Is It All A Dream Essays - Epistemology, Philosophical Methodology

Is It All A Dream? Phil 2003 H Second Essay Brandy L. Davis Is it All a Dream? In Descartes' Meditations, he attempts to outline his philosophical views of the mind and body. Descartes knows that over the course of his life, he inadvertently accepted many false beliefs (and their falsity infected other beliefs which he based on them). He decides to sort through his beliefs, discard all the questionable ones, and retain only a perfectly secure basis: some beliefs whose truth is beyond doubt. He begins by doubting all that he ?knows? and all that he ?feels? in order that he may be absolutely certain when he claims to have knowledge of anything. One of his initial methods of skepticism is to doubt everything that comes to him via the sensual world. In order to do this, he suggests the possibility that he is always in a dream state. Descartes remembers that sometimes when he is dreaming, he falsely believes that he's awake. And, reflecting on this, Descartes thinks he can't ever tell whether or not he's dreaming. Maybe it's all just a dream. If it were a dream, everything would seem just the same. Thus, every bit of knowledge about the world that he gained would be false. Descartes introduces the argument in his first meditation, but never fully explains his reasons for dismissing it. Finally, at the end of his last meditation (VI), he offers a response to this early concern. Descartes claims to have found a marked difference between the states of dreaming and wakefulness. He adheres to the notion that memory is not linked and able to connect dreams in sequential order as it is able to do with waking states. Additionally, he concludes that if he is able to connect something, be it inanimate or animate, to its past present and future occurrence or appearance in his life, then he is definitely awake. He feels that such ability is not possible in the dream state. Finally, he states that if he has exhausted all his abilities and brought all of his senses and faculties to bear on the satisfactory conclusion of the argument, and he still concludes that he can determine he is awake, then he must be. This is supported by the idea that his senses and faculties would be simultaneously deceiving him if he were dreaming and was certain of the opposite. Since God is his creator, he would necessarily be a deceiver if he allowed his creations to be so falsely made that they could be completely deceived by the instruments He provided them. Additionally, because of his refutation of the ?God is a Deceiver? claim, he knows he is not dreaming. In order for Descartes to be able to make the claim that doubting if one is dreaming is not a serious doubt, he was first required to establish the following premises: God exists, God is the creator of everything, God is not a deceiver, errors in perceptions come from the misuse of the senses, and premature assumptions are the effect of errors in perception. This, I believe, is why he did not go into great detail on his dismissal of the possibility that he was dreaming in the first Meditation. For instance, it would be impossible (following Descartes' logic) to explain why we would automatically dismiss the claim that 2+2=5 without first establishing the following ideas: numbers exist, they can be put together and their values increased, and that if you put them together in the same ways, you will always end with the same value. I have many issues with Descartes' response to the claim that whether one is dreaming or not is a viable doubt. Most of them center around his unsatisfactory evidence for the existence of God. However, I have been instructed not to pursue them, so I will refrain. The conclusions he makes about this argument are unconvincing to me, as are all his other conclusions. I will attempt to support my rebuttal of his claims. My first problem is with his conclusion that our memory can't connect our dreams with each other and with the course of life. This, in my experience, is completely false. I am constantly certain of aspects of my

Griffin essays

Griffin essays Griffins project is that she carefully constructs and describes history, particularly World War II, through the lives of several different people. She does not just state the history, she ties each of her topics and shows how they directly effected the other by the actions someone would take. For example, when Himmler sends all those people to the death camps, Helene was directly affected by this and Griffin they went ahead and showed how because of Himmlers actions, Helene had her own story about the same conflict but in a totally different point of view. Griffin strikes all of these aspects in her essay. What is most compelling about the essay, however, is the way Griffin incorporated personal, family, and world history into a chilling story of narrative and autobiography, without ever losing the factual evidence the story provided. Many believe that history is what is read in textbooks, or what is seen on the news. If Susan Griffin were asked that question, she would probably argu e that history is much more than that. It is about the minds and souls of the people who went through the historical event, not simply what happened. In her essay, Griffin incorporates stories of people from totally different backgrounds, and upbringings, including herself, all to describe their account of one time period. Each persons history is somehow connected with the next persons, and each story contributes equally to the larger view of history. Griffin inputs three types of histories in her text; personal, family and world history. In her personal history, she describes her life, and her childhood, which intertwines with her family history. However, she not only talks about her histories, she talks about the histories of the other characters in the essay to bring across the larger world history. One of the techniquess that Griffin uses to help the audience understand her concepts, is explaining two other story lines whil...

