SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

What Is the Importance of Self-Assessment?

Tracing the Importance of Self-Assessment from Philosophers

Knowing the importance of Self-Assessment using religion and politics as examples, let us now trace the importance Self-Assessment from Philosophers. In one of my posts on Facebook (14^th February, 2016), I posted: “Plato who was one of the Socratic period philosophers divided reality into two - the World of Things and the World of Ideas. He said, "The idea of anything is the beginning of knowledge and for doing things as what they are". He quoted Heraclitus (theory of change) on many occasions saying, "Things keep on changing" a statement found in Heraclitus theory of change”. The sayings of most of these philosophers many years ago are still very applicable in our modern-day democratic life. The mere fact that things keep on changing is enough reason for us as humans to also keep on assessing our lives regularly in order to keep up with our changing world. There are many ideas that we can identify if only we can spend just some few minutes to self-assess ourselves and the life that we are living.

These philosophers coined most of their wise sayings by assessing themselves and the environment around them. If the idea of anything is the beginning of knowledge and for doing what we do, then, how do we get that idea? Socrates sees philosophy (the love of wisdom) as the most valuable thing that we must all try to have; and he used himself as an example trying to acquire wisdom using questions and logical arguments, assessing himself and others (by examining), and thinking (reflecting). Asking of questions or thinking are all forms of self-assessments. Assessing (examining) his own life has helped others who were also able to self-assessed (self-examined) their lives. Socrates said: “The life which is unexamined is not worth living” thereby stressing the importance of self-assessment (Spivey & Squire, 2011; Johnson, 2011; Famakinwa, 2012).

Socrates was indirectly telling us to always assess or critically reflect on our actions and inactions. There are certain times in our lives where we were supposed to ‘act’ but we did not act, or ‘not to act’ but we acted (Follow me for some previous posts on actions on Facebook; example, 22.09.14, 2.10.16). Though the word, “unexamined” is a past tense; Socrates is not telling us to only examine our past, but the present too. If we are assessing our pasts; then his saying agrees with Aristotle that we do not have any experience (Bedu-Addo, 1983) at birth but acquire that as we grow up. Our experiences from our actions and inactions can help reshape our lives and that of others helping to promote a peaceful environment for all. It is only through self-assessment that we can identify our mistakes and correct them: without that we keep repeating the same mistake(s).

The Holy Books can give us both earthly and eternal PEACE, Titus 3:2 urges us: “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men”. This can be likened to the Greatest Commandment, LOVE, (Matthew 22: 38-39). If you really love God, you will love your neighbor who is the exact image of God (Gen 1:26) and you will not speak evil of him/her nor do anything that will to hurt him/her. If this happened there will be peace on earth and people can also have the chance to repent before death (eternal peace). Violence gives no one a chance to repent! We can do our daily self-assessment using these Holy Books and they are full of philosophical sayings. “There are 100 Bible verses about philosophy” (openbible.info.). Example; Romans 6:23 which says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” is a divine philosophical saying. From the 27books, epistles and letters in the New Testament, 13 of them (excluding Hebrews) are written by the Apostle Paul using words, ideas and Greek philosophy used by philosophers like Plato, Socrates, Seneca and many other intellectuals at that time (biblethingsinbibleways.wordpress.com). He did that so that the people can better understand him in his teachings.

An article by Vidyarthi, 1995: “The philosophy of colours in the Holy Quran”, other publications by Ahmat et al., 2016: “The philosophy of divine engineering and its technological application in Quran” and Ahmad 2013: “The philosophy of the teachings of Islam” means that there are also philosophical sayings in the Holy Quran too. These philosophical approaches have no effects on the divinity of these Holy Books.

Please, kindly follow me on Facebook for most of my previous postings. They can help you to understand and draw a link from my previous and current posts. Thank you for Reading.

Some References

Ahmad, H., M., G. (2013). The philosophy of the teachings of Islam. Revised Edition. Islam International Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84880-055-7.

Ahmat, N., Ahmad, N., A., & Omar, S., R. (2016). The Philosophy of “Divine” Engineering and Its Technological Application in Quran: Conference Paper – September 2016. ResearchGates. 1-28.

Bedu-Addo, J., T. (1983). Sense-Experience and Recollection in Plato's Meno. The Johns Hopkins University Press. The American Journal of Philosophy. 104(3): 228-248. DOI: 10.2307/294538, https://www.jstor.org/stable/294538.

Bible things in Bible ways: Paul and his use of Greek Philosophy. Retrieved on 06.11.18 at 12:45PM from https://biblethingsinbibleways.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/paul-and-his-use-of-greek-philosophy/.

Famakinwa, J., O. (2012). Is the Unexamined Life Worth Living or Not? The Royal Institute of philosophy. 11(31): 97-103.

Johnson, D., M. (2011). Socrates and Athens. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052175487. Retrieved on 27^th September 2018 at 12:45PM from https://en.m.wkipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living.

Maulana Abdul Haq Vidyarthi). Vidyarthi, M., A., H. (1995). The philosophy of colors in the Holy Quran. The Light & Islamic Review. 71(4-6): 4-6, 5-7, 6-10.

Spivey, N., & Squire, M. (2011). Panorama of the Classical World. Getty Publications. 230. ISBN 978-1-60606-056-8. Retrieved on 27^th September 2018 at 12:45PM from https://en.m.wkipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living.

The King James Version: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments. Translated Out of the Original Tongues: and With the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised, by His Majesty’s Special Command. Appointed to be read in Churches. Cambridge University Press. Trinitarian Bible Society. Tyndale House, Dorset Road, London, SW19 3NN. England.

What does the Bible say about philosophy? 100 Bible Verses about Philosophy. Retrieved from https://www.openbible.info/topics/philosophy on 5th October 2018 at 11:15AM.