Philosophy of life priorities

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I.I. Mechnikov Odessa National University

Philosophy of life priorities

O. Popravko

Let's digress from logic, from complicated thoughts and just talk about truly important things like love, feelings, happiness, smiles, and dreams. Not everyone can see in such simple things a philosophy. We all should be able to systematize our life choices, our steps. And for this, for example, we have to know what happiness is for us, what dreams are right or not, how love and feelings can influence our social relations. “Happiness depends on ourselves”. More than anybody else, Aristotle regards happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. As a result he devotes more space to the topic of happiness than any philosopher prior to the modern era. Moreover, for happiness he found a more exact word like “eudaimonia” (Greek: suSaipovia).

Eudaimonia is usually translated as happiness, but “human flourishing” may be a more accurate translation. One of Aristotle's most influential works is the “Nicomachean Ethics”, where he presents a theory of happiness that is still relevant today, over 2,300 years later. The key question Aristotle seeks to answer in these lectures is “What is the ultimate purpose of human existence?” What is that end or goal for which we should direct all of our activities? Personally I believe that every person should ask himself these questions [1:15]. Everywhere we see people seeking pleasure, wealth, and a good reputation. Aristotle claims that nearly everyone would agree that happiness is the end which meets all these requirements. And I suppose that everyone can agree with me that we desire money, pleasure, and honor only because we believe that these things will make us happy. It seems that all other affairs are a means towards obtaining happiness, while happiness is always an end in itself. St. Augustine of Hippo was an early Christian theologian and philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western Christianity and Western philosophy. For St. Augustine, all human actions revolve around love, and the primary problem of humanity is that nobody understands the idea of love. Only in God can one find happiness, as He is source of happiness. Thus, if one orients themselves toward the love of God, all other loves will become properly ordered. In this manner, St. Augustine follows the Neoplatonic tradition in asserting that happiness lays in the contemplation of the purely intelligible realm [6:165].

Jeremy Bentham is regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. His particular brand of utilitarianism indicated that the most moral action is that which causes the highest amount of utility, where utility defined as the aggregate pleasure after deducting suffering of all involved in any action. Happiness, therefore, is the experience of pleasure and the lack of pain. Actions which do not promote the greatest happiness are morally wrong, such as ascetic sacrifice. This manner of thinking permits the possibility of a calculator to measure happiness and moral value [2: 89].

It's important to acquaint with Arthur Schopenhauer, a XIXth century German philosopher. His philosophy show that egotistical acts are those that are guided by selfinterest, desire for pleasure or happiness, where as only compassion can be a moral act. Schopenhauer sees happiness in wish that is satisfied, which in turn gives rise to a new wish. And when a person does not receive satisfaction from wish, it leads to suffering and anguish. He also compares happiness with the movement of time, as we feel happy when times moves faster and feel sad when time slows down [7: 201].

Grigory Skovoroda was called “Ukrainian Socrates” and it's not for nothing. Studying Grigory Skovoroda's works gives the understanding that in the center of his world-view is man, his spiritual world, his happiness. Who wants to be happy, must cognize himself, that is, the inner essence, his spirituality or his heart. Skovoroda claims that man is one with nature. So the man who does not know himself, his own nature, can't choose the sphere of his activities, therefore, can't be happy. I don't want to put love in scope of science, but for me it did many great thinkers. There are many different theories that attempt to explain what love is, and what function it serves. Setting aside Empedocles' view of Eros as the force connecting the world together, the roots of the classical philosophy of love go back to Plato's Symposium. It concerns itself at one level with the genesis, purpose and nature of love, is the origin of the concept of Platonic love. Love is examined in a sequence of speeches by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. Each man must deliver an encomium, a speech in praise of Love (Eros). Socrates in his speech asserts that the highest purpose of love is to become a philosopher or, literally, a lover of wisdom. life philosophical reader

Aristotle, by contrast, placed more emphasis on philia (friendship, affection) than on eros (love). And this “friendship and love” theme, the dialectic of friendship and love would continue to be developed in the Renaissance by many Greek philosophers. Portuguese Jewish physician Judah Leon Abravane wrote “Dialoghi d'amore” (Dialogues of Love) and it was one of the most important philosophical works of his time. Near the end of the third dialogue, Judah introduces the “circle of love,” where the first half of the circle spans from God to utter chaos, whereas, the second half of this circle works in reverse. It is the love of the inferior for the superior, predicated on the former's privation and subsequent desire to unite with the superior. Judah's theory of love was intimately connected to the literary interests of humanism and the aesthetic sensibilities of Renaissance artists. As a consequence, he faults previous thinkers for not ascribing love to God. So he described dynamic role of God in relationships between people. He concludes that love is what is ultimately responsible for directing the soul and the intellect of the individual to increasingly spiritual matters [4: 48].

