Philosophy Class At Summer

Summer starts in Norway. This is a very beautiful morning at the University of Oslo. Dr.Sophia came to University early in the morning. There was a letter inside the dropbox by one student outside her office. She took the letter and entered her office and put the letter on the desk. “Not bad having a hot coffee in the morning,” thought she and went for a hot water machine at the corner of the room. The glass is big enough and she can drink for a long time while doing some reading. There are only two classes today one is at 8:30 am morning and another is at 3:00 pm in the afternoon. There is still time in hand almost 2 hours. She prepared the coffee and sat on the chair and opened the letter of the student. The letter was an excuse saying the student cannot come to class since no good cloth is available and he needs to wash the clothes by hand since he has no money for machine washing. Sophia knows that the student is exaggerating the situation putting back the letter while laughing out inside her mind. She used to deal with so many students over the years like him. She prepared her notes for the lecture today.

It is 8:30 am sharp and Sophia entered the class. She found few students turn up in the class since this just the first class and students are still busy with registration. She stood up for the lecture at the desk after putting her documents and bag on the table. One student is about to sleep and Sophia asked the student to go outside and take a rest while saying I will give my notes later so that you can read. The student thanked the lecturer with a smile and went off from class.

She is about to start her lecture and noticed students seeming to pay attention to her lecture but she knows nobody is interested to listen to her lecture. Personally, she hates to give lectures the same thing every semester and checking the horrible papers of dumb students but she has no way but to accept. There is a saying in Islamic tradition Messengers used to bring sheep at their earlier age and that’s how God taught messengers to be patient teaching the mass people when they grow up and bring the message of God. This is the universal law of the teaching profession.

 Well, Students today I would deliver a speech on philosophy. I will just give an overview since this is our first class of the semester. I will start from Homer and will end up somewhere depending on class time. Let’s do time travel together with a so-called mental time machine. Before that, it is compulsory to finish the novel called “Sophia’s World” by next week because most of my lectures gist you can get there. The Norwegian writer’s defended feminism and environmentalism through those works. I want my Ph.D. students of the Philosophy department should read that novel. This novel made you love our philosophy course.

Once a time there was a man called Homer and he wrote two historical epics “Iliad” and “Odyssey”. The written works consist of Greek methodological Gods like Hinduism in India. The stories are all about traveling across the world by ship in the sea and battle with the ancient roman empire as a result of stealing the wife of a Greek man. What did you understand? Western literature started with stealing wife? (Students laugh together)

We should not forget that there were ancient philosophers in India and China who promoted a secular version of spirituality. Confucius and Buddha are among them.

Just to remind you that the basic questions for philosophy are “who we are?” “From where we come?” “Does God exist?” “Why should we live for?” “Why am I here” “What is morality and justice?” and so on. 

Anyway, the first philosopher in western philosophy can be credited to Thales who is well known as the father of philosophers like Abraham is well known as the father of 3 monotheistic religions in the world namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Everything comes from water as he said and he traveled a lot and went to Egypt also. Then, Anaximander introduced ‘apeiron’ or ‘indefinite’ or ‘formless’ as the origin of the universe. After that, Anaximenes talked about air is the source of everything.

Then, in Italy, there was one philosopher called Parmenides who believed that components forever existed in nature. Nothing can be changed.

Heraclitus said everything is changing like a flowing river. He promoted the word ‘Logos’ Wisdom that he called God behind the creation of the world.

Empedocles believed the world is consists of 4 elements namely air, soil, water, and fire, and some changes and some not. He also believed in love and strife in nature for combination and breaking up.

Anaxagoras believed that everything is made up of small things and inside that things also have something. He talked mainly human body and how we naturally are cured after cutting our body over time. Every cell has a blueprint to recap if we get injured and that’s what he wanted to say.

Pythagoras was important as he saw the irrational numbers and the pie ratio which helped Plato to believe in idealism.

Democritus talked about atoms and how atoms are responsible to create everything in nature by themselves. He also believed in the soul which is made up of atoms.

Oracle of Delphi which was my role in my drama class when I was in my degree program. Do you guys believe in prophesy?

(Students did not respond except smile and acting like not knowing)

That’s the end of the pre-Socrates period. By the way, Democritus died after Socrates but he is considered as pre-Socrates.

“Am I going too fast?”

“Yesss …madam” Students said together while smiling.

“Today is just outlined I am giving brief touch on the issues that we will be discussing. Just bear with me please”

“Okey…madam,” said happily all the students together.

Let’s visit Athens now in Socrates time with our mind mapping time machine

Socrates died for morality and not believing in traditional Gods. Do you guys think justice exists? He was the first existentialist in philosopher’s history according to Kierkegaard. He was the first philosopher who was killed by drinking poison hemlock for ethical values and he accepted to die over running away from Athens when Plato asked him to leave Athens instead of killing himself.

Then, Plato is the one who promoted idealism and an ideal state in which the king should be a philosopher. He also believed in the ideal form of everything that we observe around us. He hated democracy because of the death of his teacher.

