The rhetorical application of pity in 'We Shall Overcome'
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Painting an image of the role emotion plays in human cognition, American thinker William James once said, “emotions aren't always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.” The correlation of emotion and action is applicable to rhetorical...
The significance of Isaiah 45:1-13 for Yahweh and the exiled
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
Isaiah 45:1-13 is, in many ways, a microcosm of Second Isaiah as a whole. Anchored firmly in historical context, this passage portrays people still confined to exile, yet also looking forward to the possibility of future release and redemption. In tone, it is strikingly different from the...
Capitalism and Christianity: Weber's capitalist spirit and potential Christian influences
Essay - 9 pages - Philosophy
The questions of what is capitalism and how did it arise have been of central concern to Western economists and sociologists since the 1840s. At that time, commentators began to recognize that a fundamentally new economic and social order - with the expansion of machines in manufacturing and...
Fallacies in Descartes' Dream Argument
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Descartes begins his Meditations with a discussion of doubt, believing it to be the tool by which knowledge can be verified. Betrayed by “the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood (Descartes, 12),” the philosopher seeks a decisive mode of...
Descartes' dream argument and its followed knowledge
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Meditations on first philosophy, a text written by René Descartes, is one of Descartes most recognized works. The book is divided in to 6 meditations in which Descartes helps the meditator cast a series of progressively radical doubts on preconceived notions, and metaphysical beliefs. The...
Defining virtues in Plato's Euthyphro
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
In this essay I examine the motivations behind Socrates' pursuit of a precise definition of a virtue. The particular virtue that interests me is piety, examined by Socrates and his interlocutor, Euthyphro, in Plato's Euthyphro. Like many of Plato's early dialogues, Euthyphro features the standard...
The parodic treatment of religion in contemporary culture is just another manifestation of the consumerism of late capitalism
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
During the twentieth century, in the unstable years following the world wars, capitalism proved itself to be a successful and enduring system. This success seems to have come mainly from its, ' ...extraordinary versatility and flexability...' [1]. Despite many threats, such as the rising...
Brave New World: Aldous Huxley
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Brave New World is a classic novel written by Aldous Huxley. Set in the future, this book portrays a society where each person's life is visibly controlled by the views that they have been taught since they were decanted out of their bottles. This book is set in England, and explains the process...
Revolutions in thought
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
In the 18th and 19th centuries, natural philosophers were making great claims on the nature of the world around them. Although they did not have some of the technology that is available today, they were able to make assumptions about the composition of certain substances through the inference of...
Gender and Christian life in first Corinthians and first Timothy
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Analysis of Biblical texts inherently involves examinations into issues of morality and behavior according to Christian doctrine. The Apostle Paul, whose writings are a major focal point of much of the New Testament, addresses these matters with a series of letters to Christian congregations as...
Historical perspectives on social Darwinism and the impetus behind European imperialism in the 19th century
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Contemporary society is rooted in the idea of the nation state, both as a geographical institution and as a symbol. This idea, however, is not unique to the modern world. Rather, it is one that dates back to the very beginning of human existence and spans the historical timeline, from the...
Odradek: A structuralist interpretation
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The need to assign meaning is a distinct human quality. Individuals seek, and to a certain extent are defined by, the methods by which the objects and observations that occupy space in a perceived reality are explained and rationalized. Failure to do so implies not only a lack of understanding,...
Modeled in God's image
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Humans have believed in a God or gods since the beginning of time but the concept of what a god is like varies. Historic tales have given us a clear picture of the polytheistic gods who were believed to have ruled the land in the time of Gilgamesh and Homer but most modern religions draw from...
Sin and punishment from East To West
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Texts from Feudal Japan to Western Europe differ in the way they view sin and punishment. The Analects of Confucius and The Divine Comedy by Dante have opposing positions on how past beliefs and actions should be viewed by people of the present. Confucius' Analects are also irrelevant in the...
Plato and his predecessors: Socrates and the Sophists
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
In his Apology, Plato goes to great lengths to vindicate his mentor and distinguish him from other disreputable orators of the time. In contrast to the Sophist, Socrates denies ever taking money from those that he has conversed with, cites examples of loyalty and bravery to his city, and claims...
