Philosophy & Worldviews
This Greek-derived word means “love of wisdom” and is the systematic study of fundamental questions of human existence.
What is philosophy?
These figures represent ordinary citizens who accept appearances at face value.
Prisoners
In this metaphor, your worldview is compared to the invisible water surrounding an animal.
Fish Tank Metaphor
This thinker argued that humans are driven by competition, fear, and glory.
Thomas Hobbes
This thought experiment imagines human behavior with no laws, government, police, or courts.
State of Nature
This invisible framework of assumptions, culture, and upbringing filters how a person interprets reality.
Worldview
These flat, distorted illusions are mistakenly treated as absolute reality.
Shadows
This card simulation showed that people learn invisible rules through observation and consequences.
Paradigm Penalty Game
This thinker described naturally peaceful, compassionate humans with the idea of the Noble Savage.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
This is the implicit agreement to surrender some freedom in exchange for safety and structure.
Social Contract
This branch asks, “What is real?”
Metaphysics
These hidden manipulators craft societal trends from behind the low wall.
Puppeteers
This event occurs when the enlightened philosopher goes back to help the prisoners and is mocked and resisted.
The Return to the Cave
Hobbes said life without law would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and ____.”
short
In this book, Hobbes believed society required this all-powerful central government to maintain order.
Leviathan
This branch asks, “How do we know what we know?”
Epistemology
This difficult process represents education and independent critical thinking.
The ascent out of the cave
In the Matrix Market, hype caused the crowd to overbid on this worthless object.
Crumpled piece of paper
Rousseau blamed this historical invention, civilization, and artificial hierarchies for corrupting humans.
private property
This classroom simulation began with panic and resource hoarding in a no-rule zone.
Desert Island Compact
This branch asks, “How should we live?”
Ethics
This represents ultimate truth, wisdom, and objective reality outside the cultural cave.
Blinding Sun
In the Matrix Market, the crowd ignored this item of massive hidden value.
Stapler
Complete Rousseau’s signature phrase: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is ____.”
In chains
In that simulation, reason eventually pushed the group to create this system for fair resource allocation.
A functional Social Contract