Plato and Descartes Plato concept of innate goodness and Descartes descriptions of human reasoning for being good both provide a foundation for man's need to better understand the basic and spiritual goodness found within human nature. In Plato's Re Continue Reading...
Thus, the analytic approach offers the best method of approaching philosophical questions, because it understands and explicates the problems and limitations of human consciousness immediately by intentionally discussing language itself, because no Continue Reading...
Hypothetical Scenario: The creation of a "sensory bar" and the First Meditation of Rene Descartes At the beginning of the "First Meditation" the French philosopher Rene Descartes takes a philosophical posture known as radical skepticism: he resolv Continue Reading...
Skepticism Can person skeptical, limits? Is doubt? Does a person obligation ethical moral reasoning examining beliefs. Are beliefs possessed challenged shown false? How skeptic respond claim a belief doubted? Identify specific belief present respons Continue Reading...
Plato, Descartes, Hume1In Plato\\\'s \\\"Apology,\\\" Socrates defends himself against the charge of corrupting the youth by asserting that he does not claim to teach or have wisdom, unlike those who profess knowledge without truly possessing it. He Continue Reading...
Epistemological Belief in the External World Can We Know the External World Through Our Limited Sensory Perceptions? (1) Our senses are limited. (2) We can only perceive the world through our senses. (3) Therefore, our understanding of the extern Continue Reading...
Existentialism takes the human subject -- the holistic human, and the internal conditions as the basis and start of the conceptual way of explaining life. Taking idealism From Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, then building upon it, existentialist thinker Continue Reading...
Phantom Limbs When we ask ourselves what is knowledge (as we do when we are engaged in the process of philosophy) we are effectively asking what is our relationship with the world. V.S. Ramachandran - as is the norm for philosophers - asks the quest Continue Reading...
Life After Death Introduction classical point of departure in defining Death seems to be Life itself. Death is perceived either as a cessation of Life - or as a "transit area," on the way to a continuation of Life by other means. While the former pr Continue Reading...
Descartes Cartesian dualism emerges from Descartes's approach of radical skepticism. Wanting to know what can be determined to be absolutely true, Descartes begins by doubting all sensory perception as fundamentally external and liable to interferen Continue Reading...
Mind, Freedom and Knowledge Descartes argued that that all humans had both a body and mind, and that the mind was eternal while the body was subject to physical and material laws. The universe was divided between the mind and matter, and the physica Continue Reading...
Pop Culture Project I Am Thin, Therefore I Am Pop culture today places a huge emphasis on being thin. You see it everywhere: in the news, in magazines, on television, on the Internet, and any other kind of media. We are constantly being bombarded w Continue Reading...
The question arising from this claim is whether evidence exists to prove that there exists an infinitely good, powerful, and wise God where morality naturally emerges. Humes argues that is hard to imagine that an all-good, powerful God exists in thi Continue Reading...
Two belief systems, then -- true believe, and justified true belief (Hauser, 1992). Humans, however, according to Pierce, turn justified true beliefs into true beliefs by converting them into axioms. Once we have proven something there is no need t Continue Reading...
Of course Marx and Russell are radically different on certain aspects of materialism in the physical world. Indeed, Russell spent volumes on taking issue with various aspects of Marx's dialectical materialism (Ironside, 1996, p. 26). Russell comes f Continue Reading...
Knowledge and truth were considered absolute and immutable by these two, though for very different reasons, which is the complete antithesis to the empirical theories of Popper, Peirce, Kuhn, and James. The progression of knowledge in the face of su Continue Reading...
Imagination, Faith, And Reason Truth is an intangible idea that people have tried to get a grasp on since the dawn of time. It is often hard to determine what is true and what is false and how to categorize the things that are seen and done. Part of Continue Reading...
Relationship of Certainty to God From Descartes Compare With Gassedi, Pascal, and Spinoza The French philosopher Rene Descartes was one of the most transformational figures of his time and his work is now considered one of the pillars of modern West Continue Reading...
Descartes' Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes' biggest contribution to humanity and indeed, the sciences lies in his attempting to define a method of objective thinking, thereby encouraging academicians and all o Continue Reading...
