Valle, Clarisse B.

Understanding the Self

BSCHEM 1-2 280818

Homework: Share 3 experiences in the life of each philosopher who had an influence on
the presence of their philosophy.

Socrates

• "An unexamined life is not worth living”. Socrates is attributed with these words after
choosing death rather than exile from Athens or a commitment to silence.

“I know that I know nothing” This saying is also connected to a question Socrates is said
to have posed to the Pythia, the oracle of Delphi, in which the Oracle stated something
to the effect of "Socrates is the wisest."

• In the second half of the 5th century BC, sophists were teachers who specialized in
using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric to entertain, impress, or persuade an
audience to accept the speaker's point of view. Socrates promoted an alternative
method of teaching which came to be called the Socratic Method.

Plato

• Meeting the great Greek philosopher Socrates, Socrates's methods of dialogue and
debate impressed Plato so much that he soon he became a close associate and
dedicated his life to the question of virtue and the formation of a noble character.

• The execution of Socrates in 399 B.C.E. soured him on this idea and he turned to a
life of study and philosophy. After Socrates's death, Plato traveled for 12 years
throughout the Mediterranean region, studying mathematics with the Pythagoreans in
Italy, and geometry, geology, astronomy and religion in Egypt.

• Meeting and being influenced by Heraclitus and Parmenides. These two philosophers,
following the way initiated by pre-Socratic Greek philosophers like Pythagoras, depart
from mythology and begin the metaphysical tradition that strongly influenced Plato and
continues today.

St. Augustine of Hippo

• St. Augustine’s Confessions were written during a furor of activity as shepherd of the
Catholics in Hippo. St. Augustine at the start of his priesthood and episcopacy seems to
have focused very much on countering the Manicheans in his community or abroad in
Africa, since he had belonged to the Manichean community for some ten years of his
life.

• Around 397 AD and published near 401 AD, about one or two years after St.
Augustine had become a bishop, taking Valerius’ place as the bishop of Hippo. What
the book can teach us about St. Augustine and about the spiritual life, and finally a half
of the document will go to answering some negative comments made by an Eastern
Orthodox priest regarding St. Augustine's Confessions and its legacy in Western
Christendom.
These are the works and interests St. Augustine had in mind before he began writing
the Confessions.

- Conversion to Christianity and resting with friends at the Cassiciacum (386 AD).
- “On the Catholic and the Manichaean Way of Life”, 387-388 AD,
- “On Genesis, Against the Manicheans”, 388-389 AD
- “On True Religion”, 389-391 AD
- St. Augustine is ordained as a priest in 391 AD
- “On the usefulness of believing”, 391 AD
- “On the two souls, against the Manicheans”, 392-393 AD
- “On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis.” (unfinished), 393-394 AD
- “Commentary on Galatians” 394-395 AD
- “On Continence” and “On Lying”, 395 AD,
- “Miscellany of Questions to St. Simplicianus”, 396-397 AD, written as a bishop
- “On Christian Teaching” (396-420 AD)
- “Against the Basic Letter of the Manichees”, 397 AD, written as a bishop
- “ Against Faustus the Manichee” and “Against Felix the Manichee” (397-398 AD)
- “On the Nature of the Good” and “Against Secundinus the Manichee”, 399 A
- “On the Trinity” (399 AD to 419 AD)
- “On the work of Monks” (400 AD)
- “On the Inquiries of Januarius” (400 AD)
- “On Baptism against the Donatists” (400-401 AD)
- “On the Good of Marriage” and “On Holy Virginity” (401 AD)
- “The Literal Interpretation of Genesis” (401-415 AD)

• Augustine’s educational background and cultural milieu trained him for the art of
rhetoric: declaring the power of the self through speech that differentiated the speaker
from his fellows and swayed the crowd to follow his views. Augustine’s parents were of
the respectable class of Roman society, free to live on the work of others, but their
means were sometimes straitened. They managed, sometimes on borrowed money, to
acquire a first-class education for Augustine, and, although he had at least one brother
and one sister, he seems to have been the only child sent off to be educated. He
studied first in Tagaste, then in the nearby university town of Madauros, and finally
at Carthage, the great city of Roman Africa. After a brief stint teaching in Tagaste, he
returned to Carthage to teach rhetoric, the premier science for the Roman gentleman

