Marxist philosophy

François-Marie Arouet, one of France’s greatest Enlightenment writers, better known by his pen name Voltaire, wrote the satirical novella Candide that targets the church, nobility, and the French government. It was first published in January or February of 1759 by numerous publishers including Gabriel Cramer, MArc Michel Rey, Jean Nourse, Lambert and others. This book was chosen for me to critique because Voltaire is one of the philosophers that we are currently learning about in class. This…

Along with Socrates, Plato continued building philosophy around the conception of the divine attributes of the universe, termed ideal forms by Socrates. These ideas resembled the Pre-Socratic notions of the mind, being, and logos. The search for reality requires intense contemplation and intuition, years of study, and mastery on the nature of the universe, the shape of the world, the soul and its immortality, human thought, psychology, and politics, but they lacked the empirical focus that…

Name: Course: Title: Date: KANT’S GROUNDING FOR THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALS 1. Deontology is the view of the act to be moral or not moral from the action done. In deontology, the consequences that an action may impact to individuals are not considered but rather, the logic behind the action is determined. Consequences should not be used to justify the good in any action, “a good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes” (Ross 33). Such action should arise from the duty, and law…

Ethical decision making is a part of life and provides a glance of an individual’s character. This document centers on the decision that Lauren was required to reach regarding a quality management issue that arisen during testing of a client’s product. It provides a brief account of the problem and the systematic phases that were in use to derive a decision of what course to follow. To formulate this decision a framework was utilized that outlined what questions needed to be answered. These…

Kantian ethics and the ethics of Kant are fundamentally separate ideas. The ethical framework Kant laid out in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of morals can be interpreted in a way which Kant himself would not adopt. This framework is based upon his three categorical imperatives, which Kant suggests our synonymous with each other. Later however, I will show how through a different application of Kantian ethics, one can radically diverge from his viewpoint, to disagree with Kant’s argument that…

The major role and function of Kant’s categorical imperative is basically to define a mechanism and an approach through which an individual can judge and determine if his actions are moral or not (Paton, 1948). In applying his categorical imperative, Kant argues that the fundamental of moral actions or acts are that they are applied and used in a universal manner. In today’s rich cultural as well as diverse community, the need for universality has become highly problematic. The fundamental…

Reason is not necessarily the means to the better life, or towards procuring ‘the good,’ from the view of these latter thinkers. It seems that Nietzsche would problematize the allegory of the den, in this respect, to no end. From a Nietzschean perspective, the relativity of our values, and the ways they merely reflect the power dynamics and social and political undercurrents of our age, begs the question of their effect on our reason (Nietzsche, 1989, p.46-47). The supposed ‘good’ or ‘moral…

Is our universe one complicated computer game with us being mere artificial intelligence made of ones and zeros? This is a strange question, one that I believe cannot be totally disproven or proven but what can we know no matter the answer? The philosopher Descartes wrestled with similar questions. He was concerned about the nature of our reality and more specifically the nature of our knowledge. (Descartes 166-167) He wanted to form a base for knowledge and a method to prove that what we know…

The journey to a philosophical way of thought In class, one of the assignments was to watch a video called Plato’s Allegory Of The Cave. While watching the video, a voice spoke as the story unfolded describing animated prisoners chained from their necks and bodies to a rail where they could only watch a wall in front of them to never be able to see what was around. On that wall their shadows were displayed. Over time, the fire from a distance would continue and someone would begin to maneuver…

My philosophy of religion and my philosophy of philosophy are marginally diverse than the way people may evaluate religion, before I share my thoughts, allow me to provide you some background of my life. Being born at the end of the 60’s and the turn of a new decade, gone were the flower power days and enter soul power, power to the people, and the Black and I’m proud movement. The ethnic temperature of that period remained extremely hot in the nation while growing up in North Philadelphia. My…