Monday, April 14, 2014

Two different view towards pleasure in book X

At the beginning of Book V, Aristotle provides us two opposing view on pleasure. 

Eudox presents the people who hold a view that "Any good thing is more worthy of choice when one good is added to it than its own." Thus, he believes that happiness is the most worthy of choice and  with it the good of other virtues increased.On the contrary,  people represented by Plato think that "pleasure is not the good". Later on, Aristotle compare hearth with happiness. Different what people would consider about heath, the criteria of happiness are different from people to people. For example, business person might see "wealthy" as a standard of happiness; students would regard high GPA as a measurement of happiness(some of my friends do). Also, as what Aristotle discusses in Chapter 4, pleasure is not a process. We can easily feel happy and suddenly in a down mood. There is no start and stop point foe happiness. Meanwhile, Aristotle says pleasure is not a replenishment.[I am quite confused here, as I keep reading, I realized in some tense, Aristotle do think pleasure is a replenishment....] And as he states at the end of Book V, happiness is the end of human affair.

Something interesting I found in book V: the foreign pleasure.
 According to Chapter 5 "Foreign pleasure produce much the same result as pain, since they ruin the activity, though not in the same way". But to what reason people have to do the thing that make them painful. Well, in my own understanding, this foreign pleasure is a pleasure in a long run, but a  pain in  a short run. For me writing is the last thing I would do during the whole day, so I just finished 10 out of 18 blogs now. Writing is always my short whether in english or in Chinese. I am a friend who has the same problem as I have, but she is a good writer now. Practice makes perfect, and at the same time practice needs efforts and usually being lots of pains especially at the beginning.  Same to work out.  The process of work out is painful, but in the end it would help me keep fit and healthy. 
Maybe that would be the reason why even though the foreign pleasure is painful, some people would still not avoid it. 


Monday, March 31, 2014

Learning philosophy is like mountain climbing

About three years ago, when I read sophie's world for the first time, I was attracted by the magical and wonderful philosophy wonderland. Since then I step on a road that do not allow me to turn back. These days, when I finally realized that I will be a university senior after two months, I begin to feel anxious about the future.Which major should I choose to apply for a graduate school? What a kind of person should I be? Will I continue to study philosophy in next three or seven years? Those questions are bothering me, and make me feel really hopeless. Then I recalled what we had discussed few weeks ago in class, about following our soul and about the mountain climbing.

China has a totally different high education system to the USA. It is even harder for a student to choose a major in college than to get the admission from a school. As once the major was decided, it nearly means that this major would follow a student in the rest of four years or his/her whole life. So, people usually think the major one chooses would determine one's job , and it is the keystone for the success.The decision I made really shocked lots of my friends and high school teachers. They keep asking me the same question in the past two years: "what could you do with a philosophy major?". To be honest, I really have no idea about what could I do when I get the philosophy diploma. But I do know, I am normal and had a clear head when I did the decision. I want to be a better person, at least a better person in my own eyes.

However, would my life be even easier if I choose to study another major? The truth is maybe not. Everybody is a philosopher in their own life, we have our own philosophy to deal with the issues we meet everyday. Even though, a philosophy major may not equal to wealth, but by studying it, I do be much more wealthy in how to live my life. Who knows what would happen in the next decade. Maybe,I would be the lucky girl who owning a philosophy major but earn millions of dollars! Well, just like the mountain climbing, the climber would never know what the top would look like, until the reach the pitch. I would never know what philosophy could bring to me, until the day comes. Anyway, I love learning it, that is enough.

Aristotle BOOK II: developing a virtue of character vs developing a skill

The developing a virtue of character similar to developing a skill or art in the following ways:
First, we acquire the virtue and the knowledge of the skill by using it, but before we used them, we have already had them. For example, before we practice playing tennis, the coach told us how to use the rackets and how to hit the ball. While we practise, we gradually apply the theory we learnt from the coach to the exercise. Finally, we became skilled tennis players. It is the same with the virtue. We know what courage is before we do the courage actions. Meantime, when we do the courageous actions, our courage increased and we became courageous people. On the contrary, if we do not practice in a correct way, slightly we may become bad tennis players or the discourage people.
Second, akin to developing a skill or art, the origin and means of the development of each virtue are the same as those of its corruption, but the activities that flow from them will consist of the same things. Because of the correct and scientific practice strategy, he became an outstanding tennis player. As a consequence, he could be most able to practice most efficiently. Another example is the temperate. We became temperate owing to our abstaining from pleasure. As we became temperate, we are most able to abstain from pleasure.

