What's Philosophy?

في هذا الفيديو ، سأخبركم قصة الفلسفة الإنسانية التي تشمل 2500 سنة لا تصدق من التاريخ الفلسفي. بنهاية هذا الفيديو ، ستعرف جميع الأفكار والمدارس والمناهج الفلسفية الأساسية ، بالإضافة إلى بعض أكثر الفلاسفة تأثيرًا من جميع أنحاء العالم. يتكون الفيديو من 4 أجزاء رئيسية وكل منها يتكون من قسمين أو ثلاثة أقسام ، تمامًا مثل الفصول الموجودة في الكتب. في الجزء الأول ، سأجيب على السؤال الأكثر جوهرية. لماذا البشر هم النوع الوحيد الذي اخترع الفلسفة؟ أو من أين تأتي الفلسفة حقًا؟ كيف تطورت الفلسفة في الـ 2500 س

نة الماضية؟ ولماذا تمتلك الفلسفة العديد من الفروع مثل الأنطولوجيا ، ونظرية المعرفة ، والعقلانية ، والتجريبية ، والإنسانية ، والنفعية ، والوجودية ، وما بعد الحداثة ، وأكثر من ذلك؟ في الجزء الثاني ، سألقي نظرة على الأصل والاختلافات بين الفلسفة الشرقية والفلسفة الغربية. لماذا يؤكد المرء على الروحانية ، ويغير نفسك ، بينما يؤكد الآخر على العقلانية ، ويغير العالم. سوف ألقي نظرة على العمالقة اليونانيين لسقراط وأفلاطون وأرسطو ، بالإضافة إلى عمالقة الفلسفة الشرقية الثلاثة ، بوذا ولاو تزو وكونفوشيوس. في ا

لجزء الثالث ، سألقي نظرة على فلسفة الحياة والحضارة الإنسانية. هل الغرض من الحضارة الإنسانية تعزيز المساواة أم التنافس؟ هل الغرض من حياة الإنسان هو طلب العلم أم السعادة؟ سأناقش فلاسفة مثل صن تسو ومكيافيلي وتوماس هوبز وجان جاك روسو وفولتير وإيراسموس وميشيل دي مونتين وفرانسيس بيكون ومارتن هايدجر وميشيل فوكو وبرتراند راسل. في الجزء 4 ، سأتناول مسألة المعرفة والدافع البشري. كيف نعرف الواقع؟ سأناقش مدرسة العقلانية الأوروبية مقابل التجريبية البريطانية ومصالحة كانط بين الاثنين. بعد كانط ظهرت مدرستان فلس

فيتان متميزتان لشرح الدافع البشري. واحد اجتماعي وآخر نفسي. جادلت فلسفة هيجل الاجتماعية بأننا مدفوعون بالقوى التاريخية ، بينما جادلت فلسفة شوبنهاور النفسية بأننا مدفوعون بإرادة لاوعية عمياء. لذا احصل على كوب قوي من القهوة وبعض الفشار ودع Fiction Beast يأخذك في رحلة حول كيف أرعب دماغ الإنسان العاقل الضخم قلبهم الصغير. ونتيجة لذلك ، اخترعوا جميع أنواع الوحوش من الآلهة إلى الشياطين إلى الجنيات في محاولة لتهدئة أنفسهم وشرح العالم. لكنه اخترع أيضًا الفلسفة للإجابة على 3 أسئلة وجودية عميقة . لماذا انا

هنا؟ من أين أتيت؟ وإلى أين أنا ذاهب؟ للإجابة على سؤالك الأول ، أنت هنا لأنك مهتم بالفلسفة. فلنبدأ. لماذا الفلسفة؟ ما هي الفلسفة؟ كيف توصلنا إليها؟ لماذا نحتاجه؟ وماذا حدث للفلسفة اليوم؟ وما هو مستقبل الفلسفة؟ سأجيب اليوم على كل هذه الأسئلة بينما أناقش صعود وسقوط الفلسفة الإنسانية. نحن البشر نستخدم ثلاثة أسلحة ضخمة للتنقل في العالم من حولنا. وكلها مدمجة بداخلنا. نتيجة لذلك ، نحن البشر أكثر الحيوانات تعقيدًا التي عاشت على الأرض على الإطلاق ، وهذا أمر لا يصدق. في المرة القادمة التي يشتكي فيها شخص م

ا من كون العالم غير عادل ، ذكّره بهذه الأدوات الرائعة التي يمتلكها كل إنسان ، في حين أن الحيوانات الأخرى لا تمتلكها كلها. ما هم؟ مثل جميع الحيوانات ، فإن الغريزة هي الأداة الأولى والأكثر أهمية ، والتي في معظم الأحيان تشكل اللاوعي سلوكياتنا. لدينا ثلاث غرائز أساسية: الطعام والجنس والرفقة. غريزتنا الأولى والأكثر أهمية هي البقاء. لقد أمضينا ما لا يقل عن 8 ساعات أو ثلث يومنا في العمل لكسب الخبز. تخيل ، إذا لم تكن لدينا هذه الغريزة ، كيف ستحفز نفسك على العمل؟ أو الأسوأ كيف تحفز الآخرين على العمل؟ تتج

اوز غريزة البقاء لدينا الطعام ، فنحن غريزيًا نتجنب الخطر أو أي شيء يهدد حياتنا . هل تعرف ما حدث للمخلوقات التي لم يكن لديها غريزة البقاء على قيد الحياة؟ كانوا بحاجة إلى كتاب المساعدة الذاتية لتحفيز أنفسهم. بعد العمل لمدة 8 ساعات ، في المساء ، نقضي ساعات نتجول في باراتنا ومطاعمنا في وسط المدينة بحثًا عن رفيق أو مغازلة رفيقة. هذه هي غريزة الإنجاب. بالطبع في الوقت الحاضر نطارد رفيقنا لأغراض ترفيهية. الدافع الجنسي متأصل بقوة فينا ، وخاصة الرجال ، لدرجة أننا نفعل ذلك على الرغم من حقيقة أن معظمنا ليس

لديه خطة لإنجاب الأطفال. تميل الباندا العملاقة إلى الغريزة لأنها أصبحت كسولة للغاية بحيث لا تستطيع ممارسة الجنس ، لذلك تنفق الحكومة الصينية الكثير من المال لكسب المزيد من الباندا. تخيل أن أسلافنا لم يرغبوا في الإنجاب. لن نكون هنا. غريزتنا الأساسية الثالثة هي البحث عن صحبة البشر الآخرين. في حين أن الرجال لديهم رغبة جنسية أقوى ، فإن النساء لديهن رغبة أقوى في الشركة. بدون هذه الغريزة ، سينتهي بنا الأمر جميعًا بمفردنا وربما لن يكون لدينا حضارة أبدًا. تخبرنا غرائزنا بشكل أساسي بما يجب القيام به في مع

ظم الأوقات ، لذلك لا يتعين علينا التفكير حقًا في الأمر أو تحريف عقولنا لتحفيز أنفسنا على القيام بهذه الأشياء. نسعى بشكل غريزي إلى الحصول على طعام ، وشريك ، وصحبة الآخرين ، مما يسمح لعقلنا الواعي بتوفير الطاقة في شيء آخر. السلاح الثاني في كيفية تعاملنا مع الحياة هو عواطفنا ، والتي تتقلب يومًا بعد يوم وتسمح لنا بفهم أنفسنا ومن حولنا. تعطينا عواطفنا تلميحات عن بيئتنا. اعتمادًا على الزمان والمكان ، نشعر بالغضب والحزن والخوف والرضا والسعادة والنشوة. إذا كانت الغرائز مثل المناخ الذي يظل مستقرًا على ال

مدى الطويل ، فإن عواطفنا تشبه ما إذا كان ذلك ينظم حياتنا اليومية. تدفعنا حوافزنا الغريزية إلى القيام بأشياء لتحقيق ما نريد ، لكن بيئتنا تقول نعم أو لا. على سبيل المثال في البحث عن شريك ، نريد شخصًا ما ولكن هذا الشخص يريد شخصًا آخر. أو الأسوأ من ذلك أن بقاءنا مهددًا ، تسمح لنا عواطفنا بالتأقلم. لذا تسمح لنا العواطف بالنمو والتغيير والتكيف مع مكان أو شخص جديد بسرعة إلى حد ما. عواطفنا قوية بشكل لا يصدق في تحفيزنا على فعل الأشياء على الفور. تساعدنا المشاعر السلبية أو الإيجابية على النمو والمضي قدمًا

والبحث عن بيئة أفضل. في الواقع ، أحد أسباب غزو البشر للعالم هو أننا لسنا سعداء حيث نحن لفترة طويلة. بصرف النظر عن البحث عن الغذاء والسلامة ، يدفعنا الملل أيضًا. لذا فإن عواطفنا تمنح عقولنا الواعية مزيدًا من وقت الفراغ للقيام بأشياء أخرى. بدلاً من ذلك ، تقوم عواطفنا بعملنا في تحفيزنا على التحرك والنمو والتغيير. سلاحنا الثالث ، وربما الأكثر تطوراً لدينا هو العقل ، وهو أساس العلم والتكنولوجيا الذي يسمح للحضارات بالازدهار. هذا يجعلنا مختلفين عن الحيوانات الأخرى ، وقدرتنا على اتخاذ قرارات عقلانية بن

اءً على المعرفة المستنيرة والمخاطر المحسوبة. الغريزة والعواطف متأصلة فينا منذ الولادة ولكن العقلانية يتم تعلمها في الغالب من خلال التجارب المباشرة الخاصة بنا ، وكذلك المعرفة التي يتم نقلها من آبائنا وأجدادنا سواء شفهيًا أو كتابيًا. في الواقع ، عقلانيتنا قوية جدًا بحيث يمكنها تنظيم غرائزنا وعواطفنا. على سبيل المثال ، تسمح لنا قدرتنا على تأخير الإشباع بالتخلي عن سعادتنا الحالية من أجل المتعة في المستقبل وعلى المدى الطويل . بالطبع ، لا يولد كل البشر متساوين عندما يتعلق الأمر بتأخير الإشباع. البعض ي

ريد كعكتهم على الفور. يمكن للبعض الانتظار لفترة أطول قليلاً. لكن العقلانية هي أداة رائعة بالنسبة لنا لننظر إلى المدى الطويل ، ليس فقط هنا والآن. نعيش اليوم في عالم حديث ، أو في عصر العقلانية. جميع وسائل الراحة التكنولوجية الحديثة لدينا هي نتيجة العلم العقلاني. وخلاصة القول ، إن البشر مرتبطون بثلاث أدوات لا تصدق: الغرائز والعواطف والعقل. لكن أين الفلسفة من هذا؟ كلمة فلسفة في اليونانية تعني حب الحكمة. لذلك كان أول علم بشري حقيقي هو الفلسفة. في الواقع ، كان الفلاسفة هم أول المفكرين العقلانيين الذين

حلوا محل الحكماء من الرجال أو النساء. كانوا مفكرين مهنيين ، مما يعني أنهم كانوا معروفين بأفكارهم وحكمهم. لذا فإن الفلسفة في جوهرها هي التفكير العقلاني المنظم. بعبارة أخرى ، أساسها العقلاني. لماذا ا؟ لقد طورنا نحن البشر دماغًا أكثر تطورًا ، وربما سمح لنا اكتشاف النار بطهي طعامنا ، حتى نتمكن من هضم طعامنا بشكل أسرع نتيجة لذلك كان لدينا المزيد من الوقت للتفكير. عندما تكون مشغولاً ، ليس لديك وقت للتفكير. في الواقع ، أفكر في تفكيري أثناء وجودي في المرحاض ، لأنني لا آخذ هاتفي الذكي معي. لكن هذا الدما

غ ، الذي كان جيدًا من نواحٍ عديدة ، جاء أيضًا مع عيب. سمح لنا بتطوير الوعي الحاد والوعي الذاتي. كلما فهمنا بيئتنا ووجودنا ، كلما بدأنا في التفكير وطرح بعض الأسئلة الصعبة. أحد الأسباب ، أننا اليوم نتحكم في عقولنا من خلال إبقاء أنفسنا مشغولين أو مرتبطين بشيء ما ، مثل العمل أو الترفيه أو هواتفنا الذكية. مع هذا العقل المفكر ، جاء الوعي الأكثر تدميراً على الإطلاق. الموت. قد تعرف الحيوانات الأخرى الموت عندما يتعلق الأمر بها ، لذا فهي تتجنب المخاطر بشكل غريزي. لكننا نحن الوحوش البشرية نعرف الموت منذ سن

مبكرة. كحيوانات عقلانية ، نتعلم من الماضي لتوقع المستقبل. بعبارة أخرى ، نتوقع الموت. على الرغم من محاولتنا عدم التفكير في الأمر ، لدينا هذا الخوف في مؤخرة أذهاننا. لذلك أصبح دماغنا هذا قويًا بما يكفي لطرح أسئلة مهمة. لماذا نحن هنا؟ ما هو الواقع وكيف نعرفه. لم يستطع البشر الأوائل تفسير العالم والحياة والأشياء من حولهم ، وخاصة الشمس والضوء والفصول والرعد والنار وما إلى ذلك. ولكن السؤال الأهم كان لماذا الموت. هذا هو الموضوع الرئيسي لأقدم قصة بشرية على قيد الحياة ، ملحمة جلجامش ، التي كتبت قبل 3-40

00 عام ، والتي يبحث فيها البطل عن الخلود لكنه فشل للأسف. لكي يواسي نفسه ، قام ببناء مدينة حتى يتذكره الناس. اخترع البشر الآخرون الآلهة والأديان كبطانيات أمنية. في الواقع ، الخوف من الموت قوي جدًا لدى البشر لدرجة أن كل دين تقريبًا قد مدد الحياة إلى ما بعد الحياة ، لذلك لم يعد الموت يخيفنا بعد الآن. يمكنك القول أن حياة الإنسان قصيرة جدًا لدرجة أنه يتعين علينا أن نعيش حياة أخرى. ومع ذلك ، فإن معظم الناس اليوم لا يؤمنون بالحياة الآخرة. سياسياً أو عمليا ، كانت المجتمعات البشرية المبكرة يحكمها الأقوى

بينهم أو مجموعة من الرجال الأقوياء. ثم مع مرور الوقت ، تم إنشاء الأجيال اللاحقة ، والأساطير والأساطير والقصص عن هؤلاء الأشخاص الأقوياء. مع مرور الوقت ، أعطت هذه الأساطير والأساطير هؤلاء الأشخاص الأقوياء الأوائل أدوارًا عملاقة تشبه الآلهة. كما قال إيتالو كالفينو ذات مرة ، يتم سرد الحكايات الشعبية وإعادة سردها عدة مرات حتى تصبح مثل الحصى ، ناعمة ولامعة ومثالية. بالطبع ، كانت الآلهة الأولى عادة ظواهر غير بشرية مثل الشمس ، والرعد ، والضوء ، والظلام ، والأرض وما إلى ذلك ، ولكن بمرور الوقت اتخذت شكلاً

شبه بشري. أصبحت هذه الأفكار لاحقًا أكثر تعقيدًا في شكل ديني يروي قصصًا متطورة عن أصل الحياة ويفسر أيضًا الموت من خلال الحياة الآخرة أو القيامة أو التناسخ. لكن الفلاسفة حاولوا الشرح دون الاعتماد على الآلهة وما هو خارق للطبيعة. لذلك استخدموا العقل لطرح سؤالين مهمين ، أصبحا الركيزتين الأساسيتين للفلسفة. واحد ، ما هو موجود بالفعل ، والثاني ، كيف نعرفه. لذا فإن الأنطولوجيا تسأل ما هو الواقع وما هي الأشياء الموجودة أو غير الموجودة ، وتتساءل نظرية المعرفة كيف نعرف العالم. لذلك أصبحت الفلسفة أداة عقلان

ية للإنسان لفهم العالم ومعنى الحياة وكيفية التنقل حول العالم بشكل صحيح. لذلك درس الفلاسفة الأوائل كل العلوم ، من النجوم إلى الضفادع وكل شيء بينهما. ولكن إذا قمت بتلخيصها ، فإن الموضوعات الرئيسية الثلاثة للفلاسفة هي العالم المادي ، وأصل الحياة والعقل البشري. بمعنى آخر ، ما هو العالم وكيف يعمل؟ ما هي الحياة وكيف تعمل؟ وما هو العقل البشري وكيف يعمل؟ لذا تذكر أن هذه الموضوعات الرئيسية الثلاثة تلعب أيضًا دورًا في انهيار الفلسفة. مع مرور الوقت ، أصبحت الفلسفة كبيرة جدًا ومتطورة جدًا ، لذا فقد ولدت تخص

