Paley argues that organisms are analogous to human-created artifacts in that they involve a complex arrangement of parts that serve some useful function, where even slight alterations in the complex arrangement would mean that the useful function was no longer served

universal mind/pattern of thought behind all that we can experience

Early rationalists like Plato claimed that we obtained this innate knowledge in an earlier existence and others that God provided us with it at creation.

The mind, say the Rationalists, is able to grasp certain truths intuitively as “self-evident” and from these intuitions use reasoning to come to other clear truths.

The pursuit of truth at a minimum helps us to become better thinkers, better reasoners, better arguers, or, as the Philosopher Richard Rorty has put it, better at “edifying” each other.

Some argue that truth is an elusive goal

“post-truth” age

What will you leave to posterity?  What wisdom can you pass along to future generations?

Socrates believed that the only way to truly harm the soul was to engage in immoral behavior. This meant that a person could experience real harm only if it was self-imposed. A soul could not be harmed by others but could harm itself.

This god had sent him to be a “gadfly” to sting the “sluggish horse” of the Athenian public which had become stagnant and complacent in its democracy

First, he would gradually steer a conversation toward a specific philosophical idea or term, such as “truth” or “justice” or “piety.” Second, he would profess his ignorance about that term or idea and ask the opponent for a definition of the term. Next, when the opponent offered a definition, he would then begin to ask questions about that definition until the opponent admitted it was insufficient and offered a re-definition. Once the opponent offered a new definition, Socrates would continue to apply questions to analyze and redefine the term. Ultimately, in many dialogues, the opponent has to admit his ignorance and concede the debate to Socrates.

divine inner voice he called his daimon and he was prone to go into catatonic states of concentration

And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit. Some of them appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own. It is quite dear that they never learned anything from me; the many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own making. But to me and the god they owe their delivery.

And like the mid-wives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is, that the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to bring forth.

examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth

I attend men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies

midwifery

One can still enjoy life’s simple pleasures–friendship, celebration, entertainment, family– just like non-philosophers, but in addition to these, you will develop the deeper joys of contemplation, understanding, and personal commitment.

Now both of these friends will enjoy the symphony.  But which friend is most likely to enjoy it the most?

universal love

It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man’s deeds.

What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-Self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, making an impenetrable veil between us and the world beyond. The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.

All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought.

we must escape this prison and this strife.

confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man?

No doubt his teacher would have laughed at this caution!

To know oneself is to know the world.

master’s mission

Athena Pronaia, the goddess who once ruled this holy site before it was taken by Apollo.

Chaerephon felt a rising anxiety. What if he was wrong? What if the Oracle instead declared his teacher a fool or a charlatan, this teacher he had been following for so many years now?  What if….?  No, he could not let himself doubt now.  He must approach the Oracle with conviction.

After a long and winding climb

Do you believe that ideas can lead you to become a better person, to have a better life?

Did any of these moments alter the direction of your life?  How so?

but only now have you been able to put words to it?

one’s true self and one’s world.

The first and most important claim we can make about philosophy is that it is about you.

“know thyself.”

inner sense of truth and virtue

decisions