Consult more than 15626 documents with no limitation. Our subscription options

Philosophy, literature & languages

Filter by:

Filter by:
 
See all documents

1935 results

07 Dec 2007
doc

What Is Empiricism?

Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy

Empiricism is a view about where all knowledge comes from. Empiricism is not exclusive to scientific knowledge, but rather knowledge as a whole. This includes knowledge of everyday life. Empiricism states that science and everyday thinking have the same basic principles, and science is just...

07 Dec 2007
doc

Who Has Final Control Over Our Bodies: Me, You, or God?

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

Human beings, as superior animals, are born with unique cognitive processes that we have yet to identify in other animals. It is our cognition, our thoughts that set us apart from other creatures and make us who we are. However, our ability to think and analyze is also what causes us to question...

07 Dec 2007
doc

What's Your Perspective?

Essay - 2 pages - Literature

Most experienced readers do not have a hard time discerning authorial intent within an individual work or analyzing themes within that piece. Herman Melville's Benito Cereno however, provides a challenge. Melville intricately weaves this story so that no single interpretation fits, and it forces...

07 Dec 2007
doc

Dialect as a Form of Identity

Tutorials/exercises - 7 pages - Linguistics & languages

Every time a person opens his or her mouth to speak that person is speaking not only a language but a dialect of that language as well. It is a common misconception that only certain people whose pronunciations vary from what is considered Standard American English, speak a dialect. In fact,...

07 Dec 2007
doc

Similarities and Differences in Men's and Women's Cooperative Speaking Styles: An Analysis of Book Club Discussions

Tutorials/exercises - 11 pages - Linguistics & languages

Some of the most frequently referred to but potentially erroneous stereotypes regarding gendered speaking style differences involve dichotomies. Men are competitive - women are cooperative. Men focus on impersonal topics - women focus on personal topics. Men's speech is to report - women's...

04 Dec 2007
doc

Michigan's Upper Peninsula Variety of English and its Usage

Thesis - 7 pages - Linguistics & languages

Every time a person opens his or her mouth to speak that person is speaking not only a language but a dialect of that language as well. It is a common misconception that only certain people whose pronunciations vary from what is considered Standard American English, speak a dialect. In fact,...

04 Dec 2007
doc

The Connection between Crossword Puzzles and Semantics

Tutorials/exercises - 9 pages - Linguistics & languages

When a person sits down to work on a crossword puzzle the thought probably does not cross their mind that they are calling on various forms of linguistic knowledge in solving the crossword clues. The majority of basic language knowledge and usage is an unconscious phenomenon. It has been said...

04 Dec 2007
doc

Homer and the Futility of War

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

Rage. Rage is the first word that starts the Iliad (1.1), and as beginnings go it is a substantial foundation for the story told, however leaving the question “Which Rage?”. The rage of Achilles at the death of Patrokles, the rage of Menelaus at the theft of Helen, these are the...

04 Dec 2007
rtf

Sexual Taboo: Vampire Myths and Stories

Essay - 4 pages - Literature

The belief in vampires has been around for most of recorded history, dating back before the bible and Ancient Egypt to Babylonian demonology and very early Sumerian mythology . Although, it was never the mythology that we think of today; in those times it was a belief rooted just as strongly as...

04 Dec 2007
doc

What is Practical Wisdom?

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

Aristotle within his Nicomachean Ethics defines the different regions of the soul, especially the virtues and functions of each. After all his contemplation over universal ideas, such as the very essence and base of justice and wisdom, he also realized the soul must contain a part to contemplate...

04 Dec 2007
doc

Nietzsche: Genealogy of Morals

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

Good versus Evil, this is the ever present conflict in human morality and while nearly one third of the modern world supports this doctrine by supporting Christianity, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche abhors this division of morals. His essay, Genealogy of Morals, remembers that once Good versus Bad...

03 Dec 2007
doc

Antigone Commentary

Essay - 3 pages - Literature

Sophocles wrote three plays about Thebes and while the tragedy of Antigone is chronologically the third and last of these, it was ironically written first out of them. It opens up, giving little background, with the two sisters Antigone and Ismene discussing their two now deceased brothers in...

03 Dec 2007
doc

Carpe Diem? Try Tomorrow

Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy

Initially, I sat in front of a blank page contemplating how to start the introduction, how to draw the reader in. But after an hour, it became clear to me that I could not easily conjure up a stylish lead-in with the subject matter. So here I am addressing the issue flat out. Does this make me...

30 Nov 2007
doc

The North Indian Tabla Drum as Saivite Hindu Religious Path

Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy

The traditions of Hindustani (North Indian) tabla drumming gather the various strands of culture that exist in India into a complex social tapestry. In order to understand the cultural phenomenon of tabla music, it must be heard within the context of an Indian heritage originating from a wide...

27 Nov 2007
doc

Anthrologists in Disagreement over Cockfighting

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

In anthropological theory there has been a clear division and consistent debate between cultural materialists and non-materialist symbolic anthropologists. Theorists such as Marvin Harris and Julian Steward are exemplary of the materialist position, while others such as Sherry B. Ortner and...

