Thursday, April 22nd
Plato, Aristotle, Buddha & Lao-tzu wrote very different views on metaphysics. Whose is the most appealing to you & why? Which is the least appealing to you & why?
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This is a blog for students in Meredith Aby-Keirstead's Introduction to Philosophy class at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, MN. There is an expectation by the instructor & the JHS administration that the same standards for behavior & respect at JHS apply to the blog.
Socrates
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The person I agree most with is Aristotle. I like what he says about happiness coming from within, and that material possessions do not. Attachment to material possessions is superficial because those possessions will eventually go away. I also like that Aristotle says we can trust our senses to know what is real and what is fake. I also agree with Aristotle’s view of separatism and appropriate responses to certain actions. Plato’s viewpoint is least appealing to me. I don’t like the idea that most of society is living in a cave and can’t see the “real world”. To me, senses have to be trusted because they are the only way of knowing whether something is real or not. I understand what Plato is thinking when he talks about the cave and false realities, but I don’t think that it exists. We have to trust the world around us as being real because it is the only world we know to exist.
Out of Plato, Aristotle, Buddha and Lao-tzu, Aristotle most appeals to me. I agree with his view that there are not two worlds, but only one real world. I do not believe that there is another world that we learned "Forms," and now, we are just remembering. Human experience is necessary. It is essential for the REAL world and to learn. There is evidence that shows that people who do not try to learn, and live their life doing nothing do not "remember" anything. They become unknowledgable.
Buddha's view on metaphysics appeals to me the least. He believes that our attatchment to objects and others are our mistaken belief that can bring us happiness. I understand that people should not be attatched at the hip with their objects to bring them happiness, but that does not mean someone can find nirvana by sitting out in the field by themselves. Buddah's view that we keep coming back to life if we do not reach nirvana, is not right in my mind. I believe that everyone lives one life and should make the most of it.
Aristotle's views on metaphysics are definitely the most appealing to me as he believes in experience being the source of wisdom. I also agree with Aristotle that what is most real is what is here before us. ie: "this chair, this person, this room," as opposed to our perceptions not being in rhythm with reality. I prefer to think that our perceptions are exactly as they should be and that reality is as we see it. So I prefer Aristotle's views as they are the ones that I agree with the most. The least appealing of the views to me are that of Buddha,this is because, even though he generally agrees with Aristotle on some things, Buddha holds an opinion that I disagree with, that of interconnectedness. I, as stated before that like Aristotle, believe that everything is independent of everything else, and that even when we interact with one another, we are simply exerting our independence upon the other independent and the end result, whatever that may be, is the conglomeration of independence.
Aristotle's philosophy of metaphysics is my favorite. His emphasis on the importance of the senses and understanding coming from our interaction with the world appeal to me. I like to believe that I can understand what is going on around me by observation. His idea that knowledge must come from human experience makes sense because scientists have experimented over the years to discover new things about the world. I also like the Buddha's emphasis on the power of the mind, but I can't completely grasp the interdependence that he believes in.
Plato's philosophy is my least favorite. I feel that he makes the world needlessly complicated. The scientific idea of Occam's Razor, in which the simplest solution is usually correct, makes sense to me so I don't see why Plato would need to have two separate worlds: the real one outside the cave, and the world we see that is inside the cave. I also don't agree that there are perfect forms existing int he world outside the cave. I agree with Aristotle's classification system but Plato's belief in a perfect form seems too idealistic. I also think that inherent knowledge about the forms isn't right. I think humans have to learn about different things. For instance, if a Minnesotan goes to a tropical region, she will encounter creatures that she will not recognize and she will not be able to classify them based on some sort of inherent knowledge. Plato makes the understanding of the world more complicated than it needs to be and Aristotle emphasizes the importance of the senses which I agree with.
I prefer the philosophy of Buddha because his views were not too simplistic but not too complicated. He did not believe that an all-powerful, incomprehensible outside force governs what is real and true; he believes in the human experience as truth, but not in the same way as Aristotle. While Aristotle focused on the practical human experience as the only definition of truth, Buddha thought there was something a little more. He believed that one had to separate the self from possessions and other people to find the truth - the truth is in the self, and all people are part of an interdependent web. There is no separatism. I like this idea because it basically states that there is something more (this great powerful web) than just human interaction and perception of other people and things, which I think is likely, but it is still grounded in the self and not some outside power, which I find acceptable and rational. The least appealing philosopher to me is Plato, because his ideas don't seem based in any evidence. The idea that we are all living in the Matrix is an exciting idea, but it seems that the idea exists much like the idea of gods exist - to explain the unexplainable. Aristotle and Buddha's ideas are based on actual observation, while Plato's are just irrational theories that one would expect a crazy homeless man to be preaching on the street. The idea of the "cave" is nearly impossible to comprehend, and there's no way to prove that it's true, so why bother considering it?
