Metaphysics
Essays

Voltaire's Title Character Candide: Fool, Hero, or Both?

Jerrold Levinson is a modern philosopher whose work looks at depth into the philosophy of music. Through various works, Levinson has considered what music is, how it is created and experienced, how music delivers…

This paper will address issues relating directly to phenomenology as depicted in the writings of Emmanuel Levinas. The paper will focus on specified sections of phenomenology, including the understanding of what exactly phenomenology is, including a detailed definition, understanding the concepts involved in ethical constructivism, ethical rationality, human freedom through the inputs of both transcendence and time and integration of totality and infinity into the descriptions of phenomenology.

This paper includes an outline, 2 page annotated bibliography, and five-six page analysis of nursing theory. In particular, the nursing theorist Margaret Newman is compared/contrasted with the non-nursing theorist James Fowler. The paper offers in-depth analysis of Newman's theory of Health as Expanded Consciousness (HEC) and Fowlers Stages of Faith Development. Strengths and weaknesses are also explored and both philosophies are examined for their suitability and applicability to the field of nursing.

¶ … Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's attempts to come to an understanding of human nature ultimately lead him to an understanding of justice. He attempts to understand how humans can reach true happiness, and delves…

The Age of Innocence is an enchanting Victorian era novel that eloquently illustrates the price of being among New York's high society the late nineteenth century. The novel's main characters are Newland Archer, a high…

Does "Free Will" Exist and if so, to What Extent does it Exist? The concept of "Free Will" has been debated by many philosophers over a period of centuries, not only regarding its very existence but also regarding its elements, the extent to which it may or may not exist and its moral implications. Our assigned readings have merely touched on debates that have raged and will probably continue to rage as long as human beings contemplate the "truths" about being. Though an exhaustive review of differing philosophical treatments of "Free Will" would probably take hundreds of pages, this work will briefly examine several major philosophies of "Free Will" and some of their most notable proponents. In reviewing these sources and differing approaches to "Free Will," we can see that philosophers approach the concept of "Free Will" with differing definitions, examining disparate aspects and resulting in somewhat different implications for Morality. It is fortunate that this work does not require a definitive conclusion about the existence and impact of "Free Will," for review of sources from class reading and independent reading reveals that the only definitive conclusion can be that there is no definitive conclusion. It appears that each philosopher in his turn treats Free Will and aspects of Free Will somewhat differently and arrives at unique conclusions. Descartes takes the most extreme position examined, apparently believing that there is Free Will and that it is completely unrestrained and undiminished by divine grace or natural knowledge. Immanuel Kant believed that there is Free Will but it is based solely in the rational aspect of the human being and is known essentially because we rationally know that we have certain incontrovertible duties. Roderick Chisholm believes that there is Free Will but that it is specifically linked to a type of "agent causation" as opposed to transeunt or "event" causation. Peter Van Inwagen believes that there is Free Will but only in a very small set of circumstances illustrated by "a garden of forking paths," some of which are illusions. Daniel M. Wegner believes that there is Free Will but that much of our supposed Free Will or Conscious Will is actually a simplistic illusion created for our benefits by our minds. Finally, Benjamin Libet believes there is Free Will but simultaneously refutes much of the traditional notion of Free Will through experiments indicating that many of our actions precede our will and that our exercise of Free Will primarily resides in controlling commenced actions by "vetoing" them. In sum, without even addressing the work of philosophers who do not believe in the existence of Free Will at all, we see disparate approaches to Free Will, to its nature, to its extent and to its moral implications. Indeed, some of these philosophers themselves decry the "incoherence" of philosophical treatments of "Free Will" while attempting to contribute their own thoughts on a vital philosophical topic that shows no signs of uniform conclusions.

John Locke along with the likes of Berkley and Hume was a British Empiricist. He was of the theory that all knowledge was based on sensory experience of some sort and in his "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"…

Man has attempted to explain what the universe is like, and has endeavored explaining change for centuries. In this process there have been several theories formulated. Many of these theories have served as valuable…

Section 24 of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is so strong, yet so subtle. As forceful as the words are, Whitman also takes a passive tone in revealing himself through the verses. Section 24 starts out by describing the…