Value of Philosophy Essay Example for Free

Value of Philosophy Essay In the introductory lecture notes to this course I stated that we would start with a working definition of philosophy as being the â€Å"love of wisdom. † I have found, though, that just about every other definition attempted has many shortcomings. No one definition seems adequate to define what it means to engage in philosophy. Consequently, I think it is best to think of the philosopher in the somewhat imprecise term of a lover of wisdom. Someone who is continually in search of the truth. Though he/she might be ridiculed for pursuing the unobtainable, this search for truth/ knowledge can yield enormous benefits. It provides the tools to critically evaluate the world around us and the information we are given about that world. This ability to critically evaluate ideas is especially important given the role that such knowledge affects and shapes our lives—as we saw in the sections on B. F. Skinner, Positive Freedoms, and the Philosophy of Science. Furthermore, the changes in our society necessitate that we re-examine fundamental questions periodically. For example, advances in medical science have posed new ethical questions. Ethical judgments concerning genetic engineering (engineering certain characteristics into or out of our genetic make-up) calls into question fundamental ideas concerning freedom and individuality. Without some understanding of these subjects how can we frame answers to such questions? Even if we examine these questions, is our approach critical, authentic? Or do we choose to accept the answers given to us by society? Are we not then acting in a kind of Sartrean â€Å"Bad Faith? † How much of our humanity and freedom are we abdicating by not engaging in some kind of philosophical activity? Though we pride ourselves on being â€Å"rational† people, how rational are our thoughts and actions even if they are â€Å"proven? † Or, do we live up to Soren Kierkegaard’s remark in The Journals, â€Å"There are many people who reach their conclusion about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves. † Many of the great philosophers have attempted to justify and extol the virtues of the study of philosophy. I have put together a series of quotes of what I think are some of the more important passages addressing  philosophy’s role in education and our lives. As you read these quotes, consider whether or not philosophy practiced in this fashion and as it was studied throughout this course can actually lead one to be a lover of wisdom and help us—if not answer—at least understand some of the fundamental questions we have considered. Philosophy’s Role in Education Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our college. . . . Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at . . .. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. Henry David Thoureau, Walden It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. John Stuart Mill, â€Å"The Utilitarian Calculus of Pain and Pleasure† You want to know my attitude towards liberal studies. Well, I have no respect for any study whatsoever if its end is the making of money. Such studies are to me unworthy ones. They involve the putting out of skills to hire, and are only of value in so far as they may develop the mind without occupying it for long. Time should be spent on them only so long as ones mental abilities are not up to dealing with higher things. They are our apprenticeship, not our real work. Why liberal studies are so called is  obvious: it is because they are the ones considered worthy of a free man. . . . Why then do we give our sons a liberal education? Not because it can make them morally good but because it prepares the mind for the acquisition of moral values. Just as that grounding in grammar, as they called it in the old days, in which boys are given their elementary schooling, does not teach them the liberal arts but prepares the ground for knowledge of them in due course, so when it comes to character the liberal arts open the way to it rather than carry the personality all the way there . . .. Words need to be sown like seed. No matter how tiny a seed may be, when it lands in the right sort of ground it unfolds its strength and from being minute expands and grows to a massive size. Reason does the same; to the outward eye its dimensions may be insignificant, but with activity it starts developing. Although the words spoken are few, if the mind has taken them in as it should they gather strength and shoot upwards. Yes, precepts have the same features as seeds; they are of compact dimensions and they produce impressive resultsgiven, as I say, the right sort of mind, to grasp at and assimilate them. The mind will then respond by being in its turn creative and will produce a yield exceeding what was put into it. Seneca, Letters from a Stoic Philosophy and the Uncertainty of our Answers to Fundamental Questions The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has not tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious, common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find . . . that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never traveled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy Philosophy, then, is not an empirical study: not the critical examination of what exists or has existed or will exist—this is dealt with by common-sense knowledge and belief, and the methods the natural sciences. Nor is it a kind of formal deduction, as mathematics or logic is. Its subject-matter is to a large degree not items of experience, but the ways in which they are viewed, the permanent or semi-permanent categories in terms of which experience is conceived or classified. . . . These models [categories] often collide; some are rendered inadequate by failing to account for too many aspects of experience, and are in their turn replaced by other models which emphasise what these last have omitted, but in their turn may obscure what the others have rendered clear. The task of philosophy, often a difficult and painful one, is to extricate and bring to light the hidden categories and models in terms of which human beings think (that is, their use of words, images an other symbols), to reveal what is obscure or contradictory in them, to discern the conflicts between them that prevent the construction of mare adequate ways of organizing and describing and explaining experience (for all description as well as explanation involves some model in terms of which the describing and explaining is done); and then, at a still ‘higher’ level, to examine the nature of this activity itself (epistemology, philosophical logic, linguistic analysis), and to bring to light the concealed models that operate in this second-order, philosophical, activity itself. . . . The perennial task of philosophers is to examine whatever seems insusceptible to the methods of he science or everyday observation, for  example, categories, concept, models, ways of thinking or acting, and particularly ways in which they clash with one another, with a view to constructing other, less internally contradictory and (though this can never be fully attained) less pervertible metaphors, images, symbols and systems of categories. it is certainly a reasonable hypothesis that one of the principle causes of confusion, misery and fear is, whatever may be its psychological or social roots, blind adherence to outworn notions, pathological suspicion of any form of critical self-examination, frantic efforts to prevent any degree of rational analysis of what we live by and for. Berlin, â€Å"The Purpose of Philosophy† Philosophy’s purpose is to illuminate the ways our soul has been infected by unsound beliefs, untrained tumultuous desires, and dubious life choices and preferences that are unworthy of us. Self-scrutiny applied with kindness is the main antidote. Besides rooting out the soul’s corruptions, the life of wisdom is also meant to stir us from our lassitude and move use in the direction of an energetic, cheerful life. Epictetus, The Art of Living, 84 Philosophy and the Enlightened Character Who can doubt . . . that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well is the gift of philosophy? . . . They [the Gods] have given no one the present of a knowledge of philosophy, but everyone the means of acquiring it. For if they had made philosophy a blessing given to all and sundry, if we were born in a state of moral enlightenment, wisdom would have been deprived of the best thing about herthat she isnt one of the things which fortune either gives us or doesnt. As things are, there is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesnt just fall to a persons lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesnt go to anyone other than oneself to find her. What would you have worth looking up to in philosophy if she were handed out free? Seneca, Letters from a Stoic Let no one put off studying philosophy when he is young, nor when old grow weary of its study. For no one is too young or too far past his prime to achieve the health of his soul. The man who alleges that he is not yet ready for philosophy or that the time for it has passed him by, is like the man who says that he is either too young or too old for happiness. Therefore, we should study philosophy both in youth and in old age, so that we, though growing old, may be young in blessings through the pleasant memory of what has been; and when young we may be old as well, because we harbor no fear over what lies ahead. We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus I tell you . . . let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and other is really the very best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living . . .. Plato, Socrates Defense (Apology). In other occupations, the reward comes with difficulty after their completion, but in philosophy delight coincides with knowledge. For enjoyment does not come after learning, but learning and enjoyment come together. Epicurus, Vatican Sayings Philosophy, likewise, tells all other occupations: Its not my intention to accept whatever time is left over from you; you shall have, instead, what I reject. Give your whole mind to her. Sit at her side and pay her constant court, and an enormous gap will widen between yourself and other men. Youll end up far in advance of all mankind, and not far behind the gods themselves. Seneca, Letters From A Stoic 3

Apophatical Metaphysics of a Subject :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Apophatical Metaphysics of a Subject ABSTRACT: In this paper, the inevitability of the metaphysics of a subject for the philosophical understanding of a person’s being in the world is established, and the apophatic character of this type of metaphysics is discussed. Analysis of the categories of being and non-being which allow the interpretation of a subject as transcendent and as transcendental being that is characterized by uniformity, spontaneity and irreversibility is also mentioned. The suggested interpretation of a subject discloses both the rational sense of the classical points of view on the absolute, unconditional, timeless and spaceless character of the subject of knowledge, and the compatibility of the notions of the absolute character of a subject and the ontological condition of a human being in society and culture. The main idea of the suggested conception of a subject is the fact that the subject’s being cannot be "housed" into the world, nor can it be characterized as impossible existence for the world. The world can be understood only from the point of view of being impossible (symbolic) existence. The discussion of the problem of identification of a subject shows that the presumption of a subject as one of the existing structures of the world leads to paradoxes and contradictions in the interpretation of the processes taking place in the world. To understand the process of education, it is necessary to bear in mind that it is not only cognitive, but also moral: education is the process of the formation of a subject of knowledge through identification with transcendental symbolic existence, which fact demands making efforts to be on the part of the thinking person. I. Introduction Some schools of modern philosophy buried the notion of a subject in oblivion. Criticism of the classical reason that began in the second half of the XIX century has come to an end in postmodemism of the XX century with the declaration of the principles of pluralism, relativism, contextuality and decentration. These principles are incompatible with the classical view on a subject, an object, truth and objectivity of cognition. The characteristic feature of the classical conceptions criticism of the 1-conceptions was the fact that it was aimed at opposing the consequences of the classical conceptions. These consequences include theories of the ideological forms of consciousness, theory of social progress, scientism, understanding of truth as a function of power, violence, etc. We must not understand this criticism of consequences as sufficient ground to reject the notion of subject.

