Christian Philosophy

Christian Philosophy
What is Christian Philosophy? Because it requires faith in biblical revelation, you might
assume that the Christian worldview cannot possibly have a philosophy of its own.
According to the secular worldviews, naturalism and materialism are grounded firmly
in modern scientific methodology and enlightened human experience. How can we as
Christians, who are required to postulate existence or reality outside the material
realm, ever hope to prove that our beliefs are true, reasonable, rational, and worth
living and dying for?
Unfortunately, some Christians adopt just such an attitude, concluding that their faith
is indefensible. They attempt to avoid the whole problem by stating that what they
believe is “beyond reason.” These Christians point to Colossians 2:8, where Paul
writes “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive
philosophy...“ and from this they draw the conclusion that God does not want us to
meddle in such a vain and deceitful discipline as philosophy. However, people who
use this verse as an anti-philosophical proof-text often omit its ending, in which Paul
describes the kind of philosophy he is warning against—philosophy “which depends
on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
Christian Philosophy – Faith and Reason
When it comes to Christian philosophy, the Bible does not ask us to abandon reason
in order to accept its truth. “Come now,” records Isaiah, “and let us reason together,
saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (Isaiah
1:18). The Apostle Peter encourages Christians to present logical, compelling reasons
for their hope in Christ (1 Peter 3:15). But is this possible? Is Christian faith, and more
specifically Christian philosophy, defensible?
Christian Philosophy – Rational Foundation
The basic tenets of Christian philosophy are rational because they are held by
average, rational men and women. But surely Christianity must still run into an
epistemological problem—how does the Christian “know” without clashing with
science and experience? How can the knowledge we gain through faith in Biblical
revelation compare to knowledge gained by a scientific investigation of the universe?
Christians also appeal to science, history, and personal experience, but they know
such avenues for discovering truth are not infallible. Christians know that scientists
make mistakes and scientific journals can practice discrimination against views
considered dangerous. Christians know that history can be perverted, distorted, or
twisted and that personal experience is not a good source of fact or knowledge. On
the other hand, Christians believe that Biblical revelation is true and that God would
not mislead His children.
Christian Philosophy – All Philosophy Requires Some Faith
Christian philosophy does not reject reason or tests for truth. Christianity says the New
Testament is true because its truths can be tested. Christians do not ask non-believers
to put their faith in a revelation of old wives’ tales or fables, but instead to consider
certain historical evidences that reason itself can employ as an attorney building a
case uses evidences in the law to determine questions of fact. Christian epistemology
is based on special revelation, which in turn is based on history, the law of evidence,
and the science of archaeology.
https://www.allaboutworldview.org/christian-philosophy.htm
RATIONALISM
Rationalism, in Western philosophy, the view that regards reason as the chief source
and test of knowledge. Holding that reality itself has an inherently logical structure, the
rationalist asserts that a class of truths exists that the intellect can grasp directly. There
are, according to the rationalists, certain rational principles—especially in logic and
mathematics, and even in ethics and metaphysics—that are so fundamental that to
deny them is to fall into contradiction. The rationalists’ confidence in reason and proof
tends, therefore, to detract from their respect for other ways of knowing.

Rationalism has long been the rival of empiricism, the doctrine that all knowledge
comes from, and must be tested by, sense experience. As against this doctrine,
rationalism holds reason to be a faculty that can lay hold of truths beyond the reach of
sense perception, both in certainty and generality. In stressing the existence of a
“natural light,” rationalism has also been the rival of systems claiming esoteric
knowledge, whether from mystical experience, revelation, or intuition, and has been
opposed to various irrationalism’s that tend to stress the biological, the emotional or
volitional, the unconscious, or the existential at the expense of the rational.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/rationalism
Empiricism
Empiricism is the philosophical stance according to which the senses are the ultimate
source of human knowledge. It stands in contrast to rationalism, according to which
reason is the ultimate source of knowledge. In Western philosophy, empiricism boasts
a long and distinguished list of followers; it became particularly popular during the
1600's and 1700's. Some of the most important British empiricists of that time included
John Locke and David Hume.

