Do you get it?!!!!! – Mrs Austin’s Summary of the themes covered in class

This course in Philosophy is not about remembering random stuff.  There is no point to that – what is the use of being able to repeat weird, disconnected, strange things without really understanding them – you would be no smarter than a parrot in the way it randomly call outs - “Golden apples – cats are nice – 3 teabags – give me some shower gel”.  We could never accept that a parrot is smart because it can say a few random things.  Remember – things have to make sense.  If things make sense to you – studying would not be as boring a task as it has a reputation to be.  The people who do say that studying is boring may think that because they have not realised that when you understand something – you dont really have to “learn” anything – you just know it like the way you know how to ride a bicycle.  Every time you get on a bicycle – you don’t have to memorise the way to ride a bicycle do you?  You just know how to do it – there is no more effort than it takes to pedal your way to your destination.  It is the same sort of thing with understanding.  Once you understand something – there is no need for you to actually put more effort other than the effort it takes to think about it.  So before we begin today’s summary – here are some questions that should help you decide whether you have understood what we have been discussing in the last couple of lectures.  If you are unsure of whether you understand what is going on – go back and refresh your memory and then continue with this next bit.  The worst thing you could possibly do is try to make sense of something if you dont understand what come before it.
-  Our overall theme for this year is to discover the various views of what the nature of man is.  Another way of saying this is to say that we are trying to figure out what man is really like, what unique thing about man makes him different to other beings.     If another race from another planet were to abduct you and take you to their leader would you be able to explain what man is like? Different groups of people have different ideas.
- Do you know what the Rationalist Philosophers believe about the nature of man?  Does it make sense to you, why they would think that?  Can you see what it is that makes them have that belief of what man is like? 
- Do the Christian Philosophers have the same idea of what man is like as the Rationalist Philosophers?  Can you see where their belief of what man is like is different from the Rationalist belief of what man is really like?  What is that difference and how does it change the way that man might behave or live his life?
- The next idea we look at is that of the opinion of Freud.  Freud presents a more psychologically based idea of what man is like.  He wants us to accept that what humans are like, is largely determined by things that go on inside them.  In order for us to get an idea of what he means he tells us that all humans have a mind.  He says that the mind has 3 parts – the conscious mind, the preconscious mind and the unconscious mind.  Imagine that you are trying to explain this to a 12 year old child.  How would you explain what the mind is?  How would you explain what the conscious mind is?  How would you explain what the unconscious mind is?
-  To explain this to a child, you might want to make an analogy.  Do you know what an analogy is?  Can you make an analogy for this idea - “John is very ,very strong” ……. you could say:  “John is an ox”  or “John is like a rock” or “John is ……………………..”
- Sometimes the memory of an experience makes its way from conscious awareness to the unconscious mind.  What is the word we use to describe that moving from the conscious mind to the unconscious mind?  Why would a thing like that happen in the first place?
-  Why does Freud talk about funny things that happen like momentary amnesia and Freudian Slips?  What are they?  What is he trying to show us?