However, these two processes have differences. Of developing a virtue, agents don't have to own the virtue's worth in them, but just do the actions. Nonetheless, for developing a skill, the players have to absorb all the knowledge in their own mind. For instance, we may describe a person as temperate because he does temperate actions. Nevertheless, we can't describe as a tennis player just because he was playing tennis. Besides, two more things are required and playing important roles in developing a virtue, one is the agent acts in a certain state from rational choice and rational choice of the cautions for their own sake; one is the certain state from a firm and unshakeable character. Those two characteristics are absent in developing a skill.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Five Important Things

I think the five important things that Socrates learned from Diotima are:
1)Love is neither beauty nor good. Love is something between good and bad, beauty and ugly.
2) As love is neither beauty nor good, he is not a god. Instead, Love is a great spirit that between mortal and god. Love is a massager that commute between mortals and gods. 
3) Love is the son of Poros and Penia. On the one hand, he always living with Need, but on the other hand, he is eager to beauty and good. Also, in nature he is neither mortal, nor immortal. He is between ignorance and wisdom, so he is one that love wisdom.  
4) Love is wanting to possess the good forever. What love wants is the reproduction and birth to beauty. Because the reproduction and birth could give the mortal immortality. 
5)Love is a process that begin in a lover's youth. A lover should correctly learn and experienced "beauty" in a following sequences:first, he should love a certain body and beget beautiful idea there; second, he should realize that all the bodies are presented the same and one form of beauty; third, he should become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and gradually think body is not an essential thing. After that, he would think that a human soul is much more beautiful than the bodies. Then, he will gaze the beauty of activities and laws, and no longer think beautiful bodies are important. Finally, he would see the beauty of knowledge and be looking mainly not at beauty in a single example.And he will catch the beauty in its nature. The last kind of love is immortal and would be beautiful to everyone.  
(It said that this is the scene when Alcibides was entering the room)

Do you think Alcibides  understood any of  these lessons?
I thought at least he understood. In Socrates' speech, we can know that Socrate did not agree love is a desire of beauty. But in the formal  five speeches, every speaker in some degrees thinks that love is a desire. Alcibiades, I am not sure weather he is a lover or a be loved in the relationship with Socrates, do not want to talk about love in front of Socrates. At least, it seems that he was jealous about the fact that Socrates sit on the same blank with Agathon. And, it also seems that, Socrates was not a satisfied lover or be loved. So, what Alcibides praised is Socrates, and provided lots of evidences to say Scroates was really act as wha he said.
Extra credit;   Is  Alcibiades actually drunk or only pretending to be? 
I think Alcbiades only was only pretending to be drunk.
1)In his words, he directly show his love to Socrates. 
He was trying to us "drunk" to say all these words, because people always said that after drunk, one would tell the truth.
2)And he was keeping stress that he was drunk. I don't think a drunk person would admit he was drunk so easily.
3)Near the end of his speech, he could still remember what he said at the beginning, and want to add more into it. And finally, he was trying to pursuit Agaton keep a distance from Socrates, in case to be betried. In this way, he was trying to say that even though Socrates seems to be a "expert" in love, he is not a good lover, which echo his beginning.His speech is quite logically,and not like a drunked speaker would say. 






 

Saturday, March 22, 2014

My favorite dialogue of Plato-----Symposium

I have two reasons to say Symposium is my favorite. One is those five speeches are talking about "Love". Another is this dialogue companioned with me during my whole freshman year, well actually what companied me is the storied about the human nature. To make myself be more familiar with other four speeches, I decided to write outlines for them.(The five speeches that we have already talked about on Thursday.)

Praedrus, whose names means "shining forth", believed that love is an ancient god. He thought that virtues are from the "shame". And he thought that only by love could human being gain happiness. Everyone would feel more shame to do "bad" things in front of their lover. And a person would only sacrifice himself or herself for lover. However, he seems to believe everything is good.

Pausanias, his name means "to stop, to pause". He put love into two different categories, one is heavenly love which only involves men, and common love which involved women. For him, only heavenly love is deserved in pursuit. It is more to the soul. However, common love is more like a physical staff. He also believed that love itself is neither good or evil. All the judgement of love is based on the action, whether it happens in a good way or evil one. He also thought that love should produce virtues.

Eryximachus, the doctor, whose name means "belch fighter", and who really treat Aristopharves's belch during the speeches, believed love is everywhere. He agreed with Pausanis that two different kinds of love are existed on the world. Also, he uses the opposite body conditions, health and sick, to illustrate that.He believed love is something to make everything in harmony, which seems that he thought love is a kind of force that runs everything.

