Friday: 9/23
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
24 comments:
Plato, Socrates's student, is the most appealing because he has very interesting ideas on what is real. He believed in 2 universes, which is very different from the ideas of other philosophers. He believed we see forms of objects, not the object itself. He claimed the forms are the real thing that our unborn soul saw in the alternate universe.
I found Lao-tzu's views the most appealing because of how they connect the world with nature. I also liked that they suggested we need to live a balanced life with both the Yin and the Yang because I feel that balance is important. I did not like Plato's ideas because I think that we do learn things and that our lives are not just a projection of a past world we have lived in. I think that we are smart people able of learning new things and that our world is not full of imperfections that he believed are just flukes in our ability to remember another life. I also think that it is fine to place happiness in other people because having a relation to others is how some people are able to find their own inner happiness.
In my opinion, Buddha's philosophy on metaphysics appeals to me the most. The reason I side with Buddha is because he views the world as something to remove yourself from and to understand by doing so. I try to do this in my daily life, so I understand his virtues. My least favorite is Tao-tzu because he defines the world in black and white. The world is filled with grey areas, that cannot be defined by black and white.
Buddhism is interesting to me. In Buddhism, enlightenment can only be achieved by seeing the way things truly are. Buddha believed that our unhappiness comes from the mistaken belief that our attachment to things can bring us happiness. He believed that one can find happiness by living a life of virtue. I find myself agreeing with many of these theories. I disagree with Plato's theories, especially the allegory of the cave. I do not think that everything in this world is imperfect and modeled after a perfect form in another universe. I do not think that everything in reality needs to be questioned.
The most appealing to me is Aristotle because he says that we should trust our senses and that reality is what we sense. The person who I least agree with is Plato because he says that we already have the knowledge and taht we already saw everything its just a matter of remembering it. That I dont think is true.
I've always been a Buddha fanboy and I like his points on religion and philosophy. It's very forgiving in nature because, unlike hinduism, he doesn't include the caste system. He also believed, however that life revolves around suffering, and the only way to enlighten yourself is to detach from all material things and just love the world.
Out of Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, and Lao-tzu, I would have to say Aristotle's views on metaphysics is most appealing to me. It's true that most of our knowledge comes from our past experiences in our lifetime. Aristotle was very logical and scientific about his approach to metaphysics, which also appeals to me. I would say that Plato's view on metaphysics appeal to me the least in that I find it very doubtful that there's another world where the "true forms" are and that we are only remembering them when we see the illusions of them on Earth.
Aristotle is the most appealing to me because of the way he wants us to look at the things around us, and how he chose to evaluate everything.
Plato is the least appealing to me because of his theory on Forms. I don't agree with his thoughts on the Forms because I don't believe that everything in our world is a copy of something else or that it is fake, because I believe that all of these objects are indeed very real.
Buddha's view on metaphysics appeals to me the most as it seems to be a more spiritual take in philosophy and at the world in general. Plato's take on metaphysics is less appealing to me as it focuses to heavily on his "cave allegory" about being trapped in a false reality. Buddha's views take on a more optimistic look at metaphysics and philosophy in general.
I liked the Lao-tzu ideas about the ying-yang thing because it was interesting to me in how they made it and their beliefs that nature knew everything and they want to learn as much as they can about nature, I also liked Platos ideas about 2 universes and thinking about what is real and what isn't.
I least liked the buddha ideas because detaching from everything seems to be a bit much, just the idea of not talking to anyone and only thinking just seems odd.
Lao-tzu's idea is the most appealing to me because I like the idea of everything being interconnected. I like that everything is always flowing from one thing to another and I think that finding balance is very important. The least appealing to me is Aristotle's way of thinking, only because it's the least interesting idea in my opinion. I don't really have a least favorite, but if I had to pick, it'd be his.
The most appealing to me was Buddha. I chose him because unlike everyone else his view was more realistic then the other views on metaphysics. My least favorite was Lao-tzu just because his theory seemed confusing to me.