صات أخرى. في القرنين الخامس عشر والسادس عشر في أوروبا ، وُلد أول طفل. على سبيل المثال ، كان جاليليو وكوبرنيكوس ونيوتن رواد الفيزياء ، لذلك تولى علماء الفيزياء مهمة دراسة العالم والكون والنجوم والكواكب والمادة ككل. كان هناك عبء كبير على عاتق الفلاسفة الآن ، لذلك ركزوا أكثر على الميتافيزيقيا ، أي معنى الحياة وممتلكات العقل البشري. لكن في القرنين الثامن عشر والتاسع عشر ، وُلد طفل آخر. تولى علم الأحياء مهمة دراسة الحياة. لم يعد الفلاسفة بحاجة إلى تشريح الضفادع أو فهم جسم الإنسان. أحد علماء الأحياء ا

لمهمين هو تشارلز داروين ، الذي أحدثت نظريته في التطور عن طريق الانتقاء الطبيعي ثورة في كل ما نعرفه عن الحياة وأصلها. لذلك تُرك الفلاسفة للتركيز فقط على العقل البشري. لكن لسوء الحظ كانوا ينتزعون ذلك بعيدًا عن الفلاسفة أيضًا. في أواخر القرن التاسع عشر وأوائل القرن العشرين ، أنجبت الفلسفة طفلها الأخير. نسميها علم النفس الذي تولى مهمة دراسة العقل البشري. هناك اسمان كبيران هما سيغموند فرويد وكارل يونغ اللذان وضع كلاهما أهمية على العقل الباطن واللاوعي كحافز أكبر في السلوك البشري. لذلك لم يعد على الفلا

سفة تشخيص العقل البشري بعد الآن. Phew ، لعدة قرون ، كان الفلاسفة يؤدون وظائف أربعة أشخاص ، فيزيائي ، وعالم أحياء ، وعالم نفس ، وفيلسوف. الآن يمكنهم الاستمتاع بقليل من وقت الفراغ والجلوس على كراسيهم المريحة ويكونوا فلاسفة. بعد كل شيء ، يجب على الجميع التقاعد في مرحلة ما. لكن التقاعد فترة صعبة في حياة أي شخص. بدون القيام بأشياء ، إما أن تواجه أزمة وجودية ، أو تصبح كسولًا وتتعفن بعيدًا. لذلك أصبح الفلاسفة اليوم كسالى بعض الشيء بشكل عام. لكنهم أيضًا بعيدون بعض الشيء لأن الفيزياء وعلم الأحياء وعلم ال

نفس أصبحت متخصصة للغاية ، لذا لا يتوفر للفلاسفة الوقت الكافي لدراسة جميع التخصصات الثلاثة بدقة. كما أنهم لا يريدون أن تتسخ أيديهم في تشريح الضفادع أو قضاء ساعات في التحديق في التلسكوب لدراسة النجوم أو قضاء الوقت مع مرضى عقليًا . لذا فإن السؤال الكبير هو: ما هو هدف الفلسفة اليوم؟ هل يجب أن يوحد الفيزياء وعلم الأحياء وعلم النفس مرة أخرى؟ أم يجب أن تجد طريقًا جديدًا لنفسها. نيتشه ، أول من قام بتشخيص مشكلة الفلسفة الغربية بشكل كامل ، أعاد الفلسفة إلى الكهف من خلال زرادشت الذي بدلاً من أن يتنبأ بإله

واحد والإله ، يخبرنا عن نوع جديد من البشر ، أوبرمنش الذي بدلاً من اتباع القيم الاجتماعية ، يصنعون أعمالًا جديدة من خلال أعمالهم الفنية والفلسفية ، مثل البشر الأوائل الذين ذهبوا إلى الكهف لاكتساب الحكمة. انتقد نيتشه الفلسفة لكونها عقلانية للغاية وليست شغوفة بما فيه الكفاية. الفلسفة هو رجل عجوز أنجب العديد من الأطفال الرائعين ويشعر الآن بالضياع. لماذا ا؟ انها بسيطة جدا. يفتقر إلى العاطفة. بدأت الفلسفة كأداة عقلانية ، لكنها كانت أيضًا انهيارها. كما رأينا ، سيطرت علوم مثل الفيزياء والأحياء على الجان

ب العقلاني للفلسفة وتولى علم النفس على الجانب غير العقلاني للفلسفة ليصفه بوقاحة شديدة. ماذا تبقى؟ ليس كثيراً. هل الفلسفة محكوم عليها بالكامل؟ كذلك ليس تماما. لدي إجابة. ذكرت سابقًا الأسلحة البشرية الثلاثة الكبيرة: الغرائز والعواطف والعقل. يهتم علم الأحياء وعلم النفس بالغريزة واللاوعي. يهتم الأدب بالعواطف البشرية من خلال سرد القصص. والعلم يهتم بالعقل. إذن هل الفلسفة بدون كرسي الآن؟ ليس تماما. الحل الذي أقدمه هو الحدس البشري. ها أنت ذا. يجب أن تقوم الفلسفة الجديدة على حدس الإنسان. ما هو الحدس؟ باخ

تصار ، تكون الغرائز في الغالب غير واعية ، والعقل واعٍ في الغالب والعواطف في مكان ما في المنتصف. أين يتناسب الحدس؟ إنه في مكان ما بين الغريزة ، أساس الصخور الصلبة والعقل ، سقف الصخور الصلبة فوق رأسك. لذا فإن الحدس يكون مائعًا بين سطحين صلبين وأيضًا بجوار العواطف ، وهو أكثر تقلبًا وأكثر مرونة. الحدس هو طبقة أعمق من العقلانية ومستوى أعلى من الغريزة. لذا يجب أن تستند الفلسفة الجديدة على الحدس لأنه يمتلك وصولًا مباشرًا إلى الغريزة والعقل أيضًا. لذا فهي تتناسب بشكل صحيح بين علم النفس اللاواعي والعلوم

العقلانية الواعية مثل الفيزياء وعلم الأحياء. لا يستخدم العلماء الحدس ، لذا فهو أداة مثالية للفلسفة لفهم العالم وتفسيره. لماذا الحدس؟ يمكن للفلسفة القائمة على الحدس أن تزودنا بسلاح أفضل للتعامل مع المعاناة. توفر لنا العقلانية من خلال العلوم الأمن والمنفعة الجسدية والراحة من خلال الطب والتكنولوجيا ، مثل الأب التقليدي. العلم يبني منزلك ، وينتج الطعام والملابس. تمنحك العواطف الحب والرعاية مثل الأم التقليدية ، وهي الأدب والقصص. يوفر لك الحدس القدرة على الحصول على رؤى وأفكار أصلية وإبداع والقدرة على ر

بط النقاط بحيث يكون لديك هدف أو مهمة في الحياة أو صلة بالمجتمع. الحدس سريع وسريع وفي الوقت الحالي بصيرة أو عبقرية تسمح للمجتمعات بالتقدم إلى الأمام. في الواقع ، يمكن أن تُعزى معظم الاختراعات والاكتشافات إلى الحدس ، وليس التفكير العقلاني. العقل بطيء ، والغريزة جامدة للغاية والعواطف تشوش على حكمك في الوقت الحالي ، لكن الحدس يصيب ويفتقد. عندما يضرب ، يضيء ضوءًا جديدًا. إذن ، هل يوجد فيلسوف يؤسس فلسفته على الحدس؟ أنا سعيد لأنك سألت. نعم هناك . جادل الفيلسوف الفرنسي هنري بيرجسون ، بأن الحدس يمكن أن ي

نشط الحياة ويمنحنا شرارة جديدة. كما جادل نيتشه ، أصبحت الفلسفة القائمة على العقل قديمة للغاية. بالنسبة لبرجسون ، الحدس هو أقرب شيء إلى تجربة مباشرة لشيء ما. على سبيل المثال ، إذا كنت تريد معرفة مدينة ، فيمكنك قراءة جميع الخرائط والصور الفوتوغرافية لجميع المباني ، ولكن لا يمكن أن تكون جيدة كما لو كنت تمشي في شوارع تلك المدينة. على سبيل المثال ، لا يمكنك أبدًا نقل مذاق التفاحة بالكامل إلى شخص لم يأكل تفاحة مطلقًا. هذه التجربة البديهية هي أقرب ما نشعر به نحن البشر لتجربة طعم تفاحة. لذا يعيدنا الحدس

إلى طبيعتنا ، بينما العقل يبعدنا عن الطبيعة. بالطبع ، يشتهر برجسون بفلسفته في الوقت والإبداع والفكاهة. كان يعتقد أن الحدس والحياة يسيران معًا. نحن نعلم أن العقل يحاول ترويض غرائزنا وعواطفنا الطبيعية. هذا صحيح ، ولكن يمكن أيضًا أن يذهب بعيدًا في ترويضنا إلى حيوان سهل الانقياد بلا حيوية. تُدعى فلسفة برجسون بالحيوية لأنه أراد أن يحررنا من سلسلة العقل. لذلك بدأت الفلسفة كأداة عقلانية لفهم العالم والحياة والعقل البشري. ثم تخلت عن تلك الأدوار لعلماء الفيزياء والأحياء وعلماء النفس. الآن يكاد يكون زائد

ا عن الحاجة لذلك نحن بحاجة إلى فلسفة بديهية جديدة. لكن لكي نفهم الفلسفة حقًا ، وأين تقف اليوم ، نحتاج إلى معرفة تاريخ الفلسفة ومدارسها ومقارباتها المختلفة والشرقية والغربية والإنسانيات والحيوانيون والعقلانيون والتجريبيون والفلسفة الاجتماعية مقابل الفلسفة الفردية. لذا في الحلقات التالية ، سوف أتناول الفلسفة الإنسانية لأقدم لكم لمحة عامة عن 2500 سنة كاملة من الفلسفة الإنسانية. بعد ذلك ، سأشرح بعض المصطلحات الفلسفية الشائعة مثل ما هو الفرق بين الأنطولوجيا مقابل نظرية المعرفة ، والفيزياء مقابل الميت

افيزيقيا ، والعقلانية مقابل التجريبية ، والإنسانية مقابل النفعية ، والوجودية مقابل ما بعد الحداثة ، وأكثر من ذلك. ابقوا متابعين. الفلسفة في 17 كلمة لقد ناقشت سابقًا أن الفلسفة في جوهرها تتعامل مع سؤالين أساسيين. ما هو وكيف نعرفه. يؤدي هذان السؤالان بدورهما إلى أسئلة أخرى ، مثل كيف يجب أن نعيش حياتنا. لذا في هذا الجزء سألقي نظرة على بعض المصطلحات الفلسفية الهامة والأسئلة والفروع المختلفة للفلسفة. على سبيل المثال ، ما هي الاختلافات بين الأنطولوجيا ونظرية المعرفة ، أو بين العقل والمنطق ، أو بين الإ

نسانية والنفعية ، أو بين الوجودية وما بعد الحداثة. ما هي الميتافيزيقيا؟ ما هو الفرق بين العقلانية والتجريبية؟ وما هي الظواهر؟ والأهم من ذلك لماذا نتصارع مع أكبر سؤال اليوم بين المساواة والنخبوية. علم الوجود مقابل نظرية المعرفة: استندت الفلسفة المبكرة إلى سؤالين رئيسيين. ما هو الواقع الذي أصبح أنطولوجيا وكيف نعرفه وهو نظرية المعرفة. لذا فإن الأنطولوجيا تسأل ما هو موجود وما هو غير موجود ، وتتساءل نظرية المعرفة كيف نعرف الشيء الموجود أو غير الموجود. على سبيل المثال ، وفقًا للفلسفة الأنطولوجية ، فإن

البشر إما حيوانات أو ليسوا حيوانات. إذا لم تكن الحيوانات ، فإن البشر مقدسون وذوو قيمة أساسية. إنه مقبول كأساس بناءً على إيمانك ، لذا فإن قتل إنسان من أخطر الجرائم. لذلك أنت لا تقتل على أساس الفكرة الأنطولوجية القائلة بأن حياة الإنسان مقدسة. لذا فقد ولدت الفلسفة الأنطولوجية العلوم من أجل فهم العالم والطبيعة وعلم الأحياء البشري. يعتبر أرسطو عادة أب العلوم الحديثة. من ناحية أخرى ، تتعلق نظرية المعرفة بكيفية جمعنا للمعرفة. خير مثال على ذلك هو كيف نعرف ما نعرفه. قال إيمانويل كانت إنه لا يمكننا أبدًا

معرفة الحقيقة كما هي ، لكننا نعرف الأشياء فقط على مستوى محدود. لماذا ا؟ لأن كل شيء يجب أن يمر عبر العقل البشري ، والذي يتم تنظيمه بطريقة تصنف الأشياء بطريقة معينة. بعبارة أخرى ، نحن البشر نضع هيكلًا على العالم بناءً على كيفية عمل العقل البشري ، والعالم في حد ذاته غير معروف لنا لأننا لا نستطيع إخراج عقلنا البشري. لا يمكننا أبدًا معرفة الشيء في حد ذاته. ذهب ميشيل فوكو خطوة أخرى إلى الأمام قائلاً إن المعرفة قوة ، مما يعني أن من يمتلكون العلم والتكنولوجيا لديهم قوة هائلة على الآخرين. قال إنه لا يوج

د علم محايد أو خال من السلطة. المعرفة أداة في يد الأقوياء. سوف أناقش هذا أكثر في وقت لاحق. باختصار ، الأنطولوجيا هي فلسفة الوجود ، بينما نظرية المعرفة هي فلسفة معرفة ذلك الوجود. الميتافيزيقا مقابل الفيزياء: كانت الفيزياء جزءًا من الدراسات الفلسفية حتى قبل بضعة قرون قبل أن تصبح تخصصًا منفصلاً. تدرس الفيزياء بشكل أساسي المادة ، من أصغر الجسيمات إلى أكبر النجوم. ومع ذلك ، فإن الميتافيزيقيا هي دراسة ما هو أبعد من العالم المادي ، مثل الأفكار والأشكال والروح ، وهو أقرب إلى الأفكار الدينية عن الله والأ

رواح. قد يقول أحد العلماء أن الوعي البشري متجذر في المادة ولن يكون موجودًا بدون خلايا الدماغ. من ناحية أخرى ، قد يقول الميتافيزيقي ، أن الوعي مستقل عن المادة ، إما أنه يأتي من قوة أعلى أو أن الكون نفسه واعي. لذا فإن الفيزياء هي دراسة المادة الفيزيائية بينما الميتافيزيقيا هي دراسة الكيانات غير المادية. السبب مقابل المنطق: تعود أصول المنطق إلى الرياضيات. على سبيل المثال ، 2 + 2 = 4 منطقية لأنها تتبع قاعدة صارمة جدًا تمنحك إجابة واحدة. لكن المنطق يستخدم أيضًا كلغة الفلسفة من أجل توصيل الأفكار الفلس

فية. لذا فإن المنطق مثل الأساس الذي تجري عليه النقاشات الفلسفية. بدون منطق ، من الصعب جدًا التحدث إلى الآخرين لأنه من أجل إجراء مناقشة ، يجب أن يكون هناك بعض القواعد الأساسية التي يتفق عليها جميع الفلاسفة. لذا فإن المنطق هو وسيلة تواصل للحجج الفلسفية. وخير مثال على ذلك هو Ludwig Wittgenstein الذي أراد جعل التواصل دقيقًا قدر الإمكان. كما طبق برتراند راسل الرياضيات على الفلسفة. غالبًا ما يسير العقل والمنطق جنبًا إلى جنب. نظرًا لأن المنطق صارم جدًا ، مثل الكمبيوتر أو لعبة الشطرنج ، يجادل البعض بأنه

يحد من قدرة البشر على التعبير عن الأشياء التي تتجاوز المنطق ، مثل العواطف البشرية والعاطفة. لذا فإن العقل أو العقلانية أكثر ذاتية إلى حد ما وأقل صرامة علميًا مثل المنطق. لذلك غالبًا ما يستخدم العقل لإقناع الناس بينما المنطق مستقل عن النتيجة. بمعنى آخر ، إذا استخدم شخص ما المنطق ، فقد لا تفيد النتيجة الحجة بينما يكون السبب أكثر انتقائية ، لذلك يستخدم الناس العقل لدعم حجتهم. غالبًا ما نستخدم العقلانية كشكل سلبي من العقل يستخدم لإقناع الناس. المنطق أكثر رياضية بينما العقل أكثر لغوية. العقلانية مقا

