Is a knower's personal point of view an asset or an obstacle to be overcome in his pursuit of knowledge?
John /03/03 Is a knower's personal point of view an asset or an obstacle to be overcome in his pursuit of knowledge? People have positions from which something is observed or considered, which can be influenced by previous experiences and beliefs, culture, and mostly emotion. Our schema is based on this viewpoint and is influenced by the above factors. Reasoning is affected by emotion, one of the most prominent problems of knowledge. An irresponsible knower will take one point of view and dismiss other proof. Emotion can both enhance and undermine reasoning as a way of knowing. If a knower believed a problem of knowledge to be true, he would spend all his time and effort in proving it. The knower will be so preoccupied in debating his belief and believing that it is true that he won't consider other proof or the debater's view. When emotions are involved in beliefs, the beliefs are most likely biased and reasoning is curtailed. Reasoning will be enhanced because of the emotion aspect. Beliefs affect us in our every day life. They affect our actions, our interactions with people, and even our eating habits. If we believe that it is important to eat well then we are not going to eat cookies for lunch, instead we would try to eat something healthy, such as a sandwich or fruit. If we believe that the ozone layer is deteriorating
Does Utilitarianism or Kant’S Moral Thory Present a Totally Satisfactory Theory of Ethics?
Does Utilitarianism or Kant’S Moral Thory Present a Totally Satisfactory Theory of
Explain in detail the Islamic understanding of God.
. Explain in detail the Islamic understanding of God (20) 2. Explain 'al Qa'dir and discuss the view it is souly the responsibility of humans to determine their places in the afterlife. . The fact that there is only one word for God "Allah" makes him unique and emphasises the fact that there is only One God. To a Muslim, Allah is the Almighty, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him. The essence of the Islamic understanding is of monotheism and the unity of God. It is commonly misunderstood by non-Muslims that Allah is a stern, cruel unforgiving God, one who must be obeyed fully despite the fact that he is neither loving or kind. However this is not true and this is drawn out by each of the Quran's begining with the verse: "In the name of Almighty God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." In one of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, we are told that "God is more loving and kinder than a mother to her dear child." But God, Who is just, He can't allow those who do evil and commit sins to escape punishment. Also, he cannot allow those who lead a good religious life to go unrewarded. In fact, his mercy is shown fully in his belief in good justice. People who suffer during their lives for His sake, and those who oppress and exploit others, should not expect similar treatment from Allah. This denial would also negate
Looking at Aldous Huxley's, A Brave New World.
After reading and studying René Descartes, I find his ideas and theories to be rather weak. They are feeble as a result of his "cogito ergo sum" belief, the Christian audience he is writing to, and his rationalist approach to believing facts to be true. The cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) is an unsubstantial basis for Descartes to build the rest of his beliefs upon. The reader has no choice but to accept this base in order to move onto understanding the rest of Descartes' ideas. If the reader does not agree with cogito ergo sum, then he is left nowhere with Descartes. From there, Descartes goes on to prove God to exist, and exist as one who does not deceive. However, when I look at the audience to whom Descartes writes, it becomes evident that it is a Christian audience. He writes to the Faculty of Sacred Theology of the University of Paris. If he was to be taken the least bit seriously, there is no way that Descartes could have proved anything but the existence of God in accordance with the Christian perception. In connection with the first two, a third weakness of Descartes is his rationalistic general rule that the Light of Nature makes clear to him what is true. Descartes believes that something must be true if his mind cannot doubt it. What his mind sees as that clear and distinct must be true. What if he is not in control of his mind? When looking
Does God Exist?
Does God Exist? In this essay I am going to explore and analyse arguments concerning the existence of God. I will be investigating all the different beliefs about God from Christians including: 'Moral and Divine Command', 'Ontological', 'Cosmological' and the argument from design. These areas of belief will all be fully considered and analysed in depth. After doing this, I will therefore come to a conclusion of my own sort and explain my own beliefs and there reasons. For many centuries people have believed in this figure called 'God', who apparently created the World, everything inside it and around it. Some people have had experiences involving him and just believe what is written in the Christian holy book, what they call the 'Bible'. There are many stories in this book, which mention of 'God', his son and how the World came about. But can people judge what it says in a book without any real evidence? Can they believe other people's experiences with this amazing concept of 'God'? Within the next few paragraphs I will look at evidence that backs up and doesn't back up so called 'God's' existence. There are surprisingly very many arguments which support the existence of 'God'. They even have proper names to go by, and most Christians believe in one of these arguments. I have listed them in the first introduction paragraph, but I will now begin my analysis of each
Explain why some Christians join communities and take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
(a)(ii) - Explain why some Christians join communities and take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience People like nuns join specific religious orders like the missionaries of charity because they could be compelled to help people, for example they could see children suffering on television or something and want to help them. They are called by God to help through apostolic or contemplative work, it is their vocation. People who live contemplative lives are involved in a state of mind focused on God, a person who goes out to seek to live with a permanent awareness of God's presence. Contemplatives read and meditate on the scripture in order to understand God's purpose and to experience his love in their lives. They are usually cut off from the secular world to create space to focus on one interiority, there is insularity (insula is Latin for island). Contemplation enables a Christian t experience the whole of life with all its sorrow also with all its joy. A lot of contemplative orders are on islands away from secular society. A good example of a contemplative life is the Carthusians, who dedicate their lives to God in a solitary manner. Apostolic life involves going out and teaching or helping others, so people evangelise through both contemplative life (by praying for those in need), and by apostolic work (by going out and physically helping the needy). They are
Describe what the followers of the religion which you are studying may believe about the power of good and the power of evil.
