
eventually resulted in Scientific Revolution, the period when there were developments in
mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry
transformed the views of society about nature.