as, unlike the founders of America, Rousseau was not concerned with a real, live, specific historical situation he could to some extent afford to be more theoretical in his orientation. The philosopher Immanuel Kant was even more concerned with the philosophical notions of liberty, but he detached them from their functioning in government and instead was concerned about human being's innate liberty to do morally good or evil actions. Kant saw morality as existing not as something that could be constructed at will by human beings, but as something that existed for all time, and to be commensurate with the categorical imperative, people must act as if setting a law for conduct in an impartial manner for all time. To be free is to do good, and to act as a check upon your own immoral impulses and behaviors. Kant is concerned, as a Christian philosopher, with establishing the freedom of the will. Unlike Rousseau and the "Declaration of Independence" he does not look to nature to establish such freedom:
But freedom is a mere idea, the objective reality of which can in no wise be shown according to laws of nature, and consequently not in any possible experience; and for this reason it can never be comprehended or understood, because we cannot support it by any sort of example or analogy" (Kant, "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals," Part III). Regardless, within our own moral calculus, we must behave as if the will is free: "the hypothesis, however, that the will of intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal condition of its determination, is a necessary consequence" (Kant, "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals," Part III).
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North American Literature of the 20th Century: A Literature of Alienation North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated literature, on the heels of 19th century romantic literary expression, such as within the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. Similarly, in the early decades of the 20th century, American literature was dominated by the likes of William
Psychology and Literature Both psychology and literature explore how people interact with each other. Both psychology and literature explore how prior events affect what follows. Both psychology and literature look at how a person grows, develops and changes over time. However, psychology looks at how events affect what people do and how they act in very precise ways, while literature fictionalizes and supposes what an imaginary person might do. Psychology looks
classroom, regardless of the age of the learner, we realize that there are multiple learning styles and responses to divergent stimuli. The modern pedagogical environment is faced with a number of challenges that are directly related to learning. In fact, as an educational pendulum swings, we find any number of methods that are thought to be new and innovative; yet it is sometimes the tried and true methods that
OCTAVIO PAZ "TRANSPLANTED LANGUAGES" Octavio Paz's 1990 Nobel Lecture accentuated the issue of transplanted languages and the literature that emerged in a transplanted culture. Latin-American and Caribbean literature is good example of the use of transplanted languages since the influence of European and American cultures is quite pronounced. When people migrate from one place to another or are forced to endure foreign rule, the impact on the language is usually the
Courtly love your purchase. COURTLY LOVE AND MIDDLE AGES LITERATURE In this paper, we shall study the tradition of Courtly love in the Middle Ages as reflected by literary works produced in that period. The paper will first focus on what the exact nature of Courtly Love, then proceed to briefly discuss its development and finally take into account the literary works of Middle Ages that contained elements of this tradition. Courtly love
Abbe Prevost's tale of Manon Lescaut performs several different functions at once. It is in part a cautionary story. It is in part a push to create a fully modern sensibility in French literature. It is in part an exploration of the trope of Romanticism. And in all of these things it is partly a story about the New World, for to Prevost, as to other Europeans of his time,
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