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Exam 2 Review
● OmniGod
○ Belief that God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient
■ Omnipotent
● Allpowerful
■ Omnibenevolent
● All loving
■ Omniscient
● Allknowing
● Idealism
○ Everything that exists is fundamentally mental
■ There is no physical reality independent of mental
reality
■ Material object is nothing more than a bundle of
perceptions
■ Sufism is idealism in that everything that exists
exists in the mind of Gof
● Panentheism
○ The World is a part/aspect of God
■ All things are a part of God
■ Everything that is you is God
● Compatibilism vs. Libertarianism
○ If all of your actions are God’s actions, then you have no free will If you want to learn more check out How is the concept of ethnicity different from the concept of race?
Don't forget about the age old question of What do economists do?
We also discuss several other topics like What is the role and importance of communication?
in the Libertarianism sense
■ Libertarianism
● Freedom to do otherwise regardless
of what anyone else does
○ Compatibilism
■ Freedom compatibile with God and law of the
universe If you want to learn more check out What are the two ways to regulate metabolism?
■ Your actions flow from neurological states in the
action way
■ If your will is involved in the right way, then your
actions are free even if fully determined
■ All of my actions are actions that God acts
○ Sufism believes in Compatibilism
● Divine Light and Cosmic Shadow
○ It is possible to have light without shadows, but not shadows Don't forget about the age old question of When did paranthropus boisei live?
without light
○ Deep and intimate dependency
○ "All we perceive is nothing but the being of the Reality in the essences of contingent beings"
○ God immanent presence is not easy to see
● Dream Within a Dream
○ The world is a dream within a dream
○ Someday we will awaken from the dream
■ We will understand Reality as it truly is
● Ibn al'Arabi on Hell
○ Hell
■ The fires of Hell are permanent, but the suffering in
Hell is temporary
■ As the damned become accustomed to their
environment they are changed in a way that eliminates the suffering involved
■ Eventually, all are led to union with God
(universalism)
● Lust, Marriage, & the Role of Desire in Sufism
○ You can have lust within the proper context (marriage)
■ In the context of marriage as part of the life of the
family
■ Live out our lusts in the context where they can
flourish, not be eradicated
○ The best life is the life of intellectual contemplation (pure
philosophy)
○ AlArabi believes that our passions are part of what we are
○ Humans are beasts with greater intellectual and spiritual capacities ■ We are not pure intellects We also discuss several other topics like What is aristotle’s doctrine of the mean?
○ They need to be controlled: used in the appropriate ways for the appropriate reasons
■ Desires need to be controlled not extinguished
● Better to control it than to extinguish it
● Junzi
○ Western Counterpart: Virtuous Person
○ Translates to something like: superior man, gentleman, one that respects hierarchy and develops wisdom and virtue
○ Studies history, art, and etc
■ Learning about these things will shape your
character as a person
■ Well rounded person
● Ren
○ Compassion, proprietary, benevolence, humaneness
○ Internal attitudes, desires, disposition
○ If you have Ren, you have the right feelings
● Li
○ Ritual, proper external behavior
○ If you have Li, you are doing the right thing
● Must have balance between Ren and Li
● FiveKey Relationships
○ Father and Son
■ Father should be full of Ren
■ Son should have Li
○ Elder Brother and Younger Brother
■ Younger Brother should listen to older brother
○ Husband and Wife
○ Older Friend and Younger Friend
○ Ruler and Subject
■ Ruler should be full of Ren and should be like a
father figure to subjects
● Confucian Virtue Ethics
○ Similar to Aristotle
○ The thing to do and the way to be is to become a Junzi
○ Those virtues are the ones that are required for humans to live well ● Two StagedView of Virtue Development
○ Develops in the family context
■ Father and son
■ Well ordered family structure
○ Go into adult
■ No direct engagement with parents, persist in rituals
and music
■ Growing up as a child in a family environment
■ Rituals and music (and paintings, poetry, etc.)
