My Personal Philosophy

I had been very excited to take Introduction to Philosophy and to my pleasant surprise I have been able to walk out of the course much more enlightened than I had entered it. When one begins to explore the areas of what it takes to create a meaningful life it forces you to dig deep within yourself to critically think through these issues. There have been three specific philosophical issues that I have gained a deeper insight to, the nature of the self, freedom of choice and issues on ethics and morality. If I am anything like most people, I bet we will concise that we are not exactly sure what it is that makes us who we are. I found it entertaining going through many of these great thinkers like, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Sigmund Freud and …show more content…
I have completely modified my beliefs in regards to how free I actually am. Growing up I was always taught how we all have free choices and how we must choose wisely. (I still agree with the choosing wisely part). But more importantly I now see how many of the choices that I made were not really free at all. You see, when one throws internal and external constraints into the equation it was clear that something I was not conscious of was driving me to make these decisions. There are so many influential factors that I simply was not considering. I still wouldn’t consider myself to be a hard determinist; because although I do agree with the idea that we have social, cultural, environmental, and psychological factors that greatly influence us, I do not believe that we are predisposed to make all the choices we will make in life and have no control over them. I think that’s an irresponsible ideology. Indeterminist think we are doomed to be free, and I think our personal freedom lies somewhere in between because individually neither ideologies fully unravel the concept of personal freedom or its casual factors. I think I am capable of making a free choice depending on the type of constraint that comes into play. For example, I believe I can make free choices when it come to types of food I eat, but with further examination I discovered that I do not have full freedom of choice in buying clothes for myself. I have internal …show more content…
I do not think I still am able to conclude if there is a God. But if I did I cannot imagine that believing in him will make my life more meaningful. I whole heartily believe that my life can be fulfilling, because I do not think matters of joy and fulfillment are granted through the idea of a God. All the times that I can recall having felt fulfillment it had nothing to do with religion, instead accomplishing goals, helping others, seeing my family happy because of the joy I was able to provide them in that moment. Living a meaningful life to me means living ethically, becoming someone to be proud of and eventually having a healthy family of my own. All of which do not require an ultimate life purpose or being “guided” through life by a higher