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Overview
The exact nature of what love is has been debated since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers. The Greek's debate is described in Plato's "Symposium." Plato's "Symposium" recreates a philosophic discussion amongst ancient Greece's top philosophers. The men gathered to discuss the meaning of love. The abstract nature of Love makes it difficult to define. The Greeks believed there were two types of love,Common Love and the Love driven by virtue, Noble Love.
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.
23/11/2008 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.
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.
24/11/2008 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 general ever live in chaotic disunity? Was there ever such a time as when man did not cooperate for continued survival. If not, then it seems rash to conclude that a breakage of a social covenant leads into such a state. For example, even when rebels oust a government and institute a new one, they do so not out of chaos, but out of a new and different order.
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 or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised over the individual" (Mill 13). Mill argues that there are two distinct parts of a person's life; that part of a person's life that "concerns himself only," and that part "which concerns others" (74).
24/11/2008 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 characteristic of water fail to find definition, or a form. The only way to describe the multidimensional orbitals of electrons in water is through probability theory. History has seen the failure of the plum-pudding model, Bohr's orbital model, and every other definite model for the circulation of electrons. The only theory which adequately accounts for electron circulation in water, and thus, as a result, for all its more broadly recognized properties, is probability theory. Probability theory is, by the way, a method of saying, "We don't know!?"
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:
Hume, David, 1711-76, Scottish philosopher and historian. Hume carried the empiricism of John Locke and George Berkeley to the logical extreme of radical skepticism. He repudiated the possibility of c...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes it explicitly clear in his writings, "The Social Contract and Discourses" that he believes strongly in personal freedom and autonomy. Rousseau believed that a truly free go...
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 regard...
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...
Mill argues that society has control over a person's liberty when they are a child (77). It is society's job to educate a young person and make "them capable of rational conduct" (77). If society fail...
At the age of 26, after many more theft charges, Charlie was sentenced to the U.S Penitentiary in Washington for violation of probation, theft and rape. Manson remained in the penitentiary until the a...
The Bhagavad Gita's essential philosophy is very similar to the essential philosophy behind Christianity and, in fact, Plato's Republic as well. It is interesting to note the unity in the essential ph...
The concept of a tripartite agency of existence: body, soul, and god, does not completely parallel to Plato either. Plato believed in the physical world, the world of forms, and the greatest form of a...
Hume utilizes intelligence as his method of persuasion; he speaks as if every learned individual will ultimately accept his ideas as correct and attempt to persuade the rest of the population to shy a...
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...
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 amb...
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 ...
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...
Mill argues that society has control over a person's liberty when they are a child (77). It is society's job to educate a young person and make "them capable of rational conduct" (77). If society fail...
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...
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...
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...
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 ha...
Plato had a great influence on Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. His works also influenced the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Christian church. The study of Plato's doctrines and the influence o...
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...
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