Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Is it a sense of relief or loss? I dunnoe, wad a familiar phrase and how useful...... but i have come to understand that things should just be as such, not hoping nor wanting nor thinking, just purely waiting for things to untangle itself or waiting for myself to untangle it..... but tt's when i have the mood for it. It seems like i'm alr weary from all the talks and everything, to the point tt the reason for all these is unknown..... ok on to happier stuffs", I am still pretty interested in the philosophy book that i am reading "Sophie's World"..... I've learned about Sohpists, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The differing views of Sophists and Socrates, the flowing of the views from Socrates to Plato and finally to Aristotle.
It speaks of the nature, of the animals and human beings we see around us. Socrates and Sophists are very different in explaining human behaviour. We, homo sapiens, behave according to our morals and ethics most of the time. But, who determine what is the proper set of morals and ethics that we should abide to? Is it innate or we are coerced , well that is a rather strong word, perhaps determined by the society we live in? This leads to another story i have heard from another friend. There was an experiment conducted and people are asked to question another person who is in another room via a microphone, similar to a teacher lecturing a student. In front of them, they have a few buttons which vary in degrees of punishments. If the "student" repeatedly makes the mistake, the "teacher" can choose to punish the "student" with varying degrees of punishments. It appears that when the experiments were conducted in a city (where authority is given to the people to punish the "student") and in a countryside (where authority is not given to punish), the results are very indicative. Going back to the point that morals and ethics are society-driven, it is true if based on the experiments alone. People who are given authority to punish others can do so wihout much guilt since they know they are "asked" to do it and if fingers start pointing, they will be "guilt-free", at least in the eyes of the law. However, Socrates did say that reason, which leads to morals and ethics, are innate. As long as we listen to the deep voice inside us, we will be able to do the right thing. It's true perhaps but some people seems to lack that sort of discipline to listen to their better judgments......
Another interesting point Socrates made was the eternal and immutable substance that all beings are made of..... didnt really understand until after reading Plato's views...... Plato believes that everything in the sensory world is flowing, which means changing or imperfect but in the "idea" world, the master copy of all things, trees, flowers, horses, cows, dogs, exist. We carry with us an image of the "idea" beings in our mind and thus, can recognise how a horse look like and so on so forth..... His cave theory that all humans are merely beings kept in a cave, looking at the shadows of the real "ideas" which is casted on the wall..... while all the time, there exists a world with the perfect copy of the shadows they see. Interesting? Hahaz, this post seems a lil long but i enjoy all of these", It is nice to think of philosophical stuffs once in a while when we get sick of the mundane and monotonous things we must do in this "sensory" world..... Hahaz, seems like the philosophers have great insight", I'll stop here and till then.....
Posted by Jessica at Tuesday, July 17, 2007