Hume's philosophy stood out to me the most. He is said to stand out as the most important empiricist, and he set Kant up on his successful road of philosophy.

Hume has two different types of perceptions: impressions and ideas. By impressions he means actually feeling something rather than just thinking about it, and by ideas he means thinking about something rather than experiencing it. On page 266 it says that Hume's point was that we form complex ideas that don't correspond the with physical world. For instance, unicorns or angels. What we do is we come up with scenarios and things that create false ideas. Hume was all about finding out what single ideas went into making a complex idea. When I thought about the complex idea philosophy, I began to think about God and heaven. We have never actually had an 'impression' of God or heaven. As far as we know, it is just an idea. It made me wonder what and who got the simple ideas to create the complex idea of believing in a God or a heaven.

Another philosophy I agreed with was Locke's. His focus was finding out where we get our ideas from and whether we can rely on what our senses tell us.

He believes that we get our thoughts and ideas through what we take in from our senses. On page 256, he referred to the mind as a bare and empty blackboard and an unfurnished room.

He also said that we perceive simple sensations, and we gradually created complex ideas. On page 260, they used an apple as an example. If we were to eat an apple for the first time, we gather simple sensations such as: the apple is green, the apple tastes juicy, and it was a bit sour. Then we take those observations and create a complex idea and form the concept of what an apple is.

To answer his second question, he distinguished the difference between primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are the obvious qualities, such as weight, motion and number. Secondary qualities are the things you have to experience, such as color, smell, taste and sound. The point with this was that everyone can agree on the number of things, but taste or smell could vary depending on the person's sensations.

Also, I agreed with Socrates theory that "He who knows what good is will do good." Everyone has a conscience that is able to tell us the difference between right and wrong. It is just up to us to make the right decisions.

A philosopher I disagreed with was Aristotle. His views on women were upsetting. How could someone with such great knowledge be so ignorant to the potential of women? He thought that men were inferior to women, and stated that we were "unfinished men" on page 115. Also, he believed that a child's characteristics come from only the male sperm. He referred to women as the soil that receives and brings forth the seed also on page 115. I completely disagree because women play just as huge of a part as men in the birth process as well as characteristics of the child. We all have some traits from both parents. I thought this was extremely sexist of Aristotle.

In conclusion, I am still climbing to the top of the rabbit's fur. In the beginning, I was buried deep down just like Sophie. After reading Sophie's World, my mind has been opened up to so many new ideas. I have gained a lot of knowledge, and I was able to create new opinions on new philosophies and reasoning. Now that I am finished reading Sophie's World, I realized I have come a long way. I enjoyed it, but I still have ways to go to reach the top of the rabbit's fur.

Kant believed that our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. The red tinted glasses experiment was to show that people are easily influenced by their perception. It influences our way of thinking, and wearing the red tinted glasses changes our way of thinking. We have limited knowledge because of our perception. We see things based on our own knowledge and experiences. For instance, if we were born with red tinted glasses, we would think that everything in the world is naturally red tinted. We wouldn't know any different. That is why we see the world the way we do.

"For the mind of man is not just 'passive wax' which simply receives sensations from outside. The mind leaves its imprint on the way we apprehend the world. You could compare it with what happens when you pour water into a glass pitcher. The water adapts itself into the pitcher's form. In the same way our perceptions adapt themselves to our 'forms of intuition.'" This quote from page 322 goes along with the red tinted glasses experiment. It is another form of showing that our perceptions are influenced by the way we see things.

Empiricists believe that knowledge of the world came from direct experiences by senses, and rationalists believed that human knowledge is already innate. Kant thought both of these views were wrong and also right. He came to the conclusion that both 'sensing' and 'reason' come into play in our conception of the world. The things that we learn from our senses are very important in contributing to how we see the world.

Helen Keller said, "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood." She is completely right. Life is full of experiences that all have a lesson to be learned. We can choose to be optimistic or we can dwell on the bad. It is up to us.

I have had a hard time focusing on the good aspects of my life. I don't need to tell you my story, but these past few months have taught me a lot. I was focusing and dwelling on all the bad aspects of my life. I never once took a step back to view all the things I appreciate. Honestly, I never focused on making the problems any better. I was miserable, but never acted on any situation. That is why I now believe that you can create your own happiness. We all have the ability to acknowledge the problem at hand and fix it. We all have something to work on to make better. We do have a choice. Making excuses and complaining rather than taking any action is not the way to go. We can overcome anything we set our minds to if we are wearing the right set of glasses.

