John Locke’s Political Philosophy: Key Terms and Concepts
Core Concepts
Common Good
The models either as individuals who are members of a state, and it is this which should provide for each of its members for their welfare and happiness.
Corporatism
Corporatism as a form of action relates to the organization of a community based on partnerships representing the interests of all its component members.
Consent
Free and voluntary assent of an individual to become part of a political community. It is synonymous with the author’s agreement or contract. Consent can
Read MoreUnderstanding Descartes’ Cogito and the Nature of Existence
The Cogito
The first truth of the Cartesian system, “I think therefore I am,” is cogito ergo sum.
It is a conclusion of reasoning, since the validity of these has been questioned. “I think therefore I am” is a truth given in intuition: to doubt the self realizes that it exists. Moreover, the more one stresses the self in doubt of everything else, the more certain one notes that at least one is thinking and there.
To think therefore I am is finally a truth with which Descartes refutes the skeptics.
Read MoreUnderstanding Ethics: Definitions, Scope, and Importance
1. Some Definitions of Ethics and Scope
A practical treatise regarding human actions and moral life aims not only to know them but mainly to direct them.
Studying the free behavior of individuals addresses universal problems.
Science provides criteria to order the free acts of man, guiding each person toward their ultimate goal: happiness.
Ethics calls for the election of decent behavior, the effort to do good, and the science and art to achieve it.
Scope
Wherever a person moves, their good or bad actions
Read MoreUnderstanding Descartes’ Philosophical Concepts
Evidence: The nature by which something is conceived in a clear and distinct manner, i.e., what is presented clearly to our reason in detail and distinct (clearly and distinctly). Something conceived in this way leaves no room for doubt and trial will be true. The criterion of truth in the ratio of what is directly conceived is true without any doubt (rejecting the senses and imagination). Existence: Descartes used this term to indicate the mode of being of man in the world. Existence is the mode
Read MoreUnderstanding Plato’s Dualism and Its Impact on Human Nature
3.1 Plato’s Dualism
Belief that ideas exist in themselves, having their own reality: ontological idealism. They exist outside of human thought, creating two separate realities that are heterogeneous.
WORLD OF IDEAS OR SPIRITUAL | Physical or Material World |
Immutable: no change over time | Mutable: things change over time |
Timeless: neither generated nor destroyed | Finite: born and die |
Intelligible: known by thought | Unintelligible: we never fully know because they are ideas |
Universal: includes all objects belonging |
Understanding Moral Values and Ethical Theories
- What Are Moral Values? Moral values serve as guides for our actions and direct our moral behavior. All figures include a duty to be, but the ethical values, and this should be a duty to involve, are a requirement or standard that we must fulfill. Ethical values are classified according to different points of view: the public or private.
- The Ethical Theories of Happiness The ethical theories we will study propose various models of a happy life. The first of them is the ethics of eudaimonia. Aristotle