I received a recent email from my friend domlawrenceosb telling me about the results of his midterm test in his course, History of Western Philosophy, and I just could not help but to marvel but on the other hand, frown at the terminologies he used in his answers from the 10 essay questions that he struggled to find the right answer.
And since I do not have any background in Philosophy as I graduated in teacher education program with major in Science, looking at the way he delineated the answers, I just sighed in awe. Maybe, he must have probably retained much of his intellectual intelligence. What am I trying to say here?
I admire domlawrenceosb because despite his chronological age (he is ten years older than me as I am only 42 yrs old now) and his present disposition, being away from the academe for nearly 12 years, oh boy! that was quite a long hibernation from his usual classroom routines in his Master’s degree in Theology which he failed to finish, still he has not lost his ground in facing the challenges of being in graduate studies.
As Science teacher, I know for a fact that at the age of 30, a human being’s brain shrinks and loses its neurons making him lose the ability to pick up new things in his environment and it is in such stage when the neurons continue to become dysfunctional brought about by a decreased level of neurotransmitters in the human brain, thereby making it very difficult to learn new things.
It is in this regard where I am totally amazed at how domlawrenceosb’s brain is doing with his age as I am resigned to the fact that his brain must have already experienced so much loss in its neurons at this point in his life. But look! He has violated the principles and facts and surpassed such stage in human life when at the age of 52, one can still perceive and pick up new ideas! It only shows that dom’s brain has not lost its neurons that much with the evidences that he has shown from the results of his midterm examinations and from his reaction and analysis papers.
Maybe, dom is an exceptional when it comes to scholastic or academic intelligence. He must have possessed a superior kind of such intelligence.
But on the other hand, dom’s emotional makeup has changed tremendously as what I have evaluated from his emails of pouring-out-of-his angst and sorrows as well as despair and distress.
And since I do not have any background in Philosophy as I graduated in teacher education program with major in Science, looking at the way he delineated the answers, I just sighed in awe. Maybe, he must have probably retained much of his intellectual intelligence. What am I trying to say here?
I admire domlawrenceosb because despite his chronological age (he is ten years older than me as I am only 42 yrs old now) and his present disposition, being away from the academe for nearly 12 years, oh boy! that was quite a long hibernation from his usual classroom routines in his Master’s degree in Theology which he failed to finish, still he has not lost his ground in facing the challenges of being in graduate studies.
As Science teacher, I know for a fact that at the age of 30, a human being’s brain shrinks and loses its neurons making him lose the ability to pick up new things in his environment and it is in such stage when the neurons continue to become dysfunctional brought about by a decreased level of neurotransmitters in the human brain, thereby making it very difficult to learn new things.
It is in this regard where I am totally amazed at how domlawrenceosb’s brain is doing with his age as I am resigned to the fact that his brain must have already experienced so much loss in its neurons at this point in his life. But look! He has violated the principles and facts and surpassed such stage in human life when at the age of 52, one can still perceive and pick up new ideas! It only shows that dom’s brain has not lost its neurons that much with the evidences that he has shown from the results of his midterm examinations and from his reaction and analysis papers.
Maybe, dom is an exceptional when it comes to scholastic or academic intelligence. He must have possessed a superior kind of such intelligence.
But on the other hand, dom’s emotional makeup has changed tremendously as what I have evaluated from his emails of pouring-out-of-his angst and sorrows as well as despair and distress.
I have noticed that he has evolved from being emotionally smart to a kind of emotion that overcomes his rational thinking. Seemingly, his passion has overwhelmed his reason, his rational thinking. I know for a fact that our rational mind- is the mode of comprehension that we are typically conscious of, more prominent in awareness and able to think, ponder and reflect rationally.
On the other hand, our emotional mind- is impulsive, powerful and very illogical and the more intense the feeling, the more dominant the emotion mind becomes-and the more ineffectual the rational mind. These two minds, the emotional and the rational, operate in tight harmony and for the most part, enterwining their very different ways of knowledge and reactions to the environment.
Ordinarily, there is a balance between emotional and rational minds, with emotion feeding into and informing the operations of the rational mind, and the rational mind refining the inputs of the emotions. These two minds are exquisitely coordinated: feelings are essential to thought and thought to feelings but when passions surge, the balance tips.- and it is the emotional mind that captures the upper hand, swamping away the rational mind.
Thus, has this truth applies and has something to do with dom's heightened emotional reactions to issues around him? Or is it just because of his chronological age? Whether the answer lies on the truth of an imbalance between his rational mind and emotional mind, only God knows.
Anyways, nobody is perfect as what they say. Whether Dom is intellectually superlative but his emotional mind and reaction on looking at things and situations are underway behind his intellectual capacity to achieve scholastically, I really do not mind because what I am into is the mystery of how, at his age, he still can manage to make use of his rational mind so effectively to keep his grounds up amidst the huge challenges of his graduate studies along the way.
