Descartes 1

Protocol 5 July
Author: Kath

MEDITATION I

• Descartes presents the problem - that of accepting false opinions based on principles which can only be most doubtful and uncertain as true - and the urgency of solving such problem.
• “.. to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted up to then and to begin afresh from the foundations if I wished to establish something firm and constant in the sciences.”
• Science – used loosely; uses hard proof (irrefutable) which Descartes wants for Philosophy, too

• Descartes wants a method that philosophy can use which will eradicate human errors. He wishes to guide the reader in the recognition and demonstration of such method.

How Do I Know?

• In answering this, Descartes first wants to get rid of all that is erroneous in order to arrive at something that is indubitable.
• Likened to buildings which[] need to be demolished in order to build a new one with a stronger foundation.
• In the same way, we can treat the Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy as the foundation of Philosophy.

GOAL: SEARCH FOR /ATTAIN CERTITUDE

CRITERION: idea clara et distinct[a] (clear & distinct ideas)

• Descartes wants the certainty found in Mathematics.
• “… two and three added together always make five and a square never has more than four sides; it does not seem possible that truths so apparent can be suspected of any falsity or uncertainty.”

In his search for certitude, Descartes seems to question a lot of things. Does this make him a skeptic?

- Only methodologically speaking as he uses scepticism and universal doubt as tools in order to arrive at what is true.

Because Descartes believes that the destruction of the foundations necessarily brings down with it the rest of the edifice, he decides to assault the principles on which all his former opinions were based.

1. SENSORY EXPERIENCES – cannot be clear and distinct as it can gives us data not congruent with reality.

(ex: though it seems like the sun revolves around the earth, the opposite is actually what is true).

• Everything we can sense cannot be accepted as true and should be subjected to doubt.

2. AWAKE/ASLEEP

• When we are asleep, no matter how absurd our dreams are, we are in total belief of what is happening.
• Although the things in our dreams are [unreal], they are [] formed in the likeness of something real. .

3. EVIL DEMON

• Likened to The Matrix which feeds the people everything they experience. Descartes treats the evil demon as a great deceiver.
• However, he emphasizes the importance of not just blindly accepting into our belief anything that is false and also of preparing our minds against the tricks of this evil demon.

• On the idea of God – one cannot be sure of the idea of God. Therefore, He cannot be the bedrock of certitude.

MEDITATION II

• Begins by giving a “repetition” of Meditation I. (Manifestation of his Jesuit education)
• In his search for certitude, Descartes compares himself to Archimedes who asked only for a fixed point in order to take the terrestrial globe

I can doubt the fact that I doubt, but I cannot doubt the fact that I am thinking

“I am, I exist.”-  bedrock of certitude (cannot be debunked)

• “Though the evil demon deceives me, he cannot cause me to be nothing so long as I think I am something.”
• “I” = A “thinking thing”
• I experience my existence in my act of thinking.
• TO THINK IS TO EXIST = Thinking as an evidence necessary to prove existence.
• [The same insight is expressed differently in] I THINK THEREFORE I AM. 
  [This expression, however, is open to misinterpretation as hasty readers may think that Descartes meant that] existence [i]s a logical consequence of thinking (cause & effect)

Plato 2

Protocol: 26 June
Author: Reg

Socrates’ Counterarguments
1. Corrupting the youth
One person cannot corrupt the whole youth
The youth deliberately went to Socrates to listen to him and question those who think they are
wise but are not.
If this accusation were proven to be true, then these young men would have realized upon
maturity that they have been corrupted and would accuse Socrates and avenge themselves.
2. Impiety
Socrates was guilty of believing in gods but not believing in gods.
“If I do believe in daemon (demigod), then I do believe in gods as well.”
Divine Sign – (If I really know it’s not good, why do I do it anyway?)
When an action is realized to be wrong after it has been done, this feeling comes from a certain
knowledge.
Socrates possesses this knowledge being guided by a daemon to rectify his wrongdoings.
Divine sign – a spirit with him
The divine sign did not interrupt Socrates during the trial. Everything in the trial was in accordance
with truth and justice.
Conscience is [much like the Socratic] divine sign. It is the knowledge one does not know one has.

