A Discourse on Happiness for a Drug-Free Nation
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
For the most part, there are two desirable products of problem solving: personal pleasure and the happiness of others. This difference between selfishness and unselfishness has often defined moral decision making, the former being nothing less than sin and the latter being utterly commendable in...
A Better Fate: Mythology and the Creation of Meaning
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Mythology: the bookstore catalogue designation where religions go to die. When the believers cease believing in their gods, and when the gods cease believing in themselves. We often forget we once worshiped Zeus and those other “primitive” gods with the same blind passion and fear...
Kant, Mill and Protagoras
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
When following the determining factors of morality for either Kant or Mill one would generally arrive to the same conclusion on whether an action is moral or not. Although Kant believes that his method of deriving morality is best, Mill believes that Kant's process is lacking. “But when he...
Three Vehicles and Their Resulting Enlightenments in Buddhism
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
The Buddhist path leading toward nirvana is one properly undertaken with the understanding that enlightenment is something coming in degrees, and perhaps without a finite ‘ending point.' It is not unlike the mathematical concept of a limit. “The limit of ‘the function of x' as x...
On the Education of Edgar
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
“For doubting pleases me no less than knowing.” This quote by Dante which Montaigne uses in his essays strikes at the heart of his ideas about education. He believes that the ancient ways of Aristotle, where one learns through the text of learned men, are outdated because it does not...
The Ethics of Cheating: A Look into the Decision of Harry Potter
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
In an attempt to test the Aristotelian method discussed in Nicomachean Ethics, I have chosen to discuss the dilemma of cheating. I have chosen this topic in an attempt to be as impartial as possible while discussing at and I have a thorough knowledge of the subject taking part in and witnessing...
Gandhi's Experiments with Truth
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
The concept of truth is the central aspect of religion. What is truth? How is it attained? These questions have been the focal points of theological discussion throughout history. Gandhi suggested that truth can be found in his concepts of Satyagraha, or total self-renunciation, and Ahimsa...
The Form and Function of Sufi Mystical Visions
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
Experience of direct union with God is most often reported to be of an ineffable nature that transcends any means of description. Mystical visions, however, afford the subject of such experiences the ability to interpret, through the hermeneutics of religious symbolism, what might otherwise be...
The Relationship of Being and Perception in Enlightenment Philosophy
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
The philosophical efforts of the Enlightenment thinkers were based on the relationship between metaphysics and epistemology. Descartes, Leibniz and Berkeley progress in their understandings of being by refining the means by which they are able to make justified claims to knowledge. In a...
Utopian Thought: Political Perfection Built Upon Human Imperfection
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Utopian fiction, a genre originated by Sir Thomas More in 1516, attempts to expound political theory under the guise of fiction. The narration of these works is essential to the communication of political ideas, as the integrity of the political information conveyed hinges on the actual...
Arguing Their Way to Salvation: Eschatology in Jewish-Christian Polemics of the Middle Ages
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
This essay will investigate how issues of Jewish messianism and eschatology were used as polemical devices in medieval disputations between Jews and their Christian interlocutors. Eschatology, the system of religious beliefs about the end of time, is a crucial theme in medieval Judeo-Christian...
Religion as Means for Social Mechanization in Dystopia
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Dystopian literature describes societies in which Government seizes total control over its citizens by eliminating their sense of individual self, and in turn, efficiently regulating their personal desires. Only with deviant selfishness can a member of dystopian society regain his personal...
Embodying Emptiness: (Anti-) Aesthetics of the Prajnaparamita-Hrdaya Sutra
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
The Prajna-paramita Hrdaya Sutra, the 'heart' of the Mahayana tradition, represents the Buddhist anti-aesthetic of complete enlightenment in which the perception of any dualistic reality is a view of the deluded mind. The Heart Sutra is Avalokitesvara's explanation of the...
Sufi Love: Submission to the Beautiful
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
The practical and esoteric dimensions of Islam intertwine in the Sufi tradition to forge a non-dual relationship between the worshipper and God. Sufis augment their adherence to the Q'uranic doctrine of submission to God (Islam) with a passionate love for “doing the beautiful” (ihsan),...
A Discussion of Panpsychism: The Metaphysics of Consciousness
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Panpsychism describes a world in which “everything has a mind (Chalmers 298),” and everything- animal, botanical, even mineral- is conscious. In order to determine whether or not all things are indeed conscious, two problems must be addressed. A definition of what it means to be...
Personal and Societal Alchemy in Early Daoist Scriptures
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
The principle of interconnectedness pervades the worldviews of the Daoist and Buddhist religions originating from India and China. It is fitting that the traditions themselves are historically and textually interconnected in a way that finds traditions intermingling by borrowing teachings and...
Ideology and War: Pacifism and Eschatological Militarism in Foreign Policy
Essay - 9 pages - Philosophy
War is a situation that embodies the principle of duality: one side is pitted against another in an “an act of violence intended to compel an opponent to fulfill our will .” That will, whatever it may be, “has its root in a political object ” that is determined within...
The Daode Jing: Manual for Cosmic Living
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
The Daode Jing is a manual, attributed to Laozi, suggesting that non-action (wu-wei) is a way by which one may exist in accord with the cosmic principle of Dao and thus ensure a virtuous self and society. By cultivating the individual body, the Daoist sage in turn cultivates the social body. This...
A Timeless Debate
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
At a lecture given at our own Stony Brook University, Michael Ratner asserts that “Justice is losing its power” . What Michael Ratner, the defending lawyer for many prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, means by this daring statement is that America is losing sight of its foundations....
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,...
Applying Richards' Relational Theory of Value to Animal Rights
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The debate concerning the rights of animals has mostly been confined to assertions of absolute moral value. Before Peter Singer, nearly all philosophers declared animals inherently devoid of rights on various grounds. Traditional religious thinkers emphasized the soullessness of...
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...
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...
Hilary Putnam on Realism and Relativism
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Perhaps one of the most widely and longest-held issues that have been debated in the study of philosophy, is that of the dispute over the way in which we as humans can accurately describe the external world with regards to our everyday lives. Philosophers range in opinion from a view in...
Divine Flaws
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
The question of whether gods are capable of being flawed has long preoccupied theologists and philosophers alike. The mythological deities of the ancient Greek pantheon possessed a myriad of humanistic attributes, including a wide range of notable character flaws; Zeus, of course, was infamous...
The Road to the Good Life?
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Today, when people use the word stoic, they often are not referring to the philosophical tradition, but to a type of person who does not show much outward emotion, someone who is strong in the face of tragedy or pain. However, in a culture in which we are encouraged to express our emotions (to...
