Assigned Topic - Research Paper Example

?Paper Book According to Thrasymachus justice is nothing I proclaim that justice is nothing rather than the interest of stronger. This ment might sound a bit confusing in the beginning but the concept is beautifully explained by him. In every form of government the state is the one who is supposed to be in power and they are the ones making laws. This law is what people claim as justice for them and hence the interest of stronger i.e. government is the justice that people claim for themselves. Socrates however at first didn’t agree with the term ‘of the stronger’ since it appeared to create ambiguity. In Socrates discussion with Thrasymachus that followed, he first cleared that it was compulsory for people to abide by rulers and just like other people were prone to make mistakes in formulation of these laws. So the times when rules have made a mistake and people are claiming it as justice than it won’t be interest of stronger. In that case when people claim justice abiding by the rule of state or the ruler it won’t be for the interest of stronger but would actually cause injury to those in power. This might be unintentional but clearly states that Thrasymachus claim of justice only being interest of stronger is not always abided by. This is what they agreed upon at the end of discussion. Book 2 According to Glaucon, what do people praise instead of justice? Why? The best way to living by Glaucon is when men have done and suffered injustice and they come to a mutual ground which would be called as lawful and just in the society. Ring of Gyges is explained by Glaucon and is termed as a mythical magical artifact. This has this divine and strange power that makes its owner invisible. He says that every man believes in his heart that doing injustice would give more benefits that acting by laws of justice. If someone gets the ring of Gyges and doesn’t use it as mean of injustice he would be termed foolish by others. This is the reason people praise injustice because they believe that it will give them more benefits. Paper 2 Politics is a broad term which includes Strategy, economics, and rhetoric and since it includes all of the other sciences, it is called the master of art. It involves people who in a certain way control lives of people as they make legislations which make things happen and tell people as what they ought to do or what they should stop doing. This is what brings man to a good end. A young man is full of action and passion and his interest are mostly on the basis of action rather than knowledge. Moreover, his experience in life would be in general rather than specific to this political science and he would be good with life in general terms but not specifically with political science. Happiness can’t be identified with honor since that would end of man’s political life. For a man, honor is basically assurance of his goodness and men with practical wisdom are the ones who seek honor. Virtue however is related with inactivity according to Aristotle and no one would call such a person as happy and hence honor is not related to happiness. Happiness according to him comes with all noble acts and it is impossible to do Noble acts without proper equipment and therefore it is important to have external goods to create happiness. Virtues are intellectual as well as moral. Intellectual wisdom includes philosophic wisdom, understanding and practical wisdom would be included in intellectual wisdom whereas liberality and temperance are said to be part of moral virtue. Moral Virtue is a mean between two vices and lies between excess and defect and also a mean between passion and action. This would simply mean choosing the in between pathway. Paper 3 Prodigality and meanness are two words that Aristotle explained on the basis of wealth. Meanness according to him is the excessive desire and lust for wealth than there should be in a normal person. However, Prodigality is a complex termed described by him. These are those men who spend money on self-indulgence and they are basically destroying themselves through their own mistakes. Such people are hence mentioned as poorest of characters by Aristotle. Desert is the worthiness of a person which is relative to external goods. The highest reward for this is when a man renders himself to gods and the good deeds that come along with it. Pride is something that is related to great things and can be a state of character or a character related to a man. A proud man is someone who would consider himself worthy of great things and this can go in positive or negative side for a person. Inirascibility is the deficiency of anger explained in a person. Such person doesn’t show anger at the right time with the right person and hence would be consider as weak, fragile and someone who is unable to defend himself. Therefore this is considered as a weakness among people. Paper 4 According to Gandhi, Men has the power of self-governing. This includes both side of the personality and the concept of self-governing gives the power to make wrong decision and make mistakes as much as they can do the right decision. Gandhi thinks that self-governing comes to a government through the effort of non-violence. Once the government can achieve independence through nonviolence than they can defend the country by nonviolence and it can move in a proper system through self-government. For Gandhi there can be absolute truth and the conditional