Sophists: Greek Thinkers and the Rise of Rhetoric
The “Sophists” were a group of Greek thinkers who flourished in the second half of the 5th century BCE. They shared at least two outstanding features: their teachings included a set of humanistic disciplines (rhetoric, politics, moral rights, etc.), and they were the first professionals of education, teaching full courses organized and paid for with considerable sums. Both features—the humanistic character of their teachings and the institutionalization of teaching itself—clearly show that the
Read MoreSymbolic Capacity and Human Language: An In-Depth Analysis
Symbolic Capacity: Understanding Human Uniqueness
The symbolic capacity: The human being is a rational animal who has emotions, feelings, poetic imagination, and is able to express it symbolically.
- It is the only animal capable of building symbolic forms (language, art, myth, religion) that give sense and meaning to the world in which they live.
- The symbol is a perceptible element (object, image, gesture) that represents or replaces an idea, feeling, or reality.
Features of Symbols
- Symbols are artificially
Scientific Method: Progress, Limits, and Confirmation
Progress and Limits of Science
The problems we have seen about the scientific method call into question the naive scientism that sees science as the most perfect achievement of human rationality. This position secured an advance, estimated indefinite and unlimited scientific progress. In addition, it judges scientific principles as unquestionable dogmas, instead of theories useful and effective, but probable and provisional.
Consider two of the most important positions on this question:
- Karl Popper:
Nietzsche on Reality, Art, and the Errors of Philosophy
**Nietzsche’s Philosophy: Embracing Reality Through Art**
For Nietzsche, reality is vital. Therefore, life becomes the object of his philosophy and the source from which arises all that is concrete and changing; that is real. If reality is pure *becoming*, it cannot be grasped by the concept, but by the metaphor, since this does not provide an unambiguous meaning (objectivity) but accepts the plurality and subjectivity of the same (perspective). Therefore, art, for Nietzsche, is the only appropriate
Read MoreKarl Marx’s Philosophical and Economic Influences
Philosophical and Economic Influences on Karl Marx
Hegel, Feuerbach, and the Hegelian Left
Marx’s philosophy draws heavily from Hegel’s idealism, particularly the concept of the dialectical process (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). However, Marx rejects Hegel’s notion of an Absolute Reason, asserting instead that reality is rooted in the material world and human experience. Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel, emphasizing the material basis of human existence and the concept of alienation, further influenced
Read MoreRationalism: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
Rationalism
Rationalism holds that the source and origin of knowledge is reason. It is knowledge that is valid and real, clear and distinct reason, and comes from no sense. The model of rational knowledge is the deductive system of mathematics, where all knowledge is inferred from first principles or ideas.
1. Descartes
In 1637, he published the Discourse on Method. In his address, he outlined his method (theory about how the pursuit of knowledge) and a first outline of philosophical knowledge that
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