Also, I have come to the conclusion that most people say and do things that make us seem as if we are someone we aren't. We all have an ideal persona of the person we would like to be. We all strive to be something we are not in certain ways. Every person has different knowledge and different things they want to be. Everyone has their own set of red tinted glasses that they see through, and that influences their thinking.

 In the middle ages, which was also known as the dark ages, we made many improvements. During this time period, religion and philosophy clashed quite a bit. Christians would get upset about the certain claims made by philosophical truths. Therefore, we began the process of Christianizing claims in philosophy. St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were responsible for Christianizing the teachings of Aristotle and Plato so that they were no longer threats to Christianity. What was ironic about the situation is, they Christianized philosophers who lived hundreds of years before Christ, but their teachings were extremely similar to the beliefs of St. Augustine and Aquinas.  

St. Augustine was a philosopher, but he also became a Christian. Therefore, he was responsible for beginning the process of conjoining philosophy and religion. St. Augustine believed that God created the world, and the Greeks believed that the world had always existed. But he concluded that before God created the world, the ideas were part of the divine mind.

The greatest philosopher of this time period, Aquinas believed in the 'theology of faith' and a 'natural theology.' On page 179, it says that the Bible teaches us how God wants us to live, but he has given us a conscience that allows us to tell the different between right and wrong. We know are aware the it is wrong to harm people because of the bible verse 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you., which all ties into the natural theology and faith.

Aquinas and St. Augustine were able to harmonize Christianity and philosophy through hard work and determination. Basically, their work just proved how many similarities that philosophy and Christianity have. They were able to make it so that their claims had religion blended in, which was able to satisfy the Christians and end conflict.
 

 

 

 

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            Aristotle’s views on women are completely different than the way women are viewed today. It is a shame that someone with such great knowledge could be so inconsiderate about an important issue like this. It is also very upsetting, honestly. He basically said that women were inferior to men, and said that we were “incomplete” on page 115. Also, he said that women don’t contribute to the birth process. He said that women just receives the seed and conceives the baby, and the man creates the form and has all the characteristics that the child will receive. I thought this was an unfair thought because we are just as capable as men, especially in creating a child. I think it was favoritism because he himself was a man. Women have just as much potential as men as well. His thinking created a lot of false opinions about women, and it definitely made men give women less respect and rights.

            I think that Plato had admirable answers to questions about gender. Plato thought that women were equal to men. He said that women have the same powers as men, as long as they have the same education and training.

            I feel like the fact that the authorities in this novel are men is unfair and sexist, but it is understandable because back then the world was basically ruled by men. Women are capable of expressing their opinions and beliefs. Back then we were basically just slaves, sentenced to producing children and being housewives. I know that men were probably more knowledgeable back then, but that was only because they were given the opportunities to learn and create their own opinions. If women would have been given those opportunities, I’m sure they would have been extremely effective thinkers of that time period.

Many philosophers have struggled to answer questions like "Who am I?" and "Where did I come from?" which is explained in Sophie's World. They are both difficult concepts to comprehend when there are so many interpretations that people preach. You simply cannot just Google the answers to these questions. We truly can never know where we came from or who we are. We just believe in something that has no proof. We all have our own interpretations of who we are and where we think we came from.

I haven't quite figured myself out yet. As far as I know, I'm just a single person on this planet. My name is Abbey Elizabeth Morrison, and I was born on August 20^th, 1997. I am involved with figure skating, dancing, lacrosse, bowling, and color guard.  I think peoples' faith and goals play a big part in who they are. People can apply their faith in times of happiness or despair. Goals have a huge part to do with ones determination to succeed in whatever they do, such as high school. I want to be an architectural engineer. I plan to go to Purdue or Penn State after I graduate high school to get my college degree. Having this goal in place gives me motivation to try as hard as I possibly can in high school to succeed with my GPA in order to get into the college I want to. Determination says a lot about someone's character.

When I think about where I came from, I get confused. I was raised to be catholic, but I still am not confident that what I have learned is what is actually true. I don't understand how one person could have the power to create the world and everything in it. How did he come about? Was there a God before him that gave him his powers? We don't know. We just believe. I'm the type of person that likes proof before I believe something. Therefore, it makes it hard to believe in a God who created all things. That is why I believe that science had a lot to do with the creation of the earth. Although, we will never know the real reason. That is why it is such a great philosophical question because it makes people think outside of the box about how the world really was created.

Honestly, I have never sat down and contemplated these questions until I read Sophie's World. I never thought about how we truly don't have proof of where we came from. Thinking about who I am in a more complex way than the obvious traits was something I struggled with. It's no wonder why philosophers have struggled with finding the answers to these questions all this time.