Essays on Philosophy

Through the ages punishment as a sociocultural phenomenon has changed its aim and methods; however, the main meaning to community hardly transformed. In some cases, this stage is the only one key chance to get free, prove the innocence by acting on someone’s behalf. However, in the modern world people, as their ancestors, sometimes refuse to renounce their commitments.

History of the human world offers a great number of cases, when people were protecting themselves in front of judges, juries and victims, but still unwilling to forsake their beliefs. Nicolaus Copernicus, Timothy Cole and, especially Socrates, are the ...

The main belief behind the theory of self-defense as given by Judith Jarvis Thomson rests on the phenomena that a person must become liable to be attacked if somebody else is threatened by him/her considering that he/she is violating the rights of the defender who must not be attacked. Moreover, Judith also assumes that everyone as a human has a fundamental right that must be respected of not being attacked by the other person, but if this right is being violated then the other person loses this right of protection for himself. This means that if a person is being threatened of right ...

The contents of the questions relate to the different perspectives that people have on the politics of location and the impact that one can have based on the different circumstances that they find themselves in terms of location. In order to comprehend that our ‘situated knowledge’ is unbiased, one has to understand the perspectives that other people have about the topic in question when having a discussion. Additionally, some of the themes such as politics can be explained from the point of view that politics of location can articulate concerns of certain regions and that even if there exist some strong ...

Every form of art has gone through several stages of development that usually depended on the level of technology advance. Some of such art forms first faced incredible criticism and even denial from the contemporaries, who, often failing to come to terms with the cultural and technologic changes and new artistic phenomena, simply rejected the novelties that they could not understand, embrace and appreciate. Video games are currently a central point of heated debates about whether they should or should not be recognized a new art form. The advocates of video games, who are usually gamers or game developers, defend games ...

While both Kant and Hobbes offer their theories on morality, interestingly, the two theories are quite opposed and contrasting. The disparity can perhaps be explained by differences in their theses. Kant’s theory is based on the rationalistic model, while Hobbes prefers an empirical approach. Nevertheless, a common theme in their approaches is that both of them adopt a subjective point of view. In other words, they prefer a person centered or subjective approach on the issue of morality. The following discussion will compare the approaches of two thinkers on the issue of morality and will also highlight the differences between them. ...

Since its 1947 decision in Everson v. Board of Education (with an opinion written by Justice Hugo Black), the Supreme Court has further considered and limited the active role that religion or religious institutions can play in the public sphere” that is, on government property. This paper presents an argument for the position that “faith groups and institutions should not be allowed to form political parties and they should not attempt to gain influence in the workings of government for their views and values by entering the realm of political discourse and attempting to elect their own politicians.” ...

The first premise of an interesting argument presented by the Le Doeuff in the “First Notebook” is the following: “It wouldbe extremely unjust that women who might have had a penchant for philosophy have long been kept away from it” (2007, p. 2). The conclusion for the argument is represented by the following statement: “I am ...

Historically philosophers religious people, atheists and other interested parties have developed numerous argument about the existence of God, basing their arguments on ideologies and presuppositions. However, the argument is presumed to majorly between religious people who believe in the existence of God and atheists who believe there is no God. For contemporary atheists, their justifications for non-existence of God is based on lack of evidence for his existence. Although there is no evidence for the existence of God according to atheists, there are numerous proofs of existence of a supernatural being (Gutting, 2012). This has been due to lack of ...

Management theories are specific beliefs that have been formulated about a highly interpersonal and subjective area of organizing and managing human subjects. Calling management theories as purely scientific in the truest sense of the word can be erroneous because many of the current management theories did not necessarily undergo the strict and rigorous process involved in the scientific process.

When examining management theories, Frederick Winslow Taylor’s scientific management theory and Toyota’s 14 principle theory will almost always be involved. Below is a discussion of the contributions of these two turning point theories in the way management principles are seen ...

