GROUP 2

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES

1. Textual analysis. Explain each of the following passages. Be brief but

concise in your analysis.

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is, that I know
nothing.”
_(Socrates) Plato , The Republic

 For us, the passage was implying that Socrates do consider himself as wise
because he is aware of his own ignorance (having many questions about
something) and he is capable of learning --- of becoming wise rather than
pretending to know what he cannot.

“All what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. (But how
mistakenly!) I am not that assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not
a subtle penetrating air distributed throughout all these members; I am not a
wind, a fire, a vapor, a breath or anything at all that I can imagine. I am supposing
all these things to. Be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still assured
that I am a something.”
_Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

 Based on the passage, we think Descartes had these questions in his mind that
doubt the origin of his existence and is being conscious about things related to
his origin but all of those things were all just made up by the queries he had in his
mind. By that, we conclude that humans are made up of their consciousness.
 “Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first know yourself, then
you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you. And perhaps
you will thenceforth avoiding falling ill.”
_ Sigmund Freud, Character and Culture

 Illnesses have their own origin in the psyche and it can be originated from
anywhere. In the case of this passage, Freud implies that psychic distress does
not come from the external environment but by the unresolved conflicts in the self
that cause a bad adaptation or bad interpretation to the external challenges. If we
have conflicts within ourselves then our perceptions or how we perceive the
environment might be distorted, and because of that, the self may react to them
in ways that may cause sufferings. According to Freud, by knowing ourselves
deeper, we will be able to have a correction in our perceptions which will allow us
to interact in a healthier and more constructive ways, thus helping us to avoid the
kind of illness Freud pertains.

“I discover that. There are other minds in understanding what other people
say and do.”
_Gilbert Ryle , The Concept of Mind

 Gilbert Ryle implies that knowing others’ minds comes down to no more than
being able to understand what a person says. We can physically observe
physical existence, but we do not have the same thoughts about what we see.
We individually form from differing personalized perceptions, individualized
impressions, prejudices, and biased opinions.
 Whether it is a question of my body, the natural world, the past, birth or
death, the question is always to know how I can be open to phenomena that
transcend me and that nevertheless, only exist to the extent that I take them
up and live them.

 Based on the passage of Merleau-Ponty, we always have this question that we

seek for an answer, that question is how we are able to cope with the existing
knots. A life with no challenge is not worth living, and the existence of those
challenges make us strong. We need to be always prepared for the problems
that are bound to come, because it is either we solve it or we will just leave it and
solve it by itself.

2. Discussion. Answer each of the following questions.

a) Compare and contrast the elements of the mind according to Plato and
life of St. Augustine.

 St. Augustine and Plato are very similar. St. Augustine used Plato’s ideas to help
him formulate his one philosophy. Plato believed in the form of the Good while
St. Augustine believed in the Concept of God. Both of these philosophers
believed in eternal and absolute things. The form of good is eternal and absolute,
as is the Christian God. Both philosophers agreed that you needed to seek the
highest amount of knowledge. In Plato’s eyes, this came in the form of good, and
acting upon this while in Augustine’s philosophy, he also believed that you
needed to obtain the highest amount of knowledge, but he did this through God.
Another similarity is that Plato states that the form of good is perfect and
absolute. He believes that we can do good, but no one is perfect, all of the time.
In Augustine’s philosophy, he believes that Christians also cannot be perfect. He
believes that only God is and can be perfect.
 b) Differentiate the concepts of the self -according to Descartes and that of
Locke.

 Descartes claimed that the only thing remains true that there is a mind or
consciousness doing the doubting and believing its perceptions, hence, the
famous formulation, 'I think before I am', or in Latin, the 'cogito ergo sum'.
Descartes who proposed that the mind and body were to separate and distinct
entities, but even the body was not so certain a thing as the mind, because like
everything else in the world the body could only be sensed because there was a
mind to sense it while John Locke compared the self to an empty space whereas
every day we got to experience something and this experience contribute the
knowledge. Therefore experience says place an important role to one's self-
reflection and analysis will eventually lead us to self-perception.

c) For Hume, what is it that makes “your” perceptions inaccessible to

“me” and vice-versa?

 For us, it’s because our own perceptions cannot be tested against others. We
cannot see a person’s perception and compare it to our own to see the variance,
let alone classify them as the “same”. No one can show that they can see what
another person sees, feel physically or emotionally exactly what they’re feeling or
precisely know what they’re thinking. I think that question was certainly posed to
him, to which he would only say that we make assumptions that one’s
experiences translate to another.

d) What were some of the criticisms that have been brought against Freud
and psychoanalysis?
 A number of modern psychologists have pointed out that traditional
psychoanalysis relies too much on ambiguities for its data, such as dreams and
free associations. Without empirical evidence, Freudian theories often seem
weak, and ultimately fail to initiate standards for treatment. Two common
criticisms, espoused by laypeople and professionals alike, are that the theory is
too simple to ever explain something as complex as a human mind, and that
Freud overemphasized sex and was unbalanced here (was sexist).