Philosophy Afrterlife Reformation Essay

The ancient philosophers of Greek and Rome generally believed the world to be eternal, meaning, that the world had no beginning, and thus, it can never have an end, too. The people who had pondered about the origins of life here on earth, and about life after this present existence ends, have been segregated into many sects and categories. For the Stoics [1] our universe undergoes the shifting courses of expansion and contraction in perpetuity – from fire the universe expands into cooler and denser forms, contracts again in order to become fire, and so on in an eternal fashion. To the followers of Aristotle, according the author Leopold Sulmner in his book What Students of Philosophy Should Know,   â€Å"this world of ours has always existed and always will, and God did not create this world.†(90) Yet, even the followers of Aristotle, were divided as far as their opinions went. Jostein Gaarder provides as much in Sophie’s World by indicating that to a select number of these Aristotelians the world â€Å"†¦is like a big clockwork machine in which after a very long interval all the parts come back to the same positions, and the same sequence of events then happens again, over and over eternally; human beings and their actions are part of the clockwork, so everything in human history has already happened an infinite number of times already, and will happen again an infinite number of times in the future.† (67) Still in Gaarder’s Sophies World, we read that the early Christians and their faith in the sacred Scriptures believed that their, â€Å"God created the world a relatively short time ago, exercises continual providence in human history, and will eventually end it, perhaps in the not too distant future, and conduct a grand accounting. Life after death will go on for ever, but life on earth takes place within a fixed and relatively short timeframe, with a beginning, middle, and an end.† (72) There is a Christian saint in the person of St. Augustine who, â€Å"†¦scorned the Stoic concept of the happy life as inadequate, and proclaimed that in the next life true happiness will be found.† (45) But, according to St. Augustine, â€Å"they did not say much about what it would be like.† (46) St. Augustine went on further to write that, â€Å"†¦it is as if they were content to leave it to God – we can be sure that whatever is required to make human beings happy will be provided.†(57) The Stoics, in the opinion of the said Christian saint, â€Å"were not much interested in theorizing about happiness in this life, because not everyone can achieve it, it is not important to achieve, it is not of much significance in comparison with the happiness of the next life.† (93)   In Robert Longman’s, Medieval Aristotelians, the author writes that the medieval Aristotelians, â€Å"theorized about the happiness of the next life, adapting Aristotle’s ideas for the purpose: the happiness of heaven consists of intuitive knowledge of God himself.† (385) Lastly, in St. Augustine’s own City of God, St. Augustine postulates that â€Å"the elect are those who are predestined to happiness in the next life.† (990)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The philosopher, Rene Descartes immortalized the philosophical tenet of, â€Å"I think, therefore, I am.† In Dan Kaufman’s Divine Simplicity and the Eternal Truths in Descartes, we come to have a greater understanding about the view of Descartes regarding the afterlife of man. For Descartes, there is a God who is the composer and man who is the composed and composite. [2] Descartes philosophizes that, â€Å"†¦ man’s life, death, and life after death is dependent on the will, intellect and understanding of God.† (14) Hence, if this is so, for Rene Descartes, if God is the cause of man, then man depends on God also, even in the matter of man’s death. Rene Descartes had studied the nature of man and he had stressed the reality behind man’s divisibility. We can say that if, for Descartes, man is: mind and body, thought and extension, and a corporeal being who is believed to be someone who knows that he exists if he is inclined to the process of thinking; then, it can be derived that man’s death comes when man ceases to think. The ‘I’ cannot think, the ‘I’ does not think, the ‘I’[ as already mentioned ] ceases to think, indeed, the ‘I’ can no longer think—most importantly- and the ‘I’ can no longer declare, â€Å" Therefore, I am†. And so, from this cessation of thought, the status quo of man’s existence becomes of this, â€Å"†¦he does not think, therefore, he is not.† (99) In fact, philosophically, the ‘he’ is no longer, an ‘I’. Life after death, we can gain from reading the works of Descartes, would be, according to this philosopher, a state of being that is entirely dependent on God’s will. Man no longer has a say in it, for he is no longer capable of thinking. John Hobbes’s Leviathan bears a duality of natured characteristics which stamp it with the mark of genius. Leopold Sulmner in his book What Students of Philosophy Should Know discusses the Leviathan, at length, by describing it in this way, â€Å"In the first place, it is a work of great imaginative power, which shows how the whole fabric of human life and society is built up out of simple elements. And, in the second place, it is distinguished by a remarkable logical consecutiveness, so that there are very few places in which any lack of coherence can be detected in the thought.† (1001) Sulmner writes how it, â€Å"is true that the social order, as Hobbes presents it, produces an impression of artificiality; but this is hardly an objection, for it was his deliberate aim to show the artifice by which it had been constructed and the danger which lay in any interference with the mechanism.† (1024) The author goes on further to include that, â€Å"It is true, also, that the state of nature and the social contract are fictions passed off as facts; but, even to this objection, an answer might be made from within the bounds of his [Hobbes’s] theory. It is in his premises, not in his reasoning, that the error lies. If human nature were as selfish and anarchical as he represents it, then morality and the political order could arise and flourish only by its restraint, and the alternative would be, as he describes it, between complete insecurity and absolute power. But, if his view of man be mistaken, then the whole fabric of his thought crumbles. When we recognize that the individual is neither real nor intelligible apart from his social origin and traditions, and that the social factor influences his thought and motives, the opposition between self and others becomes less fundamental, the abrupt alternatives of Hobbes’s thoughts lose their validity and it is possible to regard morality and the state as expressing the ideal and sphere of human activity, and not as simply the chains by which man’s unruly passions are kept in check.