CORPHI 2ND QUARTER.docx

COSMOCENTRISM- that Nature can be a source of understanding our world and humanity

THEOCENTRISM- The Divine can be a source of understanding our potentials to be good through the study of medieval philosophers

ANTHROPOCENTRISM- We must continuously prove that we can be a source of understanding our world and humanity, that we are capable of thinking and source of knowledge and as such be able to express our potential. This time we must prove that we are capable of achieving a happy life through expression of our FREEDOM

Wisdom of Rene Descartes

• We’re able to achieve happiness because we are free

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)

• Father of Modern Philosophy

• His ideas departed widely from current understanding in the early 17th century

• His approach to philosophy was something new during his time

• Believed in basically clearing everything off the table, all preconceived and inherited notions and starting fresh, putting back one by one the things that were certain which for him began with the statement “I exist”. From this sprang his most famous quote “Cogito Ergo Sum” - I think therefore I am.

• He believed that all truths were ultimately linked, he sought to uncover the meaning of the natural world with a rational approach, through science and mathematics

• His works:

• Discourse on the Method

• Meditations on First Philosophy

• Principles of Philosophy

CHARLES DARWIN

• Freedom to be good

• Darwin in his theory of evolution and natural selection claims that we are capable of morals that is why survival is communal for human beings

• Consider the question, how do we survive as human beings throughout so many eras, generations?

• How does survival of the fittest be appropriate in our situation

• We do not have fangs, claws, camouflage

• We cannot run very fast, we cannot fly or even breathe under water

• For Darwin we are beyond survival by instinct, we use reason and more than that we use morality in our decision

• We are good to one another

PROOF OF GOODNESS

• A Healed Leg Bone- The Sign of a Civilized Society (MARGARET MEAD)

• Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies, without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal.

• Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg you die. You cannot run from danger, you can drink or hunt food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first

• A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

• "Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts," Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; For, indeed, that's all who ever have."

KARL MARX

Karl Marx challenged our idea of communal morality to the extent that he sees community (well since it is driven by the economic value) as alienating our human condition.

• So, Marx wants us to further understand what does rationality means... what morality means... and we can only do that if we are free.

• The reason why we are in this situation right now is because we lack understanding (rationality) and we lack consideration (morality) that is why we do not really know how to be free.

MAIN PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS

• DIALECTIC MATERIALISM

• Marx argued that modern society is driven by economy

• This is a problem in Human Freedom

• We become who we are to provide a service but if we’re focused on economic work attached to our job we won’t progress as a person

• Marx thought that early societies are classless (Primitive Communalism)

• No rich no poor

• People survived from food gathering hunting

• Role based society

“ From each according to his abilities

• Societies developed into farming and animal breeding to tool makers

• As life become more complex people acquired land and other material properties

• Property became the means of production (Feudalism)

In Feudal/ Agricultural culture, slaves, servants and peasants lose the fruits of their labor by working for the nobles but at least they still live in close knit communities

• As time passed, entrepreneurs sprouted among the landlords who became the bourgeois class (Capitalistic System)

• Claa of urban, commercial, banking, manufacturing and shipping entrepreneurs

• Had economic power from their feudal nobility

• Problem with Capitalism

• Promotes inequality between rich and poor

• The business owners or capitalist get richer while workers do all the hard work

• The capitalist get more power to serve their own interest

• In capitalism, the proletariat is completely separated from the fruits of his labor and he lives restless, miserable detached existence

• Alienation of workers

• MARX’S SOLUTION

• To have a common ownership of property and all modes of production so that there will be socialization.

• To socialism then Communism

  • No private property, everything is distributed equitably

  • If everyone works together, war is a thing of the past- armies are not needed

  • Sharing means no police are needed

  • Everything is provided by the people so money becomes a thing of the past

  • All human activity goes towards benefiting each other- allowing all to live their lives to the full.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

• Marx believed that the bourgeoisie basically bought the products of laborers at cheap price

• Alienation of the Human Person

  • Self Alienation

    • Work and its product are no longer than expression of the human person

    • He/she does not enjoy/owns his/her creativity

    • Labor is the externalization of the human being

  • Social Alienation

    • Fellow human being becomes a competitor

    • Neighbor becomes an economic enemy

  • Ideological Alienation

    • Ideas and principles are used to justify self- alienation and social alienation as well as unjust structures

  • Religious Alienation

    • Religion to justify self-alienation

    • Religion justifies one’s poorness and or suffering

  • Human Alienation

    • Work is not voluntary it is imposed, forced labor (it is a means for me to satisfy my real needs)

    • Work is for someone else, it belongs to another person

TO BE HUMAN

• For Marx, alienation can be viewed from the concept of labor. The realities of life are economic; the human person affirms himself through his work. But the-human person is alienated from his work and the product of his work because of division of labor: monotonous with work with no clear relation to the product which is mechanization that separates the worker from his product and turns him into a machine (man without heart). The market forces have compelled

people to produce goods in which they are not interested

• Self Affirmation in work is necessary for a truly human life; work must express our humanity.

• Workers have nothing to lose but their chains…

IMPLICATIONS: IN OUR CURRENT TIME

• A unified and coherent vision of the world, history and reality

• A clear goal to work for, to live for and to die for. Marx goal is to change the world and not only to philosophize it

• A call to all people to a common fraternity. Everybody should be workers and should work

• Man could be free if he works and fights for it

• CLASSLESS SOCIETY

LESSON 1: FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN PERSON

1. ABSOLUTE FREEDOM

   • I am responsible for my actions

2. LIMITED FREEDOM

   • Limits of law/morality allows me to be responsible in actions

PHILOSOPHERS' PERSPECTIVE OF FREEDOM