Goethe, a German writer and statesman once said, “We know with confidence only when we know little; with knowledge doubt increases”. But what is knowledge? A term that philosophers have been in search of for centuries, according to the modern definition, knowledge is facts, information,…
Descartes example is simply about the mass difference a lump of wax can have; we may perceive it as one thing when in fact it can be seen as much more. Descartes uses an ordinary lump of wax as an argument about taking things into…
Christianity has gone through many theories of salvation and religions have branched out solely for the differences in theories of salvation. Different theories argue on the most important aspect of what Jesus Christ did to redeem humanity and therefore save humanity. Some focus on the…
If you had the choice to erase an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend from your mind, would you? This is the decision Joel Barrish faces in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Would erasing all memories of a person be worth it in the long run? There…
In Plato’s Meno and Phaedo, Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul. His goal is to prove that the soul is eternal, meaning that one’s soul exists before they are physically alive and continues to exist after they die. His motivation for this argument…
The film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, tells the story of Joel Barish and his girlfriend Clementine Kruczynski. The movie begins on Valentine’s day, and Joel is about to go to work, but suddenly runs to another train that is heading to Montauk. He…
Nature vs. nurture is an age old debate dating back to the 1800’s. There have been hundreds of psychologists, scientists, religious leaders and even ordinary people who argue their view on the subject. John Locke was one of these people, a renowned British philosopher, who…
John Locke argues that we should study our place in the natural world to shape our system of ethics and politics. The most natural of human behaviors is avoiding pain and seeking pleasure which means that people are naturally selfish sometimes. He also asserts that…
In chapter XXVII of the essay Identity and Diversity, the author John Locke discusses numerous types of identities and provides multiple examples for these identities. However, to understand identity and its many components we must first grasp the concept of identity itself as understood by…
John Locke’s views on property and private ownership have produced a justification, and even an obligation, for Euro-Westerners to take possession of seemingly unused or uncultivated land. In chapter five (“Of Property”) of his book “Second Treatise of Government”, Locke uses his reasoning for the…
John Locke was born on August 29, 1632 in Wrington, Somerset, England. His father, John Locke was a lawyer and small landowner who had served for the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and also served as a clerk to the Justices of the…
Today, we find ourselves striving to find meaning in our lives by attending university, finding a career, and making enough money to live comfortably. Some may say that life is worth living because of this search. Others, such as Albert Camus, claim that our life…
Albert Camus studied the philosophy of the absurd and decided that, to him, the most important philosophical question was “why not commit suicide?” In “The Myth of Sisyphus: An Absurd reasoning” (1942), he discusses his thoughts on the answer to this question. He considers the…
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus is a philosophical essay written in 1942 that addresses the question of whether life is worth living through. From the perspective of the author, people share a similar path to the Greek hero Sisyphus, moving a boulder up…
For as long as humans have lived on the earth, they have looked for a purpose, for meaning to what we do. In the essay I read it talks about just that. The essay I read was The Myth Of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. In…
There are many reasons why the tale of “The Myth of Sisyphus” is important to Albert Camus, for one, it is an allegory for what it means to be human. Camus expertly dissects Sisyphus’ existence and relates it to three final consequences of human life…
Philosophical views have become widely recognized as a handbook for mankind. Though some philosophical views may sound surreal and out of the world, most of them can be directly applied to life as well as the various happenings in life. The earliest known philosophers include…
The scientific revolution had a very large impact on the advancement of the way people thought about things and the way they examined and viewed the world. Without the scientific revolution we may not have been able to experiment and observe the world the way…
The scientific revolution was a time of radical change throughout Europe. This rapid development of man leads to our modern concept of science. Changes in religion and thought also developed the scientific revolution. Many prominent figures were leaders in this time of growth including Robert…