Rationalism

Intro: The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment are typically taught alongside one another and share connections. The Scientific Revolution was first brought about around the year 1540 and continued until the 1700s. European scholars used the time to understand the fundamentals in which the natural world worked, which are used in modern science today. Rather than be called scientists, they referred to themselves as natural philosophers instead. The Enlightenment began after the…

people a growing awareness of deepening connections between the local and the distant.”(J, Campbell, 4) Westernization is usually known as a particular type of universalize in which the social structures of modernity (capitalism, industrialism, rationalism, urbanism, etc.) are spread the world over, destroying the cultures and local…

The three questions that each person attempts to answer before they die are who am I, where am I going, and why am I here. These questions can only be answered by an extensive look at an individual’s world view, especially the reality, knowing, God, humanity, and ethics of that individual. How you answer the three questions also depends on the “door” that you enter from when looking for the answer. The two big examples of a world view that we looked at in class were the Humanist Manifesto, and…

German Idealism. Names such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are all in the realm of German Idealism, each bringing their own ideas to complete the system of philosophy itself, and specifically destroy, defend, or further develop the concept of human rationalism. There is an agglomeration of world-renowned philosophers in the era of German Idealism, but this essay will focus on only two, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854). After reading parts of…

concepts to light. However, the Enlightenment does not have a true location, rather it was a global convergence of thoughts. These thoughts had different manifestations in different countries. In all countries, the Enlightenment marked a shift towards rationalism also known as the “Age of Reason.” The biggest events of the Enlightenment that specifically urged political liberalism were the French and American revolutions that created new political orders and changed the understanding of politics…

away, the analogy of a painter who gets vision concludes that arithmetic is pure cerebral research, and more particular compared to astronomy and science. They are a fundamental step from the reliance of senses by Aristotle and rely on Cartesian rationalism. These meditations follow the St. Ignatius model of Loyola’s spiritual practices. The beginning stage of the Jesuit practice is to eliminate material attachment and the bad word. In the first meditation, Descartes take us through the same…

The papacy has stretched over the course of 1982 years from the first pope Peter the Apostle to the current pope Francis I. There have been popes who have wielded great amounts of power like Innocent III and those who did not wield much power like the modern day popes. There were those who were immoral like Alexander VI and those who were kind hearted with a servant attitude like John Paul II. Throughout the reigns of the 256 popes from Peter to Francis, they were seen as spiritual leaders. For…

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were two leading forms of feminism; liberal feminism and socialist feminism. Women HAVE been subordinate to men throughout most, if not all, of European history. The main point of argumentation between these two types of feminism regards how and why this subjection occurred in the first place and the steps needed to be taken to emancipate women from this status. Most individuals believe that in order to completely and successfully emancipate…

A Personal Philosophy of Education Education is the foundation of society. It will take place in the home, in the school, and in the community. People educate based on what they believe, and what they believe is formed through their experiences. Having taught for a quarter of a century, my education is still ongoing; teaching is a craft to be honed throughout the course of a lifetime. As the country and the world wrestle with new ideas, the means and methods of education will change, but the…

When to trust your gut instinct As an advocate for rationalism, I’ve recently been troubled by a conviction formed by countless hours at the poker table: that there is something to gut instinct. This does not sit well with me, since I strongly value the use of evidence and reason in forming beliefs. And the conviction is strong even though I’m fully cognisant that it’s based on anecdotal evidence, a sample of one person’s experience, and is possibly subject to a litany of confirmation biases.…