Each decision made says some things about the person that has made it. Decisions reveal, test, and shape the ideas we have of our self and our morals. Their consequences have far-reaching implications and the book indicates when they are made in haste, with only individual interpretation or emotion, they can be devastating to the owner. The author of Defining Moments, Joseph Badaracco, Jr., relies heavily on what history has taught us through great intellectual interpretations of the most prominent philosophers: Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sophocles, Niccolo Machiavelli, William James, and Marcus Aurelius. Badaracco draws examples from other writers on ethics and philosophy to reinforce how, which, and when to apply the teachings of such forward thinkers to everyday situations, with which we are faced.
For example, I have an input by touching fire, then I have a mental state of pain, then I output by retracting my hand and screaming out. In this essay I will assess Functionalism and show why it is a strong theory that is backed up by discoveries of the brain through neuroscience, and how it argues that machines could be minded. However I will also argue how it can be questioned by theories such as property dualism and this idea of qualia, arguing that we have a non-physical side to our mind/consciousness, something beyond science. In assessing, I will conclude that it is a question of future knowledge and discoveries to discover whether functionalism is incorrect or not, but that at this moment in time it can be shown that it is the strongest theory of the lot. Functionalism overcomes the defying problem with reductive materialism, in which the mind can be multiply realised, as it does not require us to have a wet slimy brain.
How does the concept of “tradition” stand in Hermeneutics? Discuss in relation to the Gadamer-Habermas debate. This essay will aim to explore the contemporary views on the questions surrounding that of the definition and role of “tradition” and “language” in hermeneutics, discussed through the influential views of Heidegger on Gadamer’s philosophical thought, Gadamer’s theory on the speculative dimension of language, and the well-known debate between Habermas and Gadamer. The dispute largely concerns the judgment of tradition and the position language holds within it; comparing Gadamer’s arguably more conservative hermeneutical view to the ideological criticisms demonstrated by Habermas. Habermas critiques Gadamer’s thought by questioning the overall concept and the central role of tradition, arguing the possibilities of certain sub-conscious interests and specific authorial forces that distort tradition.
His political thoughts are very discussed and reviewed issue, even today. In order to understand Marx's political philosophy, we first need to understand George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’ ideas that are Marx’s primary philosophical influence. Hegel’s ideas were criticized and developed by Marx as much as they influenced him. These critiques and inspirations can be divided into three main subheadings: Hegel’s the Master and Slave chapter of the Phenomenology, the concept of concrete freedom, and Feuerbach’s transformational criticism of Hegel and its effects on Marx. Apart from these, in order to grasp all aspects of Hegel’s influence on Marx, I try to explain Marx’s thoughts on the Jewish Question.
In his first part Thomas Hobbes gives philosophical meanings like memory, understanding, imagination doing it on purpose so that basing on them to create the future theory of Leviathan, it could be understood from the perception of him that before studying philosophy meanings should be made clear. So everything according to him is based on the matter and all the senses are nothing more that the reflection of the moves of that matter, the act of vision happens when matter collides with our eyes and exc. Memory is the sense left after the collision of the matter with the brain, imagination is the sense we create basing on the experience of the collided matter, thought are not solitary and one comes after another that process is called trains of thought. According to Hobbes thought can be regulated like the science, speech and unregulated like dreams. Speech according to him is the transition of the mental to the verbal; he puts words to the superior position claiming that there is no possibility of science without words and perceptions thus neglecting empirical methods.
Moral Codes and other mistakes. In this paper I argue for what has been termed ‘moral progress’(Rorty 915-27), and against fixed moral codes. By ‘moral progress’ I mean that humanity, as time has passed has come to be increasingly aware of the iniquities of past societies (and, in many cases, ‘present’ societies) and has striven to understand how morality can change to accommodate this understanding. Bertrand Russell, in his book "Human Society in Ethics and Politics", makes the point that moral codes are often dictated by those in positions of power (Russell 38-43). "Right and wrong" are defined with relation to the powerful.
However, “Van der Veer” believes that although there is no agreement about the exact definition of the concept, in general, “mental model” refers to the internal representations that people form of the environment through their interaction with it”(p. 1). In other words, mental models are believed to be assumptions, beliefs, generalizations even stereotypes of a person’s belief system that is often generated by their experiences. According to Senge (2006), “our mental models determine not only how we make sense of the world, but how we take action. Philosophers have discussed mental models for centuries, going back at least to Plato’s parable of the cave; “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a classic story, not about famous people, but about people bound by mental models. Their image of the monarch’s dignity kept them from seeing his naked figure as
These classical thinkers derove their reasonning from personnal observations. These reasonings for enlightenment thinkers refer to the rationalle of people such as Thomans Hobbs, John Locke Voltaire, Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton among others. This rationalism is based on deductive logic. Deductive logic involves reasoning from the general to particular and applying theory to a particular case. The scientists create a a theory and then make some observations that either refute or support the theory.
Empiricism vs Rationalism The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw complicated debate between empiricists and rationalists, in which physics, mathematics, theology and logic were called into discussion. The sources of out knowledge can be divided into two different sources, what enter our mind through the use of senses, and what enters our mind through the use of reasoning. Empiricism is the idea that knowledge comes from the sense, while rationalism is the notion that knowledge is discovered by the reason. In order to gain knowledge, use of sense and reason must coexist together. In my opinion, one cannot gain any knowledge without sense and reasoning.
The functionalist theory is the oldest, and still most dominant, theory in sociology. Thomas Hobbes, a seventeen-century philosopher, viewed humans as “self interested beings who were in constant danger of ‘the war of each against all’”. Many pre-twentieth-century social thinkers were in conflict with the “Hobbesian” problem of social order. The problem of social order became principal in the minds of many social thinkers following political conflict beginning with the eighteenth century French Revolution. At the same time, the biological sciences were revealing the mysteries of bodily function and evolutionary ideas of survival that created controversy and inspired ideas from philosophers.