Plato's Allegory of the Cave

What do these things represent in your life?

The Cave: represents the world around me, my home, my school etc. The cave represents the world in which we live.

The Fire: the fire represents the source of all knowledge, it is also the source of being, without the fire the shadows on the wall would not be able to exist. In reality the fire represents the sun.

The Prisoners: The prisoners represent society being held in this world and the opinions and beliefs accepted by society are the shackles that don't allows us to try and discover new possibilities.

The Shadows: The shadows represent the projections from the world of forms.

The Shackles: The shackles are people's beliefs holding us back from discover a different reality.

Reflection On Eastern and Western Philosophy

Western Philosophy generally is trying to find out and prove what the “truth” is. On the other hand Eastern philosophy accepts what the “truth” is and is more focussed on trying to find a balance in their lives.

The Main Principles of Eastern Philosophy are:
Cosmological Unity
Life is a journey towards eternal realities that are beyond the realities that surround us
Inner-world dependent
Self-Liberation
Behavioural Ethics

The Main Principles of Western Philosophy are:
Feeling oneself as an element of the Divine
Life is service (to God, money etc)
Linear view of the universe and life, everything has a beginning and an end
Self-dedication to the goal

Eastern Philosopher:
"The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell." Confucius

Western Philosopher:
"Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative" Aristotle

Eastern Philosopher

Confucious

Confucius was a Chinese philosopher who had big impact on Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life. Confucius lived from 551 BCE- 479 BCE. Confucius was a social philosopher and mostly emphasized his work on personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, and sincerity. Confucius’s ideas were so wide spread and widely accepted that his teachings and philosophies began to be known as Confucianism. A man named Jesuit Matteo Ricci Latinised the name “Confucius”. His teachings first took off because his ideas were very closely linked with Chinese traditions and beliefs. He praised strong family loyalties, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children, and the family as a basis for an idea government.


Confucius’s teachings have been related to some Chinese religions but in reality he has little to do with religion. The contexts of his work lack any reference to an after-life, and it does not really concern itself with spiritual subjects such as the existence of souls.

Confucius’s most famous teaching is very similar to the golden rule and is seen in many religions: “Do not do unto others what you do not want done to yourself”.

Are Our Lives Predetermined?

I really liked what Paul-Henri Thiry was saying about how we have little control over our lives because of our basic instincts. It is true that while we have free will to decided over which decisions we are going to make, such as drinking or not drinking the contaminated water as it mentioned in his example but in the end our basic instinct and need for survival is the ultimate motive in our decision making process

I also agreed with what W.T. Stace was saying for the most part. I found it interesting as I have never thought of it this way that if there was no free will and all our decisions were predetermined for us than there would indeed be no need for morality because we would have no need to distinguish between right and wrong because we wouldn’t need to make those kind of decisions. I also thought that it was interesting how philosophers who don’t believe in free will present their argument in their “abstract” philosophical work but they don’t practice what they preach in their ever day lives.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan made a very interesting and my favourtie comment of all three. I think he tried to interpret the best of both worlds by saying that while there is some sort of predetermined path made out by our karma, there is still no definite direction our lives will take and we have different choices presented to us at different times.

My opion is that we have power over our will but not neccesarily over our actions and feelings. We establish how we are going to live our lives through our will and base our rules and beliefs around this will.

Since actions and performances are not wholly in our power and since nothing is really in our power but our will- it is on the will that all the rules and duties of Man are based and established.(Michel de Montaigne, 1572)

Philosophy & Wisdom

Philosophy is the unusually stubborn attempt to think clearly-William James

The dictionary defines philosophy as: the rational investigation of questions about existence, knowledge and ethics. However I believe that when pondering about life`s unanswered mysteries going about it rationally seems to be the wrong approach. William James was correct when he said that philosophy is an unusually stubborn attempt because its harder to ignore the little voice in your head telling you thats its not possible for life after death. Perhaps seeing "clearly" is being able to accept new ideas brought to the table by current philosophers.

Rain Falls; you mourn that your tennis game must be postponed; you are not a philosopher. But you console yourself with the thought, "how grateful the parched earth will be for the rain!" You have seen the event in a larger perspective, and you are beginning approach wisdom.

Being able to look at the larger picture is a key ingredient if a person wants to be wise. A large consumption and retainment of knowledge will make you wise, true, but that is not what wisdom if all about. As Durant said in his quote that to be a wise philosopher you must not only think about yourself and your own losses(the tennis game) but to think about all those other who may benefit indirectly from your losses; one mans junk is another mans treasure.Wisdom of others helps you to connect with others during your life which can make you very prosperous.

