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 FILOSOFIA 6TO año– en inglés. Ciclo lectivo 2024

Prof. Yamila Ledesma

PAUTAS DE TRABAJO Y EVALUACION

Se espera que los alumnos logren debatir respetuosamente y lleguen a un análisis crítico de la
realidad. Asimismo, se espera que puedan insertarse en el mundo del trabajo globalizado que
los espera al egresar del nivel; acceder a los avances de la ciencia y la tecnología; obtener
información actualizada desde su fuente original; ampliar su competencia comunicativa;
afianzar su propia identidad y desarrollar la comprensión de otras culturas; desarrollar el
pensamiento crítico.

Para ello el docente busca:

Propósitos de enseñanza:

• Promover situaciones que permitan aplicar el uso del inglés no solo en prácticas sociales
cotidianas sino también en el marco de los contenidos aprendidos en la materia.

• Facilitar el acceso a la comunicación personal e intercultural utilizando su segunda lengua

con diversos fines y desde diferentes perspectivas culturales en el contexto de los contenidos
que los alumnos están aprendiendo.

• Insistir en el uso de su segunda lengua para aprender mientras se usa la lengua misma.

• Promover al aprendizaje interactivo y autónomo mediante el trabajo entre pares y en

grupos, con actividades que involucren la negociación de significados y desarrollen el trabajo
de investigación.

Para ello se busca crear un ambiente donde se fomente la participación de los alumnos y se
propondrán situaciones de enseñanza a través de las cuales los alumnos logren:

Objetivos de aprendizaje:

• Comprender textos orales y escritos con los contenidos propuestos para el año utilizando
estrategias específicas en función de las necesidades de información y comunicación.

• Producir textos escritos y orales con propósitos comunicativos aplicados a una situación
relacionada con el contenido propio de política y ciudadanía.

• Reconocer y producir el vocabulario propio de la materia.

• Desarrollar estrategias de la lengua extranjera que faciliten el acceso al conocimiento,

desarrollo personal y de comunicación en el mundo actual.

• Adquirir autoestima y confianza en sí mismos y aprender a trabajar con independencia

debido a la naturaleza interactiva y cooperativa del trabajo propuesto.

• Obtener información de variedad de fuentes (pinturas, fotografías, gráficos) sobre los modos
de vida estudiados y comunicarlos en diferentes registros.

• Comprender los modos de construcción e interpretación de cuadros, tablas, diagramas,

esquemas conceptuales y gráficos estadísticos, así como lograr una adecuada interpretación
de los mismos en distintos medios de información y comunicación (diarios, revistas, textos,
etc)

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Evaluación

Filosofía, que se dicta tanto en inglés como en castellano, constituye UNA SOLA MATERIA, por
lo tanto, el alumno debe aprobarla en ambos idiomas para que la materia en su totalidad
pueda considerarse aprobada.

La evaluación a lo largo del ciclo lectivo 2024 constará de varias partes:

- La participación en clase será de suma importancia, así como también contar con una
carpeta ordenada que contenga los apuntes y actividades realizados en clase.

- Se llevarán a cabo evaluaciones tanto escritas como orales.

- Realizaremos proyectos de exposición oral grupales (cada uno de ellos con 2 (dos) notas, una
de desarrollo grupal y otra individual)

- Se confeccionarán trabajos prácticos escritos llamados SOURCE BASE, que constan de la

lectura comprensiva de un apartado bibliográfico provisto por el docente, para la posterior
redacción de un breve texto reflexivo, respetando las indicaciones de formato que el docente
dictaminará. Dichos trabajos son de entrega obligatoria. Los alumnos contarán con un plazo de
entrega de 3 (tres) semanas a 1 (un) mes, según corresponda. No se aceptarán trabajos
entregados fuera de término.

- En caso de que el alumno/a deba ausentarse a una fecha de examen, exposición oral o
entrega de T.P, debe presentar el pertinente certificado médico o en su defecto, de ser por
motivos personales, dicha ausencia debe ser justificada por su tutor/a. No se tomarán
instancias evaluadoras a alumnos ausentes que no posean justificación.

Material del alumno

El material en inglés está disponible en un cuadernillo digital a imprimir, pueden encontrar el

mismo en Google Classroom. Es de carácter obligatorio contar con dicho cuadernillo impreso
todas las clases para trabajar correctamente.

Se trabajará con herramientas digitales para enriquecer el desarrollo de la lengua y se

realizarán actividades extras para ampliar las destrezas comunicativas en el idioma y en la
materia.

Queda terminantemente prohibido el uso de celulares en clase con propósitos NO

pedagógicos. Sólo se utilizará el celular como herramienta digital en el momento en que el
docente así lo autorice, de lo contrario se procederá a calificar con 1 (uno) al alumno/a que
no cumpla con esta consigna.

FIRMA DEL DOCENTE FIRMA DEL TUTOR/A FIRMA DEL ALUMNO/A

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 INTRODUCTION: What is philosophy?
It may be described in many ways. It is a
reasoned pursuit of fundamental truths, a
quest for understanding, a study of principles
of conduct. It seeks to establish standards of
evidence, to provide rational methods of
resolving conflicts, and to create techniques
for evaluating ideas and arguments.
Philosophy develops the capacity to see the world from the perspective of other
individuals and other cultures; it enhances one's ability to perceive the relationships
among the various fields of study; and it deepens one's sense of the meaning and
variety of human experience.

PHILOSOPHY, CRITICAL THINKING AND IDEOLOGY

Philosophy, critical thinking, and ideology are distinct concepts, but they are
interconnected in their approach to understanding, analyzing, and shaping human
thought and beliefs.
Philosophy:
Philosophers use rational argumentation, logic, and critical reasoning to examine
concepts, assumptions, and beliefs. They seek to develop systematic frameworks to
comprehend and explain various aspects of life, ethics, politics, and more.
Philosophical inquiries cover diverse areas such as metaphysics (the nature of reality),
epistemology (the study of knowledge), ethics (moral principles), logic (valid reasoning),
and aesthetics (the nature of beauty and art).
Critical Thinking:
It involves questioning assumptions, recognizing biases, examining evidence,
and assessing the logical coherence and validity of arguments or propositions.
Critical thinking aims to enhance one's ability to make reasoned judgments,
solve problems, and arrive at well-founded conclusions by scrutinizing
information and ideas objectively.
Ideology:
It encompasses a collection of ideas or a worldview that guides
individuals or groups in understanding their society, shaping their
actions, and influencing their perspectives on various issues.
Ideologies can be political (like liberalism, conservatism,
socialism), religious, philosophical, or cultural, providing a framework for interpreting
the world, organizing societal structures, and justifying certain practices or policies.