Later on, Aristotle is the one who developed natural philosophy. He used to focus on God of small things like Darwin. He also gave the definition of soul-like shape but existing with the body. He also gave the concept of the first cause or first-mover (God). He promoted logic also like all men are mortal and Aristotle is a man and therefore Aristotle is mortal. was He like Immanuel Kant?

Then, Sophists are the teachers who were skeptical about everything and tried acting knowing everything and taught people in exchange for money. Do you love to be Socrates or Sophists? The choice is yours.

Let’s discuss the Hellenistic world now

There are four types of philosophy here.

First was Cynic

Antisthenes was the founder of this philosophy and he was a student of Socrates. Diogenes was a famous cynic student. One day the Alex gender the great came to meet and asked Diogenes if he wants any help. He said “yes. he should move aside since he is covering sunlight from him. Cynic students lead a very ordinary life with no wealth at all. This is the path of peace they claimed. How crazy these philosophers are? Is not it the same as Buddha?

Second was Stoic

Zeno was the founding father of Stoic philosophy. Go with the law of nature and they believe in monism. Spirit and nature are together which were different than Plato’s philosophy of dualism. Seneca was one of the best stoic philosophers.

The Epicureans

Aristippus was a student of Socrates who believes in enjoyment in life. There was a garden for enjoyment and people go there and enjoy it. There is nothing like happiness and suffering is bad.

Neo-Platonism

Plotinus was famous for promoting this philosophy. Light (as God) and darkness as just absent of light.

Mysticism

This philosophy is famous among religious groups. When a man feels that stage and they utter “I am God”. It is like one drop of water mixing up with the seawater and they make no difference. This is how extreme Sufism works which many of the Islamic scholars rejected as a non-Islamic stance.

Jesus

Founder of Christianity. There is a famous scandal about his life regarding the birth of Jesus according to Islamic tradition. You can read the Quran for further information.

Apostle Paul went to Europe first time to spread Christianity and gave a speech in Athens in front of philosophers and general people and philosophers mocked him but many women accepted Christianity and as a result, Christianity became dominant across Europe within 300 years.

Saint Augustine

He tried to combine Plato’s philosophy and Christianity.

Thomas Aquinas

He tried to combine Aristotle’s philosophy and Christianity

Muhammed

He was the Arabian and claimed to be the last messenger of Abrahamic faith to rectify their faith claiming God is the only one who is outside of the universe and this God is not comparable to anything in the universe and Judaism is a stubborn nation for claiming only chosen people by God whereas Christianity made a false claim by Jesus as the son of God and Marry as the wife of God. God of Abraham is free from all these types of man-made attributes. Muhammed also warned people by saying there is a day of judgment where every individual will be subjected to their action. Nobody will carry their family’s fault except his or her fault. 

Al Kindi is considered the first philosopher of Muslim history.

Al Farabi compared Plato’s ideal state with Mohammed’s state in Median during Muhammed’s time.

Abn Sina gave the idea of floating man which was closer to Descartes position

Ibn Rushd, Ibn Arabi, Al Ghazali are famous philosophers worldwide.

Descartes is the first philosopher for modernity and he brought the issue of the mind-body problem (Dualism). His famous statement is,” I think therefore I am”.

Spinoza was from Jews family but he was kicked out for Monism and talking against the religion of his society. The example of the universe is like a human body to him and whenever you wish you can move your finger but your finger does not understand its limitation and bound to obey our order without its realization. Tiger cannot eat vegetables and Goat cannot eat animals. Freedom is confined by the law of nature which is God by Spinoza. He believed in monism. 

Leibniz was also rationalist philosophers like Descartes. He also invented calculus though there was a political conflict between Newton and Leibniz.

Jhon Locke, Hume, Bishop Barkley all were British empiricist philosophers but Locke and Barkley believe in idealism whereas Hume denied it.

French Enlightenment

Diderot, along with some philosophers, started to write for encyclopedia which helped for the French revolution.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was famous for social contract theory and his view of man by born is good and stay with nature.

Voltaire was famous for his novel candid.

All were against the French government and traditional Christian authority in Europe.

 Immanuel Kant was trying to make a balance between rationalism and empiricism and the concept of the United Nation came from his ideas.

Thomas Hobbes was like Democritus believing in soul and God but as a physical entity.

A Victorian period where pornography was restricted

Romanticism

There are so many poets were during this time. William Wordsworth was one of them. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” was the statement during romanticism. Love is the ultimate truth and they focused on mainly art and literature.

Hegel is famous for the historical dialectic method. It is like a jig jag tunnel and the bank of the tunnel will decide how water will flows.

Kierkegaard was famous for giving three-stage of life for a man 1. Enjoy life 2. Lead life with ethics 3. Lead life with religiosity. Leap of faith is a great example which he showed from Abraham’s nature of faith against social norms that rationalism and empiricism cannot provide. Where philosophy ends religious faith shows the path for hope.