The correct way to lead one’s life and its relation to happiness has been studied by many philosophers, dating back to Aristotle and ancient Greece. The very nature of human existence begs the question of what men should do with their lives. This philosophical tradition climaxed with Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, who emphasized personal choice and commitment, inaugurating existential philosophy. After decades of developing this current of thought, existential psychotherapy was developed as a way to deal with the anxiety that the uncertain nature of man’s place in the cosmos provokes through a special kind of human relation. Through ...

Body language is an essential part of communication. Human beings pass most of their communication through body language. The human mind is wired to decipher the non-verbal cues passed by the body before the mind interprets the audio signals produced by the mouth. People can communicate through nonverbal cues without uttering a single word. Body language entails facial expressions, gestures and body posture. The three non- verbal cues make an integral part of the body language. Body language is the most common means of communication; however, body language is understood by few people in the society. There some common nonverbal ...

A PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE Ever since the beginning of time, Man has strived to discover the secrets of the Universe. From Aristotle to Socrates to the modern philosophers, every curious mind has tried to divulge answers from Mother Earth in order to satiate their burning thirst for the knowledge. Philosophy has solely existed to answer questions related to reality, existence, values, reason and mind. Philosophy has been divided into many subcategories. They include metaphysics, ethics, logic, aesthetics and epistemology. Whereas logic is connected with reasoning, epistemology attempts to garner the nature and scope of knowledge. Ethics refers to the ...

'Our senses are an unreliable source of information about the world, and thus can never provide us with any certainty in the truth of our beliefs' The senses are a curious thing. They're the fundamental lens through which humanity - the entirety of the human experience - has been surveyed. Without our senses we are nothing. They provide all the input needed to interact with the physical world, and that interaction is crucial for us to enter the abstract plane of thought. How would one contemplate the sound of water, or the sight of birds in flight without having ...

The essence of justice is a massively studied model. With the help of different social sciences, head scholars continue to reflect on the field and outline of what appears to bear a visionary semblance but whose versions in time of history has often taken different perspectives. An equiparation of the versions of justice in main disciplines of psychology, legal studies, philosophy, economic studies, and sociology, for example, show only very insular convergence lines. An analysis of Aristotle’s interpretation of justice in comparison with Victorian principles and later on in the works of Kant, Rawls and utilitarians and other contemporary thoughts ...

“There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge: through passive observation or through active experiment.” To what extent do you agree with this statement? The argument whether knowledge can be attained through passive observation or active experiment defines the meaning of knowledge. When you look at two people argue, philosophers argue this is passive knowledge of the argument as you are not actively being engaged in the argument. However, as you argue with your friend, this is defined as active knowledge since you are in a position to experience the argument and get to know something ...

Existentialism is a movement in both philosophy and literature that highlights the importance of individual freedom and choices. According to the philosophy of existentialism, some events or occurrences that happen with a person are irrational or absurd having no explanation for that. They believe that there are no universal guidelines to follow as well as there is no objective form of truth. Therefore, existentialism is based on one’s choices, decisions that are unique and unchangeable. The philosophers of existentialism argue that human choice is a subjective matter, because individuals are supposed to make choices without external influence of societal standards (ethical ...

One of the most complicated machines in the world is human brain. Human beings have often pondered about its complexity and the beauty of its functioning. Man wanted to create an object that can think as similar as man. An object which can replicate the functioning of the human brain and give out the desired results. This innocuous desire of man has been the stepping stone for inventing a branch of study- Artificial Intelligence. The name as it seems, is not a very new concept. It has been in the minds of people ever since they began thinking. The evidence ...

18-Nov-14 The Compulsory teaching throughout America and most states questionably initiated thru the Boston Mass legislative acts of the early to mid-1600 while the act within 1642 forced teachings on children. Furthermore, the finest recognized was the flamboyantly termed the Deluder Satan Law of 1647, notably said publicly that townships that housed people and residents consisting of more than fifty-five were obligated to employ literature and writing educators, along with those particulars who held 105 needed a Latin linguistic graduate school. Particular, such law name had stemmed from its ultimate resolve, by means of education the childhood to read ...