René Descartes

• Influenced by the automatons on display throughout the city of Paris, Descartes began
to investigate the connection between the mind and body, and how the two interact. His
main influences for dualism were theology and physics. The theory on the dualism of
mind and body is Descartes' signature doctrine and permeates other theories he
advanced. Known as Cartesian dualism, his theory on the separation between the mind
and the body went on to influence subsequent Western philosophies. In Meditations on
First Philosophy

• Summer of 1618 when Descartes went to the Netherlands to become a volunteer for
the army of Maurice of Nassau. It was during this time that he met Isaac Beekman, who
was, perhaps, the most important influence on his early adulthood. It was Beekman who
rekindled Descartes’ interest in science and opened his eyes to the possibility of
applying mathematical techniques to other fields. As a New Year’s gift to Beekman,
Descartes composed a treatise on music, which was then considered a branch of
mathematics, entitled Compendium Musicae.

• Descartes was sent to board at the Jesuit College at La Fleche on Easter of 1607. At
La Fleche, Descartes completed the usual courses of study in grammar and rhetoric
and the philosophical curriculum with courses in the “verbal arts” of grammar, rhetoric
and dialectic (or logic) and the “mathematical arts” comprised of arithmetic, music,
geometry and astronomy. But, all things considered, he did receive a very broad liberal
arts education before leaving La Fleche in 1614.

John Locke

• Locke became involved in politics when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor in 1672.
Shaftesbury, as a founder of the Whig movement, exerted great influence on Locke's
political ideas. Following Shaftesbury's fall from favour in 1675, Locke spent some time
travelling across France as tutor and medical attendant to Caleb Banks. He returned to
England in 1679 when Shaftesbury's political fortunes took a brief positive turn. Around
this time, most likely at Shaftesbury's prompting, Locke composed the bulk of the Two
Treatises of Government. Locke was associated with the influential Whigs, his ideas
about natural rights and government are today considered quite revolutionary for that
period in English history

• From 1689-1692, Locke wrote his Letters Concerning Toleration in the aftermath of
the European wars of religion, formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance.
Three arguments are central: (1) Earthly judges, the state in particular, and human
beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious
standpoints; (2) Even if they could, enforcing a single "true religion" would not have the
desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence; (3) Coercing religious
uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.

• Locke may have had an additional concern in mind in writing the chapter on property.
Tully (1993) and Barbara Arneil point out that Locke was interested in and involved in
the affairs of the American colonies and that Locke’s theory of labor led to the
convenient conclusion that the labor of Native Americans generated property rights only
over the animals they caught, not the land on which they hunted which Locke regarded
as vacant and available for the taking. Armitage even argues that there is evidence that
Locke was actively involved in revising the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina at the
same time he was drafting the chapter on property for the Second Treatise.

David Hume

• In 1734, after trying his hand in a merchant’s office in Bristol, he came to the turning
point of his life and retired to France for three years. Most of this time he spent at La
Flèche on the Loire, in the old Anjou, studying and writing A Treatise of Human Nature.
The Treatise was Hume’s attempt to formulate a full-fledged philosophical system. It is
divided into three books: Book I, “Of the Understanding,” Book II, “Of the Passions,”
Book III, On morals.

• Taking the scientific method of the English physicist Sir Isaac Newton as his model
and building on the epistemology of the English philosopher John Locke, Hume tried to
describe how the mind works in acquiring what is called knowledge. He concluded that
no theory of reality is possible; there can be no knowledge of anything beyond
experience.

• While he was working for Lieutenant-General St Clair, he also wrote the “Philosophical
Essays Concerning Human Understanding” (published as An Enquiry Concerning
Human Understanding in 1758) which was followed by “The Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Morals in 1751. He continued to write almost until his death, ending his list
of works with the autobiography “My Own Life”.

Immanuel Kant

• Kant grew up under the influence of Pietism, a Protestant sect that was very popular in
north Germany during the early 18th century. He entered the University of Königsberg
and mainly dedicated himself to study of mathematics but he also began to develop
interest in philosophy.

• In 1755, Kant returned to the University of Königsberg to continue his education. He

received a doctorate from philosophy. He also devoted a lot of his time to writing on
various topics although his greatest masterpiece – the Critique of Pure Reason.

