...Hermesmann 1 Anna Hermesmann Nothing From Nothing: Concepts of Justice in King Lear Ex nihilio nihilfit—“nothing comes from nothing.” In the pre-Christian world of Shakespeare‟s King Lear, this doctrine rules as the actions of the characters prove futile and tragedy results. Lear fails to maintain order in his kingdom and his family; Gloucester loses his sight; and Cordelia, the only one who really loves her father, dies. Critics such as Samuel Johnson have argued that because of Cordelia‟s death, Shakespeare‟s ending is flawed, that he fails to follow the “natural ideas of justice” by allowing “Cordelia to perish in a just cause.” In 1689, approximately eighty years after Shakespeare completed the first text of King Lear, Nahum Tate published an alternate ending to the play in which Cordelia lives and eventually goes on to rule in her father‟s place. While this “happy” ending was performed as if it were Shakespeare‟s original for decades afterwards, it actually runs contrary to the original version of King Lear by applying Judeo-Christian human concepts of justice to a world that is not governed by a just God. In the nihilistic world Shakespeare creates, there is no just force to establish an objective morality, and therefore, the rules of right and wrong, and the consequences of each, are obsolete. Thus, because King Lear is set in a world in which the generally accepted rules of justice do not apply, Shakespeare‟s ending, including the death of the only truly virtuous character...
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...lose their leaves just as they do every fall but this time it's mid July and supposed to be scorching. The trees themselves begin to fall and with them the sunset and sunrise. The days begin to run together in an endless blur of a bleak grey. This mind-numbingly blase world has become home and there is nowhere else to go and nothing can fix it. The end. This is it. The world that was is no more and there is no world to come. Nothing. What would you do? This is exactly what has happened to the main characters within Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Set in a post-apocalyptic meaningless world McCarthy really emphasizes key aspects of why it happened and how there are real life applications to our present day world. There is no god, no hope,...
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...Define “Creatio Ex Nihilo.” In Latin, “ex nihilo” literally means “out of nothing.” It often appears along with the concept of creation, as in “creatio ex nihilo”, meaning “creation out of nothing.” It contrasts with the phrase “creatio ex materia” (creation out of some pre-existent, eternal matter) and with “creatio ex deo” (creation out of God.) Christians all believe that the world is created ex deo, however, whether the universe was created “ex nihilo” or from already present material is still a topic of discussion today among Christians and people of other beliefs alike. There is evidence in the bible supporting both creatio ex nihilo and ex materia. Despite the simplicity of defining the concept of “nothingness” (a pronoun denoting the absence of anything), it is still difficult to understand nothingness as a concept. It is very hard to describe something, without saying it is something. Therefore, even saying that a certain thing is nothing is technically describing it as something, which gets confusing after a while. For example: Blue is a colour, as are yellow and red. All three of these colours make up every colour tone we see. Theoretically, there was an absence of colour, what would be in its place, white or black? It is very difficult to imagine this, as all our life we have been able to distinguish what we have seen because of their colour(s). Even when we try to imagine a world without colours, it becomes impossible not to end up labelling the absence of colour...
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...website, they come across a deeply committed humanitarian organization that provides an ecologically sustainable answer to global hunger and malnutrition. The sad reality is that Monsanto is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and perhaps one of the most unethical corporate giants in the world today. In this essay, I will argue that Monsanto is on a power trip, and that they have a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with compassion, ecology or human hunger, and everything to do with greed. In the following paragraphs, I will provide a brief history of Monsanto. Then I will examine some of the promises made in their marketing propaganda, and provide evidence that these promises are little more than blatant lies.Monsanto is an agricultural biotech corporate giant that genetically modifies animals and crop seeds. On their website, they come across a deeply committed humanitarian organization that provides an ecologically sustainable answer to global hunger and malnutrition. The sad reality is that Monsanto is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and perhaps one of the most unethical corporate giants in the world today. In this essay, I will argue that Monsanto is on a power trip, and that they have a hidden agenda that has nothing to do with compassion, ecology or human hunger, and everything to do with greed. In the following paragraphs, I will provide a brief history of Monsanto. Then I will examine some of the promises made in their marketing propaganda, and provide evidence that these promises are...
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...being(one) which is permanent; on the other hand, Heraclitus says what is real is becoming which is changing. While Plato who sided with Parmenides says what is real is the world of Forms, the world that reflects our world today. However, Aristotle says that the real are matter and form. Furthermore, Levinas stresses the importance of the other as if your relationship with the other helps you fulfill your being a person. That is really true if you will live it. Another philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas says what is real is being “that which exists” wherein his essence and existence is a participation or came from the Pure Act/ God who acted his act of existence. On the other hand, Heidegger makes a turn of these Western views of metaphysics. Heidegger claims that what is real is that the nothing which makes being possible and reality is the unfolding and keeping of Being. Thus, for Heidegger reality is whole and dynamic. This is compared to Buddhistic view of reality. Buddhism believes that reality is interdependently arising which is impermanent and no separation. Moreover, Derrida adds something. He believes that meaning is impossible for no matter how you process to signify the meaning of something, you could not really get the meaning of that something. So, what one can do is just to let this process of signification and one will observe that meaning is impossible. However, these views of philosophers though different have something...