بل التجريبية: العقلانية هي مدرسة فلسفية تعتقد أننا نفهم العالم بناءً على قدرتنا السابقة على التفكير. إنها تضع الإنسان كمخلوق خاص له القدرة على معرفة العالم ، لذلك فهو متجذر في الأديان التي تضع البشر كاستثناء لمملكة الحيوان. بعبارة أخرى ، لقد تم تجميعنا مسبقًا مع العقل كأداة. خير مثال على العقلاني هو رينيه ديكارت الذي قال بشكل مشهور أعتقد ، إذن أنا موجود. بعبارة أخرى ، كانت القدرة على التفكير المنطقي كافية لمعرفة وجودنا. كان لايبنيز عقلانيًا مشهورًا آخر. من ناحية أخرى ، تعتقد التجريبية أننا نعرف

العالم من خلال التجربة. أفكارنا تأتي نتيجة الخبرة. نحن نعرف خاصية النار لأننا نشعر بالحرارة. لا يخاف الأطفال من النار بداخلهم منذ الولادة. نشعر بالألم ، لذلك نربط النار بالألم. التجريبية بريطانية أكثر بينما العقلانية أوروبية قارية بشكل رئيسي الفرنسية والألمانية. التجريبيون المشهورون هم جون لوك وديفيد هيوم. كما أن التجريبية قريبة أيضًا من البراغماتية ، والتي ترتبط في الغالب بمناخات شمال أوروبا الباردة ، مما يجعلك أكثر عملية. جمع إيمانويل كانط بين العقلانية والتجريبية في فلسفته ، قائلاً إن التجربة

لا تكفي لمعرفة العالم. يفرض هيكلنا العقلي فئات على العالم. بعبارة أخرى ، نحن لسنا سلبيين ، فقط نتلقى المعرفة من خلال التجارب ، لكننا نمنح العالم بنية فعالة. قال إننا لا نستطيع أن نعرف العالم كما هو ، لكن معرفتنا بالعالم تقتصر على حدود البنية العقلية البشرية. أدت فلسفة كانط أيضًا إلى ظهور الفينومينولوجيا التي تدرس موضوعًا متعلقًا بتجربتنا الخاصة ، وليس الشيء في حد ذاته. لقد ميز كانط بين الظواهر ، وهي الطريقة التي نختبر بها العالم ونومينا ، وهو العالم في حد ذاته ، والذي لا يمكننا معرفته أبدًا. سو

ف أناقش هذا لاحقا. لذلك بالنسبة للعقلانيين ، نحن نعرف العالم لأننا نعرف بينما بالنسبة إلى التجريبيين ، نحن نعرف العالم لأننا نختبر الأشياء. الفلسفة السياسية مقابل الأخلاق: الأخلاق هي فرع من فروع الفلسفة التي تتعامل مع الأخلاق والعدالة والنظام القانوني. الأخلاق أكثر عملية وواقعية بينما تتعامل الفلسفة السياسية مع كيف تقرر المجتمعات ما هو صواب وما هو خطأ وكيف نعيش بسلام في مجتمع وكيف نعاقب أولئك الذين يخالفون القواعد. مع تطور المجتمع ، تتطور أخلاقه ، لذلك تتغير الأخلاق. شيء قد يكون مقبولاً أخلاقياً

قبل بضعة قرون ، غير مقبول اليوم. كما يعتمد على الثقافة. بعض الأفعال صحيحة أخلاقياً في ثقافة ما ، لكن ليس في ثقافة أخرى. الفلسفة السياسية هي دراسة الأخلاق وكيف تتغير. المساواة في مقابل النخبوية: أحد الأسئلة الأساسية التي تصارع الفلسفة على مر القرون هو فكرة المساواة مقابل الجودة. تعود جذور فلسفة المساواة في الأديان مثل المسيحية إلى أن جميع البشر متساوون في الكرامة ومقدسون. لكن المساواة كفلسفة برزت في أوروبا خلال فترة التنوير في القرنين الثامن عشر والتاسع عشر. ربما يكون كارل ماركس أشهر فيلسوف مساو

اة يؤمن بمجتمع شيوعي حيث يتم تقاسم جميع الموارد بالتساوي بين الناس. من ناحية أخرى ، تعتقد النخبوية أنه يجب علينا إدارة المجتمع على أساس الجدارة ، مما يعني عدم حصول الجميع على كأس. يستحق بعض الناس حقوقًا وامتيازات معينة لأنهم حصلوا على تلك الأشياء. النخبوية لها جذورها في الطبيعة ، لأن مملكة الحيوان تعمل وفق التسلسل الهرمي الذي هو جزء من العملية التطورية. أشهر فيلسوف نخبوي كان فريدريك نيتشه الذي عاش بالمصادفة في نفس الوقت الذي عاش فيه ماركس. بالنسبة لنيتشه ، فإن الفنانين والفلاسفة العظام ليسوا مثل

الناس العاديين ، لذلك لا ينبغي معاملتهم على هذا النحو. اليوم ، أكبر نقاش في الغرب هو هاتان المدرستان الفكريتان ، المساواة للجميع أو الامتيازات لمن يكسبونها. لذا تؤمن فلسفة المساواة بالمساواة للجميع بينما تؤمن الفلسفة النخبوية بالمزايا. الإنسانية مقابل النفعية: ولدت الإنسانية في أوروبا خلال عصر التنوير في القرن الثامن عشر ، والتي استبدلت الإله بالبشر. بدلاً من أن يكون الإلهي مسؤولاً عن هذا الكوكب ، فقد افترضنا نحن البشر العقلانيون ملكية هذا الكوكب. يؤمن أنصار الإنسانية بعالم يسوده المساواة حيث ج

ميع البشر متساوون ، وهو أمر متجذر في الأديان ، وهو الاعتقاد بأن البشر خلقوا متساوين. لكن في الواقع هذا ليس صحيحًا. ليس كل البشر متساوون. بعضها أكثر مساواة من البعض الآخر ، كما قال جورج أورويل في مقال مشهور في مزرعة الحيوانات. لذا فإن السؤال الكبير في الفلسفة هو: أي البشر يجب أن يحدد قيمنا الاجتماعية والسياسية والأخلاقية ؟ هنا تأتي النفعية ، وهي فرع من النزعة الإنسانية تؤمن بالقيم الأخلاقية التي تفيد أكبر عدد من الناس. ليس كل البشر ، ولكن الغالبية العظمى من البشر. تركز أداة الكلمة على كيف يفيد شي

ء ما شخصًا ما. سيطر الملوك والأرستقراطيين على عالم ما قبل التنوير بينما عملت الأغلبية لصالح الأقلية. مع جذورها في فلسفة مكيافيلي للغاية تبرر الوسيلة ، قلبت النفعية هذا رأسًا على عقب ، بدلاً من الأقلية ، ركزت على الأغلبية. يجب الحكم على جميع الإجراءات من خلال نتائجها التي تجلب أكبر قدر من السعادة لأكبر عدد من الناس. كانت النفعية كبيرة في إنجلترا وأشهرها كان جيريمي بينثام ولاحقًا ستيوارت ميل. تشبه الديمقراطية اليوم إلى حد ما حكم الأغلبية النفعية ، على الورق على الأقل. ولدت الإنسانية أيضًا مذاهب أخ

رى ، مثل الاشتراكية التي تقسم العالم على أساس الطبقة ، والنسوية التي تقسم العالم على أساس الجنس والقومية التي تقسم العالم على أساس القومية أو العرق أو اللغة. لذا فإن النزعة الإنسانية تضع البشر في موقع المسؤولية عن الكوكب ، وتقول النفعية إن غالبية البشر. ما بعد الحداثة مقابل الوجودية: انتشرت الوجودية بعد أن تجادل فلسفة نيتشه بأن كل شيء يبدأ بوجودنا ، وليس الله أو بعض الجوهر الإلهي. لا توجد شرارة إلهية ، لكننا فقط نطور إحساسًا بالذات خلال حياتنا ، ولا شيء يُمنح لنا قبل ولادتنا. كان الفيلسوف الوجود

ي الشهير جان بول سارتر الذي قال إنه بما أننا لا نملك جوهرًا ، فنحن مسؤولون عن صنع شيء ما لأنفسنا. لقد قال بشكل مشهور أننا محكومون علينا بأن نكون أحرارًا. في حين أن الوجودية تهتم بالفرد ، فإن ما بعد الحداثة المنتشرة في فرنسا تهتم أكثر بالمجتمعات أو المجموعات الثقافية. تمامًا مثل الوجودية ، فهي متجذرة أيضًا في فلسفة نيتشه ، وتحديداً في نقده لحقيقة واحدة ضمن التقليد الفلسفي الغربي. بينما تركز الوجودية على حالة الوجود البشري ، تركز ما بعد الحداثة على فكرة الحقيقة والقيم الاجتماعية. كانت الفلسفة الغر

بية تؤمن بالحقيقة الواحدة ، مثل فكرة وجود إله واحد. لذلك شككت ما بعد الحداثة في الحداثة الأوروبية كمشروع لتوحيد العالم بأسره حول القيم الأوروبية للفردانية والحرية والمادية. وفقًا لما بعد الحداثيين ، فإن جميع الثقافات صالحة مثل الثقافة الأوروبية ، وبالتالي لا يتعين على العالم أن يصبح مثل أوروبا حتى يتم اعتباره حضاريًا. ما بعد الحداثة هو رد فعل على الحداثة التي تشمل إنسانية التنوير من ناحية ، ولكن الاستعمار من ناحية أخرى. Postmodernists put emphasis on power relations, how the weak are forcefully

pushed to one side. A famous postmodernist, Michel Foucault, analysed how the modern state develops effective tools to control people, through the prison system, surveillance, mass education and more. He argued that even sexuality is a power-dynamics, men oppressing women, which had a huge influence on third-wave feminism that some argue has become anti-men and anti-masculinity. Foucault even said all knowledge is tied to power, so there is no independent science, therefore science and technolog

y are tools for the powerful to control the weak. So to sum up, the core philosophy includes ontology of existence, epistemology of knowledge and everything else is a branch of these two. Physics and metaphysics are part of ontology. Physics deals with matter while metaphysics deals with non-material phenomena such as ideas and consciousness. Reason, logic, rationalism and empiricism are part of epistemology. Reason is the tool to persuade others, therefore more subjective, while logic is mathem

atical and impartial. Rationalism says knowledge comes from within while empiricism says knowledge only comes from experience or outside. So outside ontology and epistemology is the philosophy of how to live. Political philosophy studies morality of good and bad, equality or meritocracy, majority mass or minority elite. This is also tied to the meaning of life. Existentialism puts emphasis on the individual while postmodernism puts emphasis on the group identity. Next, I will look at the differe

nces between eastern and western philosophies, why one focuses on physical science, while the other on mental well-being. Which we should prioritise, building rockets to conquer space or do yoga for a more peaceful mind on earth. East vs West [Merchants vs Farmers] [Change World vs Change self] In the 1930s, there was an interesting conversation between the greatest Indian poet, philosopher Tagore and the greatest German scientist, Einstein. The conversation centred on the idea of reality, truth

and beauty. Einstein believed in an objective reality outside the human, while Tagore insisted on the subjective interpretation of reality. To boil it down, Einstein believed in the old theory of physics, solid matter existing with or without humans while Tagore was alluding to the mysterious theory of quantum physics that our perception or observation of matter is never really objective. The conversation illustrated the difference in eastern and western ways of thinking about reality. One more

pragmatic while the other more spiritual. Now let's look at a typical hero in the east and west. A western hero wants to change the world to make it better for himself and those around him while an eastern hero wants to change himself. Western superheroes fight evil to restore justice, peace, and correct the incorrect while Asian heroes either accept their fate or retreat to the forest for some contemplation. Jesus, perhaps the greatest western hero, confronted injustice and paid for it with hi

s own life, a sacrifice you can see in Harry Potter as well. The Buddha, the founder of Buddhism however, went to the forest to change himself. Laozi, the founder of Taoism, retreated to the mountains. In other words western philosophy is about change while eastern philosophy is more accepting your fate. A great example of this in literature can be seen in the novels of the Japanese British Nobel Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro. His characters obey their fate and rarely question their somew

hat unfair circumstances. However, a typical hero in the west would rebel against their circumstance to change the world. Accepting one's fate or putting up with an unfavourable environment is seen as a sign of weakness in the west, while those same traits are seen as signs of strength in the east. By the east, my focus is mainly old India, China and Japan. So a western hero wants to change the world, while an eastern hero wants to change himself to adapt. In today's world, east and west have co

me together a lot, because western mode of production ie capitalism has taken over the world. But if you look closer and a bit deeper, you see a clear philosophical distinction. And if you go back in time, the distinction appears more clear. Why has eastern philosophy's main focus been on mental well-being, happiness and spirituality, and community while western philosophy's main focus has been physical well-being, rational science, technology, materialism and individualism. Of course this is a

broad generalisation, as there are so many philosophers on either side who are exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking the main distinction is spiritualism vs materialism and community vs individualism. So in this video I will look at some of the answers but also give more detail about the differences between eastern and western philosophy. Does the climate, terrain and the soil have anything to do with it? Are merchants more concerned with materialism and farmers more with spirituality?

Geography terrain Western philosophy as we know has its roots in ancient Greece and later on in Rome. The Greeks and the Romans were influenced by other civilisations such the Egyptians and the Babylonians. But there are very little or no written records of an organised philosophy prior to the Greeks. Eastern philosophy has its roots in the Indian civilisation and the Chinese civilisation. If you look at their geographies, Greece is made of some islands, between the Mediterranean and the Black S

ea. So large bodies of water sandwiching the land areas. So if you want to move around, all you need is a boat and you could hop from island to island. This allows a much smoother way to move things around. There is less friction on water than land. The Ancient Greeks heavily relied on imported food due to its soil not being very fertile. As a result, the Greeks relied on trades which brought goods from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Central Europe and more. But with this commodity trade, also came ideas a

nd knowledge, so the region was a hub of cultural, scientific, and technological exchange. This promoted a more rational discourse which allowed the Greeks to develop a more sophisticated science. For example Euclid's Elements is the oldest science book, which I'm sure was influenced by the Egyptians, Babylonians and Phoenicians. Pythagoras developed his mathematics. Aristotle studied all kinds of things, including animals. In fact the first Greek philosopher Thales was an olive merchant himself

who based his philosophy on water being the most important thing in the world. He famously predicted that good weather ie lots of rain produced lots of olive so he got very rich. So the Greeks relied on trade, which allowed the exchanges of ideas and practical sciences. Indian and Chinese civilisations, however, are more centred around rivers and mountains. In other words, quite different from ancient Greece. India and China were blessed by its many rivers that brought amazing soil from the Him

alayas so their agricultural economy could sustain a huge population in big cities, making China and India mostly self-sufficient. Trade with other peoples was a plus, but not essential. China's Yellow and Yangstee Rivers, and Ancient India's Indus and Ganges Rivers all start in the snowy mountains of the Himalayas and traverse for thousands of kilometers which bring the fertile soil. It's no surprise that both India and China relied on a crop that is incredibly water thirsty. أرز. It's also no

surprise that Sadhguru, the greatest Indian Guru in the world today has a simple message: Save the soil. Because soil and farming run really deep in eastern philosophy. So Greece's geographical terrain allowed trade to flourish between various peoples and cultures. While ancient China and India relied on their rivers to bring good soil to them. The Greeks had to seek food from somewhere else, while the Chinese and Indians waited for their rivers to bring food to them. As a result, from a surviva

l point of view, for the Greeks, merchants were the most important class of people, while in the east the farmers were the most important class of people. Since merchants are mobile while farmers are stationary, because you cannot carry around your land, this allowed the Greeks to be more open-minded to new ideas, new technology and new sciences. Merchants are also less attached to their ways, therefore easily follow the market or commodity. Today you sell rice, tomorrow potato. Farmers, however

