Issues in and around Liberal Theory: What is Liberalism?
Essay - 7 pages - Philosophy
“In this essay I shall propose a theory about what liberalism is”. Dworkin's project is here clearly exposed. And, as most political thinkers when they try to define a coherent theory at the fundaments of actual political movements, “I face an immediate problem. My project supposes...
Assess why the era of embedded liberalism (1945-1974) came to an end
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
One of the most important events of the 1970s was the end of the era of embedded liberalism; it brought about a change in the world order. Embedded liberalism was weakened, if not undermined, not by neo-protectionism, but by neo-liberalism (Adrian Jones 2005). Neo-liberalism entails heightened...
Globalisation and peace in the twenty-first century: a structuralist approach
Thesis - 15 pages - Philosophy
In his Glance at today's world (1931), French poet Paul Valéry wrote "Le temps du monde fini commence" (1). By "monde fini", he meant that the world now had well-established geographical limits, implying there was no more Terra incognita or utopia where to transpose our dreams, either in...
Roma Housing in the Czech Republic
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
The English documentary “Gypsies, tramps and thieves?” realised by Kate Blewett and Bryan Woods in 1999 notably shows a Roma young mother who lives in revolting conditions in a single room shared with twenty-three other Roma. We can see them piled up in a very small space. The toilettes...
Was Arendt's pessimism about modern liberal society justified?
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
Hannah Arendt was born in 1906 in Germany, being the only child of middle-class Jewish parents of Russian descent. As a university student, she was one of the most brilliant and studied with the finest scholars of the time. Arendt in 1933 left Germany for France, and was even interned there for a...
Mercantilism
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Mercantilism was both an economical policy and different theoretical ideas. It was typically a European phenomenon which reached its highest development in the seventeenth century. It slowly disappeared during the eighteenth century. Thus, mercantilism covered the period from the Renaissance to...
Patriarchal ideology, gender and media
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
In a study carried out in the mid-70s, B. Miles (1975: pg.un) found that the proportion of men and women in situation comedies was nearly similar. However, the author points out that ‘the gender roles and the humor could still be traditional and sexist'. Thus, what we need to study in order...
Late modern institutions and collective action
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
There is no phenomenon more central or germane to the future of collective action than the conflict ridden process of institutionalization. This leads to an inquiry into a number of approaches in this contribution. Where does the institutionalization process begin, as it weaves itself deeper and...
On Grace: A study of Aquinas and Luther's philosophies of grace
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
The theology of grace is one of the most widely argued topics in all of Christian doctrine. So heavily debated is it that nearly all of the great theologians and philosophers of Christianity have at some point argued their case regarding grace. Two of the leading thinkers of the Christian Faith,...
Even this simple paper is beautiful: American beauty as a philosophical primer
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
An American Beauty, in the most literal of senses, refers to a breed of roses. The breed of roses first seen in the movie of the same name are most likely that breed. The appropriateness of that name is without question. The American Beauty is an aesthetically pleasing rose. It is, as the name...
The Bergsonian martial artist : Bruce Lee's philosophies on the martial arts
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
Bruce Lee, international film star, martial arts master, and founder of Jeet Kune Do, received his undergraduate training in Philosophy at the University of Washington in Seattle during the early 1960's. He studied Eastern and Western Philosophy, as well as the history of thought. It is unknown...
The origins of human aggression and just war theory
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Critics of just war theory will remind people of its theoretical nature and inability to prevent a war. While this is certainly true, in that politicians in power are unlikely to attempt to use just war theory to prove that their cause is just before entering a war, the theory enables...
The State of the Tibetan People as a minority experiencing complex social conflict and proposal to United Nations for applied second track intervention
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
This proposal outlines some of the conflicts associated with the Tibetan people as the repressed and overtaken minority within the People's Republic of China. Currently, social conflict is one of the most critical issues facing Tibetans today. This document attempts to direct all concerned...
Approaching death: A literature review on end-of-life care
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Before the 1950's many a lot of people died at home with the family around. They often died quickly of illnesses such as influenza, measles or scarlet fever. Today, as medical technology creates more and more tools and medicines to prolong lives, human beings are faced with the difficult process...
Empirical feasibility in Kant's Perpetual Peace
Book review - 8 pages - Philosophy
In his essay Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch, Immanuel Kant prescribes the means of attaining a worldwide peace among nations. In theory, Kant's idea of achieving Perpetual Peace relies not on reactionary peaceful measures of ending wars once they have begun, but instead on creating a...