Camus’ “The Stranger” is brilliantly as it crafts Camus’s absurdist view of the world. The novel came out in 1942, and tells the story of Meursault’s , an emotionally detached, but amoral young man. Meursault does not believe in God. Camus shows the main character’s callous nature as he does not cry at his mother’s funeral and he kills a man he hardly knows. Due to his crime, the society sees Meursault as a threat to the society, and as such, he faced death. Nevertheless, he comes to understand the simple coldness of the world. He eventually finds ...

The word music originates from the ancient Greek word muses that mean the nine goddesses of art and science. Music was formed long time ago when European musicians composed it for notation of rhythms. Music is an art that makes an organized sound effect through the elements of rhythm, pitch, and dynamics and is an expression of feeling and thought. Every culture past or present follows music. Since music is a part of all times and places in one or the other way, it is probable to be present before the dispersal of humans around the world. For hundreds of ...

Social media refer to the collection of online channels of communication that is devoted to community-based input, collaboration, content sharing and interaction. The applications and websites devoted to the social curation that includes social bookmarking, social networking, micro-blogging, forums and wikis. Other examples of social media also include podcasts, pictures or photographs, rating and video (Wigmore 2014). Social media have a positive impact on the student learning if it is used in a constructive way; however, it has a drastic impact if it is used for entertainment purpose only. However, more commonly, the negative effects of the social media are more ...

The issue of the deeper meaning of life in the world of a book or story can easily be gleaned through a story’s tone. In the case of some works of Gothic horror, tone is an excellent way to indicate the helplessness and inexorable darkness at the heart of life. William Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much With Us,” Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein all create dark, sinister tones in their works in different ways, evincing a distinct heaviness and sense of terror lying at the deeper meaning of ...

Capitalism has been associated with the kind of economy that solely centered on profits.it is centered upon an economy that whose goals do not go beyond the making of profits. Mostly, capitalist economies are coupled with the privatization of land and property, where the ruling class owns most of the properties in the nation (Bowles, 2012). The lower class provides low-wage labor for the rich, and the economy is the greatest beneficiary of all these. The United States is among the states that are most associated with capitalist economies in the world. In the USA, entrepreneurship is the leading ...

The Acorn house restaurant is considered as a pioneer among all who introduced the concept of eco-friendly restaurant culture in the London City. Therefore, a sustainable approach is the primary selling point of the Acorn house restaurant as a whole. According to the case study, they came up with a mission to alter the ways people eat out and a great example for the existing and future restaurants to promote and transform the sustainable culture into the restaurant industry, as well as future hospitality experts. The restaurant started its operations by the year 2006 and in the city of London. All the restaurant products, ...

World literature Topic Literature always gives an opportunity for people to explore the cultural diversity in the society. Most literary works, as depicted in the works of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, V1:1801-1900, Candide, VII: 97-159, and Popol Vuh, V1: 1905-1920 bar plots that were obtained from different sources, showing the rich research embraced when coming up with the texts. In line with the distributed plays, acting versions, feedback, and adjustments can moreover shed light on decisions made in performing the plays. The listed texts, especially basing on their cultural perspectives that people always accentuate to, can regularly help a variety ...

Abstract Many works of film theory utilise the tools of structuralism and semiotics to imbue a work of art with meaning. Films in this paper will be defined broadly to include matter (celluloid), technique (from camera style, cutting, and editing choices), and final product (the end result which is a movie). Structuralism is the employment conventions, similar to the way language builds meaning in communication, to convey a purpose or meaning. The components of film that can be used in structuralist film theory include, but are certainly not limited to, lighting, cultural references, symbolism, angle and shot duration. Through using these ...

In the allegory of the cave, the human characters are prisoners in an underground cave. The cave has only one source of light and the individuals cannot move because their necks and legs are chained to the wall. Above and behind them is a blazing fire. There is a low wall between the prisoners and the fire where people pass carrying statutes of animals, people and other objects. Their perception of the world is the shadows they see reflected by the fire. They take the shadows to be the true representation of reality. One of them is freed. Consequently he ...

