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Showing posts with the label philosophy

FUKUYAMA ON; END OF HISTORY.

The End of History?*  Francis Fukuyama** IN WATCHING the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history. The past year has seen a flood of articles commemorating the end of the Cold War, and the fact that "peace" seems to be breaking out in many regions of the world. Most of these analyses lack any larger conceptual framework for distinguishing between what is essential and what is contingent or accidental in world history, and are predictably superficial. If Mr. Gorbachev were ousted from the Kremlin or a new Ayatollah proclaimed the millennium from a desolate Middle Eastern capital, these same commentators would scramble to announce the rebirth of a new era of conflict. And yet, all of these people sense dimly that there is some larger process at work, a process that gives coherence and order to the daily headlines. The twentieth century saw the developed world descend into a paroxy...

Consciousness By David Chalmers

Our focus in this work shall be to describe and evaluate David Chalmers’ theory of consciousness. We shall begin this task by briefly acquainting ourselves with the biography of this contemporary genius. BIOGRAPHY OF DAVID CHALMERS David Chalmers is an Australian philosopher. He was born on April 20, 1966. He received his undergraduate degree in pure mathematics from the University of Adelaide in Australia and continued his studies at the University of Oxford. Chalmers received his PhD in philosophy and cognitive science from Indiana University Bloomington. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology program directed by Andy Clark at Washington University in St. Louis from 1993 to 1995, and his first professorship was at UC Santa Cruz, from August 1995 to December 1998. Chalmers was subsequently appointed Professor of Philosophy (1999–2004) and, later, Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies (2002–2004) at the University of Arizona...

Rene Descartes methodic doubt

INTRODUCTION The notion of how knowledge is acquired has continue to chose a fundamental controversy in Philosophy which has led to the emergence of two schools of thoughts; the rationalists and empiricists. The former affirms the acquisition of knowledge through reason unaided by experience while the later adhered to sense experience as the means by which knowledge is acquired. Despised this two conflicting doctrines, Immanuel Kant tries to reconcile or rather is swift to strike a balance. Between these two schools of thoughts knowledge can be acquired through both ways. However, in line with these opposing doctrines their surveys seeks to examine the rationalists view of this notions in a particular respect to one of the Philosophers namely Rene Descartes. Rene Descartes is our key study in this work and will look into  his major philosophical work concerning knowledge. More so, in order to have a better understanding of our subject at hand, this work will give us an inkling...

TRUTH

TRUTH IN THE PHILOSOPHY Thomas Aquinas is well known for having defended the view that truth consists of an adequation between the intellect and a thing. Truth, like religion, culture or morality, is a general term in constant use and seems to be part of the eternal furniture of the mind, but upon closer examination what truth consists in is not so clear and the use of the word has changed over time. All knowledge signifies the conformity of him who knows with the object that is known, the agreement of the thinker with the things known. In other words, truth is “the conformity of the mind to the object”; that is, if we accept the outward information that our senses are transmitting to our intellect and our intellect accepts these as they are, and doesn't deny them or distort them, through self-interest or other motives. This conformity or adequation of the intellect and the object expresses the full content of the idea of truth. Truth comes into being through the part...