Philosophy Essays

The author states that the optimists feel that the thesis of determinism cannot be ruled out as false for the simple reason that the “facts as we know them do not show determinism to be false.” The optimists feel, there are enough facts to corroborate the existence and relevance of determinism.

Positivism is concerned with the interface between concepts of rules and ideas of authority. This structure is held together by consideration of issues such as validity and obedience. Validity allows for the external legitimization of the structure. All these forces that make up a legal structure are in a dynamic equilibrium with one another.

The paper presents a review of the literature; pertaining to the meaning of spirituality for the dying person. The paper identifies all the relevant concepts of spirituality and the concepts are compared from the perspective of multiple disciplines of psychology, biology, management and nursing.

The author states that it is Weber's conviction that factual reasonable capitalism increased out of Protestant asceticism. Christian asceticism, at the start escaping from the world into solitude, had currently directed the world which it had renounced from the monastery and through the Church.

Few philosophers of note had lived a more controversial life than David Hume, born in Scotland. Endowed with sharp intellect coupled with his great desire to learn and be a scholar, he followed a very rigorous program of reading. His family expected him to be a lawyer but this he never pursued. He started writing but his writing did not achieve the attention he wanted for his works.

Psychologists concentrate more on the moral development of children than on that of adults. Attention is being increasingly given to the role that moral "practices" play in the formation of virtue and adult character. William Damon quotes Spinoza's aphorism, "The palace οf reasoning may be entered only through the courtyard οf habit." 

Simmel, writing years after Marx, echoed much of the Marxist themes in his works and conducted many philosophically and psychologically oriented investigations based on Marx's propositions. For this paper, I would be comparing Marx's concept of "commodity fetishism" to Simmel's "autonomy of objective culture."  

Kant was born on April 22, 1724, in the Prussian city of Konigsberg (today Kaliningrad, Russia), the fourth of six children. ( Borowski, 1969) After attending the Collegium Fridericianum from 1732 to 1740, he enrolled at the University of Konigsberg in the faculty of philosophy.

Through this text, Plato exhibits the ultimate significance of Socrates as a teacher by whom he was able to unravel the perils of human psyche and politics which had been evident in Socrates’ mock trial by the jury to which the irony of his apologetic articulation was dedicated (T&G West, 16).

The matter though is older than 2,000 years and even though philosophers have been struggling with the meaning of truth since before Christ the word requires elucidation. The exposition of truth therefore may be as varied as our perception of it, owed in no small measure to our culture, background and surroundings.

Rousseau believed the Social Contract as the fundamental law of society. Liberty is submission to the law the people have accepted, and equality means all are equally dependent on society and not on any other individual. • The Social Contact should be written by a legislator, Moses or Lycurgus, who should then leave the scene thus forcing men to be free.

The author states that living with the expectation that your job requirements or the market forces impacting your business will never change is similar to being the proverbial ostrich with your head in the sand. You may not see what is going on, but your largest portion is hanging up in the wind, waiting for the next predator to come by.

This essay discusses the characteristics of the philosopher's society and culture are nationalism, capitalism, democracy, socialism, conservatism, liberalism, feminism, and bureaucracy (European Thought and Culture in the 19th Century, online). Nationalism is the belief that groups of people are bound together by territorial, cultural and ethnic links.

Luce Irigarayan is far less concerned with giving certain definitions to the divine, describing its functions or features, than with proving the logical necessity for the existence of the divine. From time to time, she does offer interpretations of the issue, at least for the female population; however, not for interpretation itself, but rather as means to realize the depth of the concept of the feministic movement.

Rhetoric has become a slam term, meaning manipulative language, but that's a modern phenomenon. Originally it was a word of the highest praise. The ancient philosopher Plato defines rhetoric as "the art of winning the soul by discourse". Aristotle stated: “Rhetoric is the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion”.

What Kant believes is the significance of good will in universalism so that every individual act should be performed not as a duty, but as a moral deed in accordance with the universal moral law that the autonomous human being freely gives itself

The directive of the individual within a bureaucratic and administered world proscribes genuine feeling and sentiment. The procedure of civilization thereby entails the taming of savage feeling. The majority of sociological explorations of mass culture, especially those undertaken within a Marxist or critical theory standpoint, tend to be restricted in their cultural and political postulations.