Aristophanes, whose name is "the appearance of the best", he told us a story about the human nature. His speech is my favorite one in this dialogue. Due to the human nature we have, Aristophanes believed that love is the pursuit of wholeness and the complete. We used to be part of the whole human that have two heads, four hands and legs, and seem to be round. Love is the process to find our perfect another part. So love involved lack, what we are looking for is the thing we lost before.

Agathon, whose name means "the good", is the party giver and just won the victory in his first tragedy. He gave the his understanding of the characteristic of love. He held a view that love is the youngest and "soft". Love only lives in the softest part of human, the heart. And also love owns the good and beauty in himself.

Although all of the speakers have limitation due to their own perspective, but the next speech in some kinds improved the former one. That's the reason why Socrates kept silence during the whole speech. In the end, he began to challenge Agathon's speech. In fact, he challenged all five speeches at the same time.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Escape the Cave

About one year ago, in my “An introduction to philosophy ”class, I read the Plato’s cave for the first time. I still remember how I felt when I finish all the discussions in class. I felt that the structure of the world is like a Matryoshka doll; it is impossible for us to find what the “Truth” is, and we have no ability to know whether we have already lived in the real world. Caves are everywhere.

But this time, when I read it again, I am curious about how could we escape the cave, or actually caves.  Through the conversation, we know that, Socrates used this analogy to explain the difference between the educated people and the people who haven’t received the education. Everyone has the potential to “realize” and ”see” the truth. But we need the opportunity. For the man who was dragged away, he got the opportunities to be free and see the “actual” world. His cognition changed incredibly changed since he turned his head to see the light, and walked out to see the sun, the real sun in the sky. That is the power of education. But meanwhile, his wisdom seems to be ridiculous to other prisoners. He tried to pursue them walked out the cave, but they insist the cave is the real world. I really want to know what will happen to the man that step out the cave. Will he insist the truth he believed, or he will finally agree with his partners, and live in the cave again, even though he knew that all the things in the cave are illusion.

That reminds me the movies called The Shawshank Redemption. One scene shocked me when I watched the movie. The old man who lived half of his life in the prison chose to end his life after one week he was released.  Like the prisoners in the cave, the prison for the old man is the really world. That is the most horrible thing a prison could bring to the prisoners. They lost their hope, and believed that the little caves for them are home. To realize the real world is painful, so most people would love to choose a "easy" model of life, rather than the hard one. 
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Other things:
There are many ways to do the education. One is that you push the “knowledge” into one’s mind; another is you guide one to the “knowledge”. Most educations belong to the formal one. But the latter one is painful.

Maybe education and knowing about the world is more about courage,rather than the ability. 
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An animation version of this conversation.


Tuesday, February 11, 2014

An outline of Democritus’ Ethic

As the direct words said by Democritus himself of Ethic is rare, it is really hard to identify his ethical thoughts. What I do, is based on the reading of other philosophers’ comment about him and propose my own comprehensions.

Aphorism38 and 53-61 are directly talking about Democritus’ ethics. I may separate them into two parts, one is about what the meaning of life and what he thought people should do themselves, another part is related to the community and how people treat each other.
        
Something about the first part:

The goal of life, according to Democritus, is the cheerfulness, he also called it “well-being”. It is a state in which the soul continues “calmly and stably”.

(68A1) Cheerfulness arises in people through moderation of enjoyment and due proportion in life. Deficiencies and excesses tend to change suddenly and give rise to large movements in the soul. Souls that undergo motions involving large intervals are neither steady nor cheerful.

Democritus thought people should live in a self-controlled life. We can’t let our emotions and feelings occupy our “soul” to break the “peace state”.The interesting thing in this part is the explanation of brave: “Brave is not only he who master the enemy, but also he who masters pleasures. Some are lords of cities but slaves of women”. Democritus’ view of self-control reminds me about Kant. Maybe I could use Kant as a relation to this part.

About the second part, how people treat each other:

The only aphorism I thought that related to this topic is 38(68B164). It indicated that we have the tendency to get together and live in a community.
My understanding is that in the relative “micro world”, atoms build us. Atoms move owing to the void. And the “macro world”, we are the “atoms” of our community, and we tend to “delete” or “shrink” the “void” between us.

(That is my basic view about that. I thought I need to read more materials and have a better understanding.)


That is now what I learned about Democritus’ Ethic.