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While philosophy involves the systematic exploration of fundamental questions, critical
thinking is a method employed within various disciplines, including philosophy, to
analyze and evaluate arguments and information. Ideology, on the other hand, is a
specific set of beliefs or principles that can be informed by philosophical ideas and may
influence the way critical thinking is applied within a particular framework.

The history of philosophy is often divided into four main periods, characterized by
distinct philosophical concerns, methods, and major figures.

UNIT 1: Ancient Greek philosophy (c. 600 BCE - 500 CE):

Ancient philosophy in Greece and Rome focused on fundamental questions about
existence, knowledge, ethics, and politics.
Philosophers in this period often engaged in dialogue and dialectical reasoning. They
explored metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and political philosophy.
Key Figures: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle in Greece; Cicero, Seneca in Rome.

Ancient Greek philosophy

opened the doors to a
particular way of thinking that
provided the roots for the
Western intellectual tradition.
With Socrates comes a
sustained inquiry into ethical
matters—an orientation
towards human living and the
best life for human beings.
With Plato comes one of the
most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted
to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in
ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. Plato’s student, Aristotle, was
one of the most prolific of ancient authors. He wrote treatises on each of these topics,
as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of
animals.

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 SOCRATES
Socrates was a scholar, teacher and philosopher born in
ancient Greece. His Socratic method laid the groundwork for
Western systems of logic and philosophy.
Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical
results for the greater well-being of society. He attempted to
establish an ethical system based on human reason rather than
theological doctrine.
Socrates pointed out that human choice was motivated by the
desire for happiness. Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing
oneself. The more a person knows, the greater his or her
ability to reason and make choices that will bring true
happiness.
Socrates believed that this translated into politics with the best
form of government being neither a tyranny nor a democracy.
Instead, government worked best when ruled by individuals who had the greatest
ability, knowledge and virtue, and possessed a complete understanding of themselves.
Socratic Method

For Socrates, Athens was a classroom and he went about asking questions of the elite
and common man alike, seeking to arrive at political and ethical truths. Socrates didn’t
lecture about what he knew. In fact, he claimed to be ignorant because he had no ideas,
but wise because he recognized his own ignorance.
He asked questions of his fellow Athenians in a dialectic method — the Socratic Method
— which compelled the audience to think through a problem to a logical conclusion.
Sometimes the answer seemed so obvious, it made Socrates' opponents look foolish.
For this, his Socratic Method was admired by some and vilified by others.
HAPPINESS

This is the first piece of philosophy in the West to discuss the concept of happiness.
Socrates presents an argument as to what happiness is that is as powerful today as
when he first discussed it over 2400 years ago.
Basically, Socrates is concerned to establish two main points:
1) happiness is what all people desire: since it is always the end (goal) of our
activities, it is an unconditional good.
2) happiness does not depend on external things, but rather on how those things
are used.
A wise person will use money in the right way in order to make his life better; an
ignorant person will be wasteful and use money poorly, ending up even worse than
before. Hence, we cannot say that money by itself will make one happy. Money is a

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conditional good, only good when it is in the hands of a wise person. This same
argument can be redeployed for any external good: any possessions, any qualities, even
good looks or abilities
While many Athenians admired Socrates' challenges to Greek conventional wisdom and
the humorous way he went about it, an equal number grew angry and felt he
threatened their way of life and uncertain future.
In 399 B.C., Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and of impiety, or
heresy. He chose to defend himself in court.
Rather than present himself as wrongly accused, Socrates declared he fulfilled an
important role as a gadfly, one who provides an important service to his community by
continually questioning and challenging the status quo and its defenders.
The jury was not impressed by Socrates' defense and convicted him. The jury sentenced
him to death by drinking a mixture of poison hemlock.

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MOCK SOURCE BASE N°1

✓ Read the following excerpt about Socrates’ ideals on happiness.

✓ Highlight the central aspects of the paper.
✓ Write a summary in 20 to 25 lines in which you explain the main focus of this work.
✓ Paraphrase the ideas as much as you can, DO NOT COPY AND PASTE.
✓ The paper MUST BE PRINTED following the below specifications – handwritten
papers won´t be accepted.
✓ Font: Arial 12
✓ Line spacing: 1,5
✓ Text: justified
✓ DEADLINE:
✓ Your paper must look like this

Philosophy 6th year

Source Base Nº:
Teacher:
Student:
Date:
Title: “Meaning of happiness by Socrates”
Summary:

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Meaning of Happiness by Socrates
Everyone is constantly searching for the true concept of happiness in their lives.
Many pursue fame, money and material goods in order to grain that satisfaction,
but others believe that satisfaction from fame, money and material good is only
temporary. Many philosophers, specifically Socrates believes that a good life is the
true concept of happiness. However, Socrates warns the Athenians and us that we
may be looking for happiness in all the wrong places if we have our priorities and
our desires in the wrong order. There were many people in Athens and there still
are many people today who think that the acquisition of fame, power or wealth is
the key to happiness, but they are confusing worldly success and material
prosperity with genuine happiness.
Socrates’s definition of happiness is living a life that is right and good and its
relationship with virtue and wisdom. He knows that fame, power or wealth can
make one think that they are happy, however, the real concept of happiness is
much more than that. As Socrates said, 'The Olympian victor makes you think
yourself happy; I make you be happy' (Apology, 36e-37a). This is said because
Socrates believes that he actually helped the people of Athens move towards
happiness through self-examination and wisdom as showing others that the city is
using them and giving false information.
Socrates explains to the people that the true happiness is more than just wealth
and power. As he says, 'Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence
makes wealth and everything else good for men' (Apology, 30b). In other words,
money can’t make people be experts in things because only excellence means
being good or expert at things. But being an expert or good at a profession
makes wealth for you. In order to achieve the true concept of happiness, Socrates
believes that people first need to be virtuous which means to do and be good
always because that will fill one’s heart and soul with good deeds and morality.
Those are important in peoples’ lives because it can help them decide between the
good and the bad. It is also a way of building an individual's character and
spirituality. For example, being respectful, honest and caring to others and things.
As Socrates says this is the most precious quality one can have, “I went to each of
you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying
to persuade him not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself
should be as good and as wise as possible…” (Apology, 36c). And by being good
or virtuous, it allows people to go on the pathway of happiness and create good
relationships with each other’s.
The goodness and virtue are much more than the ones who think that the
acquisition of fame, power or wealth is the key to happiness. Socrates says, 'A
good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death' (Apology, 41d). This means
that no matter what, a good man can never be treated badly even afterlife. As he
said, “…a better man cannot be harmed by a worse' (Apology, 30d). Having the
virtue in life, gives people a true concept of happiness that is well beyond wealth,
fame or and any goods.