Human wisdom
One possesses human wisdom when one admits [one's] own ignorance. One knows that his knowledge is
limited.
This shows the attitude of humility

Socrates as an icon
Socrates was used as a symbol/example/icon/sign.
“If anyone wishes to be wise, he must be like Socrates.”
Socrates did not boast at all. He humbly accepted his task of bringing everyone to the same
awareness as he had.

Apologia
“apologetics” – speaking and writing in defense
Early Christian apologetics engaged in writing to defend their beliefs and to give an explanation
Socrates did not ask for an apology from the men of Athens for he did not see anything wrong with
his actions.

Socrates’ ultimate concern during his defense
The over-arching theme was dikē (justice). From the start, the issue has been about justice (18a)
Socrates could have done other things to be acquitted (e.g. bring in his family and friends to arouse
pity) but he did not do such for it is totally unjust and against justice.
Socrates showed no duplicity in him. He was one [and] the same person. He has always been following
the dictates of what is just.
The Greek [idea of dike: e]ach person has the task to be in harmony with that order.
Achilles had the responsibility to avenge the death of Patroclus by killing Hector as demanded by
justice.
Socrates consistency in fulfilling his task to philosophize is the evidence of his justice.

Socrates’ account on fearing death
One who fears death is like the man who thinks he knows what he does not.
Death as a blessing:
Total annihilation
• Death is total emptiness. One falls into total oblivion
• It is complete lack of perception like a dreamless sleep.
• If death is like you’re knocked out for an eternity, isn’t that a pleasurable thing?
A change and a relocating for the soul – (If death merely transfers soul, how can that be beneficial?)Socrates will meet everybody else in the underworld where the just can be found in the isles of the blessed and Elysium fields, while the unjust in Tartarus. • Socrates can still continue his task of questioning people without having to fear death.

Nothing can harm a just man
Socrates sees himself as a gadfly.
The horse kills the gadfly but does not actually harm it. The gadfly is just merely fulfilling its task of
disturbing the horse.
Socrates fulfilled justice through continuing his task of philosophizing. He was not harmed at all by
his accusers.
Wickedness and Death (39b)
Death has not caught up with us. It takes its time
Each one of us has done a wicked thing. This is how wickedness caught us.
When one is being wicked, one allows himself to be destroyed.
When telling a lie, you rip yourself to shred to do two parts:
[One part knows] what the truth is
[The other part puts] a mask to deceive people
A person telling a lie destroys himself and his integrity - (“Integer” – whole number)
A person of integrity is not broken but []whole.

Plato 1

Protocol 21 June
Author: Alvin

Crossing the threshold: Socratic defense as a form of secondary reflection
A. Illustrating Marcel’s idea of “the self” (existence), Socrates provides his own version of who he is.
- Not only is Socrates’ apology a defense from all his accusations, but also it is a testimony of how
he became who he was.
B. Socrates’ account1 implicates how crucial secondary reflection is to all human activities.
- This entails his “self” emerging out from a conglomerate of forms, entering the very mystery of his
own subjectivity.
II. Content of the deposition: Guilt by association
A. Two accusations: Socrates was purported guilty of corrupting the young and impiety (not believing in
the gods of Athens, but in strange gods)
- During his time, Socrates had a tremendous influence on the Athenian youth. (23c)
- Impiety is more political than religious, as irreverence for the gods is tantamount to treason or
betrayal of his own city-state (anti-patriotism)
B. Context: Looking under the lens of Athens catastrophic defeat in the Peloponnesian war (and the
political upheavals that followed), the aforementioned charges are indeed political.
- Prior to the trial, the Athenians were looking for the causes of their military and political failure. In
this regard, Socrates became the city’s scapegoat.
III. Pre-Socratic defense: Tracing the roots of the slander
A. Pronouncement of the Delphic oracle2 in its structural sense:
- Q (Chaerephon): Is there anyone wiser than Socrates?
- A: No one is wiser. (Notice the negation in the oracle’s reply, for it opens to two possible
interpretations.)
B. On one hand, the reply would implicate Socrates being the wisest of them all.
- However, Socrates entertains the news with sheer bewilderment (an inner disturbance), for he never
believed himself to be wise. (21b)
- He demonstrates an attitude where he doesn’t easily accept the pronouncement. Thus, the
conundrum propelled his investigation, leading Socrates to groups of purportedly wise people.
1. Politicians: Anyone who assumes authority is deemed to be wise.
Having a position to uphold/protect, they appear omniscient when they are actually
not.
2. Poets (contemporaries in Athens): They possess a certain knowledge that became the
wellspring of their poetic works.
As the bystanders seem to have understood the poetic works better that its authors
could, they do not possess that knowledge, being divinely inspired, at all.
Socrates does not pretend such knowledge.
3. Craftsmen: Socrates knows practically nothing of their dexterity in crafting goods that are
being sold in the agora (city center)
Just because they are good in a certain skill, they presume to be good at everything.
- Wisdom becomes illusory. These people don’t think that there is anything they did not know. (22c)
C. On another hand, the reply could also be understood as, “no mortal being is wise because only the gods
can be wise.”
- Socrates admits that he is not wise at all.
Socratic ignorance: Only the gods are wise; thus, all mortal beings are ignorant. Yet,
there is someone from the crowd who is cognizant of his ignorance.
- Role of reversal in the text: What makes him the wiser one is his mere awareness of his ignorance.
This ignorance sets Socrates out in a certain task/mission, which is to bring everybody
else in the same consciousness. He questioned individuals to prove them ignorant of the
matters in which they claim expertise.
But the people’s pride/ego, however, gets in the way of illumination. Consequently, this
has brought him a lot of enemies (his accusers included), attaching him to malfeasance.
- Socrates brings into his defense that his actions are not a betrayal, but rather a form of public
service (life’s work)
[G]od has given Socrates this special task for him to fulfill.
In an attempt to get a better society in the end, he has sought the road less travelled,
ceasing as a patriotic person.
- Horse-gadfly imagery: Despite the horse’s continuous flicking of its tail, shooing the gadfly away,
the gadfly always returns. (30e)
Similarly, Socrates compares himself to a gadfly, continuously rousing the horse from
lethargy. He serves to awaken the consciousness of Athenian society.
Choosing to be sluggish by killing the gadfly, the horse constrains itself from being
a “great and noble” being. Unfortunately, the society eventually turned the flyswatter to
Socrates. The gadfly may have been killed, yet it was still able to fulfill its purpose.

Primary and Secondary Reflection 2

Protocol 14 June
Author: Jaevie


Primary and Secondary Reflection 2

1. Primary Reflection dissolves

• Naturally dissolves the unity of the natural experience
• Abstraction
• Problem seeking solution(s)
• Ex. A mechanic wh[o] looks for the malfunctions of a vehicle

2. Secondary Reflection is essentially recuperative

• High instrument of philosophical research
• Deals with mystery
• Involved self
• Ex. Everyday events
• Life becomes more lived because of reflection; reflection becomes more real because of life

3. “Who Am I?”