I think that Plato is the most interesting because he believed that nothing is real, everything is just forms. I think that is weird and interesting because how can someone believe that when you can see, smell, touch and hear things that are real to us in the 21st century. We believe that if something is real there needs to be physical evidence that something is actually there. My question to Plato is: What things are real to you? What do you believe to be real?
The least interesting to me is Buddha because I don't believe in his theory of our unhappiness is based on our attachment to things or people. Those attachments are the things that make us happy, thats why we attach ourselves to those things. I can see where he is coming from when he says that we need to detach ourselves from everyone else. Do I think all time. No, but I think sometimes it is nice to get away.
It is true that they all had very different views on metaphysics but within those views you were able to find some similarities and differences. The one that stood out to me most would be Aristotle. He had very interesting opinions on happiness and how it can be found living a life of virtue. Buddha agreed with his statement but had a different view on what living the life of virtue meant and according the both their views, Aristotle still won me over. The least interesting to me would be Lao-tzu because it didn't grab my attention on how they brought forth things into nature, etc.
Plato's ideas are the most appealing to me. His ideas are the furthest from what we normally consider reality. It makes us wonder about what is around us, and why that stuff is around us. The ideas of there being another world makes us interested in it, just like we are interested in Space. The least appealing is Aristotles', because it is just telling us to look around us. Their is no underlying knowledge we could find.
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?
I think Buddha's views are most appealing to me. I Like his idea's of enlightenment and personally believe that isolated thought is important. For similar reasons i like Plato's analogy of the cave to express a realization of what is real.
It was hard to pick a least appealing view but for the sake of the assignment i chose Aristotle. I personally believe he is wrong in his criticism of Plato's cave.
I agree with Aristotle. I believe that we learn from what we see when we see it versus seeing a "cookie cutter" of it in another universe before we were born. We gain some knowledge from what we see about those things, but we can infer somethings about that object to know more about those objects.
I disagree with Plato because as interesting and somewhat cool his theory of learning something before we were born by seeing it in another universe is, I think that we rather see something in this "universe", someone tells us about it, then we learn more about it from inferring on it's shape and what people do with it. From that we also gain more knowledge from what someone else may tell us from what they have seen and learned.
The most interesting view on metaphysics I would say is Aristotle. I feel this way because it seems the most realistic and I feel its interesting to think about life and how things worked in the way he thought about it. His theories were deep and complex. The least appealing view I would have to say is Bhudda's view. Though is very different from the other philosophers views, I don't agree with his philosophy and how life is characterized by suffering.
I would personally agree with Buddha,in so many ways with our eco systems and food webs we are linked to the nature that is not physically present in our current enviorment. We live,thinking we are dominate and how ironic that we at the mercy of mother nature after adapting so much over thousands of years.With this knowledge of how small we are on this Earth,I find that Buddha's teachings come to play.The world we see is not the "real" world in the sense its permanent.Its constantly changing and will with or without us.And to find this inner peace on Earth while we have the chance to learn from the mistake's of others.
I prefer Aristotle's view on metaphysics. He stated that Forms are less real than the objects that take their shape because the form needs the objects to exist so without the object the form has no way to exist. The least appealing idea of metaphysics to me was Plato's idea. Plato had created the idea of another universe was just to unrealistic to make much sense.
The most appealing to me is Buddha's views on metaphysics such as that youth, wealth, and also health may temporarily blind us from reality. Also, the root of our unhappiness is our attachments to things of this world-including objects as well as people. And we must achieve enlightenment to move on from these bad things.
I liked Aristotle's idea of what is real. I believe that everything around us is real. I think that if we can see or feel something then it is real. I didn't like Plato's idea that there are two universes. I think this idea is too abstract and too far fetch.
Buddha appealed to me more because it was more focused on like the elimination of suffering. Enlightenment was also a focus of buddhism that i liked to learn about.
Personally, the least appealing theory to me is Lao-tzu's. I feel like it is a little far-fetched and stretches the relationship between humans and nature a little bit too far to be practical.
The most appealing theory to me is Aristotle's. He is very scientific and I appreciate that he is not too involved in nature. I'm all for nature and the environment, but I feel like some philosophers (such as Lao-tzu) take it much too far instead of understanding how different we are.
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