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Being virtuous and doing a virtuous act once, doesn’t mean that an individual has
gained the accurate meaning of happiness. In order to get the perfect happiness, it
requires people to be virtuous and being virtuous requires wisdom which makes
virtuous and wisdom important components of happiness. Wisdom is defined as
“the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment”
Sometimes people do things to impress others and not really express their true
self as to not get judged by others. Some think that gaining the acceptance from
others might give them the pleasure in happiness which they been constantly
searching but in reality, they are wasting their lives because of no good judgement
or self-knowledge. Life is not worth it when someone has no purpose to reach its
goals in life. Therefore, Virtue can’t be developed without wisdom because they
are both necessary for happiness and wisdom is needed to show people if they
know whether what they are pursuing in their lives will really bring them the
genuine of happiness.
Nowadays, getting fame, wealth or power has become much easier to gain than
compared to few years ago. People can upload videos of them just doing basic
things in life, such as eating, shopping or running errands and could become
famous and rich. For example, Trisha Paytas is a famously known Youtuber who
has a net worth of $4 million and all she does is uploading videos of her eating.
Some might think Trisha’s life is full of happiness since she has fame and wealth
but in reality, she is not. Often, she has said that “she is depressed and feels
lonely and fame and money only gives her a temporary joy” (YouTube).
However, some believe that pursuing fame, money and material goods is the true
satisfaction of happiness. “Money doesn’t buy you happiness” is often used a lot
to explain how wealth doesn’t solve all the problems but in fact it does. Everybody
in the world needs money for basic needs and also for others as well.
Still, chasing after fame and wealth is not the way to live life as Socrates say,
“Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding
in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all
the wealth you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige--while for truth
and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?”
(Apology, 23a). He believed that pathway to happiness is much more than
unnecessary things. In conclusion, people pursue what they think will make them
happy as some may pursue fame, money and material goods in order to grain that
satisfaction, of happiness.
However, others believe that those things will only give a temporary joy in life.
According to Socrates, he believes that people may be looking for happiness in all
the wrong places. Therefore, in this essay,
Socrates´ main purpose was to tell people that happiness is all about living life
that is right and good and its relationship with virtue and wisdom. As it can be
seen, the end goal in finding happiness is to know the purpose of our lives. As we
pursue our goals, knowledge, experience and kindness, it will help us find true and
absolute happiness. The development and betterment of life is what causes
happiness to exist.

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 PLATO
Plato is one of the world’s best known and most widely read and
studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the
teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the fourth
century B.C.E. in ancient Greece.
Plato and Socrates were concerned with “The Good,” “The
Beautiful,” truth, justice, the higher self, and the nature of the
human soul. During Plato’s lifetime, educated Greeks no longer
believed in the actual existence of gods called Apollo, Zeus, and
Aphrodite, as Greek religion didn’t require faith. Plato also
believed in reincarnation as a “wheel of birth”.
Plato was also a feminist. Even though he acknowledged the physical strength disparity
between the male and female sexes, he believed woman to be man’s equal, and that no
opportunity should be denied to her on the basis of sex. In his description of the ideal
state, Plato elaborates on this point in the person of Socrates. “The same natures,” he
announces at the end of a dialogue on the equality of women, “must be allowed the
same pursuits.”
It’s obvious to contemporary readers. But this viewpoint was controversial in the
Ancient Mediterranean World, where egalitarian societies were almost non-existent,
and even within the greater spectrum of Greek philosophy of the time.
Greco-Roman women, in particular, had no voice or representation. So, to make such a
sweeping declaration about the equality of the sexes was a major breakthrough. And
one wonders if it set the philosophical groundwork for the broad acceptance of this idea
much later in Western history.
For Plato, the human soul could be divided in 3 parts: the rational, the irrational, and
the spirited.
- The rational is “reflective,” meaning it seeks knowledge, order, and discipline
through internal reflection.
- The irrational satisfies appetite and can be summated as any impulse that
distracts the rational, e.g., sex drive, hunger, and passion.
- The third part, the spirited element, animates either of the first two. Ideally, it
should be what Plato calls the “auxiliary of the rational,” animating the soul
toward reason and discipline.

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The Allegory of The Cave
The allegory of the cave is a commentary on the
condition of man in relation to truth and
illusion.
Plato puts forth a scenario in which a group of
humans are born into a chamber within a cave.
They spend their lives in this place, knowing
nothing of the outside world. At some point
beyond their immediate surroundings, light
from the cave’s entrance floods in from the
outside. But, of course, they have no awareness of this.
The cave dwellers are chained in a position such that they only see what is directly
before them. And what’s before them are silhouettes on a wall made by shadows cast
from puppet masters in front of a fire to their rear.
The whole reality of these imprisoned cave dwellers, therefore, is the movements of the
shadows on the wall before them.
This parable illustrates Plato’s teachings on the World of Appearances versus the
Intelligible World. He’s making the case that, by and large, the state of humanity is akin
to the cave dwellers. What we think of as real, or doxa, is actually an illusion or a mere
shadow of reality.
And the real world, that most don’t even have the faintest inkling of, is taking place
outside of the cave.
Now suppose one of the cave dwellers were released from his chains and managed to
leave the cave. “When he had come out into the light,” Socrates says, “[would he not]
find his eyes so full of its radiance that he could not see a single one of the things that
he was now told are real?”
He would need to “grow accustomed” before seeing the “things of the upper world,” in
the same way humans must put in time for study and reflection to have knowledge of
the forms of the Intelligible World.

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 ARISTOTLE
Aristotle was born in 384 BC in Macedonia and came from an aristocratic background,
which allowed him to make two of the most important connections in his life. At a
young age he was able to travel to Athens and study directly under Plato until his death
in 348.
Aristotle became familiarized with the timeline of ancient Greek philosophy studying
under Plato and inherited this idea of philosophy’s incredible potential. However,
Aristotle’s approach was fundamentally different from Plato’s because he prioritized the
material world and objects of his direct perception over abstract forms.
Aristotle’s Rhetoric:
How should one argue to be as persuasive as possible? What is effective
communication? Aristotle discussed this in his major work, the Rhetoric.
Rhetoric, in its essence, is the art of effective communication, particularly in the context
of public speaking. It involves utilizing language and employing various techniques to
persuade, inform, or entertain an audience. The study of rhetoric holds significant
philosophical importance, as philosophy is deeply concerned with examining the uses of
language and its limits. Both philosophy and rhetoric approach the question “what can
language do?” albeit from different directions. During the classical period, rhetoric
served as the formal art of using persuasion to influence public opinion and decision-
making. It was deemed an essential skill for politicians, lawyers, and other public
speakers. Rhetoric was an academic discipline to be learned, studied, and organized.
The study of rhetoric typically encompasses an exploration of rhetorical devices, such as
figures of speech, logical reasoning, and argumentation strategies. Aristotle played a
major role in the development of this discipline through his treatment of rhetoric. His
work extends beyond technicalities, delving into the fundamental principles and
objectives underlying effective communication.

