Philosophy
In his discourse, The Republic, Plato describes the "ideal state" as composed of three social classes: the merchant class, military class, and philosopher-kings. The merchant class maintains and provides service to the society by safeguarding the people's economic activities, while the military class provides the society's security needs. However, in order to establish a stable society, the class of philosopher-kings must govern, having the knowledge, skills, and talent to govern and lead over the society politically. Moreover, the philosopher-king is appropriate for the role of a political leader because he (Plato assigns the role to men) possesses virtues of temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice. These three classes provide balance in the society in terms of the security, prosperity, and leadership, thereby establishing what Plato calls the "ideal state."
Aristotle's philosophy on happiness and the good life is illustrated in his discourse, the Nicomachean Ethics, wherein he posits that in humans achieve happiness based not only on his/her pure intent to be happy; rather, s/he takes into account both intellectual and moral values when studying the nature of happiness among humans. According to him, the nature of happiness and good life is achieved through self-sufficiency: "[n]ow by self-sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself, for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship." Self-sufficiency, in this case, is the process wherein an individual achieves happiness not only on individual happiness, but also happiness achieved by other people through the individual. In effect, Aristotle's concept of happiness and good life is based...
Philosophy Analyzing Rembrandt The following paper is a response to questions regarding the painting, "Aristotle with a Bust of Homer." The painting was painted by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1653. It is oil on canvas and access to the painting is gained by the website of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, physically located in New York City. The paper will first contextualize the painting, trying to situated in history and establish a historical
Philosophy Matrix II Ancient Quest for Truth Philosophy Matrix II: Ancient Quest for Truth Use the matrix to analyze Plato and Aristotle's theory of knowledge and apply both to current day practices. In the first column, using the readings about Plato's search for truth and his theories of knowledge, discuss how contemporary people may be living in a cave and which steps, based on Plato's model of the Divided Line, will be necessary for
Berkley stated that because the senses were potentially faulty, everyone's sense perceptions and thus everyone's 'truth' was unique and variable. However, most empiricists like Locke believed that some (few) things could be known with certainty, like shape and color, even if other properties of things could not be known. The empiricists come from the Aristotelian rather than the Platonic tradition of philosophy, and had rigorous standards of truth based upon
He points out that Filmer's essay had been written before Cromwell's victory over Charles I, and that the attitude towards government in general and the monarchy specifically had greatly changed. The way he describes the unique circumstance in England, too, especially in regards to the situation of religion, makes it clear that Locke's thoughts could really only have been possible in a given environment. This notion seems initially repugnant
Philosophy Kuhn's Rationale on the Irrationality of Scientific Revolutions "Communities in this sense exist, of course, at numerous levels. The most global is the community of all natural scientists." ~Thomas S. Kuhn, from The Structure of Scientific Revolutions To understand Thomas Kuhn's ideas regarding scientific revolutions, one must have a grasp on Kuhn's ideas relating to the history of science in general. Kuhn's perspective on the history of science is that scientific knowledge is
It is important for students to understand that the world does not exist in isolation, but the skills we learn overlap in our journey into learning. Epistemology: Epistemology asks us to ponder the question: what is knowledge how does knowledge of one event or process impact other events, how do we know what we know? Within my educational philosophy, the concept of knowledge is, as it is in Bloom's hierarchy,
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