Philosophy of Marriage In The Prophet, poet Kahlil Gibran says of marriage, "let there be spaces in your togetherness...Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls." My philosophy of Continue Reading...
Metaphysics of Morals" philosopher Immanuel Kant famously argues that his Categorical Imperative is fundamentally different, and superior to the greatly flawed Golden Rule. Kant asserts that the Categorical Imperative is based on the solid rock of r Continue Reading...
familiar with the adjective "machiavellian," very few are actually knowledgeable about the political philosophy of Niccolo Machiavelli. However, Machiavelli does in fact have a great deal to teach us and we should be careful not to dismiss Machiavel Continue Reading...
Postmodernism and Pluralism Pluralism and postmodernism revolve around the concept of truth, towards which many people are skeptical today. The field of epistemology has undergone a myriad of changes over the centuries, and there is a growing consen Continue Reading...
46). These ideas are actually in direct contradiction to the prevailing religious philosophies of the time. Machiavelli does not seed men judged by God, or even by other men -- but instead by whether the deed one sought was accomplished or not; and Continue Reading...
Aristotle differentiated friendships of pleasure from friendships of utility by virtue of the fact that the former are based on preferences and shared interests whereas the latter are based on specific needs that exist irrespective of preferences an Continue Reading...
Free Will and Determinism What is free will, according to philosophic interpretations? What is determinism -- and how is it different from free will? What do philosophers say about free will and determinism? These questions will be answered in this Continue Reading...
Ethical Relativism Allen Bloom wrote one of the most controversial books of the late-20th Century, in which he denounced the demise of the core curriculum at elite U.S. universities and it replacement by what he considered to be a vague sort of post Continue Reading...
Paine's decision to write of high philosophical and political issues in common speech, and of used "graphic metaphors and his simple sentence structure [to] reflect a language understood at the time by common Americans," (Moss & Wilson, ed) has Continue Reading...
Individuals and researchers should never underestimate the importance of critical thinking. Critical thinking affects each and every individual's life, as well as society in general, both in the short-term and long run. Examples of decisions involvi Continue Reading...
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig is perhaps one of the most unusually named works of contemporary philosophical narrative. The book takes the form of a novel in which certain philosophic truths about Zen are revealed. The Continue Reading...
Euthyphro What is Socrates' definition of piety in the Euthyphro? The Socratic dialogue of the Euthyphro is initiated by the case of a young man who has brought charges against his father for murder. The father, hearing that a slave on his property Continue Reading...
MLK Martin Luther King penned his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" precisely because his peers in the religious community had criticized his acts of civil disobedience. The letter is a rhetorical argument, rooted in Aristotelian rhetorical strategies. Continue Reading...
As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers -- and found very little scholarship in print" (Women's Continue Reading...
Theory vs. Ideology What is ideology? Ideology is a belief system that supports and promotes personal or a group's social or religious agenda. In some cases its nature will be obvious to most people, but in other cases an ideology will be disguised Continue Reading...
Absolute reality thus is impossible in the world of Descartes. The way Kant began argument for his form of metaphysics began with the critique of pure reason. That involves the realm of the unknown -- moving to the unknown from the known, and this c Continue Reading...
This discussion of value, however, does not take into account religious viewpoints on the relative value of each human soul. If each embryo is theoretically imbued with a soul and each soul has limitless value, then the balance shifts. Argument fro Continue Reading...
Take for example, Foucault's 'Omnus at singulatim', in which the thinker shows his reader how the Christian practice of 'pastoral power' paves the way for certain modern practices that in actuality govern almost all the aspects of a living populatio Continue Reading...
Determinism FREEDOM OF THE WILL AND DETERMINISM Contra: Chapter 39. Baron D'Holbach: "We Are Completely Determined" Pro: Chapter 40. "Corliss Lamont: Freedom of the Will and Human Responsibility" (334-337) The nature of the freedom of the human w Continue Reading...
Frankenstein and Enlightenment The Danger of Unregulated Thought in Frankenstein Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, considered by many to be one of the first science-fiction novels written, is rife with anti-Enlightenment under Continue Reading...