• Self in the index cards
• The self that i recognize is an abstraction
• Bundle of experiences & attributes = my self
• Does this “self” exist? No.
• The answers to the questions of primary reflection refer to ourselves
• The self that has become an object
• Index card, passport

4. Subjectivity

• Objectum: something in front of you
• ob (L.) – in front of
• jectum (L.) – act of throwing
• Subjectivity
• sub (L.) – underneath
• Going back to enter the mystery of my subjectivity (my “real” self)
• We cannot fathom subjectivities

5. Discussion of the Quiz

“A human life has always its centre outside itself” –Marcel (par. 10, p. 82, Chpt. V, The Mystery of Being)

• “to live” in the biological sense is not the same as living a human life
• Values, desires, relationships = what makes a life
• The center outside oneself is SOMEBODY[/SOMETHING] ELSE
• Concrete example of Marcel
• MOTHERHOOD
• A mother can’t be herself if she has no children[DUH?]
• VICES
• vices/addictions and bad habits
• one considers oneself incomplete without the negative vice
• Meaning of their lives are one and the same (Mothers and Substance Abusers)
• Artists
• Not far from the pathos of the artists
• Thin line between creativity and insanity
• We aim to live life in a “philosophical way”
• Secondary reflection is not a negation of life but a transcendence
• Secondary reflection goes under the presupposed meaning of life to find our subjectivity

6. Questions

• “confession”
• Formulas
• All about going beyond
• An athlete wh[o] face[s] an accident
• There are many centers present in a human life
• Involves the question of who he is
• The accident may open a new center
• Brings about a new decision
• Opening of new possibilities or closing and opening of one center

Primary & Secondary Reflection 1

Protocol 7 June
Author: Phil

1. Problem
1. An obstacle which breaks a routine.
2. A task that [gets in the way of achieving] your main goal
3. It implies a desired outcome with an apparent deficiency or inconsistency that prevents the outcome from taking place. [Comment: Is this from Marcel or from a dictionary?]
2. Reflection
1. From the [Latin] word [re]flectio which means “to [bend] back”.
2. When we reflect, our attention is directed.
3. Helpful in solving problems.
4. Marcel gives two types of reflection: primary and secondary
3. Primary Reflection
1. The person sees a situation as a problem.
2. This reflection solves the problem e.g. solving a mathematical equation.
1. Marcel gives the example of losing your watch and by tracing back your steps, you solve the problem.
3. However, this reflection does not totally involve the self. Marcel [borrows the popular notion of life and reflection as hot and cold, respectively].
1. [Romanticism] says that reflection is cold and life is hot.
2. In the watch example, when you trace back your steps, you are somehow separated from yourself as you do the reflection like seeing yourself from a[nother] perspective.
4. Is reflection really separated from life?
4. Secondary Reflection
1. Involves the person entirely

Introduction 3

Protocol: 5 June
Author: Jeric

 

1. Marcel: On Philosophy and Art
1. Art
1. By way of a work of art, the artist is able to capture his own experience of reality, so that the audience may be able to share in this experience.
2. Something must be analogous between the artist and the audience, in order that the artist’s experience of reality will resonate in the audience’s participation in the artist’s work.
3. (p.10) “When I look at or listen to a masterpiece, I have an experience which can be strictly called a revelation;…such revelations appear not to be granted to other people, whom I have to difficulty at all communicating on other topics.”
4. There is not one correct or hard and fast interpretation for a work of art.
2. Art transcends the artist
1. A story or a novel has a life of its own
1. After one gains new experiences, a novel, when read again, can provide a whole new meaning
3. Philosophy
1. 8th midterm thesis- Philosophy cannot accept a simplistic conception of universality
1. Like art, there is not one correct interpretation, or insight for that matter, on a particular aspect of reality.
2. In the same way, there is no such thing as a wrong interpretation [only misguided or ill-informed ones], but one must also be wary of complete subjectivity.
2. Marcel: On the ‘true questions’ and the ‘persons of goodwill.’
1. The ‘true questions’
1. There are questions that are not simply answerable [by] a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’
1. (p. 11-12) “Do you believe in God?”
2. True questions are the underlying questions regarding the meaning behind existence, and behind reality itself.
1. Ex. Why do you wake up everyday? What is the purpose behind the things you do everyday?
2. Free thinkers and ‘persons of goodwill.’
1. ‘Philosophy is a quest for honesty’- Walter Kaufmann
1. In [his writings], Heraclitus criticizes Homer (56), Hesiod (57), and Pythagoras (81).
2. Also criticizes his fellow Ephesians for assuming that the decision of the majority is ultimately the best and most just decision (121).
3. Perhaps Heraclitus invites everyone to be honest with themselves, and have the courage to question the accepted order of things.
2. Marcel: The role of the free thinker is to “swim against the current (p.11).”
1. The challenge is to take one’s own stand on the truth, even though it may be unpopular, or against the accepted order.
3. Person of goodwill: One who has a genuine concern for other people.
3. Challenge of philosophy: have the courage to think freely, and to be honest with one’s own experience of reality, though it may be met with opposition from others.