Rationalism is a “philosophic doctrine that reason alone is a source of knowledge and is independent of experience”. Empiricism is a “philosophic doctrine that all knowledge is derived from sense experience”. Rationalism and empiricism both deal with experience. We need to be concerned as to the extent in which we are dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gain knowledge. 

The author states that arguably, the fact that Marx’s writings remain largely bereft of explicit moral theories has been, historically, one reason why his conclusions are so appealing.  That is, we cannot successfully attack Marx’s philosophy from potentially debatable ethical foundations.

The article seems to suggest that we are responsible for the woes that have befallen the poor and the refugees in the camps. Peter Singer is therefore suggesting that it should be our responsibility and an obligation to get those entangled in unfortunate circumstances out of it (Singer, 1972).

Cartesian metaphysics regards the mind and the world as separate. More than this it regards mind and body as separate. Jung and the Nobel Prize-winning prize winning physicist, Wolfgang Pauli expounded the hypothesis of a unity between psyche and universe which is (as said) in tune with the human experience of precognition.

There are many cases of people who, although apparently happy, as they have everything they need and everything the others strive for, are in fact very unhappy – be that they cannot see what they have in their rush to get more – which has now become a habit – or because now they realize their efforts didn’t bring happiness.

Miller shows that creation, at the heart of Western religion, feels the danger from the belief in evolution as it has the potential to undermine the basis of the Bible. Secondly, Miller points to the outwardly hostile environment that evolution advocates such as Daniel C. Dennett creates.

Kant argued that reality, as we perceive it, cannot be accounted for purely by sense perception. Kant, whose epistemology is a form of idealism, holds that what we refer to and perceive as the external world is an artifice of the mind. His argument is that the mind itself contributes substantially to, and even synthesizes, its own knowledge.

The positions of different philosophers are illustrated – it can help to understand the role of free will and moral responsibility in our behavior. This libertarian view will become increasingly dominant in the coming century given the consideration that free will, rational factors, and free choice determine the basis of our behavior today.

The object of this paper is not to find facts but to explore human relationships with animals and how humans take on animalist identities as descriptors of perceived behaviour, value systems, strengths, or weaknesses.Animals as descriptions of behaviours have a long history.  Every day You can hear references to animals and their perceived behaviours such as in the adage “March roars in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”.

The conclusion states that it is difficult to imagine what Hume could hope to gain by flattering the religious authorities at this late date. This point becomes stronger when we consider that during the last decade of his life--in which he lived comfortably as a man of letters -he did not significantly alter his writings on this topic.

This belief of his has been debated on and battled by others, and to be able to come to a proper and informed conclusion in regard to any of this, we have to discuss what existentialism and humanism are, as well as what Sartre’s thinking is in regard to this matter, and by doing this we will be able to become incredibly more critically understanding of this subject matter overall. This is what will be discussed in the following.

There are several elements of comparison between these two famous places, though they share dissimilarities of various types. For example, one finds that, in Utopia, people have restraints but they are free to speak to each other. Similarly, prisoners within the Eastern State Penitentiary are not allowed to have any human contact.

Realism is a term we commonly use to define motivation for behaving by truths and facts which exist independently of sentiment, emotive persuasions, or overtly ideological tendencies. Within politics and more specifically, international relations, Realism has come to mean a rejection of moralistic or ethical concerns.

When we are denied these an emotional hole remains which we endeavour to fulfil through other non-relational or relational means, which could be dysfunctional. Sometimes these coping mechanisms could remain harmless and not cause substantial damage to the person's lifestyle.

The author states that the accounts also show that he is born during the time of social and political turmoil in the Jewish nation because of the Roman invasion. The people are expecting a Messiah which will overthrow the abusive leader and who will save them from their destitute condition.

According to the paper, the care ethics is seen as a feminine ethics which is related to the maternity, parental care and the relationship between a woman and her child. But the care ethics is much more than concentrating just on one subject. This makes one know the care ethics as much more than it seems to be.

What Survives After Death. Thoughts on life after death are generally divided into two differing opinions: skeptic or believer. The former insist that people cease to exist once they die and that there is nothing past the material realm. The latter, though, believe that people take on another form after death and their souls continue to exist through reincarnation.

