...essence of man is the constituent of man which goes beyond his body alone but extends to his mind, soul, spirit and other attributes of man. But we cannot talk about the essence of man without the existence of man because without an existence of man, man’s essence is of no use and nothing to talk about. This brings about the proposition ‘existence precedes essence’. The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence (the nature) of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence (the mere fact of its being). To existentialists, human beings—through their consciousness—create their own values and determine a meaning for their life because the human being does not possess any inherent identity or value. By posing the acts that constitute him or her, he or she makes his or her existence more significant. Also Saint Thomas Aquinas specifies that a true human being has both essence and existence. Man is rather different than any other beings like animals, plants and inanimate creatures. And it is apparent that man cannot only be evaluated in terms of physical features. Some describe man as having certain members like eyes,...
Words: 3943 - Pages: 16
...Life After Death. What the specification requires: • An examination of the arguments for and against life after death. • Reincarnation. • Rebirth. • Resurrection. • Immortality of the soul. Introduction. Humans have refused to accept that this life is all we get for thousands of years. As a result of this refusal, humans have developed various theories to explain that when our bodies cease working, there is some kind of existence that takes place after this. Obviously, before getting into this debate, it is important to agree on what is meant by the word ‘death.’ ‘…when respiration and other reflexes are absent; consciousness is gone…an absolute and total loss of the brain function that cannot be reversed.’ This is a medical definition and is based upon medical methods of determining physical (brain) death. These methods are generally the use of an electroencephalograph (EEG) to determine brain function, an examination of pupil size and reaction and obviously, a check of blood flow (pulse), heart beat and respiration. It is generally accepted that once a body exhibits brain stem death, i.e. that there is no activity in the most primitive part of the brain, that death has occurred. What makes a human being? Theories concerning life after death are all interested in whether or not there is a part of the human body which survives the death of all the physical parts and where (or indeed when) it goes. There are a number of theories...
Words: 4935 - Pages: 20
...of which have theories explaining what gives us our personal identity. Dualists believe that the mind and body are separate, monists believe that the mind and body are one but can be separated and materialism is the view that there is no such thing as a mind or a soul and that when we die we die. Philosophers such as Plato and Descartes are dualists. In this dualist argument, Plato presents four arguments for the immortality of the soul which are cyclical – everything comes into existence from its opposite which sets up the cycle of birth and death, recollection- Plato believed that the knowledge we acquire is not learnt but remembered or recollected. Plato believed that the soul existed in a realm of forms before coming into the body, where it acquires this knowledge. As evidence of this he cites the slave boy who has no education but can grasp complex mathematical concepts just like the film ‘Good will hunting’, Affinity – Plato believed that the body has an affinity with the earth and that the soul has the affinity with the eternal real of forms. Because the soul is composite, at death it is dispersed at death and so it returns to the real of form to which it has an affinity and final – The final argument states that because the soul is simple and cannot be destroyed, when death, it’s opposite approaches, it must either retreat or be destroyed. As it cannot be destroyed it has to retreat, which it does in the realm of forms. Therefore, dualists would agree that the body is...
Words: 1844 - Pages: 8
...Many would argue between the existence of the mind-body. One may say that the mind and body are two separate entities with distinct characteristics (Dualism). While on the other hand, some may say that there exists only one entity (Monism). The mind represents mental processes such as thoughts and consciousness. The body represents physical aspects of the brain, such as neurons and the formality of the brain. The debate over the mind-body existence have been constant through the teachings and influences of intelligent philosophers. Rene Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy, he states that there exists two different entities the mind and body and that they both interact with each other. Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind critiques Descartes’...
