Descartes: Historical, Philosophical, and Cultural Context
Historical Context of René Descartes
The historical context of René Descartes (1596-1650) corresponds to the era depicted in Alexandre Dumas’s novel, The Three Musketeers. Descartes, a 17th-century philosopher, lived during the French Golden Age. Politically, France, like other major European nations at the time, was organized as an absolute monarchy, which would reach its zenith under Louis XIV, characterized by the identification between the monarch and the state.
The 17th century was also a period
Read MoreAncient Greek Philosophers: Sophists, Socrates, and Plato
Sophists
Protagoras (485-410 BC)
He was the most famous Sophist. His theory of knowledge advocated relativism, which permanently disqualifies the whole truth: nothing is absolutely true or false, good or bad.
Gorgias (485-380 BC)
Critic of Parmenides (the contrary). His work, On Non-Being, has three fundamental theses:
- Nothing exists; there is no reality (nihilistic).
- If something existed, it would not be knowable (skeptical).
- If something existed and was knowable, knowledge could not be communicated.
Defense
Read MoreMoral Philosophy: Key Theories and Concepts
Characteristics of Moral Action
- It is done by adjusting to a code or a set of moral rules and values.
- This moral code should not be imposed by society on the people, but each individual must be free to choose it.
- Being free when acting is something extremely important when assessing an action from a moral perspective because, if I act freely, then I am morally responsible for what I do or don’t do.
- Thus, a fundamental condition appears so that we can judge whether an individual’s behavior is morally
Catholic Social Teaching: Principles, History, and Bioethics
Can People Live in an Organized Way Without Religion?
Europe was formed from three pillars: Jerusalem (God), Greece (philosophy), and Rome (laws). As it was said before Christ, “One cannot speak of laws without religion.” Religion comes from “religar” (to bind or unite), which means joining with something superior and with everything that surrounds you. Can a man be good without a God? There are Christians who are bad and good atheists. Did someone tell us that murder is bad? We did not need
Read MoreHuman Nature: Life, Society, and Freedom
Homo Sapiens Sapiens: A Living Being of Rational Nature
Here is the first thing we are. Aristotle said that for the living, life is your being. Everything we are, we feel, think, do or suffer, everything, is because we are alive.
A) What is it to be alive?
Life is what differentiates the living from the inert. Life is very difficult, if not impossible, to conceptualize. Not within a term. At best, we can determine some characteristics such as these:
- To live is to “Autonomously Move” from within. Living
Empiricism vs. Rationalism: Locke, Hume, and the Nature of Knowledge
Empiricism vs. Rationalism
Empiricism is a philosophical stream arising from Anglo-Saxon philosophers, almost simultaneously with rationalism. Leading representatives are British: Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Empiricism argues that all knowledge comes from experience.
Empiricism accepts some basic ideas of rationalism. For both empiricists and rationalists, the being of things is given in consciousness, not the external world. There is no access to the things themselves, but to the ideas we create in
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