Argumentative Essay Example Should High School Be Mandatory

Argumentative Essay Example Should High School Be Mandatory High school students are facing the whole new world of education. Is it worth getting? When you’re in high school, it’s challenging enough to plan for the next week, let alone the next 10, 15, 25 years. But if a high school student had the foresight to look ahead that far in the future, and even further down the road, they would undoubtedly see the importance of having a high school education. Rather than leaving it up to the near-sighted adolescent to decide, a law should be enacted mandating that all American residents and citizens complete a high school education. After all, it’s free to the public (or paid for with taxes) kindergarten to the 12th grade. And it’s probable that most people who drop out before graduating from high school tend to lead lives of struggle, financial hardship, and criminal troubles, too. HIGH SCHOOL YEARS ARE THE MOST MEMORABLE ONES To begin with, a high school diploma should be the standard in America, because a solid high school education lays a solid foundation for the rest of a person’s life. In high school, as well as the years leading up to high school, a student learns the basics, of course – reading, writing, and arithmetic – but also how to do many other skills that will serve them well as working adults. The school prepares a person to be a responsible, resourceful adult. In school, whether a student realizes it at the time, they are developing quite valuable skills and learning important information. When a person finishes high school, they can do just about anything an adult person needs to do to survive and live a good life – read road maps and plan a trip; understand contracts and agreements, as well as read directions on how to assemble something; balance a checkbook, research how to solve a problem. A high school education is imperative for everyone looking to survive adulthood. Ultimately life is disease, death and oblivion. Its still better than high school. Dan Savage Secondly, a high school education provides a person with the knowledge and fundamental skills needed to get a job as an adult; therefore, it should be made mandatory. To survive in America as an adult, one needs a decent-paying job – and to get a job that pays even the minimum wage, a person generally needs a high school diploma. Take, for example, a gas-station attendant. They work with money most of the day, so they must have a strong foundation in math – a skill taught in school from the very beginning, up until the more-advanced math courses in high school, such as algebra and statistics. Even gas-station attendants are generally required to have some basic knowledge of technology to work the money machines. Nowadays, students begin working on computers from a very early age, in elementary school, and they’re taught more advanced computing skills in high school. Also, attendants each day must communicate information to customers and supervisors alike. Communi cation skills are created and developed through one’s schooling, through writing papers, engaging in discussions, reading, researching and conversing. Without a high school education, a person lacks the necessary skills to be successful as an adult. Thirdly,  a high school education should be mandatory for all Americans for another important reason: the entire point of education is to establish the intellectual foundations needed to be self-educated. In other words, when a person graduates from high school, they possess the intellectual and  informational resourcefulness one needs to teach him or herself just about anything. Naturally, there are tons of people with just a high school education who have gone on to become very successful individuals in just about various fields and industries. Due to their educational foundation, however, they are self-learners capable of mastering any task and challenge they face as adults. FRATERNITY VIOLENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION To conclude, there should be a law that makes a high school education mandatory for all Americans; that is, a person should be penalized for not finishing high school and getting their diploma. A lack of education hinders an individual, which hurts the economy in the long run – which in turn hinders a country from moving forward and flourishing. It gets left behind. One may go as far to argue how Americans should be legally required to have some sort of post-high school education – whether a college degree or at the very least some sort of specialty education, an apprenticeship, if one prefers the less-academic route. Either way, a high school education is necessary for anyone required to work for a living. It’s imperative for success.

The Presence of Racism is Shakespeare's Othello Essay

The Presence of Racism is Shakespeare's Othello - Essay Example Therefore, after the Reformation, it represented an antagonistic political and religious force against Protestantism in England. At that time, Italy was the site of classical Roman history and civilization which paved the way for the "Renaissance" of European culture from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. (Nostbakken, 2000) Differences matter. Othello was not a Venetian by birth and therefore his status is ambivalent: he both belongs and does not belong to the city of Venice. He belongs because he is Venice's military general whose main role was to defend the city from possible invaders, and he is a Christian who shared a common religion with his fellow Venetian citizens. However, he is also a real stranger from a strange country, a foreigner and an outsider. The play manifests the inherent tension which exists between the differences that set him apart and the qualities that allow him to play a respected and vital role in the city's day-to-day life. Cassio, another key character of this play, is an outsider but he is less of a stranger compared to Othello for he is a European gentleman. Cassio comes from the beautiful Italian city of Florence. Othello, in contrast comes from the unknown and misunderstood world of Africa. (Nostbakken, 2000) The courtesans of Venice were prostitutes serving an upper-c... In this play, Shakespeare presents the strong positive and negative impact of identity by exploiting many degrees of difference between various characters of the play as distinguished by their rank and status, and by their places of origin, adoption, or conquest. Shakespeare wrote this play for English audiences in the early seventeenth century and this play reflected and responded to problems, situations, and problems of the period. Hence, the play showed identities defined by differences as well as similarities. In a sense, the responses of English audiences were also influenced by their own sense of identity as a nation.Iago's character speaks for the corruption and intrigue in Venice. In the first scene, he implies the practice of political prejudice, as opposed to impartiality, by explaining that friendship gained Cassio the title of lieutenancy while Iago's attempts had failed. Iago acts as a model of self-interest rather than duty. Iago's advice to Roderigo to "put money in th y purse" exemplified the naked greed that foreigners identified with Venice's highly prosperous merchant economy. Iago is inherently revengeful, scheming, and manipulative. His dominance in the play mirrors the dark side of humanity and also the dark side of Venice. Iago is a true native of Venice and he belongs there in a way that Othello, the outsider, does not. (Nostbakken, 2000) Venetian women were perceived to be very deceptive. Desdemona was shown as a "super-subtle Venetian" and suspects practically every man and woman as being unfaithful, adulterous, or promiscuous. However, Desdemona does not fit the Venetian stereotype of infidelity and deception. She was a faithful woman.

