Research Methodology

Choosing a Research Topic

You must ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are you going to investigate?
  • How will you conduct the research?
  • Why is it important to investigate this issue?
  • What elements are part of choosing a research topic?

Understanding the Issue

The issue is resolved through scientific procedures. The beginning of the investigation is the problem.

The Problem

A crisp and direct relationship between two or more variables in the problem, which can be tested empirically and can find an

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Descartes’ Methodical Doubt: Stages, Truth, and the Cogito

Descartes’ Methodical Doubt

Stages of Methodical Doubt

The understanding must find fundamental truths within itself, truths that are absolutely certain and beyond any doubt. The search for this starting point requires a prior task: to remove all knowledge, ideas, and beliefs that do not possess absolute certainty. We must eliminate everything that can be doubted. Hence, Descartes begins with doubt.

The first reason to doubt our knowledge is the fallibility of the senses: the senses deceive us at times.

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John Stuart Mill’s Concept of Freedom: A Critical Analysis

Mill’s Defense Against Criticisms

Mill can defend these criticisms:

  1. Contradiction between utilitarianism and freedom as an end in itself: It is argued that Mill contradicts himself by claiming happiness as the sole end in itself in his utilitarianism, while also advocating for freedom.

Defense

Freedom and virtue are means to achieve happiness. Through association, they become part of happiness itself.

  1. Leaving important matters to experts instead of the majority: It is suggested that crucial decisions
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Religious Education in Spain: 25 Years of Evolution

Summary Table

Three basic positions regarding religious education:

  • Religious education in school
  • Religious education outside of school (secularism) – admissible but not confessional

Year 31 – Republic – freedom of education

Year 33 – Secular republic – no religion

Year 36 – Civil War — personal government until 1975

Year 39 – Catholic confessional element – the church supports the regime.

Franco Regime – religion is compulsory – membership of the church in the regime (60s). The Vatican is created, which

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Saint Augustine: Reason, Faith, and the Pursuit of Truth

Reason and Faith in Saint Augustine’s Philosophy

Saint Augustine aspired to achieve truth and happiness, and for him, both are found in Christ. The road to Christ requires both faith and reason. That is, for Augustine, reason and faith are complementary:

  • Faith must be understood with the procedures of reason. This is not a faith opposed to reason, as defended by Tertullian.
  • Reason is fallible and insufficient. Reason without faith is prone to error and, by itself, is incapable of attaining truth.

The

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Understanding Ethics, Freedom, and Responsibility

What is Ethics?

Ethics is the study of moral action, the action of the human relationship in order to achieve one’s own good, and failing that, of evil. To know the proper good of a person, one must know what a person is. Depending on the doctrine of a person, so shall ethics be. Once the nature of man is known, what is said to be ethical is good for him and for others, and what goes against the asset itself. There is no ethics without a definition of good and evil. There is also no ethics without

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