I believe that Hume's statement regarding conformation to the "common sentiments of mankind" is outdated. With globalization and intercultural development and communication, there are so many diverse "sentiments" that it is difficult to identify wh Continue Reading...
Marx Hegel German philosopher Hegel developed a philosophy that can be called phenomenology, or Philosophy and the Actual World. Whereas previous philosophers concerned themselves with abstractions, Hegel wanted to apply philosophical inquiry to the Continue Reading...
Inalienable Rights Although America's founding documents declared unequivocally "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness Continue Reading...
Mill believed that any act may itself be inherently moral, so long as the outcome of that action produces a benign effect. Mill believed that the most ethical act is that which produces the most good, even if the act itself is one which is tradition Continue Reading...
Skepticism is defined as a school of philosophical thought where a person doubts the beliefs of another person or group. While one person might believe wholeheartedly a certain political perspective or believe completely the dogma of a religion, a sk Continue Reading...
Too many leaders today do not see much as necessarily bad or good, and they simply go through their life without realizing there is so much more out there to be done and seen, just like the people in Plato's Cave. They have blinders on -- some of w Continue Reading...
Educational Philosophy The four Educational Philosophies Essentialism Essentialism argues that a common core of knowledge needs to be passed to learners in a disciplined and systematic manner. The concentration in this traditional viewpoint is on Continue Reading...
Human Beings Make Sense of Things In the early-1900s, Edmund Husserl sought to provide psychology with a truly scientific basis, not by copying the physical sciences but through the description of conscious experiences. This would be a truly humani Continue Reading...
Plato on Justice The Greek word which Plato uses to mean "justice" -- dike or dikaios -- is also synonymous with law and can also mean "the just"; as Allan Bloom (1991) notes, Plato uses a more specific term -- dikaiosyne -- in the Republic, which m Continue Reading...
According to French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, there is not much difference between an atheist and one that believes in God. The difference only becomes evident as the atheist would not be saved, if a God does presumably exist, while the believer Continue Reading...
Therefore, the welfare of others cannot be relevant to judging what one ought to do. This is a very interesting argument, but it does not establish its conclusion. Although it may be that every human being has a right to preserve his own life, one w Continue Reading...
Rene Descartes: Why Psychology Cannot be a Science Like Physics The philosophies and concepts presented in Rene Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy illustrate several reasons why psychology cannot be a science like physics. These concepts inc Continue Reading...
" This illustration is an exact explication of the kind of philosophy that Plato helped propagate in human society during his time, and still gained prominence and status as contending philosophies, to other philosophies of latter centuries. Rubinste Continue Reading...
Hermeneutics is the art of interpretation, closely taking apart a text, a discourse, or some other narrative in order to assess the underlying aspects to see what the author is 'really' telling us, or what we can discover about his life. In general, Continue Reading...
External World Man seems to be an innately selfish creature, unable to see a world outside of himself. Each man feels that he is the center of the universe and little logic can be used to change his mind on this regard. A man who does not accept the 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...
Our modern world has also shown us that human actions have much more far-reaching and complex effects than have been previously thought. We have become so aware of these complexities, in fact, that in our most rational moments we human beings can a 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...
Free Will and Determinism From a theological viewpoint, human free will may not exist at all, since God is all-knowing and all-powerful, the destiny of each individual is determined from the beginning to time. Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin a Continue Reading...
Besides this, one can, as a separate undertaking, show these people later the way of reasoning about these things. In this metaphysics, it will be useful for there to be added here and there the authoritative utterances of great men, who have reason Continue Reading...
There is a need to clearly point out that the two elements are never synonymous. The process of perfecting our own natural state in the Kantian view implies that we are actually in the process of attempting to cultivate "the crude dispositions of [o Continue Reading...
His viewpoint is neither traditionally Christian and therefore subject to Church doctrine, nor strictly pagan and therefore subject to strict rationality. Hegel's working out of the thesis and antithesis of life and death, and the synthesis, which i Continue Reading...
Sociological Theory: What Makes Democracy Work? When it comes to "Classical Sociological Theory" and "Contemporary Sociological Theory" there are numerous sociological theories that try to inspect and interpret why and how society purposes; looking Continue Reading...
Immortality of the soul- many philosophers, laureates and scientists have delved upon the subject in both the earlier times and the present time. However, the logic of the immortality of the soul, whether it is true or not that is the soul being mort Continue Reading...
You can't just issue degrees without having the use of force lurking in the background to make sure those degrees have some "teeth" so to speak. But Rousseau rejected that idea. Rousseau also rejected the notion that ties between family members wer Continue Reading...
Moral Objectivism to Moral Skepticism (a) According to Kant, what is the difference between "a posteriori" knowledge and "a priori" knowledge? What kind of knowledge would the statement "All triangles have three sides" be? What about the statement 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...
All the aspects of society are based on the models of the Forms, or the ideals of perfection. In other words, if we translate this belief into practical terms, Plato's theory really means that we should strive for the highest possible ideals in lif Continue Reading...
aestheticism movement found, in Oscar Wilde, its most eloquent and staunch supporter; consequently, his only novel, the Picture of Dorian Gray, is a monument to the notion that art is the pure manifestation of beauty and reveals Wilde's particular r Continue Reading...
Moral Luck" by admitting defeat: he informs the reader that he will be assessing "a fundamental problem about moral responsibility to which we possess no satisfactory solution" (450). The problem is essentially one about ethical judgment, and he beg Continue Reading...
Gulliver's Travels Jonathon Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) is a satiric novel aimed at revealing the trends of seventeenth-century philosophy, including ideas on human nature. For instance, as Gulliver, the main character embarks on a journey to Continue Reading...
This work provided an intensive discussion historical forces that were to lead to modern humanism but also succeeds in placing these aspects into the context of the larger social, historical and political milieu. . Online sources and databases prov Continue Reading...
Alluding to "proofs" that God exists shifts the discussion from attempts to mobilize "Jerusalem" in the service of "Athens" to more religiously motivated projects to justify faith. The goal here may be to assuage one's own doubts, develop latent tr Continue Reading...
" The means do not justify the end. Kant is stang that. Kant is saying that one individual, in this case Janet, cannot use another person, Karen, as a means to an end. A person must never use another for his/her own purposes. In this case, Karen is n Continue Reading...
autonomy guarantee a person harmful oneself? To ? Explain response ethical rationale. Part the principle of autonomy certainly does not grant an individual the right to harm others. Autonomy may be one of the most fundamental aspects of free will, o 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...
An example from the novel that is somewhat opposite to the previous example helps to confirm this interpretation. Glozelle, a high-ranking individual on the evil side of the war that takes place in the novel (these sides are clearly drawn in the fra Continue Reading...
In fact, there is a sense here in which the will to do good deeds restores God to the universe as the fountainhead of morality, with the famous "categorical imperative" substituting for specific divine commandments. However, those who are not alread Continue Reading...
Ethical Philosophies Sometimes, when faced with a situation within murky ethical waters, there are difficult decisions to make. This is not made easier by the various philosophical outlooks available today, some of which would provide contradictory Continue Reading...