Empiricists Maintain That Experience Leads to Understanding

Empiricists claim that all ideas that a mind can entertain have been formed through
some experience or – to use a slightly more technical term – through some impression.
Here is how David Hume expressed this creed: "it must be some one impression that
gives rise to every real idea" (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV, Ch. vi).
Indeed – Hume continues in Book II – "all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are
copies of our impressions or more lively ones."
Empiricists support their philosophy by describing situations in which a person’s lack
of experience precludes her from full understanding. Consider pineapples, a favorite
example among early modern writers. How can you explain the flavor of a pineapple
to someone who has never tasted one? Here is what John Locke says about
pineapples in his Essay:
"If you doubt this, see whether you can, by words, give anyone who has never tasted
pineapple an idea of the taste of that fruit. He may approach a grasp of it by being told
of its resemblance to other tastes of which he already has the ideas in his memory,
imprinted there by things he has taken into his mouth; but this isn’t giving him that idea
by a definition, but merely raising up in him other simple ideas that will still be very
different from the true taste of pineapple."
https://www.thoughtco.com/philosophical-empiricism-2670590
PRAGMATISM
MEANING AND DEFINITION
The term pragmatism is derived from the Greek word pragma which means action,
from which words like practice and practical have been derived. It can be easily
understood through this that pragmatism is basically the greater impact of practical
due to which pragmatism is often translated as practicalism (Agarwal, Bansal &
Maheshwari, 2010).
Charles Pierce introduced this word in philosophy, in 1878 when he wrote an essay in
the “Popular Science Monthly” on “How to make our ideas clear” in which he gave the
idea of pragmatism when he said that any idea can only be understood if it is
examined in terms of consequences to which it leads to. Pragmatism gives emphasis
upon what is practical, efficient, fruitful and satisfying. It does not think of the world as
readymade, perfect, beautiful, something to be enjoyed, contemplated or worshipped
(Agarwal et al, 2010).
MAIN PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS OF PRAGMATISM
The main philosophical ideas that pragmatism represents (Singh, 2007) include:
According to pragmatists, there are as many worlds as human beings. The ultimate
reality is not one but many. Everyone searches truth and aims according to his will
and experiences or circumstances can change the truth.
The world is a process, a constant flux. Truth is always in the making. The world is
ever progressing and evolving and everything in the world keeps on changing.
Pragmatists are utilitarianists, utility is the test of all truth and reality. A useful principle
is that which is true. The result or consequence of an action decides that worth of
something as good or bad. Good results show the truth and validity of any principle or
idea whereas bad results conclude to bad principles. Circumstances determine the
beliefs and theories to be good or evil.
The world serves as a laboratory for the development of aims and values. Changing
aims and values are with time and clime and thus aims cannot be accepted as they
are. Everyone should seek aims and values according to ones tendencies and
abilities.
Pragmatists are individualists. Maximum premium upon human freedom in life is
provided which goes with equality and fraternity. Everyone has the right to adjust to
ones environment with ease and in conformity with ones rights and individuality.
Since man is a social animal, one needs social circumstances to develop and acquire
success in the society. Man’s aims and values make him successful in developing his
personal as well as social personality.
Pragmatists give more importance to actions than ideas. Activity is the means to attain
the end of knowledge. Therefore, one should learn by experimentation which is
required in every field of life. As John Dewey says, “When we experience something,
we act upon it; then we suffer or undergo the consequences. We do something to the
thing and the thing does something in return.” (Agarwal et al, 2010)
To pragmatists, intelligence itself is nothing abstract, it is merely a quality of thinking
whose purpose is to efficiently solve problems of living. It is to use the method of
reflective thinking in our daily life.
PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATION
The man who introduced Pragmatism in Education is John Dewey. According to him,
the real value of a thing lies in its utility for human development and welfare. Thus
even education is useless if it does not promote human welfare and so the system of
education should be changed so that it becomes both desirable and beneficial.
Education should provide real life experiences to the learners so as to make them
dynamic, resourceful efficient and enterprising. John Dewey characterizes education
mainly as growth, as life, as continuous reconstruction of experiences, as a social
