mediaeval philosaphy

Yesterday, we briefly discussed what mediaeval philosophy is about. It is about "the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire in around 312 c.e., came to be characterized by discussion of metaphysics and more specificically theology, the study of the nature of God. Perhaps the single most important problem of time period (until around 1450) was the existence of God. After all God was supposed to be the basis of human society, and indeed of the entire universe, to demonstrate the existence of God was (pardon the pun) crucial." ( I hope I am getting this right because some of your writing was unclear for me to read.) This lead to another discussion of comological view. Comos is the Greek word for "world" or "order". It is based on causality. "There must be a self-sufficient primary cause from which the world of phenomena comes. A classmate said something about the big bang is the primary cause. The big bang theory is a theory of cosmology holding that the expanision of the universe with a gigantic explosion (big bang) between 12 and 20 billion years ago. A little later, another classmate said something about God always existed since the beginning. She was brought up this way ever since she was a child. (This is what I heard.) Ever since I could remember, I always thought God created the universe, since it said in the bible. But now I am not sure. Did the big bang came first or did God came first? Did the big bang and God came first together? Is there answers to the questions I asked? If so, tell me; if not, then it remains a question. I also heard something about God is the beginning, not the end. (This is what I heard) In church, I learned that God is the beginning and the end;so that day on, I always thought that God is the beginning and the end. We also discussed apostpriori and apriori, which is from latter (apostpriori) and from first principles (apriori). (I have trouble spelling out the words because there is a glare on board near the window.) You did a diagram on the board, saying that God is first, then the world, then brahman and atman, which is universal self (brahman) and indivivdual self ( atom).

what is beauty?

First of all, I want to say I am sorry that I haven't wrote my blog entries for the last couple of weeks. I have been busy with schoolwork, since it is close to the semester,but I managed to get my work done in time. That is a good thing. On the 13th of November, you gave us an assignment to work in class. It was something about the goal of life and we had to make a thesis about aesthetics, ethics, and metaphysics. My thesis for each one is not very good and you said it is a working thesis. I was wondering if you had a chance to check them yet, so you can help me to improve my thesises. There is a question on ethics that I do not understand. How does the goal of life relate to morally upright behavior, or morally upright behavior to the goal of life? What do you mean by morally upright behavior. I do not understand what it means. Can you explain what it means, so I can have a better understanding of it. I apperiticate that.
Last week's class, we sort of talked about beauty. We brainstorm some ideas about what is beauty. We said it was the shape, care and effort that is linked to will, nature, appealing apperances, assocation that is linked to bond, and emotions. After we brainstormed these ideas, we has a conclusion about what is beauty. Subjectively, it means "in the eye of the beholder". Beauty to me is something that has an attractive feature. It could be people, plants, the colors of a painting, and so on. What does "beauty" mean? That I do not know because I have no answer to that question, but I will learn more about what it means in class. (I hope.)

dialectic between euthyphro and socrates

In class yesterday, you and Robert read out loud to the class about the dialectic between Euthyphro and Socrates. The discussion was piety against Euthyphro's father who murdered someone. ( I think that is right, I am not sure. Can you clarify that part to me?) Piety means obedience to and honor of someone or something, especially ones' parents and (other?) divine beings. In the beginning of the discussion, Euthyphro states that his definition of piety is to proecute the wrong. In this case it is his father. This is the thesis. Then Socrates said there are many pious actions, which is the antithesis. He is looking for one form of piety. Later in the discussion, they both discussed about the gods. ( I think.) This led to the synthesis: what is dear to the gods is pious, and what is not is impious. What does this means? I am confused. They went on the discussion of the gods. This is where the part I got confused about. What is dear...not is impious. That is the synthesis. Then it went to the antithesis: the gods argued with each other about ideas; like piety. Then it went to the antithesis again. What is hated is also love? (Antithesis)Then it went back to synthesis. What is love by all of the gods is pious? Do you mean that after the thesis, there is antithesis and synthesis going back and forth in the dialectic. That is what I am getting at. Can you clarify this part for me?
Later in the discussion, Socrates said Is what is pious? Pious because the gods love it or do the gods love the pious because is pious. I am so confused of what is he saying. He is saying the sentences as if it was reversed or word-playing the words. I am lost to what he said. Can you explain to me in simplier terms, so that I can understand it better. Both Euthyphro and Socrates continued with this discussion. There was no conclusion to the discussion. There is a new dialectic: is piety part of justice? This is a definition of genus and species or genus and difference. The thesis here is of what part of justice is piety. Antithesis: Piety is the care of the gods. Piety can't make gods better. Lastly the synthesis, is the service of the gods. Pious actions are those pleasing to the gods. This is a circu lar definition, which means it is a bad definition that is reversed. For example, what is red? Red is the color of vermillion. What is vermillion? It is the color of red.

