Sojourner Truth

Plato’s Republic deals with three central images, the sun, the line, and the cave. Through these images, Socrates explains to his student Glaucon the difference between sensory things and true thoughts and forms. Plato uses his allegory of the cave to assert that the masses are living in ignorant bliss and that it is the job of the philosopher, no matter the consequences, to spread enlightenment. In order to understand this, to first understand Plato’s other ideas from the Republic, those of the…

oppressors. Therefore to the prisoners, “the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images”(Plato 2). The prisoners may not be able to recognize the objects which first cast the shadows because the shadows are merely a projection of reality and do not represent an object in its entirety. The misconceptions of the prisoners demonstrate how seclusion from the outside world may deeply affect the understanding of an individual. The only truth would be the shadows, the prisoners…

higher realm. One must seek the truth and ultimate good in order to advance into another level, perhaps a fourth dimension. It is also possible that each individual controls his own destiny. For example, a prisoner could have chosen to stay in the cave and not walk towards the light and person watching a movie in a theatre can choose to accept it as reality or decide to seek the truth and leave the theatre. One must want to discover new ideas and strive for an ultimate truth to escape the…

Causal arguments are always invalid since there is no guarantee of any truth between the premises and the conclusion of the statement. Causal arguments base their truth on the degree of likelihood or probability as the cause of a certain circumstance. A causal argument asserts that there exists a correlation between the occurrences of two events in a particular situation. It asserts that the occurrence of one event is dependent on the other such that occurrence of “X” happened as a result of…

set their minds to find the truth within ourselves and in the universe. Philosophers set out to answer powerful questions like, “What is truth.” The question itself presents a multitude of more questions: “What defines truth,” “Who determines truth,” and etc. Hundreds of years have passed and there have been many that have attempted to find that answer. Philosophers such as Plato have dedicated their lives to study and pondered to discover the answer to “what is truth?” Those philosophers…

Differentiating Between Valid and Invalid Forms of Propositional Arguments Pages 164 – 175 of the textbook focuses on assessing valid forms versus invalid forms of propositional forms. It provides a brief description of what would be considered a valid argument and invalid argument. A valid argument passes the proper form test, while an invalid argument fails it. Five of the nine most used propositional arguments discusses are valid arguments. These valid forms include: the denying a disjunct,…

Skepticism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism all contain important truths. Skepticism is correct in saying that believing ideas to be certain which one cannot be certain of causes unhappiness. Stoics are not wrong that one’s perception of and response to events can cause happiness or unhappiness. Epicureans are right that rationally seeking pleasure may often cause one to find it. But when taken as one’s sole worldview, Epicureanism determines the best life for man. The central belief of Epicureanism…

Discoveries allow some individuals to experience powerful transformations whilst others remain rigid and inflexible in their thinking. The process of discovery allows one to discover the unknown or reconsider the known whilst having a positive or negative effect on them. Transformations can bring change in one’s attitude and thinking. This is certainly applicable to Ivan O’ Mahoney’s documentary, Go Back to Where You Came From, Judith Cofer’s short story, An Hour with Abuelo and James Devaney’s…

Socrates: Let me pose a situation to you, Pentheus; imagine there are people in a cave. These people have been there since childhood, with their bodies shackled so that they can only see that which is right in front of them. They are unable to turn their heads, and know no world except that which is in front of them. Pentheus: I can imagine this, of course. Socrates: Now imagine that there is a fire roaring behind them, and that this fire casts a light onto the wall of the cave in front of them.…

This essay aims to demonstrate that the demandingness objection has probative force against the theory of act utilitarianism. I will be arguing that act utilitarianism is false because it requires the agent to make very great sacrifices in order to maximise utility. This essay will be exploring Brink (1986) and Sobel’s (2007) response to the challenges faced by act utilitarianism. I will be using Williams’ (1973) argument to demonstrate the various problems act utilitarianism encounters when…