, have a harder time to adapt, and change quickly. So western philosophy geared more towards pragmatic sciences while eastern philosophy geared more towards spiritualism. If merchants don't like something, they change, but if farmers don't get enough water, they wait for the following season or accept their fate. It's harder to leave your land and migrate. So western philosophy is more change-oriented while eastern philosophy is more fatalistic. In other words, you change yourself. Climate to pr

ogress Climate also plays a role. India and China tend to be warmer throughout the year, so it makes sense to be in the here and now, which Buddhism teaches. Also seasons play a predictable pattern every year and people live a more cyclical life. Monsoon comes every year. Rivers flood at a specific time of the year. In a way, it was very similar to the Egyptian way of life around the River Nile. Of course, when you rely on a river, you also experience great famines, but they come every few years

or decades. The Greeks navigated the seas where you're for the most part in control of where you're going. Meanwhile eastern civilisations were centred around rivers. On rivers, your course is fixed, the river takes you where the river takes you. As a result, eastern philosophy is more fatalistic. The fate of humans, animals and plants are in the hands of the same rivers. It meant that they saw all living beings as part of a big family, so they didn't put humans as being outsiders or special or

above everybody else. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, we are not only from nature, we are nature, just like other living beings. The Greeks, however, experienced colder winters so they had to source and accumulate food for colder days. Since they relied on trade, wars always disrupted the trade routes, which meant you had to source your food from somewhere else. Merchants relied on peacetime to continue trade, but they also benefited from wars as certain commodities were more sought-after. It

's the old adage, war fuels the economy as money is moved around faster than peacetime. Since, things were pretty unpredictable, the Greeks had to think long-term and prepare not just for the cold winter, but for the future, in case of warfare. Future became the most important time, not here and now, but next month, and next year. You couldn't afford to be in here and now like a zen Buddhist. So this long-term or linear perception of time became the dominant way of looking at the world among the

Greeks. A famous example is Aristotle's teleological philosophy that everything has a purpose, usually a single destination in the future. Original Sin to change the world Western philosophy also through an exchange with the middle-eastern religions like Judaism, Christianity and later Islam, came to understand that humans were separate from the animal kingdom. We are kicked out of the Garden of Eden, punished for our mistakes. As a result, you try to compensate for your past mistakes. You want

to correct the incorrect. What do you do? You fight for causes. If you look at literature, heroes are often people who have sinned or made a terrible mistake. To redeem themselves, they fight injustice. One way to fight for justice is to make other people's lives better. Often materially. You study the world, you invent new technology to make life easier for others. Eastern philosophers were not looking for material comfort, but more for mental and spiritual comfort. Buddha and Laozi left the c

ity in their spiritual quest and went to the mountains and forests. Solitude allows you to seek answers inside you, not on the outside. Even today most buddhist temples in India, Japan and China are located in the mountains and forests, away from the crowd, so people can get away from other people. The core doctrine of Buddhism is that material comfort doesn't make you happy in the long run. The Greeks, however, gathered in the city to debate and dialogue like Socrates who would walk around on t

he streets of Athens asking people questions, while others established schools like Plato's Academy or Aristotle's Lyceum. Western philosophy relied on dialogue and exchange like merchants do to flourish, learn and improve. The west built universities, churches, and schools in the middle of town and villages so everyone could come, not like some remote temple that nobody could go to. In eastern philosophy, you don't force your will on nature to control or change it, but try to flow with nature.

Since both Indian and Chinese civilisations were centred around rivers, often river flow is seen as nature's way, in which you don't resist or remove obstacles in your way but move around those obstacles. In other words, you change yourself, not the outside world. A good example is, in India traffic moves around an obstacle, be it a cow or an accident. While in the west, a small accident on the road brings everything to a halt. So eastern philosophy tells you to be more fluid and flexible like y

oga and less rigid. But western philosophy relies on manipulating nature through science and technology to make life easier for humans. As a result, we live in a very comfortable period in history. Millions of people couldn't survive to adulthood, but today child morality is at its lowest in history. People live longer, healthier. But this also has negative consequences for other species on earth as the more comfortable we are, the harder it becomes for some other species in some areas. conquer:

world vs self Asians are on average physically smaller than Europeans, perhaps due to genetic mutation or sexual selection or possibly due to eating less protein as farmers rely on rice which is a staple diet in most of Asia. How to cope with poor diet? Martial arts in China and yoga in India were used to strengthen and discipline the body. Eastern philosophy is centred on the body as a vehicle to get to a higher place and this also means eastern philosophy is more about avoiding conflict rathe

r than confronting others. Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism promote non-violence. Vegetarianism, although trendy in the west today, has been practiced in the east for thousands of years. Jainism is an Indian religion that promotes a strict vegetarian diet and Gandhi, a pacifist himself, admired Jainism for that. Unlike Asians, The Greeks ate a lot of bread, which is four times more protein-rich than rice. Since the Greek states were constantly fighting against one another, as well as the Persians,

they developed the olympic games which was to train soldiers for wars. It's no surprise that it was the Greeks who made it all the way to India through Alexander the Great. While we have no records of invading armies from India and China going to Persia or the Middle East. It was the nomadic Mongols who made it to Europe, not the more sophisticated civilisations like the Chinese and Indians. In fact the Chinese built walls to shield themselves from the Mongols. And India was ravaged by a series

of invasions by the Greeks, the Persians, the Muslims, the Mongols and even the British. لماذا ا؟ Eastern philosophy is less centred on conquering the world, but conquering yourself. For example, Buddhism is centered on the inner conflict of fighting or resisting your desires. If you focus on your inner conflict, you're less likely to engage in external physical conflicts such as tribal, or ideological. In Hindu yogi teaching, your soul is the real you, while your physical body is acquired throu

gh food you put in your mouth. Not just that, you also acquire your ego or the sense of self through impressions and experiences with others. So your soul is permanent and your body and ego are temporary, fleeting and acquired. Now Einstein vs Tagore conversation on the nature of reality makes sense. Einstein sees an external world while Tagore sees everything internal. In other words, yogi philosophy is based on the pursuit of becoming one with the universe. Quantum physics has a similar theory

that as soon as you observe something, you change it. In other words, we are not separate from the world or universe, we are with the universe. The world is not outside us, but we are the universe, it is inside us. So Yoga is one way to tap into or get closer to your universal soul by taming your body and ego and desires. The idea is to let your soul control you, not your body control your soul. Eastern philosophy is based on negation of the self, while western philosophy is firmly rooted in th

e idea of individual self. As a result of this, the east tends to be more communitarian where the individual is less important than the community or the universe while the west tends to be more individualistic. Buddhism's core philosophy is to remove the self to ease suffering. Wanting or desiring is seen as negative because you're feeding the ego. The Greeks were more of a merchant's mentality to grow more profit and become wealthier and wealthier. Merchants are more focused on material success

and less concerned with the spiritual side of life. As a result, it was the Greeks who developed a more rational and scientific method to understand the material world. This scientific method allowed objectivity which meant that a Greek scholar could disagree with their mentors. Even thinkers like Plato openly disagreed with their teacher Socrates, and Aristotle questioned Plato. In the east, however, openly questioning your teacher was and still is a form of disrespect. Instead of finding flaw

s in those older than you, you're supposed to respect them. This is especially important in Confucianism. Sensei is someone you do not challenge. Good vs Evil Western philosophy makes a distinction between good and evil as almost separate entities and separate individuals or even groups. Often in warfare, the enemy is seen as evil to motivate your soldiers to die in defence of good. This is true on both sides. So once you assign goodness with one way of seeing the world, the opposite of that is

naturally bad or even evil. This battle of good against evil allows progress. Those victorious can claim goodness. In the east, however, both good and bad are seen as more psychological and less ideological so good and bad are one or two sides of the same coin. The Ying and yang in Taoism means every person has dark and light, good and evil built in them. Good and evil coexist, so no matter how much a society progresses, it doesn't change the core ying-yang existence. We as humans are neither go

od nor bad, but a bit of both. Our job is to understand this so we keep a good balance between the two forces. I think the most fundamental difference between eastern and western philosophy is the idea of linear progress in the west versus a cyclical notion in the east, especially in Indian philosophy. The Greeks believed in progress. Socrates developed his questioning method of getting to the objective truth. Plato introduced the idea of perfection. And Aristotle came up with telos for purpose.

So getting to Socratic truth, Platonic perfection and Aristotelian telos or purpose gave birth a western progressive philosophy and science. So instead of focusing too much on the spiritual side of life, the west focused on making the physical life easier by deploying a scientific method to understand the world and invent technologies that made life easier. As a result, today most people live a comfortable life thanks to western civilization. People live longer thanks to western medicine and te

chnology. When survival is no longer an issue, people seek meaning and purpose. So eastern philosophy plays a major role in bringing inner peace for millions of people in the east as well as in the west who seek meaning beyond material comfort. So to sum up, climate, terrain and food impacted how the east and west prioritized philosophical understanding of the world. The Greeks relied on merchants and trade so the priority went to practical sciences and rationality. While in the east farming all

owed big cities to flourish and people lived longer. As a result, philosophers were seeking happiness not physical comfort. Life expectancy also grew in the east which allowed more reflection in old age. When young, people seek success but in old age, people search for meaning. Next, I will discuss the Greek trio of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, by looking at their similarities and differences. Socrates vs Plato vs Aristotle [The Rational Path] In 399 BCE, the Greek democracy condemned one of t

he greatest philosophers to death for spreading bad ideas among the youth. Today, he is considered the father of western philosophy and possibly the father of western civilisation. His tragic death sparked a new human philosophy that was based on rational thinking, not religious dogma. Who was this man? It was of course, Mr Socrates. Well, he lost his life, but rationality triumphed. He paid the price with his own life. It's no surprise or exaggeration to tell you that western philosophy origina

ted in Greece, mainly in the city of Athens. Previously I talked about the differences between eastern and western philosophies due to different terrains, food production, cultural exchanges and so on that gave rise to spiritualism in the east while rationalism in the west. Eastern philosophy, centred on farming and rivers, became fatalistic while the Greeks, centred on trade and the seas, became rationalistic. So here, I will talk about three of the most famous forefathers of western rational p

hilosophy: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Pre-Socratic philosophy Before I talk about the big three, let me mention a few who came before. The first known Greek philosopher was Thales of Miletus who said that everything is made of water. Today we know that 60% of the human body and 70% of our brain are made of water, so he was right. He also used reason to predict how the weather affected olive harvest and made a lot of money as a result. People at the time believed a good or bad harvest was in

the hands of god. So Thales understood that it had nothing to do with it, but just good weather. So western philosophy, from the very earliest time, emphasised rationality to understand and manipulate nature to benefit humans and he was a businessman. Another notable philosopher was Pythagoras, famous for his theorem, a2+b2=c2. He argued that the world is run by mathematical rules which can be understood through numbers. Even musical harmony is ruled by geometrical rules. So Pythagoras based his

ideas on mathematical logic, which is a step deeper and more rigid than rationality. Another logical philosopher was Parmenides (515-445 BCE) who also used logical thinking and reasoning to prove that human experiences give us a false perception of the world and often contradicts with logical thinking. So these early Greek philosophers paved the way for rationality to become the method of thinking. Socrates: If you have to name one person as the founder of Western philosophy, one name stands ta

ll above everyone. It's of course Mr Socrates, not the football legend from Brazil but an ancient Greek dude who lived between 469 and 399 BCE. He was the true father of western philosophy, because he developed a robust philosophical method to understand the meaning of life and to expose dogmas. Unlike everyone else, he did not accept things at face value. His questioning or dialectical method of examining everything through a series of questions to get to the bottom of things or finding the tru

th became the basis of modern scientific method. To understand something, you have to ask questions, like what, where, when, why and how. Once you go through all the questions, the answer you get tends to be the best answer out there. Today science does the same thing. Scientific theories are tested through a series of experiments. Socrates also questioned the purpose of life itself. For him, the purpose of human life was to be virtuous. How can you be virtuous? Again, you have to examine your l

ife critically. You cannot sit in your comfortable chair and live in ignorance. Uncomfortable truths are better than comforting lies. He famously said, the unexamined life is not wroth living. In other words, ignorance wasn't bliss but just stupid and unworthy. This had a massive psychological shift in how people saw the world and themselves. You couldn't just rely on gods or even the priests, you had the ability to rationally question things to get to the truth for yourself. The Athenian democr

acy saw him as a threat in awakening the youth, so they forced him to sip hemlock poison which killed him in 399 BCE making him a true martyr of philosophy. Socrates was a street philosopher who walked around the streets of Athens to question people and have a dialogue about life and philosophy. He was like a modern-day provocateur or a whistleblower and authorities don't like that. Socrates's philosophical legacy was to make truth the most important aim of philosophy. Philosophy wasn't to tell

you comforting lies but it was to challenge you into discomfort. In western philosophy, Socrates, narrowed its scope into one single truth, which is the basis of modern science today, searching for the ultimate theory that explains everything. Quote: “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” This single truth became the cornerstone of western philosophy for almost 2500 years, until the German Nietzsche questioned it, paving the way for postmodernism that believed in multiples

truths. Socrates didn't leave any written records because he was busy on the streets, challenging strangers about their truths. I wonder if he was around today, how would he challenge people about my truth and your truth? First, people would think he's crazy and second, he would go mad with everyone having their own truths. Plato After the death of Socrates, the torch was passed to one his students, who also wrote his teachers' philosophical ideas down. Plato, who lived between 427 and 347 BCE,

having witnessed his teacher executed by the democratic mobs was an idealist arguing that we all have a perfect idea of something, but in reality this doesn't exist. It only exists in our mind as a perfect form of that thing. There are chairs we see inside a room, but these are just models of a perfect chair that only exists in our mind. In other words, the chairs that humans make are modeled on the perfect chair inside the human mind. We see a mere shadow of what reality is on the outside. His

famous thought experiment, “Allegory of the Cave” illustrates that if you face away from the light source and see your own shadow inside a cave, that's how we perceive reality, not what it is but its shadow through our senses. So for Plato, humans come preassembled with all knowledge. In other words, we don't learn through experiences or senses but it's all inside. It only comes out when we experience it. Quote: “What we call learning is only a process of recollection.” This makes Plato's philo

sophy somewhat counter-intuitive. We think what's on the outside is the real thing and what we have on the inside, in our mind, is a mere representation of that real object. Plato thinks the opposite. What we see on the outside is the shadow of what's in our mind. We have an innate knowledge of the world from birth and what we learn is just remembering or recalling those things that are already stored inside us. This is very similar to how the rationalists saw knowledge, which I will discuss lat

er on. Plato's idea of knowledge coming from inside us can also be interpreted in terms of the subconscious and Jungian collective subconscious, deeply embedded in us from our evolutionary past. For instance the fear of snake in us is not because we experience snake bites in our own life, but because our ancestors experienced it in the Savanah, in the trees, in the jungle or in a cave. Despite us living in beautiful, safe houses, we still have the inner experience of being in a dark cave. Anothe

r example is horror movies. Our desire to see horror movies is simply because we still want to experience the fear from time to time, because that fear is inside us, and horror movies simply stimulate that fear. Sigmund Freud's dream interpretation is another way to understand Plato. In other words, dreams are our little window into the subconscious world inside us. Fiction writers, artists, musicians often experience a trance-like state when they're immersed in their art, tapping into their sub

conscious to bring out an art that is appreciated by many people, simply because they reach a deeper well inside to drink from the collective subconscious knowledge. Despite being the artistic uncle, Plato also had strong opinion about politics. Plato was a republican and saw democracy akin to a mob rule as it killed his teacher, Socrates, so he argued that philosophers were better-suited to rule a society as a republic. Just like Nietzsche, he had a low opinion of the general public as unsuitab

le to rule a society, while philosophers were better-equipped to rule a society. So he set up his academy where he wanted to cultivate the best minds of his generation, the elites of the society. Today's university is very much modelled on Plato's academy where the intellectuals lock horns to discuss ideas and one of those people was Aristotle who graduated from his academy. Plato is called an idealist philosopher, however his student, Aristotle went a different route towards practical knowledge

. So to sum up, Plato's teacher, Mr Socrates, questioned things to find the truth. Plato said the truth or perfection only exists in the soul, in the mind or in the world of ideas or forms, and only their shadows are perceived through our senses. So Socrates gave philosophy a method of finding the truth, while Plato offered a perfectionist vision of the truth, inside the mind. Now these two come together in Aristotle to provide a basis for modern western philosophy, a progressive perfectionist v

ision of seeking truth. A single truth. Aristotle While Plato sat inside a cave, saying that to find the truth, reasoning was superior to real world observation, his student, Aristotle, however, reversed this by getting his hands dirty in dissecting frogs and gazing at the stars to understand the real world. Aristotle who lived between 384 and 322 BCE argued that truth is not inside of us, but it's on the outside in the real world. Truth in other words is in the world around us. His method was e

vidence-based research, akin to modern science. He actually went to the fields to study animals and sea creatures. He questioned Plato's ideal form, saying that if a man is a model of an ideal form, who is the ideal form model of? It's the same argument, if god created us, who created god and who created the god who created god, which goes to infinity. Aristotle put human senses to work and argued that our observation of things is the best way to find the truth. He said everything in the world c

an be categorised by their substance, quantity, place, time and so forth. Today modern science classifies animals into species, earth into continents and oceans, rocks and minerals. This categorisation helps humans to gain knowledge much faster and more effectively. He famously said humans are rational animals. Aristotle also said that everything has a purpose or telos or an end goal. The purpose of this video is to educate people about philosophy. As a result, Aristotle's telos has become a bra

nch of philosophy called teleology that looks at things through their purpose, not their essence. So when we look at a chair, we don't think of wood and trees and forests, but we think of sitting on it. A chair is to be sat on, not considered a piece of tree. So Aristotle's telos put purpose before essence. As a result western philosophy is a very purpose-driven way of thinking, which emphasises something's utility or use before its essence. As a result western cultures value solution to problem

s, efficiency and pragmatism that make things better. Today, modern science develops useful technology, so it's heavily utility-based. We like useful things. The purpose of science is to develop technology to make life easier. What's the purpose of human civilization? To reach perfection, which is a kind of Aristotelian teleology. So Aristotle's telos coincided with the Christian view that we're heading towards an apocalypse or heaven, a perfectionist utopia where you're happy, and blissful. In

science, we're heading towards a perfect understanding of the universe and life. So telos allows us to make plans, have goals and strive towards something. Without an end goal it is hard to motivate ourselves to do things. Just like Plato, he also set up a school, called Lyceum, where he gathered the best minds of his generation to study. One of his most famous students was a man who took his teleological teaching to conquer the world. It was, of course, Alexander the Great who made it all the w

ay to India in his attempt to conquer the world. I should point out an important Greek philosopher who lived outside the rationality-dominated school. It was Epicurus whose philosophy centred on happiness, not rationality or truth so instead of an academy or school, he set up a hippy-style Garden where he gathered his friends to talk philosophy while enjoying life in peace and tranquility. Epicurus understood that the biggest enemy of happiness is also the main reason humans invented philosophy.