China and Japan have often been hailed as Asia’s pioneer nations when it comes to their overall development, contribution to history and rich tradition and culture, which not only transcended to nations they made contact with, but also featured the unique ideologies that shaped their respective nations. While both nations today are at odds in several key issues on politics, territory and even in ideology, their religious movements remained the same despite the changing world that challenges these beliefs. For the uninitiated, they would claim Chinese and Japanese religion is one at the same considering they share several ...

In order to have earned the occasional titles of “father of empiricism” or “father of experimental philosophy,” Sir Francis Bacon certainly had to make noteworthy and enduring contributions to scientific thought. His inventions are not drawn out on paper with schematics and did not directly address human plant anatomy, the cosmos or create a steam-powered machine, but are instead philosophical in nature, allowing perhaps an even greater and more impactful and broad-reaching legacy in virtually every field of science, technology and related subjects. Francis Bacon was born in 1561 in London into an educated family. He was the second ...

The term love has been used in its broadest sense, but, used to refer to individuals who posses tender feelings for the others, and would not want any harm befalling their loved ones. Thus, love being a virtue it is interesting if it can inspire positive action in people possessing it. Phaedrus in Plato’s symposium holds that love deserves more recognition as a god that has significant influence on the course of our lives. He places love in the position of a deity, as old as the earth itself.

On the ability of love to inspire positive action, Phaedrus creates a link ...

Lonegron perceives authority as linked to authenticity. In his view, authenticity is the expression of being intelligent, reasonable and responsible and these three attributes are the signs of authority. According to Lonegron, whatever lacks authenticity, hence, whatever is not intelligent, reasonable and responsible, defines inauthenticity or naked power. This point of Lonegron’s philosophy on authority entails that intelligence, reasoning and responsibility dictates authority. While I agree that these attributes are significant aspects that contribute to establishing authority, I believe that they are insufficient for attaining the authority. Intelligent, reasonable and responsible people can have all these three ...

List Fawcett's steps for analyzing and evaluating a nursing model as well as the steps used to analyze and evaluate a nursing theory Fawcett's steps for analyzing and evaluating a nursing model are listed as follows. Those steps are listed as analysis and evaluation steps which include the Analysis steps under which there are; Step 1: origins the nursing models, Step 2; unique focus of the nursing model, Step 3; content of the nursing model. As regards to the evaluation steps, we have those steps as; Step 1: Explication of Origins, Step 2: Comprehensiveness of content, Step 3: logical Congruence, Step ...

Since ancient times, philosophers have been elaborating on the visions and ideas that can help individuals to make decisions in complicated life situations. Ethical philosophy is different from variety of other sciences and branches of philosophy, because it is more normative or prescriptive, rather than aimed at describing and explaining particular phenomena, encountered by individuals (Icheku 21-22). In other words, ethical philosophy is aimed at find out how one is ought to act, while other sciences tend to observe natural and societal phenomena. Making an ethical decision requires usage of one of the ethical decision-making frameworks. Among most famous ...

Behaviourism is an approach in the field of psychology that has been designed to combine theory, philosophy and methodology. It is based on the proposition that understanding the science of behaviour is possible. Generally, understanding the approach on behaviourism explains the core issues in behaviour analysis and its applicability to human problems in the society in a scholarly but accessible manner. The major contributor on the theory of behaviourism is the renowned psychologist John Watson. He defined behavioural psychology to being the theory of learning that is based on the notion that all behaviours of an individual are usually acquired ...

Effective Teamwork in Healthcare Statement of the Problem Cooperation and coordination among staff are essential in healthcare field, as they foster improved standards and performance. Healthcare professionals deal with the health of people, a sensitive professional as any error may have serious consequences on the patients. In this consideration, employers must work hard to foster a good working environment. Studies affirm that enhancing teamwork is a strategic approach of improving standards in the workplace (Sari et al, 2007). However, challenges in building effective teamwork presents affect service delivery in the healthcare sector. Effective teamwork would help in improving the health ...

