In this paper I will attempt to give an understanding of both rationalism and empiricism, show the ideas and contributions each of the men made to their respective schools, and hopefully give my personal reasoning why one is more true than the other. Rationalism was developed by several important philosophers all around the 17th century. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz are all given credit for developing rationalism. Rationalism is the idea that reason and logic are the basis of knowledge. It says that knowledge is innate, and that it cannot come from sources such as the senses.
Breanne Keeffe Kant and Nietzsche | | Ethics Kant asks the question “How is human knowledge possible?” and Nietzsche asked the question “Why is human knowledge necessary?” Kant was the first of out of the two to present his take on the genealogy of morals. “By claiming that the moral being has to be a rational being Kant reaches the core of his theory: it is the principle of the will behind every action that determines its moral worth.” Nietzsche’s presentation of the development of morals is that if we are to become real people and real individuals and be able to think for ourselves then how much of a challenge is that really going to be. Is there a destiny and if there is then would we really want to reach it, because what comes after that? “Nietzsche argued that the quest for the truth is driven by the desire to control and affirm human existence.” Without being caught up in a human will to power no philosophy can actually define the truth. Nietzsche set out to find the origin of the Judeo-Christian meaning of moral was.
Some historians such as Lipson and Passant have argued that the Zollverein became an integral tool in the coming of German unification, and the part it played in breaking down the traditional state boundaries which in turn led to unification. Lipson indicates that the Zollverein built the foundations for a united Germany, and writes; “Economic unity paved the way for political unity, and community of material interests stimulated the growth of national feeling and fostered national consciousness.’1 Lipson argues that the Zollverein acted as a tool that would unite Germany economically at first, but in time it led to political and eventually total unification. When the Zollverein came into establishment on the 1st January 1834 it brought together 18 states with a population of 26 million people, all unified under the terms of free trade; tariffs were to be the same across all frontiers. We can see how the Zollverein began to unify Germany because by 1837 all of the southern states were sharing the same currency, the florin, and that by 1844, almost all of Germany, bar Austria and three other states, were unified. Bowring can be seen supporting Lipson’s argument by writing in 1840, “In fact the Zollverein has brought the sentiment of German nationality out of the regions of hope and fancy into those of positive and material interests.2” Here Bowring agrees with Lipson’s statement that the creation of the Zollverein brought about the first form of German unification by breaking down the stately barriers that had previously hindered unification.
The following passage from Eudemian Ethics (1235b 13-18) allows us to better comprehend Aristotle’s impression of philosophy, which in turn leads to a better understanding of how he reviews and resolves the aforementioned problem: We must adopt a line of argument which will both best explain to us the views held about these matters and will resolve the difficulties and contradictions; and we shall achieve this if we show that the conflicting views are held with good reason. For such an argument will most closely accord with the agreed facts; and it will allow the conflicting views to be retained if analysis can show that each is partly true and partly false. Ultimately, Aristotle tries to “preserve obvious truths of common sense” while attempting to justify what we see in philosophers paradoxes. To discredit them, he separates the discreditable conclusions from the authentic notions they were built upon, thus disarming the effectiveness of the arguments. The first and most obvious place to look for Aristotle’s view on relativism is Metaphysics I’.
Candide and the search for truth behind Pangloss’s Philosophy In the satire, Candide, Voltaire seeks to find the meaning of Gottfried Leibniz’s theory of optimism. Leibniz is a philosopher from Germany in Voltaire’s lifetime. Leibniz is portrayed in the satire by Dr. Pangloss, a philosopher that takes very similar characteristics to Leibniz himself. Leibniz’s philosophy throughout the satire is voiced by Pangloss “This is the best of all possible worlds”. His philosophy can also be described as arguing that whatever happens in the world happens for a positive reason.
The Enlightenment was the root of many of the ideas of the American Revolution. The Enlightenment was an intellectual revolution in the 18th century that focused on rationality, natural law, liberty, and progress. The leaders of the revolution were inspired by the writings of Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire and Montesquieu. The values of liberty and equality were fought for as colonists strove to end British control over them. The American Revolution was greatly influenced by the Enlightenment.
A form would allow us as humans to know that there is some sort of universal truth, and that through reason we should be able to come close to finding out what it is and maybe even find out what it is. We can not have knowledge about the god’s, we can however through deep thought and reasoning Socrates tells us get a better understanding for the good life and how to live and this in return should shed more light and clarity on the god/s. “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious”-Euthyphro(p.8) Euthyphro is saying here that he thinks god grounds the moral, but this can not be true according to Socrates . “The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, then would be both god-loved and god-hated.....and then same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument.”-Socrates (p.9) When we look at multiple gods it is easy to see how they could not ground the moral for each god may agree and disagree to different piety and impiety which would not allow them to ground the moral because they would all have different views of what was good and bad. With god/s grounding the moral the foundation of the moral becomes arbitrary because it would only be good because god says its so.
Many literary critics interested in philosophy have found in Emerson's thought the origins of American pragmatism, and philosophers from around the globe who value the active mind more than systemic philosophical exposition continue to respond enthusiastically to the two sides of Emerson that Buell identifies: the democratic idealist and the anarchic provocateur. In addition, Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience, which hangs on a transcendental understanding of self-reliance, helped to inspire the movements of peaceful revolution set in motion by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Futhermore, Whitman's radically cosmic belief in the unique grandeur of every self and every mindis Romantic vision of a universal oversoul connecting slave, whore, president, and preacher all alike through a daily sharing in the erotics of experience, as expressed in Leaves of Grass (1855)mounts to the first philosophically significant statement of tolerance and multicultural acceptance in American
Kant’s theory of ethics was deontological which looks at actions rather than the consequences of the action. The theory looks at motive of an action which makes it good rather than if the actual outcome is going to be good. Kant believed that humans are all aware of an innate moral law. According to ‘Critique of practical reason 1788’, ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and moral law within me’ and following this Kant concluded that humans have access to two worlds, these being the noumenal (which we know through reason) and the phenoumenal worlds (which we know through senses). In the noumenal world moral law exists, and this moral law is objective and unchanging.
Enlightenment, as a historical period, was marked by many intellectual changes and liberal views concerning science and philosophy. At this time, Kant writes the essay "What is Enlightenment", in which he explained his own regards about the philosophical changes and moral obligations of humanity. These ideas were fundamental for the history of philosophy and exposed a clear reference to Rousseau's previous work, who was also a thinker from the Enlightenment period and whose concepts were correlated to Kant's. Kant's text starts with a concise answer to the "What is Enlightenment?" question: "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage.