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| Gender: |
Male |
| Age: |
36 |
| Location: |
Mongolia, Hovd, Hovd |
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| No connection |
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| Smoking Habits: |
Often |
| Drinking Habits: |
Often |
| Interests I'd like to share with others: |
, , , , Drama-Plays/Musicals, Television-I love TV, Books, magazines, Music, , Playing cards, Hobbies and crafts, , Horoscopes, , , , Wine Tasting |
| My Favorite Sports: |
Basketball, Biking, Skating, Weights/Machines, Aerobics, Tennis/Racquet Sports, Surfing, Bowling |
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However, in Machiavelli's time, as it is today, the States whole reason for being was to serve the citizens, not vice versa. Machiavelli believed the only purpose for a ruler was to make war, and protect its citizens from attacks by other states. The ruler, therefore, is justified in doing whatever is necessary to maintain the country, even if it is unjust. Plato argues a ruler can never be unjust.
The concept of a tripartite agency of existence: body, soul, and god, does not completely parallel to Plato either. Plato believed in the physical world, the world of forms, and the greatest form of all: good. A superficial inspection would correlate these to body, soul, and god respectively, but this cannot work. First off, the world of forms, in Platonic terms, equates to god himself according to Augustine. The greatest form of all, however, can be no other than god as well. Plato's third realm, the realm of the perceivable, then must correlate to both Augustine's "body" and his "soul." This, however, cannot be since it is Plato's realm of forms which is also the realm of intellect, a concept paralleling Augustine's "soul." So apparently, Augustine has also created a third segment of Plato's divided line.
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19/08/2008
Mill answers these objections brilliantly. The part of the person's actions others should be concerned with is the damage the actions do to others. A person who is a drunk and fails to meet his family obligations, therefore hurting his family, should be punished. The punishment, however, is for failing to meet his family obligations not for being a drunk. Mill writes:
The Socrates Plato describes refuses to accept payment for formal instruction, and had no school. Socrates taught by asking questions and inducing debate. The truth can only be discovered by eliminating what is not true. His goal was to teach the younger generation to think clearly, reasonably, philosophically.
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18/08/2008
Though on the surface, this statement may sound like an advertisement for a monarchal society, it was in reality merely a resignation to the fact that man is simply incapable of governing himself, though Locke saw that as the ideal. He vociferously spoke out against the divine right of kings and argued that governments should rely upon the consent of the people. Locke was convinced that human beings were born with "blank" minds and that only through experience could a person begin to form ideas.
Locke's assertion that an alien is exempt from the laws of a country to which he is not a citizen is a curious segment of his doctrine. Would an alien then be free to commit crime in a foreign land? We need not even consider a serious crime such as murder. Could a foreigner simply break the speed limit or expose himself in public?
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14/08/2008
The response of the skeptics is to claim that daily reality contradicts Plato, and that contrary to number one, tyrants, motivated by unjust principles, may be found to be happy. Moroever, they argue that contrary to number 2, saints and renunciates are known to suffer, rather than to be happy. This is where Plato's theory of the Soul is established. He argues to the contrary that the three basic energies of the soul must be ordered in order for a person to be happy. The Emotions (reactions like anger or fear) and the Appetites (needs for food, sex, money, etc), must be ruled by Reason (thinking, persuasion, arguement) in order for a person to be truly happy. When the lower passions are ruled by Reason, a person is also therby just.
Dewey is not far off with his theory of a philosophical method. He just gets caught up in trying to develop a better version of metaphysics. In so doing, he is guilty of starting at an end-point (a vision of a better metaphysics or naturalistic metaphysics) and working backwards. It is like reconstructing the broken egg. It can not be done. Richard Rorty uses Dewey's method of criticism to develop a method in which Hegel and Locke can be combined into a useful method of reflection and criticism toward, better and more enhanced, meaning and value. Rorty states:
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12/08/2008
According to Locke, "If one is to act in such a way that appears contrary to the natural laws, it is the right and responsibility of all men affected by these actions to judge and punish the offender. In this sense, each man will be the judge of whether his 'rights', as described by nature, have been violated. The right of each man to interpret and enforce the laws of nature as they see fit, may be a source of much chaos. So, in order to regulate the implementation of these laws, man agrees to a social contract, under which all men are governed by one common ruler"
Today, there is a big push in this country to limit individual freedom/liberty for the good of society. People fear crime and the diminishing of what is called family values. The problem is whose speech should be limited? Atheists may argue that all religious speech should be censored because it is false. Theologians may argue that atheism should be censored because it is false. Family values differ from family to family. The moral values taught to Islamic, Jewish, Christian and Catholic children are not identical. Who is to decide which set of values we should follow? The individual (or the individual's parents) has to make that decision themselves without interference from well intentioned others. No one has the right to interfere with a person's individual Liberty to choose what is best for them.