“Works of Love” by the first existentialist philosopher S0ren Kierkegaard deals primarily with the Christian conception of agape love in contrast with erotic love (eros) or preferential love (phileo) given to friends and family. Kierkegaard uses this value to understand the existence and relationship of the individual Christian. Kierkegaard as a Christian ethicist claims that love is indescribable, since “God is love” and God is unfathomable. The nature of love is as elusive as the source of a spring. In other words, love cannot be objectified. Since Kierkegaard emphasizes the subjective approach to truth, he concludes that love can be known by its fruits, its manifestations. Yet love wants to reveal itself. Kierkegaard revives the theme of the neighbor, recalling the parable of the Good Samaritan. Since your neighbor is anyone you meet, it is a natural extension of Christian love that it involves love of one's enemy. Later, in 1956 psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm wrote “The Art of Loving”. In this work, Fromm develops his perspective on human nature, from his earlier work, “Escape from Freedom and Man for Himself” - principles which he revisits in many of his other major works. Fromm presents love as a skill that can be taught and developed. He rejects the idea of loving as something magical and mysterious that cannot be analyzed and explained, and is therefore skeptical about popular ideas such as “falling in love” or being helpless in the face of love. “The Art of Loving” argues that the active character of true love involves four basic elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. Each of these is difficult to define and can differ markedly depending on the people involved and their circumstances. Seen in these terms, love is hard work, but it is also the most rewarding kind of work.

One of the book concepts is self-love. According to Fromm, loving oneself is not about arrogance, conceit or egocentrism. Loving oneself means caring about oneself, taking responsibility for oneself, respecting oneself, and knowing oneself. In order to be able to truly love another person, one needs first to love oneself in this way. The book includes explorations of the theories of brotherly love, motherly and fatherly love, erotic love, self-love, and the love of God, and an examination into love's disintegration in contemporary Western culture. Among the modern researches of love captures attention the book “The Four Loves” by C.Lewis which explores the nature of love from a Christian and philosophical perspective through experiments. Lewis considers love as four categories based in part on the four Greek words for love: affection, friendship, eros, and charity. Storge or affection, for Lewis, included both Need-love and Gift-love. He considered it responsible for 9710th of all solid and lasting human happiness. Ironically, however, affection's strength is also what makes it vulnerable. Affection has the appearance of being “built-in” or “ready made”, says Lewis, and as a result people come to expect it irrespective of their behavior and its natural consequences [5: 32].

Lewis explains that true friendships (philia) are almost a lost art. He expresses a strong distaste for the way modern society ignores friendship. Growing out of companionship, friendship for Lewis was a deeply appreciative love, though one which he felt few people in modern society could value at its worth, because so few actually experienced true friendship. Eros for Lewis was love in the sense of “being in love” or “loving” someone, as opposed to the raw sexuality of what he called Venus. Charity, God's love is the love that serves regardless of changing circumstances. Lewis recognizes this one as the greatest of the four loves, and sees it as a specifically Christian virtue to achieve. In my view, no one can exactly explain concept of love. In fact, it would be very difficult to explain love to a hypothetical person who had not himself or herself experienced love or being loved. What is more, many philosophers learn feelings on the whole and their researches show that most of philosophy ideas are built on sensation. The feeling, in philosophy, is defined as anything that we feel, especially the low-intensity emotions and passions, and the general inclinations of man (moral feeling, admiration).

Here are some opinions on definition of feeling: Kant: “We call the ability to have fun or fair because of a representation feeling” (Metaphysics of Morals);

Hegel: “The feeling is simple affection, and yet determined, the singular subject, in which is still put no difference between it and its contents” (Philosophical Propaedeutic).

German philosopher Max Scheler wrote a fantastic work under the title “The Nature of Sympathy”. His main intent in this work was to show that it is impossible to derive an ethic from merely shared feelings and consequently to show that ethics assumes as original an intention of love. In order to demonstrate this point, Scheler provides a detailed analysis of the different types of shared feelings.