Of course there exist different concepts of anti-modernism, which state that scientific revolution and modernism lead the society to the moral and spiritual decline. But their appeal to refuse from the achievements of scientific progress sounds absu Continue Reading...
How is it possible, then, that we can come to know anything? Methodological doubt is best represented in the first of the Meditations, "What can be called into doubt." In this meditation, the meditator is forced to think about everything that he h Continue Reading...
Matrix and Descartes The film The Matrix represents many of the ideas of Descartes regarding perception and reality, truth and selfhood, knowledge and falsehood. The film is about a man who is awakened from a simulated world and shown the reality of Continue Reading...
Republic, Plato's allegory of the cave is included as a way of describing the path from ignorance to enlightenment. Plato describes a group of people chained inside a cave, who cannot see anything except for the shadows cast on the wall in front of Continue Reading...
Existence of God This report has the difficult task of trying to prove the existence of God. But there is a silver lining in this challenge -- we have ancient philosophy to help. By using the beliefs, works and philosophies of Saint Anselm and Desc Continue Reading...
Metaphysical Methods of Inquiry The philosopher Rene Descartes adopted what he called a 'metaphysical' or rationalist approach to understanding the world and the relationship of the human to the divine. In contrast to a physical approach a 'meta-ph Continue Reading...
self" is difficult to define but usually involves the inner life of the individual, the psychological dimension of human existence as opposed to the outward, physical form. The self is conceived as a creature of consciousness, a mind capable of thou Continue Reading...
Mind-Based Identity: A Problem Impossible to Ignore One of the most basic questions of human existence is essentially "What am I?" Although humans have known in varying degrees throughout recorded history that they are biological beings, there has Continue Reading...
ending" in the reading you selected. Clearly identify the point in the reading when you realized that there were elements in the reading that surprised you. Not all of the surprises come at the end. I was quite intrigued at the element of surprise Continue Reading...
In other words, like Plato, the body is inferior and its substance is irrelevant for true and certain knowledge. The intellect with its faculties (judgment, imagination, memory, free will, etc.) is most important. The sixth meditation is the crucia Continue Reading...
reason, God and religion with reference to ancient philosophers. These philosophers gave us some interesting views on the subject of God, which may prove helpful in understanding the nature of good in a world where evil often dominates. PHILOSOPHY Continue Reading...
Faith: Philosophy Paul Tillich Paul Tillich was one of the most famous theologians of the 20th century. He represented the 20th century movement called neo-orthodoxy. Most of Tillich's work is represented in a series of transcribed lectures. Tillic Continue Reading...
Philosophy While there is plenty to criticize in the work of Descartes, Locke, and Hume, one cannot justifiably claim that Jose Vasconcelos criticisms of traditional Western views on the nature of knowledge apply to these theorists if only because V Continue Reading...
Philosophy Nietzsche often identified life itself with "will to power," that is, with an instinct for growth and durability. This concept provides yet another way of interpreting the ascetic ideal, since it is Nietzsche's contention "that all the s 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...
As experiments became more complex, however, especially noting embryonic development, scientists found that the process that occurs in vitro parallels the evolutionary process of nerve system complexity, and then becomes more qualitative in that no 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...
Enlightenment on the French Revolution Revolutionary changes in the leadership of 18th Century France did not occur overnight or with some sudden spark of defiance by citizens. The events and ideals which led to the French Revolution were part of a Continue Reading...
" (Ibid) the term cosmology is derived from the Greek word 'kosmos' meaning order and refers to the world and the universe. (Ibid, paraphrased) the cosmologic philosopher is stated to be on who "contemplates the nature of this order and is concerned Continue Reading...
Realistically Heidegger was at least vaguely a theist, which is rather contrary to the existentialist mind set of humanism, but his point was still existential and in his early work, at least he attempted to clearly deduce a way of stressing the nee Continue Reading...
Human Nature Book Summary Jeeves, Malcolm. (Editor) From Cells to Souls -- and Beyond. New York: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004. According to Michael Steel in the book edited Malcolm Jeeves entitled From Cells to Souls -- and Beyond, the Continue Reading...
