2. Are you a
MAN?

3. Man is yet a mystery in spite of
great penetration into
anthropology, psychology, sociolog
y, and biology. Even yet when all
our studies are complete--if this
were possible--man may continue
to be a mystery.
Man: Mystery and Wonder

4. Arthur Schopenhauer

5. I. Views About the Nature of Man
A. A Scientific View of Man.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was
born in Danzig, Germany, and has the
reputation of being the philosopher of
pessimism. He incorporated the idea of the
will into his philosophy and his principal
work is The World as Will and Idea.

6. 1.
 Man is an animal that is akin to all forms of
life.
 Man is the result of mechanistic evolution
that is entirely without help as implied in a
Creator.
Simpson notes: "Man is the result of a
purposeless and materialistic process
that did not have him in mind. He was
not planned." Purpose is only real when
man is already here; only man has
purpose.

7. 2.
How did man come to be?
3.
The unique thing about man in the
scientific view is that man thinks.
4.
How does man acquire values?

9. B. The Greek Tradition.
l. A High God or Eternal God created
lesser gods who are then given the
responsibility to create man.
2. Man, without women, is created and
within man is placed a divine element
or material that is immortal. This may
be described popularly as man's soul
which is akin to deity and alien to the
body.

10. 3. The first men lived cowardly or immoral lives
and were subject to rebirth in the "second
generation as women, and it was therefore at
that point of time that the gods produced
sexual love, constructing in us and in woman
a living creature itself instinct with life.
4. Bodily existence is second-rate. There are two
emphases about the body in Plato's thought
that appear contradictory. The first may be
called "body-culture" which is related to our
Olympic tradition. This is seen in
the Republic in which the development of the
body is a good thing.

11. 5. The wonder of man is reason, and this
relates to his deliverance from the body life.
Reason is the divine in man. Man is
described as a creature of body and soul, on
the one hand, and as a tri-part creature on
the other. In the Republic, much emphasis is
given to the three-fold elements of man's
nature: the rational, the courageous, and the
appetitive. The courageous and appetitive
are mortal while the rational is immortal.

12. 6. Death does not resolve man's problems.
Souls of men who have not given up their
craving for body existence will be punished
and imprisoned in another body. Because
the soul is immortal it can be released from
bodily existence by "attainment of the
highest virtue and wisdom.
7. Since man's highest good is reason, the way
of deliverance from the problems and
temptations of life is related to the intellect
and contemplation.

13. Socrates

14. 8. Freedom is given a paradoxical treatment.
Rationality implies considerable freedom
and equality.
9. Virtue is acclaimed by all three patriarchs
of ancient philosophy. The four virtues,
wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice,
receive considerable treatment in the works
of these masters.

15. 10. Conclusions: There is much appealing in
the ancient Greek view of man. Man's
rationality must not be denigrated. But the
limits of reason need recognition, but to
abrogate the mind as is the tendency in
modern Oriental mystical groups is to deny
nature.

16. C. The Judaeo-Christian View.
1. God created man and woman.
2. Man is a living soul.
3. Man is created in the image of God.
4. Man, though created by God, is
alienated from God.
5. Man can only be man in relationship
to God.

17. 6. Christian virtues are somewhat
different from the Greeks.
7. It is an article of Christian thought
that all men are equal before God.
8. Assessment. Probably the greatest
criticism of the Christian movement is
not its philosophy, but its practice.

18. II. The Mind-Body
Problems

19. SELF..
the self is a created continuing
substance of a spiritual nature,
related mysteriously to the body, it
is active, free, and immortal.

20. Does a Self Exist?
•Yes
•No

21. David Hume

22. David Hume
For my part, I always stumble on some particular
perception or other, of heat or cold, light or
shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never
catch myself at any time without a perception.
When my perceptions are removed for any
time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible
of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.
And were all my perceptions removed by death,
and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor
love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I
should be entirely annihilated, nor do I
conceive what is farther requisite to make me a
perfect non-entity.

23. The association involved is consistent
with his claim that if no perceptions
came he would be said not to exist.
Hume's views have been influential
in both philosophy and psychology.

24.  Several problems are raised against Hume's
position.
 First, a no-self view makes continuous identity
impossible. How would Hume know that he is
the same person that he was the day before? For
that matter the hour before without some
perception that he is the same. Then is
sameness a perception? For once he had slept
the night and no perceptions came to him, he
had been annihilated. When he rises, how does
he keep the same identity consciousness.

25.  Second, the same applies to memory. The years
pass and many memories stand clearly in our
minds although we do not have even a remote
chance to be continually furnished with those
lost perceptions. My memory of swimming in
the Dead Sea is fresh, but my remoteness to the
sea is distant. How can it be part of my
"memory" today if there is not a continuousness
about my being to retain such memories? Can
an "annihilated self" in Hume's terms know the
continuing memories to be mine?

26. Third, value judgments become
difficult on a non-self view. If the
"self" is a summary of perceptions,
how does one choose between those
that are true and the false? Or, the
good and the bad? Why not accept all
perceptions for truth? Or, good?

27. Ironically, Hume came to confess
skepticism about his position to the
appendix of his work. He confessed:
But upon a more strict review of the
section concerning personal identity, I
find myself involved in such a labyrinth,
that, I must confess, I neither know how
to correct my former opinions, nor how to
render them consistent.

28. Materialism.
the theory of materialism holds that the
only thing that exists is matter or energy.
A. The unintelligibility thesis is that words
like "thought, wishing, feeling" should be
dropped from use because they have no
real meaning. The mind or self refers to
nothing. The unintelligibility thesis has
never been influential because it is
difficult to show that there are no
thoughts, feelings, etc.

29. B. The avowal theory explains thoughts,
feelings, wishes, in terms of behavior, and
not in terms of statements.
C. Another attempt is to admit that these
words, thoughts and feelings are
meaningful, but must be explained in
physicalistic terms, or in behavior terms.
D. The identity theory means, then, that a
mental and physical state are not really two
different things, but one.

30. Epiphenomenalism is the theory
in philosophy of mind that mental
phenomena are caused by physical
processes in the brain or that both are
effects of a common cause, as opposed to
mental phenomena driving the physical
mechanics of the brain.

31. Yes, the self
does exist.

32. Descartes Plato

33. Plato and Descartes.
The view of the self as taught by Plato and Descartes
has been labeled extreme immaterialism. This will
be in contrast to the position of Aristotle and
Aquinas which will be labeled moderate
immaterialism. The body-soul problem in Plato and
Descartes involves the following.
The soul is a radically different substance from
the body and is in fact alien to it. The body is
united to the soul to punish the soul. Its union
with the body is temporary and unnecessary.
The soul can exist and function without the body.

34. A. Parallelism.
 The greatest philosophical name
attached to the view of parallelism
was Leibniz (1646-1716) who thought
in terms of the body and mind acting
independently of one another, but
always in harmony with one another.

35. B. Interactionism.
 matter and mind being distinct and
independent, they exert causal effects on
one another.
Example:
• You are outside walking and a wild animal
suddenly crosses your path. This affects your
mind resulting in your face showing fear and
you step back. The animal sees your fear,
becomes fearful itself, and retreats back into
the brush. Mind and matter on both sides
just interacted without physically touching
each other.

37.  Aristotle
Aristotle did not accept the extreme
view of the spirit that Plato had. For
Plato, man's soul could exist and think
outside of a body, but Aristotle taught
that the good of the soul is to be united
to a body so that it can think and
exercise its abilities.