Have you ever thought you heard something, but there was nothing there? Have you ever thought you saw someone in the corner of your eye, and when you looked there was no person there? There are thousands of occasions when we think something is really there, but when we go to investigate, we find no...

According to my Metaphysical Profile, I would be considered a materialist. I believe in concrete items that can be touched and seen. The chair I sit on is at the top of the list because it is solid and can be felt underneath me. Love is also something that I believe in. It can't be touched, but ...

Text 4; 'Journey to the Interior' by Margaret Atwood Overview This poem is written in free verse and presents a multi-dimensional exploration of the concept of journey. Some read it merely as a description of a physical journey that describes the early exploration of the Canadian ...

Individuals who possess the ability to lead the thought patterns of the masses shape culture and society and are responsible for the way philosophy is viewed and lived presently. A figure in the history of classical Greek philosophy is Aristotle. Some of his major contributions to Western philosop...

John Locke, the foremost English philosopher of the early period of modern post-Cartesian philosophy, published in 1689 his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In this paper I shall look a little at the life of John Locke and the Essay¾ the work for which he is best known. JOHN LOCKE Not a...

Reading the Ayn Rand\'s address, I could not help but notice how appropriate is as a first reading assignment in this class. Rand\'s account of being aboard a spaceship when it crashes, surviving, and the questions that ensue seem to be a little like dealing with life from the moment we are born. ...

When I was a child I viewed everything from a child's point of view. If I was afraid of the dark it was because I believed that monsters dwelled under my bed and in my closets. If I was afraid of loud noises it is because I believed with all my little heart that they led to danger. As I aged an...

The only real similarity between the views of Lycan and Searle are that they are both materialists. By this they both believe that only physical properties exist and are relevant. However, on the subject of computing machines and artificial intelligence there is little else that the two agree on. ...

When I was born, I did not know the difference between right and wrong. Now, I do. The word philosophy means the love of knowledge. One type of knowledge is propter quid, which ask the question why or how. In this paper, I will demonstrate how Socrates, Hume and Aristotle, three well known philo...

The Meditations are one of Descartes most important works. They consist of his views on sensory perception, God and Nature. He considers the problems of the sources and nature of knowledge; the validity of truth; the nature and destiny of man; the existence of god, and the creation of the universe...

Of all the topics that are currently occupying the attention of philosophers, the mind-b`ody problem is at center stage. It is one of the classical metaphysical issues concerning the relationship between that which is mental and that which is physical. The simple question asked is: what are we? Ar...

Upon the thought of the concept "Imaginative journeys", the initial response is to envisage a quest constituted by the fantastic, mythical and original – often assuming the form of a physical journey undertaken by the central characters of such a world. In many imaginative journeys, ...

The central part of Berkeley's metaphysics seems paradoxical or even absurd. Its claim is that what we call solid, and indeed everything else that we find laid out in the three-dimensional physical word that is apparently around us, is only fictional. It appears to be there, but it does not re...

Margaret Cavendish Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World is an embankment by the imagination upon human desire. Constrained by the physical limitations of this world, Cavendish's ambition and love of thought carry her to the farthest reaches of her own imagination and to the creation of ...

Aristotle Aristotle was a famous ancient philosopher and scientist that lived from 384 to 322 B.C. He was born in Macedonia to a physician of the royal court. He moved to Athens when he was 17, to study with Plato, another famous philosopher of his time. Aristotle is said to have loved hi...

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE? Knowledge is understanding. However, understanding knowledge (or what has been understood) is not so simplistic. Many scientist and psychologist have tried to understand how we are capable of gaining knowledge. The philosophers are the ones who ask the fundamental question ...

Your mind (Greek, nous; German, Geist [often translated 'spirit', but always meaning mind]) is absolute because you are able to think about yourself and know that you exist: you don't need anything other than thinking to prove that you exist. When you think about the world, however, ...

Humans existing in the world affects the world in some way and creates a certain reality or truth. Therefore, nothing is built into being. Nothing is a byproduct of negation. Negation is a product of our minds and can't be the subject of scientific reasoning. Totality is anything that is ...

Sadeq Hedayat's The Blind Owl is one of the most important literary works in Persian language. The central theme of the story is an attempt toward the resolution of the writer/narrator's dualistic experiences of the real versus unreal, the sensual against the spiritual and death as opposed to life. ...

The Big Question "It's the question, Neo. It's the question that drives us. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did." "What is the Matrix?" What is reality? How do we know that what we are experiencing really is rea...

Page 1 Plato is one of the most famous and influential philosophers of all time. Writing several books, pertaining to many different topics. He learned his skill from the father of modern philosophy and learned it well. Effecting countless minds of his time, and many more extending all the w...

John Locke's epistemologyJohn Locke was a 17th century empirical philosopher. In his work An Essay concerning Human Understanding, he set out to examine the sources of human knowledge, and to what degree of certainty these sources of knowledge were ultimately capable of achieving.Like Descartes befo...

Prof. AmbuelRegarding the Interaction Involving Mind and BodyDescartes was a fervent supporter of dualism. However, having argued that the mind and body are two completely different substances, he still believed that they were capable of causal interaction. Claming that the essence of matter is defi...