Human Nature

When you see your reflection in the mirror, is that person really you? Who is that person in the mirror? How close is the person in the mirror to the person you are inside?

Looking in a mirror is different for every person, and no one will ever look at themselves and see what someone else sees them as. As to wether or not the person in the mirror is really me I think thats hard to answer. They say a picture tells a thousand words, but what can a reflection say about a human. I don't think when I look in the mirror I see all of who I am. As I grow up the person in the mirror is almost a stranger to me. Time doesn't really seem to move fast until you notice how much of it is gone; looking in the mirror I see not who I am, but who I will become.

Who is the real you? What dimensions of your life (physical, spirtitual, emotional etc..) make up the real you? Do you really feel you know yourself?

The real me....thats a tough question to write. I don't think I can completly answer that at this point in my life. Moving away from home was a very important step in finding out the real me. At this time in my life everything seems to be very trial and error; make mistakes to learn how to do it right. Every dimesion of my life makes up who I am. This point in my life is very confusing because at the end of the semester I have to make a major decision that will effect the rest of my life. In the end however no matter the outcome I will be learning more about the "real" me.

Do you question anything about who you are?

I find myself question things like that everyday. Who am I? What am I doing here? Where will I be in the next 5 years? Questions that are unanswerable always leave me longing and wondering for the future. I wish I could find out who I am; only time will tell.

How do others describe you? Is this really you?

Im not really sure how my friends would describe me. I know however that they would not be totally correct. Everyone has secrets and I am no exception. There are things about every person that they wouldn't want other people to know, or they are too afraid to share with other people because they don't know what to think. At time I feel myself conforming to do what I think I am expected to be doing but as I am getting older I am finding it more and more important to be who I am regardless of the cost.

Do we create ourselves? Or are our traits inherited?

I think that the answer to both these questions is yes. Who we become is both a product of our own experiences as well as the actions of others around us. The character traits of our parents have a major factor on us as children because they are constantly around us and we are learning everything from them and follow their actions.

As we get older however, independence plays a factor and we start to learn for ourselves and from other people so we begin to find the character traits that work best for us.

5 Questions

1. Is it possible for one to be wise without love?

I believe that it is possible for someone to be wise without love, however I believe they would lead very empty lives. It is true that for someone who has a lot of knowledge, they can go on to do many great things in their lifetime with many accomplishments, and they can satisfy their some of their needs; but there comes a point where you need love. Im not suggesting that everyone has to go out and get married; there are different kinds of love.

Love creates many emotions and actions that are neccessary for a productive and happy enviornment. Love from a family establishes support, ecouragement, etc. I think that passion is also a very neccessary part of love in someones life. It keeps excitment and adventure in a persons life. Having a passion or a love for something can be the entire driving force in someones life.

2. Is it possible to love without being wise?

This being the opposite of the first question it is ironic that the answer would produce a very different result. It is in fact entirely possible to love without being wise. Love is one of the emtions known best for bringing out carelessness and loss of reason. Thinking too much about situations inolving love can cause catastrophic outcomes.

Love is exciting and it doesn't have to make sense to anyone other than those who are also experiencing love. Having said that I think at one point or another wisdom does have to play a role of some kind if people want a relationship to last. Some of this knowledge cannot happen in the begining; they come with time and consits of knowledge of the other person, their likes,dislikes, and knowing when to make sacrifices.

Wisdom does not so much play a part when it comes to the love, however in today's society knowing when to make sacrifices, or knowing what's best for someone else are crucial in sustaining the relationship and allowing the love to flourish.

3. What role do our senses play in our knowledge of what is real?

Our senses are 90% of our perception of what is real. Many people cannot believe something is real unless they see it with their own eyes. This makes complete sense. How is anyone suppose to know something is there or that something has happened without the use of sight, smell, touch, and taste when we use they constantly everyday.

The other 10% of our perception is our will to believe in the unexplainable. For some people this 10% may not exsist to them or they find it harder to believe that it is credible because they feel that nothing is possible unless it is proven with cold hard facts. Others believe that there is still many unexplainable mysteries in the world that our senses may never be able to discover.

5. What role does intuition play in our knowledge of what is real?

Intuition plays the first role in our perception and knowledge of what is real. When we use of senses to experience a moment, an object, a sound etc. our perception of what is happening is directly inffluenced by our own intuition. Intuition allows us to come up with an answer in response to what our own senses are expericencing, wether we are immediatly correct or not is another story.