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THOUGHTS TO LINGER ON

I feel really refreshed now that I started attending a Philosophy class with Sir Archie. I just miss being a student. It's too tiring to teach and be the center of attention for five straight months (one sem). At least now, I am more relaxed and I am honestly enjoying being a student. I love the feeling of receiving handouts from the teacher, instead of I doing the handouts for my students.

Actually, if you have just read my post yesterday, you'll have a clue of how I felt about my being a teacher right now. It's just too tiring to feed information and to pretend you're fine even if you're not. You see, teachers are show-persons. As teachers, we ought not show our students how we feel at the moment because it might affect the way they receive knowledge or information from us. Even if a teacher isn't in the mood for a discussion, kailangan ipakitang everything is fine. I sometimes hate that feeling. I never want to pretend to be someone else. Mahirap. But I do it for the sake of this job I have chosen.

Anyway, what I would like to do today is to share some of the important insights I kept lingering on while we were discussing ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.

Who would not know the three great men of the ancient times, SOCRATES, PLATO and ARISTOTLE? Here are some of the thoughts worth pondering on:

* The only way to know the truth is to do self-examination.
For Socrates, to KNOW THY SELF is to do rigorous self-examination.
* The two Socratic method: IRONIC and MAEUTIC.
* IRONIC method happens when we set aside all our biases and pre-judgments in order for us to know the truth; MAEUTIC method follows when we draw out from reality by letting other people shine. It's just like saying we should give reality a chance, and not be blinded by our pre-conceived notions of things. The moment we let our biases overpower us, we won't be able to know the truth.
* "Truth is relative." In fact, there can be as many truths as there are people on this planet. Remember also that "half-truth is still a LIE."
* Virtue is knowledge and knowledge is virtue.
* PLATO is an idealist. He believes that "there is no reality, only ideas. What you see right now are merely imitations of ideas."
* The WORLD OF IDEA is the perfect world while the WORLD OF SENSES is merely an imitation of what exists in the world of idea.
* Should we now believe in the concept of BODY AND SOUL? According to Sir Archie, "We may not believe it. What's important is that they started critical thinking." In the first place, who can really prove the existence of soul? The important thing is that, these thoughts could serve as our guide in our day-to-day living. With these ideas, we'll have some sort of standards to do check-and-balance on our actions.
* ARISTOTLE is a realist who believes that "we come to know things because of experience."
* The fact that "each particular culture has its own philosophy" means that we really learn things through our experiences. That means I would believe Aristotle more than Plato. If our soul knows the truth even before we experience them, then, why do people recognize "truths" based on their own experiences? If that is the case, what is the soul for? ( I was supposed to ask this to our professor but I didn't have a chance to ask, I didn't want to distract him in challenging our thoughts by giving sample instances).

QUOTABLE QUOTES:

"Believe nothing of what you hear,
Believe only one-half of what you see."

"Every word that is born has its own history and culture."

"Everything is composed of water."
-thales
BY THE WAY, THESE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS. these are my truths WHICH MAY BE lies for you. Remember SELECTIVE PERCEPTION, SELECTIVE RETENTION and SELECTIVE DISTORTION. I am guilty of all those perception theories.

Never believe me.

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