process (Singh, 2007). His philosophical implications made pragmatism also be known
as instrumentalism or experimentalism (Agarwal et al, 2010). Some of the educational
ideas presented by John Dewey in his most famous writing in 1916, Democracy and
Education are:
PRAGMATIC AIMS OF EDUCATION
Pragmatists believe that the aims are always determined by individual not by any
organization or any structure. Perhaps the best statement of what might be called the
pragmatists educational aims can be found in the writing of John Dewey. The aim for
education is to teach children to be comfortable in their learning environment to an
extent that children are living their life. Dewey believed in this type of environment that
is not considered a preparation for life, but life itself. He believed that educators should
know the ideas and materials that motivate and interest children and plan accordingly.
Dewey believed that aims should grow out of existing conditions, be tentative, and
have an end view. In Democracy and education, he wrote that education is “that
reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of
experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience”
(Agarwal et al, 2010). The aim that might be derived from the foregoing definition of
education would include the helping of the child to develop in such a way as to
contribute to his continued growth (Agarwal et al, 2010).
Some of the aims of education outlined by John Dewey (as cited in Khalid, 2005) are:
Education must develop the power of effective experiencing. The pupil must be
enabled to cope with the indeterminacies of life.
Even the specific objectives should be focused, clear, concrete, practicable and
oriented towards human welfare.
Natural development should be taken to notice. This refers to the development of
bodily organs and the maintenance of health and vigor. It also includes the
development of physical skills that would be useful in games and play and other such
activities. Individual differences should also be entertained during this training.
Social efficiency is another aim of education. Its function is to habituate an individual
to social control, to develop a willingness to subordinate his natural urges to social
desires.
PRAGMATISM AND CURRICULUM
The universe is the subject matter for the pragmatist. Any educative experience is the
subject matter of the curriculum, any experience contributing to growth. The subject
matter exists ready to be explored, but the real concern must always be for the
interaction of the pupil with the subject matter of his current needs, capacities, and
concerns (Agarwal et al, 2010). Curriculum should bring the disciplines together to
focus on solving problems in an interdisciplinary way. Rather than passing down
organized bodies of knowledge to new learners, Pragmatists believe that learners
should apply their knowledge to real situations through experimental inquiry. This
prepares students for citizenship, daily living, and future careers (Agarwal et al, 2010).
A study of social, economic and political problems, natural resources and their
maintenance and other such studies should form the curriculum. Subjects include
Mathematics, History, Geography, Hygiene, Physical Learning and more. Thus all the
content that prepares the child for individual as well as social adjustment can be
included in the curriculum (Singh, 2007).
PRAGMATISM AND INSTRUCTIONAL METHODOLOGY
Instead of the book, the teacher, the subject matter or the child in nature (as in
naturalism), pragmatists emphasize on the child’s upbringing in a social world. As,
learning always occurs as a result of movement and activity, the teacher has to
capitalize upon the activities of children to direct their teaching-learning processes
(Dash, 2004).
The classroom would be a functional atmosphere with the interest of the children at
hand. Problem solving, themes, experiments are all parts of the pragmatic philosophy.
The curriculum for the pragmatic philosophy supports a connection between
knowledge and experience. It is important for children to connect the two so learning
can become meaningful. According to Dewey, children must be interested in the
subject matter to gain meaning. Subjects that are difficult and cause children to
struggle should be organized and designed to build motivation about the topics.
Children should enjoy learning and leave with a sense of accomplishment (Agarwal et
al, 2010).
John Dewey feels that method of teaching should develop reflective thinking among
students. “Why” should be asked and not “How”. The method and matter of study go
side by side. Specifically, Project method in classroom facilitates learning and
experimentation. Discussion method is also considered healthy and fruitful (Dash,
2004).
PRAGMATISM AND THE SCHOOL
The school serves as both, part of an environment as well as a man made environment
which works to provide the best possible learning experiences to the students and that
is why John Dewey calls a school as “Miniature society” and assets that “schools
should be the true representatives of the society” (Singh, 200, p.187) where students
