Metaphysics
Essays

Chapter One of James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man traces Stephen Dedalus's early childhood experiences from his toddler years through his first term at boarding school.

Plato was born in 428 BC and grew up in a time of major political change in Ancient Greece. The Peloponnesian War began a few years after he was born and continued until he was twenty.

¶ … Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's attempts to come to an understanding of human nature ultimately lead him to an understanding of justice. He attempts to understand how humans can reach true happiness, and delves…

The concept of multiple realization is an issue that has been discussed among philosophers and psychologists alike for years. Even with the advent of modern technology, we still seem to understand so little about the…

. The objective of this study is to answer the question of what does first philosophy or theology consist and what is its object. In addition, this study will ask in what ways that it differs from other sciences and in what sense is it first? In the final analysis this study will answer if Aristotle's ‘first philosophy is an ontology or a study of beings or a theology or a study of first or highest beings?

The Age of Innocence is an enchanting Victorian era novel that eloquently illustrates the price of being among New York's high society the late nineteenth century. The novel's main characters are Newland Archer, a high…

The major problems encountered by United States in managing and collecting the data of its prisoners encompass the historical importance of the police department and the extent to which there activities contribute to…

Concepts and ideologies, such as the "Veil of Maya," have tried to declare the philosophical interpretation of the "reality' of the world. These conceptions are helpful in analyzing the importance of our senses and to…

Does "Free Will" Exist and if so, to What Extent does it Exist? The concept of "Free Will" has been debated by many philosophers over a period of centuries, not only regarding its very existence but also regarding its elements, the extent to which it may or may not exist and its moral implications. Our assigned readings have merely touched on debates that have raged and will probably continue to rage as long as human beings contemplate the "truths" about being. Though an exhaustive review of differing philosophical treatments of "Free Will" would probably take hundreds of pages, this work will briefly examine several major philosophies of "Free Will" and some of their most notable proponents. In reviewing these sources and differing approaches to "Free Will," we can see that philosophers approach the concept of "Free Will" with differing definitions, examining disparate aspects and resulting in somewhat different implications for Morality. It is fortunate that this work does not require a definitive conclusion about the existence and impact of "Free Will," for review of sources from class reading and independent reading reveals that the only definitive conclusion can be that there is no definitive conclusion. It appears that each philosopher in his turn treats Free Will and aspects of Free Will somewhat differently and arrives at unique conclusions. Descartes takes the most extreme position examined, apparently believing that there is Free Will and that it is completely unrestrained and undiminished by divine grace or natural knowledge. Immanuel Kant believed that there is Free Will but it is based solely in the rational aspect of the human being and is known essentially because we rationally know that we have certain incontrovertible duties. Roderick Chisholm believes that there is Free Will but that it is specifically linked to a type of "agent causation" as opposed to transeunt or "event" causation. Peter Van Inwagen believes that there is Free Will but only in a very small set of circumstances illustrated by "a garden of forking paths," some of which are illusions. Daniel M. Wegner believes that there is Free Will but that much of our supposed Free Will or Conscious Will is actually a simplistic illusion created for our benefits by our minds. Finally, Benjamin Libet believes there is Free Will but simultaneously refutes much of the traditional notion of Free Will through experiments indicating that many of our actions precede our will and that our exercise of Free Will primarily resides in controlling commenced actions by "vetoing" them. In sum, without even addressing the work of philosophers who do not believe in the existence of Free Will at all, we see disparate approaches to Free Will, to its nature, to its extent and to its moral implications. Indeed, some of these philosophers themselves decry the "incoherence" of philosophical treatments of "Free Will" while attempting to contribute their own thoughts on a vital philosophical topic that shows no signs of uniform conclusions.

The great Avicenna or Abu Ali al-Husayn Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina, born in 980 was often known in the West by this Latin name. Among all the Islamic philosopher-scientists this Persian physician became not only the most…