Empiricism

A major underlying construct of Piaget’s theory is the idea of natural selection and organism adaptation. Inspired by Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” (1859) as well as his own extensive work as a zoologist, the ideas of assimilation and adaptation are at the very heart of Piaget’s cognitive theory. Piaget believed that humans have dynamic cognitive structures (formed through individual experiences) that help us adapt to a dynamic environment. This learning system promoted by Piaget--…

The self, a diverse, multifaceted and fundamentally unclear phenomenon, none of which has engendered more ambiguity and dispute amongst psychologists. Despite the position the fundamental concept of the self holds within psychology, no single theory integrates its true meaning, making it difficult to define and in essence describe (Dewane, 2006; Hoffman, Stewart, Warren and Meek 2008). Philosophically, psychology viewed within a modernist epistemology (Hansen, 2006), postulating the idea of a…

Have you ever thought about the history of psychology and how people first began to explain why we think and act the way we do? The Greeks first began deep thinking through reading and writing.The Philosophies that were created by theses Ancient Greeks began the discovery of how we interpret life. The Philosophers behind those ideas were very important to the history of Psychology because many of them helped influence some of the most famous Philosophers that we learn about today. How did The…

Political theories during the seventeen century, such as nature of the government and power were debated and even experimented. In the seventh century, England had two dominant viewpoints, which were best explained by the writing of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Locke and Hobbes were both social contract theorists and natural law theorists. The first model that was debated between Hobbes and Locke was the state of nature. Hobbes had a bit negative view about the state of nature. Hobbes believed…

There are multiple interpretations given to the fourth chapter, Self-Consciousness, of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Alexandre Kojève initiated a phenomenon that isolates the fourth chapter being an essay in itself discussing anthropology or social philosophy (Magrì 2016; Pippin 2010). These lectures given by Kojève influenced subsequent thinkers like Merleau-Ponty and Sartre (Schmidt 1979). I am rejecting this kind of reading. This is a radical shift of Hegel’s reading from an…

What is Genocide? 1. What is the intent of genocide? The intent of genocide was to destroy the existence of a specific group of people. 2. Why did Raphael Lemkin purpose in coining the term “genocide”? (Why did he do it?) Raphael Lemkin introduced the term “genocide” to promote “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the group themselves,” in other words to force extinction upon a…

“gratifies” us. (Kant, p.51) And unlike Kant’s qualification of beauty that refers to subjective universality, the Agreeable holds the concept that everyone has his own taste and therefore, each individual experiences their own form of the Agreeable. In Empiricism, Hume believes the Agreeable is different for each individual and requires interest to be perceived, ergo…

Before writing the tenets of Semantic Externalism, Hilary Putnam had put forward the question Is Semantics Possible? in 1970. When he had framed this question there were three people who had started working on this. These Philosophers were- Jerry Fodor, Jerold katz and Putnam himself. But by the course of time they all took different direction with the same question. Putnam had written two successive articles on this question, one is ‘ the meaning and reference’ in 1973 and the other is ‘ the…

epistemology, concerns scientific inquiry and the extent to which theories and knowledge are influenced and shaped by bias within the scientific community, and the means to rectify this. There are three main distinctions of feminist philosophy of science; empiricism, standpoint theory, and postmodernism. I am to be comparing and contrasting two of the three; namely feminist standpoint theory and postmodernism. Both of these distinctions are intriguing, if somewhat extreme and conflicting views,…

In his presidential address to the American Political Science Association Robert D. Putnam challenges his colleagues in the discipline of political science to meet the obligations of a much overlooked aspect of discourse within the discipline; engaging the public. The past century has witnessed many evolutions throughout the fields of social science. Most notably is the scholarly and academic concentration on promoting the legitimacy of social science research via the incorporation of…