experience all the activities in accordance with their interests, aptitudes and capacities
(Singh, 2007).
In an industrial society like ours, the school should be a miniature workshop and a
miniature community; that is it should teach through practice, and through trial and
error, the arts and discipline necessary for economic or social order. In fact, any social
environment which inspires the children for experimentation constitutes as a school
for them (Agarwal et al, 2010).
PRAGMATISM AND DISCIPLINE
Pragmatism favors freedom for children. The teacher, acting as an advisor and guide,
and the self active learning of the students should together promote discipline. John
Dewey believes that both interests and discipline are closely related to each other and
so the interest of students if aroused, sustained and satisfied would itself result in
discipline. Pragmatism advocates the merging of play with work. By doing so, an
eagerness, willingness and joy develops among students in relation to their work
without thinking of what others are doing. Students develop an attitude of seriousness,
consideration and sincerity as well as self confidence, self reliance, sympathy and
fellow feeling. The formation of these social attributes result in social discipline and
moral obligation (Singh, 2007).
PRAGMATISM AND THE STUDENT
The pragmatists see a student as a whole organism which consists of the biological
self, the psychological self and the social self. A student is constantly interacting with
the environment and brings to school all the values, meanings and experiences as a
learner (Agarwal et al, 2010).
A student is creative and constructive by nature. They are not just passive listeners
but an active participant in the tri polar process of education (that is the student, the
educator and the teaching learning process). Therefore their intrinsic needs of
creativity and activity should be fulfilled by educators through challenging environment
in the classroom (Dash, 2004).
PRAGMATISM AND THE TEACHER
The teacher, as pragmatists view it, is not a dictator but only a leader of group
activities. He should not overshadow the personality of the students. The teacher has
to plan and organize the teaching-learning process, provide learning opportunities for
experimentation. Teachers must not impose themselves onto the learners and should
help them build socially and intellectually with equal opportunities (Singh, 2007).The
role of the teacher is important in successfully educating students. The teacher must
capture the student’s interest and build on the natural motivation that exists (Khalid,
2005). Teachers need to remember to vary their teaching methods to accommodate
each individual learning style. Not all children learn at the same pace or are at the
same point; therefore, the teacher must vary his/her style. Dewey believed that
knowledge should be organized and related to current experiences. The teacher, for
the pragmatist, is a member of the learning group who serves in the capacity of helper,
guide, and arranger of experiences who is as involved in the educative process as are
the students within the system (Agarwal et al, 2010).
CONCLUSION
Pragmatism as an educational belief does not have everyone agreeing. Some believe
that it is too vague and others believe it is too watered down. After analyzing
pragmatism, one may feel that this philosophy best describes ones teaching style. This
philosophy is easier to understand and make connections. Pragmatism reminds
teachers to individualize their instruction to meet the needs of each learner. One must
remember to keep old traditions, but incorporate new ideas.
http://pakphilosophy.blogspot.com/2014/03/pragmatism-its-meaning-and-
definition.html
Confucianism is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy
rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to
establish the social values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese
society. It was what sociologist Robert Bellah called a "civil religion," (1) the sense of
religious identity and common moral understanding at the foundation of a society's
central institutions. It is also what a Chinese sociologist called a "diffused religion"; (3)
its institutions were not a separate church, but those of society, family, school, and
state; its priests were not separate liturgical specialists, but parents, teachers, and
officials. Confucianism was part of the Chinese social fabric and way of life; to
Confucians, everyday life was the arena of religion.
The inner pole of Confucianism was reformist, idealistic, and spiritual. It generated a
high ideal for family interaction: members were to treat each other with love, respect,
and consideration for the needs of all. It prescribed a lofty ideal for the state: the ruler
was to be a father to his people and look after their basic needs. It required officials to
criticize their rulers and refuse to serve the corrupt. This inner and idealist wing
spawned a Confucian reformation known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The
movement produced reformers, philanthropists, dedicated teachers and officials, and
social philosophers from the eleventh through the nineteenth centuries.

