A Question of Filial Piety
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Should we publicly accuse our own parents of a crime, which will undoubtedly result in their punishment? This age old question has been debated for millennia throughout the world with varied and countless legitimate arguments swaying people's opinions from one side to the other. It is unclear if...
Ego Trips and Empathy Falls
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Although both drastically different in philosophy, Surrealism and Russian Futurism failed to endure, but in similar ways. Surrealism, as defined by Andre Breton, is grounded in past philosophies while Mayakovsky's Russian futurism floats somewhere in an intangible future. Breton often channels...
My Apologies
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
At first it seems daunting, attempting to fill four to six pages with insight pertaining to just one topic: apologies. However, as I reflect, I realize the true difficult task proves summing up the entire universe a single apology unlocks into a paper. Thomas Scheff begins his section about...
God: Creator or Created?
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Ever since the Renaissance movement, when the question was finally free of its taboo status, there has been widespread and public debate among philosophers, theologians, and scientists as to the existence of God. With the exception of theologians, the debate has been internal as well as external,...
Pragmatism and idealism in the process of nation-building (1781-1788)
Essay - 7 pages - Philosophy
“Idealism without pragmatism is impotent. Pragmatism without idealism is meaningless. The key to effective leadership is pragmatic idealism.” (Richard Nixon). Were the very first years of the new nation, born of the American Revolution, marked by a “spirit of pragmatic...
The historical specificity and contemporary relevance of the concept of race
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
According to Rousseau, there are ‘two sorts of inequality': one is ‘natural or physical'; the other is between social groups. In order to understand an historical specificity of the concept of race, we will study how the second type of inequality was reduced to the first. In other...
Is Cohen More "Jewish" Than Dylan - or vice versa? Why or Why Not?
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
During the sixties, which came along with the Civil Rights movement, the diverse ethnic whites in the United States displayed an increase willingness to emphasize their distinct identity. Leonard Cohen and Robert Allen Zimmerman, alias Bob Dylan, were two major musical figures of this era. Both...
Essays on Jewish Culture
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
This paper includes two essays: -A Jewish-Christian Symbiosis: The Culture of Early Ashkenaz, Ivan G. Marcus : Ashkenazic Jews living in Northern and Eastern Europe differ from Sephardic Jews from Southern Europe in their respective relationships with surrounding religions. Whereas Sephardic...
Cultural Persistence: the Jews of New York
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
New York is probably one of the most famous cities in the world because of History but also from the fact that it is the symbol of USA, the country of Liberty, capitalism, the self-made-man... New York is a bit like a compendium of American values and a study of this town is very interesting to...
Unger's Views on Skepticism and Certainty
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Peter Unger applies a unique approach to skepticism. In his essay, “An Argument for Skepticism”, he endorses the concept by insisting that if one is not a skeptic, he/she must be (more or less) dogmatic. The way in which he supports this is by attempting to prove that nobody ever...
A Defense of the Capabilities Approach
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
There is no country in the world where women are treated equally to men. Women are consistently fed less than men, given fewer educational opportunities, and fewer freedoms. Situations in developing countries are often more overtly detrimental to women, for example in India, it is estimated...
"The French lost the language war", argues John Kay. Do you agree?
Essay - 1 pages - Philosophy
Language has become an important issue due to globalization. Previously if a person spoke only one language it did not matter much. However the situation is completely different in the modern world. Learning English has become mandatory for every individual to surive in the globalized world. John...
What is the function of representation in Hobbes conception of political power as presented in the Leviathan?
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
The notion of Representation is a key feature in democratic regimes. More stable than the direct participation of the people into political life, it supposes that the institutions of the State reflect the composition and the wishes of the people. A simple look at the title of the book-the...
What are the differences between Locke's and Hobbes' notions of the "state of nature"?
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are probably the most famous political thinkers of the 17th century. The generally accepted view asserts that these authors were poles apart, the first one advocating an absolutist regime and the latter recommending a stable civil society where powers are separated....
What are the differences between Locke's and Hobbes' notions of the "state of nature"? - publié le 11/04/2007
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are probably the most famous political thinkers of the 17th century. The generally accepted view asserts that these authors stood poles apart, the first one advocating an absolutist regime and the latter recommending a stable civil society where powers are separated....
