The religion of the social contract defining and denying civil religion
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Throughout his work On the Social Contract, Rousseau attempts to describe a societal system in which sovereign rule is found within the collective will of the people. Within this system, he argues, freedom is linked to morality and essentially humanity. This freedom exists as a civil freedom in...
Artists & mental illnesses - The mad genius
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Plato (427 - 347 B.C.), one of the earliest of the great philosophers claimed in his writing “The Ion” that artists, when creating, went temporarily out of their minds, that the artist was merely the medium used by the Gods to communicate with the audience. Plato used the term...
Socrates and the importance of philosophy and the examined life
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Those who have studied Socrates know that his thesis is: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” (Plato: 443). This is a statement that he says in his defense after he has been found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, making the stronger appear to be the weaker, and for...
Nietzsche's genealogy's contribution to ethics
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Friedrich Nietzsche is arguably one of the most influential philosophers of the 19th century as he challenged the roots of Christianity and the morality that came from it. He was a believer of life, and the realities of the world, not in the life that was rooted in religion. In other words, he...
Ayn Rand's theory of rights as a serious theory
Thesis - 15 pages - Philosophy
Ayn Rand is a thinker who has attained notoriety for having a significant amount of influence on contemporary libertarians, especially when it comes to her theory of rights. She is unlike many other prominent theorists, in that she published much of her ideas in works of fiction, and this led her...
Human rights and Islam: A critical review of research on Sudan
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Many non-Muslim onlookers in places like the West have heard of the apparent human rights violations that occur in the some parts of the Islamic world, and they have come to conclude that women are naturally supposed to take a subordinate position to men. While there might be some good reasons...
Experience reflection mill valley Islamic center
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Understanding the Muslim faith today for outsiders is more important now than any point in recent history. An increasing number of the world's headlines today come from countries with predominately Muslim influence. In an age of such political correctness in use of terminology, it is important...
Mere Christianity: Discussion
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Mere Christianity was compiled, and expanded, from a series of radio lectures by C.S. Lewis. They have a conversational style, but they present some very deep and difficult ideas. In his introduction to the volume, Lewis describes how he took these lectures upon himself as a means of joining the...
Abraham Kuyper and John Calvin: Calvinism and Neo-Calvinism compared
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
On November 9, 1891, the Dutch pastor and statesman Abraham Kuyper spoke to the first Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands on a profound and continually relevant subject—poverty. The address was peculiarly relevant to that time, even past-due, as Kuyper himself announced in his...
Lord over logic
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The seeming necessity of logical principles, such as the fundamental “law of non-contradiction”, has led many thinkers to consider these principles primordial, basic, and uncreated. I can sympathize with the attitude that gives rise to this belief. In my own personal history of studying...
The face of nature in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
A cruel realization overtakes the sensitive convert to Naturalism. Seldom has there been a more sensitive convert than Thomas Hardy, who, although he flirted with Anglicanism because of his family and with the Baptists because of a friend, ended his days with a troubled faith in the indifferent,...
Bavinck and Vollenhoven on faith
Thesis - 8 pages - Philosophy
In 1918, Herman Bavinck published an articled entitled “Philosophy of Faith” in the Annuarium of the Societas Studiosorum Reformatorum; thirty one years later, Dirk Vollenhoven presented a paper entitled “Faith: Its Nature, Structure, and Significance for Science” at a Roman...
Autism and Apophaticism
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
A postmodern philosophy of religion, of the relationship between God and men, is based on a unique set of beliefs about God, language, what it means to be as human, and the way the world is given us to inhabit (including ourselves). Perhaps the profoundest movement within this philosophy occurs...
Discussion on Descartes' meditations
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Descartes comes to the conclusion “that the mere fact that I [Descartes] exist and have within me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, provides a very clear proof that God exists” (Descartes 51). He comes to this conclusion through a series of steps. First, Descartes believes...
Origin of oneness: A model of the mystical experience
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
The purpose of this essay is to both connect and clarify the concept of Oneness present in most every spiritual tradition's mystical realm. Certainly such traditions as Buddhism and Taoism tell, in detail, of a transcendental reality that permeates throughout “all the myriad things.”...