Are No-Suicide Contracts Effective in Nursing Practice Essay

Are No-Suicide Contracts Effective in Nursing Practice - Essay Example There are different thoughts in a patient’s head and psychologically the act provides the patient with a different mindset. In a sense, it assists in the fuelling positive thoughts in a patient. The no-suicide act also provides patients with a means of attaining assistance. Many patients suffer from severe emotional stress and they are unsure of what to do with their lives. The act provides the patients with reasonable steps they can take when they begin to feel suicidal. The use of the suicide act hinders different interventions as much faith may be placed on this method. Many studies state that nurses become less competent in the presence of a no-suicide contract. As the nurses are reluctant to implement other approaches, they may overlook obvious and much better intervention methods Apart from being able to detect early suicidal warning signs, the nurse should also be able to detect warning signs in the patient’s history (depression, drug abuse, recent divorce or unemployment, psychiatric disorders). The nurse should refer the patient to psychiatric department if he or she detects warning signs of suicide (verbalization- â€Å"I can’t live like this any longer†; reckless behavior; giving away valued possessions and abuse of narcotics) 8. Please develop 3 nursing interventions for the patient’s plan of care that are each directly related to the identified nursing diagnoses. Please include a rationale for each nursing intervention. Establishment of a therapeutic relationship with the patient. The nurse must be fully aware of the patient’s condition in order to understand the history of the problems and the different approaches taken in the past. The nurse must also understand the patient and his or her attitudes towards the current situation. Validation of the patient’s thoughts towards his or her condition. This is useful in establishing the relationship between the nurse and patient. It also assures the client that the

Homers Bio :: Essays Papers

Homers Bio Biography of Homer (?-? BC) Beyond a few fragments of information, historians and classicists can only speculate about the life of the man who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. The details are few. We do not even know the century in which he lived, and it is difficult to say with absolute certainty that the same poet composed both works. The Greeks attributed both of the epics to the same man, and we have little hard evidence that would make us doubt the ancient authorities, but uncertainty is a constant feature of scholarly work dealing with Homer's era of Greek history. The Greeks hailed him as their greatest poet, as well as their first. Although the Greeks recognized other poets who composed in Greek before Homer, no texts from these earlier poets survived. Perhaps they were lost, or perhaps they were never written down†¹Homer himself was probably on the cusp between the tradition of oral poetry and the new invention of written language. Texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey existed from at least the sixth century BC, and probably for a considerable span of time before that. These two great epic poems also had a life in performance: through the centuries, professional artists made their living by reciting Homer, performing the great epics for audiences that often know great parts of the poem by heart. It is impossible to pin down with any certainty when Homer lived. Eratosthenes gives the traditional date of 1184 BC for the end of the Trojan War, the semi-mythical event which forms the basis for the Iliad. The great Greek historian Herodotus put the date at 1250 BC. These dates were arrived at in a very approximate manner; Greek historians usually used genealogy and estimation when trying to find the dates for events in the distant past. But Greek historians were far less certain about the dates for Homer's life. Some said he was a contemporary of the events of the Iliad, while others placed him sixty or a hundred or several hundred years afterward. Herodotus estimated that Homer lived and wrote in the ninth century BC. He almost certainly lived in one of the Greek city-states in Asia Minor. All of the traditional sources say that he was blind. Over the course of millennia of scholarly speculation, prevailing theories about Homer and his relationship to his work have had time to change and change again.

Current Events in the Philippines and How it Affects Good Governance

There are several current issues in the Philippines, let’s just say in economic, political and government conditions, education, environment,health, socials and many more. Every day, we watch on television, we hear from radios, read from newspapers and in the internet the continuous news of corruption of some politicians is the most trending issue.The scandalous pork barrel scam is history in the making. It is the biggest problem now a days in the government, imagine how many senators, congressmen and government agencies are being involved and a lot of budget are being wasted because of these fake NGOS and this is the example of a perfect crime.The second trending issue is on the environment, those fortuitous event like the long list calamities that hit the country, specificallythe earthquake in bohol and the super typhoon haiyan/ Yolanda, these unprecedented calamities has been a great problem to us and for our political leaders but still with the help of outside countries an d with fast relief operations of the government our country is hoping to rise from these terrible events. But ofcourse some of our political leaders again and their operations had become harsh and some mal practices are present.In the midst of our difficulties and despair, some politicians are taking advantage of the situation. We taxpayers pay for the salaries of these lawmakers to make our country the best place to live. To help them perform their job well, but what happened?Instead of performing their jobs and fulfill their function in uplifting the lives of Filipinos many of them used their power, authority, time and effort for sustaining their private interest so it may result in graft and corruption practices and anomalies in the government.Poor become poorer and most of politicians are becoming busy increasing their assets. Now, there is really a good governance in the phillipines? Those sceneraio are the perfect examples that may greatly affect good governance, its because p ublic office is a public trust.Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity,loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice and lead modest lives.