19 Nov 2007
doc

Postmodernism: Moving Toward Transcendence

Essay - 3 pages - Literature

The conception of a utopian society has both motivated and haunted countless civilizations since the dawn of time. Sublime and intangible, the aspiration to reach a “perfect” society is arguably the heart of one of the world's most significant movements; modernism. Proponents of...

19 Nov 2007
doc

An Animal's place in America

Essay - 3 pages - Literature

In 1975, an Australian philosopher by the name of Peter Singer first published his controversial book Animal Liberation. It has since become widely known as the beginning of the current “animal liberation movement” in America. The book preached the virtues of vegetarianism and vilified...

09 Nov 2007
doc

The Good-Morrow

Essay - 2 pages - Literature

“The Good-Morrow” is a story written by John Donne that talks about two lovers finding each other, and realizing that nothing in the world ever has or will matter. I believe that the lover's Donne is speaking about are himself and a lover of the past. However, the poem is not just about...

09 Nov 2007
doc

Masculinity in The Woman in White

Essay - 3 pages - Literature

The novel, The Woman in White, “seeks to revise recent accounts of the model of male identity posited by the first sensation novel”(Ablow, Par. 4). In The Woman in White, the author, Wilkie Collins, presents masculinity through the character of Marian Holcombe at a time when femininity...

04 Nov 2007
doc

The Flavor and Sound of Liberation

Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy

The versatile musical functionality of the tabla reflects its utility as an instrument of contemplation. As the rhythmic expression of the drone, the tabla focuses the listener's attention on the present musical moment. From a psychological perspective, “the basis of listening is the...

04 Nov 2007
doc

Devotion and Musical Practice in North India

Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy

The guru-shisya parampara is the system of master/disciple lineage that characterizes the traditional education system of North Indian music. The term parampara, ‘disciplic succession,' is introduced in the Bhagavad-gita (4.2), when Krsna tells Arjuna: “This Knowledge of yoga was...

04 Nov 2007
doc

Longing For HER: Ferlinghetti's Mad Quest for the Muse

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

While Lawrence Ferlinghetti makes no claim to being enlightened, his poetry is nonetheless a record of and reaction to the sacred journey. While it is illuminating to read words of the awakened prophets of world history, I think it can be as rewarding to read the work of those who, sincere in...

04 Nov 2007
doc

The Inner Soundscape of Nada-Yoga: Sonic Path of Union

Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy

The Himalayan religious traditions (Saivite Hinduism, Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Bon-po) are related by a common heritage of esoteric practices intended to unify the religious aspirant with the ultimate reality (as defined by the particular tradition). This gnosis is defined variously as dzogchen...

29 Oct 2007
doc

Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One

Essay - 2 pages - Literature

Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One is a novel that with its darkly scathing humor attempts to impart the message that the plasticity of the present tense is illusory by exposing the superficialities of California's mortuary business. The contemporaneous effect that living in a world where a perverse...

29 Oct 2007
doc

Notes From Underground: The Autonomic Remonstrance of a Persona

Essay - 4 pages - Literature

Dostoevsky's classic, Notes From Underground maintains the transient ability to pass through the realm of classic literature and into the incendiary realm of the literary fiends who feed on accumulated grotesqueries. This transmutability is painfully not shared with the fabricated persona of the...

28 Oct 2007
doc

Bleeding Death: Mortality and Acceptance in Catch-22

Essay - 4 pages - Literature

The death toll during World War I surmounted fifteen million. The second World War erased the lives of fifty-five million, nearly five million of which were civilian Jews exterminated throughout Hitler's tyranny. Nine million died during the Russian Revolution, and twenty million more died...

28 Oct 2007
doc

A Fictional History: Shakespeare, England and the Importance of Historical Fiction

Essay - 4 pages - Literature

It is almost amazing, the overwhelming feeling of disgust that infiltrates a high school classroom whenever the subject is history. A kind of primitive competition to find the few kids who actually enjoy the class and bribe them for photocopies of notes and exam answers suffocates like a humid...

28 Oct 2007
doc

Concise Summary of Descartes' Reasoning in "Meditations on First Philosophy"

Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy

Descartes' Meditation One sets out his purpose of creating a new scientific paradigm to be based on a foundation built above the wreckage of his former opinions. He sought a reason to doubt the entire canon of his opinions so that he might begin “to establish anything firm and lasting in the...

28 Oct 2007
doc

Exposition of Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in Philosophy

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

Taking their cue from the scientific philosophy of Francis Bacon, the thinkers of the Enlightenment assumed that the mind acted as a mirror, simply reflecting images of outward objects onto the subjective self. Immanuel Kant proposed a reorientation in which the relation between subject and...

28 Oct 2007
doc

Duality in Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures

Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy

The Buddha's teachings, although expressive of ultimate reality, have been conveyed through the relative medium of language. This discrepancy has led to the invocation of dichotomies such as “reality versus unreality”, “existence versus nonexistence” and “truth versus...