Metaphysics

As a result of the increasing disorder in the universe, time has directionality, or the appearance of directionality fabricated by the human mind. Against all odds, complex human beings evolved in the face of expanding entropy, but with the inception of self-awareness humans were bound to think about life’s antithesis—the unavoidable, looming presence of death. For the duration of human life, one’s corporeal self is trapped in the present, simply existing, while one’s mind is able to wonder…

In his book, Free Will, author Sam Harris argues that the premises of free will, [1] “that each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past” and [2] “that we are the conscious source of most of our thoughts, [intensions] and actions in the present” are false. Harris begins his argument by explaining that free will is an illusion because it is not our own making. Harris explains that our thoughts and intentions are the product of our unconscious mind. The point of origin of…

René Descartes, the famous French philosopher and brilliant 17th century Scholar is credited worldwide as the founder of modern western philosophy for his works in the fields of Ontology – a branch of metaphysics regarding the ‘nature of being’- and Epistemology – the study of knowledge. What set him apart from the ancient philosophers was his avoidance of the scholastic traditions to write only in Latin (the language that only highly educated people were trained in) and instead wrote in French…

In the beginning of our book we learned about what philosophy means, the ultimate aim of philosophy, and we learned about critical thinking. Philosophy is “the love or pursuit of wisdom” (p5). After learning a good way to describe philosophy, we met a female philosopher named Perictione. She believed humanity exists in order to contemplate the principle of the nature of the whole (p5). Moving on to the ultimate aim of philosophy, we learn some of the goals of philosophy. A couple of these goals…

One of the mostly wildly disagreed upon moral topic of our time is that of Homosexuality. It can be interesting to discuss the different viewpoints, the first view point will be that of Kant and his Categorical Imperative. In Kantian metaphysics, it is stated that one can never know the thing as it truly is in itself, which was called the “noumena”, he also stated that one can only see events as they directly appear to humans, this then makes it impossible for man to make any metaphysical…

Introduction The teachings of Gita contain the cream of the Vedas and Upanishads. Therefore those read Gita carefully need not to read all Vedas and Upanishad. Gita is a universal scripture message of which is universally applicable anywhere, anytime and at any place. One should not forget basic knowledge given in Gita therefore he/she should recite it every day. It means one should always remain connected with this supreme reality. All religious teachings ask people to remain connected with…

Introduction to Philosophy (U73100) Title of essay: Is the Mind/Brain identity theory a defensible position? In this essay I will show that the mind/brain identity theory is the only logically defensible position when it comes to the mind/body problem. To do this I will be looking at the most popular arguments and positions concerning the mind body problem. I will begin by discussing what is meant by the term 'mind body problem', the mind body problem is a philosophical issue concerning…

Kant differentiates between two types of judgements, those being Empiricism and Rationalism. Rationalism or analytic judgement depends wholly on the Law of Contradiction and a priori knowledge. “It expresses nothing in the predicate but what has been already actually thought in the concept of the subject, though not so distinctly or with the same (full) consciousness.” (Fieser & Lillegard, 2005, p. 351) Empiricism or synthetic judgement which “require a different Principle from the Law of…

a revision of Berkeleyan idealism, a doctrine which proclaims that there are no external material bodies, and all that exists in the world are minds and ideas. Before the first and the second editions of the Critique, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics was released, in which Kant both clarifies points made in the Critique and responds this accusation (Heide 26 Nov). This paper will first explicate his account of transcendental idealism as found in the Critique and compare it to the reply to…

The Allegory of the Cave is an intensely influential philosophical work by Plato, a philosopher in Classical Greece. It comes from a larger dialogue called The Republic which is spoken from the point of view of Socrates, Plato’s teacher. Plato writes in the allegory about how humans can come to knowledge and about reality. Not too long after his time period, Christianity came into existence. Christianity is based on the teachings and work of Jesus. Jesus lived when Rome was the world power, not…