Philosophers - Tumblr Posts
“Plato is my friend; Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.”
—Isaac Newton
Dead Poets but as philosophic stuff because I'm desesperately trying to learn this shit and nothing is sticking to my brain:
Neil: existencialism, specifically absurdism. Basically, life has no meaning, so you can either accept it or not. There is no greater goal or anything. Includes thinkers such as Camus or Sartre.
Todd (mostly at the start of the movie): determinism, which is kind of the opposite of existencialism, since the idea is a 'everything was planned out before and you cannot change it' type of mindset. It excludes freedom of choice, since your decisions have very little impact over everything. You're just in a boat in a storm and you have very little control over anything.
Charlie: hedonism, which is the pursuit of pleasures and the avoidance of pain. According to this idea, you'd take action depending on how much pleasure or pain you'd get from it.
Cameron: utilitarianism, or acting in a way to maximize happiness for the biggest amount of people. Includes philosophers such as Bentham or John Stuart Mill. Examples of utilitarism could be: if you were a train conductor and you had to either
stay on tracks, do nothing and hit a group of people that were on the rails
change your trajectory and instead hit one person
what would you do? Well according to utilitarism you would change trajectory, as it would benefit the greatest amount of people.
Meeks: rationalism and consequentialism. Tbh I don't really understand rationalism, but from what I know, its basis is that reason is a source of knowledge and stuff. Consequentialism is interest in the consequences of one's actions; realistic consequences. So before you act you think of the consequences kind-of-thing.
Pitts: solipsism, according to which the only thing that exists for sure is the thinker. I don't really get how it's different from Descartes 'i think therefore i am', but so solipsism would mean that you can only be convinced of your own existence.
Knox: idealism; reality, perception, ideas etc are all linked, and ideas represent a reality. I didn't really listen during this part of the lesson tbh -which is why I have to revise now using things like this post-.
Mr. Keating: stoicism; accept that some things are out of control, and act in a way so to do right by others and stuff. A stoist philosopher was, for example, Crysipus, who died laughing at his own joke.
Chris: eudaemonism, which is similar to hedonism, except that happiness is seen as a logical finality and it's basically a fact that most people want happiness. So it's happiness instead of pleasures that is pursued, with philosophers such as Epicurus.
Mr. Perry (not a Dead Poet but the only person I could think of for this): deontology, which is like a set of rules around duties and obligations, and has as a goal to preserve future generations. Idk he doesn't totally fit deontology but I had no one else in mind. Anyways I hate Mr. Perry and I hate learning philosophy.
Fun Lost Fact: The character names of John Locke, Hume, Burke, Mikhail Bakunin and Rousseau are from philosophers prominent in the debate of fate versus free will, a topic prominent on the show.
“People will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.”
— Aldous Huxley
"I long for you. I, who usually longs without longing, as though I am unconscious and. And absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really utterly long for every bit of you. You are the knife I turn inside myself. That is love. That, my dear, is love." - Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
Camus was right; ‘Je ne sais pas’ y’all
Plato and his flexing during philosophical debates could never hold a candle to the raw capabilities and inner workings of a thought daughter.