A compelling case can be made that in The Republic Plato is conveying his own idea of wisdom and in his work The Apology he is recording Socrates’ concept of what characterized wisdom. In The Apology, wisdom is linked to goodness, or the perfection and highest ideal that a thing can aspire to. Because of this, Socrates’ in The Apology uses this to argue that the philosopher is the highest profession one can aspire to because a lover of wisdom is a lover of the highest ideal, which is linked to goodness. (The Republic, 35). Socrates in the Apology has some ...

Human life is influenced by the creations that occur naturally in the environment and by the creations of human beings. There are various theories and explanations that seek to debunk how natural occurring phenomena are created, ranging from scientific approaches to religious believes. The range of theories and explanations however, in creation becomes broader when dealing with human creativity. Human creativity is a phenomenon exhibited by the creation of something new, either as a derivative of another or completely new (Mumford, 2003). Creativity has influenced human life since the early ages. Due to the wide field involved in creativity, there are a ...

A human being is never an island, many philosophers have observed. The wisdom in an individual can only be manifested if there is another thought that counteracts it. Socrates who recognized that respect to wisdom is worthless. Human beings tend to think that the other human being is actually wiser than they are. The belief that others are wiser than we are is misleading and discourages critical thinking. When Socrates interviewed an individual to confirm the truth of the matter, he disapproved those who believe on other people’s ability to solve issues. He conducted an interview with ...

How is the traditional system of values, as it is depicted in Palace Walk, different from the values of a modern person like the character Fahmi? - Introduction Naguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk provides an insight into 19th Century Egyptian society and the social, political and philosophical changes that take place during this dramatic period. Published in 1954, the book offers a highly detailed account of a society in the midst of transition from tradition to modernity and interweaves a family’s life story with the emergence of the Egyptian Nationalist Movement. This essay aims to illustrate the existence of ...

It is common knowledge that the two main political parties in the United Sates are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Each of these parties enjoys a huge following across the entire country. Nevertheless, some states are known to be red states or Republican Party strongholds while others are known to be blue states or strongholds of the Democratic Party. The main reason that Americans choose which of these two parties to follow is because they stand for certain ideologies. Consequently, a citizen has the option of choosing a party which he or she feels has ideologies that are agreeable them. ...

In his Encyclical Fides at Ratio or Faith and Reason (1998), Pope John Paul II maintained that faith and reason were never contradictory but rather complimentary, and that theology was also a rational science in its own right that provided answers to the ultimate questions about the meaning and purpose of life. At no time has Catholic tradition been anti-intellectual or hostile to philosophy and science, nor is it based on unreason and blind faith. Even so, as Paul often pointed out, the Revelation of the Bible transcends human reason and wisdom and cannot be arrived at through logic and ...

For many years thinkers have try to defined and create a vision of what they term as The Ideal Society. This assumes beforehand an understanding of human nature. Many thinkers who have endeavored to build the vision of an ideal society agree that humans desire to find happiness. But no everyone agree upon what sort of society will make that possible. Examples include Plato’s “Republic.” This begins with an exploration of human virtue and uses small view to explore the big view of the state state. Most thinkers, modern and ancient, believe that an ideal society is one in ...

1.A.1. A newspaper columnist signs a contract with a newspaper chain. Several months later, she is offered a position with another newspaper chain at a higher salary. Because she would prefer making more money, she notifies the first chain that she is breaking her contract. The courts will decide the legality of her action. But what of the morality? Did the columnist behave ethically?

When a newspaper columnist signed a contract with a newspaper chain, she is bound by the terms and conditions of the agreement. Whatever is stated in the contract binds legally the columnist and the newspaper chain. If after several months later, another ...

