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Socrates, however, consistently cites that the people of the kallipolis, raised in virtue, justice,and with a knowledge of what is good, will realize the justice of the kallipolis and act according to their sense of justice and for the good of the city. This argument is fine in and of itself. When you reach the political structure of the kallipolis, however, certain ideas are brought into question.
Dewey opened up the door between empirical philosophy and the arts. The scientific method of discovery combined with the values of the current culture produce new beliefs or meanings. One is contingent upon the other. We can not have facts without values anymore than we can have values without applying them to facts. The only way to discover what is the meaning in the current society or situation is to look at facts and experience at the same time.
23/11/2008 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. He does not ask us to use any specific as a starting point. Instead, he suggests that we allow experiences and the problems faced by current society to lead us into philosophic discovery. Dewey was close he had the right tools to do the job to develop his scientific method, he just used the wrong tools for the job. Instead of accepting Locke's starting point, what he needed was Locke's version of causal processes. Instead of using Hegel's version of causal processes, what he needed was Hegel's starting point or the current society. In this way, we can do what Dewey wished; the use of reflection and criticism toward better and more enhanced meaning and value. Meaning and value will be enhanced by using current society as a means for empirical study, and by using only the natural or nature in the empirical method. We cannot use artificial stimuli in empirical studies. We must use the real thing, nature. If we use Locke as a starting point, our reflection and criticism are meaningless, because they have no basis upon current society.
Machiavelli, however, was a realist. He was concerned with how things were in reality, not how things could be if the world was perfect. He was greatly influenced by his failures in public life. He had served as head of the second chancery of the Florentine republic, but was dismissed after it fell in 1512. The Medici family was again ruling Florence, and a Medici also sat on the papal throne in Rome. The Prince was an attempt to prevent form those failures being repeated in the future. Machiavelli tried unsuccessfully to use this treatise to gain an advisory appointment either to the papacy or the court of the Duke. He was not concerned with moral virtue, if it meant the destruction and defeat of his state
29/11/2008 This does not mean love should not be gratifying. True love is gratifying and should be so. It means that there is more to love than just self-gratification. Love that has only self-gratification is common, and without virtue. However, Love that is gratifying and at the same time exhibits virtue is the truest form of love. Beauty that does not gratify the beloved is Common ugly love, because it is not the love that comes from the mind and soul. There is nothing wrong with physical attraction, but the soul can not be ruled by this Common Love alone.
Hobbes claims that in most cases a citizen does not have the duty to make the safety and ends of the state the motive of his or her voluntary death. The right of a man to defend himself in the face of death or injury can not be taken away, because if it is the Right of Nature for each man "to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for the preservation of his own Nature, that is to say his own life" (Hobbes 189). The prisoner being led to death by his jailers has the right and obligation to resist with whatever force is necessary. No man can take away the Right, Law and Libery of Nature because these are the sole reasons for making laws and setting up a sovereign: to preserve and protect the lives of its citizenry. A death sentence makes the covenant between the man being put to death and his fellow citizens void, because no man can will his own death.
26/11/2008 The range of Plato's knowledge was vast. He developed a deep insight into all the arts and sciences, including mathematics, physics, astronomy, politics, ethics, esthetics, poetry, painting, sculpture, and music. He remained a devoted follower of Socrates until Socrates death. He traveled extensively in Greece, southern Italy, Sicily, and even Egypt and Northern Africa.
Dewey opened up the door between empirical philosophy and the arts. The scientific method of discovery combined with the values of the current culture produce new beliefs or meanings. One is contingent upon the other. We can not have facts without values anymore than we can have values without applying them to facts. The only way to discover what is the meaning in the current society or situation is to look at facts and experience at the same time.
26/11/2008 Machiavelli are writing in two different eras. In Plato's era, man based philosophy on utopian ideals and principles. They were concerned with how things should be, not how they were. If we all behave this way, we will have a perfect society.
Here Hume goes too far. In defense of his own argument, he makes a claim he cannot prove through experience. He is rationalizing that experiences differ between individuals because we all have different senses. Other beings can have knowledge of cruelty and generosity, even if it is not in the nature to behave in such a way. However, these senses are a product of a beings past experiences and rationalization of those experiences not just one or the other as Descartes and Hume would have us think.
Therefore, it could be argued that for Descartes there are two things which cannot be argued. They are "I think, therefore, I am," and "I think, therefore there is a God!" Descartes knows he is a thin...
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...
Plato answers by claiming that morality is a necessary cause of happiness, that one's happiness is correlary to one's moral behavior. Therefore, an immoral person would be motivated to be moral if he ...
In 1951 Manson set out for California, making his way there by auto theft. Before he could make it to his destination Charlie was caught in Utah and again sent away. While in this institution Charlie ...
The Greeks recognized that there were two kinds of love, Common Love and Noble Love. The combination of these two loves will make for an everlasting love. It is the love of mind, body, and soul, not t...
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....
There are, however, two possible reasons for de Beauvoir's primacy of freedom for others. One is that she has created a value scheme which promotes such values. But if this were simply the case, there...
When brought to the level of science, this trend is more easily explored. The more mathematical science of physics is understandable in terms of mathematical forms. F=m*a has a very definite mathemati...
Charles Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 12, 1934. His mother, Kathleen Maddox, was just sixteen at the time of his birth. The only father the boy...
The Social Contract also keeps people from being totally alienated and affords them better protection. If a large group of people enter a Social Contract, they can more easily defend themselves agains...
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...
Therefore, according to Plato, a just ruler should not seek war, because war is unjust. War is evil, and "The creation of evil is not an accomplishment of ju...
when we analyze our thoughts or ideas, however compounded or sublime, we always find that they resolve themselves into such simple ideas as were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment. Even thos...
Machiavelli's idea of virtu' is not of moral character then, but of what is best or the utilitarian needs of the country. For Machiavelli virtu' out weighs virtue in times of need while Plato believes...
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 ...
An easy rebuttal to this objection is simply that we don't yet know the truth about electrons and water, and thus the form. This objection has no scientific basis. Any more accurate description of ele...
Dewey wanted to be as naturalistic as Locke and as historic as Hegel. This can indeed be done. One can say with Locke that the causal process that go in the human organism suffice, without the intrusi...
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...
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...
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