Human brain is indeed a great mystery and so is domlawrenceosb.
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Mid-Term Exams
Brother Lawrence, OSB, Saint Meinrad School of Theology
Mr. Gill Ring
Professor
1. Anaximander’s ultimate stuff is wholly indeterminate. Why is his theory thought to be superior to that of Thales or Anaximenes? Why is it nevertheless insufficient?
Answer: Anaximander’s theory of indeterminacy was ultimate and superior to that of Thale’s water or Anaximenes’ air because their theories are too restricted while Anaximander’s indeterminacy maintained that the world’s stuff must be indefinite. However, his theory was insufficient because it created the problem of deriving the definite things of the world out of something which lacks all definiteness.
2. The Pythagoreans retain Anximander’s ultimate, but add another. What is this other and what, unlike the indeterminate, does it account for?
Amswer: The Pythagoreans retain Anaximander’s ultimate theory of the indeterminate but solved it’s problem of insufficiency by adding to the indeterminate a second principle, determinateness.
3. Heraclitus and Parmenides both insist that nothing can change and yet remain the same. How then can they differ so completely about the reality of change and of being?
Answer: Heraclitus denied the reality of being, and Parmenides denied the reality of change.
4. .What is the point of Zeno’s paradoxes, and what is presupposed by them?
Answer: The point of Zeno’s paradoxes which he formulated was to defend the view of Parmenides against the Pythagoreans. This view of Parmenides states that reality is one and unchanging. Zeno’s point relates to indirect or reductio ad absurdium argument, the proof of a proposition by showing that its contradictory is self-contradictory or absurd.
The presupposition behind Zeno’s paradoxes is that the infinite divisibility of spatial and temporal continua by reason must also be an infinite divisibility in reality. In addition, it says that since the infinite divisibility of time and space leads to the concept of infinitesimals, then there really must be infinitesimals which are spatially and temporarily extended.
On the other hand, since all space and time are infinitely divisible, then all space and time must consist of nonspatial, nontemporal infinitesimals. In short, there is really nothing spatial or temporal at all hence, really no change or motion at all. Thus, Zeno claims that change and multiplicity requires infinitesimals because extended continua are infinitely divisible in thought and what is divisible in thought is divisible in reality.
5. What properties did Melissus add to Parmenidean Being?
Answer: Melissus added two modifications to Parmenides’ theory of Being. He states that Being must be infinite, not finite as Parmenides claimed, and that Melissus reasoned out in his theory that it is infinite because if it were finite it would have to be bounded by something outside it, and in such case, there would be a being other than the universal being.
5. What properties did Melissus add to Parmenidean Being?
Answer: Melissus added two modifications to Parmenides’ theory of Being. He states that Being must be infinite, not finite as Parmenides claimed, and that Melissus reasoned out in his theory that it is infinite because if it were finite it would have to be bounded by something outside it, and in such case, there would be a being other than the universal being.
On the other hand, Being cannot be material, as Parmenides implies, because material beings are finite or bounded. Therefore, according to Melissus, Being must be infinite and immaterial.
6. Empedocles is the first to see the need for a third principle in addition to indeterminacy and determinateness. What is this principle and why is it needed?
Answer: In addition to indeterminacy and determinateness, Empedocles claims that the basic immutable beings that are qualitative-quantitative elements such as fire, air, water and earth and all their vicissitudes are determined by two agencies: love and hate. This principle of agency is needed because there is a difference between the determinate and the determining. The latter is the active determination of the indeterminate; the former is the determinate result of that active determination.
6. Empedocles is the first to see the need for a third principle in addition to indeterminacy and determinateness. What is this principle and why is it needed?
Answer: In addition to indeterminacy and determinateness, Empedocles claims that the basic immutable beings that are qualitative-quantitative elements such as fire, air, water and earth and all their vicissitudes are determined by two agencies: love and hate. This principle of agency is needed because there is a difference between the determinate and the determining. The latter is the active determination of the indeterminate; the former is the determinate result of that active determination.
The Empediclean agencies oppose one another in four logical stages: the first is one in homogeneity, a fusion of all the roots by the agency of love or attraction. The second is one of gradual separation of the roots from each other by the agency of repulsion or hate and in this stage, occur the coming of distinct individual things into existence.
The third stage is one of complete heterogeneity in which the most complete separation of the roots from each other which will cause the individual things pass out of existence. And the final stage is one of a mingling of the roots with each other in order to bring individual things into existence once more. These 4 stages make an endless cycle of production and destruction as in birth and death and so on.
7. How does Anaxagoras differ from Empedocles as to the character of this principle? What is Democritus’ view of the principle?