The resurrection of narrative: Postmodern positions on knowledge in the work of Cormac McCarthy
Book review - 6 pages - Philosophy
‘For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale.' Cormac McCarthy, by profession, is concerned with narrative. Being so concerned, conclusions can be drawn by clues both explicit and implicit pertaining to McCarthy's stance on...
Gandhi and the doctrine of mind only truth and the void of being
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Gandhi's thought follows in the footsteps of a philosophical tradition whose founders examined the nature of reality through the internal realm of the spirit. Their works described a constant and unceasing search for what is real, a journey that questioned the very means by which we perceive and...
Chivalry: Arisen from the dead or buried for good?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
The purpose of this research is to answer whether or not men on the UCSB campus conform to society's traits of being a gentleman. When we are young, theories of etiquette and manners are instilled in us. Many of us grow up and continue to be courteous and show people kindness as a sign of...
Tangled claims and tensions in Heidegger's rectorate address
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
In the following paper we will undertake a close analysis of “The Self-Assertion of the German University,” Martin Heidegger's address to the University of Freiburg upon assuming the rectorship at the school. Though space constraints dictate that we cannot explicate and critique the...
Plato's differing accounts of body and soul
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
In both the Phaedo and Republic 4, Socrates offers an account of the nature of psychological conflict in the context of a discussion about the soul. Different conceptions of the soul and body emerge from these accounts, each of which takes on a markedly different tenor. I will exposit and...
Taking virtue seriously
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
In the present paper I will examine Cicero's charge in De Finibus that Epicurean theory does not, as it were, take virtue seriously. I will then lay out two Epicurean responses to Cicero's objection. I will show that the first response - that Epicurean theory may both take virtue seriously and...
The spirit of Thoreau
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Henry David Thoreau was an essayist and philosopher who played a major role in the moral consciousness of the United States during the decades leading up to the Civil War. An influential and revolutionary thinker through both his writings on transcendentalism and his ideas of natural...
Sermon 8 on the plagues of Egypt and the ten commandments of the law
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Augustine was greatly appreciated by his respective community for his teachings on Christianity and the profile of the Christian identity. His resources were not limited to only the New Testament Scriptures but avail other writings to further fulfill such teachings. The Jewish Scripture, or the...
Myth, the age of irrationalism, and the cult of celebrity.
Essay - 10 pages - Philosophy
Ancient and primitive cultures demonstrate the use of myth as an epistemological basis, but historically they have been replaced by Rationalism. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, the insufficiency of reason for the task we give it has become more and more evident, until at last...
Augustine and the vast interior: A discussion on Christian Asceticism
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Augustine's Confessions are built upon the twin poles of a search for God and a search for self. These twin poles are also twining poles because Augustine proclaims that one can only understand self in light of God and that one can only find God through self-knowledge. In one of his sermons,...
Why the Greeks?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
I take the question which is the title of this paper in two ways. First, I take it to mean, “what racial, historical, cultural, geographical and political factors gave rise to what is commonly considered the first flowering of philosophical thought;” Second, to mean, “for what...
Memorize your timetables: The rational world and the power of prediction in Tabucchi's La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro
Tutorials/exercises - 4 pages - Philosophy
In Antonio Tabucchi's La Testa Perduta di Damasceno Monteiro, the reader is pulled into a detective murder-mystery dealing with decapitation, murder suspects named il Grillo Verde, and tripe. Of particular interest, however, is the character of Don Fernando, a lawyer whose mind flies from topic...
An investigation into cause and effect in Hume
Book review - 4 pages - Philosophy
My roommate has asserted that every time she breathes pepper, she sneezes. Her past experience of breathing pepper and sneezing has always reflected her future experience of breathing pepper and sneezing. She claims that if she amasses a sufficient number of similar cases where the future has...
The circle of life: A comparative look at the metaphysics of Conway and Spinoza
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Both Lady Anne Conway and Baruch Spinoza argue that the individual things in the world, everything from the mosquito to the chair to the supermodel, contain the substance of God. And by sharing in the substance of God, the chair, the supermodel, and the mosquito are all alike. At the same time,...
European social philosophy: A look at human need in Hegel's "Modern civil society"
Book review - 4 pages - Philosophy
In his Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel gives an account of the modern social world as consisting of three institutions: the family, civil society, and the state. Focusing on modern civil society, I plan to discuss one of several ways in which human need is affected by this...