• Kant entered the Pietist school that his pastor directed. This was a Latin school, and it
was presumably during the eight and a half years he was there that Kant acquired his
lifelong love for the Latin classics, especially for the naturalistic poet Lucretius.

Sigmund Freud

• In 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria, and Freud, who was Jewish, was allowed to leave
for England. For these reasons, it was above all with the city of Vienna that Freud’s
name was destined to be deeply associated for posterity, founding as he did what was
to become known as the ‘first Viennese school’ of psychoanalysis from which flowed
psychoanalysis as a movement and all subsequent developments in this field.

• In 1885-86, Freud spent the greater part of a year in Paris, where he was deeply
impressed by the work of the French neurologist Jean Charcot who was at that time
using hypnotism to treat hysteria and other abnormal mental conditions. When he
returned to Vienna, Freud experimented with hypnosis but found that its beneficial
effects did not last. At this point he decided to adopt instead a method suggested by the
work of an older Viennese colleague and friend, Josef Breuer. This technique, and the
theory from which it is derived, was given its classical expression in Studies in Hysteria,
jointly published by Freud and Breuer in 1895.

• Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was initially not well received–when its existence was
acknowledged at all it was usually by people who were, as Breuer had foreseen,
scandalized by the emphasis placed on sexuality by Freud. It was not until 1908, when
the first International Psychoanalytical Congress was held at Salzburg that Freud’s
importance began to be generally recognized. This was greatly facilitated in 1909, when
he was invited to give a course of lectures in the United States, which were to form the
basis of his 1916 book Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis. From this point on Freud’s
reputation and fame grew enormously, and he continued to write prolifically until his
death, producing in all more than twenty volumes of theoretical works and clinical
studies.

Gilbert Ryle

• His father was a doctor but also a generalist who had interests in philosophy and
astronomy, and passed on to his children an impressive library, and the young Ryle grew
up in an environment of learning. He was educated at Brighton College and, in 1919, he
went to Queen's College, Oxford, initially to study Classics, although he was soon drawn
to Philosophy. He graduated with first class honors in 1924 and was appointed to
a lectureship in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. He became a tutor a year later, and
remained at Christ Church until World War II.

• Ryle was recruited to intelligence work with the Welsh Guardsduring World War II, and
rose to the rank of Major by the end of the War. He returned to Oxford in 1945 where he
was elected Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy and Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford.

• In 1949, he attacked the body-mind Dualism which has largely permeated Western
Philosophy since René Descartes in the 17th Century. Ryle believed that the classical
theories made a basic "category-mistake" by attempting to analyze the relation between
"mind" and "body" as if they were terms of the same logical category. He argued that
philosophers do not need a "hidden" principle to explain the supra-mechanical
capacities of humans, because the workings of the mind are not distinct from the actions
of the body, but are one and the same. Looked at another way, he characterized the
mind as a set of capacities and abilities belonging to the body.
Paul Churchland

• His work has been described as being influenced by the work of W. V. O.

Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Russell Hanson, Wilfred Sellars, and Paul Feyerabend. as well as
by Karl Popper. Churchland's work is in the school of analytic philosophy in western
philosophy, with interests in epistemology and the philosophy of science, and specific
principal interests in the philosophy of mind and in neurophilosophy and artificial
intelligence. Churchland holds that beliefs are not ontologically real; that is, he
maintains that a future, fully matured neuroscience is likely to have no need for "beliefs"
in the same manner that modern science discarded such notions as legends or
witchcraft.

• Earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969, his dissertation entitled
"Persons and P-Predicates" written with Wilfrid Sellars as his advisor. After earning a
Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland rose to
the rank of full professor at the University of Manitoba before accepting the Valtz Family
Endowed Chair in Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and a joint
appointments in that institution's Institute for Neural Computation and on its Cognitive
Science Faculty.

•As of this February 2017, Churchland is recognised as Professor Emeritus at

the University of California, San Diego, where he earlier held the Valtz Family Endowed
Chair in Philosophy and continues to appear as a philosophy faculty member on the
UCSD Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Cognitive Science[8] and with the affiliated
faculty of the UCSD Institute for Neural Computation.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

• Associated in his early years with the existentialist movement through his friendship
with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty played a central role in
the dissemination of phenomenology, which he sought to integrate with Gestalt
psychology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Saussurian linguistics. Major influences on
his thinking include Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Max Scheler,
and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as neurologist Kurt Goldstein, Gestalt theorists such as
Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, and literary figures including Marcel Proust, Paul
Claudel, and Paul Valéry.

