Philosophy Essays

Beyond elementary semantic structures numerous sub-layers of meaning and communication exist to both enrich and complicate the way in which we interact and express our ideas and emotions. It is not what we say, but how we say it.

The fact of the matter lies in the fact, that man cannot achieve fulfillment if he does not think; this, even as a proposition is considered to be impossible. By goodness of undertaking things, dealing with them, and ultimately being deceived by them, it becomes all the more evident to man that there is a reality that exists.

Indeed, he is in noble company as the distinction has also been embraced by such luminaries as Descartes, Newton, and Galileo. Notwithstanding that he was building upon an already well-established concept, there were and there remain disagreements. Locke is useful for two reasons.

The word morality is used to refer to norms and socially acceptable behavior put forward by the society. It can also be referred to as a behavior which would be thought of as suitable in specified situations.

Hence, as this essay will illustrate, rhetoric, as a means of communication, is a vital tool, which provides those who use it an effective and efficient means to persuade and be understood. The value of rhetoric, as an effective communication tool lies in its ability to persuade effectively.

Why does J. A. Fodor think that there must be a language of thought? Is he right? Jerry Fodor is a prominent linguistic philosopher and cognitive scientist. Fodor’s linguistic philosophy eschews structural models of language for an approach that builds on Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar.

This is the type of stress that you are continuously facing in your life, whether you are actually doing something or just relaxing. Consider it as the constant variable in an equation. It can be modified though, with biofeedback, good change in sleeping patterns and eating healthy food to manage your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

If society neglects to present convincing authority in regards to questions of Being, individuals often recoil to the internal sanctum of thoughts and feelings. In the alluring, vivacious, and sinister recesses of private musings, existence is validated and given merit.

Science has been described as “an organized search for knowledge” (Appiah, 1999, p. 87). Based on this, it can be said that science aims at gaining knowledge. However, it is not as clear whether or not science is aiming at uncovering the truth. In fact, trying to determine what the purpose of science raises some major philosophical questions.

Empiricists deny that it is possible to know by reason alone the nature of what exists; rather, the nature of what exists can be known only through experience. We should reject as meaningless ideas or concepts which cannot be specified as corresponding to any possible experiences.

What never ceases to capture my attention with Plato is how often quotes from Republic appear from time to time in everyday life from father-to-son advice to advertising slogans. The timelessness of this work is a wonder, since the very fabric (pathos) of humanity is explored and appears to be relatively unchanged over the span of two millennia when Republic is read with a relaxed mind.

The stereotype of philosophy as personal opinion buttressed by rhetorical skills may contain a grain of truth, but little more. For as a practice, as opposed to a body of doctrine or ideology, philosophy is more properly regarded as the systematic and critical examination of the grounds for belief.

William Zartman believes that this theoretical ripeness for positive mediation is the major factor in both small scale and international negotiation, and should be fully taken into consideration by anyone who wants any number of parties to reach an agreement or resolve a conflict (Zartman 2003).

According to Weber sociology is a particular science of human behaviour and its consequences. For him all kinds of social structures and relationships, cultural objectification are the results of basic individual behaviour. Weber's aim is to interpret actions of individuals in the social world and the ways in which they give meanings to social phenomena.

These life stages are critical and comprise birth, marriage, transformation from childhood into adulthood as well as death. Lastly the understanding is related to the celebration of these life stages.

Freedom involves moral reasoning which includes instances such as killing one person and saving five lives or wait and see the five die even though you had earlier known that the five would die. In the utility principles, man should always do what will elude huge amounts of happiness and avoid what will prevent one from achieving probable happiness.

The author states that an argument that contests animal testing is the moral status animals. It was noted that animals’ capacity to feel pleasure or pain equate them to humans in terms of moral status. The arguments on the moral status of animals were discussed extensively in Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

It generally refers to the set of religious beliefs and customs that have evolved over the centuries and have attained recognition in the Indian culture. Although the beliefs and teaching have evolved over the years, Hinduism is still founded upon nature and on the belief in the existence of gods (Griffin, 1).