This essay analyzes the views of two philosophical standings of the ancient India held by Jainism and Carvaka to identify the similarities and differences between the two in regards to ethics. In addition, compatibility of the two viewpoints will be assessed to identify if the philosophical standings can be viewed.

Epicurus says that “philosophy” means “the seeking of wisdom”. And he argues that studying philosophy is “to care for the well-being of the soul” and both young and old can do anything for their wellbeing. He also says that since both young and old can seek wisdom and since everyone is either young or old, everyone is capable of seeking wisdom.

George Berkeley was educated at Kilkenny School and later joined Trinity College, where he was able to attain his Bachelors’ and Masters’ degrees in divinity. After achieving his education to that level, he became an Irish Bishop, he was later ordained as an Anglican priest in 1710. Berkeley was a great philosopher with many philosophical achievements under his theories of idealism and immaterialism.

What Makes Right Acts Right and Wrong Acts Wrong? Mug shots have been a subject of discussion, regarding their appropriateness or inappropriateness in being published by sites that require payment to pull them down. While the legal argument is that mug shots are public documents that are within the public domain, and that the mug shot sites does no wrong in republishing them, the ethical question that comes to the fore is whether asking for payment to remove the mug shot of an individual from a mug shot site is right or wrong (Segal, n.p.).

Whereas suicide has been an alternative individual to their lives since the dawn of human history, physician-assisted suicide is something of a new paradigm that allows for individuals who are otherwise terminally ill or have little hope of surviving a particular disease to terminate their lives in what has been deemed as a dignified manner.

Jason and DeMarco stand outside what one might consider the norm in relation to contemporary Christian music and/or lifestyle. However, the ministry that they provide is no less rooted in the faith and understanding of what modern Christianity means to humankind than perhaps more mainstream artists might be.

The works of Plato have been published in a number of ways. His works have been widely referenced and so many other concepts and philosophies have been based on the works of Plato. It can be said that each culture is based on some distant philosophy which is widely adopted by the people and ultimately turns into the values and traditions of the people.

Ideas are there due to impressions, and Hume states that there is no “self” because one cannot find a solid impression of the “self.” He answers to objections thrown at him by stating the limits of human knowledge. He states that his philosophy is intended to discover things that are presented to the senses. Furthermore, he states that no good would come out from excessive skepticism.

Inequality is either acquired in the course of one’s life or one is born already unequal to others (Brumfitt 46). When Neiman offers his insight on the course of life, he generally states that life offers opportunities to every one and it is up to the individuals to claim their share of what life offers.

This concept provides a series of social discussions within the film, the first of which is the idea of eugenics in which undesirable traits are genetically eliminated in favor of more desirable traits. In addition, the nature of ‘perfected’ human existence is challenged through a discussion that balances that natural superiority with the superiority of the human spirit to overcome challenges of a physical and social nature.

In addition, there are two forms of the soul, the embodied and the disembodied soul. While the embodied soul was viewed immortal, the disembodied soul was considered simple (Republic 608c-612a). Based on Socrates’ view then justice is related to the three states of the soul which had been corresponded to beliefs, emotions and desires.

Among the many important distinctions concerning the senses and reason, one of the more significant for his moral theory is that the senses interpret reality first. We are born sensing the world before we are reasoning about it, and likewise in the process of immediate perception.

The advancements in technologies and the concept of globalization have brought people closer to each other. People are now able to connect with anyone and are able to move from one place to the other within no time. The impact of this ease is not limited to leisure, tourism, and educational fields but the businesses are also greatly affected by this change.

Personal ethics in the workplace is an essential quality for a person who manages a company or a business organization. A person who worked in a white-collar position has the right to follow ethics in his work fields. I think one should keep a helpful attitude towards people having difficulties. If one analyses personal ethics through a humanistic perspective.

Within this concept of happiness, Aristotle posited that such virtue is achieved by following the rule of the Golden Mean. According to Aristotle’s concept of the Golden Mean one may be able to justify a proper code of conduct. For example a warrior must seek courage, which is the mean between being cowardly and reckless, in order to proceed with his or her duties.

Where Locke takes a more liberal perspective, inviting the ideal that people can function by accepting a ruling authority for the greater good, Hobbes takes a similar yet opposing stance that while a ruling authority is key in the success of protecting the human race, people cannot accept such influence without giving up certain inalienable rights including their own personal sovereignty.