The French cultural exception: Exception or exclusion?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
In a bit more than one decade, culture has become a crucial issue of the globalization process. In fact, the IT revolution along with the development of transport, the increase of the international commercial exchanges and foreign investments, and the constitution of multinational conglomerates...
Republicanism and constitution-making in the young American Nation
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
When the first colonists settled on the Atlantic coast of America and built the towns of Plymouth and Jamestown at the beginning of 17th century, they were looking for a better life than their homelands could provide them with. However, a century later, the descendants of the first settlers can...
Is it conceivable that you might survive the death of your body?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
If somebody thinks thoroughly about life, he will naturally come across the thought of death. We see death as a natural consequence of life. Everyone is not agreeing on the meaning of death though. Some see it as the end of everything, a total annihilation; others see it as the start of a new...
Descartes' version of the ontological argument in the light of Kant's criticism
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
God has always been a subject of debate and it will probably always be so. One of the reasons leading to this perpetual debate is that people have never agreed on the concept of God. Some religions (e.g. Hinduism) believe that there are several Gods whilst others (e.g. Christianity, Islam,...
How (if at all) do you know that you are not dreaming?
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
One big philosophical question is to know whether we know anything or not. Knowing in a sense is quite different from its everyday use. As a matter of fact everyone claims to know various things all the time, but the conditions that are required to say that we know in everyday life are quite...
How (if at all) do you know that you are not a brain in a vat? - publié le 05/04/2007
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Our whole life (attitudes, reactions, actions) is based on knowledge. Depending on our present state of knowledge, we react to different situations in different ways, give different answers to different questions. To do that, one has to know something. Even though we do not tend to question our...
How (if at all) do you know that you are not a brain in a vat?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Our whole life (attitudes, reactions, actions) is based on knowledge. Depending on our present state of knowledge, we are going to react to different situations in different ways, give different answers to different questions. To do that however, one has to know something. Even though we do not...
Explain and discuss critically the role that Hegel attributes to 'work' in the development of self-consciousness in his account of the servant-master relationship
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
In the section entitled "Relations of Master and Servant" from The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel explains one stage of the development of consciousness. He begins by pointing out that only by acknowledging an "other" is self-consciousness possible: for example a teacher only recognizes...
To what extent are values and colours analogous?
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
It can seem quite strange to compare moral values and color, for one consideres one of these two things to be acquired, as the other one seems to be in constant evolution. Blue, green or red, can be defind by nature, but goodness, cruelty or rightness are simple human qualifications made upon...
If you lack money do you also lack freedom? Please explain your position with reference to the works of at least two of the following: Berlin, Taylor, and MacCallum
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
“Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.” (Edmund Burke). Defining justice and how achieve a just society depends on the conception we have of the notion of liberty and equality. These two elements are the core notions of political...
Explain Marx's conception of communist society and assess critically in comparison and contrast with the social ideals of Rousseau
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism." This is the prophetic opening line of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, one of the major and most well-known work of Marx and Engels, dealing with their ideal of a communist society. However, The Communist Manifesto is not a...
Aristotle and the best kind of life in society
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
Nicomachean Ethics (NE) is generally considered, not without any reason, as one of the main books in the history of the ethics. Indeed, Aristotle describes and constructs in his book major concepts, like virtue or happiness that have been used for a long time, from Kant to Arendt and that do...
Can Self-interest provide a plausible foundation for a theory of justice (egalitarian or otherwise)?
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
For a long time, humans have been considered intelligent animals, which are able to think and use their mind (Aristotle, [1975], 1098 a). In other words, being human consisted in being virtuous in pre-modern times. Since, the wave of the modernity has widely taken in its wake all these ethics,...
Aristotle and the virtue (Nicomachean Ethics, 1105b19-1107a25)
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
This text is extracted from the beginning of two of the famous Aristotle's book, the Nicomachean Ethics (NE). After having done with the problem of the Good and the purpose of the human in Book one (book I, chapters 1-12), Aristotle aims to define what virtue is (I, 13; II). He has already...
Is Rawls' version of "Reflective Equilibrium" a defensible method of theorizing about social justice?
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
When John Rawls publishes his Theory of Justice in 1971, he was the first to use the expression "reflective equilibrium" (RE). Even if this kind of idea had been employed before by Nelson Goodman (Goodman, 1955), Rawls employs it as his method, to build a complete theory of justice and sort out...