ما هذا؟ The fear of death. The entire foundation of human philosophy rests on this mystery. Epicurus had a very clever answer. He said the fear of death is irrational. It makes no sense. لماذا ا؟ For the simple reason that we do not know death. Not only that we cannot know death. Because nobody has returned from death to tell us what it is. Death is just one way street. Now that we know the fact that we do not and cannot know death, why fear it? We are afraid of lions because we know they can e

at us. We are are afraid of fire because we know the pain. But we cannot and will not know death, it's totally irrational to be afraid of it. Instead of worrying about death, we should make the most of this life by living in and spreading peace and happiness among others. Later his philosophy was adapted into utilitarianism to maximise happiness for the majority of people. But despite philosophy of happiness, Epicurus remains an outsider in western philosophy. So to sum up, Socrates questioned p

eople on the streets of Athens to critically examine things in life, Plato sat inside a cave, not literally though, and asked himself about the ideal form that may have come from god or the human mind, while Aristotle went to the field and got his hands dirty to understand the natural world. Socrates placed virtue in knowledge, and rational truth, while rejecting passion, emotions or faith as dogmatic. This was Nietzsche's biggest problem with western philosophy, which he squarely blamed on Socr

ates. Too much rationality ignores human passion and heavily relies on reason which is rigid, inflexible that turns us into machines. Plato, however, retreated to himself and argued that perfection doesn't exist on the outside but only on the inside, in our head. The world is a terrible place, precisely because it is a skewed model of a perfect form that only exists in our mind. Plato's ideas were closer to a religious idea of god, so later Christians and Muslims interpreted Plato's perfect form

as god. God is perfect while humans and the world are imperfect images of god. Aristotle said forget about the imperfect world, someone has to go to the fields to study the bloody nature through observation and dissection, so his method was empirical science, which became the basis of medieval Islamic science and later the 16th century European science. Next, I will talk about the three horses of Eastern philosophy, the Buddha, Lao Tzu and Confucius. Buddha vs Laozi vs Confucius [Nature's Way]

Previously I discussed the Greek trio of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who influenced western philosophy, the three most famous eastern philosophers were Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and Confucius, the founder of Confucianism. I will mainly focus on their philosophies and less on these religious practices which are quite different in different countries. Eastern philosophical tradition is very rich and complex, so these three philosophers can help us shed

lights on eastern spirituality. Laozi Lao Tzu or Laozi lived in 6th century BCE in China and is said to be the author of Tao Te Ching or Dao de Jing, which is the foundational text of Taoism, a philosophy that traces its origin to shamanism and hermeticism. Taoism which is also sometimes called Daoism literally means the way or the enlightened path or nature's way which is spontaneous, eternal, unnameable and undefinable. Quote: “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” It's simpl

y the flow of the universe, such as gravity allowing rivers to flow downward, without any effort. The core idea of Taoism is the doctrine of wu-wei which can be translated as non-resistance or action through inaction. Wei means purposeful and intentional while wu means there is no, or lacking. So literally it means there is no purposeful act. A good metaphor for humans to live their lives by is the river, which the Chinese civilisations relied on. Rivers flow downward, if hindered by a rock, ins

tead of moving the rock, they flow around it. This means we should live our lives in alignment or harmoniously with nature, not against nature. Another important idea of Taoism is ying and yang or good and evil, which live together inside everyone so we all have the dark and light. You cannot separate the two. I think this fundamentally differs from a western religion in which good and evil are thought to be separate entities. However, according to Taoism, they are two sides of the same coin. Ev

erything is neither completely negative nor positive, but both. In other words, a saint has his sins and a sinner has his redeeming qualities. In Taoism, humans are one manifestation of the Tao or the way, you could say just one species among millions of other species. Lao Tzu emphasised not to follow one's desire, goals or ambitions but rather find your natural flow. Ziran, which literally means naturally, is a Taoist value which emphasises natural creativity and spontaneity. As a result Taoism

is seen as the religion of the artists who live a more intuitive and spontaneous life that mimics nature's flow. You could even make a connection with Carl Jung's psychology of the collective subconscious—deeply embedded memories of our species, or those species before—that artists tap into by finding the flow of nature. This artistic flow is much more elaborated in another book titled the Zhuangzi, supposedly authored by another important figure in Taoism, a man called Zhuangzi. The book has m

any humorous stories, allegories, and anecdotes, with the most famous one being the Butterfly Dream, in which Zhuang Zhuo wakes up one morning from a dream in which he had turned into a butterfly. Now he is perplexed and asks this mind-blowing question: Was he dreaming of a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming Zhuang Zhuo? The answer is not important here, but the question itself is the main point. We humans seek clear answers or clarity, but nature doesn't care about separate entities or separatio

n of different species. Nature is one big, perpetual flow. From nature's perspective, a human and a butterfly are simply two different manifestations of the same thing. Even the state of being awake and dreaming are false distinctions or dichotomy, because they're one and the same thing. For example artists, novelists, musicians often dream or daydream their best works because they find the flow of nature's collective subconsciousness. Laozi is said to have lived during the Zhuo Dynasty whose ca

pital was close to the Yellow River, therefore the river is often used as a metaphor for Taoism. Later in Life Laozi is said to have traveled west where he wrote Dao De Jing in some remote mountains, and then vanished into thin air, also a great metaphor in how to flow in life like a wind and river. Today Laozi's ideas are extremely important but also deeply embedded into the cultures of China, Korea and Japan. To give you an example, people in Japan tend to be less confrontational, tend to avoi

d conflict which fits in with the Taoist idea of non-resistance. So to sum up, Laozi or Taoism philosophy centres on the idea of not going against the natural flow, but flowing with it. Not resisting nature's way, but going with it. Buddha Siddartha Gautama or the Buddha (563-483 BCE) lived a luxurious life in a rich Northern Indian family, but he wasn't happy. He learnt that suffering was universal among the poor and rich, young and old, and men and women. But why do we suffer? The reason we su

ffer is because of our desires for pleasure. The more we get the more we want. If we have a big house, next time we will not be fulfilled if we don't get an even bigger house, bigger cars, more partners, more wealth, friends, subscribers and followers. At no point, we can satisfactorily say, it is enough. A good example is addiction. If a small dose makes you high today, but you need a larger dose to give you the same high a month later or a year later. In other words, as you experience more, yo

ur desires also grow bigger. So life is just an endless cycle of desire, fulfillment of that desire and more desires. How to solve this problem? To ease suffering, according to Buddhism we should nip our wants in the bud by detaching ourselves from our desires for worldly possessions. Don't chase things and be happy in the moment. But it is easier said than done. Everyone says it is a good idea to be content with what you have right now. But curbing your desires is not an easy job. لما هو صعب جد

ا؟ Here is when Buddhism gets really interesting and profoundly deep. We all think, we are who we are. We have a sense of the self we call me and you. We think it is a somewhat solid entity. In western religions, this self is imparted to us from god. It's real. This individual self is genuine and for the most part unchangeable. According to Buddhism, however, you're wrong. لماذا ا؟ The self or ego is not real. It's just an illusion or a mirage or a temporary imposter attached to our body, you co

uld say like a parasite it lives on us. What does it do inside us? This imposter self fuels our desires, ambitions, and goals. In other words, it uses us to go out in the world and achieve things but at the end of the day we still don't feel fulfilled. Especially when we achieve everything and death hits us, we lose our shit because we went to so much trouble acquiring our wealth, fame, power and now death is snatching it all away from us. It's a bad deal. So what is the solution, Mr Buddha? His

answer might shock you. According to Buddha, to be truly enlightened and blissful or to achieve the nirvana stage, which means we must kill the imposter self. This thing we call the self or ego is the source of all of our desires. To not desire anything, we must remove the self. According to Buddhism, our soul is the real thing, and also very much universal while the self is a kind of picture we put in our head every time we are born in our various reincarnations. One way to understand this is

perhaps through Mr Plato who also said that the idea of things is the perfect form, and the real thing on the outside is a mere shadow of the real thing. In Buddhism, your soul is genuine, eternal and universal while your body and ego are temporary and fleeting. We are not separate from the universe, but a tiny part of a big whole. To become happy and one with the universe, you must detach yourself from your desires, and kill the self, through meditations, solitude and rigorous physical and ment

al discipline. Quote: “A disciplined mind brings happiness.” This is very similar to Schopenhauer's philosophy of the blind universal will which is a force beyond our control yet it rules most of what we do in life. There is a disagreement whether Schopenhauer reached the same conclusion independent of Buddhism and Hinduism or he was influenced by these Indian philosophies. I will discuss Schopenhauer's philosophy in more detail later on. So according to Buddhism to be truly enlightened is to no

t see yourself as a separate self, but part of a bigger whole, part of a conscious universe. So true inner peace comes not from outside, for example by achieving your goals, but from inside once you become enlightened. Buddha's teachings through various forms of Buddhism are incredibly important in most of East Asia. Buddhism has also become one of the most influential philosophies in the west too as it emphasizes individual inner journey rather than collective prayers in a church. So to sum up,

Buddha as a rich, powerful prince but wasn't fulfilled in life and realised that all humans suffer because of our desires. To ease suffering, we should detach ourselves from our desires and to be truly blissful, we should eliminate the self or ego through meditation and mental discipline. Confucius While both Laozi and the Buddha escaped society for some solitude and inner peace, Confucius (551-479 BCE) however, tried to solve the practical socio-political questions like how we can live politic

ally and socially together in peace and harmony or how to organise society in way that is peaceful. So his philosophy is less individualistic but more concerned about the collective existence, especially in big cities and countries. To find a great solution for socio-political coexistence, Confucius looked at how nature organizes things, especially in the animal kingdom. One of the biggest problems, and the main source of wars and violence in a human society is when there is confusion as to who

stands where. من يحصل على ماذا؟ Who owns what? Who is responsible for what? He understood that the best method was the natural hierarchy or a pyramid social system. Without an established system of hierarchy and authority, there is chaos and confusion. And hierarchy allows everyone to know their place, so there is no confusion or conflict as to which chair belongs to who. Removing social confusion was Confucius's main task (pun intended) Now, not only everyone knows their own place, they also kn

ow other people's places too. So instead of a police watching everyone or patrolling the whole society, now everyone can watch each other. If someone sits in the wrong chair, other people can tell him that it is not his seat. So if everyone knows their place, everyone can watch everyone so nobody dares to disrupt the social harmony. So kings at the top of the pyramid and everyone else take their place based on their ranks and age just like in a game of chess, perhaps the most logical game humans

have invented. Confucius also realised that everything starts in the family, because it is the first line of defence against chaos. A solid family structure means a solid foundation for a society. Inside the family, the man is at the top, then wife, then sons and then daughters. One of the most common criticisms against Confucius is the possibility of tyranny. Those in positions of power can abuse it. Confucius also emphasised responsibility and duty. Those at the top are responsible to protect

those below them. A king is responsible to keep people safe and a man in the family is responsible to protect and provide for his wife and children. Those below, in return, are loyal and follow their superiors and do as asked. To understand Confucianism, you should look things not just from an individual point of view, but from a collective perspective. For example, if your body parts didn't function in alignment with the rest of your body, you are sick and needs treatment. المجتمع هو نفسه. If

one or few members push things in the opposite direction, there is violence, which is a social illness. You might think it is pretty outdated, but you would be surprised that this Confucian hierarchy is a pretty efficient system which is at work in modern companies, because we hear this cliche that no work is done by a committee, which is true in most situations. Most corporate structure follows a strict and rigid hierarchy and a chain of command. In the animal kingdom, a hierarchy is often achi

eved through violence, but Confucius says, since it is natural we might as well adopt it to reduce violence. Of course, in the modern age, revolutions are a common occurrence. Those at the bottom, rebel against the establishment. That's why Confucius emphasised duty and responsibility. When a ruler becomes tyrannical, he fails his duty. It all comes down to respecting your role in society. Quote: ”Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?” Today, China, Korea and

