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Overview
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 thinking thing. He believes in God because he as a clear and distinct picture and idea of God in his mind, and the one thing he cannot deny is he exists because he thinks. Ockman says this was Descartes whole purpose in writing "Meditations." According to Ockman:
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
28/11/2008 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 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)
25/11/2008 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 other, in that particular manner, which we dominate belief. No other explication can be given of this operation, in all the higher, as well as lower classes of sensitive beings, which fall under our notice and observation. (Hume, David S. "Concerning Human Understanding" Section IX, 84.)
Augustine seems to accept this general theory of Plato's, but he then proceeds to extend it to the realm of Christianity. The various forms which Plato believes are the realm of the "intelligible" or the "rational" are the very definition of god for Augustine. In other words, Augustine accepts Plato's theories and then redefines the realm of knowledge and forms as god himself. It is an interesting technique, but not completely in keeping with Plato. Where does this sudden redefinition come from? Does it follow the ideas of man's intellectual capacity for reasoning stressed by Plato?
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...
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...
Descartes goes on to say that he will try to prove not only that God exists, but that his existence is clearer and more certain than the existence of anything other than ourselves--that we can be more...
Hume's obvious goal was to refute Descartes, and defend Berkely. He does an admirable job, considering any statement even remotely acknowledging Descartes' theory of thought as being the only thing we...
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...
. . .no man can serve both Locke and Hegel. Nobody can claim to offer an "empirical" account of something called "the inclusive integrity of 'experience,'" nor take this "integrated unity as the start...
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...
Currently Jerry Falwell's "Moral Majority" is trying to alter the way people think and behave according to their own agenda. The "Moral Majority" believes its way to behave is correct and all other mo...
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...
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...
Locke's concept of the social contract is much more palitable than Hobbes' was. Locke not only delineates the nature and cause of the social contract, but he rationalizes his reasoning better. Locke's...
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 ...
If we apply Dewey to Dewey we find that his naturalistic metaphysics does not wash. Rorty is correct he makes the same mistakes he criticizes. How can there be a definitive naturalistic metaphysics of...
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...
Now empirical method is the only method which can do justice to this inclusive integrity of "experience." It alone takes this integrated unity as the starting point for philosophic thought. Other meth...
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...
Plato's writings were arranged in groups of four. The dialog form used by Plato came naturally out of Greek drama, the Athenian habit of discussion and the use of dialog by Socrates.
Plato's concept of forms raises many interesting questions. The concept that everything in the physical world has a form or ideal theoretical existence seems fairly valid upon a cursory examination. A...
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 t...
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