● Importance of Rituals and Music
○ Music different modes and types of music affect you differently ○ Listen to music that invokes emotions most fitting to virtuous living
● Role of Law and Ruling
○ Law should be minimal because good conduct must come from within the person
● Requirements for a good ruler
○ Ruler should be like a father to the people
○ Should be filled with Ren
● Innate Benevolence
○ Benevolence
■ Wanting what is good for another person plus
wisdom about actually good for another person
○ Mencius’ claim: humans are innately benevolent
■ Any person, no matter how bad, would save a child
from falling into a well, if they had the opportunity
○ Objection to Mencius’ theory: Why are so few people generally benevolent
■ Benevolence is only one aspect of human nature
■ Selfish, greedy, lustful, etc tendencies also exist
■ Conclusion: Humans require the proper
environment to grow in virtue but if that environment is supplied, they will tend to do well
○ Benevolent tendencies are primary
● The Dao
○ The Way/ The Path/ The Road, “The Way of all things” “The Way things are”
○ A bit like the law of nature
● All things in the world are governed by the cycles of the flow of Yin and Yang ○ Yin
■ Dark, cold, cloudy, rain, female, internal
○ Yang
■ Light,sunshine, spring & summer, male
■ No one is better or worse than the other
■ Badness occurs when they are out of balance
● Wuwei
○ NonAction (not inaction), going with the flow, responding to the world rather than trying to shape it to your will
● Political Philosophy in Dao
○ Minimal, ruler should be practically invisible to rulees
○ Small local grassroots community that are simplistic and that they should stay where they are
■ Few things but of high quality
■ No conquering, no empire building, no technology
development
● AntiRealism and Scientific Instrumentalism
○ We do not have the skill or the knowhow to figure out what
exactly the truth is for ourselves
○ Scientific Instrumentalism
■ Science isn’t in the business of deliverance of truth,
instead it’s helping us predict the future, change things and control things ■ We don’t have to know all of the science to get in
touch with reality
● Varied Perspectives and Skepticism
○ Whatever truth about something we think we have reached at perspectives available
○ Can’t rule out that one of them is better than our own
○ Even if we have good reason to reject suggestion that any current perspective is superior, we can’t rule out superior one will be available in future. ○ Therefore we can never be in position to claim final optimal
version of truth about anything.
○ Skepticism
■ For any belief you have, there is an objection that
you can’t rule out
● Lack of Seriousness
○ Seriousness is justified only if there is a final, optimal truth to be found or promoted, but there is never any realistic prospect of finding or promoting a final, optimal truth
○ Therefore, seriousness is never justified
○ Positive proposal: We should have a relaxed, laid back attitude toward truth
● Zen Koans and Meditation
○ Zen pushes you away from abstract and towards concrete
○ Zen Koans
■ 35. Every minute Zen
● What we ought to do, what we ought
to be doing is living fully in each present moment, even the most mundane
○ Emphasis of goodness
on simple, plain mundane thing
● Living in present not past or future
■ 78. Real Prosperity
● A playful acceptance of our own
limitations especially mortality,
● Daoist influence, Never take things
too seriously
● Fairly thin idea of a good life: have
your children survive your own death
■ 89. Zen Dialogue
● Debates about the fundamental
nature of things aren’t to be taken particularly seriously
● In philosophical reflection is not
only unfruitful, it can be very harmful
■ MuKoan
● Student: Does a dog have a buddha
nature
○ Buddha nature:
capacity of a thing to reach Enlightment
○ Teacher: Mu!
○ Possible
Interpretation
■ Stop
trying to understand the fundamental nature of
things
■ Reflect
ions like this get in the way of engaging the present
reality
○ Buddhism isn’t about
abstract ideas, but more about the concrete perception of
things
■ Meditation
● Mind and Body Duality
○ In Zen, strong
emphasis on idea that we are physical beings
■ Zen is
not particularly interested in making strong
philosophical claims
■ Drives
focus towards present
○ Proper medicine
includes specific ways of sitting and breathing
○ One school of Zen,
Soto claims that proper meditation IS Enlightenment
● Living in the moment
○ What we ought to do, what we ought to be doing is living fully in each present moment, even the most mundane
● AntiRealism
○ When you are living in the world, you aren’t getting in touch with truth.
○ Maybe we don’t know what’s going on
○ You can’t actually get at a knowledgable world
○ You don’t need it you just need to be happy.
● AntiRealism about knowledge, our capacity to know is limited so we shouldn’t worry
● Not Two and Not One
○ Start with Not Two, has priority
○ Not Two
■ Don’t draw distinctions between things
■ Thinking in the universal way
■ We ought to move past these distinctions and live
nondualistically
○ Not One
■ After we come to embrace non duality there are
appropriate ways of recognizing individuality
■ There are differences between things, and
sometimes they matter
■ Thinking individual way
○ Both Not Two and Not One play roles in good lives
■ Our natural inclinations prioritize not one over not
two
■ We should seek to invert this and prioritize not two
over one
● What is a claim in Daoism?
○ We are never in a position to claim a final, optimal truth
● Which of these characterizes Daoism’s recommendations for the ideal state? ○ Very little technology
○ No confrontations with other regions
○ People intentionally embrace difficulty and resist labor saving technology
● Forgetting the I
○ I think about the world as me and the other forget the me
■ forget the I and focus on the other
■ Kind of the same as not 2
● Differences between Zen Buddhism and original Buddhism
○ Koans, methods of having perplexing stories and twists
○ Difference in meditations
○ Physical rather than mental
○ Skepticism about capacity to understand abstract concepts
● Chi and Qi
○ Related to ying and yang
○ Comes in two flavors
○ Ying and yang
○ Feng Shui
■ Allows for a healthy flow of chi
○ Tai chi
■ Fixes the flow of chi in your body
○ The world is made up of the spiritual energy that flows through ying and yang
● The relationship between Allah and people
○ “I am God but clearly I’m not in touch with that reality”
○ Goal is to get in touch with that divine relaity and become that kind of person and experience God
○ Mysticism is very big in Sufism
○ “I ought to be experiencing union with God”