Introduction 2

Protocol Thursday 31 May 2012
Author: Kayle

[Strictly speaking, p]hilosophers did not [intend to build] their own “philosophical systems” in investigating reality; their followers [who tried to emulate them where the ones who transformed their thoughts into systems or schools].

SYSTEM vs. REALITY
Reality must outweigh the system.
*Procrustean bed – twisting reality to fit the system; an act of betraying and denying reality; it is impossible and highly irresponsible [very heavy word; unfair to scientists] to even attempt to sever experience from the results
“Happy accidents” (in science) – Yes, they exist; but in science, the scientists’ effort is discounted – only the result matters,
as if it were separate from the method.

MARCEL’S INSIGHTS
Metaphysical unease
o Likened to person with fever, when he/she twists and turns to find the “right position”
o The sick person cannot dictate the body to get well and therefore must go through the agony/pain.
o Similar to perplexity that all being is in Being (Heidegger); question on being vs. nothing(ness) (Parmenides)
Wondering about reality as being (as existent) and not nothing (non-existent) – a probable cause for human life to pause
momentarily, for humans to ponder on reality and produce insights about things taken for granted
Musical discord as a part of a wider harmony
o Similar to Heraclitus’ example of tension as a factor to produce music
o Harmony is not about removal or elimination; rather, adjustments are [] made. But before one can make
the necessary adjustments, one must go through the experience of music.

SITUATION
Associated with “involved self”
*nuance – a slight difference in context/appearance
The involved self makes the experience appeal to its senses; thus, inhabits the situation (in contrast with simply making
the experience a mere experiment).

IS PHILOSOPHY TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE?
Is it purely personal and idiosyncratic?
One thing is for sure – it does not aim to be universal.
*Denken überhaupt – “generalized thinking”; überhaupt translates to “universally”, “totally”, or “absolutely”
o (philosophical) systems which attempt to generalize all human experience
o E.g. Hegelianism ([Georg Friedrich Wilhelm] Hegel), Thomism (St. Thomas Aquinas)
Reliance on generalized thinking, a ready-built system which instantly provides, is tantamount to [preoccupying] oneself [with] an abstraction – an illusion of having an omniscient view (in contrast with [being] engag[ed with] the concrete experience).
o E.g. driving with a map; one simply receives directions to reach the destination
One is compelled to move back and forth from the act of driving itself to the act of looking into the map,
which in fact is a mere illusion[?] of a bird’s eye view.
The map fails to show a great deal of things which only reality can manifest.

SCIENCE AS GENERALIZED THINKING (Denken überhaupt)
In the scientific method, the aim of the scientist is to come up with a generalization.
Science attempts to homogenize and predict outcomes (following the correct variables and methodology).
These generalizations are meant to hold true at all times.
o How? Through experimentations for the sake of verification.
One is compelled to move from the generalization to the particular case. (such a movement is similar to
the example of driving with a map)
o More calculations and generalizations are built upon pre-existing generalizations – that is how science works. [please provide examples]
Generalized thinking may be based on reality, but still fails to capture actual reality; for reality is not meant to be captured
by any school of thought – it is meant to be lived, inhabited and experienced.
It is clear that philosophy is not about denken überhaupt. The evident difference between philosophy and science can be
seen.