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One of Aristotle’s most distinctive contributions to philosophy was his logic. Logic in
philosophy has many purposes, but one of the overriding points is to offer a basis for
understanding language better and for clearing up ambiguities in ordinary speech.
The distinction between the logical demonstration and the dialectical argument
proceeds from their criterion of verification. That is, how we can test them, to know
whether or not they are correct. The premises of demonstrations must be true and
primary. This means that they must be true prior to their conclusions. Whereas on the
other hand, the test for a dialectical argument is whether it is “accepted.” This idea of
acceptance in dialectical argument has been the subject of extensive interpretative
discussion among Aristotle scholars.
Aristotle’s theory of Form and Matter:
For Aristotle, form and matter are the co-principles of which all real or actual things
(substances) are composed. Aristotle argued that the forms (which he often equated
with essences) exist in real things. Human minds are equipped with the rational power
to abstract these essences out of real things in order to know them (as universal). For
Aristotle, then, form is the determinate structure (morphe) which gives things their
essential characteristics or attributes. Matter, on the other hand, is the ultimate
substrate or "stuff" (hyle) out of which all (physical) things are made.

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SOURCE BASE N°2

✓ Read the following excerpt about rhetoric and poetry.

✓ Highlight the central aspects of the paper.
✓ Write a summary in 20 to 25 lines in which you explain the main
focus of this work.
✓ Choose 5 key words to add at the end of your paper.
✓ Paraphrase the ideas as much as you can, DO NOT COPY AND PASTE.
✓ The paper MUST BE PRINTED following the below specifications – handwritten
papers won´t be accepted.
✓ Font: Arial 12
✓ Line spacing: 1,5
✓ Text: justified
✓ DEADLINE:
✓ Your paper must look like this

Philosophy 6th year

Source Base Nº:
Source:
Teacher:
Student:
Date:
Title: “Aristotle on Rhetoric and poetry”
Summary:

Key words: language, vocabulary, speaking, writing, listening.

(of course, this is an example!)

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Aristotle on Rhetoric and Poetry

In the realm of productive sciences Aristotle wrote two works, the

Rhetoric and the Poetics, designed to assist barristers and
playwrights in their respective tasks. Rhetoric, Aristotle says, is
the discipline that indicates in any given case the possible means of
persuasion: it is not restricted to a particular field, but is topic-
neutral. There are three bases of persuasion by the spoken word: the
character of the speaker, the mood of the audience, and the argument
(sound or spurious) of the speech itself. So, the student
of rhetoric must be able to reason logically, to evaluate character,
and to understand the emotions (1. 2. 1358a1–1360b3).

Aristotle wrote more instructively about logic and character in other

treatises, but the second book of the Rhetoric contains his fullest
account of human emotions. Emotions, he says, are feelings that alter
people’s judgements, and they are accompanied by pain and pleasure.
He takes each major emotion in turn, offering a definition of the
emotion and a list of its objects and causes. Anger, for instance, he
defines as a desire, accompanied by pain, for what appears to be
revenge for what appears to be an unmerited slight upon oneself or
one’s friends (2. 2. 1378a32–4). He gives a long list of the kinds
of people who make us angry: those who mock us, for instance, or those
who stop us drinking when we are thirsty, or those who get in our way
at work.

Also, those who speak ill of us, and show contempt for us, in respect
of the things we most care about. Thus, those who seek a reputation as
philosophers get angry with those who show disdain for their
philosophy; those who pride themselves upon their appearance get angry
with those who disparage it, and so on. We feel particularly angry if
we believe that, either in fact or in popular belief, we are totally
or largely lacking in the respective qualities. For when we are
convinced that we excel in the qualities for which we are mocked, we
can ignore the mockery. (2. 2. 1379a32–b1)

Aristotle takes us on a detailed tour of the emotions of anger,

hatred, fear, shame, pity, indignation, envy, and jealousy. In each
case his treatment is clear and systematic, and often shows—as in the
above passage—acute psychological insight.

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The Poetics, unlike the Rhetoric, has been very widely read throughout
history. Only its first book survives, a treatment of epic and tragic
poetry. The second book, on comedy, is lost. Umberto Eco, in The Name
of the Rose, wove a dramatic fiction around its imagined survival and
then destruction in a fourteenth-century abbey.

To understand Aristotle’s message in the Poetics one must know

something of Plato’s attitude to poetry. In the second and third
books of the Republic Homer is attacked for misrepresenting the gods
and for encouraging debased emotions. The dramatic representations of
the tragedians, too, are attacked as deceptive and debasing. In the
tenth book the Theory of Ideas provides the basis for a further, and
more fundamental, attack on the poets. Material objects are imperfect
copies of the truly real Ideas; artistic representations of material
objects are therefore at two removes from reality, being imitations of
imitations (597e). Drama corrupts by appealing to the lower parts of
our nature, encouraging us to indulge in weeping and laughter (605d–
6c).

Dramatic poets must be kept away from the ideal city: they should be
anointed with myrrh, crowned with laurel, and sent on their way
(398b). One of Aristotle’s aims was to resolve this quarrel between
poetry and philosophy. Imitation, he says, so far from being the
degrading activity that Plato describes, is something natural to
humans from childhood. It is one of the features that makes men
superior to animals, since it vastly increases their scope for
learning. Secondly, representation brings a delight all of its own: we
enjoy and admire paintings of objects which in themselves would annoy
or disgust us (Po. 4. 1448b5–24).

Aristotle offers a detailed analysis of the nature of tragic drama. He

defines tragedy in the following terms.
A tragedy is a representation of a grand, complete, and significant
action, in language embellished appropriately in the different parts
of the work, in dramatic, not narrative form, with episodes arousing
pity and fear so as to achieve purification (katharsis) of these
emotions. (6. 1449b24 V.).

No one is quite sure what Aristotle meant by katharsis, or

purification. Perhaps what he wanted to teach is that watching tragedy
helps us to put our own sorrows and worries into perspective, as we
observe the catastrophes that have overtaken people who were far
superior to the likes of ourselves. Pity and fear, the emotions to be
purified, are most easily aroused, he says, if the tragedy exhibits

18
people as the victims of hatred and murder where they could most
expect to be loved and cherished. That is why so many tragedies
concern feuds within a single family (14.1453b1–21).
Six things, Aristotle says, are necessary for a tragedy: plot,
character, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody (6. 1450a11 V.). It
is the first two of these that chiefly interest him. Stage setting and
musical accompaniment are dispensable accessories: what is great in a
tragedy can be appreciated from a mere reading of the text. Thought
and diction are more important: it is the thoughts expressed by the
characters that arouse emotion in the hearer, and if they are to do so
successfully, they must be presented convincingly by the actors. But
it is character and plot that really bring out the genius of a tragic
poet, and Aristotle devotes a long chapter to character, and no less
than five chapters to plot.

