Philosophy Final Essay

Question genius In Platos work The Apology Socrates is on tryout for terce distinct subjects Firstly, Socrates fell out of favor with the g everywherenment (who were evermore berated for be ignorant by Socrates in a fashion) and so the sought to uproot him by accusing him of non paying favors to the beau headls for whom the citizenry worshipped. Secondly, Socrates was on trial for impiety. Lastly, Socrates was on trial and sentenced to death for corruption of the young. Socrates attempted to defend himself in front of the Senate by using his famous Socratic method as revealed in Platos pages of The Apology. He bantered and lead the court officials around in a dialogue fashion, asking un beliefs in order so that they would gull to answer them themselves and so prove Socrates point in a question answer dialogue. The dialectic art of arriving at the was the system Socrates apply. In this learn he would arrive at the answer by questioning the belief of engaged speaker sys tems in a philosophic circle, or in this cheek, in a courtroom hearing.Although this idea of philosophic system may come crossways as non-confrontational, Socrates used this method to verb altogethery jab at the speaker until they themselves found fault in their ism, and through a system of prohibit or positive responses came to recognize the right Thus, Socrates sought to find justness for himself by only asking questions, leaving the answers up to the officials. This type of philosophy has been give cargonned to a cross examination present in todays court rooms, where the mortal d birth the stairs oath is asked a series of questions that atomic number 18 both destructive and humiliating, until they argon forced to acknowledge the truth, much like the arguments around Socrates.The aim of such confrontational questioning was always virtually finding the ultimate truth, and in this court case it seems that Socrates failed be arrive the case eventually lead to his d emise. Socrates believed that this truth seeking was the main goal of philosophy, and philosophical discussions, and he believed that everyone involved with the account was in pursuit of this goal as well It was this optimism that lead to his downfall in a way.Socrates could be considered a martyr. It was his stand against the politics at the time which lead to the eventual closing of the Thirty Tyrants, but when democracy came back into place, they then chastised Socrates be antecedent of his pull with the young crowd. The definition of a martyr is a mortal who dies for a cause. Socrates cause was for truth and wisdom that is what he taught the crowd which followed him about the city (and which attracted the disapproval of the democracy who felt Socrates had too much power and sway everyplace the citizenry and fe ard an uprising) and in the end, those were the causes for which he died.In The Apology Plato writes of a flick where Crito offers Socrates the opportunity to esca pe from prison, but Socrates forbids it stating that it would go against democracy for which he stood and it would be a deceitful act which is the opposite of truth, for which he based his philosophy. Thus, Socrates is offered with a form of escape which he denies, on that pointby choosing death testamentingly for his beliefs, the accepted definition of a martyr. Socrates allow foringly or sooner knowingly accepts his specify as g overned by the ones whose democracy he upheld and it was through this act that Socrates was qualified to demonstrate philosophy in action.Question TwoAs to the public of god, Descartes deems that this should be accounted for next to discovering what knowledge is. Descartes explanation of divinity and hu valet de chambre beings call for an innate sense of the presence of god. He began by thinking that the cause of any idea is as real as the center of verbalise idea. Since his idea of a Supreme Being or god infinite, and then the cause of this idea of infinity essential likewise be unfading and according to his belief, only the real god is boundless.Thus, the cause for the beingness of god chiffoniernot be piece beings because we ar not infinite and we atomic number 18 mortal. in that respect must be a cause of this Supreme Beings existence which is outside the human race. Based on Meditation III, Descartes verbalized my idea of god cannot be either adventitious or factitious (since I could neither experience god directly nor discover the thought of perfection in myself), so it must be innately provided by god. Therefore, god exists.It was Rene Descartes who delivered a first systematic account of the encephalon/ ashes coincidenceship (Descartes 1). Descartes dualism theory enjoins that mind is a non tangible substance (Descartes 1). Further, he differentiated mind from brain. He attributed consciousness and self-awareness to the mind part knowledge is contained in the brain.Descartes used his Meditations on First Philosophy to make certain what he is in doubt before regarding the existence of the mind and body. Because of this, he was able to take a hint that mind and body are two different things. He advocated that the mind is used for thinking, thus, it is pert and can exist even without the body. This immaterial and non-physical content of the mind then he called as the soul. And therefore, the mind is a substance distinct from the body, a substance whose essence is thought (Descartes 12).Based on this perspective, Cartesian dualism became a fortification of future theories. It champions the idea of the immaterial mind and the material body. Even if these are two different entities, they