truth which is actually dependent on absolute truth. Absolute truth is ultimate and fixed for Gandhi and is a fundamental truth that can’t be changed. Gandhi also equates God and love with truth and this is integral part of his philosophy. Ahimsa and Truth are two integral parts of his philosophy and he compares them with two lungs as to show the importance of these concepts. Truth is the ultimate goal but it can’t be achieved unless one acts upon the principle of Ahimsa. Ahimsa is not only important for seeking truth but also for seeking truth. The principle of nonviolence is wholly good for Gandhi as this is important on individual level as well as on government level and this is the concept that can solve problems at both levels. Nonviolence is the ultimate solution and a unique method of change in all religions as per Gandhi’s concept. This can bring the real transformation of the whole society and it would be judged on the basis of transformation in society rather than success of any individual or party. Paper 5 Descartes supposed that he needed to reconstruct the truth because he realized form his early childhood the spurious nature of a number of opinions he had believed to be true and also the fallacy of what he had based upon these principles. He suggested that although objects around us may not be in the range of close observation, there are some inherent characteristics about them that make us believe in their identity and in knowing what they are. Descartes suggested that senses can be distracting when one is trying to find the ultimate truth in any matter. They may lead us in another direction and thus he in spite of knowing that he was seated by the fire, suggested it to be a wrong possibility. Descartes is of the belief that the boundary between dreams and reality is very bleak and thin. At times it becomes difficult to distinguish the two. However, the events in reality are clearer than those of a dream or an illusion. At times it may appear that certain things or characters created by a mind’s working are absolutely novel. But in reality, at the back of the mind exists an imprint of similar things, although simpler and already existent in the surroundings of the mind creating them. The mind takes help from the consciousness to create something new. Arithmetic and Geometry are subjects dealing with the simplest of the things and do not challenge their certainty and for that matter are less dubious. If God tried to deceive Descartes, he would not be able to question the reality of any matter and take things and matters as they are and believe in them. If the Great Evil Genius tried to deceive him, Descartes would believe that everything real around him is in fact an illusion and he is being possessed by them. Paper 6 The ideas and thoughts of an object external to Descartes and the object itself forms the basis of a provisional rule for reasoning. Descartes supposed that the existence of a God is the most urgent issue because it forms the very basis of his belief and certainty in anything around him. Heat is a sensation that takes origin form a substance or existence outside Descartes body and likewise points to the existence of the body originating it. Ideas representing finite substances such as modes or accidents have minimum objective reality because they represent lower degrees of being or perception. Natural light introduced the principle that the extent of reality is the same in both a cause and its event because an event cannot take place without a cause. It is important for Descartes to find an idea which he himself is not the cause of, because such an idea would give indication of the presence of another being apart from Descartes in the world around him. Paper 7 Descartes: Discourse of the Method Good sense is something that is widely shared in this world. Every person thinks that their liveshave a solid amount of good sense governing it even if there is absence of it. His is variable, some people actually possess it while others are totally deprived from it. He believed that senses are sometime deceiving for us and sometimes there is nothing truth about the way our senses perceive it to be. Mathematics sounded very interesting for him and he was very happy about the certainty and clarity of its reasoning but was not able to see the practical significance as yet. Therefor he compared it with ancient pagans which were marvelously built but actually made up of sand holding no true foundation. He believed that alchemist, astrologers and magicians are actually sub branches of philosophy so he won’t consider them worth enough to learn separately. Excessive travelling for him was a source of ignorance in a way. He thought that people who used to travel too much in foreign lands were later ignorant of their own country problems and are strangers here and those who think too much for past are not able to live in present. The two sorts of minds signify there are two sorts of people living, those who make hasty decisions because they think they are clever than rest of the world. Other lot is the kind of people who are less capable of doing things and can be instructed and moved around. He needed provisional morality and provisional codes because of wanted to lay down strong foundation on which he can build the philosophy that he later gave and he compares this with an analogy of constructing a building. First maxim would be to abide by laws of country and God. Read More