Words: 1281 - Pages: 6
...Critically compare Aristotle’s and Richard Dawkins’ views on body and soul identity. (35) The mind-body problem is an ongoing problem in the philosophy concerning the nature of the relationship between the mind, or consciousness, and the physical world. It questions how our mental thoughts are linked to our physical activities. In religion and philosophy, the soul is considered the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, which is often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the individual which is thought to survive the death of the body. However, this view point isn’t taken by all. Viewpoints on the soul can be separated into monism, dualism and materialistic views. Aristotle is a monist believing that the body and soul are not linked, whereas Dawkins is a hard materialist believing that biology is the key. Aristotle defined the soul, or psyche, as the ‘first actuality’ of the body and argued against it having a separate existence from the physical body, unlike other philosophers such as Plato. Aristotle’s belief was that the difference between a live body and a corpse is the presence of the soul. When the soul dies, so does the body. In his book, De Anima he stated that “the soul does not exist without a body and yet is not itself a kind of body. For it is not a body, but something which belongs to a body.” In Aristotle’s view, full actualisation of a living thing is its soul. The soul...
Words: 1420 - Pages: 6
...towards the development of the mind and brain. In Back to Methusalah, Shaw carries forward his vision of evolution as proceeding in the direction of mental development but introduces a seemingly new idea in the last play of the cycle, the antithesis of mind and body. Shaw's dualism receives its most explicit statement in the last play of the cycle although there may be indications of it in the earlier plays. The mind-body antithesis, however, derives as a philosophical problem from Descartes,1 although the antithesis also appeared in the Manichean and Gnostic heresies, the spirit, or mind, being regarded as good and the body as evil. Although the antithesis of body and mind makes its first open appearance in the Methusalah cycle, it is present, at least as an implicit assumption in Man and Superman. Don Juan continually expresses his longing for the life of contemplation, a life which is to be achieved at the expense of the body. We will deal with the presence of the mind body antithesis, and its possible source, in this paper. The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles is not one of Shaw's best plays; moreover, it is in a sense tangential to the main line of development that Shaw's evolutionary thought had taken after the 1920's. It is included, here, however, because the principle of social selection forms a counterpart to circumstantial, or natural, selection in Darwinian...
Words: 49397 - Pages: 198
...Psych 100, Notes Sept. 6, 2012 History and Perspectives * Definitions of Psychology * The science of mental life (William James, 1890) * “The study of human or animal behaviour” (Webster’s Dictionary 1988) * “The scientific study of behavior and mind” “The scientific study of behaviour and its causes” (Passer & Smith) * Roots of the Word * Psyche – Greek for soul * Logos – Greek for the study of a subject * Related Fields * Philosophy * Rene Decartes (1595-1650) Dualism (interactionism) * Body is physical entity * Mind is nonphysical entity * Mind and body are separate, distinct entities involved in the production of behaviour * Pineal gland (Used for mind and body to communicate) * Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) * Materialism – position that since nothing exists other than matter and energy the concept of soul is meaningless * Form of monism * Empiricism (Position that all human knowledge and thought are derived from sensory experience * Branch of Biology concerned with the scientific study of how living organisms function (Muller, Helmholtz, Fechner) * Birth of Psychology * Wilhelm Wundt * Established first independent psychology lab at university of Leipzig 1879 (birth of psychology) * Established first psychology journal 1881 * Studied consciousness (one’s awareness...
Words: 1977 - Pages: 8
...mTELECOURSE STUDY GUIDE FOR The Examined Life FOURTH EDITION author J. P. White Chair, Department of Philosophy Santa Barbara City College contributing author Manuel Velasquez Professor of Philosophy Santa Clara University This Telecourse Study Guide for The Examined Life is part of a collegelevel introduction to philosophy telecourse developed in conjunction with the video series The Examined Life, and the text Philosophy: A Text with Readings, tenth edition, by Manuel Velasquez, The Charles Dirksen Professor, Santa Clara University. The television series The Examined Life was designed and produced by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, Netherlands Educational Broadcasting Corporation (TELEAC/NOT), and Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR) Copyright © 2007, 2005, 2002, 1999 by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, 150 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 300, Pasadena, California 91105-1937. ISBN: 0-495-10302-0 Contents Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Lesson One — What is Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....
