David Malouf

Hume vs Locke What is personal identity? What is the “self”? There is a great debate that surrounds this subject in philosophy. So, which philosopher has the right idea? Is it David Hume with his theory of impressions? Or is it John Locke with his theory of consciousness? Both men are famous for their views on the matter, and both pose very interesting ideas. On the surface their views seem quite similar, both men believed our experiences shape us. However, Locke believes that our experiences…

David Sedaris, author of Us and Them, recounts the events after hearing of a television deprived family who lives down his street, the Tomkeys. Confused, Sedaris sets out to find what they could possibly be doing if not getting their information from a daily dose of T.V. “so [he] began peering through the Tomkeys’ windows.” (799) What he found intrigued him. The Tomkeys were “forced to talk during dinner,” they hadn’t a clue “what dinner was supposed to like or even what time people were…

The “whys of conformity” demonstrate why the Church of Scientology has been so successful in gaining new members and keeping indoctrinated members. Specifically, they help explain why people are motivated to conform to the church’s ideals. The group locomotive hypothesis, consistency theory, and the hedonistic hypothesis provide reasoning to understand how the church gains and keeps its members. I will examine how each of these theories/hypotheses play a role in “Going Clear”. The group…

alternate possibilities believe. First among their premises is one that asserts free will as entailing moral responsibility. Under this view, moral agents can be held responsible for their actions insofar as they act on their own volition. As Philosopher David Hume puts it “Liberty…can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will… this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to everyone who is not a prisoner and in chains. Hre, then, is no…

The debate of Free Will v Determinism is one that has gone on for centuries, and shall continue to go on for many to come. There are many who believe that their view is the end all, be all, correct view to hold. While not all of these thinkers are correct in their standings, Paul Holbach’s essay, “The Illusion of Free Will,” lays out a strong argument for universal determinism; man does not have any free will, and all of his actions are determined by the laws of nature. His argument is one that…

In his book “Debt, the first 5000 years”, David Graeber introduces us to a novel theory about the development of human relationships, money, commerce, and markets. The author himself has direct experience in Anthropology, although limited in comparison to other great ones in the field such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, he did study tribes in Madagascar and had other relevant first-hand encounters with the science. By making use of his past mentioned knowledge, but also by drawing parallel ideas and…

How to Profile a Serial Killer David Berkowitz was an infamous serial killer of the 1970s. He is also known as the “Son of Sam.” Berkowitz was a sociopathic, satanic serial killer. Serial killers must commit two or more murders in repeated incidents. He received commands from Satan to target single women and couples. Although he was adopted at birth, he believes he killed his mother and is carrying out these deeds by Satan as a punishment for killing his mother. David Berkowitz acted alone…

David Berkowitz, or the Son of Sam, created mayhem in New York when he killed multiple woman with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver. He did so in the time period of a little over a year and was caught and confessed in 1977. Ever since he has been serving his time in a penitentiary and has devoted himself to God. Yet, what drove him to this? Why did a young man with no major childhood problems become a vicious killer? Here we will use Giannangelo’s Diathesis/Stress Model of Serial Killing to try to…

of David was a six pointed hexagram that did not originate from Judaism, however it affected a large amount of the Jews lives, it also contributed to amulets…

Henry Morton Stanley. Stanley’s career as an explorer all started when he was a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald. The Herald’s publisher at the time, James Gordon Bennett, sponsored Stanley to search for the famous English explorer, David Livingstone, who went missing in Africa searching for the source of the Nile River. (page number) The immediate aim of Stanley’s mission to find Livingston was to draft intriguing stories about African exploration for the Herald. In 1872,…