...defined in two ways a secular meaning and a religious meaning. The secular meaning is a strong trust or belief in someone or something, this could be said that human reasoning must be involved. The second meaning of faith, which falls under a religious meaning, is belief in a god through spiritual understanding. Well doesn’t the definition give you some insight? Both depend on one another to truly come to a conclusion, if a higher power exists or not? Merely a use of human reasoning and not the latter would lead us to an infinite search of the truth. Now, I want the reader to notice the two very distinct meanings, one involves human reasoning, the other involves spiritual understanding. An example of the secular meaning is in William Paley’s “The Argument of Design” he mentions the watch and how we come to a conclusion that the watch must a have a maker. We as humans base our conclusions on “examinations and some previous knowledge of the subject” (Paley 5). We could say, this applies to science and philosophy as a whole, they rely upon human reasoning. Now, the watch mentioned by Paley, he explains how something built with complexity could not just come to existence without having had a maker. This falls under the secular meaning of faith, in which based off our observations, past knowledge of craftsmanship, and human reasoning an object such as a watch could be created into existence. Even though we could not explain the other parts of the watch, it does not discredit our...
Words: 1239 - Pages: 5
...Anselm And Augustine Reason Of Faith Anselm And Augustine Reason Of Faith St. Augustine, who was also far and away the most influential Catholic theologian prior to St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Augustine’s mode of thought indicates perfectly that all knowledge upon all subjects must take into account the revealed truth of Scripture along with the insights of philosophy, since all knowledge is aimed at helping humanity understand God. He declared that “Faith precedes Reason” because unless you believe, you would not understand. St. Augustine like other Early Fathers of the Church, fully welcomed reason which was open to the absolute, and infused it with the richness drawn from Revelation. St. Augustine argued that reason and faith must be in concordance to know the truth and the stages of history. Moreover, he held that both help each other. Faith can help “illuminate” truths for philosophy and reasoning along the way to knowing God, and reason can help faith in understanding the perfections of God. St. Augustine, who was also far and away the most influential Catholic theologian prior to St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Augustine’s mode of thought indicates perfectly that all knowledge upon all subjects must take into account the revealed truth of Scripture along with the insights of philosophy, since all knowledge is aimed at helping humanity understand God. He declared that “Faith precedes Reason” because unless you believe, you would not understand. St. Augustine like other...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...answer, because they are physically close to our minds." However, sensations and feelings are very subjective, and the results of sensation vary from person to person and even within the same person, depending on the circumstances. What to one person is cold might be warm to another, one person may be more fatigued in the afternoon than in the morning, so that his or her perceptions may temporarily less accurate. Therefore one cannot claim that sensations provide sure knowledge for human beings. | On the other hand, Aristotle sustains that the perceptions of the senses form the foundation which leads to true knowledge. The senses "give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars" (individual material objects). The senses, especially sight, "make us know and bring to light many differences between things." The senses thus provide a foundation that will ensure that human knowledge is true or accurate. Back and forth, we have already discussed that sensations cannot provide true knowledge for humans because of subjectivity, as in this case, this is not necessarily that perceptions of senses form...
Words: 1414 - Pages: 6
...Yizhen Yan Doc Hodges Social dynamics 10/27/2014 Society is a set of ideas, and it can not be described as a material thing. Every society are series of ideas, and all the ideas are formed in human minds. This is why society is obviously dependent on human being. But does human being depend on society in order to survive? Absolutely yes. Society exits to make human being stronger, it unite group of people together to accomplish that could not be accomplished by individuals, and more importantly society provides people a reason to exist in the world, it provides people identity, faith values and hopes. This is why Human and society is not separable. We were created to think and to question. From the first stage in our life we are dependent on the society--family, and then school. Human being without society are desperate to find sense of belonging, a sense of community. When people lose their sense of themselves in community, they go on to look for something that they belong to (gangs), the result of this can be a war. If society is not a material things such as trees and animals or machines? Why does it decline? I believe the decline of society could be concluded into three different aspect: decline of leadership, failure of ideas (failed to deliver the promises, or simply did not work out), and the change of mindset during generation. Every society goes through period of birth, rise, mature, decline and death. The most important factor to cause all this...
