Historical materialism

If a mad scientist were to transplant half of my brain into someone else’s brainless body, and the other half of my brain into a second’s person’s brainless body, which person would I be? Would I be neither of them or would I be just one of them? Assuming that my personal “fission” could support all of my mental life, According to Parfit’s article Personal Identity, personal identity does not matter and that I would be the same person at first but afterwards both people will become different…

As we turn to the issue of atheism, I believe some framework is necessary. Atheism is typically defined as a lack of belief in God and it is in the definition of God that the issue arises. Clearly, the two philosophers have a different definition of the word God. As hopefully made clear in the second and third paragraph, Spinoza thinks that God is an impersonal summation of all things (i.e. substance), while Berkeley thinks that God is a personal, thinking thing responsible for but distinct from…

Epicurus’ atomism approach to life and reality is a materialistic one. In fact, Epicurus believed that only what is material is real, while all the rest is a simple product of the imagination of men. For instance, in his vision, the soul of a human being is made of atoms just like all other material things. He considered the soul the organ of perception from which sensation originates only when it works together with the rest of the human body. Furthermore, if the soul is material, when the body…

Locke disagrees with both Berkeley and Descartes regarding ideas and knowledge and how they are acquired. Locke claims that the way we come about knowledge is through careful experimentation and observation. In Locke’s theory of Materialism there are two sources that make up experience, Sensation and Reflection. Sensation is the source of our ideas of external objects like rivers, mountains and houses. For example viewing a yellow object, the object itself is not colored yellow it…

This view enters from Marxist theory of human history, where well-ordered historical stages create the successor stage as a direct consequence of the internal forces present within each stage (p86). The complexity of interaction within the parts of a whole are not, however, limited to within the ecological world. The social world…

eliminative materialism’s claim. In this section, I will highlight and review a number of reasonable objections to eliminativism, such as the Commonsense Objections to eliminative materialism, which suggests that it is completely absurd or self-refuting. I will conclude that many of the arguments set forth by Eliminative Materialism, are not really convincing and that eliminativism needs to do more than simply show that FP is largely wrong. COMMON -SENSE OBJECTIONS 1. EM is completely absurd! …

Shakespeare plays may seem outdated to modern eyes as the language is hard to understand, however, Shakespeare’s plays are just as relevant now as they were 400 years ago when he was writing them. This is due to their universal themes and the relatable characters. The themes of guilt and power are relevant not only in Macbeth, but also in modern day because human nature has not changed. The characters in Macbeth are relatable because the audience can identify the connections between situations…

a man who hides from the world and claims to be invisible due to his refusal for others to see who really is. Each novel is a fantastic read that leaves the reader extremely interested the entire way through, but does usefulness of the novel in historical research make…

As a new teacher working with lower performing ELLs, I was looking for that one particular tip or strategy that would improve their fluency levels in reading. My students were borderline students and were constantly exposed to failure. Many of these students had poor reading strategies and some were too intimidated to read beyond the first few sentences. I started with the most logical starting point - the text. Many textbooks often have more texts than are needed or texts which may not be…

Introduction Over the centuries, language has progressed along with human civilization. Some would argue this is what separate us from animals, more importantly however, through different forms of language we are able to express our intentions, share our thoughts and feelings and create better pedagogies for our students. Language can take on many forms, in its purest form language can be heard via oral communication (Fellows & Oakley, 2014), it can vary through, tone, pitch and different types…