As an Idealist, Plato’s view of epistemology was hierarchical, and he drew a dividing line between various kinds of knowledge, with philosophical wisdom and Enlightenment (noesis) about the God, the immortal soul and the Perfect Forms being the highest kind, which only a few could obtain. In the actual dialogue, Plato-Socrates informs Glaucon that “there are two ruling powers, and that one of them is set over the intellectual world, the other over the visible”, with one line that divides them into “unequal parts” and two more lines marking the subdivisions (Republic 6.509d). He spends little time discussing shadows, reflections ...

Blindness as a form of illiteracy is a subject that has featured most in the article. This can be termed as ignorance, which distinguishes the wise from the foolish and the young from the old. There is however no ultimate for knowledge and hence making people to die before they are informed of all the mysteries of the world. Learning is a process whose rate and speed depends on many factors. One of the factors is need, the other curiosity and exposure. All this process takes place in the mind, which will process events and finally come up with a solution. Experience is ...

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was one of the most elegant and horrifying pieces of literature written in its time, and is still widely considered a Gothic horror classic. The book follows Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a reclusive mad scientist, who seeks to create new life by sewing together the limbs and remains of several other dead bodies and reanimate them. The book and its monster have been compared to many different things in a variety of subtexts, but one of the clearest readings of the book indicates that the monster represents the dangers of knowledge, especially as the book posits that the pursuit ...

In the general sphere of religion, there are many conflicting issues pertaining to existence of God. This is mainly caused by the different ways in which religious faiths interpret the existence of God. However some other aspects of the existence of God are universally accepted across the different religious faiths. Some of these aspects are: omnipresence, all powerful, the creator and the Supreme Being (www.existence-of-god.com, paragraph 3).

Looking at some basic facts that are evident across all these arguments, there is a universal acceptance that God has unknown origin to human knowledge. This fact is supported by the fact that ...

Utilitarianism is one of those concepts that have been interpreted differently by many philosophers and scholars. However, the explanation and interpretation given by John Stuart Mill is one of the most interesting utilitarianism versions (Diken 165). In Mill’s thinking, an action is judged as good or bad, holy or evil based on the extent to which such an action yields happiness or pleasure. He further argues that something is good only if it brings about pleasure and reduces or completely eliminates pain. According to Mill, happiness is the vital intent of every human being. The argument brought forth ...

The basic question in understanding what we know is the “How do we know?” A supplementary question to this is “How do we know that what we know is real and true?” Various philosophies stem out of these basic question. While epistemology is the general study of the knowing and the process of knowing, specific theories can be applied to these perennial questions. (Gibson, 1988) These include realism, idealism, empiricism, rationalism, constructivism, among others. While these are lengthy and heated topics, this paper will concentrate on two major theories of knowledge, namely, empiricism and constructivism, as points of understanding ...

In philosophy, the subject of knowledge is both extensive in scope and technical in nature. This specific philosophical endeavor is more aptly called epistemology, and it is solely concerned with demystifying the phenomenon of knowledge, most especially from a backdrop of physical existence and objective reality. Several notable philosophers have written extensively on this subject, including Bertrand Russell and Immanuel Kant. In essence, epistemology is quite broad but it is basically concerned with understanding knowledge from three key standpoints: knowing how to, knowing that, and knowing through acquaintance (Nola and Irzik 55). It essentially aims at developing a core theory of ...

Turkey is a country at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Because of this, its artists have a long historical and cultural mixture to find their inspiration. The Turkish art scene has experienced great expansion within the past ten years, especially since it was named 2010 European Capital of Culture (Harris 2010). The painter Ekrem Yalcindag talks about the growth of the art scene, saying, “Ten years ago there were merely three or four galleries in Istanbul. Today this number exceeds 250” (Harris 2010). Art critic Maryam Eisler believes that part of the expansion of the Turkish ...

The importance of research being done in this branch of religion is so as to clearly bring out the relationship that exists between religious thoughts and the dynamic aspects of human life2. Additionally it brings out the relationship and comparisons that exist between traditions and religious practices. Several studies have shown that there exists a strong and inseparable relationship between traditions and contemporary religion. Historically, process theology has aroused various opinions from various schools of thought3. It is generally accepted that process theology originated from Europe, especially Great Britain and spread out through to the United States.