Words: 1039 - Pages: 5
...Practical Reason First published Mon Oct 13, 2003; substantive revision Thu Nov 6, 2008 Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do. Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems. First, there are questions about how deliberation can succeed in being practical in its issue. What do we need to assume—both about agents and about the processes of reasoning they engage in—to make sense of the fact that deliberative reflection can directly give rise to action? Can we do justice to this dimension of practical reason while preserving the idea that practical deliberation is genuinely a form of reasoning? Second, there are large issues concerning the content of the standards that are brought to bear in practical reasoning. Which norms for the assessment of action are binding on us as agents? Do these norms provide resources for critical reflection about our ends, or are they exclusively instrumental? Under what conditions do moral norms yield valid standards for reasoning about action? The first set of issues is addressed in sections 1-3 of the present article, while sections 4-5 cover the second...
Words: 7323 - Pages: 30
...more familiar with it; for even kids can possess it. The word "science" comes from the Latin verb scire, which means "to know". Science, therefore, is about possessing a certain kind of knowledge. Some people are under the impression that science is about knowing facts. But science is much more than that; for everyone knows certain basic facts, such as "leaves are green", or "the sky is blue", or that "people get cancer", etc, and that doesn't make them scientists. A person has science, however, when he knows the reason for the fact, such as why leaves are green, or the reason for cancer, etc. Science is about reasoned facts. In other words, one has science when one knows the cause of the fact. Now that which manifests a desire to possess "science" is the act of questioning. The word question comes from the Latin querere, which means to quest, to journey, or to search. To question is to go out on a quest in search of something, namely the cause of a fact, or the reason for it. That is why science is fundamentally a knowledge of things through their proper causes. Wisdom is a kind of science, and so it too is a knowledge of things through causes. But, more precisely, wisdom is a knowledge of the...
Words: 652 - Pages: 3
...Emerson prefaced the prose text of the 1836 first edition of Nature with a passage from the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus. The 1849 second edition included instead a poem by Emerson himself. Both present themes that are developed in the essay. The passage from Plotinus suggests the primacy of spirit and of human understanding over nature. Emerson's poem emphasizes the unity of all manifestations of nature, nature's symbolism, and the perpetual development of all of nature's forms toward the highest expression as embodied in man. Nature is divided into an introduction and eight chapters. In the Introduction, Emerson laments the current tendency to accept the knowledge and traditions of the past instead of experiencing God and nature directly, in the present. He asserts that all our questions about the order of the universe — about the relationships between God, man, and nature — may be answered by our experience of life and by the world around us. Each individual is a manifestation of creation and as such holds the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Nature, too, is both an expression of the divine and a means of understanding it. The goal of science is to provide a theory of nature, but man has not yet attained a truth nbroad enough to comprehend all of nature's forms and phenomena. Emerson identifies nature and spirit as the components of the universe. He defines nature (the "NOT ME") as everything separate from the inner individual — nature, art, other...
Words: 3638 - Pages: 15
...In the handout from Man is the Measure, Abel discussed nine “good reasons” or sources of knowledge. In a response of 450-500 words, evaluate any two of those sources. Of these, one should be an epistemology that you consider a strong or secure foundation for knowledge and one that you consider relatively weak. Discuss the reasons for your choice and include specific examples. Among the nine epistemologies suggested by Abel in “Man in the Measure”, I consider sense perception to be a strong epistemology. According to the Oxford Dictionary, “sense perception is to perceive by a sense (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch). Long before humans learned how to use language or reason, sense was the primary way to interact with the world, and was the only source for obtaining knowledge. Sense perception is considered to be a framework for many other theories. It also helps people confirm assumptions, as they are very convincing. Two men looking at the ocean might say it is light blue, which cannot be doubted. In addition, acknowledging that it is light blue, it may be deduced that the water in the ocean is clean. However, sense perception also has its weaknesses. Firstly, according to Hermann von Hemholtz, humans construct images by inferring it based on past experience. Furthermore, it means that humans convert pictures into something based on the understanding of the world. This becomes a weakness, as different people would have different perspectives. Secondly, due to...