There seems to be the tension between the idiosyncratic and the general. The involved self [is] intermediary
[to] the two.

Introduction 1

Protocol: Tuesday 29 May
Author: Jabo


I.  Heidegger on Sophists and Socrates

• Sophists: means “the wise ones”, they presume themselves to be wise. As they already have ready-made answers, they claim to be wise enough to teach whatever it is you might want to know.

• The Sophists removed the astonishingness of the most astonishing thing by claiming that they hold the truth which is a false assumption.

• No one can every truly grasp the whole truth.

• Socrates: known for his method of asking questions. He believes that inquiry is the best way of [ar]riving at the truth. He tried to revive Hen Panta which the Sophists destroyed. To him, “education has nothing to do with filling a pail, rather it has everything to do with igniting a flame” (Heraclitus[?]):

• He affirms that knowledge is possible for everyone who makes the effort to realize it.
• You have to have skill[s] in asking questions so as to be able to [arrive] the truth (in a sense, this is how [p]hilosophy operates).

• Points: (1) Though there are no sophists around, sophism is still alive and can be represented by today’s science and technology, education, etc. (2) Truth is so much bigger than everything we have now because we are mere apes compared to goddesses who hold absolute knowledge [warning: mixed metaphors].

II. Assessing Heidegger’s Text

• From a technical point, his text is useless, but that is the point – not to give a conceptual definition o[f] Philosophy.
• He answered the question performatively: he wrote the text philosophically and the text initiated us [into] the act of philosophizing.
• We will never be able to inhabit the sophon again.

• What then is the point of [p]hilosophy? Strive for the sophon makes us more human.
• There is hope if we come back to a poetic understanding (artistic scientist and vice versa).

III. Marcel’s The Mystery of Being: Introduction

• Why was he hesitant about giving a Gifford lecture?

• He does not want to [] limit[] Philosophy [].

• According to him, [p]hilosophy cannot be reduced into [a few sentences].

• He is wary of the possibility that the audience may refer to his [thought] as “Marcelism”.

• He displays his resistance against establishing categories/labels because these do not, at all, fully represent the ideas that he wants to deliver.

• What made him continue?

• Marcel sees this as a duty to [p]hilosophy; an opportunity to engage other people [with] his ideas.
• He is inviting us to go along his unfinished system [This is not faithful to Marcel!]. He wants his audience to realize that philosophizing is a quest where one should not expect a polished outcome (unlike in scientific investigations where one already formulates a hypothesis at the beginning).

• General direction of his thought thus far:

• Image of a road that is open to objections of two sorts:

• Presupposes spatiality
• Presupposes a destination

class today at SOM202

Please spread the word that our class today, Tuesday May 29 will still be at SOM202.

Thank you.

Heidegger 2

Protocol: Thursday, 24 May

Author: Jess

I. “Western-European philosophy” as a tautology ([paragraph] 11)

• Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, etc. are not considered as philosophy because they are [from] a different tradition
• Point: Heidegger wishes to distill philosophy to allow to really see its actual “spirit”

II. Presupposition in philosophy: discrediting certain possible paths

• Problem about trying to understand philosophy in terms of reason/ as a matter of reason
• It is somehow reason using/defending itself for justification.
• It is necessary to understand that defining entails abstraction in that in order to come up with a definition it is necessary to abstract. The definition formulated from abstraction is used as a basis.
• Example: When studying the liver, it becomes something conceptual wherein the liver is deemed as the liver of everybody. The common qualities of the liver are abstracted in order to use it as a basis of a particular definition in that the object has to pass the list of qualities in the definition.
• Implications: What is not rational should not be a matter of philosophy
• This understanding of philosophy already disregards a lot of possible inquiries.
• It is impossible go into certain human enterprises, particularly art, since art is looked at not by rationalizing it, but by experiencing/ feeling it.
• Point: If philosophy is about reason/ a matter of reason, then it can be considered as one of the many diverse branches of science, which will lead us nowhere in understanding philosophy.

