Why would not simply making use of the lands of a country (i.e. for traveling) make you subject to that country's laws because of the implicit benefits you gain (i.e. safe passage, an efficient road, etc.)? I believe that Locke himself addresses this question from this point of view in a later section of the Second Treatise.
Selective emphasis of any kind is not necessary for us to use Dewey's method to unmask new truths. The only thing necessary according to Dewey, is empirical experience. When the experience is completed, we will uncover the truth. In fact, selective emphasis, according to Dewey, leads to experiences without problems or nothing to discover (since there are no problems)! Selective emphasis removes the need to reflect, because it removes the problem. There is no enhanced meaning through reflection, valuation, and experience if we use selective emphasis; only a question for which the answer has already been determined.
22/11/2008 Augustine, however, emphasizes that free will does exist. Is this not a contrary position? Or does the concept of free will versus grace constitute another ambiguous, inexplicable belief-understanding? The idea that we, as human beings alone, have the capacity to determine our own life (whether we turn toward sin or virtue) is the idea of free will. It is our choice and, thus, our responsibility to choose the path of righteousness or the path of sin. This concepts serves to distance god from the tragedy of a human taking the wrong path and suffering the consequences. Because of free will, we cannot blame god for this travesty. The concept of grace, however, distances the ethical human being from the respect of having chosen a positive path.
If again I say it is the greatest good for a man every day to discuss virtue and the other things, about which you hear me talking and examining myself and everybody else, but life without enquiry is not worth living for a man. (The Great Dialogues of Plato, P. 443)
23/11/2008 Hume says it is not reasoning, but custom that separates man's gathering of knowledge from animals.
Augustine's discussion of Grace versus free will is especially interesting. There are several points in Augustine's arguments which rely on some sort of ambiguous, undefined concept to support a "we can't understand god" type of mentality. One prime example of this is Augustine's explication of the trinity. The trinity represents unity yet three distinct avatars of god. This understanding of the trinity is an amorphous understanding of omission. It runs something like this: we can't understand the trinity by human rationale, but through an intense and encompassing belief-investigation, we can come to terms with this seeming paradox.
There are many things to learn from Plato's "Symposium" on love. Love must come from the heart not from lust and wantonness. This is real love. We have all experienced puppy love or what the Greeks called Common Love, and we have all been disappointed at the end results. Love based on physical beauty alone is not strong enough to last. Attraction to physical beauty helps, but it is not real love. It is only the puppy love of adolescence. Adults need more than puppy love to feel satisfied. They need the Love of the older Aphrodite. Love that is based on Virtue, honor, and attraction to another's intellect. This is real love, true love, the other is common and as Pausanias says, inferior.
Plato in seeking the truth, figured a military coup would never succeed in over throwing the government that killed his teacher, and tried to silence his teacher's teachings. The best way to implement...
Locke believed that in order to understand the nature of power we must examine the origins of it. He felt that "Nature is a state of perfect equality amongst all men. In this state, no one man has mor...
Selective emphasis of any kind is not necessary for us to use Dewey's method to unmask new truths. The only thing necessary according to Dewey, is empirical experience. When the experience is complete...
Dewey is asking us to accept the selective emphasis of the "inconclusive integrity of experience" as a starting point, but by doing so he is guilty of what he criticizes. How can there be "an empirica...
Modern times have obviously proven Marx' assumptions of the self-destructive tendency of capitalism to be much more latent and controllable. The dynamic and destructive capitalist economy which 1) rep...
Plato's philosophy was that all learning and all experience are the recollection of idea through the suggestion and association of their imperfect copies in the world of sense: for instance, the aspec...
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...
According to Descartes himself, his purpose for writing "Meditation" was to prove that there was nothing more un-doubtable in the universe than the existence of God.
Man obtained property through his labour and the availability that there was good and enough for others and that he would not appropriate more than he can use. Locke's argument so far is sound, but gr...
Descartes was a rationalist. Like many philosophers, novelists, and poets of his time, he questioned his own existence, and his reason for being, man's purpose in the scheme of the universe. Descartes...
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...
Socrates asserts that he born most like a leader, should be the guardian of the city. He later explicates that the guardian would be a philosopher, acting with a true understanding of justice, beauty ...
It seems however, that the intrinsic sense of justice that members of the kallipolis naturally have is useful only in terms of "following the laws," not for anything more abstract or permanent, as Soc...
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...
Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over which he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalen...
In defense of his teacher, and to disclose to all the truth of Socrates trial, Plato writes his version of the truth as he heard it. In the Apology Plato writes from the persona of his teacher, in the...
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 ...
Marx plainly states that historical materialism is as quantifiable as the natural sciences while the philosophy, religion, and political facades associated with historical development are the ideal an...
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...
Hofstader, a supporter of Dewey's metaphysics describes "the aim of metaphysics as a general theory of existence. . .the discovery of the basic types of involvement's and their relationships" (Qtd in ...
Most of Hobbes' conclusions are merely assertions, such as his explanations of what is and is not injustice regarding an individuals acts toward the state. It is ambiguous why certain rights are forfe...
He then proceeds to eliminate the body and the senses from being without doubt, until he comes up with the one verifiable truth: Sensing? There can be no sensing in the absence of body; and besides I ...
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