Words: 570 - Pages: 3
...The second sentence of the exegetical passage of Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense is; “We believe that when we speak of trees, colours, snow and flowers, we have knowledge of the things themselves, and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities” (144). This helps understand the analogy Nietzsche used earlier, we as human beings believe that we understand snow, colors, flowers, and trees through knowledge like how a deaf human being, thinks he understands sound through vibration. The metaphors that Nietzsche uses in this line are examples of different words that we use in everyday life. He describes these words as metaphors because the way that we form conceptions of objects...
Words: 350 - Pages: 2
...'The aim of feminist theology is simply to seek equality between women and men' Discuss. Feminist theology is a movement found in many religions. Feminist theology aims to reconsider the traditions, scriptures and theologies of those religions from a feminist perspective. It can be argued that feminist theology just wants equality between men and women, however, It can also be put across that seeking equality is not their only aim. Liberal feminist theology is fundamentally rooted in the Enlightenment philosophers who place a high value on reason and recognise that men and women share the same powers of reason. Key thinkers, such as Immanuel Kant, think that whilst there may be physical differences between men and women, there is no difference in terms of human reason. Liberal feminist theologians argue that although the Bible is often patriarchal and biased against women, there is nevertheless a strand which runs from Genesis to Galatians which consider men and women to be created equally in the image of God and therefore entitled to equal respect. They would argue that the Bible shows that women can perform a wide variety of roles and that certain texts are particularly important in demonstrating this. One is the story of Deborah. The scripture characterises Deborah as a prophet, judge and poet. She summons the Israelite commander Barak, addresses him forcefully with a command from the Lord and gives him specific tactical orders. A stark contrast to the strength and leadership...
Words: 1059 - Pages: 5
...The Nature of Man[1] Though man shares with the other animals external and internal senses, he is at the same time also endowed with two qualities peculiar to himself, knowledge and will. By knowledge is meant the power of generalisation, the conception of abstract ideas, and the possession of intellectual truths. By will is meant that strong desire to acquire an object which after due consideration of its consequences has been pronounced by reason to be good. It is quite different from animal desire, nay, it is often the very opposite of it. In the beginning children also lack these two qualities. They have passion, anger, and all the external and internal senses, but will finds its expression only later. Knowledge differs according to the capacity for it, according to the latent powers in a man. Hence there is a variety of stages amongst Prophets,[2] the Ulamas, the Sufis and the Philosophers. Further progress is possible even beyond these stages, for divine knowledge knows no bounds. The highest stage is reached by one to whom all truths and realities are revealed intuitively, who by virtue of his exalted position enjoys direct communion and close relation with the Most Holy. The real nature of this position is known only to him who enjoys it. We verify it by faith. A child has no knowledge of the attainments of an adult; an adult is not aware of the acquisitions of a learned man. Similarly, a learned man is not cogniscant of the holy communion of the saints and the prophets...
Words: 1520 - Pages: 7
...Where there may be a million reasons to leave, but it is for one simple reason that the people have chosen to stay - Love. Like you, we are Singaporeans, born and bred in Singapore. Like you, we went through Singapore's education system, and we love this nation and our government. Like you, we are thankful to be in this great country, where we can accept those of different race and religion, where we can be open to make our democratic choice, where we can be of good position to help our friends, be it the needy or our neighbouring countries. Like you, we are but human. We feel, the same way you do. We hurt, the same way you do. We are not perfect, the same way you know you aren't too. And we stand. Because we understand. The same way you love and ache for your children, is the exact same way how our parents would love and ache for us. Let us be a gracious society, fellow Singaporeans. For humanity, for peace. Our kids are watching us. Where there may be a million reasons to justify or fault from, it is from one simple reason I write - Love. Let the cook whip up the meal. Let the pilot fly the jet. Let the ones ordained do their job. Let the anointed fulfill their calling. Let us be kind. To those who hurt and are hurting. (Before you know it, this wouldn't affect you a bit the way you first thought it would.) A fellow...