In most religious texts, "God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and all-good (righteous, loving, benevolent)" (Wolf 2011). According to this view, apart from being the source of all that is good, God has the ability to know and Continue Reading...
.. Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. They at least don't have any ulterior motives." (Camus, 4) Passion as well might make one authentic, or a true and mindless embrace Continue Reading...
" (Hesse, 2002) This clearly shows that ideas are fruits of collective labor. This is a process in which society has contributed in one way or another thus any one firm or person cannot expect to be granted exclusive rights to ideas. Ideas are thus m Continue Reading...
Classical Ontological Argument: Anselm The Christian philosopher Anselm's argument for the existence of God, often called the classical ontological argument, is that given that God is defined as a being that by definition is the greatest thing imag Continue Reading...
Problem of Evil Natural Evil vs. Moral Evil Natural evil is a term that embraces theodicy, in the sense that there are devastating earthquakes, and tornados, tsunamis, and hurricanes, and other terrible weather situations that harm people and comm Continue Reading...
Rousseau and Tolstoy A Comparison of Rousseau's Confessions and Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions opens more brazenly than the other Confessions of antiquity (those belonging to Augustine); the latter were zealously Continue Reading...
Both literally and figuratively of noble character, Oedipus is the epitome of tragedy, moving from hubris to his downfall to ultimately tragic hero. In a mental sense, Oedipus realizes his flaw and finds this completely unacceptable. He punishes him Continue Reading...
By eliminating supposed purpose and meaning that derives from delusional cultural beliefs in Creators and supposed "Gods," existentialism actually allows individuals to create genuine meaning by defining its purpose realistically rather than superna Continue Reading...
Plato's The Republic Throughout the book, the ideas of Plato and his peers center on the social conditions of an ideal republic, which lead each person to the perfect possible life. Socrates, who was Plato's mentor, acts as a moderator during Plato' Continue Reading...
Seeking to strip his conception of knowledge to the bare minimum by removing all notions which can subject to reasonable doubt, Descartes differentiates between assumptions and true knowledge because, in his estimation, any perception based solely o Continue Reading...
Commodities Are Inherently Morally Bad Karl Marx (1844), imagines of a society where relationships are valuable than money and goods, claiming that this would be a supeiror society. The world today has been preoccupied with acquisition of wealth lea Continue Reading...
historyguide.org/intellect/Allegory.html 2. And Plato, King, Jefferson There appears to be two unifying factors between Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From A Birmingham Jail," Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and Plato's Allegory o Continue Reading...
Socrates: Offering Legal Counsel Socrates, the charges that you face are serious ones. For many years, you were allowed to wander the streets of Athens, advocating your moral philosophy of ideal governance. Your concept of 'philosopher kings' having Continue Reading...
Since neither of those explanations is likely (let alone knowable), philosophical naturalists would have to doubt that the universe exists at all; yet, very clearly, it does. The most likely explanation for the existence of the universe is simply th Continue Reading...
Perfection might exist in a more general picture, one that brings together imperfect beings and where everyone contributes to making flawlessness. According to the Meditator, people have to focus on society and the world as a whole instead of only Continue Reading...
He shifts from the instinctual world of the emotions to a cerebral existence, and loses a sense of what is truly meaningful in life. In Romantic thinking, which also idealized a pastoral, earthy lifestyle, being separated from the world of the emoti Continue Reading...
In exchange, the words which drive Machiavelli's work are very much a reflection of the groundswell of discontent with the ideological hegemony of the church and the feudal system. Thus, though we regard Machiavelli's contempt for terms of 'good' an Continue Reading...
In Chapter 25 of the Prince, Machiavelli addresses the topic of fortune and its effect on rulers and their states. Machiavelli makes two main statements about fortune. First, the author claims that the good leader transcends fortune's vicissitudes. Continue Reading...
He believed, a bit more than Sophocles, that through behavior, humans can actually change fate. Fate does control, yes, but only punishes those who fly in the face of all that is just and divine. For instance, Plato would agree with Sophocles that F Continue Reading...
Dualism." It discusses the basic idea of the term dualism and why it is rejected by science. What is Dualism? Dualism is the metaphysical principle that there are two substances, i.e., distinctive and autonomous kinds of being, one material and th Continue Reading...
