Hellenistic philosophy

Augustine was a Christian philosopher who believed that people have the free will to make their own decisions and choices. One example is the choice between good or evil. He also believed that people should be searching for and obtaining eternal goods, rather than desiring temporal goods. In many aspects Chris McCandless from Into The Wild was searching for eternal goods and the divine. McCandless was a vagabond who sold all of his belongings and decided to hitchhike across the United States. He…

Free will is a term that has been in debate, for many years now and still is a concept of modern philosophy. As this idea of free will can be seen as one thing or another. For example, as in the reading of “Free Will” by Sam Harris it is mentioned how free will is just a delusion and how the belief in free will ties up to all that humans appreciate. Additionally, as others may say that we are the aware source of our ideas and movements in the present. Harris also remarks on the reading how “You…

Despite Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud’s individualistic ideas and definitions of religion, they obtain a common understanding regarding wishful thinking of an afterlife. However, the way they interpret the afterlife is different. Karl Marx argued that the idea of an afterlife is able to dull the pain of reality; he uses religion to shed some light on how bad living life truly is. On the other hand, Freud believes that all religious believes are just illusions and wishful thinking is the ultimate…

Utilitarianism is slowly gaining popularity in the world of philosophy as a normative theory and has been stirring up a lot of debate amongst people from all walks of life. Normative theories of ethics work by presenting one key principle as the main criterion on the basis of which a human being's actions are judged to be good or bad. That limits its overall view because it is never that easy to distinguish between the two in a world where all lines are slowly blurring. The principle itself can…

The Sorites Paradox, or the Paradox of the Heap is a paradox which comes in two forms; the many-premise version, and the two-premise version. Both versions lead to the same conclusions but offer different ways to reach that conclusion. This essay will focus on the workings of the two-premise version. The paradox arises as a result of vague predicates (Barker, 2009); demonstrating a problem with human language. This is the idea of human language being excessively vague, and that measurements we…

Everyone struggles and whether or not an individual comes through depends on their self. We see others struggle and whether or not we decide to help comes down to our morals. Will Allen is someone who found his goal through his struggles and connections he made. He endured through racist comments, cancer, financial issues, but in the end he focused on what he believed in: to provide and nurture his community, creating a healthy and safe environment for future generation to mature in. Allen…

Shame and Its Prevalence Throughout “The Apology” There is this philosophical endeavor to investigate emotions and how they are applicable to a person’s identity, shame being one of the emotions (“Emotion: Philosophical Definition”). In the chapter “Apology” from 4 Texts on Socrates by Plato, Plato focuses on how Socrates proves to be Athen’s highly intelligent educator, so that Socrates can overcome the shame that he has for the city. Similarly, shame also occurs in this chapter because it…

In his emphasis on virtue and the search for guidance within it, Socrates applies his Socratic method in the Euthyphro, the Apology, and the Crito as a means to alter the fixed mindsets and behaviors of the antagonists that surround him. For example, the individual responsibility of moral obligation is defended by Socrates’ conceptual mode of his philosophical method in his tearing down of his subjects’ preconceived notions on a topic, such as that of ‘What is piety?’ in Plato’s Euthyphro. In…

Inside the story of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” we find prisoners held down by shackles inside a dark den with an only source of light that is fire behind them, as a result, that all they can see are shadows, until one day one prisoner breaks free and escape from the cavern and sees “reality”, but momentarily he gets temporary blindness because he wasn't adapted to light by the cause that all he saw in his life were shadows and darkness, after a while he explores and sees the sun he admires…

The Relativity of Truth Truth, traditionally defined, is that which is “in accord with fact or reality” (Merriam-Webster). Although our personal definitions of the word itself may vary slightly from this interpretation, truth remains integral to our understanding of reality. But, what if reevaluating the traditional definition of truth, could change our perception of reality? In Life of Pi, author Yann Martel challenges the conventional definition of truth with a more abstract interpretation:…