There are at least five different types of shared or co-feelings:

Feeling with one another. Two or more people feel the same feeling together.In this work Scheler proposes an example of two parents. So they share a love for their child and they also share the pain or joy felt for that child. In situation of the death of a child, parents share the same feeling of pain, loss and grief together. Certainly, parents of a child will have many different feelings for their child between them. Scheler is only describing the phenomenon of when parents feel the same feeling together.

Vicarious feeling: Scheler refers to this type of shared feeling throughout his analysis, but does not include it in his discussion of the specific types of co-feelings. In vicarious feeling, there is no genuine sharing or co-experiencing of a feeling. It is a type of grasping a feeling in the other without any subsequent feeling of the grasped pain or joy, a feeling at a distance. This grasping is not necessarily an intellectual comprehension, but an emotional or bodily comprehension. Any recognition of the feeling of others, including empathy, assumes some form of vicarious feelings.

Fellow feeling. This form of co-feeling is often referred to as sympathy or pity. Here there is the intention of the other, a feeling for the other. When a friend is in pain, not only do I share his or her pain, but I feel for my friend. The shared feeling is not the same and there remains a clear distinction between me and the other. To distinguish fellow feeling from vicarious feeling, Scheler uses the example of cruelty. The reason why human beings are so good at torture is that we can vicariously feel and comprehend what it would be like to be harmed in such a manner. In vicarious feeling, we do not feel the other's pain. In genuine cases of fellow feeling, we not only share in the suffering the other feels, but we also feel for the person who suffers, often motivated to act to end the suffering.

Contagion. Experiences in which a person is overtaken by a feeling to such an extent that he or she gets lost in it with others is the phenomenon of psychic contagion. Scheler gives the example of being taken over by the joyous atmosphere in a bar to make his point. After a difficult day you can walk into a bar and get immediately involved in the atmosphere, having completely forgot your day and troubles. The “I” and “you” become a “we.” In the midst of this experience, we do things we would not necessarily do in a different setting. Psychic contagion can be quite dangerous, as is the case with violence.

5.Identification. Identification is a limit case of psychic contagion. In identification, the “I” is lost and literally becomes the other. I no longer feel the pain in me, but only in the other. There is no distance between I and you. I may identify with the experience so deeply that I live it in the other. The experiences Scheler describes as the condition when a person “becomes” the god or hypnotic experiences where the individual thinks and wills according to the hypnotist.

As you see, many researches were conducted to understand the seemingly simple things. It is a gigantic and impressive material which serves as solid base for all of us. In this information everyone can find some great piece of advice for yourself. All things considered, we can summarize our topic. I touch upon very debatable question. For over the time a lot of people try to find purpose of life, to understand some mysteries for other mysteries and to open more new doors. I believe that we are all individuals with individual needs, dreams, goals, and help in finding harmony in all these tasks we can discover in experiences' of past generations. Just decide how to prioritize in a right way.

References

1. Bok S. Exploring Happiness: From Aristotle to Brain Science. - 2010. - 224 p.

2. Davidson H. Medieval Jewish Philosophy in the XVI th Century-1983. - P. 106-144.

3. Lewis C.S. The Four Loves / C.S. Lewis. - 1960. - 160 p.

Summery

In the modern world the issue of "life priorities and perspectives" has gained a special significance. The article is devoted to the problem of people's choices and their impact throughout life. The author reviews some philosophy researchers, such as Grigory Skovoroda, Erich Fromm, S0ren Kierkegaard and by telling about them the public can disclose a point of author's view. It is noted that every person's happy way to life depends on his own real actions. The great attention in the article is paid to love and feelings. The author tries to persuade the reader that prioritizing is the thing that everyone should give some consideration to.

Key words: priorities, philosophy, feeling, happiness, love, experience.

Статья посвящена философскому осмыслению проблемы выбора человека, рассмотрению влияния действий и мыслей человека на всю его жизнь. Путем рассмотрения некоторых философских исследований, философских работ, автор пытается донести свою точку зрения. Цель автора - убедить читателя в том, что каждый человек должен задуматься о правильной расстановке приоритетов в жизни. Подчеркивается, что приоритеты играют важную роль в решениях и действиях, которые влияют на будущее человека.

Стаття присвячена філософському осмисленню проблеми вибору людини, розгляду впливу дій та думок людини на все його життя. Шляхом розгляду деяких філософських досліджень, філософських робіт, автор намагається донести свою точку зору. Мета автора - переконати читача в тому, що кожна людина повинна задуматися про правильній розстановці пріоритетів в житті. Підкреслюється, що пріоритети грають важливу роль в рішеннях та діях, які впливають на майбутнє людини.

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