Structuralism exist in academic psychology for the first time in the 19th century and then resurface again during the second half of the 20th century, when it developed into being the most accepted approaches in the academic fields that are concerned with analysing language, culture, and society.

We are probably yet to evolve to a stage where we can actually utilize it to the best of our benefit and to the benefit of everything around us without turning it into a malicious weapon against ourselves. With whatever bit of grey cells we possess, we have managed to irreversibly destroy more than half the planet which mean s that for the present species of humans, omniscience would mean the catharsis- end of the world!

Buddhism teaches that existence involves an amount of unhappiness and that the sole cause of unhappiness is an individual's attachment to material desires, which are only temporary. Therefore, happiness can be acquired by detachment from worldly things. Buddhism defined nirvana which is a blissful state free from ego which is available only to those who follow the Noble Eightfold Path (Buddhism 213).

Abortion is a touchy subject, and should be treated as such; however, there is often a good and a bad way to make an argument for either side. The antiabortionists often sit on a moral pedestal, and the pro-choice prefers it to be a sanctuary of human ideas and liberty to make that decision and not have it imposed on them.  

Barker writes about Aristotle's viewpoint and how being ruled by a constitution and rotation of office provides everyone with the same rights and worth, rather than being ruled by a king judging in accordance with his/her own feelings and thereby, not having a 'neutral' mind when exercising authority.

Francis Fukuyama is able to stress out the ways in which man is benefiting from the surfacing of biotechnology as he stated in his emergent theory with this idea it is possible to reconcile his idea with Surowiecki with regard to maintaining human dignity amidst man's continuous use of biotechnology.

All things "obtained the One" and came into existence; conversely, without that which gives them life, they naturally die. A new thinking has turned me to focus on Taoist practical philosophy. It does not follow that human beings should be consumed by longings for it.

They were unrefined in their beliefs and attitude. When they had accepted Islam and they conquered territories outside Arabia in the seventh and eighth centuries, they came in contact with other civilizations and cultures, philosophy, and other rational sciences such as mathematics, astronomy, physics etc.

In so doing, Marx shows that there is a close link between economic materials and communal relationships. Political theorists have waged too small notice to the role of literature and the arts in the shaping of political ideals, and of no period is this truer than Rousseau's.

Walter Kaufmann sees him as a radical empiricist because of his denial of metaphysical truths while supporting truths which are empirically derived. Others see him as the best example of a metaphysician, the essence of which is refuted by his works.There are many points between these two extremes in terms of the interpretations they gave to Nietzsche's works.

As long as it can be remembered, the heart symbol as we know it today has existed and appeared in different forms and places. It is one of the constantly recurring symbols from prehistoric times. The heart shape is considered to be a combination of ideograms (“Symbol 20:18”).

Gilroy (1992), for example, states that European culture was heterogeneous in nature during and after the enlightenment. But, the social theories that were hitherto dominant constructs with little comprehension of the world beyond Europe have become obsolete to understand and interpret the post-modern world.

1. Premodern: Signs express a "natural law of value" reflecting a reality that appears to exist in its own right and on its own terms. Symbols map an order that is extrinsic to language and culture. Example: Holy Scripture (signifier) reveals God's Law (as object or referent).

At this point it is imperative to say that this paper pitches epistemology against ontology with an argument against the former. This is due to the fact that the nature of the research area demands a field of study like ontology for the research design. In the course of this paper, the various research problems will be discussed with a focus on the elements of the research area.

Jean-Paul Sartre believed God does not exist and therefore, human beings are abandoned. He wrote that existence precedes essence. Because God does not exist, it follows that we are what we make of ourselves; that there are no reasons for why things are what they should be and that human beings chart their own future

For example, Plato, the second othe trio of ancient Greeks laid the philosophical foundations of Western culture, saw man's true nature as rational and believed that civilized society must be organized, and civilized life conducted according to rational principles.

