Sequel to "Discord Teaches Philosophy" Plan · 11:03pm Apr 3rd, 2018
Dear Bronies and Pegasisters,
I'm happy to announce that I am taking up the challenge to write a sequel to "Discord Teaches Philosophy." And since then, I have been pondering over the past few days in what sort of lessons that the ex-Lord of Chaos would teach as a substitute teacher. I figured that before I go any further then what I already have, I might as well present this plan of a seven chapter long story to all of you to see what you think or what could be changed.
So here's the following lesson plan in no particular order:
Plato: Allegory of the Cave
Socrates: His Method and What is the Good Life
Marcus Aurelius: How Stoicism Deals with Hardships
Confucius: Who is Ruling Whom?
Machiavelli: In Defense of the Prince
Rousseau: Criticizing Civilization
Nietzsche: Of Suffering and Happiness
So what do all of you think? Are there any alternative philosophers or ideas that I could explore? If so, then like the last blog I also need to give out the following rules:
1. Give me the name of the philosopher or philosophical question.
2. The lesson that they teach and why.
3. Have a source for me to learn from. (Preferably from YouTube.)
4. The philosopher in question must be born before 1901.
I hope I can rely on you to give me a sense of direction.
P.S. Do keep in mind, I'm not planing on making this story into a gigantic novel with a thousand chapters. I just want to try to keep the number of chapters to a minimum.
Signed your fellow Writer and Closeted Brony,
- CrackedInkWell.
I am so fucking excited.
If you are still taking suggestions, I've noticed that Friedrich Nietzsche is missing from that list you've got. He's got some pretty interesting things going on, and I wanted to try and contribute to what is now one of my favorite series on this site. Hope it helps, or at the very least is entertaining. I found this YouTube video that goes into his philosophy in detail.
Oh, and I should mention that he was born in 1844, and died in 1900.
Anyway, can't wait to read more of Discord's teachings! Good luck, and good day.
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Techically, it is on there at the end of the list.
if you are taking sugestions, I recomend reading about:
Soren Kierkegaard - Existentialism
Also... I recomend for all to read "Sophie's world". Its a novel about the history of Philosophy.
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Why? What lessons does this teach?
I am thinking of the Republic as well.
That is another famous thought experiment.
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Hmm... since that is in Plato's domains, I wonder if I could rope it in.
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I wouldn't know, but it would always be good to see if it works.
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As taken from wikipedia:
One of Kierkegaard's recurrent themes is the importance of subjectivity, which has to do with the way people relate themselves to (objective) truths. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, he argues that "subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity." What he means by this is that most essentially, truth is not just a matter of discovering objective facts. While objective facts are important, there is a second and more crucial element of truth, which involves how one relates oneself to those matters of fact. Since how one acts is, from the ethical perspective, more important than any matter of fact, truth is to be found in subjectivity rather than objectivity.
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Hmm... This has promise indeed.
A bit unrelated since it's art, not philosophy, but I'm kind of curious how Discord would react to the Dadaist movement, seeing as he's basically dadaism incarnate.
More to the story, I'm thinking "Guest Lecturer" would probably fit better than "Substitute".
On the philosophers... I've already expressed my preference for Nietzsche and I'll see if I can dig up something easy enough to dig through without having to commit a month or so. Okay, it's not that bad, but you get the idea.
I'm also partial to John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes due to a certain newspaper comic strip, but they are both much more political than they are philosophical.
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That would be my bad.
I must've overlooked that.
My apologies.
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Don't worry about Nietzsche, I've been digging through some of the documentaries on YouTube and I think I came up with the following lesson:
Buddha, Confucius, Kant, even Plato
Ethics: What Makes Us Good or Evil?
(Now granted, this video is purely about evil, but I think it still stands)
Born before 1901, huh?
If Hofstadter's out, then maybe Norbert Wiener instead?
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a2d7/062dbfb462b9a6adc823480710bbb6cef7b0.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qNuDxoPG-0 (I won't embed because boobs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJSu1f8Hi4
(Fuck the Live Action remake)
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What did he taught?
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Cybernetics at it's core refers to feedback systems, whether a computer executing a looping program or the brain sending signals to and from the nerves and muscles or a human manipulating things remotely with a "Waldo." (He also applied it to sociological forces, coming up with the concept of memes 20 years before Dawkins, though he was echoing some of Asimov's concepts of psychohistory). But late in his career, he began pondering the relationships to robotics and cognitive science, laying the groundwork (along with Asimov) for questions of the nature of thought, to what degree it can be replicated by a machine, and the reverse; how the brain and nervous system are analogous to machines.
Any story with Discord and philosophy should include a nod to Lewis Carroll. The man was a professor of logic and wrote his most famous works both to entertain the Liddell girls and to poke fun at what he considered rather absurd concepts in the spirit of Zeno's paradoxes.
http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-and-babbage-vs-the-organist-pt-5/
https://www.amazon.com/Lewis-Carroll-Numberland-Fantastical-Mathematical/dp/0393304523
His famous dialog between the Tortoise and Achilles was picked up and expanded on by Doug Hofstadter.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles
(anyone who says he was a pedophile and was writing about drug use will get a vorpal blade up the arse)
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Well, the Alice books are my favorite books... I'll think it over.
Karl Marx: What is a commodity, and what is value? (The Youtuber Xexizy did some good videos on that.)
Ludwig Wittgenstein: The impossibility of Private Language, or Can we know other peoples' feelings? (Unfortunately, most Youtube videos about that topic are deeply misleading and tend to take Wittgenstein's thought experiments out of context. I recommend reading the Philosophical Investigations directly. They're not too difficult to read either.)