† (1037) For Hobbes, according to Sulmner, â€Å"for as long as the state of nature endures, life is insecure and wretched. Man cannot improve this state, but he can get out of it; therefore, the fundamental law of nature is to seek peace and follow it; and, from this, emerges the second law, that, for the sake of peace, a man should be willing to lay down his right to all things, when other men are, also, willing to do so. From these two are derived all the laws of nature of the moralists. The laws of nature are immutable and eternal.† (1048). And so, for Hobbes, life after death, would be the experience of absolute escape from his present state of life here on earth. Jostein Gaarder provides a chapter in Sophie’s World on how, â€Å"John Locke opened a new way for English philosophy.† (261) Locke had patterned his philosophies from those of Francis Bacon, Hobbes, and the other forefathers of modern philosophy. Sophie’s World presents how, â€Å"Bacon had done more: he had found dangers and defects in the natural working of men’s minds, and had devised means to correct them. But Locke went a step further, and undertook a systematic investigation of the human understanding with a view to determining something else—namely, the truth and certainty of knowledge, and the grounds of belief, on all matters about which men are in the habit of making assertions.† (262) In his manner, Locke introduced a new method of philosophical enquiry, which is, â€Å"now known as a theory of knowledge, or epistemology; and, in this respect, he was the precursor of Kant and anticipated what Kant called the critical method.† (279)    Sophie’s World also provides us with this knowledge of how, â€Å"we have Locke’s own account of the origin of the problem in his mind. He struck out a new way because he found the old paths blocked. Five or six friends were conversing in his room, probably in London and in the winter of 1670–1, â€Å"on a subject very remote from this†; the subject, as we learn from another member of the party, was the â€Å"principles of morality and revealed religion†; but difficulties arose on every side, and no progress was made. Then, he goes on to say, it came into my thoughts that we took a wrong course, and that before we set ourselves upon inquires of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were not, fitted to deal with.† (262) Again, Leopold Sulmner in his book What Students of Philosophy Should Know writes about Locke, â€Å"At the request of his friends, Locke agreed to set down his thoughts on this question against their next meeting; and he expected that a single sheet of paper would suffice for the purpose. So little did he realize the magnitude of the issues which he raised and which were to occupy his leisure for nearly twenty years.† (2765)    Sulmner informs by highlighting, â€Å"Locke’s interest centers in the traditional problems—the nature of self, the world and God, and the grounds of our knowledge of them. We reach these questions only in the fourth and last book of the Essay. But to them the enquiry of the first three books is preliminary, though it has, and Locke saw that it had, an importance of its own. His introductory sentences make this plain: Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labor to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, while it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things. â€Å"(2766)   What Students of Philosophy Should Know concludes for us that, â€Å"Locke will not ‘meddle with the physical consideration of the mind’; he has no theory about its essence or its relation to the body; at the same time, he has no doubt that, if due pains be taken, the understanding can be studied like anything else: we can observe its objects and the ways in which it operates upon them. All the objects of the understanding are described as ideas, and ideas are spoken of as being in the mind. Locke’s first problem, therefore, is to trace the origin and history of ideas, and the ways in which the understanding operates upon them, in order that he may be able to see what knowledge is and how far it reaches.† (2800) In Sulmner’s book, we can read that, â€Å"This wide use of the term â€Å"idea† is inherited from Descartes. The term in modern psychology which corresponds with it most nearly is â€Å"presentation.† But presentation is, strictly, only one variety of Locke’s idea, which includes, also, representation and image, percept, and concept or notion. His usage of the term thus differs so widely from the old Platonic meaning that the danger of confusion between them is not great. It suited the author’s purpose, also, from being a familiar word in ordinary discourse as well as in the language of philosophers. Herein, however, lay a danger from which he did not escape. In common usage â€Å"idea† carries with it a suggestion of contrast with reality; and the opposition which the â€Å"new way of ideas† excited was due to the doubt which it seemed to cast on the claim of knowledge to be ‘a knowledge of real things’.(2817) Perhaps, for Locke, life after death, is something that can be located in man’s mind. This is what we can gather from studies of philosophers, throughout history, about life after death: 1.) in the next life true happiness will be found, 2.) the happiness of heaven consists of intuitive knowledge of God himself, 3.) a state of being that is entirely dependent on God’s will, 4.) life after death, would be the experience of absolute escape from his present state of life here on earth, and finally, 5.)something that can be located in man’s mind. And as for the matter, of which would be true amongst these theories? Well, we shall see which, but in the next life. WORKS CITED De Torre, Joseph M. The Humanism of Modern Philosophy,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   3d ed. Madrid: Solaris Press, 1999. Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie’s World. London: Phoenix Books, 1996;   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Reprint, Phoenix Books,1998. Kaufmann, Dan. Divine Simplicity and the Eternal Truths   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Descartes.   British Journal for the History of Philosophy: UK, Vol. ii   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Issue 4, 2003. Longman, Robert.   Medieval Aristotelians.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Translated by Thomas Charles. New York:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Random House Publishing, 1992. Sulmner, Leopold.What Students of Philosophy Should Know. Singapore: Allyn and Bacon, 1996. [1] De Torre, Joseph M. The Humanism of Modern Philosophy,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   3d ed. Madrid: Solaris Press, 1999. [2] Man in being composed[composite], has external parts and a soul. He is divisible, according to his parts. And he is created by God, the composer.