High School Experience

                As a student, my current enrolment through Goderich District Collegiate Institute has taught me many aspects of understanding future opportunities, occupations, paths and priorities of which generally is experienced by most  My experiences throughout the years I have attended this high school have helped me establish a various amount of life morals and it has guided me my future path.  I feel so without the experiences I’ve encountered throughout my enrolment at GDCI, I would still be wondering what it is I would like to do with my life.  As a student I have determined that high school consists of change and growth, experiencing the good and the bad and each improvement is experienced by everyone whether it has been tied to a positive or negative conclusion.  School has also taught me to grasp the education in front of you because what more can you do than learn in life, it should be a daily experience. 

Philosophy Introduction - Brief Terminology

Philo- love, Sophia- the light (philosophia)
Philosophy- the use of reason and argument to search for truth and knowledge about reality
Detachment- the separation of self interest from intellectual judgement
Gadfly- one who asks uncomfortable questions
Practical Men- those for whom life holds no mysteries
Common Sense- normal social expectation
Rationalism(t)- truth is revealed through question and thought
Empiricism(t)- truth is revealed through our senses
Empirical Value- is obtained using the senses, some information can be empirical
Logic- a process of rational thought in which the conclusions are inescapable if the premises are accepted (conclusion is certain/inevitable)
Informal Logic- analyzing and evaluating arguments and questions that we use consistently everyday
Critical Thinking- an approach to ideas from the standpoint of deliberate consideration (examine and take into consideration more or other reasonable points on the idea before you accept)
Formal Logic- deductions that are or seem self evident (way of determining validity/invalidity of a conclusion/inference)
Knowledge- facts and truth (ideas which can be consistently verified) & is acquired through observation or reasoning
Numerology- the science of forecasting the future with numbers
Reason- is a statement or action that justifies or supports a belief or action
Reasoning- the process of providing reasons in support of an idea or an action
Argument- use of reason to support an idea, point of view, action or disagreement
Conclusion- a general idea or an action and is based on premises or reasons
Premise- the beginning, the first statement in an argument
Inference- process of drawing conclusions from the premise(s)
Antecedent- the first premise
Consequent- following from/second premise
Valid- pertaining to argument an argument is valid if it is present in an accepted, proven form
Deduction/Deductive Reasoning- if premises are accepted, conclusions must also
Induction/Inductive Reasoning- argument producing probable, not certain, results
Inductive Generalization- uses specific examples to draw general conclusions
Statistical Induction- conclusions are usually expressed as a numerical premise
Induction by Conformation- a form of reason which seeks observations as support for a hypothesis
Relevance- determining if information presented have any bearing on matters at hand
Bias- a prejudice or preference for or against a particular point of view (ie. feminist POV)
Reliability- information and a source that's credible and can be trusted

UNIT 1 PHILOSOPHY

Socrates - Master of Disguise and Reasoning  
- early natural philosopher
(469 BCE - 399 BCE)

- uses discourage as a method of reasoning
- was one of the earliest Athenian philosophers and the ideas he suggested and the way the lived lived life as a philosopher remain important to us today
- he was fascinated most by the study of human condition
- engaged in the discussion of how one should live life
- established the importance of inquiry and dialect of reasoning and observation as a process of proof

"I tell you, let no day pass without discussing goodness"

HZT 4M ~ Philosophy

1) Plato's Cave Illustration

  2) THALES                                               

                 

 3) PYTHAGORAS

 4) XENOPHANES

HZT 4M ~ 2011/2012 ~ Mr. Armour

UNIT ONE: ANCIENT GREECE AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF WESTERN EPISTEMOLOGY

Philosophia

                                                        philo - love , sophia - light
What is Philosophy?
            -use of reason and arguement to search for truth and knowledge about reality

PROCESS OF PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRY (major aspects)
           - we must reason and think philosophically
           - we must understand and judge the words and actions of others to develop
             our own opinions
     Determine what's important to us in life and society.
Key Components- form and ask a question
                           - gather information
                           - reason and evaluation of evidence and point of view
                           - form and defend your conclusion

PLATO'S CAVE ALLEGORY

                        - everything we believe is not the truth, it has a relation to truth

     - sometimes we have a tendency to be satisfied to quickly
and easily about nature, entertainment and the universe

ANALOGY OF THE CAVE     - an illustration of the progress of the mind from

darkness (ignorance) to light (understanding truth)

Progress to enlightenment. 

My P.O.V
- after you enter the light and discover the real world, you find yourself still searching for an escape

THALES OF MILETUS
- first natural scientist and analytical philosopher in Western intellectual history- first philosopher of Ancient Greece (founder of Western philosophy)
- was a major centre of development for both science and philosophy in Ancient Greece
- probably born around 620 BC
- claimed that the fundamental nature and element of the world is water (no life could exist without the presence of H20)
- according to his metaphysics, water was the first principle of life and the material world
- professed that flat earth floated on water
- his metaphysical speculations have been clearly mistaken
- correctly predicted that there would be a solar eclipse in 585 BC during a battle between the Medes and the     Lydians
- made a fortune investing in oil-presses before a heavy olive crop
- claimed that god is in all things ( Pantheism) believed mind of the world is god

PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS- born around the mid-sixth century BC
- believed the ultimate nature of reality is number, numbers had mystical value
- his religious teaching consisted in the claim that music has a special power over the soul therefore his belief came bias to conformity
- believed that certain numbers were responsible of real forces and could be used to manipulate objects and forces (manipulate stone into a bridge)
numerology- the science of forecasting the future with numbers

XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON
- If horses could draw, they would draw their gods like horses.- critized the Homerian concept of anthropomorphic gods (creating anthropomorphic gods was misleading and childish)
- Like Thales, Xenophanes speculated about the underlying principles of natural phenomena
- proposed the possibility of the central element being mud meaning matter is generated from mud
- there is no way for certain that things are as we think they are (there are limits to how certain we can be)
- though we can't prove ultimately what is true, we can prove what is false
- to prove you need proof