It was characterized by ...

Aristotle Aristotle was one of the greatest thinkers in the field of philosophy and he was the first philosopher to write on systems, which he well comprehended and he could critic anything from pure judgment to literature, societal politics, and even science. He proposed that there are four basic “causes” of reality of existence: the effective cause, which is the initiator of the object; the final cause, which is the role for which an object exists; the structure of the object; and material cause, which is the composition of the object. His work was influenced by the urge ...

Since man came into existence, the existence of a supreme being (God) to whom man should pay allegiance has remained a mystery. As such the existence of God has been studied by numerous theologians, philosophers, scientists among others in an attempt to address controversies on the issue. Some of the main arguments put across for Gods existence include: the teleological argument, the moral argument, the ontological argument and the cosmological argument.

Each of the arguments tries to provide some reasoning as to the existence of God. According to Peterson et al (12), the moral argument is based on the appeal that ...

8) Wesley Salmon attacks Karl Popper on the grounds that his theory of science does not allow for theory choice based upon past corroboration. Are Popper's responses adequate? Why/why not?

The problem of induction has been a pervasive one that has split philosophers and empiricists for years. Essentially, the issue lies in whether or not inductive reasoning can bring about true knowledge; whether anything can be truly known. The debate is split between whether or not a generalization based on a set number of observations can be true (e.g., since all elephants observed are gray, all elephants must, by virtue of fact, ...

The ancients knew that leading a meaningful life meant, first and foremost, finding virtue within oneself. Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius believed in a virtuous life of meaning and left blueprints for others to follow. The model they established of the secular saint stands in counterpoint to the modern incarnation of the “hero,” the media-created celebrity saint or public relations creation, whose humanism supports corporate interests or establishes a “bankable” cult of personality. This celebrity culture affected the legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche, of whom secular sainthood made a kind of pseudo-religious hero, a notion that would have been abhorrent to the great German philosopher. The ...

The dystopian novel is a unique category in literature, with its own unique sets ot stylistic rules. With dystopia, you also get a particular type of reader, and a particular type of writer. One would not expect, for example, dystopia out of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway. These authors, while having their own demons, take humanity’s flaws and portray them on a realistic stage. Dystopia takes the flaws of humanity and makes them normative for everyone. This is the world of writers like Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale) and George Orwell. These writers draw readers who have, like them, ...

Did there exists a pre modern world? If so, when did the modern world begin? These together with this question: is there a significant transformation in the structure of society in the transition from the pre-modern to the modern world? form the thesis behind this research paper. From a glimpse at several book designations and articles, one would perceive there is a precise period within the worldwide history that divide across countries and is documented as either pre-modern or modern world. Consistent with several factual volumes encompassing Europe, North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, China, India, Japan, and the America, these civilizations either possessed ...

Introduction

The issue of gender of the criminal offenders has been subjected to various researches. The highlight on gender scrutinizes how female offenders are treated against the male offenders when they committed murder, one of the most serious crimes across societies. Generally, most studies observe that female offenders are sentenced to lesser punishments than the male offenders. According to Hedderman and Dowds (1997, p. 8), women receive less harsh treatment that the male offenders. However, some studies contradict these gender generalizations. For instance, Kennedy (2005, p. 21), affirmed that when women commit a serious offense such as murder, which are ...

The Influence of Jesus, Darwin, Heidegger and Schwab on Higher Education

The effect of Jesus, Charles Darwin, Martin Heidegger and Joseph Schwab on higher education is at once complex and subtle. Jesus revealed the essential simplicity inherent in passing on knowledge to others. Yet the lessons he imparted reached average persons on many levels and altered the course of history. Charles Darwin showed that the centuries-old tradition of rote learning, in which the student is a participant but not the subject, could be changed and a participatory approach instituted that more closely resembles the society it is intended to serve. Martin ...