Japan have adopted these Confucian methods in sorting out social situations where seniority and juniority plays a major role in schools, universities and companies. Loyalty and respect are significant in Confucianism, but also meritocracy. As a result, traditionally China had a strict civil service examination for centuries and only the very bright and intelligent were recruited for high military and government jobs. In the 20th century, however, Mao, the egalitarian socialist, tried to dismant

le the Confucian class hierarchy through the Cultural Revolution that caused great pain for a lot of people. But of course, the Chinese Communist Party replaced the old class-based Confucian hierarchy with a political hierarchy. Many economists attribute China's rapid economic development to this efficient hierarchical system as China was run like a company, the president being the CEO of China. Things get done quickly, but of course it also comes at a cost of many voices being suppressed. Tradi

tionally the Chinese Communist Party used to distance itself from the archaic Confucius philosophy, because it contradicts the egalitarian philosophy of socialism in which everyone is equal and there is no hierarchy, at least on paper. But in reality, every human society has been hierarchical. Even today, China is slowly moving towards a more Confucian philosophy. As China's developing, not only it is utilising a Confucian hierarchy for its efficiency, but also in cultivating a more robust cultu

re of meritocracy and traditional masculinity which were central to Confucian philosophy. Conclusion To sum up, Laozi's teaching is not to resist or destroy, or go against nature, but to flow with nature. As a result, he says we should be more intuitive and spontaneous. In other words, humans are of nature, so it's time we forgot our humanness and live in the flow of nature. The Buddha taught that suffering is universal because of our goals, desires and ambitions. To find true peace is to look i

nside, not to outside material success. And to be truly happy is to kill your ego or the self that has ambition and desires. Confucius tackled the socio-political question of how to live a peaceful coexistence through a hierarchical system in which everyone knows their place and position in society. While the Greeks were questioning truth, authority, poking holes at the natural world to understand its property, those in the east were seeking a harmonious life with nature, not only with other hum

ans but with all creatures on earth. The Greeks disagreed with each other, while the Asians tried to find agreement, consensus not only among humans, but also between humans and the natural world. The fact these three figures founded a religion of their own, while the three Greeks did not, shows a fundamental difference between eastern and western philosophy. In the east, societies are generally more group-centred while in the west it is more individual-centred. But if you really think about it,

the philosophies of these three eastern thinkers, is highly individualised. They put the emphasis on the individual to take charge of themselves. Don't change the world, change yourself. So while eastern social fabric is communitarian, the philosophies are individualistic as they put demand on the individual to take responsibility for changing themselves so they adapt to the society they live in. Don't change others but yourself. Don't change nature but yourself. The Greeks, however, focused on

how to change nature as quickly, efficiently as possible. So in the west, individuality is static, god-given or born while social fabric is dynamic. In other words, in western philosophy the individual is solid and society and nature malleable, and changeable. In the east, however, nature as well as society's fabrics are static while the individual is changeable. In other words, do not attempt to change others or nature because it is easier to change yourself. If you cannot fit in with others,

take a good look at yourself and find what's wrong with you. People in the east are less likely to complain about the world, instead try to adapt to the world. Before you complain that I'm generalising too much, sit back and relax or look at yourself in the mirror. Don't worry, I am kidding. Next, I will discuss two distinct approaches to philosophy: animalism that sees humans as animals therefore needed to be herded to bring order, and humanism that sees all humans as equal to one another. In o

ther words, elitism vs egalitarianism or carnivorous vs herbivorous philosophies. Humanism vs Animalism (Egalitarianism vs Elitism) Previously I discussed eastern philosophy versus western philosophy, and how one employed rationality to tame nature while the other employed spirituality to tame the individual. Today I will look at two core social philosophical schools: humanism vs animalism. Humanism is a belief that humans are somewhat special, either created by god or not, therefore the purpose

of any society is to protect all humans equally. Humanism is also called egalitarianism with a few babies of its own like socialism, feminism, liberalism and postmodernism. Elitism, or animalism on the other hand is a belief that some humans are more equal than others, especially the rulers, kings and elite class of people or the talented people as in meritocracy. This is because hierarchy is very much part of the animal kingdom, the strongest wins the race. But as human civilisation has progre

ssed and we have become more efficient in taming nature, the historical trend is moving towards a more egalitarian human society. So here is the most important question, was Karl Marx right that the future is communism? But first let me explain the history of these two divergent philosophical approaches and introduce some of the most important philosophers on each side. Humanism has its roots in religions. In the west, Christianity, and Judaism at its core believed in all humans being equal in t

he eye of god. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) believed all humans have free will to choose between good and evil. He also said that one should love everyone equality. Quote: “The measure of love is to love without measure.” Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), another Christian philosopher, argued that God created the world and all humans were equal, especially in freedom. Quote: “By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.” Outside the religious tradition, the first true humanist

might be Mozi who lived in 4th century BC in China. He advocated a kind of universal humanism. At the time Confucianism was the dominant philosophy in China in which society was divided based on ranks and hierarchies, so Mozi believed in universal reciprocation. Quote: “Universal love is really the way of the sage-kings. It is what gives peace to the rulers and sustenance to the people.” This is an early form of humanism. Another early figure was the 6th century Persian philosopher Mazdak who p

romoted economic equality among all people. He even protested against the rich having many wives while the poor having no wife. His idea became quite influential in the Persian empire, but soon fizzled out. On the opposite of humanism we have a school of elitist philosophy we can term as realism as it is called in politics. The basic idea of realism is that humans are chaotic and erratic animals that need to be tamed, controlled and ruled, not through honesty or fairness but through deception or

brute force. One of the earliest realist philosophers was Sun Tzu who lived in China between 544-496 BCE. In his famous book, the Art of War, employs nature's tactics, such as camouflage, deception and even submission to survive or dominate others, especially in wars. His philosophy was to win at all costs, so to speak. For him, life is not about fairness or equality, it was about winning which is at the heart of evolutionary biology. You only survive or thrive if you win nature's battles and o

vercome hurdles. Some of his strategies in the Art of War are socially counter-intuitive like he says you must appear small when you're big and appear big when you're small in order to deceive your enemy. In Sun Tzu's Art of War honesty is the worst policy. Quote: “When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. عندما تمتلئ ، جوعهم. When settled, make them move.” In other words, stand tall when you're small and sit small when you're tall. These are some basic survival tactics in the wild, for example

in the battle between the carnivores and herbivores, a gazelle jumps higher to show its health so the cheetahs don't bother chasing them. Some of the tactics are also to throw off your enemy like when negotiating, ask for less when you want more, which is still in use in corporate capitalism. The Art of War's basic rules are to know yourself, your enemy, your environment, time your attack and truce, while at the same time make sure your enemy knows nothing truthful about you. Be a peacock when

small and be a mouse when big. So this is the earliest form of political deception in order to prolong your rule over others. The winners are those who lie the best. So Sun Tzu borrowed his philosophy from the animal kingdom where there is no morality, only winners. Machiavelli who lived between 1469 and 1527, was an Italian thinker who is famous for his book The Prince in which he advises the rulers to use any methods available to them to achieve their goal of maximising their power and dominat

ion over other humans. In other words, the famous line that the end justifies the means, which goes contrary to the humanist and religious morality of protecting life. Quote: “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” He argued that a ruler must be like a savage lion when needed and a cunning fox when needed. So brute force combined with cunning deception are needed in order to rule over society. لماذا ا؟ Because humans are savages and they're waiting for your weakest moment

to strike and take away your power like Hamlet's uncle in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Machiavelli lived a few centuries before Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, but he still understood the savage nature of human politics. In other words, morality is for the weak, and power and deception are for the strong. Quote: “He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.” In order to prevent a rebellion, a ruler must show terror and fear for its subject to behave well. Those at the to

p of society have the most to lose, so they can use any means available to make sure they keep their power and wealth. They use the police, the legal system and whatever else so nobody can take those things away from them. So, just like Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, based his philosophy on the animal kingdom. It's not about equality or fairness, but it's about winning and conquering. Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who lived between 1588 and 1679. In his book Leviathan, he argued that humans ar

e savages and only a civilised state can protect humans from each other. In other words, humans have established states to escape the brutality of nature. According to him, humans are physical machines in nature but when entering society they give up their savage tendencies and power to live peacefully. Quote: "Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” The fear of violence is always there. To escape it, humans have made a contract with their governing rulers, in r

eturn for their obedience and freedom, the state provides them with peace, justice, protection for them and their property. Just like Machiavelli, Hobbes believed in the use of force to tame people. Quote: “Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.” Despite his argument for a civilised state, he understood that humans were in essence savage animals. So Sun Tzu drew on the animal kingdom saying deception was better than honesty. Machiavelli went even further saying that

deception combined with brute force are justified to tame humans. Hobbes argued a civilised state has every right to tame the unruly humans. Now let's look at a few philosophers who opposed this animalistic philosophy based on the natural world. These philosophers saw human life as somewhat sacred. Voltaire who lived between 1694 and 1777 was a French philosopher who believed in a kind of universal individual liberty, not tyranny as Machiavelli suggested. Unlike Machiavelli's iron rule, he belie

ved in open scepticism and freedom of expression for all, so anyone could criticise or even rebel against the dominant traditions and dogmas. Quote: “Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.” In other words, he didn't support the idea that the rulers and kings had a birthright authority over truth or liberty. The Church or the state should not hold absolute power. Instead everyone, despite their socio-economic status, deserves the right to have an education and access

to knowledge. Today, liberal democracies in the west follow the principles of free speech and individual autonomy, ideas that were promoted by Voltaire, so he is often considered the father of liberal individualism, because he believed everyone irrespective of their socio-economic class deserved to be equally free. So nature works with hierarchy but Voltaire argued that every human deserves equal freedom to express themselves. Jean-Jacque Rousseau who lived between 1712-1778 was born in Geneva.

Unlike Hobbes who said man is born savage but tamed in society, Rousseau believed that humans are naturally good, but they are contaminated or tainted in society to act terrible. He famously said: “Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.” This was especially true in big cities where people turned selfish. He believed in the country people were naturally nicer, friendlier and fairer, but once people migrated to the cities instead of becoming more civilised, ironically they turned into

selfish animals. Unlike Hobbes's top down approach, Rousseau believed in a bottom-up approach arguing that the masses should be able to run the state, not some select individuals like kings and generals. His famous book, the Social Contract is said to have influenced the French Revolution in 1789, in which the anti-monarchy revolutionaries toppled the king and France became a republic. Of course it didn't last very long, but it sowed the seed of freedom, equality and brotherhood which resulted i

n three major ideologies of socialism, liberalism and nationalism which have dominated politics for centuries ever since. So Rousseau's egalitarian approach had a huge influence in political history. So to sum up, the humanists argue that since life is too short, let's all be more equal, fairer and nicer to each other. Mozi argued for an equal universal education, Rousseau for equal political participation and Voltaire for equal freedom for everyone to express themselves. Political animists or e

litists on the other hand, argue that since life's too short, it is all about winning, conquering and dominating others, so they didn't trust all humans therefore promoted a more robust political regime that didn't allow people to be free to challenge the ruler or the state. Sun Tzu used deception, Machiavelli justified repression and Hobbes promoted state as a tool to control human savages. As a historical trend, we are moving towards an egalitarian humanist future, at least in principle. Also

this was Karl Marx's prediction that slowly we are heading towards a communist utopia. In reality however, all human societies are highly unequal and hierarchical, and it's unlikely that this will change for the foreseeable future. Humanism invented by humans while elitism or animalism invented by nature and evolutionary biology. We are all born unequal in beauty, talent, intellect, and physical strength, which contribute to societies being dominated by those who are naturally blessed, either wi

th talent or beauty. But despite nature not being helpful in producing us equally, there is a deep desire among humans for equality, fairness and justice. You could say that human kind is called kind for a reason. As human civilization has improved, and the more we have tamed nature we have become more confident that a humanist utopia is possible so in recent centuries egalitarian philosophy has become more dominant, which a few centuries ago must have been unthinkable. Socialist experiments sho

wed the failure of egalitarianism in Russia, but the idea is still pretty strong in the world. So who knows, in the future, humans might produce human babies in labs who are identical in all attributes to create a truly egalitarian utopia. Once you produce baby outside the natural process, equality is a lot easier to achieve. Identical babies produce identical adults. A Brave New World kind of world. But will we be happy? Next, I will discuss the battle between pursuing knowledge and pursuing ha

ppiness. In other words, those who pursue knowledge to gain power and those who pursue happiness and peace to live a simpler life. Knowledge vs Happiness: What's the Purpose of Life? [Power vs Peace] Previously I discussed the two philosophical approaches to organising society, egalitarian humanism versus hierarchical elitism. Here, I will discuss a fundamental question about the meaning of life. Are we here to know the world or be happy? Are we here to seek knowledge or happiness? So in this se

gment, I will look at a few important philosophers. On the knowledge side, I will look at the philosophy of Francis Bacon, Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault. On the happiness side, I will look at the philosophy of Erasmus, Michel Montaigne and Bertrand Russell. As I discussed earlier, philosophy is concerned mainly with two questions: ontology asks what is out there and epistemology asks how we know it, so knowledge is fundamental to philosophy. You could say we humans are hard-wired to see,

understand, analyse and interpret the world. In other words, we are curious creatures so the development of modern science is just a byproduct of this curiosity and our thirst for knowledge drives innovation and social change. But we are also creatures who seek happiness. While knowledge can empower us, it doesn't make us happy. While knowledge can transform our lives, it doesn't guarantee happiness or peace of mind. As I discussed earlier, the first philosopher to methodically seek the truth wa

s Socrates and later Aristotle improved it by giving the approach a scientific and empirical tinge to it. But it wasn't until centuries later that the scientific approach was perfected in Europe, mainly in 15th and 16th centuries through the works of scientists such as Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. During this period, the English philosopher, scientist and politician, Francis Bacon who lived between 1561 and 1626, looked at knowledge from an empirical point of view. He graduated from the Unive

rsity of Cambridge, and he's often considered the first empiricist, a school of philosophy later developed by other British philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. Bacon placed the source of knowledge in our experience through our senses. At the time, the Church held the view that knowledge came from God but science was challenging that. Church relied on people not knowing, and not questioning things. When nobody knows things, the church could control information and become the source of

knowledge. Today, you could say the big media companies have the same mindset. But Bacon understood the power of knowledge and wanted to educate everyone because he believed that through knowledge you could empower the poor so they could better their lives. This is an early idea of public education, which today we take for granted. Bacon understood that humans are on the one hand knowledge seekers, but on the other hand, humans also have some blindspots like religious belief, tribal affiliation

s, and love of money which prevent us from getting to the truth. Another problem we have as humans is that we project our own limited experience to the world. Bacon argued that science, however, doesn't look at an individual but looks at the majority to generalise. It's through generalisation that you get closer to the truth. For instance, if one person experiences something, it is subjective and unreliable but if 10, 20,100 or more people experience the same thing, then you can generalise and m

ake science out of it. Understanding generality is an immense power, according to Francis Bacon. So knowledge not only opens the knower's mind, it also empowers them to change their lives for the better. Of course, Bacon lived at a time, when people had very little so education and knowledge could transform a person's life immeasurably. Desiderius Erasmus who lived between 1466 and 1536 was a Dutch philosopher who wrote a very influential book called In Praise of Folly. Unlike Francis Bacon, Era

smus argued to be happy, naivety and ignorance are more important than knowing. For him the purpose of life is not to gain power but to be content. He was writing at the time when Europe was waking up to have a Renaissance, a resurgence in scientific and rational pursuit, which went against the teachings of the church to have faith in god. Erasmus a Christian himself, while criticizing the corruption in the Catholic church, argued that to be happy, a little faith and ignorance were vitally impor

tant. His philosophy was taken up by fiction writers such as Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote and later the Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky. The goal of life is not to know everything but to lead a simple life. Knowledge or power doesn't make you happy but simplicity and folly do. It's the old adage that ignorance is bliss, which goes completely counter to the age of the Enlightenment and rationality. So Erasmus said that being an idiot was the surest way to be happy. Michel de Montaigne w

ho lived between 1533 and 1592 was a French philosopher who had a very curious childhood. Although born into a wealthy family, he spent his first three years of childhood in the house of a peasant so he could learn the life of the poor. This must have had a profound influence on him later on in life. If Erasmus said folly was a good medicine for happiness, Montaigne argued that to be happy one should live a simple life. Instead of seeking the company of many people, one should try to live a more

solitary life, because society can corrupt you, either morally or intellectually. In today's social media world of chasing likes and online attention and validation, his message resonates with a lot of people. We always try to seek the validation of our peers like some addictive drug, to an extent that we are never satisfied. Montaigne says, to have a peaceful life, don't chase other people's approval or glory or fame which makes us pretentious and fake most of the time. He argued that attentio

n seekers are not original thinkers, but rather suffers from herd mentality or tribalism which in the heat of the crowd or moment turns us into mobs, we commit horrendous crimes and only later realise how stupid it was. To prevent becoming a mob, Montaigne argued that once you disentangle yourself from the group, crowd, or mobs, you develop a clarity of mind or an inner tranquility. It's not only good for your happiness, but also good for intellectual and moral integrity, because solitude allows

you to develop yourself. To have a lasting name, writers and artists should not be bogged down to today's politics and tribalism. Montaigne's idea of solitude also inspired Nietzsche who was extremely critical of the masses or mobs or tribal thinking. I will discuss Nietzsche later on. As modernity made mass education the norm, and the crowded cities habitat for the majority of people, life's meaning became even more acute for the modern man. Knowledge of the world wasn't enough to have a meani

ngful life, we needed something else. Martin Heidegger who lived between 1889 and 1976, was a German philosopher who turned the lens onto himself. Francis Bacon, like Aristotle, was interested in knowing the outside world, but Heidegger, like Diogenes of Sinope, wanted to know the human being itself. In his famous book Being and Time, instead of asking what human being is, he asked how it is like to be human. What's that experience like? لماذا ا؟ The simple answer is that we are scientists who h

appen to be also the subject of science. When you study animals, we are outsiders, but when you study human beings, we are insiders. Heidegger didn't want to have an abstract answer, instead he wanted to know to have a concrete answer to the question of being, which is incidentally the root of the word ontology in Greek. So what's his answer? Heidegger measured life as a finite phenomena, starting at birth and ending in death. Just a line that has a beginning and an end. Now, unlike other animal

s, we know death. We even anticipate it. The knowledge of death makes us anxious and fearful so to cope we tend to not think about it on a daily basis. It's either a coping mechanism or simply we do not have time to think about it every day as we are busy with work and life. So we are the being who is aware of death but we also try not to think about it. That's precisely Heidegger's answer. Human beings or beings are to be aware of death. Instead of making us anxious or depressed, he thinks it e