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16/08/2008
Locke's concept of the state of nature, however, is equally questionable with that of Hobbes. When Locke delves into the question of property, he reasons well in his differentiation between the property of mankind and the property of a man. He even skirts on Marx's labor theory of value. It is interesting to compare Locke's theories with contemporary capitalist societies which claim to have a basis in Locke. I see little similarity between the two. Slavery (chattel and wage), exploitation, limited popular access to government, and social priorities which benefit a select part of society all challenge the west's claim to a Locke-style government system.
Hobbes also seems to assume that the natural position of man is one of chaos where everyone has right to everything and might makes right. It seems to me that this idea is questionable. Can mankind in general ever live in chaotic disunity? Was there ever such a time as when man did not cooperate for continued survival. If not, then it seems rash to conclude that a breakage of a social covenant leads into such a state. For example, even when rebels oust a government and institute a new one, they do so not out of chaos, but out of a new and different order.
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Two of Socrates' students attempted coups and failed. According to I.F. Stone, in his book Gadfly's Guilt: The Trial of Socrates, "Bloody political coups led by two of his best-known students, Alcibia...
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Yet no art can deliberately aim at a negative result. The death of a patient is not a triumph of medicine but a failure. The creation of evil is not an accomplishment of justice, but a failure of just...
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A man of mild manners can form no idea of inveterate revenge or cruelty; nor can a selfish heart easily conceive the heights of friendship and generosity. It is readily allowed, that other beings may ...
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learn many things from experience, and infer, that the same events will always follow the same causes. By this principle they become acquainted with the more obvious properties of external objects, an...
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Rousseau and Locke differ in many ways. Rousseau creates a utopian society designed to give all men equal representation under the law. Rousseau claims that from Civil Liberty man gains "what is calle...
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It is custom alone, which engages animals, from every object, that strikes their senses, to infer its usual attendant, and carries their imagination, from the appearance of the one, to conceive the ot...
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Dewey is not far off with his theory of a philosophical method. He just gets caught up in trying to develop a better version of metaphysics. In so doing, he is guilty of starting at an end-point (a vi...
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This does not seem to address a "shortcoming" in Sartre's philosophy since Sartre implies a similar thing in the primacy of the for-itself over all external values and "universal truths" which are fal...
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Going from a molecular to an atomic level, we can describe much more of what exactly water "is." In the final analysis, however, we find that the electrons which account, at least partially, for every...
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25/08/2008 20:14
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Pausanias discusses two kind of love. Pausanias says Phaedrus—who spoke just before Pausanias—should have differentiated between the heavenly love and the earthly love. He claims there are two loves j...
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22/08/2008 02:50
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The psychic harmony of the soul, according to Plato, expresses itself in four cardinal virtues, which are each related to the three basic energies of the soul. In relation to Reason, the happy or just...
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15/09/2008 13:39
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In Hume's "Enquiry Concerning Human Nature," he seeks to bring insight to the masses regarding the absurdity of religious belief. Hume uncovers a lack of evidence associated with fervent religious bel...
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11/09/2008 04:45
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Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contr...
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15/09/2008 01:16
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Dewey states previous philosophers used a non-empirical method that "starts with a reflective product as if it were primary, as if it were the original given" (Dewey, John, Experience and Nature. Dove...
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A person could argue that yes this makes sense, but how do you explain the different degrees of knowledge people attain. Since we all gather experiences throughout our life, we must actually be ration...
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These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one, the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself ...
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The Socrates Plato describes refuses to accept payment for formal instruction, and had no school. Socrates taught by asking questions and inducing debate. The truth can only be discovered by eliminati...
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Mill notes that it may be further objected that a person may set a bad example for others by his actions and in that way do harm to others (75). Therefore, we should be concerned with everyone's actio...
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Dewey set out to show the harm which traditional philosophical dualisms were doing to our culture, and he thought that to do this job he needed a metaphysics--a description of the generic traits of ex...
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Rorty is not asking us to abandon Dewey. Instead he attempts to show how Dewey, in his quest for a metaphysics, loses his direction and falls prey to his own criticism. Rorty avoids selective emphasis...
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Part II totally disregards this redeeming quality of the work. While speculative philosophy is largely groundless musings, even as observed by Kierkegaard himself, the method of dialectical observatio...
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The sovereign (government) according to Hobbes is the glue that holds society together. The sovereign enacts and enforces laws. The sovereign is the power that all men fear if they break the law. The ...
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