The main character or tragic hero must be neither supremely good nor
supremely bad: he should be a person of rank who is basically good,
but comes to grief through some great error (hamartia). A woman may
have the kind of goodness necessary to be a tragic heroine, and even a
slave may be a tragic subject. Whatever kind of person is the
protagonist, it is important that he or she should have the qualities
appropriate to them, and should be consistent throughout the drama.
(15. 1454a15 V.). Every one of the dramatis personae should possess
some good features; what they do should be in character, and what
happens to them should be a necessary or probable outcome of their
behavior.

The most important element of all is plot: the characters are created
for the sake of the plot, and not the other way round. The plot must
be a self-contained story with a clearly marked beginning, middle, and
end; it must be sufficiently short and simple for the spectator to
hold all its details in mind. Tragedy must have a unity. You do not
make a tragedy by stringing together a set of episodes connected only
by a common hero; rather, there must be a single significant action on
which the whole plot turns (8. 1451a21–9).

In a typical tragedy the story gradually gets more complicated until a

turning point is reached, which Aristotle calls a ‘reversal’
(peripeteia). That is the moment at which the apparently fortunate
hero falls to disaster, perhaps through a ‘revelation’
(anagnorisis), namely his discovery of some crucial but hitherto
unknown piece of information (15. 1454b19). After the reversal comes
the denouement, in which the complications earlier introduced are
gradually unraveled (18. 1455b24 V.).

19
These observations are illustrated by constant reference to actual
Greek plays, in particular to Sophocles’ tragedy King Oedipus.
Oedipus, at the beginning of the play, enjoys prosperity and
reputation. He is basically a good man, but has the fatal flaw of
impetuosity. This vice makes him kill a stranger in a scuffle, and
marry a bride without due diligence. The ‘revelation’ that the man
he killed was his father and the woman he married was his mother leads
to the ‘reversal’ of his fortune, as he is banished from his kingdom
and blinds himself in shame and remorse.
Aristotle’s theory of tragedy enables him to respond to Plato’s
complaint that playwrights, like other artists, were only imitators of
everyday life, which was itself only an imitation of the real world of
the Ideas. His answer is given when he compares drama with history.
From what has been said it is clear that the poet’s job is to
describe not something that has actually happened, but something that
might well happen, that is to say something that is possible because
it is necessary or likely. The difference between a historian and a
poet is not a matter of prose v. verse—you might turn Herodotus into
metre and it would still be history. It is rather in this matter of
writing what happens rather than what might happen. For this reason,
poetry is more philosophical and more important than history; for
poetry tells us of the universal, history tells us only of the
particular. (9. 1451b5–9)

What Aristotle says here of poetry and drama could of course be said
of other kinds of creative writing. Much of what happens to people in
everyday life is a matter of sheer accident; only in fiction can we
see the working out of character and action into their natural
consequences.

Bibliography:

Kenny, A. (2004). Ancient philosophy. Oxford University Press.

20
 UNIT 2: Medieval philosophy (c. 500 CE - 1500 CE)
It was heavily influenced by religious themes and the integration of Greek philosophy
with Christian theology.
Scholasticism, a method that sought to reconcile faith and reason, was prominent.
Questions about the nature of God, the soul, and the relationship between faith and
reason were central.
Key Figures: Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas.

Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe, the period between the fall
of Rome and the Renaissance. Medieval philosophers are the historical successors of
the philosophers of antiquity, but they are in fact only tenuously connected with them.
Philosophers prior to this age were engaged in questions about the nature and
existence of first principles (the very questions of the nature of Being), the nature of
truth, and the nature of goodness. After the rise of Christianity, however, these
questions were flavored with Christian doctrines. Philosophers during the medieval era
have transformed the question about first principles to a question about the nature
and existence of God; questions regarding the Truth became questions about the
Word; and questions regarding the Good became questions about Divine Providence.
At the heart of these questions is the question about the relationship between the
truths of faith and the truths of reason. The main issue at stake is whether the truths
derived from the doctrines of faith are compatible with the truths arrived at by the use
of natural human reason alone.
The most significant extra-philosophical influence on medieval philosophy is
Christianity. Christian institutions sustain medieval intellectual life, and Christianity’s
texts and ideas provide rich subject matter for philosophical reflection.
Christianity had grown in importance in the late Roman Empire and, with the demise
of the empire’s social structures, the Church remained until the twelfth century
virtually the only institution capable of supporting intellectual culture. It sustained
formal education in schools associated with its monasteries, churches and cathedrals,
and provided for the preservation of ancient texts, both sacred and secular, in its
libraries and scriptoriums.
Consequently, most of the great philosophical minds of the period would have thought
of themselves primarily as theologians. Moreover, in addition to providing the
institutional basis for medieval philosophy, Christianity was an important stimulus to
philosophical activity. Its ideas and doctrines constituted a rich source of philosophical
subject matter. Medieval philosophy, therefore, took root in an intellectual world
sustained by the Church and permeated with Christianity’s texts and ideas.

21
One of the most important figures of this
period is St Thomas Aquinas. He was one of the
most famous philosophers and theologians of
his time. He was also one of the most influential
religious figures of the Middle Ages. Aquinas is
considered a follower of Aristotle, and he
managed to combine in his works the religious
and philosophical views of his predecessor.
The Unity of Religion and Philosophy
Scholasticism was engaged in the unification of religious faith and knowledge and tried
to substantiate the dogmas of faith from the point of view of philosophy.
Representatives of this philosophical trend believed that the path to God is not only
faith but also a rational understanding of the laws of the universe.
Scholasticism reached its peak in the work of St Thomas Aquinas. He believed there are
no contradictions between philosophy and religion; they complement each other and
form a unity. The world is the creation of God, and, therefore, it carries the mystery of
the Divine plan, which we can try to unravel.
In what ways can this be done?
First, with the help of reason. It is not a straight path and will not give us full
understanding because the human mind’s capacity is limited. Nevertheless, it can be
used to draw closer to God. Thus, for all its importance, philosophy is still secondary to
religion. St Thomas Aquinas called philosophy “the servant of theology.”
The second way to comprehend the great plan of God is faith. The original concept of
the teachings of Thomas Aquinas was divine revelation, something that eludes the
human mind but is necessary for the soul’s salvation.
Wisdom, according to Thomas Aquinas, is the highest knowledge about God. The
philosopher singled out three types of wisdom:
1) the wisdom of grace, the highest of all;
2) the wisdom of theology, based on faith but using reason to understand;
3) metaphysical wisdom, whose instruments are reason and knowledge.
Thomas Aquinas himself knew how to use the achievements of philosophy to explain
the questions of the universe without conflicting with religious teachings. To explain
being, he largely used Aristotle’s theory of form and matter. Every existing thing is a
unity of form and matter. Matter itself is non-specified, and objects exist only because
of form. The form is the final cause of everything. The individuality of things and
phenomena appears due to the combination of the principle of form and constantly
oscillating unstable matter.
The matter is the “weakest form of being,” the furthest from Divine grace. This
definition of Thomas Aquinas became fundamental in scholastic science and shaped its

