The Worldly Philosophers

3. This quote comes from a sermon from Jonathan Edwards, a Calvinst preacher and philosopher, called [Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God]. In his sermon, Edwards uses descriptive and vivid phrases to describe the relationship between man and God. Using the metaphor "The Bow of God's Wrath" for God and his anger, he states that humans are sinful creatures that provoke God and bring upon his wrath. God is a powerful being who "without any Promise or Obligation at all" has no incentive to help…

In The Human Condition, philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt argues that the vita activa, or “active life,” is the fundamental condition of human existence. The human condition as described by Hannah Arendt is described into three fundamental activities. These are called Labor, Work and Action. To define action one must first understand what ‘labor’ is and what ‘work’ is and how these two are different from each other. Labor is that activity which corresponds to the biological…

In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses what he believes is the ultimate telos, or end goal, for humans. For every human, Aristotle believed that the fullest function of their abilities was to be happy. To Aristotle though, happiness is not subjective to individual people, as such, a human only reaches their telos when they are doing happy things with excellence and virtue. Does our modern culture actually fulfill their telos though, or we just concerned with the temporary…

Chapter 12 Assignment #5 12.6, 12.7 (Ryan Cho, Period Three APEC) Terms: John Wycliff, John Hus, Nepotism, Leo X, St. Peter’s Basilica. 1. John Wycliff was an English philosopher, reformer, and professor at Oxford University. He was born in 1331 and died in 1384. One of the reasons why Wycliffe became a big name in European countries because he opposed the clergy, which was central to a powerful role in England. He then went on and then attacked the luxury and pomp of local parishes and their…

(Fronsdal 2009). One limitation of following this path, however, is how counter-intuitive it is to natural human behavior. As a result, most Buddhists (aside from handfuls of monks) are never truly free from suffering, living out their lives chasing worldly pleasures and running from pain. An emerging ideology, Transhumanism, has a similar goal of freeing humans from suffering, but at the level of the entire species rather than individually. Its adherents believe that this can be achieved by…

were not entirely convinced of the argument. In an attempt to get his audience to understand his reasoning, Socrates decided to supply a more mathematical description because it is something the listeners were familiar with. Similar to how the philosopher must reach a conclusion by utilizing his knowledge of the Forms, “students of geometry, calculation, and the like…make their claims for the sake of the square itself and the diagonal itself, not the diagonal they draw, and similarly with the…

The principle that all events, including human actions or the environmental changes are ultimately determined by the causes regarded as external to the wheel and nothing is predetermined. Based on the assumptions which are constrained contradicts the idea of empowerment and minimizes the importance of human action and decision making, because a person is morally responsible for his conduct. Determinism is the modern name coined in the nineteenth century instead of Democritus, similarly the…

civic art of public speaking as it developed in deliberative assemblies, law courts, and other formal occasions under constitutional government” (Kennedy 3). In classical view, rhetoric has been living in our life with natural instinct; however, philosophers, educators, and religious leaders has discovered more affective and exquisite rhetoric as rhetoric came to focus. The book introduces Rhetoric of Aristotle. Rhetoric became more useful and prevalent due to democracy of all men in Greek. As…

guardians’ education, upbringing, lifestyle, soul, diet, training etc. are all put into account when training to become a guardian. The guardians are brought up with meticulous planning, from their childhood they would to go through training to become philosophers who are noble in character, stay true…

that they are willing to die for their own beliefs, such as Ignatius, Polycarp, and Jesus Christ. These people, like Socrates, have lived lives of deeper examination, have studied the liberal arts, and have found a sense of self as a result. Any worldly ties they could have had are severed because of the assurance many possess that their souls will remain intact after they walk on the earth. This assurance is a result of both the answers they have found and the answers they have not, and the…