What is Berkeley’s ‘Master Argument’ and is it Successful? Word count: 1,435 The Master Argument appears in one format in Three Dialogues as a discussion between Philonous and Hylas as to whether Hylas can conceive of a mind independent object. It is when Philonous points out that by conceiving of such an object, Hylas is necessarily framing the idea within his mind that Hylas admits that he has nothing but left but certain “scruples” in his defence against immaterialism. At first glance, the idea of conceiving of a mind independent object does indeed seem contradictory and initially one maybe as easily persuaded by Philonous’ challenge as Hylas is. However, it does not take long to realise that Berkley appears to have not been careful with his choice of words and has committed various conflations leading to fallacies of ambiguity.
He is only worried about the attainable future and ideals, while Plato is more focused about the enlightenment of man, and the understanding of knowledge. Machiavelli would indeed react poorly to Plato’s ideas in “The Allegory of the Cave” and would reject his “utopian” vision in favor of his own more “realist” vision. Plato, on the other hand would reject Machiavelli's viewpoints just as
An American Journal Article Review: “Deciphering Memory: John Adams and the Authorship of the Declaration of Independence” The article began with John Adams, who was portrayed as a man of principle and integrity, recalling a particular event where he appointed Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence and the latter who seemingly denied the whole incident ever happened. The dominant purpose of this article seems to be to convince the readers that science, specifically cognitive psychology, can explain why both parties gave conflicting memories of the event. Robert E McGlone claims that there are new advancements in psychology that can be used to further explore the nature of a memory. To begin with, McGlone contested Dumas Malone’s 1948 writings, which implied that “if Adams’s recall of detail was suspect, his memory of essentials is correct”. He reasoned that “commonsense resolution of the matter alone cannot resolve the issue”.
He then leads up to his main objection of this definition by means of stating that even though men and gods love that which they think is noble and good, and hate that which is opposite to those things, not everyone thinks this way about all things (Plato, 7). This being in the nature of things that are considered to be good by a group of people, can be hated by others, and this would also apply to the gods, for not everyone thinks the same. Socrates then uses a good example concerning the gods to better prove his reasons. He states that even though Euthyphro's decision to proceed against his own father may seem agreeable to Zeus, but not to Cronos or Uranus, and that there may be other gods who have these differences of opinions (7). Concerning
How far do the sources suggest that Wolsey’s efforts to secure the annulment were half-hearted? (20 marks) Although sources 1, 2 and 3 make suggestions towards Wolsey’s lack of effort in gaining an annulment for Henry, they all generally agree in the fact that his ability and determination to fill Henry with the hope that he would succeed in obtaining the annulment showed that Wolsey made gaining the annulment his main priority which he did try to achieve whole heartedly. Firstly, sources 1 and 2 both agree that Wolsey was wasteful with his resources he had art his disposal and that he did not make an efficient use of not only this, but also his situation. Source 2 states that “Wolsey has marvelous contacts” and “…yet has not made use of this”. It can be implied from this that Wolsey had the ability to obtain Henry’s annulment, but failed due to his lack of effort and his half-hearted approach.
He eventually finds his own morals and tells himself what is right and what is wrong. Part of this realization came from him helping Jim, which troubled his mind because of what society said about helping him. But he then based his decision to help on his own experiences and logic. That is kind of what Fahrenheit 451 puts forth. But instead of trying to gain knowledge it is being destroyed, all because society is trying to promote ignorance which causes sameness in all.
In 1983, Michel Foucault invited a few friends and colleagues to have a rather surprising discourse on the subject of Immanuel Kant's treatise on the question "What is Enlightenment?". In his essay titled, "What is Enlightenment", Foucault gives his own take on the question asked in the December 1784 publication of the Berlinische Monatsschrift. Immanuel Kant, in his response to the question "What is Enlightenment", defined Enlightenment as “man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage” and the “courage to use your own reason[2]”. Kant believed that “laziness and cowardice” were the prime reasons why many men remained un-enlightened[3]. Kant asserted that people refused to throw off the yoke of “self-imposed tutelage” because it was easier to pay people to think for them and run their lives[4].
“So long as we keep to the body and our soul is contaminated with this imperfection, there is no chance of our ever attaining satisfactorily to our object, which we assert to be Truth.” (Phaedo 66b) The human is so completely enslaved by their bodily needs that their sense of goodness and justice is off. Another significant argument that was thought was the belief that there is a dreadful disease of Misology. This is the hatred of reasoning and contaminates the mind and the man and causes one to stop questioning the world around him and to stagnate within the world of purpose. “…When one believes that an argument is true
Critically assess two arguments in support of widespread local skepticism. Skepticism may at first seem like a fruitless field of study, for how can the study of a topic which claims knowledge is impossible provide any greater insight into the philosophical realm as any conclusions themselves are knowledge. It could be said this is true yet discounting this view totally would be ignorant due to the arguments that have been put forth in its favour over its time in existence. Local as opposed to global skepticism differs in that a local skeptic does not believe all knowledge is impossible but that certain kinds of knowledge such as about time, the external world, other minds and of empirical generalisations. The Spanish philosopher Miguel De Unamuno said “The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.” On this basis it could be said that the skepticism is the deepest of all the philosophical areas of study as no true conclusion can be drawn fully meaning it will be explored more with time.
The wicked see punishment as a good thing because they have a chance to be corrected. Boethius finds this difficult, because he doesn’t understand how can God in his omnipotence allow this? Philosophy agrees that this is something that no one will be able