The most appealing philosopher to me so far is Aristotle. He is the most appealing because I think he was the closest to the truth. He believed knowledge was gained through personal experiences and not from another life like what Plato thought. He believed in permanent attributes that make things up like roughness. He also had a order of classifications and humans were at the top because of intelligence. His beliefs were the most modern and that is why he is most appealing to me. The least appealing to me is Buddha because I do not like the idea of samsara or the continuos cycle of births, deaths and rebirths resulting from karma. I just don't like the idea that you can be reborn as a lesser being like a cockroach.
Aristotle's views appeal the most to me. I do not think that our senses misguide us, so Aristotle's reliance on what we see makes a lot of sense. Aristotle also believes that separatism underlies metaphysics. I agree with this because people react in different ways to the same situations. The philosopher that appeals the least to me is Plato. Plato believes that there is a world of forms that we see before we come into existence. I think that humans rely more on our own discoveries more than anything else. That is why children have to touch a stove to learn that it is hot, if Plato's theories were real than they would already know that it is hot even though they might not realize it.
I would have to say Buddhism. You hear how life is to short, so take in as much as you can because you don't know if you'll be here tomorrow. But in my eyes i feel this life, like many Buddhism, is meant to learn and understand what you feel over what you read. To appreciate ones life you must understand death, don't fear it because this is just the beginning once you reach enlightenment your done here and off to a better life. I do think happiness is found within not what you can passes. I mean your home, your car, even your family could disappear in seconds. So your setting yourself up for pain if you cant let go. And to me this way of thinking make more sense.
Buddha's view appeals the most to me. He believed that all things in life are interconnected and happiness comes from personal situations. His theory about the unenlightened person is that they don't see the actual reality of the world. That is similar to modern day because some individuals choose not to see what is real. Plato's views don't appeal to me. His idea of forms and the cave allegory don't make much sense. Plato's theory of forms does not explain how humans know what shape things take. He said that humans were born with the knowledge of what everything basically looked like. Instead, humans learn and develop over the years.
Out of Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, and Lao-tzu the philosopher who is the most appealing to me would be Plato. He is the most appealing to me because his ideas and reasoning makes the most sense to me. Although I do not necessarily believe in all of his ideas, such as the cave theory. Out of the philosophers listed above the one who's ideas are the least appealing to me would be Buddha. Although Plato and Buddha shared some of the same ideas, such as the cave theory and the enlightenment. Buddha is unappealing to me because of the way he thinks one will achieve his end of suffering. Buddha thinks that if one acts along the lines of the Noble Eightfold Path then they will end their suffering.
I like the views of Lao-tzu best. The idea that everything flows into each other is very appealing to me. The idea of balance is rather important to me, and having too much of any one thing always proves to be bad in my mind, as you are then lacking in the opposing area. While the concept of ch'i feels a bit strange to me, it does make sense that at times you need to rest and gather energy, to be put to use later.
The view I least like is that of Plato. The concept of forms only exists in our minds, in my opinion. There is absolutely no reason and no need for forms to be real- it's just our mind categorizing similar objects, in my opinion. Even if these forms do exist, they are dependent on objects for their existence, making Aristotle's view more accurate. Imagine the form of, say, a snarglopoofer, a rare plant that exists on a planet in a distant galaxy. You can't- you've never seen a snarglopoofer. The concept of the form of a snarglopoofer is dependent on an actual snarglopoofer. The snarglopoofer might not even exist- in which case there is no form of the snarglopoofer. I don't like the concept of forms, and of the two philosophers who conceptualized forms, Plato seems to be less accurate.
I find Aristotle's view to be the most appealing because his views in my opinion are the most straight forward and they make the most sense to me. He says that virtue is the way to happiness, which makes sense to me to a certain extent. I also understand how Aristotle saw that material things can make one unhappy. All in all, I find Aristotle's belief to be the most cut and dry, and the one that makes the most sense.
In contrast, I disagree with Buddha's views the most. Buddha's views are too mystical to me. Although the eight-fold path may be a way to fulfilling life, I don't agree with the concept of Enlightenment or samasara. The thought of being reborn again again until one reaches Enlightenment is somewhat depressing in my mind. It makes life seem like this endless cycle, and the only way to succeed is to be enlightened, or else one will have to go on living. It puts kind of a dreary spin on the meaning of life. Also, the fact that Buddha rejected the idea of molecules is kind of ridiculous to me because, despite the fact that there wasn't really a way to prove they didn't exist when he was alive, there is scientific evidence that they exist today.
All in all, Aristotle's views make the make the most sense to me, and Buddha's make the least amount of sense.
Buddha! He said that everything is connected and that you should become awakened by ending your own suffering that arises from many aspects of contemporary society. If you do nice things, nice things will happen to you. This just makes so much more sense to me than being 'in a cave'. I understand that not everything is as it seems, but I don't think that souls go to another dimension to gain knowledge or that what we perceive as reality is not real. Buddhism is just chill and makes sense to me. Plato is the least appealing, because it seems to far fetched and more hope dominated than other beliefs.
I agree with Aristotle the most. I think he has the most realistic view of the world. However, I do, to a certain extent, agree with Plato about his cave analogy. Although I don't think people are completely "in a cave of shadows" I do think many people are ignorant of the world around them. To apply this to today's world would be to say those who are in the cave would be those who don't know the world events that are happening, those who close their minds to any opposition, or something where they completely ignore other sides of an argument or issue/don't recognize what's happening in the world. Then, I would say, that to come out of the cave is not to accept the opposite view but to be open to it and see where they are coming from. That's how I apply it to the modern world. Education would also be part of coming out of the cave.
But, back to Aristotle, I really agree that experience and research is how we learn; we don't have an innate knowledge of forms like Plato said. Also, I agree with Aristotle when he said bare matter has potential and that causes change. An apple seed creates an apple tree, but can't change into anything else. I think Aristotle is a very modern and realistic philosopher and is very relative.
The least appealing is Plato. I don't agree whatsoever with the theory that we are born with the knowledge of forms.
I agree with Aristotle. I don't think we are born and just know things. I think we learn things through experience. I don't think that we are in a world that if we don't fulfill our destiny's, we will be born into another life where we will try again like Buhdism. I disagree with Plato's view of how everything we see is an illusion. If everything is an illusion and our senses are tricking us, then what is the air we breathe. What is anything we do? Aristotle's seems more realistic because everything is just here.
The person I agree with most is probably Aristotle. I think that his description of what is real is the closest to what i believe. He does not think that people are stuck in caves, he believes that people are able to use their own senses to let them know what is real. I also like Aristotle's reasoning about where happiness comes from. I do not believe that material possessions make a person happy. The point of view that i least agree with is Plato's. I do not think that his whole idea that everyone in stuck inside a "cave" is realistic. I personally don't really know how Plato came to think that everyone was in that cave and that nobody can see the real world. I think that we just need to trust our senses of what is real to guide our lives and let us know what reality is.
I agree the most with the Buddha in that life is characterized by suffering and that we all eventually will be visited by some form of suffering. Things such as objects and people "blind us" and make us think that we can escape the inevitable. I think that although this is a somewhat pessimistic view of life, i think the reality that we will all suffer eventually is very true. The theory who i agree the least with is Taoism because i have trouble believing that everything flows from something, the Tao and can be taken in two ways. It just seems a little too simplistic too me, and the questions of life seem to be too simplified in this way.
The philosopher that I agree the most with is Buddha. He believes that life is characterized by suffering, and it is the fear of these realities that makes us unhappy. The root cause of it is our attachment to things of this world and our belief that they can bring us happiness. Most people spend their lives focused on material things. But in order to reach true happiness or true enlightenment, Buddha says they need to look inside themselves to find it. Enlightenment can only be achieved by seeing the way things truly are and accepting our own responsibility for either living in peace with this truth or being in a state in denial (and setting ourselves up for more suffering). I agree with this because it is about accepting what you have, being happy with yourself, and finding inner peace. It is more focused on the individual then on the world itself.
The philosopher that I disagree with it Plato. I don’t agree with the idea that what we perceive to be true is not necessarily the truth. I also don’t agree with his Theory of Forms, mostly because it’s a difficult concept for me to grasp. He also claims that we have knowledge that our souls must have acquired, since there is no way for us to gain it through bodily experience. I disagree with this because I think people learn about the world when they are babies through their senses. We learn to recognize shapes and what they are called, listen and watch our parents to learn how to speak, names of things and what they are used for, and the effects of our actions by trial and error. I think that we do gain all of our information through bodily experience.
I like Aristotle's view of metaphysics because he focuses on what we can learn from what we see and what we experience. He thinks we should explore and experience and question our senses. I think that what we can sense and what we can experience is what we have to live with. To me, there is nothing driving this world other than the world we see. I think that we should focus on how we can experience the world around us that will lead us to the knowledge and truth.
I disagree the most with Plato because I don't like the idea that there is a hidden world that is independent of our senses. However, I do like the idea that what we perceive is not always the truth ("the cave") but that's where I feel you should learn more about things and experiment with them and learn. I think that Buddha Lao-tzu were somewhat right too, but for them I like the principles of enlightenment from within and the value of nature.
