Chapter #7 - Unit #2

Question 1

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his views with respect to:
a) feelings versus reason
b) the noble savage
c) general will
d) education

Answer 1

a) All governments in Europe at the time were based on a faulty assumption about human nature. The only justifiable government is one that allows humans to reach their full potential, and have free will.
b) view of human nature is that humans are born basically good, but made bad by societal institutions. Believed if humans were permitted to develop freely, they would be happy, fulfilled, free, and socially minded.
c) To live in a civilized society, humans had to give up some of their primitive independence. General will describes what is best in the community.
d) Believed that education should take advantage of natural impulses rather than distort them. Perfect World: nature, child free to follow talents and curiosities, not imposing views.

Question 2

What is the role of opposite forces?

Answer 2

Embraced opposing forces such as love and hate, and life and death. Believed that life should be to embrace these forces rather than deny them.

Question 3

Describe Phenomenology

Answer 3

Insistence that whole, meaningful experiences can be studied. Color-contrast effect.

Question 4

Describe the Will to Survive

Answer 4

Arthur Schopenhauer - Equated the world with “will”, which he describes as blind, aimless force, which cannot be known. It manifests itself as the will to survive which causes an unending cycle of needs and need satisfaction.

Question 5

What is the relationship between intelligence and happiness?

Answer 5

Enhanced consciousness = more pain. Highly intelligent people seek solitude, and vulgar people are gregarious. Believed almost all our sufferings have to do with other people.

Question 6

Sublimination and Denial:

Answer 6

Even though these are powerful forces, humans should attempt to rise above them. Humans are capable of reaching nirvana which is a state characterized by freedom from irrational strivings.

Question 7

Unconscious Mind

Answer 7

All humans have positive and negative impulses. Repressing undesirable thoughts into the unconscious and of the resistance encountered when attempting to recognize repressed ideas.

Question 8

Nature of Religious experience

Answer 8

Often described a proper relationship with God as a love affair. Painful, happy, passionate yet unfulfilled, lived in time yet infinite. For the people who do not have a relationship with God, God is dead.

Question 9

Truth is Subjectivity

Answer 9

Spiritual truth cannot be taught by logical argument, truth must be experienced. The more logical we are in an attempt to understand God, the less we comprehend him.

Question 10

Love Affair with God

Answer 10

Relationship with God is a love affair. One should read the bible as they would a love note.

Question 11

The 3 Stages of Personal Freedom

Answer 11

1. Aesthetic Stage: Most people reside here. People seek out many forms of pleasure and excitement. People operating at this level are hedonistic.
2. Ethical Stage: People operating at this level accept responsibility of making choices but use as their guide ethical principals established by others.
3. Religious Stage: People recognize and accept their responsibility to a personal relationship with God.

Question 12

Apollonian and Dionysian sides of human nature:

Answer 12

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Apollonian: Rational Side - Desire for Tranquility and predictability.
Dionysian: Irrational Side - Attraction to creative chaos and to passionate, dynamic experience.

Question 13

What did Friedrich Nietzsche believe about the following: Psychology, death of god.

Answer 13

The goal of helping individuals gain control of their irrational impulses. Dreams provide an example of barbarian chaos.
Believed that God was dead, and we killed him.

Question 14

What convictions did Friedrich Nietzsche believe?

Answer 14

Defined conviction as the belief in the possession of absolute truth on any matter of knowledge. Convictions cause humans to sacrifice themselves through history.

Question 15

What is the Will to Power?

Answer 15

Friedrich Nietzsche
Most basic human motive. Humans need to acquire knowledge, and then act on it. Instincts should not be repressed, but should be expressed. Can only be fulfilled if human acts as they feel to satisfy instincts.

Question 16

How did Friedrich Nietzsche define supermen?

Answer 16

People approaching their full potential, because standard morality does not govern lives. People should learn from their experiences. The journey towards ones personal heaven involves first going through their personal hell.

Question 17

What was the misunderstanding around Nietzsche?

Answer 17

He was embraced by the Nazis, who claimed that German people were superior.

Question 18

What are the similarities between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche’s existential philosophies?

Answer 18

Rejected what was conventionally accepted such as organized church, and science.
Preached reliance on personal experience.

Question 19

What are the differences between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche’s existential philosophies?

Answer 19

Kierkegaard accepted the existence of God, whereas Nietzsche did not.

Question 20

What are some important parts of Romanticism?

Answer 20

Emphasized human existence, subjective experience, individuality, free will, distrust of theories of human nature and rationalist.

Question 21

Define the Enlightenment period.

Answer 21

Used to contrast the period with the “darkness” of irrationality and superstition that was thought to characterize the previous age. Thinkers of this devalued the irrational aspects of human nature, such as emotions.