• Merleau-Ponty pursued secondary studies at the Parisian lycees Janson-de-Sailly and

Louis-le-Grand, completing his first course in philosophy at Janson-de-Sailly with
Gustave Rodrigues in 1923–24. He won the school’s “Award for Outstanding
Achievement” in philosophy that year and would later trace his commitment to the
vocation of philosophy to this first course. He was also awarded “First Prize in
Philosophy” at Louis-le-Grand in 1924–25.
• World War Two, Merleau-Ponty served for a year as lieutenant in the 5thInfantry
Regiment and 59th Light Infantry Division, until he was wounded in battle in June 1940,
days before the signing of the armistice between France and Germany. He was
awarded the Croix de guerre, recognizing bravery in combat. After several months of
convalescence, he returned to teaching at the Lycée Carnot in Paris, where he
remained from 1940 until 1944. At the end of the 1943–44 school year, Merleau-Ponty
completed his main thesis, Phénoménologie de la perception.

Personal Philosophy
Why do I always find myself wondering and asking the questions of why and
wherefores about my existence here as a mundane in our commonplace? Was it
because I could not understand my being or was it simply because I could not hold
grasp of the actuality and tend to dwell more on the side of the false realism? “The
courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over
again was enormous,” was the quote who managed to hit and shook me right to the
core, leaving doubts and uncertainties in its wake. Why do I get up every time the sun
rises and what was I actually Iooking forward to? Every day was the same, everyone I
meet doesn’t interest me and everything was achromatic except maybe for the days
which I found myself actually reveling because of some things I was truly engrossed
about. I live because I can’t die. Everyone is running but why am I the only one here?
Then I realize, everyone has their own pace. Perhaps all I need is time, and once I got
out of this soul-wrecking place and start doing my passion, maybe I’ll find myself
basking under the sunlight and finally be able to understand the meaning of all this. And
I if I still don’t see the importance of my existence here in earth, I’ll try on the next life.
And maybe then I’ll stop using the word maybe.
Assessment

1. Socrates – According to Socrates, an unexamined life is not worth living and only by
the dialogue between the soul and itself that knowledge can be achieved. By
understanding that we know nothing and because we know nothing, we constantly ask
questions leading to discover the truths about ourselves. My concept was well
likeminded with Socrates because I like asking queries about myself and how I am living
right now.

2. Plato - The systematic or methodological use of our reason shows us the best way to
live, is what it is according to Plato, replacing our ancient way of superstitious and full of
myth thinking. As for me, I completely agree with this, it’s actually one of the reasons
why I took up a program that involves science.

3. Augustine – Augustine’s self philosophy was that one could not truly achieve one’s
being if he has not come to seek God’s love. I believe in this one mainly because if I
don’t have the faith on what we call God, the powerlessness will eat me alive.

4. Descartes – I think therefore I am, was his known philosophy of self, that if he doubts
there therefore he exists. I could also agree on this one because just like what I’ve said
earlier, I like asking myself questions about my life and everything that’s happening
around me.

5. Hume – According to Hume’s philosophy of self, we can never observe ourselves

directly and in a unified way, we can only just be aware of what are we experiencing
right at the moment but we can never go beyond the fleeting feelings and emotions. I
don’t quite grasp the understanding of this one, but it was like saying that I can observe
what the others are doing; their habits and qualities but I can never evaluate myself.

6. Kant – According to Kant, body and soul are two separate components. The inner
self and the outer self, Inner self is where we are aware of what we are experiencing
whilst bodies are included in the outer self.

7. Ryle – Gilbert Ryle believes that the mind controls the mechanical workings of our
body, its emotions, feelings, thoughts and actions. Scientifically speaking, our brain is
indeed the control center of our body. But what about the mind, it is said to be the
faculty center for our perceptions, thinking and judgment. I cannot completely agree with
this one for I am rather, not too often but yes sometimes, acting and thinking based on
what the other controller has been saying.