mpowers us. This knowledge of death gives our life authenticity and meaning. So if Bacon said knowledge of the world empowers us to better our life physically, Heidegger says, the knowledge of death gives our life meaning and empowers us to live fully and authentically. Bertrand Russell who lived between 1872 and 1970 was a British philosopher who was deeply steeped in the logical and mathematical side of philosophy, just like Ludwig Wittgenstein whom he influenced. He used a logical and rationa

l approach, to argue that to be happy, one should work less. You could say, he is responding to Marx who argued that workers are exploited by the rich. But he is also responding to the northern European work ethics, which states that work is morally good in itself, therefore this morality, according to some, was responsible for modern capitalism. Russell, however, argued that seeing work as a morally good thing was not only irrational, but also made a few people very rich while the majority very

unhappy. لماذا ا؟ Because not all kinds of work are the same. Some are good and some are not good. Some are meaningful and some are not. To bundle all as a good thing is not logical. He concluded that working less increases human happiness. So instead of working yourself to death, you should enjoy life more. Do other activities. Today, a lot of people are so busy working long hours that they lose sight of their well-being and happiness. This is especially true for men, because we are more drawn

to numbers just like Bertrand Russell was. We watch growth graphs and become obsessed with it. We work one day and then extrapolate that to a week, a month and then a year. So if we work this many days, we will have this much money and as a result we lose sight of the fact that life is meant to be lived, not worked to death. So Russell argued that to be happy, work less. He lived to be 90 years old. Michel Foucault who lived between 1926 and 1984 was a French philosopher. Unlike Bacon and Heide

gger, he saw knowledge as a cynical tool of repression. Foucault looked at modernity through the lens of Nietzsche, saying that modern rationality wasn't liberating humans but creating a more robust chain to control us. He famously studied the prison system, in how prisons are designed to control us, either directly through imprisonment or indirectly through the fear of it. He argued that those who have access to science and knowledge use it to discipline the rest of us through the education sys

tem as well as the legal system. Foucault argued that knowledge is a tool. Science is a tool. Rationality is a tool. But mostly for the powerful elite because they have access to all of them, while the majority of us are mere subjects. Foucault was also inspired by Kant whose epistemological revolution argued that our knowledge of reality is not totally objective, but rather we see the world the way we see because we impose our own mental structure on the world. Foucault even argued that man or

mankind itself is a recent invention. So to sum up, on the knowledge side, Francis Bacon understood that our knowledge of the world could empower us to better our lives. Heidegger argued that our knowledge of death can give our life more meaning and authenticity. Foucault, however, said everything is invented, there is nothing solid to understand. Knowledge is just a tool for power to manipulate nature and other humans. So to sum up, on the happiness side, Erasmus argued that folly, ignorance or

naivety is a good thing to have to lead a happier life. We have all seen children. As we grow older, we lose that naivety and become a bit more miserable. Montaigne argued that don't follow the crowd, instead seek some solitude to cultivate your own inner peace. Don't seek validation from others like a drug addict. The higher you go, the more you seek to get high and higher. No mountain is high enough. So listen to Montaigne because he came down the mountain to settle in a hut. Even his name me

ans Montaigne, so climb yourself and your ego, not other people's validation. Bertrand Russell argued that work is not a morally good or bad thing, so we should prioritize happiness over work. Work to live or live to work. I should really listen to this. But I want to have more subscribers. Montaigne, help! So knowledge can make your physical life better or make you more successful financially or boost your social standing, but it might decrease your overall happiness. Knowing things also makes

us humans very cynical about the world, just like Foucault said that all knowledge is power and all authorities want to suppress you. Naivety, on the other hand, might make your physical life harder, as you don't have everything figured out, but it can also lead you to a more long-lasting happiness as you trust other people and rely on other people, which brings a level of sincerity in yourself and those around you. So knowledge makes you successful but it could also cynical, while ignorance hin

ders your success, it could lead to a more blissful life. ماذا تعتقد؟ Next, I will discuss the battle between rationalists and empiricists leading to Immanuel Kant's great breakthrough in philosophical knowledge. Rationalists vs empiricists vs Kant (How we know reality) Previously I discussed the question whether our life purpose is to seek knowledge or seek happiness. In this segment I will look at one of the biggest battles in philosophy between the rationalists, mostly mainland Europeans who

argue that knowledge is somewhat innate inside us, and the empiricists, mainly British who argue that knowledge comes from experience. Immanuel Kant brought the two together. If western philosophy was a two sided funnel, Kant would be the narrow part, so everything before him is squeezed through him and after him, Hegel and Schopenhauer moved philosophy in two directions. Hegel went historical and rational, while Schopenhauer went psychological and subconscious. I will discuss these two philosop

hical approaches later on. Rationalism is a school of philosophy that relies on human reason to understand the world. Reason itself is an innate human property. In other words, we are born with the ability to reason and early rationalists saw reason as a god-given gift. The father of rationalism is Rene Descartes who lived between 1596 and 1650. He was a French philosopher and scientist who famously did his thought experiment. He sat down in his armchair and asked the simple question, what if ev

erything we know is just a dream. Nothing exists in reality. In other words, to prove that he existed, he did the opposite, he doubted his own existence. Then he said even if everything was a dream, the dreamer has to be real, otherwise there will be no dreaming without a dreamer or doubt without a doubter so he said the most famous line in philosophy, “I think, therefore I am.” Even if you doubt your own existence, this doubt is real. According to Descartes we get knowledge or ideas in three di

fferent ways: some come from our experiences, some derived from reason, and some ideas are innate inside us, presumably from god. So rationalists like Rene Descartes argue that we have an innate knowledge of the world and as we grow, we simply unfold that knowledge to see things more clearly. In a way rationalists are like Plato in saying that our knowledge of the world inside us and learning is just recollection of that innate knowledge. So the seed is inside us, not outside. The other famous r

ationalist was Gottfried Leibniz who lived between 1646 and 1716. Today we know him more because of the famous argument he had with Issac Newton over the invention of Calculus. Leibniz, however, was also a great philosopher who made a distinction between rational truth and factual truth. In other words, our knowledge of the world relies on our innate reason but also on human experience. The things we experience on the outside builds on and solidifies our inner knowledge. For Leibniz, the human m

ind is a small representation of the entire universe. In other words, the human mind contains everything in the universe. If the universe is rational, then the human mind is a representation of that rationality. However, he conceded that human rationality is not always adequate to understand the world so we need human experiences to complement our rational faculties. One of the biggest problems for Leibniz was his belief in god, so he attempted to reconcile scientific empiricism with the idea of

god who knows it all. In doing so, Leibniz argued for two different forms of truths. The empirical truths we gain through experiences add to our rational truths which we innately have or god-given. So to sum up, rationalists argue that humans are naturally equipped to utilize reason to understand the world, with or without the need of observation or animal senses. In other words, we don't need experiences to know the world. We simply know it, because for the most part god has imparted us with i

nnate knowledge or ability of reasoning. Empiricists, however, disagreed, saying we understand the world, not innately, but through experience and empirical data we gather from the world through our human senses. Our mind is a blank slate without experience. John Locke who lived between 1632 and 1704, around the same time as Leibniz, was a pioneer of empiricism who said that everything we know about the world has come to us from our experience. He gave the example of new-born babies to show that

we humans have not a single idea from birth. We simply learn by observing and experiencing things. Quote: “If we attentively consider newborn children, we shall have little reason to think that they bring many ideas into the world with them.” Locke understood that while we may not have innate ideas from birth, we do have the ability to learn a language which may be innate. This was later developed by Noam Chomsky in his famous theory of universal grammar that humans are hardwired to learn a lan

guage and its structure. So John Locke concluded that all knowledge we gain, we gain through experience. David Hume who lived between 1711 and 76 built on the John Locke's idea of empirical experience as a source of knowledge and further argued that not only we understand the world through observation and experiences, but we are also be able to categorize things as a kind customary habit which guide us through life. Hume argues that if you see a tree, then another, then another, and at some poin

t you see a pattern or category. This you call trees. We have no notion of trees from birth. We are like blank slates as babies and only through encounters with the outside world, we begin to form knowledge of the outside world. The same with night and day. As you see the cycle being repeated, you begin to expect it as a kind of custom that night turns into day and day turns into night and the cycle becomes a customary knowledge. This over time becomes ideas and beliefs. Over time they turn into

what the rationalists call innate knowledge. Hume says they are nothing but old impressions and perceptions over time. As knowledge is passed on from generation to generation, it may seem innate, which is nothing but someone's experience. So David Hume, added custom as a kind of repeated experience or common knowledge and argued that we learn things from experience and it is not innate. So the rationalists believed we humans are equipped with some innate knowledge of the world at birth, while t

he empiricists argued that we are blank slates and only through our experiences we gain knowledge of the world. In other words, rationalists see knowledge flow from inside-out like a torch shedding light on the outside, while the empiricists see knowledge flow from outside like a window lighting a room. Here comes the German giant, Immanuel Kant who lived between 1724 and 1804. Kant took up the challenge of reconciling these two divergent schools of philosophy. To solve the problem between the r

ationalists and the empiricists, Kant devised a new theory that divided the world into two: phenomena and noumena. Phenomena is the world of experiences, how we understand the world through our bodily senses. Things we see, hear, touch and smell and observe and study. Noumena, on the other hand, is the world in itself, which we can never truly know. For example we can touch and study a rock, but we cannot truly understand what it feels to be a rock. As a result our knowledge of the rock is not c

omplete, it is limited and partial. Kant argued that when we're receiving information through experience, however, we are not passive receivers, instead we humans also impose our own structures to the world. We categorize things into rocks, trees, animals and whatnot. The world we see is a reflection of the mental structure we put out to the world. Rocks and trees may not have any notion of being such, but humans have imposed such categories onto them. In other words, we are not passive knowledg

e receivers but actively imposing our own structure on things. Now Kant brings the rationalists and empiricists together. Rationalists argue everything is inside us, while empiricists say everything is outside us, and Kant says we are sort of on the threshold of outside and inside. Like a kind of window glass, in the middle of inside and outside. Our inner mental structure shapes how we experience the world. For example, a good analogy would be fishing. To catch a fish, a fisherman throws a net.

If the holes in your net are too large, the fish escape, and if the net has no hole, it catches more water than fish. So the fish is the outside world while the net we throw is our mental structure we put out to capture the experience as knowledge. We humans probe the world through our innate mental structure which catches the outside experience-based knowledge. So for Kant reason and experience go hand in hand in understanding the world. Without the net, you cannot catch. You need both reason

and experience to understand the world. This he called his Copernican Revolution. لماذا ا؟ Because in the middle ages, people believed the sun was orbiting the earth, and Copernicus said the earth is orbiting the sun. Kant did the same. Empiricists say knowledge comes from outside, and Kant says yes, but not only we actively seek the outside knowledge, but it also goes through us so our mental structure determines reality on the outside. In other words, our human method puts a structure to the w

orld that would not exist without humans. And this structure makes it easy for us to understand and manipulate the world. Imagine we are not human, we might have a very different understanding of the world. So to sum up, the rationalists think reason is more important than experience in our pursuit of knowledge. Our reason is like a torch that allows us to see things. The empiricists, however, counter-argue that experience is primary and reason is secondary. Our senses act like a window that let

s light in so we understand things. Kant says we humans are both a torch and a window because our mental structure allows us to experience and understand the world better, faster and more effectively. Without a good method or an effective tool and structure, our experiences are all over the place. The debate is still not over though. Despite Kant uniting the two epistemological approaches in philosophy, there are still people who think one way or another. Our modern science is leaning more to th

e empiricists' camp while most psychologists lean more towards not the rationalist but the irrational subconscious or the unconscious in determining how we understand the world. So the debate has shifted from reason to passion and in some cases to intuition. It's not rationality but intuition that allows us to understand the world. Next, I will discuss what motivates human action by looking at two of Kant's famous successors, who went in very different directions. Schopenhauer went psychological

ly towards eastern philosophy while Hegel built his philosophy on history. On the one hand we have Hegel, Marx, Sartre and others who explained human motivation through history and rationality, while on the other hand, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche relied on the individual psyche and human passion to explain human motivation. Sociological Philosophy: Hegel vs Marx vs Sartre vs Zizek [Reason Motivates Us) Previously I discussed how Immanuel Kant bridged the two philosophical approaches

to epistemology, rationalism and empiricism. So in western philosophy Kant is like a funnel. He influenced another two branches of philosophy that came after him, which tried to answer some fundamental questions like, what makes us who we are? What motivates our actions? Hegel's answer was history and rationality while his arch-rival Schopenhauer's answer was the subconscious will. Hegel's philosophy went the sociological route, basing human action on history and rationality while Schopenhauer's

philosophy went the psychological route, basing human motivation on the subconscious blind will or human passion. In this segment, I will look at sociology and rationality by discussing philosophers, including Hegel, Marx, Sartre, and Zizek who argue that we are the product of history. But they didn't stop there. Since history makes us who we are, it is also our job to make history. So we are not only moulded and shaped by the historical era in which we live in, but also through our own life ch

oices. So social philosophy is built on the philosophy of progressive egalitarianism stating that we are heading towards a perfectionist utopia on the one hand, and materialism stating that the most important aspect of human life is the material success, on the other. Of course, not all of them agreed on this. It's important to note that philosophers who came after Kant were in a sense responding to Kant, because his breakthrough in bringing the rationalists and the empiricists together was a hu

ge moment in philosophy. Georg Hegel who lived between 1770 and 1831, too, responded to Kant. Hegel had two problems with Kant. First, Kant argued that we humans only understand the phenomena but we have no access to noumena or the thing in itself. We can touch a rock but we cannot fully understand it. For Hegel this noumena world, which we can never fully know, looked like an empty abstraction, pure speculation based on Kant's own assumption. In other words, he just made it up by claiming that

such a thing existed in the first place. Hegel's second problem with Kant was that he argued that our innate structures or catheterisation by which we interpret the world is fixed. In other words, we use a fish net, or a framework by which we catch a fish or experience, but the net or the framework is always fixed and nobody can change it. For the history buff Hegel everything, including human consciousness, was subject to change through time. History has shown us that humans evolve, so do our t

ools including the fish net or our ability to reason. In other words, everything has a history. Even a rock has a history. It changes through time. And humans are very much the product of the historical era. How do we change? Hegel says through dialectic processes. When two opposites collide it makes a third thing that has a bit of both the original things but it is also slightly different characters. Hegel says every phenomenon or idea or thesis as he called it contains a contradiction within i

tself, which he called antithesis, and this conflict which is resolved in synthesis, or a newer idea which is an improvement on or different from the thesis and antithesis. Like a child has characteristics of both parents but also different from both. This historical process continues in generating new thesis and antithesis which lead to further synthesis and the history continues. So according to Hegel, Kant was wrong in saying that human mental structure or reason does not change. For Hegel ev

erything is subject to change. It's important to note that Kant was a lot firmer in his religious belief than Hegel, which explains that Kant sees reason as static while Hegel sees it as malleable and changeable through time. Another reason is of course, the French Revolution as well as the rise of Napoleon, which for the very first time in human history, ordinary people took power from the king, and anyone could become Napoleon. So nothing was fixed. Kant, being a much older man, was fiercely a

gainst any kind of revolution that could destabilize the status quo. For Hegel the world has a history and we are for the most part the product of a historical era. In other words, reality is a historical process, not constant. However, since we are the product of history, we can also affect the course of history through ideas that capture the spirit of an age. For example, Napoleon managed to influence history as he captured the spirit of 19th century Europe, people didn't believe in the absolu

te power of kings so demanded change. Hegel can be characterised as a perfectionist rationalist, believing that history is moving towards perfection. Now, Hegel only interpreted history, his student wanted to change history. Karl Marx who lived between 1818 and 83 learnt a great deal from Hegel. He came to the conclusion that if we are the product of history, our history must be the product of those who came before us. Marx had a problem. Hegel was good at interpreting history, even at recognisi

ng the people who were capable of changing, but Marx was more concerned about changing things for the good, especially for the disadvantaged majority who were the real force behind economic production. Marx said the history of our existence has been nothing but a continuous class struggle between the haves and have-nots, the powerful and the powerless, with the powerful enjoying it all and the powerless having a tough time of it. So Marx developed a philosophy of rational materialism, arguing th