History Controlled Assessment Essay

Controlled Assessment Before 1914, some women were discriminated against and were seen as second class citizens. The ideal job for the working class women were found in and around the home, which was greatly related to domestic jobs. They were known as â€Å"domestic servants† as they had to do all of the house chores and obey the orders of the house owners, for example, the mother, the father, the son or even the daughter. They had a really low paid job as they had no skill in which they could rely on to get a job, meaning that they were forced to stick with the domestic jobs. However, they were guaranteed food, shelter and clothes, depending on the generosity of the employer the servant would gain more or less. In this controlled assessment I will be talking about 5 sources that explain to us how women’s lives were affected by World War I. During the World War, some British women’s lives had completely altered. Looking at the source, it tells us that the munitions girls were always good company. It also tells us that they were very generous and kind, since the girls offered to pay for the soldier. The source is a secondary source as it was an interview for a book made up of personal memories, which was written in 1990. Also, this interview was with H.V. Shawyer, a soldier during WWI. The purpose of this source is to educate people that want to know people’s personal memories and how their lives were changed by the war. This source is reliable as it was created for a book, made to educate people and since it is a book, it will contain many similar stories relating to the war and the munitions girls. Source 4 is a primary source and is a poster. It’s also an image of a woman ploughing on a farm. The source implies to us that women can do most things that are meant for men to do; therefore women are equal to men in most ways. The poster was created in 1917, which was during WWI. It was created by the Government, who were seeking recruits for the Women’s Land Army. Since the men were at the World War, the Government called for the women to take over the men’s jobs but were only paid minimum wage. For example, out of 260,000 women needed for the jobs, only 48,000 volunteered. This is because the jobs the women faced did not appeal to them, meaning that most of the women wouldn’t take up the jobs. The purpose of this propaganda poster was to persuade women to join the Women’s Land Army since the men were too busy at the war. This third source was taken from a website focused at GCSE History students, most likely created by a historian. It was created in 2006 and is aimed at GCSE History students; it is also a secondary source as it was created after the World War occurred so it also gains the benefit of hindsight. The purpose of this source was to inform and educate GCSE students studying for History. This source is quite trustworthy since it’s from BBC, a trusted website. Also, it was most likely created by experienced Historians, willing to educate students for their exams. It is also quite useful as it informs you about World War I, and how it proved to be a turning point for women. This next source I will be talking about is a secondary source and is a letter. It is taken from a letter by Mrs H. Felstead, who was writing it in to the Imperial War Museum. It was a letter created in 1976. The Imperial War Museum asked for memories from women that were involved in the War. The source was created to inform people on what women gained during the war. The source is actually fairly reliable as it informs us on what women gained during the War; however, there isn’t enough knowledge on who she is so this makes the source fairly reliable. This source is quite useful to somebody studying on how women’s lives were affected during the War as it gives us personal stories from these women, and is written from their own point of view. The last source I will be talking about is a secondary source and is an extract from a History book talking about women’s rights. The source was created in 1932 and is an extract from a History book. The source was also created by a woman named Sylvia Pankhurst. The source was created to persuade people to allow women’s rights, such as the vote. However, this is not enough as Sylvia wanted more women’s rights. The source is fairly reliable as she is trying to campaign for women’s rights by using detailed facts about women, however, she could be lying by creating false facts to help gain rights for women. The source is also quite useful to women wanting to know about women’s rights and who campaigned to gain women’s rights.