interact to create actions and events reversibly involving mental and physical activities. Despite near(prenominal) non-European supporters of Cartesian dualism, this gave rise to the problem of interactionism wherein it averts the impossibility of interaction between an immaterial and mate rial entity, the mind and body respectively.To defend these criticisms of Cartesian dualism, Descartes formulated an explanation through the pineal gland theory. This gland is hardened in the center of the brain between the left and right hemisphere, from which the immaterial mind and the material body purportedly interacts. However, this has remained a theory up to this time since Descartes failed to defend such idea of the causal interaction of the mind and body through the pineal gland.Question ThreeKants deontology ethics involves the belief of actions being im nigh condescension the outcome. Kant did not put trust in the consequences of pluralitys actions but the actions themselves thus leaving the piece of a scenario out of the equation of virtuousity. This ethical stance was part of Kants philosophy and he believed that the absolutism of deontology was the correct course of action despite circumstances.For nerd on the other(a) hand, his theory of utilitarianism was in stark lineage to Kants theory of deontology. Utilitarianism speaks toward the action of a person directly results the outcome. Thus, the truth is always the correct path in Kants philosophy while the outcome of a lie being the pathway to truth or justice is the course of lollygags philosophy.In a website where Kant and Mill were able to converse, there would be several issues on which they would agree, as well as many a(prenominal) on which they would fervently argue. With Mills dedication to the understanding of natural sciences/economy, and his studies into the harm theory as it applies to humanity, he would be at odds with the strong religious conviction of Kant. For Kant, the existence of God was the dogma motivating factor of his studies. His work dealt with the constructing an adequate theory-based argument for the existence of God. (Rossi) His early work was founded on, rather than the demonstration of God as a being to be worshipped, the idea that God was fundament ally provable through mathematics.Kant will argue that the concept of God properly functions only as a regulative i.e., limiting principle in causal accounts of the spatio-temporal order of the serviceman. Kants critical philosophy thus undercuts what rationalist metaphysics had offered as proofs for the existence of God. On the other hand, the critical philosophy does more than simply dismantle the conceptual scaffolding on which foregoing philosophical accounts of the concept of God had been constructed. (Rossi)To this end, Kant spent his life in composition of the pursuit of finding God in science and mathematics that man had developed. John Stuart Mill, on the other hand, felt that the harm principle was the sentiment factors of world existence. John Stuart Mills argues in On intimacy that the use of the harm theory, or harm principle is that a state of political relation must ensure the quality of liberty just so long as the actions committed in the cause of liberty a re not detrimental to the activists. That is to enjoin that the government may interfere in order to prevent harm. The following paper will discuss Mills harm principle and its application to government in regards to restrictions and controls. Mill argues for the doctrine of liberty. Mill means to gear up the role of a person in society and as such the limited amount of compulsion consistent in society that should affect that individual, No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government and none is completely free in which they do exist infinite and unqualified (Mill). Mill is stating that although these qualities are liberty come at a cost in no society would they be considered free because of the forms of government in which the world adheres.Question FourNietzsche restricts the presence of God in his equation by saying that the concepts of practised and evil have changed with the advancement of history and t hat these two paradigms of human behavior and secular code will continue to evolve toward the demands of a changing society. Nietzsche, therefore, makes the argument that ethics are constructs of the times in which we will and have evolved much as human beings have over the ages, but that this is not necessarily a mature thing because it is meant as a manner of preventing others from having control over us. This is because people inherently wish to exercise power over others and morals are a way of leveling things off so that the strongest members of society do not dominate, as Nietzsche emphasizes,The pathos of nobility and distance, as mentioned, the lasting and despotic judgment, something total and complete, of a higher ruling nature in relation to a lower nature, to an beneaththat is the origin of the opposition between good and bad. (The right of the acquire to give names extends so far that we could permission ourselves to grasp the origin of language itself as an expre ssion of the power of the rulers they say that is such and such, seal every object and event with a decease and, in so doing, take possession of it.) (Nietzsche)In the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche presents his idea about the morality of human beings and why it is flawed Nietzsche begins by discounting many of societys assumptions on how they function in life, as he believes that we tend to view things as having