The idealist wing of Confucianism had a religious character. Its ideals were
transcendent, not in the sense that they were other worldly (the Confucians were not
interested in a far-off heavenly realm), but in the sense of the transcendent ideal—
perfection. On the one hand, Confucian values are so closely linked with everyday life
that they sometimes seem trivial. Everyday life is so familiar that we do not take its
moral content seriously. We are each a friend to someone, or aparent, or certainly the
child of a parent. On the other hand, Confucians remind us that the familiar ideals of
friendship, parenthood, and filiality are far from trivial; in real life we only rarely attain
these ideals. We all too often just go through the motions, too preoccupied to give our
full attention to the relationship. If we consistently and wholeheartedly realized our
potential to be the very best friend, parent, son, or daughter humanly possible, we
would establish a level of caring, of moral excellence,that would approach the utopian.
This is Confucian transcendence: to take the actions of everyday life seriously as the
arena of moral and spiritual fulfillment.

The outer and inner aspects of Confucianism—its conforming and reforming sides—
were in tension throughout Chinese history. Moreover, the tensions between social
and political realities and the high-minded moral ideals of the Confucians were an
ongoing source of concern for the leaders of this tradition. The dangers of moral
sterility and hypocrisy were always present. Confucianism, they knew well, served
both as a conservative state orthodoxy and a stimulus for reform. Great Confucians,
like religious leaders everywhere, sought periodically to revive and renew the moral,
intellectual, and spiritual vigor of the tradition. Until the 1890s, serious-minded Chinese
saw Confucianism, despite its failures to realize its ideal society, as the source of hope
for China and the core of what it meant to be Chinese.
https://asiasociety.org/education/confucianism
Hindu philosophy began in the period of the Upanishads (900–500 BC), but
systematic philosophical elaboration did not appear until several centuries later.
Philosophical tenets were presented in the form of aphorisms or sutras, intended to
serve as an aid to memory and a basis for oral elaboration. Their extreme conciseness
presupposes an oral or written commentary, and the traditions developed through
successive layers of commentarial tradition. Although all six schools of classical Hindu
philosophy accepted the authority of the Veda, they had widely differing philosophical
positions; they developed in competition not only with one another, but also with the
so-called heterodox schools, which rejected the authority of the Veda: Buddhism,
Jainism, the Ajivikas or skeptics, and the materialist Carvaka school.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/reference/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-
maps/hindu-philosophy
Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Education and Our Ontological Incompleteness

Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, perhaps best known for his work, Pedagogy of the
Oppressed, and for popularizing the practice of “critical pedagogy,” also wrote
passionately and profoundly about what it means to be human.

In fact, both Freire’s critique of oppression and his ideas about education were
informed by how he posed the problem of being human.

Problematizing humanity as a “project,”[1] Freire explored the dialectical

interdependency of subject and object, conscious human action and the world. He
framed the problem thus:

There would be no human action if there were no objective reality, no world to be the
‘not I’ of the person and to challenge them; just as there would be no human action if
humankind were not a ‘project,’ if he or she were not able to transcend himself or
herself, if one were not able to perceive reality and understand it in order to transform
it.[2]

Working within and beyond the Marxist tradition, Freire’s “philosophy of praxis,” to
borrow the phrase popularized before Freire’s time by the Italian Marxian thinker
Antonio Gramsci,[3] the Brazilian philosopher of education distinguished human life
and history from other nonhuman life.
Throughout history, we men and women become special animals indeed, then. We
invent the opportunity of setting ourselves free to the extent that we become able to
perceive as unconcluded, limited, conditioned, historical beings. Especially, we invent
the opportunity of setting ourselves free by perceiving, as well, that the sheer
perception of inconclusion, limitation, opportunity, is not enough. To the perception
must be joined the political struggle for the transformation of the world. The liberation
of individuals acquires profound meaning only when the transformation of society is
achieved. The dream becomes a need, a necessity.[4]

It is not only that we are historical beings capable of reflecting upon our own historicity.
As creative beings, we humans “tri-dimensionalize time” into past, present and future,
creating a history of “epochal units,”[5] yet it is our thinking and action to transform the
world mediating us that humanizes us and that world we co-create. Humans, “as
beings of praxis,”[6] are endowed with the capacity for interrelated theory and action,
mutually reinforcing action and reflection. “Only human beings,” Freire added, “are
praxis—the praxis which, as the reflection and action which truly transform reality, is
the source of knowledge and creation.”[7] As humans reflect upon and “produce social
reality (which in the ‘inversion of praxis’ turns back upon them and conditions them),
then transforming that reality is an historical task, a task for humanity.”[8]