Foreign Relations of the USA - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 5 Words: 1606 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Politics Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Foreign Relations of the USA 1 Israel is more important to the USAs national interests than the Arab countries of the Middle East The United States does not offer help to Israel to persuade Israelis and their pioneers that American qualities are great, or to purchase impact at the UN. That the two countries offer numerous values and parallels in their notable advancement gives a characteristic and real bond. Both countries offer Judeo-Christian qualities. They are focused on human rights and the standards of opportunity, correspondence, and pluralism. Furthermore both countries were assembled by waves of outcasts or abused migrants who looked for religious, political, or financial opportunity. Actually, most American financial help to Israel since 1948 has been reserved to acknowledge imparted values.2 Early in their relationship, the United States in 1951 gave Israel a $65 million long haul advance to retain Jewish Displaced Persons (Dps) after the Holocaust, and other Jewish outcasts from Arab nations. In the 1990s, the United States gave insurances to business advances to help retain a million Jewish outsi ders from what was then the Soviet Union. Israel has reliably reimbursed such helpful advances in full, while different countries have defaulted on their obligations to the United States. Discussed reasons On an individual premise, the two countries likewise impart solid ties, as a mind dominant part of Israelis have relatives and companions in the United States with whom they keep up close contact. Indeed, the quantity of telephone calls in the middle of Israel and the United States positions as one of the most noteworthy every capita on the planet. In spite of proceeded with roughness in the Middle East, tourism has since quite a while ago assumed a critical part between the two countries, with countless Israelis and Americans going to one anothers nation yearly. U.s. fringe control figures for 2002 demonstrated that overall the quantity of Israeli nationals entering the United States positioned fourteenth (up from sixteenth), with 263,097 entrances. That speaks to Israeli b usinesspersons and vacationers, including families in the midst of some recreation or going by relatives from a populace of 6.3 million. To admire the numbers, different countries that rank higher incorporate tenth spot Brazil with a populace of 172 million and ninth place Italy with 57 million individuals. Numerous Americans and Israelis examine in one anothers nation and even build residency. A huge number of Israelis have settled in the United States,3 and more than 120,000 North Americans have settled forever in Israel,4 which has the biggest group of American ostracizes after Italy. Like Americans, Israelis live in a milieu that energizes free considering, opportunity to create their abilities, and a urge to enhance. Therefore, Israel has spearheaded advances in fields extending from agribusiness and biotechnology to information transfers and country security. Perceiving that basic characteristic, the United States and Israel have produced an educated person, key collusion t hat works on government and state levels. The principal cooperation included joint examination into reciprocal innovative work skeletons in farming and modern engineering. The projects are upheld with matching trusts from both governments. A noteworthy organized commerce understanding in 1985 was trailed by a U.s.-Israel cutting edge agreement in 1994, which empowered individual states inside the United States to build their own associations with Israel. One of the most established and most far reaching includes North Carolina, which energizes exchange, as well as joint exploration and innovation trades in material engineering, information transfers, and autism,5 a remarkable manifestation of worldwide collaboration. In the previous two decades, in excess of 200 key US innovative firms and corporations6 (Applied Materials, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, HP, CISCO, and others) have opened Rd offices in Israel. In 1998 Israel was second just to the Silicon Valley in the quantity of new companies established yearly. That made Israel a guaranteeing venture site as well, and the quantity of dynamic funding finances in Israel hopped from stand out to 100 in the 1990s, the majority of which were to a great extent or entirely subsidized with U.s. capital.7 In 2003, five Israeli firms made Forbes magazines rundown of the 50 most dynamic investment finances on the planet. Additionally, a huge number of Israelis hold key positions in American hello tech organizations. While numerous individuals are persuaded that U.s. help for Israel is determined by the American foundation and U.s. national hobbies, the certainties dont help this hypothesis. In all actuality for a considerable length of time U.s. remote arrangement and protection masters contradicted supporting the formation of Israel. They then likewise contradicted the huge American financing and strategic help that supported the persuasively settled state and that gave an unlimited free pass to its forceful e xtension. They were basically defeated and inevitably supplanted. In the same way as other American approaches, U.s. Center East approaches are determined by an uncommon investment hall. Nonetheless, the Israel Lobby, as it is called today in the U.s.