Philosopher Coasters 1.

Introduction

Andrew makes great coasters.

I don’t remember exactly how we came up with the idea of making a set of philosopher coasters (or how he made the idea came true - he will talk about the process in his blog later), but the picture below can wow almost all eyes.

It is only appropriate to discuss here why we chose the eight philosophers and the meaning behind each quote.

The Role of Philosophy in Modern Life

Modern wo/men find ways to avoid the most important ideas of thought. This is due to two reasons.

First, reflection is not an innately natural activity. It is always difficult, tedious, and perhaps traumatic. It requires repetition of events and thoughts. In a happy mind reflection takes too much energy; in a sad mind reflection causes too much damage.

Men are born to eat, sleep, excrete, and seek contentment. Reflection is not built-in for survival and thus not a necessary activity. Only on two occasions does reflection become a compulsion: boredom and despair. The question of why is asked and suddenly one craves for validation of one’s existence.

Second, modern society has overemphasized the value of labor and encouraged specification of skills. We live in a world where everything is quantified by money and existential questions are thus less relevant. With machines taking over basic tasks, specialty becomes the new survivorship for individuals. Reflection is not rewarded, and time is funneled into developing specific areas of progress. If life has three dimensions – length, width, depth – width is discouraged because it sacrifices depth. Yet without width, reflecting to reach an understanding of life becomes difficult.

Historically, philosophy is a subject that helped science and social structure evolve. Recently, it diverted from real life since materialism and politics have turned society into a game, and philosophy increasingly became a denial of meaning. Both social environment and philosophy as a subject did not help construct a collective reflection of thought.

Thus, we selected eight western philosophers from ancient Greece to the 20th century to present a series of ideas that inspired us to think from various perspectives. They are arranged by time, from the most ancient to the more recent ones. They by no means are the only eight philosophers that contributed to the development of human thought, just a few of whom we encountered so far.

Accompanying each philosopher is a quote that I deemed the best in capturing the core of their philosophy. I selected the quotes based on the philosophers’ metaphysical theory, because one’s metaphysical theory grounds one’s other theories, including epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and science etc.