22
attitude towards matter. God is the only true being. Everything else is created by Him,
and all objects are manifestations of His essence. There is a hierarchy of beings; on the
upper step, closest to God, are the angels. But they do not have independence either,
and they are also the Creator’s inventions.
The present-day belief that reason (philosophy or science) and faith (theology) are
fundamentally at odds is something that would baffle most medieval Christian
philosophers. These philosophers have a firm belief that reason and faith have their
respective roles in our acquisition of truths.
By the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the medieval project of
reconciling faith and reason has been abandoned, or was utterly forgotten. There are
two reasons for this. First was held by proponents of extreme fideism, while the
second was held by proponents of extreme rationalism.
Extreme fideism’s attack against the medieval project is simply that human reason can
never encapsulate truths of acquired by faith.
Extreme rationalism’s attack against the medieval project concerns the incapacity of
medieval philosophers to think scientifically about everyday matters.

MOVIE ANALYSIS IN CONTEXT

Anna Elisabeth "Anneliese" Michel was a German woman

who underwent 67 Catholic exorcism rites.

Because of her malnutrition and blackouts, she was

diagnosed with epileptic psychosis and had a history of
psychiatric treatment that proved ineffective.

When Anneliese was 16, she experienced a seizure and was

diagnosed with psychosis caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.
Shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with depression and
was treated by a psychiatric hospital. By the time that she
was 20, she had become intolerant of various religious
objects and began to hear voices. Her condition worsened
despite medication, and she became suicidal, also
displaying other symptoms, for which she took medication
as well. After taking psychiatric medications for five years failed to improve her
symptoms, Anneliese and her family became convinced she was possessed by a
demon. As a result, her family appealed to the Catholic Church for an exorcism. While
rejected at first, two priests got permission from the local bishop in 1975.

The priests began conducting exorcism sessions and the parents stopped consulting
doctors. Anneliese Michel stopped eating food and died of malnourishment and
dehydration after 67 exorcism sessions.

23
SOURCE BASE N°3

✓ Read the following excerpt about theories of friendship.

✓ Highlight the central aspects of the paper.
✓ Write a summary in 20 to 25 lines in which you explain the main
focus of this work.
✓ Choose 5 key words to add at the end of your paper.
✓ Paraphrase the ideas as much as you can, DO NOT COPY AND PASTE.
✓ The paper MUST BE PRINTED following the below specifications – handwritten
papers won´t be accepted.
✓ Font: Arial 12
✓ Line spacing: 1,5
✓ Text: justified
✓ DEADLINE:
✓ Your paper must look like this

Philosophy 6th year

Source Base Nº:
Source:
Teacher:
Student:
Date:
Title: “….”
Summary:

Key words: language, vocabulary, speaking, writing, listening.

(of course, this is an example!)

24
Theories of friendship
Medieval ideas about friendship all exhibit some degree of continuity with
the thought of the ancients. The schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle,
the Stoa, and Epicurus all contributed something to a rich heritage of ideas
upon which the Christian authors of medieval and Renaissance times drew
liberally.7 The most widespread of these ideas derived from Pythagoras:
“Friends have all things in common.” It may safely be said that no medieval
author, whether monk, scholar, or master, wrote about friendship without
evoking this notion of community. Augustine, for instance, recorded that a
group of friends, of whom he was one, “hoped to make one common
household for all of us, so that in the clear trust of friendship things should
not belong to this or that individual, but one thing should be made of all
our possessions, and belong wholly to each one of us, and everybody own
everything” (Confessions VI 14).

That project failed, but Augustine later rescued it by founding a monastery

and by writing in a communitarian vein. He also presented the early
Christian community of Jerusalem (Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–35) in a
communalist light. Similarly, Aelred of Rievaulx developed the view that in
the monastic community “what belongs to each one personally belongs to
all, and all things belong to each one,” adding that in heaven, where the
supreme good will be held in common, the happiness of each will belong
to all, and the entirety of happiness to each individual.8 Cicero and Seneca
conveyed to their readers many Stoic ideas.

The latter thought of personal friendship largely in terms of the spiritual

direction given by a mature philosopher to an apprentice, as his Moral
Letters to Lucilius amply illustrate. The theory and practice of spiritual
friendship in the Christian age had a similar origin. Both were forms of
educative love and therefore had a Socratic character, being based upon
the development of self-knowledge. Cicero was by no means as true a
Stoic as Seneca, but his works were the leading source of Stoic ideas in
the Middle Ages. He insisted that the origin of friendship is to be sought
not in need or desire but in nature itself; friendship derives from the
natural sociability of humankind and from virtue, or “living in accordance
with nature.” Aquinas would maintain, in a similar vein, that “Every man is
by nature a friend to every other man, by virtue of a sort of universal
love,” which is to be exercised as friendship even with regard to the
stranger (ST IIaIIae, q. 114, a. 1). Christianity, of course, brought with it its
own specific kind of universality through its doctrine of love, even love of

25
the enemy, and of forgiveness; nevertheless, the sentiments just quoted
seem to be redolent of the ancient Stoa.

Aristotle formulated the most comprehensive ancient doctrine of

friendship and related themes (such as civic trust and family affection). He
argued that the self is an equivocal entity. Base self-love rules one out
from friendship, which is generous. But if we love the better part of
ourselves then we are capable of loving another in the same degree as we
love ourselves, and the chosen friend will become “another self.” We
require friends if we are to progress in self-knowledge and in generosity,
and this need is not a weakness in us – although it would be so in a god.
Friendship with wisdom (philosophia) creates the highest intellectual
communion that humans can experience.