Some of the implications of the view that there is a right to civil disobedience will be central to the discussion in this paper (Geschwender, 63). According to Gandhi, the right to civil disobedience is essentially diverse from the way that contemporary liberals like John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Joseph Raz comprehend the term.

According to Nietzsche, master morality is based on strength and what is strong is good while that which is weak is wrong, therefore, those who have master morality are strong and have created their own morality and they judge themselves. For master morality, bad is seen as a failure and a defeat as well as loss of power (Solomon132).

A Catholic bishop is summoned as a mediator when Cuban-American prisoners begin to riot. Neutral third parties are called in to help resolve community housing disputes in the Midwest. Thousands of couples, instead of retaining a divorce lawyer, seek out mediators who help facilitate the process whereby the couples work out the conditions of the divorce on their own.

Hinduism has often been said to be more a way of life than a religion. Hinduism with its sub-sects and confusing myths, legends and rituals often seems to make no sense to an outsider. Mehta echoes this confusion in the narrator of A River Sutra. The narrator in the very first page of the text makes it clear that he has become a vanaprasthi in order to reflect.

One of the major questions that have been asked all through the history is about the meaning and ideology of right and wrong. What is right and what is wrong? How can you identify something as right or wrong? These are some of the questions that involve the awareness of the philosophy concerning right and wrong

The purpose of this editorial article of the New York Times is to convince the audience that the revision of stance by the New York Times with respect to the Iraq War does not absolve them from the culpability of misleading their readers of their initial position.

It would be this desire that, throughout the generations since, would become what many would identify as the American Dream. The feeling that, as an American, anything could and would be possible. From a standpoint of definition, the American Dream would be seen as, "An American ideal of a happy and successful life to which all may aspire: "In the deepening gloom of the Depression, the American Dream represented a reaffirmation of traditional American hopes" (Anthony Brandt)," ("American dream", p.1).

According to Stoicism, a Roman-Greek philosophy school, proudly claiming connection with Alexander, ataraxia is the only state of happiness that man can attain in his life. It shows the mind in right equilibrium in a philosophical state, a total freedom from worry or tension.

It is focused on locality, instability and ambiguity of all global aspects, the self and the concept of good. With the contribution of feminism, postmodernism ideas have been unfolded against the theories purporting to justification of sexist practices.

'Truth' is exercised by people who have power and can spread it using this power. His various remarks in which terms like 'truth' and God figure can be rendered collectively coherent only if they are viewed as efforts on his part both to accept and analyze the ways in which such terms function in particular domains of discourse

These are mutually opposing political and economic theories involving every aspect of the modern human being and, therefore, require a meticulous examination and comprehension. In an attempt to distinguish among these philosophic concepts, an extensive and critical analysis of these in their perspectives on human nature, the state, international institutions and order vs.

The essay shall then focus on ‘perception’ and ‘language’ – two of the ways of knowing, and argue that perception as a way of knowing is more likely to lead to the Truth as compared to ‘language.’ Appropriate examples from history and literature shall be cited to illustrate the arguments answering the question “Are some Ways of Knowing more likely than others to lead to the Truth?”

49). That means human rights must be restored in a society, and when it comes to property, it can be examined in context with 'abundance'. The more abundant is the property, the more usage of it can be met. However the 'abundance' factor cannot be fulfilled in today's economic conditions.

What we are really asking is - are political ideas absolute - an interesting question indeed. A philosopher may believe that the most valuable ideas, and possibly the only ones worth studying, are timeless ones, and that humanity is a uniform context that transcends history.

The level of writing, however, is very high and very technical, and so it is perhaps useful to keep in mind that the key idea will be the italicized phrase on the bottom of page 51. This sentence is the first formulation of "the categorical imperative," i.e., Kant's candidate for the supreme principle of morality.

This paper illustrates that Kant managed to preserve the holiness of the moral law and moral duties, the concept of the complete disinterestedness of a moral act, the independence and freedom of the will which is one with the law, the imperative nature of the moral law that restrains our disobedient nature, and the dignity of man and our obligations.