Philosophical Musings

About the Authors

1st Year Philosophers

As a project for the 2022 Young Irish Philosopher, 1st Year Philosophers at Temple Carrig School Greystones, decided to collaborate on a little book as a class to share a snapshot of some of our philosophical questions and conversations we have had this year so far.
Questions like, where did the world come from? Is there something outside our bodies and minds that survive when we die? What is real or true? What is a true friend? And how should we live together? Do we need leaders?
Students either shared answers on the class blog or I transcribed some of our enquiries and they chose one idea to put into the book.
Beginning to dip their toes into the history of ideas, here are some quotes from famous thinkers and a window into some of their thoughts around them. Susan Andrews, Teacher Temple Carrig School, Greystones

Contents

Who am I?

Where am I?

Should I help others?

Is there such thing as a just war?

Are we free?

Do I deserve happiness?

Should we eat our pets?

What is it like to be Batman?

What is a true friend?

Can you think of nothing?

Do we need leaders?

What is Sport for?

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30

Who am I?

Know Thyself, Socrates
This sounds easier than it is and I think it depends on where you are in life. I agree that it is important to know yourself before you can know other things. Our teacher showed us a picture of herself when she was two and asked us what made her the same person in the picture. Some of us said it was her name, her brain, her personality but typically she had an answer for all that and everything had changed. So what bit of her has stayed the same? Some people believe it's the soul or some energy that stays the same in us while we age and change. Maybe its our memories and experience then but what if you lost your memory? Does that mean you are not who you are anymore? Would I be the same if I changed gender or nationality?
I think it would feel different if I had different characteristics and personality but the voice in my head would be the same. So maybe what I am is just a bundle of feelings and thoughts.
But how do others know me? What if everyone sees me as one thing but I see myself as someone else. Who is right? It's hard to try and know myself - my real self - without wondering how others know me.

Where am I?

I think, therefore I am. Descartes

Is what I experience in my head different from what I experience physically? What influences who I am, is it my thoughts of myself or my physical experiences in the world? Descartes seemed to think that we exist in our thoughts and the body is just like a machine. So we are like thinking robots?
But what does he mean? If we are our thoughts, which thoughts does he mean? The ones I am having now? Or the ones I had earlier? For example I was waiting on a friend to answer a message I sent and she never replied. So now I am thinking about the things I might have done or said in the past to upset her. I am also thinking how this will affect our future at school. Will she talk to me? Is she still my friend? Should I tell her what I am thinking or ignore it?
Just relying on our thinking to explain what is real at this moment seems unreliable to me. Our thoughts bounce between thinking of things in the past and worrying about the future. There must be something outside our thoughts in our mind that we can be sure of.
Where does the mind stop and the rest me begin?

Should I help others?

If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought morally to do it. Peter Singer

Most people believe it is a good idea to help others out in need. Do you? Peter Singer asked us to look at whether we really are doing as much as we can. He asked if I am walking past a pond and see a child drowning in it, would I go pull the child out. Although I might sacrifice my new runners, preventing someone dying is more important. This seems simple enough but what if it was in rough seas and I would risk my life?
And what about the child in need that I can't see?
This thought experiment shows it is easier to save the child right in front of you. This is a bias in our thinking towards local and familiar things. We tend to have selective empathy in our kindness. But is it wrong to want to prevent bad things happening right in front of us more than things far away? There are some discussions about the fact we are quicker to help Ukrainian refugees than countries further away. Is this true? I think we can see them better because we know ourselves and if we recognise something of ourselves in them, we think we know the pain more. So we can empathise better. But it doesn't make it morally right.
Maybe it will help open our eyes to other crisis. No one could argue that any refugee is more deserving than another because of how far away they are but if something good can come from this bad war, it is to teach us that empathy should not be selective but inclusive.