Prompt 5

Sam Bacurin

AP English

8/13/12

The Philosophical Project

          There are many, many recorded accounts of philosophers and their teachings. Not everyone and everything could be touched upon in Sophie's World, but the collection was diverse enough to give people a good crash course in philosophy and its history.

          Early philosophers' questions were very broad; not much was known about the world at the time. People still believed the Earth to be flat. Questions like "who are we", "where did we come" were prominent. The early philosophers I most agreed with were the ones who tried to make sense of the natural world around them. Empedocles categorized things into four groups or elements, this attempt at basic categorization led to other philosophers and scientists making important discoveries. Democritus developed the atom theory, a theory that, while being quite a bit more complex, was correct in the most fundamental way. Aristotle contributed to science and philosophy by categorizing things as mineral, vegetable, or meat. Broad categories they may be, the effort towards furthering the understanding of the natural world. As well as his scientific ventures, I agree with his philosophical ventures as well. Aristotle stated that we get the ideas from the natural world and not the other way around like Plato said. The philosopher's I most agreed with were the ones who made an attempt at furthering knowledge by observing and recording rather than questioning. While questioning is a great way to find information, to exclusively use that as a means of learning is ridiculous to me.

          A lot of the philosophers were bound by the summit of the knowledge of their time period so their theories didn't always abide by current scientific standards. I understand this so there are not many philosophers I flat out disagree with. Plato is an exception. He theorized that nothing can become substance until we imagine it. It's almost laughable, this means that in order for a cat to exist, Plato must have had to think of it first and give it all its attributes. Kant is another exception. While his rose tinted glasses experiment was good, his assumption that everyone is born with innate morals does not sit right with me. Morals come from personal experiences and knowledge. Animals aren't born with morals, so there is no reason why humans should have innate morals. 

          I like to think of myself as on the fringes of the rabbits fur, but that is expecting too much. Maybe once I get some more life experiences under my belt and some higher education I can stare into the Magician's eyes. I want to know our purpose here, if there is one. If there isn't a purpose for us, we simply exist; I want to know even more.