That “historical task,” however, reveals humanity’s “problematic nature,” as Freire put
it.[9] While we “humanize” the world by transforming it, that process does not always
signify our own “humanization.”[10] Indeed, as humans change the world our actions
can lead to our deleterious “dehumanization,”[11] a widening of the gap between our
potential and our actual. The necessity of choice—between either dehumanization, an
oppressive denial of our (or others’) individual faculties and collective capacities, the
harmful distancing of what is and what could or ought to be, or humanization, the
actualization of potentials—signifies an element of human freedom.

Freedom, for Freire, must also be struggled for and achieved. Of all the “uncompleted
beings, man is the only one to treat not only his actions but his very self as the object
of his reflection,”[12] and it is through that objectification that humans are able to grasp
the “dialectical relationship between the determination of limits and their own
freedom.”[13] Conscious of being conscious, people, through dialogue, can pose the
“limit-situations”[14] that alienate and disempower them as problems to be overcome
through concerted, conscious action in a reality recognized as really a process always
undergoing transformation.

The process of overcoming, of realizing freedom, is inseparable from education. The

human, “a consciously inconclusive being,”[15] is immersed in a perpetual
pedagogical process. “Consciousness of one’s inconclusiveness,” Freire averred,
“makes that being educable.”[16] A critical education is a “problem-posing”
pedagogy.[17] It contrasts with the “banking concept of education,” which posits
students as only objects (not also subjects), receptacles or deposit boxes into which
nuggets of knowledge can be inserted.[18] The banking model assumes a problematic
“dichotomy between human beings and the world,” supposing a person merely exists
in the world, not with that world and with others whom he or she co-creates said world
with.[19]

“Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power,” Freire

observed, “problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality.”[20]
Critical pedagogy does not simply take the world as given datum nor students as just
containers of knowledge for storing fixed facts. It instead involves examination of the
genesis of existing facts, an exploration of how what is came to be and an unpacking
of the contradictions within what prevails at present. Problem-posing pedagogy
promotes people’s “power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with
which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static
reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation.”[21] Contra the banking method,
which engenders a “fatalistic perception” of the existing circumstances taken as
immutable or natural, this critical pedagogy presents that same present as an objective
problem subject to subjective cognition and transformative action informed by that
cognition, clarifying the “situation as an historical reality susceptible to
transformation,”[22] propelling further collectively self-organized inquiry and control
over the co-constructed social universe.

Through cultivated conscientização, the process of increasingly critical consciousness

and “the deepening of the attitude characteristic of all emergence,” agency is enabled:
“Humankind emerge from their submersion and acquire the ability to intervene in
reality as it is unveiled.”[23]

Unveiling of exploitative relationships that empower some people at the expense of

others, entails assailing such situations as interfering “with the individual’s ontological
and historical vocation to be more fully human.”[24]

Through conscientização human beings become conscious of their own ontological

incompleteness and of the historically structured “limit-situations” presently precluding
their continued humanization. To be sure, fuller humanization is in no way guaranteed.
“Hope,” however, as Freire understood, “is an ontological need.”[25]
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/08/30/paulo-freires-philosophy-of-education-
and-our-ontological-incompleteness/
Rousseau
Rousseau saw a fundamental divide between society and human nature and believed
that man was good when in the state of nature (the state of all other animals, and the
condition humankind was in before the creation of civilization), but has been corrupted
by the artificiality of society and the growth of social interdependence. This idea of the
natural goodness of humanity has often led to the attribution the idea of the "noble
savage" to Rousseau, although he never used the expression himself and it does not
adequately render his idea.
He did not, however, imply that humans in the state of nature necessarily acted morally
(in fact, terms such as 'justice' or 'wickedness' are simply inapplicable to pre-political
society as Rousseau understood it). For Rousseau, society's negative influence on
men centers on its transformation of "amour de soi" (a positive self-love which he saw
as the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, combined with the human power
of reason) into "amour-propre" (a kind of artificial pride which forces man to compare
himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in
the pain or weakness of others).
https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_rousseau.html
Buddhist philosophy is extremely subtle and complex, the product of thousands of
years of study and contemplation by Buddhist monks and nuns all over the world. The
main ideas, however, are summed up in the Four Noble Truths:

