exam revision Flashcards
(10 cards)
what is stoicism
it is about living in agreement with nature and being self aware focusing on what is in our control rather than not
what was socrates philosophy
seeking knowledge and understanding through constantly questioning the things around us as the “unexamined life is not work living.” He also believed that we should follow majority and instead formulate our own opinions. He believed that we make bad decisions because we lack knowledge
what was plato’s philosophy
The physical world we experience is merely a shadow of a more perfect unchanging realm of ideal forms. In the realm of ideas beauty and justice exist as perfect forms and the objects we see are imperfect copies of these forms. We access this knowledge by remembering the forms our soul encountered in the realm of ideas before birth.
what was epicurus’ philosophy
He believed that happiness does not come from material possessions and instead it came from living a simple life where you have friendship, freedom and an analysed life. If you had friends who were permanent companions you could have pleasure, being self sufficient brings freedom from others and having an analysed life allows a person to reflect on their worries and what is troubling them so that they can remain happy.
what was Aristotle’s philosophy
he believed that a virtuous life was the key to achieving eudaimonia. We should live a life full of virtues such as courage and honesty which are the golden mean between two vices (excess and deficiency), it does us more good to act at the golden mean as acting with a deficiency/excess of a virtue will cause harm
what was Seneca’s philosophy?
He believed that we should control our anger as it is only an irrational reaction to something because we are surprised by what has happened because we had high expectations in the first place. Therefore he believes we should be pessimistic in order to take out this surprise that comes from being let down so that we do not get angry.
what is Nietzsche’s philosophy
Nietzsche believes that the best thing that you can do in the pursuit of happiness is put yourself through hardship and challenges and suffering in order to get there. He believed that failure was necessary and we had to learn from it in order to find happiness. We should never dull the pain and instead we should cultivate it to solve our problems and serve happiness. This was the idea of amor fati (love of fate) such that we should put ourselves through both the good and the bad in order to live a better life - it also to experience new things, live in the present, learn from mistakes.
what was Montaigne’s philosophy
Montaigne believed that there are 3 areas of inadequacy that people feel which are social (customs and habits), bodily and intellectual. Most of our insecurities stem from these 3 areas. He believed that because we have reasons it makes us arrogant and makes us feel inadequate or bad about ourselves. People don’t talk about their bodies enough so that makes people feel bad about things that aren’t common or talked about and people are inconsiderate of other cultural practices and this causes violence in society - we should travel to reduce this, and going to university is not the only determinant of intellectual ability.
Jean Paul- Sarte
He believed that our existence precedes our essence. As we live our lives we find out what it means to live a meaningful life - we have to define our own purpose and this means we have a freedom to do whatever we want to choose our own purpose. However this freedom comes with responsibility
Heidegger’s philosophy
When we are born we are thrown into the trajectory of the world - we have simply existed in a world that has pre-existed before us hence when we are born we are presented with a historical and spiritual and material environment. We attempt to find ourselves through various past times
These project ourselves to different futures and we are defining ourselves.
Being aware of death is the only way we can unlock our full potential. “the furthest horizon is our death”
We are kept up in our pastimes and forget about death. We are existing inauthentically and when we become aware of death as the ultimate limit to all our possibilities we finally think what it means to exist. We then change our priorities and project towards different futures - give ourselves freedom
