COLUMBIA ONLINE COURSE REFLECTIONS
Source: Pequot Library
BY: LEXI COYLE MCDONALD
LIFESTYLE HEAD
The online course I am taking this summer at Columbia University focuses on philosophy, love, human excellence, and moral character. We analyze these topics by studying texts such as Plato’s Symposium and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. One of the central goals of this course is to seek an answer to what a life worth living means and looks like, and we attempt to accomplish this by exploring ideas relating to existential freedom, choice, and responsibility.
We began our studies with Plato and his epistemology. A vast majority of the time we spent on him was about his analysis of human love. He believed that love involves sacrifice of some sort, as most relationships are a balance of the two partners, giving and taking equitably. An important distinction he made was between the two Aphrodites in Greek mythology: Heavenly and Common Aphrodite. Although the Greek gods are considered nothing more than myths to us today, this statement still rings true. Do not mistake common, everyday love for that of the everlasting, soulmate type, and one should act accordingly to the kind of love that is being experienced.
Aristophanes’ speech discussed the legend of the root of human nature: humans used to be born in pairs, connected physically. These could be male-male, male-female (where there is a link to the word androgynous), or female-female. Depending on who your original pairing was, your pair-partner would be the gender you are attracted to, and that this attraction is an attempt to recover your original human nature. However, humans were too powerful and united in this way, so the gods split us so that we would be alone and forever searching for our other half. This is the lens through which the Greeks examined love: we are drawn to one another to flourish and become our whole selves, in the way that we were once made.
Philosophia means lover of wisdom, which is a higher form of love than the love of a simple, fleeting outward beauty, as one who has loved many realizes that our bodies are all beautiful and vessels for the true beauty inside. Truest love is a love of the inward, intelligible beauty that comes from the inside-out. This is the uniqueness of one’s mind, heart, and soul that shines through and is so much more impressionable than any physical trait can be. The best humanly possible relationship will have ups and downs, but the beauty in love does not come from perfection, but from the imperfect way that we humans can love.
Other philosophical concepts we examined are the Allegory of the Cave and the Simile of a Line. These are two ways to explain knowledge and freedom. In the Simile of a Line (pictured
in the chart to the left), in moving from bottom to top of the construct, one gets closer to the truth with each level. This signifies the switch from the visible, material world (i.e. what appears to be true) to intelligible, abstract ways of thought (i.e. genuine knowledge). This essentially represents the progression of logic past the dependency on human senses.
The Allegory of the Cave is a story that is an example of this adjustment. The story’s basic plot is that prisoners in a cave are chained to only see shadows in front of them made from a fire that is behind them. One day, one of the prisoners is freed and is now able to move around and can see the fire in the cave. Next, he begins to travel, following the daylight to the real world outside of the cave until he is above, in reality as we are aware of it.
The lowest portion in the Simile of a Line is imaging, involving reflections and shadows. Imaging is depicted in the Cave as the shadows on the walls that the prisoners see, which represent uninformed, “second-hand” opinions, as they believe only what is set right in front of them. The second-lowest Line portion is belief, which corresponds to the sensible (physical) objects present in the world. In the Cave, this is when the prisoner can see the fire and the rest of the cave. This is not yet reality of the world above, but the cave now makes more sense and is accepted, without pushing the comfort of the prisoner too much. The lower section of knowledge in the Line is understanding, which utilizes concepts and theory such as imagination and assumption. This is illustrated in the allegory as the shadows of the objects above which can be seen at the opening of the cave. The final state is pure reason, meaning Forms and perfect knowledge. In the Allegory of the Cave, these are the actual objects in the world outside and the sun above.
Both of these devices are about the journey to greater knowledge. They describe the adjustments that people must take to gain more understanding and get to the truth. This involves turning away from blissful ignorance and turning to progress and enlightenment. This will bring one true freedom because instead of accepting the way the world seems, you can see the world for what it can be.
I have really enjoyed this engaging three-week summer course at Columbia and highly recommend it! We study the classics and go back to the basics of philosophy. This is crucial to understanding existentialism and many other ways of thought that stem from and relate to philosophy. Even though it was online, which is never quite as immersive as the college campus experience, my teacher and teaching assistant made it very fun and engaging. Our discussions were robust and thorough, based on the text but not limited by it. The level was challenging, but not impossible and having such great instructors greatly improved it. For any high school students bored in quarantine or by summer, this course is highly recommended!
コメント