Life is suffering. Everyone gets sick. Everyone experiences loss and disappointment.
And in the end, everyone dies. Suffering is all around us, and Buddhists believe we
have to acknowledge that suffering before we can try to address it. This suffering does
not end with death, either! Many Buddhists believe in reincarnation, or the idea that
the soul moves from body to body, so at the end of each lifetime you start again in a
new form — perhaps another person, an animal, or even a tree!
Suffering is caused by desire. The goal of Buddhism is to maximize happiness and
inner peace. Buddha taught that this could not be achieved if we were constantly
buffeted around by the winds of desire — we spend all our time wanting more money,
a better job, or a person who has caught our eye. But when we get these things, they
don’t bring lasting happiness and the disappointment leaves us worse off than before!
Buddhists teach that true happiness can only come when we quiet our desires and
focus our attention elsewhere.
There is a way to end suffering. Even though all life involves suffering, we don’t have
to give up hope. There are specific practices we can take up that will help minimize
our own suffering and that of other people. For Buddhists who believe in reincarnation,
the answer to suffering is to end the constant cycle of death and rebirth: once we
achieve enlightenment, we will no longer be reincarnated, and will no longer suffer.
The way to end suffering is through wisdom, ethical conduct, and meditation. Also
known as the Noble Eightfold Path, these practices involve intense meditation and
constant effort to be more wise, kind, and compassionate. Buddhists have developed
many different forms of meditation, all with the aim of following the Eightfold Path and
becoming better human beings.
https://philosophyterms.com/buddhism/
Socrates Philosophy
Socrates believed that philosophy should achieve practical results for the greater well-
being of society. He attempted to establish an ethical system based on human reason
rather than theological doctrine.
Socrates pointed out that human choice was motivated by the desire for happiness.
Ultimate wisdom comes from knowing oneself. The more a person knows, the greater
his or her ability to reason and make choices that will bring true happiness.

Socrates believed that this translated into politics with the best form of government
being neither a tyranny nor a democracy. Instead, government worked best when ruled
by individuals who had the greatest ability, knowledge and virtue, and possessed a
complete understanding of themselves.
https://www.biography.com/scholar/socrates

Stoic Philosophy
Stoicism was one of the most important and enduring philosophies to emerge from the
Greek and Roman world. The Stoics are well known for their contributions to moral
philosophy, and more recently they have also been recognized for their work in logic,
grammar, philosophy of language, and epistemology. This article examines the Stoics'
contributions to philosophy of mind. The Stoics constructed one of the most advanced
and philosophically interesting theories of mind in the classical world. As in
contemporary cognitive science, the Stoics rejected the idea that the mind is an
incorporeal entity. Instead they argued that the mind (or soul) must be something
corporeal and something that obeys the laws of physics. Moreover, they held that all
mental states and acts were states of the corporeal soul. The soul (a concept broader
than the modern concept of mind) was believed to be a hot, fiery breath [pneuma] that
infused the physical body. As a highly sensitive substance, pneuma pervades the body
establishing a mechanism able to detect sensory information and transmit the
information to the central commanding portion of the soul in the chest. The information
is then processed and experienced. The Stoics analyzed the activities of the mind not
only on a physical level but also on a logical level. Cognitive experience was evaluated
in terms of its propositional structure, for thought and language were closely connected
in rational creatures. The Stoic doctrine of perceptual and cognitive presentation
(phantasia) offered a way to coherently analyze mental content and intentional objects.
As a result of their work in philosophy of mind the Stoics developed a rich epistemology
and a powerful philosophy of action. Finally, the Stoics denied Plato's and Aristotle's
view that the soul has both rational and irrational faculties. Instead, they argued that
the soul is unified and that all the faculties are rational concluding that the passions
are the result not of a distinct irrational faculty but of errors in judgement.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/stoicmind/