Category: Philosophy

In a few days, on 6 December, releases new book Soti Triantafyllou “Speaking with Alice for philosophy and the meaning of life” from’ Publications Pataki. The GarageBOOKS had the opportunity to read the text before its release and now has the honor to prodimosiefei an excerpt of this book pretty much. Soti talking with teenage Alice in philosophy and the meaning of life with’ an accessible and attractive way. I think this book will bring young people closer to philosophy, at reflection and self.

Το Garage Books εξασφάλισε 2 copies the book just released will be drawn especially to viewers. So leave one comment below’ the text and you could be the lucky.

BECOME A BETTER WORLD;

Aliki: So many centuries of wisdom, science and the world is still devastating.

MP: If you do a historical review will conclude that is getting better. As goes the culture, people seeking truth and a better lifestyle. Wonder what the limits of individual freedom, what Good, how can we avoid evil, what laws are needed to ensure peace and justice. Also explore human nature, how it can be improved and how people can be organized in civilized societies. The philosophers of the 16th and 17th century researching the concept of God, as we, no longer has the characteristics of the Old and New Testament. For example, Spinoza identifies God with the world, the nature. The thought evolves, evolved and how human life.

ALIKI: The story moves forward or repeated;

MP: Definitely goes though sometimes phenomena and situations are similar and comparable. The philosophy but not a branch of history. Surely we must maintain our philosophical heritage· we are indeed the 'task', in the field of intellectual life, To visit the old buildings and, if necessary, be restored. Yet, education for example, philosophy is still attached to the past at the expense of this. The philosophy is not based solely on the past as many believe: its history is, largely, that schools and ideologies, a history of knowledge that sometimes we forget, sometimes repels, as a series of new beginnings that seem new because some thoughts that have been neglected over time rediscovering.

ALIKI: Theories and then unearths forgotten.

MP: Rarely life builds something without having to search for other necessary stones for this building. Most philosophers have built systems of thought over the ruins of the previous, not on the ruins of the whole history of philosophy, as we tend to believe. In philosophy incorporated not only "properly matched" aspects of knowledge and thought, but also a series of mad theories, irrelevant to their lives and the world. This rupture between cognition and emotion shown by the same philosophers. In the 18th century, David Hume, for example, was a modern thinker for his time: nevertheless these, the way in which he saw other peoples, mainly Africans, was chauvinistic and racist. In the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most perceptive critics of philosophy: nevertheless these, perceptions about humans is often tasteless, pretentious and a little kitsch!

ALIKI: You mean that the influence of one thinker does not depend solely on the "correctness" of his views.

MP: Exactly. Nietzsche, for example, profoundly influenced the philosophy although most of them said it was neither as new, nor as originals seemed. Sigmund Freud was The, unquestioningly, a very great man and creator of ideas. Yet, psychoanalysis has proved elusive in many parts· similarly, philosophical and political significance of Hegel is in disharmony with the numerous inconsistencies and occasional cases of.

ALIKI: How can we learn in depth all;

MP: People, things, made known through the rationality, a rational consciousness. Let's take an example. Let's imagine that I am in a great church. In the beginning, I see the entrance, walls and some of the architectural details that I do not give much information about the building in which I get. That is, plaster or columns that could be situated in a house or in a school. So I have a fragmentary idea of ​​church. I go to the back and see the whole church. I say to myself: "To, a church ". I even, according to my knowledge, to say "an orthodox church" or "a Gothic church" or "a church of the 16th century". The church has come, somehow, in my mind, so there for me. This is the process of our evolution in the world. Every day we get deeper and deeper into the, better understand the phenomena. Every day the world is for us "little more".

Hegel believed in human development through knowledge. And, investigating consciousness, used a method called the dialectic.

ALIKI: Which is not the same as "dialectical method" of Socrates.

MP. The Hegelian dialectic is a way of seeing the world. When we imagine something blue, as we were saying earlier, in fact we think that blue is not red, not orange, is yellow and the other. Thinking at the same time its opposite.

In England, in the old days, this term - 'dialectical' - was synonymous with logic, especially the logic of orators. But from ancient times the word "dialectic" refers specifically questioned the logic, ie the original art of 'dialegesthai "with questions and then responses. It is said that first created and practiced this art was Zenon Eleatics, and subsequently developed by Plato. In modern times applied the dialectic is Immanuel Kant Kant applied the dialectic studying the contradictions that arise when principles of empirical knowledge but beyond the limits of experience. Another philosopher, Hegel, implemented in a dialectical process in which contradictions are removed from a higher level of truth. The word "dialectic", as the word "idealist" and "materialist" has many different meanings: In the history of philosophy distinguish different forms of dialectic. The dialectic of antiquity began with Heraclitus and the Pre-Socratic.

ALIKI: My philosophy seems a battleground, as society.

MP: The war, for Hegel, is also a good example of the dialectic ... A dialectical process in which the immoral (to kill people) leads to moral. Think of the Second World War: if not fought would have dominated the horrible Nazi, Hitler.

ALIKI: Everything looks like a confrontation Good-Evil.

MP: When we study the history of western philosophy, we find that most skirmishes unfold in a ratio contrast between some distinct dividing lines, '' in the trenches'', we say: the one located materialists, the other idealists (or, in English terminology, empiricists and rationalists). This way discrimination exists everywhere in various combinations, renewing again and again the rags of thought.

ALIKI: Can you summarize;

MP: According to materialism, there is nothing beyond nature that we can grasp with our senses· there are no gods, nor ideals: This theory appeared in France in the 18th century, ie the Age of Enlightenment.

