Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Reflections of reading week # 5

What I understood from the articles about three different people, Homer, Heraclitus, and Protagoras is here;

1. Viewpoint of 'soul'
Homer - There seems no soul, means no genuine reflection, just there is interference from God.
So human being doesn't have dialogue of the soul and there's no self-awareness.
Heraclitus - Human being has 'reasoning', which is born from divine logos, means principle.
Soul could be compared to 'fire' which has both meaning, equilibrium and constant change.

Protagoras - human being has already intellectual ability and basics of education should be available to all individual with this ability.

2. Senses
Homer - language and visual art can not grasp body as a unit.
Heraclitus - divine logos, principle, is for those with senses, but he had a view of scepticism of senses.
Protagoras - rhetorical skill, speech, was a key factor for successful political career.
It means words were used for object of thought. But he says there are contradictory argument about everything.

3. Role of communication

I think the technology of defining abstract concepts were developed by the development of ways of communication. Also, I believe from the history that human beings had part of inborn cognitive endowment. ( I want to say from God!) And it interacted with cultural invention, not depended on it. It's good to be proved from the history, which seems more objective, not only from the Bible.

1 comment:

  1. You provide a helpful key here for comparing the thinkers' views on three important points. I would add to your entry on Protagoras's view of the senses that he thought that our senses are the way we gain knowledge about the world and that they help us decide what is true, which is different for everyone.

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