at material inequality was the root of all evils. He argued that humans are fundamentally motivated by material objects so we are rational because we want material things. To solve this inequality, he adopted egalitarianism. For Marx the perfectionist future utopia was an egalitarian society where you only worked for the hours that provided you enough subsistence and the rest of time you could relax on the beach. You can also see traces of Christianity in Marxism, the fight between good and evil

culminating in the weak overthrowing the powerful and turning the world into a utopian communist heaven where everyone lives equally and happily ever after. But Marx was not religious so he based his philosophy on rational materialism in which all workers unite to overthrow the exploitative class and everyone lives in harmony and peace and nobody starves. For Marx, not only communism was desirable, it was also historically inevitable because for him history was moving towards perfection, throug

h incremental improvement or dialectical change as Hegel said. For example feudalism was an improvement on hunter-gatherer societies, Capitalism was an improvement on feudalism, socialism an improvement on capitalism, and finally communism an improvement on socialism. And for Marx, communism was the final phase of human history. You couldn't make it any better. Just like heaven, you cannot create a heaven that's better than another heaven. Or maybe you could, but generally heavens tend to mean p

erfection. If they do exist of course. Marx's class-based analysis had deep communitarian roots or group-based, as a result it failed in a highly individualised Europe, despite many attempts. For example in the 1870s Paris had a socialist revolution but it didn't stick. Marxism found fertile soil in countries with a strong communitarian bond, like Russia and China, so the 20th century witnessed many Marxist revolutions to move history in the right direction. These attempts had partial success, b

ut ultimately failed to create a communist utopia. So Hegel talked about history in motion, Marx talked about how to speed up that historical motion. Both Hegel and Marx saw things from a society's perspective. Now I will discuss how this history-based philosophy applies to a person's own individual history, from birth to death. If a society has a history, so does an individual. Jean-Paul Sartre who lived between 1905 and 1980 was a French existentialist philosopher. He was not a Marxist but was

hugely influenced by Marx and other Marxists, especially the Maoist movement in France. Hegel and Marx both agreed that humans are not only the products of history, but we humans also serve the purpose of history. Hegel explained reality through a god-like spirit or idea, and Marx explained through historical materialism and class struggle. In other words, both argued that we individuals are here to serve a grander mission or purpose, be it god or history or class struggle or general society. B

ut what's the purpose of individual human life? Sartre's existentialist philosophy argued that human life has no purpose because we are made neither by god, nor by the blind force of history as Marx and Hegel outlined, instead we are made by our own history, choices we make in our own life. In other words, we have no essence or purpose from birth, we simply acquire it though our life, often through our own free choices and actions. Since we have no pre-ordained purpose set for us by some other p

ower, like god or society, we are free to make mistakes to find our own purpose. Sartre goes even further by saying that we are condemned to be free and condemned to make mistakes but this freedom comes with … you guessed it as uncle Ben said, it comes with responsibility. In other words, we are our own makers, we craft our own self identity, therefore we have to live with what we make of ourselves. Unlike Hegel and Marx, Sartre liberates individuals from the constraints of god, history, traditi

ons, class and even human nature. So today, a new trend among homo sapiens is transgenderism, the idea that you can define your own gender identity based on your own feelings. People feel they are in the wrong body and they change their gender in an attempt to correct the incorrect. This might have been difficult in the pre-existentialist era, but now it is widely accepted in most of the developed world that you can decide what your identity is. Instead of your biology, society's history, tradit

ion or norms defining you, you have the full control to make yourself and find your own life's purpose. As I said, with this freedom, comes responsibility. If you make mistakes, you have to own those mistakes. Don't blame others. In other words, if you build a bridge and it collapses, you're responsible. In the same way, you build your own identity and if something goes wrong, you cannot blame others for it. So Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist philosophy gave the individual the full autonomy to

make something of themselves. For him it wasn't social history, but your own individual history that makes you. You own free choices. Slavoj Zizek was born in Slovenia in 1949. Today, he is the most important figure who subscribes to a history-based philosophy. He identifies himself as a Hegelian who argues that Marxism has failed miserably because most Marxists today live in the past, too attached to history. Today's Marxists blame history for their failure. In other words, he says that Marxis

ts today have lost touch with reality and live in the past like an old man who has failed in his life projects. This failure is most visible in his own style as he uses comedy to cope with that failure. His philosophy is based on a philosophical irony. Marxists believe in history and historical struggle. The very history that these philosophers based their ideas failed their attempt to create a truly socialist society. So history failed a philosophical tradition that based its core philosophy on

history. Now that's ironic. And so on and so on and so on. You get the point. So to sum up, Hegel said we are the product of history that keeps progressing and Marx said let's not study history but let's speed it up to get our final destination: a communist utopia. Sartre argues forget about class history, we are the product of our own individual history in which we also find our purpose, and finally Zizek says history has failed us all. We have not progressed but regressed. So our history is n

othing but a history of failed intelligence or rationality. Next, I will discuss the other strand of philosophy that came out of Kant through Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche which emphasizes not rationality or history or society, but passion, or will or human psyche, the mysterious subconscious world of psychological philosophy. Psychological Philosophy: Schopenhauer vs Kierkegaard vs Nietzsche vs Peterson [Passion Motivates Us] Previously I discussed the branch of philosophy that put e

mphasis on historical and social change as the main motivating factors for human actions. For example philosophers like Hegel, Marx and Sartre argued that we are the product of history, either society's history or our own personal history. In this segment, I will focus on the other branch of philosophy that's based on the individual human psyche or the blind will that drives human actions. In other words, it is not history or society but some other mysterious forces inside us, like passion and t

he blind subconscious will. The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer who lived between 1788 and 1860 was firmly against Hegel's philosophy. Schopenhauer took Kant's distinction between the knowable world of phenomena and the unknowable world of noumena to develop his own theory of Will and Representation. Schopenhauer argued that there is no distinction between the two worlds, they are one and the same thing or two sides of the same coin. He said there is one world, which he called it will. B

ut this will is mysterious and hard to understand. It's built-in inside us. In other words, all living beings and even non-living beings come pre-assembled or pre-installed with this blind will. Since it's built-in inside each being, we cannot fully know. We can only know how it is represented or manifested to us, but not the will itself. The will itself is hidden from us, all we see is its mere representation. For Schopenhauer, will is the blind driving force in the universe and representation

is our perception of that blind will. In other words, will is the essence of the universe and we only see or understand its manifestation in us. He called it will to life. Or passion for life that we share with all living beings, including animals and plants. We all have an innate will to continue living. Since the will is blind and universal, we each become its eye through which it looks out to the world. Will is like a gigantic iceberg while our human intellect or human perception of it is onl

y the tip of that iceberg. So Schopenhauer really went deeply psychological about human motivation. Schopenhauer says it is impossible to know the will, because as soon as you observe it, it becomes a representation of that will. If you do not observe it, then it is the will. It's like in quantum mechanics, your observation of a particle changes the position of the particle. In other words, if you don't look, it is there, but as soon as you look, it changes position. So it is a kind of catch 22.

To understand Schopenhauer's idea of the will is to imagine everything in the universe is one thing, let's say atoms that oscillate between everything that exists. It appears to us as something that is not the genuine thing, but a mere representation. To fully understand Schopenhauer's will, it is important to mention the Buddhist idea of the self as an illusion or mirage. For the Buddhists soul is universal but the self is a mere mirage we acquire in our lifetime. In other words our essence is

not the self we call me or I. Schopenhauer too, places the blind will at a much deeper place than we can understand and we only get a representation of it. He also said that this will is the cause of our human suffering, therefore Schopenhauer is often considered the father of pessimism. Just like in Buddhism our ego desires things and those desires make us suffer, because we can never satisfy our desires fully. Schopenhauer says since we have a body, we have a will that somehow controls us and

that causes suffering, so we are all at the mercy of this blind will that urges us to do things. The only way to cope with this suffering is through intellect and art which allow us to move to a state of non-existence like the Buddhist nirvana. Artists while creating art as well as us while enjoying that art, we all experience a moment of non-being while in awe of its beauty. When an art takes our breath away, we truly experience non-existence, a kind of blissful moment. Schopenhauer influenced

the German composer Richard Wagner whose music represents Schopenhauer's philosophy. For Schopenhauer music didn't represent the phenomenal world, therefore it was free from the will and urges, instead it fostered compassion. Schopenhauer had a massive influence on novelists and musicians of the 19th century. He also influenced psychoanalysts, especially Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Schopenhauer also dismissed the idea of god and replaced god with the blind will and this had an influence on our

next philosopher. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard lived between 1813 and 1855. He argued that our anxiety comes from our choices or in other words our belief in complete freedom to make such choices. In a world where everyone believes in god, where everything is caused by god, people accept it because there is no other choice. In other words, God tells you what to do and what not to do. You have no choice of your own. But we live in a world, where we no longer believe in god, so we hav

e the freedom to choose. But this freedom comes at a massive psychological cost. It makes us anxious about our choices and the consequences of those choices. When we are children, we live a care-free life because our parents take care of everything. In the same way, a god fearing society also lives in a kind of blissful ignorance. Since god is dead, or when parents die, we are responsible to make our own choices. The psychological toll of making choices is immense on us. For example, Hamlet agon

izes over the question of “To be or not to be” in Shakespeare's play. Incidentally Hamlet was also a Dane like Kierkegaard. In the 19th century, hysteria was very prevalent, especially among women. Today, anxiety is more common, among both men and women. So absolute freedom makes us anxious. Kierkegaard himself never lost faith in god, but he saw freedom as good and bad. While it makes us anxious and dizzy, it also allows us to make good moral choices. His problem with Hegel's theory of history

was that it gave little room for individual freedom because we are bound by the historical force. In fact we suffer, not because of the bigger forces in society, but we suffer through our own actions or choices we make as individuals. So Schopenhauer said the blind will motivates us while leaving us with minimum freedom of our own and Kierkegaard said that little freedom induces anxiety in us. Now these two philosophers come together in our next philosopher. The German philosopher, Friedrich Nie

tzsche lived between 1844 and 1900. He was a great admirer of Schopenhauer. He accepted Schopenhauer's idea of the will, but he had a big problem with how passive this will to life was. Nietzsche argued that this will, blind it may be, can be harnessed and utilized for great purposes, artistic genius and philosophical flourishing. He changed the passive “will to life” into a proactive “will to power”. In other words, we are not here to just live, but we are here to grow, conquer and dominate. Na

ture is based on competition not a state of blissfulness or mere survival. Nietzsche saw religions, especially its morality as the biggest obstacle for individuals to push boundaries in order to achieve greatness. Morality decides what's good and what's bad, so society promotes certain values and restricts others. Nietzsche saw this as a weak-minded way of living that promoted a weak or slave mentality. He instead proposed a more nature-based approach, in which no morality can restrict innovatio

n, probing, artistic creativity and philosophical ideas. Nature wants to grow, dominate, while religions suppress and tame people. Nietzsche proposed the idea of ubermensch, a being who has surpassed humanity into something else, a free spirit artist or a philosophical genius. He's no longer bound by social values and norms because he has shed his human qualities of weakness, slave mentality and religious compassion. He is released from all that into a state of enormous creative energy and exube

rance for life. Nietzsche saw western philosophy championing rationality at the expense of passion and emotions. For him passion was as important as reason. Reason is just a tool, it provides us with technology that makes life easier and more comfortable. But reason cannot motivate us to do things that are daring and courageous. Instead rationality makes us risk-averse. This timidness leads us to hedonism in which we only seek pleasure and avoid pain. This is a kind of nihilistic self-indulgence

that makes you lazy and self-centred. Human passion, on the other hand, motivates us to do things, conquer the world and topple mountains. So Nietzsche's philosophy was based on human passion or the will to power to surpass the current humans into a great genius. Nietzsche didn't believe in equality either, because only a handful of people could become great artists and genius philosophers. Not everyone has original ideas. So Schopenhauer placed human motivation on the blind innate will, while

Kierkegaard said our anxiety comes from the little freedom we experience and Nietzsche argued we are driven by will to power or passion to push society forward and innovate. Today, sociology and psychology have replaced philosophy when it comes to human motivation. One of the leading voices of psychology is Jordan Peterson was born in 1962 and has adopted YouTube as his platform. Another contemporary voice is the Indian yogi Sadhguru. Peterson believes in human passion and faith telling young pe

ople to take individual responsibility. Unlike Zizek, Peterson doesn't see the world through group identity like class, or gender but through the lens of the individual. His idea of perception is somewhat similar to Schopenhauer's will and representation. Sadhguru, an Indian yogic guru, on the other hand, argues that today's world is shaped by materialism and people have conflated the desire for more with happiness. Our goal is no longer happiness, but to have more. He argues it is time we reach

a higher level of intelligence so we are in charge of our body, not our bodily desires in charge of our mind. He argues that modern society, even science, has become a slave to human bodily desires to make us more comfortable. As a result it has blinded us from other possibilities of human intelligence or human consciousness to reach higher places. So to sum up, Schopenhauer said we are driven by a universal will or passion for which we have no control and this causes us to suffer and art is ou

r best cure for suffering. Kierkegaard argued that our anxiety or suffering is also caused by our freedom of choices in life, which kind of negates Schopenhauer's blind will. Nietzsche said, this human passion that causes us suffering is also a great tool to do something, create something and become greater than ourselves. Peterson says to ease suffering is to take responsibility and make something of your individual life instead of blaming others. Sadhguru argues for a new form of human conscio

usness that goes beyond the material world. So to sum up, human philosophy in the last 2500 years has tried to answer many different questions. Early Greeks tried empirical knowledge to explain the world while early eastern philosophers tried to psychologically cope with the problem of existence. Then later philosophers tried to explain life's purpose, with the humanists focusing on the equality among humans, while the elitists or political realists emphasized competition to push society forward

. Then Kant brought rationalism and empiricism together and the next generations of Germans took him in two separate directions, Hegel went historical saying we are made by history while Schopenhauer went deeper into the human psyche saying we are made by a blind will. Perhaps today we are moving towards a new philosophy that is not based on reason but human intuition. Conclusion: Coursework To sum up this video, In part 1, I discussed how human's knowledge of death and the rise of rational thin

king gave rise to human philosophy in an attempt to answer some of life's fundamental questions like the meaning of life, the nature of reality and the function of the human mind. Then over time each of those topics became a discipline of its own and philosophy gave birth to physics, biology and psychology. Physics focused on reality. Biology on life. And psychology on the human mind. Later I looked at the various branches of philosophy such as ontology, epistemology, rationalism, empiricism, hu

manism, utilitarianism, existentialism, postmodernism and more. In part 2, I discussed how eastern philosophy was based around rivers and agriculture, therefore, spirituality and fatalism became the dominant philosophical ideas. Western philosophy, on the other hand, was based on oceans and trade which focused more on rational thinking. The fundamental difference is that eastern philosophy emphasizes changing oneself while western philosophy wants to change the world. I discussed how the Greek g

iants of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle questioned dogma and promoted rational thinking. While the eastern trio of the Buddha, Lao Tzu and Confucius showed how not to change nature, but become one with nature by changing yourself. In part 3, I discussed the purpose of human civilisation and human life. Elitism sees society as a competition ground while egalitarianism promotes equality. Philosophers such as Sun Tsu, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes saw humans as animals so they offered a hierarchical so

cial system to mimic nature, where the most adept survive. Philosophers such as Jean-Jacque Rousseau, and Voltaire promoted equality instead. On the question of knowledge or happiness, Erasmus, Montaigne, and Bertrand Russell argued one should prioritise happiness, while philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Heidegger, and Foucault prioritised knowledge to better one's life and understand the nature of society. In part 4, I tackled the question of knowledge by discussing rationalism and empiricism

. Rationalists see knowledge as innate inside us while empiricists see knowledge only coming from outside experience. Kant provided a middle ground saying we have innate mental structures that we put out to the world to give us a more structured understanding of the world. In other words, we are not passive receivers but active organisers of the world. I also discussed what shapes us and motivates our action. Hegel and Marx's history-based philosophy argued we are the product of history and Jean

-Paul Sartre who said we are the product of our own individual history. On the psychological side, we saw Schopenhauer who placed human motivation in the subconscious blind will. Kierkegaard focused on how freedom creates its anxiety. Nietzsche said we can channel the blind will and use this anxiety to create art. If you have made it to this point, a huge kudos to you. So my question to you. Which philosophy or philosopher resonated with you the most? Or a more interesting question is, where do

you see philosophy heading? As always I appreciate you accompanying on this long journey.