philosophical figures

In class, we talked some of the philosophical figures. Leucippus and Democritus are atomists. An atomist is someone who study atoms. (I think.) A-tomos is something that can be cut or sprout. You said that everything in the world is man-made and composed of infinitelessly small parts called "atoms". Everything in the world has atoms that make up the way who we are. This includes animals, people, plants, and so on. The atoms are like our DNA; it is a struture of who we are. ( Our means the animals, people, plants, and so on, in case you are wondering.) You said in class that the atoms are constantly falling. What do you mean by that? I do not understand, can you explain more about this. We also talked about Epicurus. He is a Hedonist, which is a person who pursues pleasure as the highest goal in life. At the beginning, we briefly talked about the goal of life. You did not meant the objective goals in life. For example, being a successful artist. What you meant to say is what is life about? and what is life? I am getting the right idea about this. I need your feedback.
In my last blog entry, I wrote down that Anaxagoras said "Everything is mixed." It is mind acts upon water, earth, fire, and air. For our homework assignment, it was "What kind of mind Anaxagoras is talking about?" I thought that nature has a mind of its own. Nature can control the weather and disasters. (You can read more in my last entry.) In class, you explain the mind is the unmoved, enternal force which organized being. Mind is a pure capasity of organizing, catorizing , and groupings. For example, desks has a flat surface and four legs. Sophists means a wise person in Greek. Sophists are those who are percieved as being or claiming to be wise. Sophists is about editcate and speech-making. They taught rhetoric (the art of pubic speaking and in some cases, at any rate, claimed to teach arete or virtue. Examples of these people are: Protagoras and Gorgias. This leads to two main concerns: 1. how does language work? and how is language related to knowledge? (Logic and epistemolgy) 2. what is right (to do)? and what is goodness? (Ethics) Are we going over this in class, since we talked about it briefly. I would like to know, it is an interesting topic to discuss.

what kind of mind?

In class, we talked about different "physicists" that dealt with the nature of physical reality. At first glance of that, I was confused. Then I understood it when you told us the explaination. These "physicists" use nature as an element in the physical reality. These four elements of nature are: water, earth, fire, and air. They use these elements as a boundless substance. (I hope I understood this clearly. Can you explain more of this in class or write a comment in my blog.) Thales used water as stages of changes. As you know, water can changed into solid, liquid, or gas depends on what temperature it is on. The stages of changes of water has motion. For example, it has a flowing sentation when it is a liquid and has an orangic shape to it. Heraclitus used fire as stages of changes. Fire can changed into smoke and then ash. This process called catalysation, which is a change through heat. Just like water, fire has motion. Fire has an orangic shape that spreads out everywhere. (I think I got the basics of this, but just in case, can you give me a brief explaination. I appericate it.)
Also, we talked about Empedocles, where he dealt with all of the four elements. Earth is a solid substance, water is a liquid substance, air is gas, but also as permance eternality "spirit", and fire is heat and a source of change (catalysis). Primary, theres four is made up of change of change. Earth changed into fire, fire changed into air, and so on. These elements are linked together that plays a role of nature. ( Can you give a brief explaination of this, I am not sure if this is right. Anaxagoras said that "Everything is mixed." It is mind acts upon earth, water, fire, and air. This leads to our homework assignment. What kind of mind Anaxagoras is talking about? I have no idea. I am clueless. I think I have a guess. I think the four elements has a mind of its own. In the past, we had weather disasters that dealt with nature elements. For example, we had hurrcaines, tsumanis, mudslides, and so on. These disasters sometimes come out of nowhere and destroy everything in its path. It is out of control and spreads out everywhere. It seems to me, they do have a mind of their own. I think this is nature's doing, to have chaos, but at the end, everything is restored and in order once again. I do not know if my guess is right or not, but I hope to learn more about this with my fellow classmates as well as you, Mr. Achtermann.

questions about one or many worlds

Yesterday in class, we talked about is "the world" one or many ? You told us to write a response to that question. I wrote down that I think the world is made up of many worlds because in society today people live in different ways of living as well as having different cultures. Each country has their own world to live in and it is different from the rest of the countries. But again, I think the world is one as a nation because the countries help and support each other in a time of need as well as getting along with others and understanding each other in difficult situations. For example, the Americans helped the South Koreans to fight off the North Koreans in the Korean War. The Americans and the South Koreans do not want their country to be communist. ( At least that is what I heard and read.) So is "the world" one or many? In my opinion, I believe that the world is both. Just like I said before people have their own ways of living and countries help and support one another. I was wondering what kind of world that I wrote down. Is it world of people today or is it social world. I need your response to this.
Also in class, we talked about first, second, and third world countries. I never knew there was first and second countries before. I only heard third world countries before. Third world countries is the poor and economically underdeveloped countries of the world. First world countries is the high economic countries of the world. I have a question, what is a second world country. I have no idea about that. Can you explain that to me. I would appericate it. Thanks.

western philosphy

I am sorry that I did not write in my blog for the past couple of weeks, I have been busy with work and schoolwork. I have a lot to do in little time, but I managed to finished all of my work. On the 11th, after finishing the quiz, we sort of went over the western philosophy. I did not get all of the notes on the board and I was hoping if you can go over this again, sometime soon. I am interested what is western philosophy is about. I want to know what is the difference between western and eastern philosophy. Are they the same, if so how? Is western philosophy the same as philosophy? I hope I can learn more about this in class, sometime soon.