8. Merleau-Ponty – Merleau-Ponty believes that the perception of the mind the actions
of the body are two interrelated components. As for myself, I can’t really say that my
concept of self agrees with this one because sometimes we do things that we don’t
meant or there are actions that are thought with good intentions but came out with the
intent to harm
 VALLE, CLARISSE B.
BSCHEM 1-2
Department of Physical Sciences,
Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Title: Meet the Robinsons

Characters:
• Mildred – Mildred was a minor character who was the head of the orphanage where
Lewis was left in when he was still a baby.
• Lewis - Lewis or eventually known as Cornelius Robinson was a major and the main
character of the whole film. He is a genius kid who went on a time-travelling adventure
to solve the issues concerning the future and the past.
• Michael “Goob” Yagoobian – Goob was a major character and technically the main
villain of the story. He holds a grudge against Lewis and vows to take revenge against
him, destroying himself in the process.
• Wilbur Robinson – Wilbur was a major character who was with Lewis all throughout his
journey to the future. He claims to be a person not from the present world, convincing
Lewis that someone is after him and his invention. Later on, we learn that Wilbur was
actually Lewis’ son.
• Doris – Doris was major character in the form of a hat, she was also a villain.
• The other Robinsons – Were all minor characters who played as Lewis’ family in the
future. They are composed of Bud, Tallulah, Lucille, Billie, Fritz, Art, Joe, Petunia and
Gaston.

Summary:
The story of Meet the Robinsons concerns Lewis, a young genius boy who was
orphaned when he was still a baby. Gifted with his ability to imagine incredible things
and turn them to real life inventions, Lewis decided he wanted to see his real life mother
and decided to create a memory scanner that can show the events of the past through a
screen, but during the process of his creation, he unintentionally kept Goob his
roommate awake the entire night leading to the latter losing the very important baseball
match of his life. And so he brought his invention to their science fair the day after but
failed like his many other ones. On the same event, there he met a certain Wilbur
Robinson claiming he is someone from the future and that a bowler hat guy is after
Lewis and his invention. Lewis, on the other hand, did not believe him at first so Wilbur
had to bring him to the future itself. Things happened and chaotic turn of events ensued
as Lewis lost his way and the time machine being broken trapping him in that
dimension. Later on we learned that the bowler hat guy was actually Goob who
deteriorated because of his depraved thoughts and that Wilbur is Lewis’ son and Lewis
himself is Cornelius Robinson who is the greatest inventor in the future. As the truths
unraveled one by one, Lewis convinced Goob that he was just being used by Doris, the
evil hat whom he had invented, to take over the world. He was then able to fix things
finally and promised himself to never invent Doris again. He goes back to the present
time and mended all the things towards a better future.

Analysis:
The movie was meant to inspire audiences at all ages to never give up and keep
moving forward even though the road to one’s dream becomes rocky and uneven. In
the film, we can actually witness Lewis, slowly getting back on his feet and regaining his
confidence once more after all he’s been through. It just proved that no matter how
disastrous life has become, if you have the courage to move on and let of the things that
has been weighing on your shoulders, you will eventually find yourself headed to a great
and fruitful future.

Lessons:
After watching the movie, I learned that one’s decision plays a big role in his life and the
future that awaits him. To keep striving even if it’s hard, to never give up and keep liking
what you do and be proud of it. To remain standing even if the world wants you to fall
and to keep fighting for the goals and future you know yourself that they’re yours for the
taking. Looking back, I have experienced many set-backs in life and one of them was
failing my calculus first long exam during my grade 11 days. I could never forget that
day for I actually cried and blamed myself for all my failures and short-comings. It was
like a domino effect and one failure lead me to remember the past ones, rendering me
completely inoperable in the mercy of my thoughts. But then I decided that was not the
end and actually vowed to myself to study harder, later on picking myself up and getting
the highest score during our midterm examination. Although that wasn’t the case
nowadays because I’m struggling yet again but I’m for sure going to remember again
what I’ve told myself during that time. This year, I lost my grandmother; one of my best
friends flew to California, lost my uncle and constantly facing problems involving family,
friends and academics. But just as happiness is temporary, I know for a fact that these
too, shall pass.

Quotable quotes:
“Success is still ours for the taking.” - Michael “Goob” Yagoobian
“The truth will set you free brother.” – Wilbur Robinson
“This means I could really change my life.” – Lewis
“Let us conduct ourselves in an orderly fashion that we’ll be proud of tomorrow.” – Mr.
Willerstein
“It’s always here, we just have to remember.” - Lewis