Words: 78103 - Pages: 313
...A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 First American paperback edition published in 2006 by Enchanted Lion Books, 45 Main Street, Suite 519, Brooklyn, NY 11201 Copyright © 2002 Philip Stokes/Arcturus Publishing Limted 26/27 Bickels Yard, 151-153 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3HA Glossary © 2003 Enchanted Lion Books All Rights Reserved. The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier hardcover edtion of this title for which a CIP record is on file. ISBN-13: 978-1-59270-046-2 ISBN-10: 1-59270-046-2 Printed in China Edited by Paul Whittle Cover and book design by Alex Ingr A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 Philip Stokes A618C90F-C2C6-4FD6-BDDB-9D35FE504CB3 ENCHANTED LION BOOKS New York Contents The Presocratics Thales of Miletus . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Pythagoras of Samos . . . . . 10 Xenophanes of Colophon 12 Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The Scholastics St Anselm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 St Thomas Aquinas . . . . . . . 50 John Duns Scotus . . . . . . . . . 52 William of Occam . . . . . . . . . 54 The Liberals Adam Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Mary Wollstonecraft . . . . 108 Thomas Paine . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Jeremy Bentham . . . . . . . . . 112 John Stuart Mill . . . . . . . . . . 114 Auguste Comte . . . . . . . . . . . 116 The Eleatics Parmenides of Elea . . . . . . . 16 Zeno of Elea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 The Age of Science Nicolaus Copernicus . . . . . . 56 Niccolò Machiavelli...
Words: 73655 - Pages: 295
...bridging the worlds of myth and reason. He initiated the revolutionary notion that to understand the world one needed to know its nature and that there was an explanation for all phenomena in natural terms. That was a giant step from the assumptions of the old world that supernatural forces determined almost everything. While considering the effects of magnetism and static electricity, he concluded that the power to move other things without the mover itself changing was a characteristic of "life", so that a magnet and amber must therefore be alive in some way (in that they have animation or the power to act). If so, he argued, there is no difference between the living and the dead. If all things were alive, they must also have souls or divinities (a natural belief of his time), and the end result of this argument was an almost total removal of mind from substance, opening the door to an innovative non-divine principle of action. Thales recognized a single transcendental God (Monism), who has neither beginning nor end, but who expresses himself through other gods...
Words: 17879 - Pages: 72
...ISTANBUL MADRID PARIS BOMBAY DELHI KARACHI MELBOURNE SINGAPORE DAR ES SALAAM HONG KONG MADRAS NAIROBI TOKYO KUALA LUMPUR MEXICO CITY TAIPEI TORONTO and associates in BERLIN IBADAN © Rajiv Gandhi 1985 First published 1946 by The Signet Press, Calcutta Centenary Edition 1989 Sixth impression 1994 Printed at Rekha Printers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 110020 and published by Neil O'Brien, Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110001 To my colleagues and co-prisoners in the A h m a d n a g a r Fort Prison C a m p from 9 August 1942 to 28 March 1945 FOREWORD My father's three books — Glimpses of World History, An Autobiograpy and The Discovery of India — have been my companions through life. It is difficult to be detached about them. Indeed Glimpses was' written for me. It remains t h e best introduction to the story of man for young and growing people in India and all over the world. The Autobiography has been acclaimed as not merely the quest of one individual for freedom, b u t as an insight into the making of the mind of new India. I h a d to correct the proofs of Discovery while my father was away, I think in Calcutta, and I was in Allahabad ill with mumps! The Discovery delves deep into the sources- of India's national personality. Together, these books have moulded a whole generation of Indians and inspired persons from m a n y other countries. Books fascinated Jawaharlal Nehru. He sought out ideas. He was extraordinarily...
Words: 198694 - Pages: 795
...N E T A J I’ S LIFE and WRITINGS PART ONE AN INDIAN PILGRIM OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE WWW.HINDUSTANBOOKS. COM WWW.HINDUSTANBOOKS.COM PREFACE The NetaJi Publishing Society has great pleasure in presenting to the public the unfinished utobiography of`Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Netaji wanted to give his autobiography, when completed, the title "An Indian Pilgrim". That is how his autobiography derives the name. "An Indian Pilgrim" takes the reader from Netaji’s parentage, birth and early childhood to his Cambridge days—and what days !—when a youngman of 24 had to make up his mind either to take a path, strewn with roses, which promised nothing but ease, luxury and official honour, or a path, strewn with thorns, inviting one to selfless suffering and sacrifice and promising nothing more than blood, sweat and tears. The result of the struggle is known to the world. But only handful have had the privilege to know the different phases of that struggle. Perhaps it was not in 1921 but a decade earlier that the battle within had been won and lost. Perhaps even earlier! That is a poser which we leave to the readers. But one thing is certain that the Rashtrapati and the Rebel President, the Desh Gaurab and the Netaji, the creator of the First Government of the Free India and the beloved leader of the Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Parsees, had been moulded between 1897 and 1921. This is the period covered by "An Indian Pilgrim"...
