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Overview
Another rebuttal is that probability theory is a mathematical model, thus it has a form. Probability theory, however, is not an abstraction. It is a concrete consideration of the likelihood of any event in the physical world taking place. This does not rest on some theoretical or abstract principle, but on an earthly consideration of mundane and observable phenomenon.
Likewise, the soldier going to fight the enemy sometimes has the right to refuse. The soldier has the right to transfer his service by paying another to take his place (269). A soldier may also run away in battle for fear of his/her life (270). A soldier, however, that accepts money to fight has no obligation to refuse the sovereign (270). According to Hobbes, a soldier does not have the right to refuse if "refusal to obey, frustrates the End for which the Soveraignty was ordained; then there is no Liberty to refuse: otherwise there is" (269). Therefore a soldier may refuse to fight if to do so does not hurt the sovereign's goals.
26/11/2008 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 would be no "necessary" jump to such a value scheme from basic existential principles.
At the age of nine Charles was sent to reform school after being caught stealing, kicking off his life of crime. Again, caught stealing, at 12 years old he was sent off to a boys school in Indiana. Less than a year later Charlie ran away and lived on the streets until he was caught again and sent away. Not more than a few days later Charlie committed his first armed robbery, at the age of 13.
25/11/2008 Simone de Beauvoir is obviously trying to address the weakest point of Sartre's philosophical exposition of existentialism -- what sort of value system arises from the existential outlook? De Beauvoir wants to show how existential assumptions actually do lead to an ethics of a non-classical sort. In speaking of the freedom of men from the deterministic bounds of society, religion, or the material world de Beauvoir states: "[I]t appears to us that by turning toward this freedom we are going to discover a principle of action whose range will be universal (23)." This seems to be an important point as it addresses directly the accusation that the very "existential freedom" of man is a destructive and horrific isolation of each individual into self-justifying random action. Later de Beauvoir states that it is actually freedom itself which is this universal. "At the same time that [freedom] requires the realization of concrete ends, of particular projects, it requires itself universally (24)." She then continues to set up an equality between being free and being moral. Even considering the starting point of ambiguity, how can freedom in terms of consciousness become the basis for any morality? So whatever you do is moral as long as you choose to do it?
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.
29/11/2008 Dewey's work helps us put aside that spirit of seriousness which artists traditionally lack and philosophers are traditionally supposed to maintain. For the spirit of seriousness can only exist in an intellectual world in which human life is an attempt to attain an end beyond life, an escape from freedom into the atemporal. The conception of such a world is still built into our education and our common speech, not to mention the attitudes of philosophers toward their work. But Dewey did his best to help get rid of it, and he should not be blamed if he occasionally came down with the diseases he was trying to cure. (Rorty, Richard, "Dewey's Metaphysics," P. 87-88)
The discussion in part I on despair and the causes and results of this despair is a fairly scientific description of observable phenomenon in the human psyche. The dialectical method of examination of despair and the dialectical thought processes of the human brain, especially as emphasized in the brain's conception and manipulation of despair, parallel each other well, leading to a tight argument.
21/11/2008 Hobbes also seems to have entered his argument with the foregone conclusions that 1) monarchy is the best form of the state and that 2) a monarch or government need not be accountable in any way to his/its subjects. These assertions seem rather out of character with the rationalistic tone of his logical walk through the meaning and origin of the social covenant. Why is absolute power transferred once and assumed to be forever safeguarded by a benevolent authority? For the covenant to work, would not each king have to be approved by the populace in a new covenant?
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?
01/12/2008 In Descartes' process of verification, he verifies things by himself, but what he finds is the subjective truth. In trying to find a way to verify truth, Descartes eliminates everything but what can not be doubted: Can I affirm that I possess any one of those things which I have been speaking of as pertaining to the nature of body? On stopping to consider them with closer attention, and on reviewing all of them, I find none of which I can say that it belongs to me; to enumerate them again would be idle and tedious. (Descartes, Rene, "Meditations," Struhl, Paula Rothenberg, and Struhl Karsten J., editors, Philosophy Now. Random House: 1980, P. 93)
In order for the for-itself to have a project, especially a project which posits its own freedom, it must choose a grander goal than simply self-liberation and self-satisfying selfishness. Since freedom is the basis of all values, it necessarily places itself as the forebear of all value schemes, thus it is an ultimate value scheme. If this is the case, does not the action of a truly "liberated" and "free" person fall back into the realm of determinism since their ultimate value scheme is a "necessary" and not a choice?
Hobbes also seems to have entered his argument with the foregone conclusions that 1) monarchy is the best form of the state and that 2) a monarch or government need not be accountable in any way to hi...
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...
John Dewey was a student of the pragmatic philosophers Pierce and James. He was a mathematician. Pragmatism is based upon the philosophy of science. It seeks to find undoubtable truths. Like a scienti...
Thomas Hobbes philosophized about the Nature of Man in the State of Nature. Hobbes believes that man in the State of Nature, in which there is no sovereign, would live like the beasts of the wild. Hob...
Locke's argument would be valid if there was good and enough for others to labour upon and gain wealth (Locke, 20), but since there is not because of unequal property, he has merely set up a system in...
So we cannot sin except of our own fault, yet we cannot be righteous without the intervention of god. This seems to be a far too convenient of a policy to be another "we can't understand god" ambiguit...
Plato argues against the type of ruler, who rules solely by might in The Republic. The argument stands as a defense against Machiavellian society: In practic...
The nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill believed that for man to be truly free the rights and liberties of the individual must be guaranteed. Mill was concerned with what he called "Civil ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
The fact that Kierkegaard's analysis is random musing and not dialectics is reinforced by the recurrence of old ambiguities as seen in Augustine: free will v...
Simone de Beauvoir is obviously trying to address the weakest point of Sartre's philosophical exposition of existentialism -- what sort of value system arises from the existential outlook? De Beauvoir...
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