Rousseau’s Philosophy: Enlightenment and Social Contract
Rousseau’s Ambiguous Figure in the Enlightenment
Jean-Jacques Rousseau stands as a complex and paradoxical figure within the Enlightenment. While recognized as a leading figure of this influential movement, he also emerges as one of its most prominent critics. This stems from his emphasis on the primacy of feeling over reason and his argument that science and culture, rather than improving humanity, tend to corrupt it.
Criticism of Society
Rousseau posits that human beings are inherently good, but
Read MoreMedieval Legal Thought and Interpretation of Roman Law
2. Discourse Structure
All updating and systematization of law should be enforced under an interpretation of Roman-Justinian law. Medieval legal thought tended to identify the right with the legislature’s intention. Reading Romance texts and observing the political life of the time promoted a statist conception of law, which held that the king had an absolute monopoly of issuance.
The reality of a legal system was based on standards rooted in a tradition of great authority. Lawyers, using legal texts,
Read MoreEmpiricism and Skepticism: A Study of Hume’s Philosophy
Hume
Historical Context
David Hume (1711-1776), born in Edinburgh, the son of a Scottish landowner, initially pursued business before turning to literature and philosophy. He studied at the University, focusing on Aristotelian logic and botany. He later moved to France, then the center of philosophical rationalism, where he wrote A Treatise of Human Nature. Returning to London to publish it, he met with complete failure. His fame grew later, even as his writings were considered subversive and heretical,
Read MoreSt. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways to Demonstrate God’s Existence
The First Way: Motion
The first way attempts to demonstrate God’s existence through the concept of motion. It begins with the observable fact that things in the world are in motion. According to St. Thomas, influenced by Aristotle, everything that moves is moved by another. He defines motion as the passage from potentiality to actuality, arguing that something cannot be both potential and actual at the same time. This leads to the metaphysical principle that everything that moves is moved by another.
Read MoreThomas Aquinas’s Philosophy: Exploring Existence, Ethics, and Knowledge
Thomas Aquinas’s Proofs for God’s Existence
The Five Ways
In theology, God is the undisputed starting point. However, from a philosophical perspective, Aquinas believed it necessary to prove God’s existence because the idea is not innate. He argued that God’s existence cannot be demonstrated from His definition alone, as there’s no single definition for Him. Aquinas asserted that we can only know what is perceived through the senses, which excludes the divine essence.
To prove God’s existence, Aquinas
Read MoreThe Need to Understand: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry
The Need to Understand
One thing seems clear: unlike the animals that consume their lives procuring the means of subsistence, humans will not be content with mere survival. We have found that we need meaning in life; we need to understand how we live and the best way to do it. We want to live well. Animals live completely submerged in the present, driven by stimuli that trigger predictable responses. We, however, are not content to simply accommodate ourselves in the present. We are often pulled
Read More