the power of mother nature , and his choice to venture into the wilderness alone and inexperienced. If he choose to follow his friends rather than go in pursuit of money he would not be in the wilderness alone. Readers correlate the pursuit of materialism as the leading cause to the death of the man , aside from ignorance to protective gear and the environment. How this contrasts to the second version of the story we see that there are slim to no consequences to Tom’s actions that there are…
When we think of the science of philosophy we often ponder its use. Other sciences such as biology and physics explore the universe and our reality so we can better understand the environment around us and what our physical state is. When we began to wonder what our inner thoughts were, we created psychology to understand the human nature; however, that still was not enough. We longed for more. Philo is Greek for love, while sophia means wisdom. Philosophy is defined as the love of wisdom.…
Identity has always been a problem in society. People create terms or stereotypes that become the identity of another individual. The 1985 movie The Breakfast Club showed the effects that stereotypes have on people. The five main characters were coined as a criminal, jock, basket case, brain, and princess (The Breakfast Club). All of these names that are supposed to represent their identity turned out to be wrong. At the end of the movie, the audience saw that every character was more than their…
Substance dualism is the ontological view that there exists two sorts of substances; mental and physical (material and immaterial). The existence of the substances are fundamentally distinct and exist independently of each other. If the soul can survive the death of the body, then there is the possibility of an after-life. Plato and Descartes are notorious for substance dualism which is also known as mind-body dualism, the believe that the soul is able to live on without the presence of the…
on a lot, because there is supposedly scientific evidence that discounts the concept of dualism. However, Evans does not necessarily agree with this idea. The second major topic that is discussed in this article is the concept of non-reductive materialism and its relation to dualism. Scientific Evidence and Dualism According to the article by Evans, there are supposable scientific findings that discount the idea of dualism. The main scientific evidence being used to discount dualism…
idealism, and materialism. Dualism is the notion that there are two fundamental states, extended and thinking substance and there are differing areas of this approach that propose their causal relationship or their independence from each other. Idealism focuses on the mind and soul aspect of dualism and explains bodily entities in mental terms rather than their dualistic interactions. Materialism, on the other hand, focuses on the opposite element of dualism and emphasizes bodies. Materialism…
If a mad scientist were to transplant half of my brain into someone else’s brainless body, and the other half of my brain into a second’s person’s brainless body, which person would I be? Would I be neither of them or would I be just one of them? Assuming that my personal “fission” could support all of my mental life, According to Parfit’s article Personal Identity, personal identity does not matter and that I would be the same person at first but afterwards both people will become different…
As we turn to the issue of atheism, I believe some framework is necessary. Atheism is typically defined as a lack of belief in God and it is in the definition of God that the issue arises. Clearly, the two philosophers have a different definition of the word God. As hopefully made clear in the second and third paragraph, Spinoza thinks that God is an impersonal summation of all things (i.e. substance), while Berkeley thinks that God is a personal, thinking thing responsible for but distinct from…
Epicurus’ atomism approach to life and reality is a materialistic one. In fact, Epicurus believed that only what is material is real, while all the rest is a simple product of the imagination of men. For instance, in his vision, the soul of a human being is made of atoms just like all other material things. He considered the soul the organ of perception from which sensation originates only when it works together with the rest of the human body. Furthermore, if the soul is material, when the body…
Locke disagrees with both Berkeley and Descartes regarding ideas and knowledge and how they are acquired. Locke claims that the way we come about knowledge is through careful experimentation and observation. In Locke’s theory of Materialism there are two sources that make up experience, Sensation and Reflection. Sensation is the source of our ideas of external objects like rivers, mountains and houses. For example viewing a yellow object, the object itself is not colored yellow it…