III. Heidegger’s critique of modernity (a critique of technology)

• Modern humanity has lost the sense/ perspective of viewing the world the way the ancient Greeks/primordial people possessed because of technology
• Modern humanity has lost a primordial connection with the world in that it no longer sees the world as it is. Modern people deem themselves as separate from the world because of the advancement in technology.
• Example: Now, a tree is seen in the way of its scientific qualities (chlorophyll, photosynthesis, etc.) in that it is understood based on how it fits into certain definitions or categories.
• Modernity lost the sense of the poetic
• If reading a poem like Trees by Joyce Kilmer and somehow go through the poem line by line, then perhaps we can experience the tree the same way the poem experiences it in that this experience is different form the preconceived notions of science.
• This sense of the poetic has been replaced with the sense of utility.
• Rain: (then) experienced as a blessing, as a necessity for survival to grow crops, but (now) deemed as inconvenience        
• Juxtapose: usual way of thinking of urbanized people and indigenous people towards nature
• Mother Nature is a dead metaphor or doesn’t mean anything to us anymore in that this view of seeing nature came from that which no longer holds true in modern society. In modern society, nature is no longer a mother but more of a pumping station/ a resource.
• Point: Technology: double-edged sword
• Not only separates us from a primordial connection with nature and the world, but also separates us from one another.
• Typewriter: there is certain artificiality with it in that the personality of the person typing the letter is lost in the sense that one’s personality can be seen in the strokes of the handwriting.
• The pen follows the rhythm of the hand, but in typing the fingers become tools, forced to follow the configuration of the machine.

IV. Relevance of the critique to  “What is philosophy”

• When we talk about “ti estin” and “quid” and “what is,” there’s a big difference since “what is” comes from a technical point of view and “quid” expresses as if that something could be captured by way of definition, while “ti estin” does not mold that something into a category or definition, instead it merely provides the avenue for that something to reveal itself and it does not dictate its unconcealment.
• The analogy of the gardener and the builder: Gardener as “ti estin”, Builder as “quid”/ “what is”
• When one defines, he/she is a builder. Categories are established in order to try to fit nature within a box. Example: The categories in [bureaucratic] forms, such as gender, try to fit a certain person in the categories present in the forms.
• The gardener does not dictate the growth of the plant, but merely provides the space for it to flourish on its own capacity.
• Point: Heidegger knew that modern readers would look at philosophy in the matter of the “quid” wherein we try to classify and categorize everything/ want to see/ grasp everything as “quantifiable” in that categories are created to try to fill or represent the spaces present in our understanding of things. Thus, turning back to the primordial way of seeing things/ perspective is needed to understand the question at hand. (What is philosophy?)

V. Heraclitus and Parmenides as “Great thinkers” ([thinker:] Denker)/ ([poet:] Dichter)

• They don’t seem to prove any particular point in their writing (there is this sense that they are not exactly doing philosophy) because they are still in harmony with Logos/ one with everything.
• φιλοσοφία (philosophia)=> φιλόσοφος (philosohos)=> ανερ φιλόσοφος (aner philosophos) => (hos philei to sophon): he who loves the sophon ([paragraph] 22): tries to establish the fact that indeed Heraclitus and Paraminides are “great thinkers” because they were one with the Logos in that they inhabit that sophon ([paragraph] 26).
• Sophon= Hen Panta: “all is one”
• Individualism is very important to modern humanity; however, primordial people see themselves not as a ‘self’ but in unity other people in a community
• Indigenous people has no distinction of what is man-made and natural, just see everything as one, as part of the cosmos/ of an order
• Example: dike: means the whole cosmos is ordered; however, the modern mind limits it to inter-human affairs by labeling it as “justice.”
• Point: Heraclitus and Parmenides both inhabit that unity with the sophon; however, modern society no longer lives in that unity because of individualism/ definition/ separation from Hen Panta. This is why contemporaries have a hard time understanding Heraclitus and Parmenides.