Words: 257 - Pages: 2
...Give reasons why Kayerts killed himself and prove them with the text. There are several reasons why Kayerts hangs himself at the end of the story. Previously, he shoots Carlier accidentally after they have been arguing about the sugar. Kayerts feels deadly sick (p.33, l.64) shortly after killing his assistant and only friend at the trading station. Afterwards, Makola appears and talks with Kayerts. Makola arrives at the conclusion that Carlier “died of fever” (p.34, l.21) and Kayerts just remains silent. Kayerts could have killed himself because he feels alone, which becomes most obvious on page 34, ll. 26-28. His only ‘friend’ he could talk to is dead. Moreover, he shot an unarmed partner and could be afraid of being arrested. (which is not in the text…) He lost his friend and partner and can’t continue life without him. Besides, he feels guilty because he accepted the selling of the slaves, which is – of course – forbidden. (p.25, ll. 55-64) This could be one reason, why Kayerts didn’t see another possibility to get rid of all his problems than hanging himself. Another significant point is his daughter Melie. He cannot come across Melie because he would disappoint her by his own failure. Furthermore, Kayerts seems to understand that colonialism is all about exploitation (p. 36, ll. 3-7; p.34, ll.37-2) Makola had said that “Carlier died of fever”, which was a lie. Kayerts does not want to lie. He cannot live with this lie because of his bad conscience. This despair...
Words: 409 - Pages: 2
...Ryan Perrin Research Essay 12/12/13 Othello William Shakespeare’s Othello could be viewed as an allegory that represents the frailty of human reason and the ease as to which a person can manipulate rational thought through the utilization of skillful rhetoric and deception. In the essay Allegory and Irony in ‘Othello’ by Antoinette B. Dauber, she says “he [Shakespeare] is not committed to the maintenance of allegory, and so he freely dramatizes the internal weaknesses and external onslaughts that lead to its destruction.” The readers, or viewers of the play, then are meant to be able to apply the stories moral problems to everyday situations and realize the harm that can be done by using rhetoric and deception to manipulate others. Rhetoric, when used as a tool of deception, can lead others to come to “reasonable conclusions,” yet these conclusions may be based upon irrational reasons and emotion; which in turn makes such a conclusion irrational. In reality these irrational reasons are only as rational as a persuader can convince a person to believe. In Othello, Shakespeare shows that even in the minds of people that are most confident of themselves, there is a self-doubt that can be increasingly apparent by very simple means of ignition. Iago ignites, or maybe even re-ignites this self-doubt by leading Othello to believe that Desdemona would prefer Cassio over him, which could cause Othello to believe that he is not worthy of having Desdemona since he is black. This situation...
Words: 1885 - Pages: 8
..... Explain the role of the categorical imperative within Kant’s theory A Categorical Imperative is a should statement, but it is not based on experience, and doesn’t rely on outcome. Instead, it precedes experience by using logic, or helps us make sense of our experiences. When considering another are of thinking, Kant showed that we must assume that time moves forwards, but also that our mind forces this on our experiences to make sense of them. Therefore as human beings we could never demonstrate or prove this through experience. This is how the categorical imperative works: certain actions are logically inconsistent and would make no sense as universal laws, such as lying. Therefore, ‘Do not lie’ is a categorical imperative and it’s this understanding that our mind plays an active role in ordering and determining our experience was ground-breaking. Kant states the categorical imperative as follows:” I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law”. This quote specifically highlights the true nature of the categorical imperative within Kant’s ethical theory. Another interpretation of the categorical imperative is that it is supposed to provide a way for us to evaluate moral actions and to make moral judgments. It is not a command to perform specific actions; it is simply formal procedure by which to evaluate any action about which might be morally relevant. According to Kant, the moral law is universal...
Words: 512 - Pages: 3