[1], comprises of immeasurably more than what the vast majority imagine in the saying hall. As this book will exhibit, the Israel Lobby is significantly more effective and pervasive than different halls. Segments of it, both people and gatherings, have worked underground, furtively and even illicitly all through its history, as archived by researchers and members. Furthermore despite the fact that the development for Israel has been working in the U.s. for over a hundred years, most Americans are totally uninformed of this development and its chaperon philosophy à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" a measure of its exceptional impact over open information. The accomplishment of this development to attain its objectives, somewhat because of the s hrouded nature of much of its movement, has been stunning. It has additionally been at practically unbelievable expense The accomplishment of this development to attain its objectives, somewhat because of the concealed nature of much of its movement, has been stunning. It has additionally been at just about impossible expense. It has prompted enormous catastrophe in the Middle East: a hundred-year war of viciousness and misfortune; consecrated area absorbed distress. Likewise, this development has been significantly harming to the United States itself. As we will see in this two-section examination of the star Israel development, it has focused on essentially every noteworthy area of American culture; attempted to include Americans in terrible, unnecessary, and significantly unreasonable wars; ruled Congress for quite a long time; progressively figured out which hopefuls could get to be not kidding contenders for the U.s. administration; and advanced extremism to a whole popul ace, religion and society. Not long after the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln met a Canadian Christian Zionist, Henry Wentworth Monk, who communicated trust that Jews who were enduring persecution in Russia and Turkey be freed by restoring them to their national home in Palestine. Lincoln said this was a respectable dream and one imparted by numerous Americans. The President said his chiropodist was a Jew who has such a large number of times put me upon my feet that I would have no complaint to giving his comrades a leg up.' In 1883, Emma Lazarus, the artist whose words are recorded on the Statue of Liberty, composed that Palestine ought to be as a Home for the Homeless, a Goal for the Wanderer and an Asylum for the mistreated and a country of the denationalized. In 1891, slaughters impelled by Czar Alexander III incited an objection by numerous noticeable Americans, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Speaker of the House. Rev. William E. Blackstone and Cardinal Gibbons displayed a request marked by the individuals who were worried about the destiny of the Jews in Russia to President Benjamin Harrison and Secretary of State James Blaine. They required the first global meeting to consider the Israelite case to Palestine as their antiquated home, and to advance in whatever other simply and fitting way the reduction of their misery condition. Why not give Palestine once again to the Jews once more? As per Gods circulation of countries, it is their homeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬ an unavoidable ownership from which they were ousted by energy. Under their development was a surprising productive area, managing a huge number of Israelites, who modernly worked its slopes and valleys. They were agriculturists and producersthe focal point of progress and religios After Wilson left office, his successors communicated comparable backing for the Zionist endeavor. It is outlandish for one who has learned at all the administrations of the Hebrew individuals to stay away from the confidence that they will one day be restored to their memorable national home and there enter on another but then more prominent period of their commitment to the development of humankind, said President Warren Harding. Calvin Coolidge communicated his sensitivity for the profound and extreme yearning which discovers such fine outflow in the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine. Palestine which, devastate for a considerable length of time, is currently restoring its childhood and imperativeness through excitement, diligent work, and selflessness of the Jewish pioneers who drudge there in a soul of peace and social equity, watched Herbert Hoover. Congress was no less thoughtful to the Zionist objective. One can think once again to the joint Congressional resolutions of 1922 and 1944 that consistently passed an underwriting of the Balfour Declaration. The House Foreign Affairs Committee expressed in 1922: The Jews of America are si gnificantly intrigued by securing a National Home in the aged area for their race. For sure, this is the perfect of the Jewish individuals, all around, for, notwithstanding their scattering, Palestine has been the object of their worship since they were ousted by the Romans. For eras they have petitioned God for the come back to Zion. Amid the previous century this supplication to God has expected reasonable structure. 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