Aristotle’s message began to make an impact following the translation of

the full text of the Nicomachean Ethics into Latin by Robert Grosseteste.
Aquinas appears to have been forcibly struck by the verbal parallel
between Aristotle’s “the friend is another self” and the Gospel injunction
to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). He perceived in the
notion of disinterested friendship (love characterized by benevolence; love
of the other person for that person’s own sake, i.e., as an end, not a
means) the vital clue to the moral attitude of respect, not for friends alone
but for every “other self” (ST IaIIae q. 26, a. 4; q. 28, a. 3). Henry of Ghent,
also influenced by Aristotle, taught that due and proper self-love is
required if we are to love someone else as much as we love ourselves.9
How might the specifically Christian dimension of medieval friendship
theory be characterized? A few indications may be offered here on the
basis of recent research.10 The writers of patristic and medieval times
consciously reflected upon the biblical references to friendship, notably
the story of David and Jonathan, verses from the book of Proverbs, and
the relevant New Testament passages, such as John 15:15. The basis of
spiritual friendship was identified in the person of Jesus Christ.11 Prayer
for friends, the readiness to forgive and to accept forgiveness for offenses
committed, the bearing of one another’s burdens,12 and the extension of
pardon to the enemy, when taken together clearly reduced the classical
emphasis on the equality of friends and the requirement regarding
similarity in virtue. Two scholarly writers, Richard of St. Victor and Henry
of Ghent, even sought to lay a Trinitarian foundation for friendship: the
friendship of the three divine persons is the exemplar of all non-
possessive, self-giving amicitia, wherefore friendship is the natural virtue
that draws closest to supernatural charity.

26
The last of these novelties (by comparison with ancient theories) was also
perhaps the most defining one. It lay in the inherent link forged between
friendship and the happiness of the courts of heaven.
The joys of friendship were widely regarded as an experiential mutual
encouragement on the shared pilgrimage of life, the foretaste of heaven
itself, “when this friendship, to which on earth we admit but
few, will be extended to all, and by all will be extended to God, since God
will be all in all” (Aelred, Spiritual Friendship III 134).

Bibliography:

McGrade, A. (2006). The Cambridge companion to Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge

University Press.

UNIT 3: Modern philosophy (c. 17th - 18th centuries)

Rationalism (emphasizing reason) and empiricism (emphasizing experience and

observation) were major philosophical movements. The Enlightenment emphasized
reason, science, and the pursuit of knowledge.
Key Figures: René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich
Nietzsche

The philosophers of the period faced one of the

greatest intellectual challenges in history: reconciling
the tenets of traditional Aristotelean philosophy and
the Christian religion with the radical scientific
developments that followed in the wake of Copernicus
and Galileo (and the succeeding Newtonian
revolution). Established ways of thinking about the
mind, the body and God were directly threatened by a
new mechanistic picture of the universe where mathematically-characterizable natural
laws governed the motion of life-less particles without the intervention of anything
non-physical. In response, the philosophers (many of whom were participants in the
scientific developments) invented and refined a startling variety of views concerning
humans' relation to the universe. In so doing, they defined most of the basic terms in
which succeeding generations would approach philosophical problems.

27
The rise of empiricism and rationalism
Empiricism is 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.
Rationalism, by contrast, is the doctrine that regards reason or
the intellect as the primary or fundamental source and test of
knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical
structure, rationalists assert the existence of a class of
truths beyond the reach of sense perception and
graspable directly by reason or the intellect.
The rivalry between empiricism and rationalism
dominated the philosophical controversies of the 17th
and 18th centuries.

RENÉ DESCARTES
The French philosopher René Descartes was a devout Catholic, a
pioneering mathematician and one of the most influential philosophers in
history. His presentation of skeptical worries and the relation between the
mind and body not only set the course for the rest of the Moderns, but are
still the starting points for many contemporary discussions.

Descartes considered three increasingly strong grounds for doubt that

could serve in his project.

- The first was that his senses were capable of being deceived, and that many of his
beliefs were based on the deliverances of his senses.
- The second ground for doubt was the compatibility of all of his sensory experience
with a deceptive dreaming experience, and the apparent impossibility of telling the
difference. Both of those grounds, however, struck Descartes as insufficiently strong to
throw into doubt as many beliefs as Descartes believed should be. We only find our
senses to be deceptive under certain conditions (e.g., poor lighting). Though the
possibility of dreaming might threaten our knowledge of the external world, it appears
not to threaten certain pieces of general knowledge we possess (e.g. arithmetical
knowledge).
- In light of this, Descartes presented his third and final ground for doubt: the possibility
that he was being systematically deceived by an all-powerful being.

God

For Descartes the idea of God has a necessary connection to the idea of existence. So,
Descartes claimed, it is impossible for us to conceive our own existence without there being a
God.

28
For Descartes, the proofs of God's existence played an absolutely indispensable role in his
larger project, for, having established that he was created by an all-powerful yet benevolent
(and so non-deceiving) God, Descartes could then place a great deal of trust in his cognitive
faculties. One of the clearest examples of this appears in his discussion of the mind and body.

Mind and body

Descartes argued that the mind and body must be distinct substances, and so must be capable
of existing independently of each other.

Doubt

Descartes pretended to doubt what he actually knew. How can I be sure that I am not
dreaming? he asked. How can I be certain that some deceitful demon is not filling my head
with falsehoods? Descartes invited his readers to join him in a cold bath of skepticism—which
he himself had found to be wonderfully invigorating:

“[…] because our senses sometimes deceive us, I decided to suppose that nothing was such as
they led us to imagine. And since there are men who make mistakes in reasoning . . . and
because I judged that I was as prone to error as anyone else, I rejected as unsound all the
arguments I had previously taken as demonstrative proofs. Lastly, considering that the very
thoughts we have while awake may also occur while we sleep without any of them being at
that time true, I resolved to pretend that all the things that had ever entered my mind were no
more than the illusions of my dreams.”

Ego cogito, ergo sum

Descartes soon found something which could not be an illusion, however— something he
could know to be true even if he were dreaming. He had found his first certainty:

“I noticed that while I was trying to think everything false, it was necessary that I, who was
thinking, was something. And observing that this truth, “I am thinking, therefore I exist,” was
so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of
shaking it”

“I think, therefore I am”—ego cogito, ergo sum, as he put it in Latin— became the most
famous slogan in philosophy.

DAVID HUME
Hume grew up in a time of great intellectual and cultural change. The
Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that emphasized reason
and individualism, was in full swing. This intellectual atmosphere
undoubtedly influenced Hume's thinking and shaped his philosophical
outlook.

Hume's philosophy was influenced by several great thinkers of his

time. Among his influences were John Locke, who emphasized the role of experience in
shaping human understanding.

Locke's ideas about the mind as a "blank slate" and the importance of sensory experience in
acquiring knowledge resonated with Hume. Hume took this concept further and argued that

29
all knowledge is ultimately derived from experience. This notion laid the foundation for his
empiricist philosophy.

Additionally, Hume was greatly influenced by the scientific advancements of his era,
particularly those related to Isaac Newton's laws. These influences shaped Hume's belief in the
importance of observation and empirical evidence in understanding the world.