inherent meaningsBut all purposes, all uses, are only signs that a will to power has become master over something with less power and has stamped on it its own meaning of some function, and the entire history of a thing, an organ, a practice can by this process be seen as a continuing chain of signs of constantly new interpretations and adjustments, whose causes need not be connected to each otherthey rather follow and take over from each other under merely contingent circumstances. (Nietzsche)Nietzsche uses penalty as an example in this case, as human beings te nd to believe that penalisation is an action that happens to a person as a result of that person doing something that he or she deserves to be punished, although counter to this Nietzsche also states that suffering is meaningless and therefore, punishment may also with Nietzches own philosophy be meaningless. He would argue that punishment is completely separate from this, however, as punishment is very often used as a way of presenting off ones power or in some cases, as an act of cruelty. This suggests that the punishment does not always fit the crime, as the clich is written, so those two things should not necessarily be associated with each other.It cannot be understood how these two things are the same thing, so it is necessary to keep them separate. Nietzsche then continues this argument to show how morality has arrived at the point that it is at right now. Nietzsche argues that all of existence, peculiarly in human beings, is a struggle between different wills for the feel ing of power. This means that society wishes to have some sort of control over their own lives and also over the lives of others. This is why competition and the nature of this in man is so prevalent in society,Rather, that occurs for the first time with the smash of aristocratic value judgments, when this entire contrast between egoistic and unegoistic press itself ever more strongly into human awarenessit is, to use my own words, the instinct of the herd which, through this contrast, finally gets its word (and its words). And even so, it took a long time until this instinct in the masses became ruler, with the result that moral evaluation got downright hung up and bogged down on this opposition (as is the case, for example, in modern Europe today the prejudice that takes moralistic, unegoistic, dsintress disinterested as evenly valuable ideas already governs, with the force of a fixed idea and a disease of the brain). (Nietzsche)It is all a competition to achieve this power, eve n if there is no physical reward for winning these competitions. Nietzsche shows the constant changing of the ideologies of good and bad by stating that in past generations, the concept of good was delimitate by the strongest people in society. In barbaric times, anything that the stronger members of society did was define as good, while the weaker members of society were seen as bad. This is not something that we would agree upon today, but members of these past societies would not agree with the way we do things either. Therefore, Nietzsche believes that to give anything an imperious interpretation does not work because as the times change, so will this interpretation.It is wills which define this, so as wills change, so will the apparent truth. If it is really desirable to have free will, therefore, a person must not believe in any absolutes, but rather view the world as a constantly changing place and let our wills define the things that are occurring around and in society. T his includes looking at things from as many different perspectives as possible in order to decide contingently upon personalised perspectives which viewpoint a person wishes to make. This can also be utilise to morality as, since nothing is absolute, morals are constantly changing as well.Morality is not something that was passed down from God to human beings, but is rather something that has evolved and changed since the beginning of time and will continue to do so. The only thing that has not change in human beings is that they inherently have the appetite to achieve more power over their fellow human beings, because of the existence of free wills. This means that the present morality that human beings possess has been born(p) due to hatred for those things that are stronger in the presence of society. Nietzsche argues that a person will have fear of things that could possibly have power over them, so a person must have developed this moral code in order to protect themselves from the stronger members of society. Nietzsche believes that a person must embrace these animalistic instincts because a person is currently hurting themselves by repressing them.Work CitedCooper, J.M. Plato Complete Works. Hackett Publishing Company. 1997.Descartes, Rene. n.d. Meditations on First Philosophy. 10 evidence 2008 Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. Online. 10 March 2008 http//ethics.sandiego.edu/utilitarianism.htmlNietzsche, F. Genealogy of Morals. Online. 10 March 2008. http//books.google.com/books?id=OwGPCsLiBlwC&dq=nietzsche+genealogy+of+mor ls&pg=PP1&ots=rTBJrGtorH&sig=vLolmBFHWUdXa7z8_CxzfIlj18A&hl=en&prev=h tp//www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozillaen USofficial&hs=ymY&pwst=1&sa=X&oi= good turn&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Nietz che+genealogy+of+morals&spell=1&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnailRossi, Phillip. Kants Philosophy of religion. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. June 2004. 10 March 2008. URL http//plato.stanford.edu/ent ries/kant-religion/