I would generally agree the most with Aristotle. I liked how he concentrated on the fact that there is really only one world, and that things have the potential to happen. I would agree with the fact that you can observe the world around you and you really do learn a lot from your experiences. I thought that Plato seemed to be the least realistic. It doesn't make a lot of sense to be that you could completely deny the real world and think so much is made up. I think he seems to overanalyze what is going on in the world and make things seem like more than they really are. Also, I think we rely on our experiences more than he emphasizes and he doesn't give human life as much influence as he should.
I agree the most with Aristotle because of his startling modernity. Aristotle was interested in understanding change and why things happen the way they do. He also believes that experience is there to learn from your mistakes. If you have a bad experience then you are able to learn from it and not make that mistake again. He also says that you can trust your senses where as Plato disagrees with that saying you shouldn't trust your senses. The least appealing to me out of the four would be Buddha. Buddha agrees with Aristotle that happiness is to be found in living a life of virtue, but Buddha had his own explanation of what the life of virtue meant. He believes that the only way to end our suffering is to let go of people or things that we are attached to. I don't agree with that because the people we are attached to will help us end our suffering and be there with us to get through our hard times.
The most appealing to me about metaphysics is Lao-tzu, I think Taoism is really cool. The idea of finding the truth about the world through nature makes a lot of sense to me. Because I don't actually believe in the Buddhist ideas of samasara, but I do like some of the ideas of taking the middle path and meditation, I think that Taoism is the better of the two. The idea of a yin and yang flowing together is also very cool. The concept of no you and no me but just is cool, I feel that there is a way to be interconnected to everything in the world and I don't think that existence is all suffering. I think that there are certain things that are not suffering and I think that those are the things that describe the Chi. Finding my chi and freeing my mind sounds a lot more appealing to me then completely separating myself from reality. I think that there can be things on this earth that bring happiness and I don't need to ignore the things that are going on around me. I don't like the greek philosopher's ideas as much because they don't really seem to apply to my life at all, they also seem a lot less advanced and I don't really feel like I can do anything with them. For example I feel like I could try to figure out what Plato and Aristotle were talking about for ten years and I would have wasted ten years of my life because I didn't do anything with them, but if I practiced buddhist and Taoist philosophies for ten years I think it would actually make a big difference on my life.
The viewpoint that most appeals to me is Buddha's. I really liked how both he and Aristotle believed that our attachment to things of this world are our main source of unhappiness. Because we believe objects and people can bring us this happiness, we are greatly let down and suffer when we realize change can't be prevented and we can't hold onto things. I think this is an extremely accurate view of how humans and the world work. Buddha had no interest in metaphysics, which examines the nature of reality. He was practical and only considered virtue in real moral situations, which makes a lot more sense to me than Plato's views. Buddha believed the only way to achieve happiness was to give up the inane earthly objects we are so attached to and look inside us to find the way things truly are in reality. The mind is powerful in Buddhism. Everyone and everything is connected, and something you do to another will affect you in return. I think this is a neat view of looking at how our emotions and actions affect one another.
The views of Plato on metaphysics are the least appealing to me. His theory of Forms is extremely confusing and complicated. The idea that we remember things we knew before we were born seems completely ridiculous to me. I believe we learn things by experience, and not by an innate knowledge we had beforehand. Plato also had the allegory of the cave and two different worlds; the world inside the cave and the world we see when we step outside of the cave. This seems way too complicated for me. Buddha's percetions of the world and of forms being empty makes much more sense to me.
I believe that Plato is the most appealing. I like the idea that humans use Forms to create a certain sense of security and reality, but the world we create is just an illusion anyways. The complexity of it intrigues me because "the real" will never be achieved in Plato's sense, but its still a fun theory to look up and think about. I'm least appealed to Buddha's theory, frankly because its vague and a watered down version of what I think Plato reaches at. Materialism probably makes you unhappy in the long run, I'll admit, but suffering shouldn't be an accurate measure of life as well. The way Buddha phrases his solution of the eightfold path seems too much like a fairytale for me to accept, so I like the more realistic truth of Plato's cave.
Well, all of these philosophers have interesting philosophies about life. Aristotle and Lao-tzu have something in common that I like. They both say that materialism is bad and it essentially corrupts humans. But overall, I like Lao-tzu's philosophy better than the rest. He created Taoism. Taoism revolves around simplicity and recognizing this in your life and in the things around you. I like this quote by Chuang Tzu about Taoist philosophy, "To regard the fundamental as the essence, to regard things as coarse, to regard accumulation as deficiency, to dwell quietly alone with the spiritual and the intelligent -- herein lie the techniques if Tao of the ancients." I like this because it truly sounds as if following this philosophy, one will find true happiness and humble peace.
All of these philosophies are appealing in many ways, they all have their weaknesses and strengths, which makes it difficult to say which philosophy is the one that I like the least. Between Plato, Aristotle, and Buddha, they are all equally appealing to me.
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