Blog #5

Maggie Vincent

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

5 August 2013

A Philosophic Lesson

      Jostein Gaarder made my head spin with how many philosophers he fit into 500 pages. When I finished the book I had to just sit back and mull it over for a few minutes. I could not even think about trying to dissect it yet! Even if I did not agree with every philosopher, it was wonderful to get a good overview of him or her. Philosophy had always been something I wanted to learn about and I was very glad to get the opportunity to get a history of it.

      There were a lot of philosophers in Sophie's World that I liked and agreed with. I particularly liked Socrates. The fact that he admitted he did not know anything was very humble and wise. If one goes through life thinking they know everything, then he or she is bound to get a very rude awakening. Socrates prepared for everything in knowing that he knew nothing. I also liked the fact that he taught Plato, who then taught Aristotle. The fact that three great minds were all connected is fascinating. It is even better that they disagreed with each other! 

      The moment I read Karl Marx's name I started disagreeing with him. As someone that lives in a capitalist nation, everything he said went against what I thought. I immediately realized that I was not being very open-minded so I restarted the chapter about Marx. No matter how hard I tried to be open minded about his ideas, I just could not get past what I knew about communism. Communism looks great on paper. However, in practice, it has not worked out well for communist nations. I was very glad to get a better understanding of Marx's ideas but I simply do not agree with him.

      At the beginning of the book Sophie was poised to bury herself deep in the rabbit's fur. After she started learning about philosophy she realized this and started climbing to the top of the rabbit's fur. I was in the very same position as Sophie. I thought I had decided where I stood with my beliefs and that was that. Sophie's World taught me how to ask important questions and how to think about them. I got so many different philosophic views that I found that I had my own opinion as soon I started reading about each philosopher. It was not until the end that I realized I had started climbing back up the rabbit's fur. Hopefully I will continue this path and remain at the top.

Blog #4

Maggie Vincent

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

30 July 2013

Through a Different Lense

      Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher during the eighteenth century. He believed that we all saw the world in our own shade of red. Nothing is actually different, just the way each person perceives it. Kant called this the "red tinted glasses" experiment. The shade we see it in is based on our own knowledge and experiences. Since no one has the same knowledge as another person, no one sees in quite the same shade of red.

      Every person has different experiences that color their red tinted glasses. One thing that definitely effects how I see things is my upbringing. I grew up in a good, stable home with loving parents and siblings. I believe that because of this, I look at relationships with other people more positively and with more trust. However, in the last couple of years, I had a serious change in my perspective of the world. Two years ago my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. With this diagnosis came some serious growing up and a very different worldview. It seemed like everywhere I looked there was someone with cancer. My surroundings did not actually change, only the way I viewed everything around me. Even now, with my mom cancer free, my perspective has not returned to what it was before. This one experience changed my view drastically and permanently.

      Kant thought that everyone's knowledge effected how he or she saw his or her surroundings. These "red tinted glasses" changed for each person over time as they matured. As each person learns more and goes through life, their view of the world changes and adjusts. I know that my perspective now will not be my perspective in thirty years. With my own knowledge and experience, I look at something in a completely different way than the person standing right next to me.

Blog #3

Maggie Vincent

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

29 July 2013

A Little Sugar

      I vividly remember Mary Poppins singing about how sugar helps ease taking nasty medicine. There comes a time in every child's life when he or she feels ill and has to choke down a spoonful of "helpful" tar. This song can also serve as an analogy for more important events. Sometimes that event could be just having the chicken pox or it could be for accepting ideas not supported by one's beliefs. Back in the days of St. Augustine and Aquinas, Christianity was very powerful. Due to this, the teachings of Plato and Aristotle were falling by the wayside because they did not go with what Christianity said. This is where St. Augustine and Aquinas stepped in to help make the medicine go down more easily.

      Mary Poppins singing about taking medicine is the picture that immediately popped into my mind when Gaarder wrote about how Aquinas and St. Augustine helped Christianize Plato and Aristotle. With a large Christian population, Plato and Aristotle's teachings were no longer being well received. St. Augustine looked at Christianity and Plato's teachings and saw harmony. Christianity states that God created the world in seven days while Plato believed that the world had always existed. St. Augustine took this to mean that the world had always existed in God's mind. By making these connections, St. Augustine made it easier for Christians to open their minds to Plato and Greek philosophy.

      Aquinas' connections between Christianity and Aristotle give me more pause than what St. Augustine did. Aquinas said that Aristotle did not have complete knowledge of religion because Christianity did not exist during his lifetime. Putting this idea into play means that when Aristotle said a higher being having power over the world, he must have meant God. This idea makes me cringe because I do not think that is how it should work. Just because I say the answer is 17 and the real answer is 17 plus 3i does not make me right. If the question is, "Who dies in The Great Gatsby?" and I write Gatsby died, that is not right, two others die as well. I understand that Aquinas was trying to give Aristotle a place in the Christian world, but it still makes me cringe when I think about the logic he used.

      I do not believe Aquinas and St. Augustine lied when they Christianized the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I do, however, think that they twisted it a little so that it would be easier for Christians to swallow. On one hand, I hate that their teachings were twisted around. On the other hand, the teachings of Plato and Aristotle could have been lost, or at least buried, for a very long time. With what Aquinas and St. Augustine did, the teachings of two great Greek philosophers remained.

Blog #2

Maggie Vincent

Mrs. Wilhelmus

AP English Language

28 July 2013

Equality

      Equality has been a struggle for humanity all throughout history. Whether it is color, gender, or religion, inequality has always been there. One of the enduring fights is between man and woman. The question of whether or not men and women are equally intelligent and important has been argued a lot throughout time. Fortunately, today women have a much higher place in society than they used to. Hopefully, the path to worldwide equality will be a much smoother road than it has been in the past.             

      Aristotle's belief that women were incomplete men infuriates me. I do not understand how he could believe that men provided the form and that women were merely the substance when it came to reproduction. The fact that Aristotle could not see that the mother had an influence on the child makes no sense to me. Even worse, people believed what he said and it was accepted as the truth. Today we know that the man and the woman each contribute half of the genetic material when reproducing. I liked Plato's view that women had the same potential as men. He said as long as they received the same education they could be just as intelligent. I just wish Aristotle's beliefs had not set women back in the world.

     I was not surprised that the majority of the philosophers that were mentioned were men. Throughout history, men have risen above women because of better educations and more opportunities. The woman that was mentioned, Olympe de Gouges, was killed for speaking out. It has only been in the past century, when women have had access to education, that women have gotten equality.  So much progress has been made in the last century and I cannot wait to see where we are in another one hundred years.  My only hope is that when a book is written about philosophy five hundred years from now, it includes women as well as men.

      Aristotle has since been proven incorrect about his view of women. However, he did plenty of damage with his beliefs. As popular as he was, many people agreed with him and his view of women. If only his mentor, Plato, had been the one the people had believed. Maybe now that men and women are more equal there will be more women written about and listened to on philosophic matters.