Becoming lost and found: Peace, Christianity and anti-oppression
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
With reference to oppression, the author contests that lessons of religion, namely peace and forgiveness, can and should be implemented to teach the values of inclusively. This article sets out to discover why people, most of whom are inherently religious at least practicing faith to some degree,...
Artie, Fritz and Will
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
With the German philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) (Oliver 6), the counter-Enlightenment came into its own after hiding for centuries under the drab rationalism of Descartes, Locke, Kant, and Hegel. Although this attack on the supremacy of reason...
Motivations for characters in the Iliad
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
This is analysis of four characters in the Iliad and their relationships with the thing which motivates them, a will to power. Each of these four characters, Zeus, Agamemnon, Hektor and Achilles strives for domination, but in their own way, but despite these differences, we see how each of them...
Jihad and Western perspectives of Muslim identity
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Jihad is one of the most misunderstood topics in the world today. Much of the West believes that the word means Holy war and that it is fundamental to Islam and its ultimate goal of world domination. The Muslim world, of course, knows better what Jihad means, but even among Muslims there exists a...
Liberation theology and the life of Archishop Oscar Romero
Thesis - 8 pages - Philosophy
As Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero was chosen in order to avoid interference from the church in the coming political unrest. Because Romero saw the plight of the poor and down-trodden and the brutality and disregard for human dignity and life by the government; he realized that the church...
Mormon persecution in Missouri
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
In modern America there exists a delicate balance between church and state. We have a constitution that protects us from interference from churches in government affairs, and vice versa. However the constitution is very brief and somewhat vague on the subject. This creates many problems, with...
Abraham: Father of monotheism
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The story of Abraham is one of the most important and prominent stories in Islam, Christianity and Judaism. This can be clearly seen by the fact that these three religions are often referred to as the Abrahamic religions. Abraham is often considered the father of the great monotheistic traditions...
David Hume and the compatibility of necessity and liberty
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The mind, according to David Hume, is not a truth-tracking device, and according to him, we misuse it if we think it can bring us to metaphysical conclusions. To Hume, the science of the mind can describe how the mind works and why it reaches the conclusions it does, but it cannot take us beyond...
A double paradox story
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Philosophy has three major realms: the study of the physical world, the study of morals, the study of logic and reasoning. Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals focuses on the study of morality and tries to give a clearer understanding of moral principles so that people can...
Never put Descartes before de horse
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Rene Descartes used doubt to prove his beliefs to be true. In his most famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes enters into his most radical phase of methodological doubt when he introduces his evil genius hypothesis, also known as the evil demon argument. Descartes' demon...
Reading a reader: Deconstruction and the Prophetic imagination
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
A prophet is a voice, a man that becomes a word, whose message has the power to transform, reveal, destroy, and ultimately, re-imagine our perception of just who we are and why we are here. Arnold writes, the prophets were “instruments a revelation through which God discloses his will to the...
Modernism and the odor of Chrysanthemums by D.H. Lawrence
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
The modernism model challenged pre-existing socio-cultural norms and was exemplified by the discussion of social relationships in early twentieth century literature. This paper examines the interrelationship between D. H. Lawrence's Odor of the Chrysanthemums and modernism and submits that D.H....
The inter relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The contemporary framework of religion, social behavior and global governmental structure are often traced to the inception of the three central belief systems of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Grayson, 2006, p.40). Whilst there are numerous alternative religious organizations in the world,...
The philosophy of non-violent protest
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
The concept of non-violent protest or “civil disobedience” is based on the premise of using non-violent means to effect socio-political change. The concept of civil disobedience has its roots in the philosophical writings of Henry David Thoreau and in 1848, Thoreau gave an infamous...
Plato and chance: How the two connect
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
With many students today viewing Plato as a distant figure of yesterday's literature, how can we use his writings to shed light onto today's contemporary writings? Such a classic writer has provided us with many works of art that seem to be obsolete and aged when viewed with the naked eye....
