文化 Chapter3-1 philosophy wxy.ppt

Chapter 3-1 Philosophy Teaching Objectives To learn the definitions of philosophy and religion as well as their relationship To learn the three stages and its representatives in the development of western thinking — ancient, medieval and modern To learn the development of Chinese philosophy To learn the differences between western and Chinese thinking Warm-up Please tell me the names of western philosophers as many as you can! 人不能两次踏入同一条河流，因为无论是这条河还是这个人都已经不同。——赫拉克利特 思想不是你要它来它便来，而是由它自己决定它的来去。——叔本华 我思故我在。——笛卡尔 给我物质，我就用它造出一个宇宙来。——康德 人类的生命，并不能以时间长短来衡量，心中充满爱时，刹那即永恒。——尼采 Western thought roughly includes philosophies and religions. The former can be traced to Greek philosophy, and the latter Abrahamic religions. Philosophy: the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The word philosophy in Greek literally means love of wisdom. Religion: a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Similarities between philosophy and religion: The questions discussed in both religion and philosophy tend to be very much alike. Both religion and philosophy wrestle with problems like: What is good? What does it mean to live a good life? What is the nature of reality? Why are we here and what should we be doing? How should we treat each other? What is really most important in life? Differences between philosophy and religion: Philosophy tends to emphasize the use of reason and critical thinking whereas religions mainly rely on faith and revelations from a god. Philosophy doesn’t have a separation between the sacred and the profane. Religions have rituals while philosophies do not. Most religions tend to include some sort of belief in what can only be described as the “miraculous”, but you don’t find in philosophy. Three stages of Western thought Representatives of the ancient stage: