The examined life is a way of searching for meaning in one’s life. Examining your life is figuring out one’s purpose in life, figuring out what someone may want out of life; examining ones life can basically be anything that someone wants to think of it. Someone can examine the smallest things in life such as why roads or sidewalks eventually end, why people care about what others think of them. Everyone examines or views their life in many different ways, different than how others see their lives. When I view my life, I think of the most random things. For example, I always wonder why sidewalks always end but it seems like roads do not. I know that eventually, everything has to come to an end. All the authors from the book that we had to read view life differently from each other. Descartes’ methods for examining reality and how he demonstrates it was easier for me to understand more than Plato’s. Descartes uses different rules and maxims to try to rebuild his knowledge ,to gain trust in his reason, and to not trust anything that he has learned through custom, books, and anything else that he had studied. Descartes tries to rebuild his knowledge through traveling rather than just reading from books. Descartes creates rules for himself to rebuild his knowledge and uses them to either get rid of his former opinions and to develop them further. Breaking everything down in one’s life and only believing what is obviously true is an easy way to examine their life or live their life. People constantly believe lies and take on more than they can handle. People also tend to try to solve difficult stuff not even knowing if they can handle it rather than just opting out for something easy. Doing these things can ruin a person’s life or ... ... middle of paper ... ...being able to control ourselves can allow us to “lead a free and fulfilled human life” (p.86). Reading these books has led to questions that I never would have thought about before. They provide a different outlook on life and allowed me to look back in life in a way that I probably never would have. Russon takes the simplest ideas, like behaviors and moods, and talks about them in a way that can allow someone to view their lives in a different way than they normally would. People should choose for themselves and try things that they never have before. People should not believe everything that people say and examine their life carefully to ensure that they can live their lives to the fullest. Making positive decisions, living life with no regrets, and examining their lives and living their lives in an easy and relaxing way can lead to peaceful mind and a happy life.
René Descartes signifies a unique change compared to ancient and medieval traditions in many ways. The ancient and medieval traditions consist of ideals of which people impose meaning on things. These classical traditions also consist of how a person identity starts from outside of the body and the works its way inwards towards a complete person. Those traditions had a perception that humans began to analyzes themselves outside of themselves first before they analyze themselves internally. Descartes challenged the ancient and medieval traditions by having a different perception of how he came to know things. Descartes, instead of imposing meaning on things, he would derive meaning from things. He also challenged the classical traditions because
freedom as long as one does not disturb others in their state of nature; in this
Do we control the judgments and decisions that we make every day? In the book,
Perhaps one of the most profound needs of humans is having control. Control gives not only satisfaction but also a sense of relief that things are going to go the way one has planned. In the evolutionary perspective, having a control for one’s environment results to better survivability. The loss of control on the other hand provides a cramped stress to gain control. It proves to be one of the needs that certainly ranks in the top of the hierarchy. Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, and Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, shows the human struggle for control and what they would do to grasp it. Both literary pieces show that inclination towards having control. Humans, although impossible, have an inner desire to control everything.
In the English language, control can be defined as to determine the behavior or supervise the running of. Every person wants to have control of their own lives, no matter what it takes. Every person at some point loses control of their lives, but when they lose control, and who they lose it to, can make the difference. This idea can be seen in many pieces of texts including the following poems. “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley and “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes both convey the message that people are supposed to have control of their own fate and actions.
previous quote is referring to how the people are controlled. They have no say in their own life style.
This book was a good read for me, but I also read book reviews to help me keep track on what I am reading. These book reviews just made a better understanding of what I was reading.
Descartes’ method is ultimately about finding the truth within yourself. He says that there are two types of people that would not benefit from his method: those who think they know more than they do and who lack the patience for such careful work, and those who are modest enough to think that they are more capable of finding out the truth if they follow a teacher. Descartes also creates a three to four maxim moral code to guide his behavior while he experiences his period...
own need to control specific life events and the difficulty in the reality of act...
It may be difficult to understand how the Odyssey, a 2,700 year old epic poem about gods and monsters, could ever symbolize life today. The Odyssey does, however, parallel to a journey of life because of the decisions made by Odysseus and decisions I will make as well as the trials he endured and the challenges I will face. Some of the obstacles I will endure in the future, including high school and college, may not be as serious as the monsters Odysseus had to face, nevertheless, they are still everyday situations that I must learn from.
Therefore we are not free to act as we wish due to our actions being
Our senses can correctly perceive the natural forms. Basically, reality became a debate between Plato's two worlds and Aristotle's single world reality. Secondly, Plato and Aristotle contrast in their view of what knowledge we possess at birth. Plato supports the doctrine of Innatism, which claims that we enter this world with prior knowledge. All people possess immortal souls; therefore, the knowledge acquired in one life can be transferred into the next reincarnation.
...may be the sole means of holding on to one's identity and receiving true freedom.
There are cases that we are in an we only have certain things to do. We have the free will for it to be a good thing or a bad thing. We also sometimes don’t have control of our actions to where we do things without thinking about it.
When an individual reaches this conclusion, they are able to encompass a new form of human nature called “Übermensch”, “an ideal aim of spiritual development more than a biological goal” (Solomon, 103). This is the person who has continued to strive to overcome himself and, in doing so, has been set free from the chains of all convictions.