Philosophy of language

One of the many subjects that Aristotle tackles in The Nicomachean Ethics is the concept and practice of friendship. Aristotle himself sets three requirements for friendship, as well as three separate categories for friendship, the categories being, utility based, pleasure based, and virtues based. While Aristotle does state that a virtue based friendship is the strongest, one could also put forth the argument that friendship only exists for the benefits of utility that come from friendship,…

In the Republic, Plato discusses and relates the three topics that are central to one lives, education, justice, and happiness. Through his definitions of these three topics, he considers how a society can achieve the proper education, justice, and happiness leading to his understanding of human nature. Plato addresses the close relation between being just and happy to the education received in society. The relationship between education, justice, and happiness depends on Plato’s understanding…

virtuous character”(Vaughn 808). Although both Aquinas and Aristotle had different approaches to virtue ethics, there was a consensus on what virtue ethics ultimately is. In terms of both stances, I would have to agree more with the Aristotelian philosophy on virtue ethics and what he wrote on the subject. Aristotle said that a virtuous person was someone who has ideal character traits (Athanassoulis). James Rachel,…

Math and science leaves the realms of emotion, religion and metaphors to hopefully one day enter a higher level of knowledge about this world. Philosophically, there are those that choose aesthetic language in hopes of reaching actual reality through describing objects and this world with severe abstraction. Yet, this can become absurd, because as one tries desperately to use linguistic abstraction to reduce objects and their container (existence) into…

Christopher McCandless, the protagonist of the movie Into the Wild sheds his identity and life behind in exchange for the life of Alexander Supertramp who lives by transcendentalist values and ideals. He as well as the people he meets adopt beliefs similar to transcendentalist philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In Into the Wild both philosophers and Christopher believe that a man must live and think truly independent of himself, modest and in pursuit of knowledge. They…

Without a doubt everything we do in life is uncertain. This ambiguous trait of life is what keeps life full of interest, but this also provides significance and value in the real world. However, up front the duality of human nature should be taken into account. Duality in psychology is important for our lives as it is a ‘twofold’ division. There can be two separate and independent forces or ways in order to think but at the end of the day both are equal, and have the same logical reasoning…

Paradise Lost holds some of the greatest literary elements throughout its series of books. This work, by John Milton, showcases many persuasive skills and rhetoric. Aristotle once stated that rhetoric classifies as “the ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion.” Among the three main arguments in Paradise Lost, each carry, at least, one form of Aristotle’s rhetorics: Ethos, Pathos, and/or Logos. Whether it be Eve persuading Adam, or Satan persuading Eve, each…

The terms of “good” and “evil” have been defined in different ways by a considerable number of sources. According to the Oxford Dictionary “good” means “having the required qualities, of a high standard; possessing or displaying moral virtue” and “evil” stands for “profoundly immoral and wicked.” What might at first seem like a clear opposition between the two concepts becomes extra complex after a thorough study. The dichotomy between good and evil has been heavily discussed by critics, whether…

Transcendentalism is not a religion, but way of thought. Although each transcendentalist holds different beliefs close to them, the main ideas are the same; to be alone, to be self reliant, and to be in nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the writer of The Scarlet Letter, was himself a transcendentalist who believed that religious persecution was wrong, and that separation of church and state was essential; he uses the Puritans to illustrate this. Hawthorne “added a 'w' to distinguish himself from the…

In this article, Stephen T. Asma claims that play is valuable to humans. The first reason he gave is that play is vital for humanity. Asma further supported this by using Nietzsche’s three-step development in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The development describes the process of spiritual transformation symbolically represented by the camel, lion and child. The focus is on the transformation from carrying obligations as a camel, to rebellion for its freedom as a lion to finally evolving into…