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 ...
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06/03/2010 Descartes believes a lack of a belief in God will hinder the process of discovering truths that cannot be doubted. He says, Even so we shall not have met and answered the doubts suggested above regarding the reliability of our mental faculties; instead we shall have given mental force to them. For whatever way it be supposed that I have come to be what I am, whether by fate or by chance, or by a continual succession and connection of things, or by some other means, since to be deceived and to err is an imperfection, the likelihood of me being so imperfect as to be the constant victim of deception will be increased in proportion as the power to which they assign my origin is lessened. (Descartes, P. 90). The young are stronger, but the old more cunning. The older an animal or human gets, the more knowledge they possess. This knowledge is gained mostly through experience. A person can spend years in a classroom studying various subjects, but until they actually use that knowledge, and experience in the field the knowledge is useless. Hume writes in Section IX; |
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12/03/2010 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. Hobbes claims that the State of Nature is a State of War, where every man is in competition to survive with every man. There are no laws in the State of Nature, because there is no sovereign to enforce the laws. Therefore every man can do whatever is necessary to survive, regardless of the consequences (Hobbes 186). Hobbes argues that any government is better than the State of Nature or State of War. Let's take the example of water. Someone who understands water only in terms of the wet stuff that comes out of the faucet obviously has an incomplete conceptualization of water's form. If water is reduced to two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom with covalent bonds, the idea of water is becoming more complete. We can still further investigate water, noting its dipole moment, free electron pairs, and characteristic hydrogen bonding, thus explaining its surface tension, its extremely high boiling point, and its incredible versatility for use in biological systems. At this point, we seem to have a rather well defined concept of water, theoretically bringing us closer and closer to the realization of its form. A further reduction of water, however, yields some disturbing results. |