Finding Meaning in Life to Inspire and Spark Human Potentials (1)

Finding Meaning in Life to Inspire and Spark Human Potentials

SOCRATES

Self-Knowledge

• Know thyself: According to Socrates, self-knowledge is essential for solving personal and societal problems (Bewersluis, 2000).
• Self-knowledge as a path: Understanding oneself is the key to resolving both personal issues and broader societal challenges.

Socratic Method

• Expository Method: Responding to a student’s questions, filling gaps in knowledge, and using analogy and illustration to clear up misconceptions.
• Irony: The process by which a learner seeks knowledge by shedding prejudices and humbly acknowledging their ignorance.
• Maieutic Process: After overcoming ignorance, this method helps draw out the learner's internal truths.

Ethical Claims

• Happiness and Virtue: For Socrates, happiness is impossible without moral virtue. Virtue isn’t taught but awakened within the individual.
• Unethical Actions: They harm the individual more than the victim. An unethical person is weak and psychologically unhealthy. The immoral person is enslaved by desires.

PLATO

Contemplation

• Beyond Physical Reality: The physical world is a mere shadow of the true, eternal ideas found in the world of forms.
• Active Doing: True contemplation involves not just knowing but actively practicing goodness.
• Higher Goals: Contemplation focuses on eternal truths like goodness, beauty, and truth rather than fleeting physical realities.

Theory of Immortality

• The Soul: The soul is eternal and independent of the body. The body distracts the soul from attaining true knowledge and wisdom.
• Liberation After Death: Death allows the soul to return to the realm of forms, where it can contemplate truth without distractions.
• Eternal Soul: After death, the soul is free to engage directly with eternal truths.

ARISTOTLE

Theory of Change

• Potentiality and Actuality: Change involves moving from what something can become (potentiality) to what it actually is (actuality). This process is called entelechy, meaning to become one's essence.
• The Unmoved Mover: The pinnacle of existence, the Unmoved Mover (God), is pure actuality, eternal, immaterial, and the ultimate source of motion and change.

Striving Toward Perfection

• Everything in nature, including humans, strives to fulfill its purpose or telos, moving toward divine perfection.

Four Aspects in Finding Your Purpose

• Known to Self and Others: Traits visible and recognized by both you and others.
• Known Only to Self: Personal qualities or feelings known only to you.
• Known Only to Others: Characteristics observed by others that you may overlook.
• Unknown: Aspects of yourself that are yet to be discovered.

Life Project

• A Life Project is a plan connecting dreams to action.

Structure of a Life Project

• Objective: What you want to achieve.
• Action Plan: Steps to achieve it.
• Resources: What you need to achieve your goal.
• Timeline: When to achieve it.
• Impact: Benefits for yourself and others.