St. Thomas Aquinas: His Philosophical and Historical Context
Historico-Philosophical Context of St. Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas was born north of Naples. He attended college in Roccasecca and entered the Dominican Order. He held a chair in Paris and returned to Italy to engage in teaching. He returned to Paris after Orvieto to reorganize the School of Philosophy and reread the works of Aristotle. He died in 1274 while traveling to the Council of Lyons. His most outstanding works include Summa Theologica, earning him the title of Angelic Doctor.
Socio-Economic
Read MoreMarx’s Intellectual Sources and Critique of Hegel
Marx’s thought draws from several sources, including Hegel’s German idealist philosophy, Feuerbach, French utopian socialism, and English economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Before Marx, these thinkers, including Feuerbach, approached reality contemplatively and metaphysically. Marx’s materialism critiques previous materialism, emphasizing the transformation of reality rather than mere interpretation. This is evident in the historical and dialectical materialism proposed by Marx and Engels,
Read MoreKant’s Theory of Knowledge: A Priori Structures & Reality
Kant: Knowledge, Experience, and A Priori Structures
Experience and A Priori Forms of Sensibility
Knowledge begins with experience; however, experience is not given to the subject in advance. In fact, what is initially given to the subject is a chaotic mass of impressions. We can only speak of ‘experience’ from the moment that this sensory matter is organized by the a priori forms of sensibility inherent in the subject.
Thus, knowledge is a combination of two elements: one element comes from outside
Read MoreEffective Negotiation: Principles, Process, and Agreements
Win-Lose Negotiation
A negotiation where one party gains advantages at the expense of the other party’s losses. Every benefit the buyer receives translates into a loss for the seller.
Win-Win Negotiation
Aims to reach agreements where both parties benefit.
Negotiation Elements: Subject, Object, Agreement
- Subjects: Stakeholders who are interrelated and interdependent in resolving the conflict.
- Object: The conflict or issue over which the involved parties must agree.
- Agreement: The result reached after negotiation
Hobbes vs. Locke: State of Nature and Social Contract Theory
Thomas Hobbes
According to Thomas Hobbes, in the state of nature, men are completely free in their actions, but this unlimited freedom is not useful to anyone and only leads to anarchy and violence. To escape this chaos, men decide, through a social contract, to constitute civil society. Therefore, the need for order and the desire for peace give rise to the state. With the establishment of the state, man achieves security and property.
For Hobbes, the price men pay for safety is the renunciation
Read MoreJohn Stuart Mill: Liberty, Utilitarianism, and Induction
Mill on Knowledge and Induction
For John Stuart Mill, all statements expressing human knowledge of reality result from observation; that is, human logic is a logic of experience. Every statement is either empirical in origin or lacks validity.
Regarding the first principles of logic, Mill argued that the principle of contradiction is merely one of our earliest generalizations from experience. For instance, observing the mutual exclusion between rest and movement, light and darkness, or silence and
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