AO1: Describe what the followers of the religion which you are studying may believe about the power of good and the power of evil Most of religion is to do with the ideas of good and evil. However, it is often difficult to define exactly what these words mean. We might say that a lot of things we like are 'good', and the things we dislike are 'bad', rather than evil. Something which is evil is not just something which we don't like but is usually something which can cause harm to people. If we believe in God, then we should always do good things, because God is good, but evil things still occur in the world, like wars, famine, murder. This has led people to believe in the power of evil, a force that persuades people to do evil and wrong things. Some Christians might say that although God wants us to follow his rules, even though evil does exist. Other people say that the evil force is simply a weakness or a flaw in human beings, and that we have the choice whether or not to do evil, as evil only tempts us, ultimately we are the ones who choose whether or not to do it and cannot be forced into it. One of the questions which people often ask is why God lets evil happen in the world when he is supposed to be good. Christianity tries to produce an answer to this question. It also teaches us that one of the most important things about the relationship between people and God is
The Glass Prison
Analysis of Chosen Prose Lyrics:- The Glass Prison The Glass Prison deals with alcoholism and the way to get rid of the addiction; alone in the first moment, then through the support of Alcoholics Anonymous. The lyrics are dedicated to "Bill W and his friends". Bill Wilson is co-founder of AA, an organization that recovers alcoholics through religion and a 12-step program, which must be followed strictly for complete recovery. The "Glass Prison" is a metaphor for the bottle of an alcoholic beverage, which "locks" the alcoholic inside the addiction. The song has a strong religious tone, based on the AA method of recovering alcoholics through the Bible and its messages. Some passages of the Bible, as well as references to famous quotes, are spread throughout the song. The 3 parts in which the song is divided sum up the stages of recovery: Reflection, Restoration and Revelation. These are the 3 major points of recovery: a) Reflection: "That we were alcoholics and couldn't manage our own lives" b) Restoration: "That, probably, no human power could drive us away from alcoholism" c) Revelation: "That God could do it, and so he would, if he was asked" I. Reflection: the person realizes that he has a problem, tries to get rid of it by himself, but does not resist and falls into addiction again. Lines 1-24: Talk about the effects of abstinence; the character tries to get rid
Can Sympathy Provide A Satisfactory Basis For Morality?
Can Sympathy Provide A Satisfactory Basis For Morality? Western philosophy has provided many attempts to unravel the complex problem of human morality and to provide answers to questions such as 'how can I be moral?' and more generally to questions such as 'What is morality?'. One prominent line of thought, which can be traced back to the writings of Cicero places sympathy or a kind of fellow feeling as the basis for morality. It is this particular idea, whether or not sympathy can provide a sound basis for morality, that I am going to explore over the course of this study with particular reference to the writings of the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) in two of his principle works A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). For Hume, sympathy is an essential feature of the way humans communicate and in particular communication of feelings from one individual to another, such that if one person sees a misfortune befall another they will, in some sense, share in the pain of that misfortune. Hume's moral philosophy is unusual in that it seems to present us with less of a moral philosophy than a socio-psychological account of why humans in general act in the moral way that they do. As the central idea within this question is the suitability of sympathy as a basis for morality, it will be helpful to offer
The Verification principle and the Falsification principle
The Verification principle and the Falsification principle The verification principle was devised by a group of philosophers who called themselves the logical positivists. They were influenced by many philosophers one was Wittgenstein and is 'picture theory of language' Wittgenstein's theory was that a statement can only be meaningful if it can be pictured and/or defined in the real world. Thus only assertions of statements that were in principle, verifiable could convey factual information as they have the means to be tested. The logical positivists had three statement types: Analytical- being self-explanatory for example, 'a circle is round'. Such statements cannot be proved wrong because they have the means to prove it. Mathematical- such statements are much like analytical statements because they have the means to prove their truth, e.g. two plus two does indeed equal four. Synthetic- theses statements are different from both analytical and mathematical as they can be proved true or false by testing. For example 'there is a giant obelisk in your bedroom!' one can prove this to be true by simply getting up and looking in ones room. The verification principle demands that only empirical statement have meaning as observations verify them. Therefore if there is a statement that does not fall under synthetic, mathematical or analytical, is nonsense. However the VP