ALIKI: That the 18th century when they disseminated science ... We learned that the Enlightenment had great resonance in Greece which was then still part of the Ottoman Empire.

With the Enlightenment and the French Revolution left a whole world and a new born. The Europeans came into contact with other, foreign cultures· their political system changed. The "encyclopedists" (Denis Ntintro, the d'Alamper) believed that there is a scientific and moral architecture of knowledge which frees man.

MP: The enlightenment swept across Europe and the world. Surely you learned in school Rigas Feraios and Adamantios Korai ... But we must make a distinction: The Greek Enlightenment is not a philosophy-is a spiritual movement which calls for the awakening of the principles and ideals of classical antiquity and, naturally, liberation from the Turks and the creation of a nation state.

ALIKI: In Greece, after 1750, started making schools and to publish books ... What I learned ...

MP: Correctly. The enlightenment is, as we, a spiritual movement that believes a lot in knowledge and progress through knowledge. But back to the philosophy. What we say enlightenment philosophers; Everyone is different and has its own personality – but have some common points.

ALIKI: Said: the critically, love the progress and knowledge. So all you say'' read'' and'' read'' ... Because knowledge is so important; What one gains by learning things;

MP: Knowledge is medium, an end in itself. We learn to find things, eg, work - let alone make smart. We learn things because it's nice to learn things. To, Now you start to learn a few things about philosophy - do not learn to use them somewhere specific· to learn because they are nice and make you a better person.

ALIKI: The thing that confuses is that any idea can be challenged. There is no absolute truth, or people who carry the absolute, the unquestionable truth. Neither in science is absolute and undeniable truth! Everything,what is true today may be broken tomorrow.

MP: In science we believe the results of our experiments. "Until to do new experiments that will either confirm the old, either the complete, will either cancel them. For example, in the old days, people believed that the smallest particle is the individual - hence the name'' person'', ie'' can not be segmented, cut''. Later, discovered protons, electrons and neutrons ... The 1964 The American physicist Murray concluded Guell-Man, his experiments, that protons and neutrons are eventually smaller particles but are composed of still smaller quarks which named. And so. In science we are always open to new ideas. The Renaissance, to which I return now, is a time of new ideas.

ALIKI: Can you tell again what is the rationale;

MP: Rationality is the overall philosophical direction that accepts driven and starting knowledge logical thinking. From the period of Enlightenment rationalism is usually associated with the introduction of mathematical methods in philosophy, initially with the work of Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza.

Rationality often contradicts empiricism. In practice these views are not mutually exclusive, since for example the philosophy of science is rational and empirical. But if you pull empiricism ends, believe that all ideas come from experience, either through the five external senses, either through internal sensations such as pain and pleasure, and thus that knowledge is essentially based on experience. Respectively, some versions of rationalism argue that, starting with basic fundamentals, as the axioms of geometry, one could derive deductively whole entire possible knowledge. The philosophers who advocated more in this respect were Spinoza and Leibniz, whose efforts to address the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to a development somewhat themeliokratikis approach of rationality. Both Spinoza and Leibniz argued that, in principle at least all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, can be obtained by the use of reason alone. Though both admit that this is not possible in practice for human, only in specific areas of science such as mathematics.

ALIKI: There are times where it seems to dominate the periods where idealism and materialism gains ground.

MP: Indeed. Today renewed interest in materialism with the discoveries of neuroscience. However, all this time, phases were dominated by idealism in different versions. Unlike materialism, as we, Idealism does not trust the knowledge of the world through the senses and sees independent of the correct words and ideas. It is understood that these two labels we place in the history of philosophy covering sometimes very different motivations and patterns of individual philosophers. An idealist like Plato did not think the same things as an idealist Kant. So it is impossible to write a "true" history of philosophy as either a logical construct following the great philosophers, either as a history major philosophies. In any case we would be obliged to leave aside many aspects that will make the plausible reality and full.

ALIKI: What would you say are the big questions;

MP: "What can I learn; What can I do; What I hope; What is man;»

ALIKI: And: "What do I know about myself;”

MP: The question about what we can know about ourselves is classical epistemological, not entirely philosophical. It's been largely in the field of neurobiology which can explain the foundations of knowledge available device, and its potential. The philosophy assumes an advisory role to assist in the neurobiology deeper understanding of the cognitive field. Add the following big question "What should I do;»

ALIKI: That belongs to ethics.

MP: We try to explain the foundations of morality. Why people are able to act in an ethical way; To what extent correspond Good and evil in human nature; The philosophy is not alone nor in this: neurobiology, psychology and the study of behavior and they have something to say. Since man is described as being endowed with moral, have been shown the stimuli in the brain reward ethical acts of, sciences of nature come in second place. Many questions facing our society today, or talking on abortion, or euthanasia, for genetics and breeding methods, for environmental ethics and morals to animals, no room for reasoning and arguments, more or less reasonable: This is the area of ​​philosophical controversy.

ALIKI: However, the practical and useful I think the question is "What do I hope;"If people pursue happiness.

MP: And freedom, love, God and the meaning of life. In these questions is difficult to give simple answers· But we can think in depth and intensity.

ALIKI: With such intensity that hurt my head.

MP: There is no greater success than a conscious life with deeper self-knowledge where to acquire full control of our impulses or, Nietzsche as hoped (even if for the same did not come out well), to become the "poets" of our lives: "It's a whole skill in being able to see our situation with the eye of the artist, even in pain and suffering, even in the difficulties encountered '.