GE1: Understanding the Self

Philosophy of man

What is Philosophy?

• Philosophy is about:

– Finding answers to serious questions about ourselves and about the world we live in:

• What is morally right and wrong? And why?

• What is a good life?

• Does God exist?

• What is the mind?

• What is art?

• Is the world really as it appears to us?

• What can we know?

• …and much, much more

– Questioning existing knowledge and intuitions to get closer to the truth

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.

Philosophy is the rational attempt to formulate, understand, and answer fundamental questions.

Search for truth

Search means to look for something

Search for meaning (importance significance, value or relevance

Philosophy ask a lot of questions

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average mind discuss events, weak minds discuss people” – Socrates

Western vs Eastern Philosophy

1. Western philosophy is mainly used in the Western parts of the world, such as in the European
countries, while the Eastern philosophy is prevalent in Asian countries.
2. Western philosophy deals with Individualism while Eastern Philosophy is related to Collectivism.
3. Both philosophies center on virtues.
4. Eastern philosophy takes more of a spiritual approach while Western philosophy is more hands-
on.

Individualistic vs, Collaborative

Individualistic Collaborative
 I am special.  I am part of my family.
 I am unique.  I am part of my community.
 I am me.  I am part of my country.
 I am an individual.  The goodness of the whole is more
 I am who I am. important than the individual.
 I am a rational agent.  My actions directly impact my family and
 I am responsible for my own action. my community.
Individualistic vs. Collaborative

Independence Interdependence
 Develop early independence  Learn to depend on others
 Express yourself  Read nonverbal cues
 Responsible for self  Listen to authority
 Live on one’s own  Be responsible for others
 One’s own goals take priority  Personal goals secondary to goals of the
o Motivated by own group
o preferences, needs ,  Motivated by the norms of, and duties
o rights imposed by, the group
 Tasks more important than relationships  Relationships more important than tasks
 Cognitive skills independent of social skills  Social and cognitive skills integrated

How is a child taken care of?

Individualistic vs. Collaborative

Low Power Distance High Power Distance

 Persons must earn respect  Parents teach children to obey
 Collaborative classrooms  Children respect parents & those in
 Teachers facilitate learning authority
 Persons direct themselves  Teachers take initiative in class
 Teachers are to transfer wisdom
 Students respect teachers
 Persons expect direction

“As the saying goes men go upward; on the other hand, it says: the higher you climb up, the harder you
fall.”

“money is not everything, however, money rules all.” – Chinese Culture Sayings

West vs East

Teachers
 American teachers were more  Chinese teachers had stronger knowledge
knowledgeable about general educational of the subject matter and building the solid
theories and classroom skills. foundation.
 Evokes creative thinking.  Spend more time with their students.
 Encourage students to  Persistence.
 challenge the knowledge.  Authority figure.
 Teaching atmosphere
 lively and vivid.

Students
West East
• Self-confidence • Discipline
• Independence • Obey
• Curiosity • Good observers
• Free thinking • Patient
• Respectful
• Afraid of making
• mistakes
Applied Ethics

• Applying moral theories to current real life situations to assess what we should do
• Topics include:
– Animal rights
– Environmental ethics
– Euthanasia
– Abortion
– Cloning and genetic engineering
– Business ethics (e.g. is advertising immoral?)
– Global poverty

The Value of Philosophy

• What, then, is the value of philosophy? Here are some answers:
– First, philosophy may provide answers to difficult questions, even if this takes a
lot of time. In fact, science is one example where philosophy became very
successful (‘natural philosophy’).
– Second, even if philosophy does not provide one with any clear answers, it may
still be able to say that certain answers are better than others.
Doing philosophy will improve your critical thinking skills, and those can be successfully applied to
almost any aspect of life.

Philosophy will open your mind, and get us out of our rut. It is, as Bertrand Russell called it,
‘liberating doubt’.

Philosophy forces one to be precise, clear, and rigorous. These are all useful qualities to have as
well.

Being Critical: What it is?

• Being critical about a certain belief means to think about that belief, and to decide whether to
accept it, reject it, or suspend judgment on that belief.
• Thus, you consider alternative beliefs, and you make arguments for or against any of those
beliefs to figure out whether the original belief was indeed the best belief or not.
• In other words, being critical involves the same two components as philosophy: the generation
as well as evaluation of alternative beliefs.
• Indeed, philosophy can be understood as critical thinking with regard to difficult issues.

“It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts… it
is to teach them to think, if that is possible, and always to think for themselves. – Robert Hutchins

Logic

• the science and art of correct thinking

• the process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something.
• Using thought or rational judgment; intelligent

Lao Tzu

• Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey
of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
• When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
• Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.
Aristotle

• Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

• Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

 • You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind
next to honor.

Confucious

• Aristotle

• Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

• Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.

• You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind
next to honor.

Plato – Father of Idealism and a believer in Rationalism Philosophy.

• A good decision is based on knowledge and not numbers.

Empericism

• The theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience.

• Empiricism is the philosophy of knowledge by observation. It holds that the best way to gain
knowledge is to see, hear, touch, or otherwise sense things directly
Vocabulary Terminologies

• Rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source and test of
knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the rationalist asserts
that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly.

• Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts
are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs
or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. 

• Reason - a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.

• Experience - practical contact with and observation of facts or events.

• Theory a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general
principles independent of the thing to be explained.

• Hypothesis proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for
further investigation.

• Observation a remark, statement, or comment based on something one has seen, heard, or
noticed.

• Confirmation the action of confirming something or the state of being confirmed.

o Testimony, proof, verification

• Premise a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a

conclusion.

• Conclusion a judgment or decision reached by reasoning.

Rationalism and Empiricism

• Empiricism: All knowledge of the world comes from experience

• Rationalism: Some knowledge of the world is independent of experience— that is, some
knowledge is inborn (innate)

4 Endowements
“Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and
creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose,
to respond, to change.”- Stephen Covey
Problem Solving

• Logic – The science of correct reasoning.

• Reasoning – The drawing of inferences or conclusions from known or assumed facts.
When solving a problem, one must understand the question, gather all pertinent facts, analyze the
problem i.e. compare with previous problems (note similarities and differences), perhaps use
pictures or formulas to solve the problem.
• Deductive Reasoning – A type of logic in which one goes from a general statement to a specific
instance.
• The classic example
All men are mortal. (major premise)
Socrates is a man. (minor premise)
Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (conclusion)

Inductive Reasoning, involves going from a series of specific cases to a general statement. The conclusion
in an inductive argument is never guaranteed.
Example: What is the next number in the sequence 6, 13, 20, 27,…
There is more than one correct answer.
• Here’s the sequence again 6, 13, 20, 27,…
• Look at the difference of each term.
• 13 – 6 = 7, 20 – 13 = 7, 27 – 20 = 7
• Thus the next term is 34, because 34 – 27 = 7.
• However what if the sequence represents the dates. Then the next number could be 3 (31 days
in a month).
• The next number could be 4 (30 day month)
• Or it could be 5 (29 day month – Feb. Leap year)
• Or even 6 (28 day month – Feb.)

CCTO.