Furthermore, Hume's skepticism was influenced by the works of René Descartes, who
famously doubted the existence of external reality. Descartes' radical skepticism challenged
Hume to question the foundations of knowledge and led him to develop his own brand of
philosophical skepticism.

Hume's Skepticism Unveiled

Hume's philosophical exploration of skepticism aimed to challenge existing beliefs and

question the limits of human knowledge. He argued that our understanding of the world is
limited to our perceptions and experiences, making it impossible to establish absolute truths.

But what does it mean to question the limits of human knowledge? Hume delved deep into
the realms of epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of
knowledge. He questioned the very foundations upon which we build our beliefs and
challenged the notion that we can ever truly know anything with certainty.

According to Hume, our reasoning and beliefs are not based on logical deductions but rather
on custom and habit. He famously coined the term "matters of fact" to describe empirical
claims, which he believed could never reach certainty. This raises an intriguing question: if our
beliefs are merely products of habit, what does that mean for the reliability of our knowledge?

To understand Hume's skepticism, we must first grasp the concept of perception. Hume
argued that our knowledge is derived solely from our perceptions and experiences. But what
exactly are perceptions? They are the raw data of our senses, the information we receive from
the world around us. Our perceptions then become the building blocks of our understanding of
reality.

However, Hume pointed out that our perceptions are fallible. They can be deceptive,
influenced by various factors such as biases, emotions, and even illusions. This realization leads
us to question the reliability of our senses and the accuracy of the knowledge we derive from
them.

30
UNIT 4: Contemporary philosophy (c. late 19th century -
present)
Analytic philosophy, characterized by linguistic analysis and logical rigor, emerged.
Existentialism and phenomenology explored subjective experience and the nature of
consciousness. Postmodernism questioned the foundations of knowledge and truth.
Key Figures: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Michel Foucault, Friedrich Nietzsche

Since the mid-20th century, most well-known philosophers have been associated with
academia. Philosophers more and more employ a technical vocabulary and deal with
specialized problems, and they write not for a broad intellectual public but for one
another.
Professionalism also has sharpened the divisions between philosophical schools and
made the questions of what philosophy is and what it ought to be matters of the
sharpest controversy. Philosophy has become extremely self-conscious about its own
method and nature.
Analytic philosophy
It is difficult to give a precise definition of analytic philosophy, since it is not so much a
specific doctrine as an overlapping set of approaches to problems.
The development of analytic philosophy was significantly influenced by the creation of
symbolic (or mathematical) logic at the beginning of the century.
Many philosophers thus regarded the combination of logic and science as a model that
philosophical inquiry should follow, though others rejected the model or minimized its
usefulness for dealing with philosophical problems. The 20th century thus witnessed
the development of two diverse streams of analysis, one of them emphasizing formal
(logical) techniques and the other informal (ordinary-language) ones.
There were, of course, many philosophers whose work was influenced by both
approaches. Although analysis can in principle be applied to any subject matter, its
central focus for most of the century was language, especially the notions of meaning
and reference.
Ethics, aesthetics, religion, and law also were fields of interest, though to a lesser
degree. In the last quarter of the century there was a profound shift in emphasis from
the topics of meaning and reference to issues about the human mind, including the
nature of mental processes such as thinking, judging, perceiving, believing, and
intending as well as the products or objects of such processes, including
representations, meanings, and visual images. At the same time, intensive work
continued on the theory of reference, and the results obtained in that domain were
transferred to the analysis of mind. Both formalist and informalist approaches
exhibited this shift in interest.

31
Friedrich Nietzsche - Existencialism

32
33
 Michel Foucault – Discipline and Punish
Michel Foucault was one of the most famous thinkers
of the late 20th century, achieving celebrity-like status
before his untimely death in 1984. Foucault was
interested in power and social change. In particular,
he studied how these played out as France shifted
from a monarchy to democracy via the French
revolution.
In his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, Foucault
argued that French society had reconfigured
punishment through the new “humane” practices of “discipline” and “surveillance”,
used in new institutions such as prisons, the mental asylums, schools, workhouses and
factories.
These institutions produced obedient citizens who comply with social norms, not
simply under threat of corporal punishment, but as a result of their behavior being
constantly sculpted to ensure they fully internalize the dominant beliefs and values.
In Foucault’s view, new “disciplinary” sciences (for instance, criminology, psychiatry,
education) aimed to make all “deviance” visible, and thus correctable, in a way that
was impossible in the previous social order.
He used English philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s 1787 Panopticon as a metaphor to
illustrate his point. This was a circular prison designed to lay each inmate open to the
scrutiny of a central watchtower, which was positioned so that individual prisoners
could never know when they are being watched.

Jeremy Bentham’s plan of the Panopticon.

34
The prisoners therefore always had to act as though
they were being watched. In the wider world, he
argued, this resulted in docile people who could fit
into the discipline of factories, mental institutions,
and the dominant sexual morality.
Foucault argued that people with “mental illnesses”
(formerly known as madness) were controlled by relentless efforts at correction to a
scientifically determined “norm”.
Foucault’s book provides analysis of the historical development of the modern penal
system and its move from execution to incarceration and total control of criminals.
Foucault demonstrates the ways in which strict discipline and morals have transformed
the agency of punishment from the corporeal to the spiritual.
Foucault examines the system of state control in its social context and explains the
connection between the gradual transition from centralized power to democratic rule
and the changes in how societies punish their criminals. Drawing on the history of the
penal system in France, Foucault, however, does not limit his analysis to his homeland:
his treatise reflects the changes that happened all over Europe in the 18th century.
Before the 18th century, punishment was directed at the human body. Violent torture,
mutilation of convicts’ bodies and cruel executions were a public spectacle aimed at
teaching a lesson and deterring others from committing similar crimes. The horrible
suffering of wrongdoers was seen as proof the sovereign’s absolute power over every
citizen. In the 18th century, French reformists began to question the penal system and
called for less spectacular and violent punishments. However, it was not the welfare of
criminals that concerned them, but social control. The spectacle of torture would often
provoke unintended consequences: witnessing extreme violence, citizens would
sometimes side with the tortured convict, which led to riots.

The advent of a new economy and politics of the body took “the art of punishing” to a
new level. Reformists of the penal system believed that the main goal should not be to
take revenge on the criminal, but to prevent future crime. The state would now focus
on controlling the potential consequences of a crime, making the punishment less
violent on the bodies of the criminals, while ensuring a stronger effect on their minds.
This shift led to the proliferation of prisons and the emergence of correctional facilities
for criminals.
Foucault provides a detailed account of the
global transition from capital punishment to
imprisonment, and explains how total control
over criminals and strict discipline conditioned
the substitution of physical chastisement with
psychological punishment.

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