90 likes | 198 Views
When and Why Did we Start to Question?. 5000 years ago – what mattered to us?. Otzi the Iceman. What did Otzi care about?. Clothing: grass-lined shoes, loincloth, fur jacket, cloak made of woven grass Tools: wooden framed backpack with two compartments made of tree bark
E N D
5000 years ago – what mattered to us? Otzi the Iceman
What did Otzi care about? • Clothing: grass-lined shoes, loincloth, fur jacket, cloak made of woven grass • Tools: wooden framed backpack with two compartments made of tree bark • Skills: backpack contained charcoal embers from a recent fire, insulated by maple leaves, daggers with wooden handle, axe, birch fungus with antibiotic properties • Tattoos on his knees, possibly to charm away the arthritis he suffered from
Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs Self-actualisation Self-Esteem Social Needs Safety needs Physiological needs
Pre-philosophical Questions • What is really being asked? • Why can’t I go out to play? • Why is the sky blue? • Which is better, Daddy or Chips? • Why is a wolf a dog? ..Because it is!!
Why the Greeks? • Herodotus – “Tretis on the Persian Wars” • Sophocles “Antigone” – Beginnings of “Natural Law” Theory • Hippocrates on “The Sacred Disease” • Empedocles – hypothesised that man descended from lower forms of life • Aristarchos suggested that the Earth orbited the sun • Socrates – began to question what it meant “to know”
Upanishads • Entomology –To sit next to the master • Mythological stories concerning axiological (matters of right and wrong) issues • We are given explanations into human behaviour, deriving from Atman, a fundamental fire or force • Greek religious teaching doesn’t give an explanation of human behaviour other than to show our differences with the Gods. • Robinson “From the Upanishads to Homer”
So what is philosophy? • Ontology: Philosophical study addressing questions of the nature of existence, reality and being. • Axiology: concerned with values and judgments about right/wrong or the nature of beauty. • Epistemology: concerned with the nature of knowledge and its limitations. Which part of philosophy do you think ToK is most concerned with?
So where does this leave us? • “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Toffler p31 Tomkinson • “The unexamined Life is not worth living” Robinson “Socrates on the Examined Life”