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...Imagine a world in which all the rivers are connected to each other. There are many rivers and they each have their own source, and they have tides and currents that come in and go out. The waters of the rivers mix and merge to such extent that the temperature and fish populations are pretty much the same no matter where you go. The people of the world use the rivers for food, water, recreation, power and transport. They go upstream and they go downstream, they build damns, boats, and irrigation systems. You can think of Globalization as this entire system of rivers, structures, people, products, ideas, and all the processes that help or hinder the mixing of the metaphoric 'waters'. Two major aspect of globalization are; grobalization and glocalization. We can use the analogy of the rivers to explore these aspects. Imagine a world in which there are only a handful of very large mountains. These mountains are the sources of water for most of the world. The water that begins in their peaks has a very powerful current as it flows in a downward motion to the rest of the world. At first in mighty rivers that are so strong they have washed out smaller mountains in their path, they have toppled water reservoir towers and engulfed lakes and eventually come together into just one mega river that reaches entirely around the world. This river then branches out into all reaches of all the lands so that there are very few places to get water other than from this mega river. Now...
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...notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused. Many philosophers have explored the cosmological argument, including Aquinas, in much depth, through his Five Ways in the Summa Theologica. Thomas Aquinas rejected the ontological argument of Anselm, saying that had it been convincing, the existence of God would be self-evident to everyone. He argued that the fact people deny God’s existence is proof enough that it is not in fact self evident. Aquinas believed from faith that God existed and he believed that the real world contained enough evidence for this; Aquinas wrote the Five Ways in order to prove his beliefs. Each ‘way’ of the Five Ways is an exercise of reason, not of faith; they are the classical exposition of natural theology. The first three of the five ways are based on the cosmological argument. The first way that Aquinas proposed to support the cosmological argument regarded the ‘unmoved mover’; he stated that things are seen to move in the world because they are moved by something else. The existence of motion in the universe requires us to consider where, and how, motion began. Aquinas stated that “motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be moved from a state of potentiality to...
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...Philosophy Western philosophy Some would consider the study of "nothing" to be foolish, a typical response of this type is voiced by Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) in conversation with his landlord, one Dr. Gozzi, who also happens to be a priest, “ | As everything, for him, was an article of faith, nothing, to his mind, was difficult to understand: the Great Flood had covered the entire world; before, men had the misfortune of living a thousand years; God conversed with them; Noah had taken one hundred years to build the ark; while the earth, suspended in air, stood firmly at the center of the universe that God had created out of nothingness. When I said to him, and proved to him, that the existence of nothingness was absurd, he cut me short, calling me silly.[3] | ” | However, "nothingness" has been treated as a serious subject worthy of research for a very long time. In philosophy, to avoid linguistic traps over the meaning of "nothing", a phrase such as not-being is oftenemployed to unambiguously make clear what is being discussed. Parmenides One of the earliest western philosophers to consider nothing as a concept was Parmenides (5th century BC) who was a Greek philosopher of the monist school. He argued that "nothing" cannot exist by the following line of reasoning: To speak of a thing, one has to speak of a thing that exists. Since we can speak of a thing in the past, it must still exist (in some sense) now and from this concludes that there is no such thing as change. As a corollary...
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...the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, except for one fact: for centuries, wise men and women in different nations and cultures have been pondering the mysteries of the "circles" of human life. Whenever you use phrases like "life cycle," or "the wheel of fortune," or "come full circle," you are joining Solomon and Black Elk and a host of others in taking a cyclical view of life and nature. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.) But this "cyclical" view of life was a burden to Solomon. For if life is only part of a great cycle over which we have no control, is life worth living? If this cycle is repeated season after season, century after century, why are we unable to understand it and explain it? Solomon pondered these questions as he looked at the cycle of life "under the sun," and he came to three bleak conclusions: nothing is changed (1:4-7), nothing is new (1:8-11), and nothing is understood (1:12-18). In this section, Solomon approached the problem as a scientist and examined the "wheel of nature" around him: the earth, the...
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...The Truman Show Essay “We accept the reality of the world with which we’re presented.” That is what Christof answers, when somebody asks why Truman never has come close to discovering the true nature of his world. Truman Burbank lives a perfect life in the beautiful and secure town of Seahaven. He has a beautiful wife, good friends and family and is a successful man. But what he doesn’t know is that this world he lives in is a set-up. The life he thinks is usual is actually a studio - a big dome with hidden cameras in every corner. He was presented to this “unreal” world, when he was a child, and was born into this TV-shown. That is of course the world he thinks, is the real world. Why should he believe anything else? Truman grew up in that world, without knowing that every step he took was being viewed by the whole world. All his friends and family plays a role in the most viewed TV-show in the whole world, The Truman Show. Truman accepts his existence in Seahaven. He doesn’t think that anything is odd, because he hasn’t experienced anything else. Truman does not question his wife’s or friend’s unusual behavior, because it is not unusual for him. He doesn't wonder why everything happens at the same time every day, there hasn’t happened anything else. Each person’s reality is their perspective. He accepts the world, he lives in. Christof, the producer and creator of the show, has followed Truman since the beginning. He almost feels like a father to him, but that is also...