Answer: Anaxagoras differ from Empedocles as to the character of his principle of agency in a sense that Empedocles’ roots are insufficiently elemental and general. According to Anaxagoras, these elements which he called as germs or seeds of all things are infinite and in varieties. He regarded these seeds as essentially qualitative rather than quantitative and in addition, he viewed them as pure qualities without any quantity at all and in some others, they seem to be quantitative infinitesimals and sometimes, they seem to have very small size and in addition to that, these seeds lack temporal beginning and end as well as lacking in internal change.
7. How does Anaxagoras differ from Empedocles as to the character of this principle? What is Democritus’ view of the principle?
Answer: Anaxagoras differ from Empedocles as to the character of his principle of agency in a sense that Empedocles’ roots are insufficiently elemental and general. According to Anaxagoras, these elements which he called as germs or seeds of all things are infinite and in varieties. He regarded these seeds as essentially qualitative rather than quantitative and in addition, he viewed them as pure qualities without any quantity at all and in some others, they seem to be quantitative infinitesimals and sometimes, they seem to have very small size and in addition to that, these seeds lack temporal beginning and end as well as lacking in internal change.
In short, Anaxagoras claims that the agency that determines and causes the motion of seeds is reason or mind. He was referring to the reason seeds as the finest of all that are distributed with the other seeds throughout all things and thus reason functions as a principle of unity and intelligibility. On the other hand, Democritus rejects this principle claiming that while things are infinitely divisible in thought, they are not infinitely divisible in reality.
For Democritus, they are purely quantitative atoms possessing motion as their intrinsic property and all things is the motion of these particles in empty space, because, for him, reality is both many and one, both changing and unchanging, though in different respects. Therefore, Democritus claims that the agency of motion and change is just the atom themselves and there is no distinct principle of agency because motion is inherent property of the atoms themselves.
8. Each of the Pluralists affirms multiplicity and change while saving as much as he can of Parmenidean unicity and changelessness. How?
Answer: Each of the Pluralists (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) affirms the principle of multiplicity and change by dealing on their nature which can be summarized to: all things that are made and its change into particular things must be absolutely universal and should be as unitary and simple as possible.
8. Each of the Pluralists affirms multiplicity and change while saving as much as he can of Parmenidean unicity and changelessness. How?
Answer: Each of the Pluralists (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) affirms the principle of multiplicity and change by dealing on their nature which can be summarized to: all things that are made and its change into particular things must be absolutely universal and should be as unitary and simple as possible.
While the Pluralists assert the principle of multiplicity and change, their solution does not satisfy the demands of their reason because they have not really analyzed the concept of being in such a way as to avoid the arguments of the Eleatics. Each of them did not meet the argument of Parmenides. Their concept of being is merely ad hoc. For instance, Democritus failed to analyze the concept of nonbeing.
9. Neither the Heraclitians nor the Pluralists are regarded as having met the Eleatic case against multiplicity and change. Why?
Answer: The Heraclitians nor the Pluralists did not meet the Eleatic case against multiplicity and change because the Pluralists have solutions to the problem that did not satisfy the demands of the reason behind the problem. First and foremost, their claims contained conceptual difficulties that later, when noted by later philosophers, were tried to be removed.
9. Neither the Heraclitians nor the Pluralists are regarded as having met the Eleatic case against multiplicity and change. Why?
Answer: The Heraclitians nor the Pluralists did not meet the Eleatic case against multiplicity and change because the Pluralists have solutions to the problem that did not satisfy the demands of the reason behind the problem. First and foremost, their claims contained conceptual difficulties that later, when noted by later philosophers, were tried to be removed.
First, the Pluralists failed to analyze the concept of being to contradict the arguments of the Eleatics about their point that there cannot be two beings-whether atoms, seeds or roots. Then, Democritus failed to analyze the concept of nonbeing or the void in order to counter attact the arguments of the Eleatics.
10. Does Parmenides solve the problem of change and/or the problem of the one and the many? How so or why not?
Answer: The problem was unsolved and unsettled. Parmenides’ argument that any second atom would be other than the first one and if the first one is real then the second one would have to be other than what is real, hence, to be unreal.
10. Does Parmenides solve the problem of change and/or the problem of the one and the many? How so or why not?
Answer: The problem was unsolved and unsettled. Parmenides’ argument that any second atom would be other than the first one and if the first one is real then the second one would have to be other than what is real, hence, to be unreal.
Therefore, it would appear that there cannot be two beings whether atoms, or seeds or roots. On the other hand the problem of change was unsolved because there are underlying issues that were not answered like: Does change require an identity of opposites as what Heraclitus said?
Is this notion of change self-contradictory as the Eleatics thought? In the end, these analytical questions would need to be answered in order to satisfy and solve the problem.
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