Dostoevsky is a famous Russian novelist who wrote the famous novel “Crime and Punishment” and showed existential issues in human life. Nietzsche had a mental breakdown for the Hoarse scene in that novel that Freud mentions as unconscious repression.

Karl Marx is famous for dialectic materialism and he showed how society works in capitalist society. A boy is starving in the street and rich shopkeepers are selling gold but not giving charity to the boy. Therefore, the boy went one day to his shop and fire up the shop. This is the communist revolt for injustice. Islam has the zakat system which makes sure to give compulsory help to the boy as a result it balances it out. Read the Islamic Zakat system when you guys have free time.

Lenin is a Russian Marxist who established the first communist state in the world, but Stalin betrayed his dream.

Trotsky was a famous communist writer and fellow of Lenin who suffered throughout his life.

Stalin is the worst type of example of communism that George Orwell shows in his novel “Animal Farm”

Leo Tolstoy was a famous novelist who was famous for a socialist novel like “War and Peace”.

Arthur Schopenhauer is a famous philosopher who promoted pessimism and Leo Tolstoy and Nietzsche were highly influenced by his writing.

Nietzsche is famous for the statement “God is dead” and “Overmen”. He is also the father of nihilism ideas.

Jean-Paul Sartre is famous for an atheist form of existentialism. His famous quotation was “existentialism is a humanism”.

Albert Camus was also famous for the absurdity of life throughout his novels.

Martin Heidegger was also famous for his writing as an existentialist.

Newton is popular for the idea of gravity and the apple tree. Do you guys know the story of the apple tree?

Copernicus was the first polish philosopher who said Earth revolves around the sun and he died shortly after the publication of the paper.

Francis Bacon was a scientist as well as an active politician.

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Alva Edison are famous scientists for their contribution to humanity.

Darwin gathered the information and claimed the theory of evolution and men came from monkeys, not from Adam and Eve. There were writers previously but nobody dared to do so but Darwin was a very clever man who was never rush for his stance. You have three cows and you need to donate one cow which one do you want to donate? Obviously, the weak one has less value. Natural selection and survival of the fittest. You need to remember also primordial soup where the sun hit with hot water without oxygen and ozone layer and after certain time ozone layer to have first complex DNA before mutation starts.

Sigmund Fraud for the first time attacked human sexuality and explain the unconscious mind. You are giving a lecture at Harvard and a man started shouting and you asked some guards to bring him outside the room and he was brought outside the room and he wants to keep coming again and again. Or You saw in a dream one girl with two balloons holding. That means you saw that girl yesterday and you are hoping for her boobs but it diverted to balloon and in a dream, it is like mixing up with fantasy. That’s Freud's unconscious mind in our 30 years of life there are thousands of blocks you sent back to the unconscious mind. Freud says ID (Childhood touching penis as you see a small baby and we try to move away again and again and it teaches him not to touch) Ego(normal ethics) and Super Ego(super ethics). 

Foucault and Lacan later developed the field of psychology after Freud.

American literature was full of pessimistic and nihilistic worldviews in 20th century’s writing due to such philosophical development in Europe. Ernest Hemingway committed suicide with barrel machine John Steinbeck’s writing Robert Frost writing and later beat generation all are indicating towards scientific enlightenment in Europe. The huge revolution you can notice in Anglo-American literature.

AJ Ayer is famous for positivism. The theory of language asks to eradicate the question of God’s existence is meaningless.

Bertrand Russell is famous for atomist theory and his writings. History of Western Philosophy one of his best writing.

Wittgenstein was famous student of Russel

Albert Einstein is well known for the theory of relativity

Jean Baudrillard is famous for post-structuralism 

Quantum mechanics is a random field that helps to understand science in a different way.

Big Bang theory says there was a beginning of our universe. The galaxies we observe through the Hubble telescope are billions of years before the picture. An interesting point about our universe is made up of 4.6% of atoms and 24% of dark matter and 71.4% of Dark energy and we carry in our body the ingredients that we're after the big bang. the age of our universe to be around 13.772 billion years only. You should read the book “A Universe from nothing” to understand how the universe developed from a quantum vacuum out on nothing which is something.

All are confusing 

What do you guys think?

As a result, we are dealing with post-modernism now where the grand narrative has been rejected and everyone has an equal chance to talk since nobody is right.

Postmodernism is the main concern in this 21st century.

That’s all for today, my dear students. Are you guys sleepy?

You can read Ernest Heming way’s novel “the old man and sea” in your mid-break.

Sophia ended her speech and students seem to understand nothing in today’s class. She was reading like a long list to the servant who is going to market to buy one month’s foods. Sophia smiled at students and said “Do not worry. I just gave brief summary of the course and we will discuss and gave a presentation on these issues over the course this semester. I will send today’s lecture to PK photocopy Centre and everyone should collect and keep it with you as a course outline for this semester. I will call out your names for attendance and you can leave the room one by one. Thank you and Have a nice day in advance.