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...Nothing is no thing,[1] denoting the absence of something. Nothing is a pronoun associated with nothingness,[1] which is also an adjective, and an object as a concept in the Frege-Church ontology. In nontechnical uses, nothing denotes things lacking importance, interest, value, relevance, or significance.[1] Nothingness is the state of being nothing,[2] the state of nonexistence of anything, or the property of having nothing. Contents[hide] * 1 Philosophy * 1.1 Western philosophy * 1.1.1 Parmenides * 1.1.2 Leucippus * 1.1.3 Aristotle * 1.1.4 John the Scot * 1.1.5 G. W. F. Hegel * 1.1.6 Existentialists * 1.2 Eastern philosophy * 2 Language and logic * 3 Mathematics * 4 Computing * 5 Physics * 6 See also * 7 Notes * 8 References * 9 External links | [edit] Philosophy [edit] Western philosophy Some would consider the study of "nothing" to be foolish, a typical response of this type is voiced by Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) in conversation with his landlord, one Dr. Gozzi, who also happens to be a priest, “ | As everything, for him, was an article of faith, nothing, to his mind, was difficult to understand: the Great Flood had covered the entire world; before, men had the misfortune of living a thousand years; God conversed with them; Noah had taken one hundred years to build the ark; while the earth, suspended in air, stood firmly at the center of the universe that God had created out of nothingness...
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...are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. While few philosophers would claim to be nihilists, nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. “Nihilism" comes from the Latin nihil, or nothing, which means not anything. It appears in the verb "annihilate," meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Early in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively characterize transcendental idealism. Nihilists denounced God and religious authority as antithetical to freedom. By the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination. 2. Nihilism, in fact, can be understood in several different ways. Political Nihilism, as noted, is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social, and religious order is a prerequisite for any future improvement. Ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and...
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...Debate Evolution Dinosaurs why extinct? The world was very different when the dinosaurs were alive — it was much hotter and wetter. Over time, the world changed and it became harder for dinosaurs to survive. Some scientists believe that an asteroid (a large rock from space) may have hit the earth in the time of the dinosaurs, causing the temperature to drop sudq denly. When big changes like this happen, some creatures are well suited to survive, and others aren’t. Creatures that are not well suited to survive in the world will die out. A creature that is well suited to survive will have lots of babies that will often be even better suited to survive. After the earth cooled during the time of the dinosaurs, most dinosaurs died out. Those few who survived had babies who were smaller, smarter, and quicker. As time went on, those babies had babies of their own, and over the course of thousands of years, these creatures didn’t look like dinosaurs at all anymore. They had changed into new kinds of animals, and these animals were well suited to survive in the changed world. The bible refers to a day because that’s all people could relate to. A day is simply one rotation of the earth. Suppose a day was one rotation of a galaxy that took hundreds and millions of years? All types of creatures change slowly over time. Scientists call this process evolution. Every study of dinosaurs and early mammal’s primitive life shows that living things evolved to fit the condition. --------...
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...not take into account the many varying religious ways of thought and forms of political leadership within the world. This is a case of over simplifying something that is not simple. It would be better worded as follows: Nuclear war is a very real concern amongst many of our religious and political leaders. Though the ideas behind what qualifies as and why nuclear war is a concern may be different, the end state of nuclear war is what concerns most though there are some extremist religions and political factions would like nothing more than to incite a nuclear war and are trying desperately to acquire nuclear weapons. I was able to identify most of the errors by playing the devil’s advocate as it were. This ability gives one an objective perspective and allows them to see the errors in their ways of thought. Beginning the statement with the word “All” is one that should be avoided. Many things you or I consider common sense might not be the same to someone else. This takes away the ability to accurately generalize. With a topic as ambiguous as this it would be hard to make many close ended statements because of the varying schools of thought. However you cannot argue that nuclear war is a very real concern amongst many of our religious and political leaders. Nothing was stated to determine that every leader thinks the same. Nuclear power is a threat to world peace. Nuclear energy stations generate nuclear power. So nuclear energy...
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...01/09 Nothing Gold Can Stay Why do things change? In “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton, the theme of the book is that “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (77). This means that things do not last forever. Johnny, Ponyboy, and Randy all learn this lesson in different ways. Johnny learns “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (77) in many ways. First, it states, “I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you kept reminding me about them,” (78). When Johnny took the time to think about colors like Ponyboy had mentioned, he realized that “Nothing Gold Can Stay” (77). The colors of the clouds were seldom golden, and when it was it lasted only but a short period of time. Before Ponyboy showed Johnny the good he saw in sunsets and colors, he was just another greaser boy who lived by the stereotype. After Pony pointed out to Johnny all the interesting things he thinks about, not only was their relationship stronger, but Johnny’s thoughts were too. Next, it...
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