Aristotle's Philosophy of Natural Change
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Aristotle was born into a privileged family because his father was the “personal physician to the Macedonian king, Amyntas II.” (Lindberg 45) Since they were always around royalty and high-status people, Aristotle entered into Plato's Academy in Athens when he was seventeen and stayed...
Syncretism and identity: Finding I - Thou in historical dialogue
Thesis - 12 pages - Philosophy
Identity is fundamental to the distinction between faiths and cultures. Proper respect in dialogue hinges on a relational flow in dialogue. Power struggles and anxiety over engagement with the unknown other has caused dialogue to exist as an I-it relationship where the other becomes objectified....
Number symbolism in the Bible and early Christian works
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
For those who were trained in the art of interpreting them, the numbers themselves had special meanings. The result was that people in antiquity could talk to each other in a code language, that only those initiated into the symbolism of numbers could understand. Unless we understand this code,...
Religious and personal development in freemasonry - published: 22/06/2009
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Freemasonry started in the 16th century as an organization for spiritual and personal development for free thinkers. At a time when whole new conceptions of the world were opening up, some people wanted to explore new realms of personal evolution. Freemasonry provided a place for such people to...
Hobbes's account of religion/nationalism and terror management theory
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Throughout Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes makes repeated reference to the primacy of human consciousness in provoking individuals to subject themselves to the rule of a sovereign. Specifically, the ability to conceptualize oneself as a discrete entity with a past and (imaginable) future, combined with...
The hobbesian state of nature: A prisoner's dilemma?
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
In his 1651 work Leviathan, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argues in favor of a societal structure in which individuals must waive a portion of their natural rights to an ?artificial man? in order to avoid battling with each other. Most famously, Hobbes declared that this condition of war was...
Aristotle's teleology and the doctrine of the four causes
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
In Aristotle's Physics, he presents his teleological theory of nature as comprised of changing materials which are to be understood in terms of the factors that brought them about, particularly their final causes (i.e. the function that they ultimately exist to serve). In his view, wisdom is...
The decay of magic: Karen Tei Yamashita's postmodern fable
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
In her satirical, surreal debut novel Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Karen Tei Yamashita asks us to believe in magic. She puts forth five original miracles at the beginning of the story: a lucky man named Kazumasa who happens to have a sentient ball floating around his head; feathers that can...
Historical analysis of the Shakers
Thesis - 8 pages - Philosophy
The early Shaker belief system rested on an understanding that Christ's second coming had arrived. The founder of the sect, Mother Ann Lee, experienced a mystic vision of Christ while imprisoned. This vision was of the Christ and his church on earth. The early Shakers believed Ann Lee was the...
Construction and development of anthropology
Thesis - 10 pages - Philosophy
Often times, especially in ideological disciplines, there is a great gap between theory and practice. Not all theories apply to lived experiences and not all lived experiences can be summarized in theories. Nevertheless, this paper seeks to construct an ideal relationship between anthropological...
The anti-apocalyptic Markan community
Dissertation - 7 pages - Philosophy
Apocalyptic literature often is ignored when constructing theology and ethics. Theologians and ethicists ignore scriptural images of otherworldly beasts and supernatural beings. Prophesy of cosmic suffering and references to apocalyptic literature are not calculated in the work of most...
The origins of Freemasonry
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
Freemasons have been a focus of interest for centuries, partly because of their secrecy, and partly because they have been linked to esoteric and secret knowledge. One of the most common questions asked about Freemasonry is, how did it begin? It may surprise some that this question is hotly...
A fractured fluency: Amy hempel's exploration of grief
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Amy Hempel's story “The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” appears to be a bleak depiction of human selfishness and avoidance in the face of death. A woman visits her dying friend in hospital, but instead of staying to offer comfort, she departs abruptly, leaving her friend crying in...
Religious analysis of death
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Many controversies arise from the interaction between human ideas and religious thought. One of the issues that create much confusion among religious scholars, as well as the average man has been death. Since it is believed that there is no turning back, death raises many questions, and creates...
Critical evaluation of the respective interpretation of cultural relativism as explained by Bernard Williams and Alasdair MacIntyre
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The moral relativism denies that any moral code has universal validity, and ethical propositions do not reflect absolute and universal moral truths. Morality is relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. The idea of relativism is not new. Protagoras, a Sophist, claimed...