Words: 45752 - Pages: 184
...Employment News 31 May - 6 June 2014 www.employmentnews.gov.in 21 UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION EXAMINATION NOTICE NO. 09/2014-CSP (LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS : 30/06/2014) DATE :31.05.2014 CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION, 2014 (Commission’s website-http://upsc.gov.in) F. No. 1/5/2013-E.I(B) : Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services Examination for recruitment to the Services and Posts mentioned below will be held by the Union Public Service Commission on 24th Aug., 2014 in accordance with the Rules published by the Department of Personnel & Training in the Gazette of India Extraordinary dated 31st May, 2014. (i) Indian Administrative Service. (ii) Indian Foreign Service. (iii) Indian Police Service. (iv) Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service, Group ‘A’. (v) Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (vi) Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise), Group ‘A’. (vii) Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (viii) Indian Revenue Service (I.T.), Group ‘A’. (ix) Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Group ‘A’ (Assistant Works Manager, Administration). (x) Indian Postal Service, Group ‘A’. (xi) Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (xii) Indian Railway Traffic Service, Group ‘A’. (xiii) Indian Railway Accounts Service, Group 'A'. (xiv) Indian Railway Personnel Service, Group ‘A’. (xv) Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force, Group ‘A’ (xvi) Indian Defence Estates Service, Group...
Words: 47693 - Pages: 191
...Employment News 11 - 17 February 2012 www.employmentnews.gov.in 21 Union Public Service Commission EXAMINATION NOTICE NO. 04/2012-CSP DATED 11.02.2012 (LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS : 05.03.2012) CIVIL SERVICES EXAMINATION, 2012 (Commission's website - http://www.upsc.gov.in) F. No. 1/4/2011-E.I(B) : Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services Examination for recruitment to the Services and Posts mentioned below will be held by the Union Public Service Commission on 20th May, 2012 in accordance with the Rules published by the Department of Personnel & Training in the Gazette of India Extraordinary dated 4th February, 2012. (i) Indian Administrative Service. (ii) Indian Foreign Service. (iii) Indian Police Service. (iv) Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service, Group ‘A’. (v) Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (vi) Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise), Group ‘A’. (vii) Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (viii) Indian Revenue Service (I.T.), Group ‘A’. (ix) Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Group ‘A’ (Assistant Works Manager, Administration). (x) Indian Postal Service, Group ‘A’. (xi) Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group ‘A’. (xii) Indian Railway Traffic Service, Group ‘A’. (xiii) Indian Railway Accounts Service, Group 'A'. (xiv) Indian Railway Personnel Service, Group ‘A’. (xv) Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force, Group ‘A’ (xvi) Indian Defence Estates Service, Group ‘A’. (xvii) Indian Information...
Words: 50586 - Pages: 203
...nd Ontology aa e ysics of Ide etaph as M rn de o Id An Ess M Marc A. Hight ay i nE ar ly Idea and Ontology Idea and Ontology an essay in early modern metaphysics of ideas marc a. hight t h e p e n n s y l va n i a s t at e u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s u n i v e r s i t y p a r k , p e n n s y l va n i a Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hight, Marc A., 1969– Idea and ontology : an essay in early modern metaphysics of ideas / Marc A. Hight. p. cm. Summary: ‘‘Provides an interpretation of the development of the ontology of ideas from Descartes to Hume that reaffirms the vital role metaphysical concerns played in early modern thinking’’—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978–0-271–03383–9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Ontology. 2. Idea (Philosophy). 3. Metaphysics. I. Title. BD301.H54 2008 110.9—dc22 2008002466 2008 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 Copyright The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material...
Words: 122775 - Pages: 492
