Nietzsche; one BAMF

A man by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." Being raised by 'pious, fussy women' who always told him to 'be careful', Nietzsche developed the theory that one should not live as if they are dying. That is, he was an adventurer who believed that stimuli was provoked by pleasure and pain; not just pain as most other pessimistic philosophers before him believed.

Nietzsche's theories are perfect examples that human nature is partly influenced by nuture. While Nietzche did not grow up to be fearful of everything like his guardians would have expected him to do, he did grow up to go out and seek adventure- something that may not of happened would he have been raised in a different environment.

Kierkegaard & the Leap of Faith

Once upon a Nature of Human Nature class, Professor Johnson brought in tape cassette and told the students that he was going to try something new. What the eager honors students didn't know was that this tape cassette was actually a guest lecturer in disguise of a tape cassette. The guest lecturer, whose name escapes me, gives insight to the philosophies of Soren Aabye Kierkegaard.

While I did not enjoy the tone of this lecturer's voice at all, I did enjoy what he had to say about Kierkegaard. I think I got more out of it than I would have reading it out of a book.

The lecturer, Professor Carey, introduces Kierkegaard as a radical Christian who was the first existentialist because he was really the first person to question (and attempt to answer) "where does one's own existence fit in to the world surrounding him/her?" From there, Professor Carey begins to tackle, as he supposes Kierkegaard would, Kierkegaard's view of a the "leap of faith."

This "leap of faith" idea of really stuck with me. As Professor Carey made the distinction between reason and faith- reason being proof and faith being believing for oneself, the leap of faith becomes paradoxical. The 'leap' that Kierkegaard is referring to is over a ditch, over eternity and time. There were some philosophers (I can't think of their names right now) who questioned his theory saying, "how do I get from believing about Jesus...I can't seem to make this leap." Instead of just saying "God will help you" or something to that effect, Kierkegaard had a theory of "inwardness". It was this inwardness that would get you to make the leap. However, you had to do it on your own and it could not be directly communicated.

The Ever Present Aspect of Religion

... And still blogging about Freud. I agreed with Freud's view on how religion is an illusion and how children's parents (usually the father) is viewed as "god-like" and powerful. What I got out of reading Freud's religion section [in Pojman's book] was that parents usually instill some kind of religious aspect into their child's world, whether the child wants to be open to it or not. When the child reaches around the age where he/she is able to form peer groups (friendships, cliques, crowds), he/she may see that the stance they have taken on religion (because of what was forced on them as a child) is not the only one and may begin to question it. If faith in the family, as well as family bonds are strong, the child will probably continue to stick with the families religion; if not the child who is now entering adolescence will venture off into different forms of religion or have none at all.

Personally, if I were to follow Freud's view that children viewed their father's as 'god-like', it would make perfect sense that I questioned my belief in the Roman Catholic faith at age 11, when my parents finalized their divorce, 8 years after my dad cheated on my mom, moved out, and left her with me and my two brothers. Being raised in the Catholic religion, I didn't see why it was fair that I had to go to CCD every week, when they're wasn't even a god; my dad committed adultery and my parents got divorced- two things that were shunned in The Bible. So, why should I be the one to sit through an hour of bullshit of some lady telling me that Jesus walked on water and healed the sick? My family didn't even go to church anymore. So I told my mom I didn't believe in god and that I wasn't going to be a Catholic anymore. And I'm not ever going to god damn CCD again.

S. Freud II

What I did like about Freud was that he believed all behavior was caused by antecedent affairs. Things such as slips of the tongue, dreaming, hallucinating, neurosis, repressing memories, and psychosis are caused by forces in the mind in relation to one's environment. Freud saw it as his mission to discover the nature of these causes and by understanding them, could act as a therapist for a patient and make changes for the better. A part of his theory stated that the patient was not morally responsible for his or her neurosis; that the state of their mental being came from influences brought upon us.

I agree with Freud here in the cases of people having chemical imbalances, growing up in situations that they can't help, and other events that would lead to situations of neurosis and the like. I do not agree with him in the way that, I'm assuming, all patients are responsible for their neurosis: what about a patient who ends up with a disorder because of decisions that they consciously made and they knew would lead to neurosis? I can't think of an extremely good example, but I know there are some out there. I just think their are some people out their who are responsible for the actions they make and cannot blame it on the forces in their mind.

S. Freud

Sigmund Freud is the most complicated philosopher we have read about thus far. He began what is referred to as the 'sexual revolution'. While I agree with many of of Freud's theories, I do not agree with his view on human nature that the sex drive is the most powerful drive in humans. One reason is that he contradicts himself (or rather Pojman contradicts what Freud believes in Freud's words) directly after this statement: he says that everyone has varied sexual drives. So, how can the sexual drive be the most powerful force in the human being if some people repress the drive out?

I also don't agree with Freud's argument that women tend to have weaker sexual drives then men. I think that the sexual drive depends biologically on the individual personal (not relating to their gender) and is affected by their surroundings. Saying that women were more likely to get a psychoneurotic illness is unrelated to the sexual drive. Freud's theory may have been more likely back in the early 1900s because people were unsure of what to diagnose a person as, but is definitely not true today because both men and women are equally able to be neurotic.

Oh, and I never hoped I'd get a penis.