Critical theory is, in my opinion, best defined by Marx(1843), as the ‘self-clarification of struggles and wishes of the age’, a general applicable definition that does not take into consideration a specific historical time, place or political problem. In order to talk about critical theory and its genuinely critical features I believe it is essential to make a clear distinction between critical theories and scientific theories. According to Frankfurt School there are 3 main categories of…
Locke’s Essays on Human Understanding continue to be taught, discussed and debated today. In particular, Locke’s personal identity theory is considered to still be extremely relevant in modern times. In personal identity theory Locke explains the distinction between the definition of words, such as human, person and substance, which he claims are often used to convey the same meaning. Then Locke discusses the main factor that suggests the sameness of personal identity – consciousness, and…
essential materials included in the building of the house, it would merely be a pile of bricks with no structure and meaning. Henri Poincare uses this house as a metaphor for science. He ultimately compares the building of a house to shaping a stream of theories and facts into logical text. The relationship between the parts and the bricks must be significant in completing the task. Without this relationship between the parts and the bricks,…
People become addicts because of the need for something that they do not have. And they do not have it because of their childhoods. His theory would even explain why people do not have addiction problems until perhaps fifty years after the trauma. It would most likely be because of a trigger that would cause them to lose the…
In the Living on Earth radio segment the host interviews Chris Mooney, the author of the book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future. The host and Mooney discuses a 2009 Pew Research center poll that found that most Americans don’t believe humans have induced climate change. Mooney argues in the interview — and in his book— that there is a growing gap between scientists and the public. He argues that sciences has been politicalized in recent year, and he mentions…
Introduction This paper reviews the views of Samuel Hellman and Henry Beecher and their contrasting views on human experimentation. Hellman states that human experimentation is inherently wrong, while Beecher states that it was accidentally wrong. Hellman justifies his position from the perspective of patient-centered care, and against the notion of clinical equipoise. In contrast to Hellman, Beecher, justifies his position based upon past experiments, their flaws, and how to change procedures…
completely different things. Science deals with our understanding of the physical world around us. With science, we make observations that cause us to form theories as to why certain things happen. We then actively try to disprove or falsify those theories. By actively testing the theory with the intent of disproving it, we further support the theory. However, pseudoscience is a belief that is often presented as being scientific, but does not hold up against the scientific method because it…
Chapter 10 in Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science is called “Why Clever People Believe Stupid Things” and the title alone hints what the upcoming theories will be about. When I read the title of the chapter, the first thing I thought about was superstitions and luck. As I read on, I discovered that the theory does actually touch upon the topic of luck. The Randomness theory discusses how humans have a habit of making something out of nothing (Goldacre, 2008). Goldacre provides a few example of this,…
justified truth. Throughout this semester I was introduced to each of the different theories of epistemology and how they apply to different people’s lives. Epistemology involves a numerous amount of theories, but four of the theories in particular caught my attention. The four theories that I was able to directly and indirectly analyze were: the correspondence theory, nihilism, empiricism, and relativism. Each of these theories differ in many ways but, all have a solid explanation as to why…
time and broke down this one definition of science we would see that it talks about behavior in a physical and natural world through observation and experiment just as when we are taught about psychology we learn experiments have been done to test theories. Psychology is defined as the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context. Right there in the definition is the word scientific so I believe that right there is proof enough that…