Understanding Indeterminism, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility
Indeterminism, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility
Indeterminism
Indeterminism is the holding that when we are free to choose and act, system states will act independently to carry out a choice between several different forms of action. There are certain options, such as maintaining a reliance on physical appearance and sustaining freedom that belongs to the rational realm alone, as in the case of discarding Kant. Others, such as Sartre’s existentialism, affirm the absolute freedom of being human.
Read MoreUnderstanding Historical Modes of Production
Modes of Production
The history of society is the history of development and succession, subject to the laws of production. There are five different modes:
1. Primitive Society
The first mode of production in the history of humanity, according to Marxist theory, means a stage of economic-social relations characterized by low productive force development, simple cooperation, and clan families.
2. Slave Society
This was the first mode of production based on labor that appears in history. It arises from
Read MoreUnderstanding Science: Its Nature, Structure, and Methods
One characteristic that distinguishes humans from other living beings is an innate curiosity that leads us to wonder about the world in which we live and about our own human nature. Science seeks to understand reality, find the causes of observed phenomena, establish universally valid concepts, and demonstrate rational arguments. Science is the knowledge that provides a better understanding of the universe. It is a system of knowledge about a specific sector of reality, derived in a rational way,
Read MoreNietzsche’s Philosophy: Apparent World, Innocence of Becoming, and the Dionysian
Apparent World
This concept refers to Nietzsche’s division of reality into two worlds established by metaphysics and religion. A true world, on top, is reached by reason, objective and immutable, eternal, and that relates to the good and spiritual. In Plato, this would be the world of ideas; in Christianity, God; and in Kant, reality itself. The lower world is the apparent world, that of the senses, subjective, changing, a world of corruption, change, and death, which accounts for the poor and the
Read MoreKant’s Theory of Knowledge: A Summary
Kant’s Theory of Knowledge
Summary 1
Metaphysical and speculative knowledge is not based on experience; it does not apply to it. It has not been developed as a science. Metaphysics is based on reason and seeks out the a priori. Metaphysics has failed to become a science; it will never reach a definitive conclusion.
Summary 2
Kant asks whether metaphysics is possible as a science and why we have a natural tendency towards metaphysics when we get nothing from it. He concludes that if we change the way
Read MoreAristotelian Ethics and Politics: Natural and Divine Law
Ethics and Politics
Ethics and politics are framed within fundamental ethical concepts of Aristotelian influence. The ethics that should govern the lives of men have a natural basis, and in turn, this natural law is related to political law.
Ethics
Supported by several concepts proposed by Aristotle, including:
- Ethics is grounded in nature: Aristotle’s ethics is eudaimonic (considering human happiness the aim and object of ethical and political science). For Aristotle, happiness is consistent with the