Textual Analysis. Explain Each of The Following Passages
Textual Analysis. Explain Each of The Following Passages
“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is, that I know nothing.” - (Socrates) Plato,
The Republic
Explanation: It implies that whoever claiming that he/she knows everything is the human who do not know
anything. Because God created us an imperfect person the reason why are we living here is because for
us to gain knowledge from our neighbour cause no man is an island we need others for us to learn
because there are things that we learn from them and vice versa. And it also states that those who
claiming who doesn’t know anything is possible to know more everything, because by asking a question, in
this simple way we are gaining knowledge.
“All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with
reason. There is nothing higher than reason.” -Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Explanation: By the used of our senses we are gaining knowledge, for example in the school through
listening to the teacher we are attaining information by hearing that proceeds in understanding through our
mind and if there are things that are not clear to us we are now asking something wherein reasoning are
visible if you are thinking something that needs answer to your question.
“And what more am I? I look for aid to the imagination. [But how mistakenly!] I am not that
assemblage of limbs we call the human body; I am not a subtle penetrating air distributed throughout all
these members; I am not a wind, a fire, a vapor , a breath or anything at all that I can imagine. I am
supposing all these things to be nothing. Yet I find, while so doing, that I am still assured that I am a
something.” –Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Explanation: An example of wine occupies the place within the bottle. Once the wine is finished, this place
is now constituted by the quantity of air now occupying it. Notice that the extensions of the wine and of the
air are two different sets of bodies. Shape and relation to the body surrounding it, that is the bottle, it is
called one in the same “place” even it is made up of two different pieces of extension. Therefore, so long as
the bodies of the same size, shape and position continue to replace each other, it is considered one and
the same place.
“Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand
why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill.” –
Sigmund Freud, Character and Culture
Explanation: It points out that we should learn to love ourselves, because for example in a relationship if
you love your partner than yourself there is a possibility that your partner will take it for granted and you will
be the one who will suffer a lot. We should love ourselves because that is our powerful weapon to those
people who are opportunist especially when it talks about love.
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“I discovered that there are other minds in understanding what other people say and do.” –Gilbert
Ryle, The Concept of Mind
Explanation: On my point of view it talks about criticism. Because for example, if you are came from a good
family and then you meet your transferee classmate and she is attention seeker, in others who don’t know
him/her yet might irritate because of his/her attitude but to those who knows her they understand her
because they know the story of her life wherein her parents have other families and she left from her
grandmother who also passed away.
“Whether it is a question of my body, the natural world, the past, birth or death, the question is
always to know how I can be open to phenomena that transcend me and that, nevertheless, only exist to
the extent that I take them up and live them.” – Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Explanation: It addresses on how to cope to those changes happening on us. Because we all know that
even you want for example a person to stay in your life, even you do much efforts for her to stay if her
choice is to leave and explore other things you cannot stop her. We should learn to be open on the
changes that happening on us because through this we can transcend it by being understanding human in
this world where we exist, we should not expecting something from others because we will just get
disappointed.
a) Compare and contrast the elements of the mind according to Plato and the life of St. Augustine.
--- The mind according to Plato was considered as the superior of all the elements. He refers to this
element as the nous which means the conscious awareness of the self. The nous decides, analyses, thinks
ahead, process what is best and rationally controls both the appetitive and spirited elements. Also one has
to develop the nous and fill it with the understanding of the limits of the self and the correct ethical
standards. Contrast to the life of St. St. Augustine which he succumbed to vices and pleasures of the world.
But St. Augustine dedicated to his Christian life to the pursuit of contemplative ideals. The development of
the self is achieved through self-presentation and self-realization. And to St. Augustine, man’s end goal is
happiness. Only God can man attain true and eternal happiness.
b) Differentiate the concepts of the self according to Descartes and that of Locke.
--- According to Descartes the concept of the self was in fact able to readdress the questions concerning
the self in a very different rational method. He started his quest of discovering the self by his methodic
doubt. He said that everything must be subjected to doubt. The existence of the self, at least according to
Descartes, is human rationality. Simply put, we need reason in order to evaluate our thoughts and actions.
While to Locke, his proposition is that the self is comparable to an empty space where everyday
experiences contribute to the pile of knowledge that is put forth on that empty space. Experience,
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therefore, is an important requirement in order to have a sense data which, through the process of
reflection and analysis, eventually becomes sense perception.
c) For Hume, what is it that makes “your” perceptions inaccessible to “me” and vice versa?
--- That makes “your” perceptions inaccessible to “me” according to Hume is to be persistent, constant and
stable with our knowledge about ourselves. This is just impossible as long as we only derive our knowledge
from sense impressions, there will never be the “self” according to him.
d) What makes some of the criticisms that have been brought against Freud and psychoanalysis?
--- The sensationalization of the self as unifying agent and a powerful command center of the other
agencies simply do not exist in Freud’s Structural Model. Some criticism takes a hypothetical example of a
child who is born in a happy, loving and affluent family. He is well provided by his well-mannered parents
who are respected professionals on their fields. The family never misses the Sunday ritual of going to
mass. He is raised with plenty of time to work and play and study. He is sent to an expensive private school
until he found himself kicked out by the school because of drug addiction and cutting classes. He steals the
family fortune to afford his vices. He destroyed many lives of his friends. He disrespects his parents and
siblings and accused them of not loving him. He ended up broke, wasted, imprisoned and a menace to
society. Now we ask: Where is the self? How can we understand the ‘I’ in this example? What is it in the
self that was not able to control piles of self-destructive activities of the child? Freud claims that there is
nothing else above the ‘I’ that will consolidate the three agencies. There is only the plurality of these
antagonistic and independent agencies.
3. Key Terms. List some terminologies associated with each philosopher. Briefly define or
describe each term.
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restlessly search for the meaning of
his life until his conversion to
Christianity. He dedicated his
Christian life to pursuit of
contemplative ideals.
Simply put, we need reason in
order to evaluate our thoughts and
actions. We need reason to live fully
Descartes “Human Rationality” the demands, challenges and call of
our religion. We need reason to
establish frim foundations for
universal truth and morals.
Inasmuch as we wanted to be
persistent, constant and stable with
our knowledge about ourselves,
Hume asserted that this is just
“All ideas are derived from impossible. As long as we only derive
Hume
impressions.” our knowledge from sense
impressions, there will never be the
‘self.’ This means that for Hume, all
we know about ourselves are just
bundles of temporary impressions.
His theory explains that being or
the self is not in the body, it is outside
the body and even outside the
Kant “Self is always transcendental.”
qualities of the body. For Kant, ideas
are perceived by the self and they
are connecting the self and the world.
He proposed two models to
demonstrate this: The topographical
models where the individual person
may both know and do not know
certain things at the same time, the
“Sees the ‘I’ as a product of multiple seconds is structural model that
Freud interacting processes, systems and represent the self in three agencies:
schemes.” the id known as the primitive or
instinctive component, the ego part of
the id has been direct influence of the
external world and super ego
synthesizes the morals, values and
systems in our society.
It simply means that our
perceptions are caused by the
intricate experiences of the self, and
Merleau-Ponty “Perception as a casual process.”
processed intellectually while
distinguishing truthful perceptions
from illusory.
4. Self-Awareness Index
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5. Output Plans
a.) Debate:
This house believes that extrajudicial killings are illegal and a breach of
fundamental rights and freedoms.
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family if you killed by that criminal, protect yourself first because you protect your family and
the country and the people.
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