Concepts in metaphysics

In two excerpts from al-Farabi’s work, one from The Attainment of Happiness and the other from Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, he writes about the difference between religion and philosophy as he sees it. He gives a definition of each term which he continues to work with through the rest of both excerpts. From those definitions, al-Farabi writes about the relationship between philosophy and religion, eventually stating that religion is an imitation of philosophy. The definitions of philosophy…

What if we could subject the human consciousness to analysis purely using reason? Transcendental idealism is a philosophy associated with Immanuel Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason. According to an article by Nicholas Stang in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy it is a rebuke of previous philosophies which were immaterial, doubting or outright denying the existence of matter. It postulates that things do in fact exist, but are separated from the human consciousness. Transcendental…

Independent. What does it mean to be independent? Does independence mean the same thing as being free? Everyone experiences independence in different ways. Some experience independence in little tasks, such as a young child learning to zip their own coat on a cold winter day. Others experience independence as being on their own, living in a home with no higher authority. There are many different viewpoints on what it really means to be independent and when true independence is ultimately reached…

The Free Will Problem Hard Determinism is the best possible answer to the free will problem. It is the theory that past event’s directly cause future events, therefore, the future is casually determined. While this may seem like a daunting thought, it isn’t. Some will argue that Hard Determinism is not the best true, Libertarians are a good example of these kinds of people. They believe that we are able to directly influence events that happen, and how they happen, directly choosing our future.…

In his book, Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant makes several distinctions such as between a priori and a posteriori cognition, and between empirical reality and transcendental ideality. One of the main distinctions he makes is between matter of intuition and form of intuition. It was important to Kant to distinguish the difference between these two terms because they play a vital role in the first part of his book which is the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic.’ Kant’s book is significant because…

Midterm #1 1a. Aquinas’ three conditions for a just war are built on the ideas of Aristotle and Augustine. The three conditions are as follows: 1. The first condition claims that “a just war must be declared by proper authority” (Christopher, 50). Aquinas is stating that the second party is allowed to offer redress the issue at hand, it has had the to offer other alternatives. The idea behind this condition is that it makes war the “last resort” (Christopher, 51). This condition also mentions…

The existence of God has been debated throughout history. There are many arguments for the existence of God but there are two commonly-accepted arguments among theists: the cosmological argument and the teleological argument also known as the argument from design. In his article entitled “On Being an Atheist”, H.J. McCloskey attempts to refute each of these arguments. His stated purpose in the article is to provide reasons for atheism and to show that it is more comforting to be an atheist than…

Describe and critically analyse the ontological argument for the existence of God. Ontological arguments are arguments that some philosophers claim, definitively prove and conclude on the existence of an omniscient ‘God’. These arguments are structured in a specific analytical, deductive, a priori style. The analytical, a priori aspect of the argument means that the conclusion is based on the understanding of a definition. Meaning that the truth of the conclusion can be determined before…

David Hume is a philosopher who wrote essay Of Miracles. He has clearly pointed out about miracles on his essay Of Miracles. In his essay, he defines a miracle that “miracles were violations of laws of nature, and therefore could only be performed by God or those God had entrusted with divine powers” (Craig, 28). In one word, he denied for the existence of miracles. In his theory, miracles have been brought about by God and/or invisible power, which related to God against rules of nature;…

"What if identity is exclusively ethnic and not national at all?" (R. Radhakrishnan, 121). A contested concept brought to light in R. Radhakrishnan’s exploration of ethnicity in an age of diaspora. The query itself implies a rigid dichotomy between ethnicity and nationality; it probes the reader to wonder whether these concepts belong in conjunction with one another or merit opposing entities of their own. In R. Radhakrishnan’s dissertation, Ethnicity in an Age of Diaspora, he asserts that…