Is there a distinction between the truth and a belief? How can you know something as a truth without believing it? Can you know something without being told? When an idea is pressed over and over again, and there is a strong basis for the idea, it easily becomes known. Once an idea is known it trans...

Just imagine if you could not tell a lie for one day. That is exactly what happened to Fletcher Coal in Liar Liar. Max, Fletcher's son, made a wish that his father would not be able to tell a lie for one day, and it came true; that got me thinking. Telling the truth, the whole truth, and not...

Montaigne in his Apology for Raymond Sebond begins his exploration into the human capacity for knowledge with this belief that only though God can one achieve true knowledge. God is the only infinite, all seeing, being with divine wisdom. He is not subject to the laws and rules of the huma...

Orwell's message that he is trying to convey through the reeducation of Winston Smith is one of near despair for the human man. Can human nature be changed in such a way that a man will forget his longing for freedom, dignity, and integrity philosophically and psychologically? This is the q...

While reading Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay,Circles?, I came across two very distinct aspects of modernism: 1) new ideas replace the old, change is always possible and inevitable and, 2) 'the key to everyman is his thought.? The first idea of the two is rather straight forward, however, it still ref...

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...

Joseph Conrad writes in his novel The Heart of Darkness, the quote "the mind of a man is capable of anything- because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future (106)". This quote best describes the relationship between his characters of Marlow and Kurtz. Within this quote, we...

Part I (Summary) Buddhism Is Not What You Think, by Steve Hagen offers a clear look at the goal of Buddhism. The goal is to be able to see the world for what it is, without any beliefs, expectations, fears or presumptions. There are many things that we as humans need to let go of in order to reac...

Faith is a key part of any religion as it forms a mean of strictly adhering to the religious scriptures, the concepts they center on, and helps in accomplishing whatever that particular religion requires of its followers. While talking about Buddhism, it would be better to define, like in case of an...

Being Sincere is Important Sincerity is an essential element to life. A sincere person is always welcomed because of his truthful mind, friendly attitude and unaffected and real personality. Although many a man knows how sincerity acts in life, there are still a great number of insincere peo...

The Crucible Act Two To confess to corruption is to sentence your soul to hell, however if you confess to your self, you in turn hold what is rightfully yours, your unflawed name. John Procter was a truthful man that wouldn't just confess to any situation. He had clear characte...

Socrates believes that the everyday world is an illusion compared to the world of knowledge. People are often too distracted by money and materialistic things to appreciate truth and reality. Socrates says, "the capacity for knowledge is innate in each man's mind." This exemplifies the point that ma...

In order to properly critique the quote "Reason is the slave of the passions", by renowned philosopher David Hume, we must first examine the definitions of what we perceive as reason, slaves, and passions, and why we perceive them as such. Each term takes on an automatic, assumed quality by most ...

What does St. Augustine have to say to post-modern culture? I think that the most vital aspect in Augustine's Confessions, more specifically his books "Student at Carthage" and "The birth-pangs of Conversion", is the concept of True Love. Augustine tells us that love is paradoxically balanced be...

The story The Star, which was written in 1970’s, is trying to say that we need to understand the truth of our fate rather than put on blinders and quit refusing everything else that we don’t want to see. In the story The Necklace written by Guy De Maupassant the woman worked herself to t...

How I Interpret A True War StoryThe theme to Tim O'Brien's "How to Tell a True War Story" is that no war story holds absolute truth though told to be true, for there is no point to the Vietnam War and thus no point to a story of the Vietnam War. You cannot help but come to this conclusion through th...

Thinking about religion can often be a complex task. The same can be said about science. I think that in his Ideas and Opinions Albert Einstein does both effectively. After reading the selections on religion I was delighted to find someone who thought of religion in terms of logic. I also enjoye...

Pascal builds his argument in "Man and the Universe" out of a series of paradoxes, seemingly contradictory truths. In writing, "Man and the Universe," Pascal reflected his views on what is our place in the world as human beings. Pascal's writing shows a harmony be...

The 1999 science fiction movie, \"The Matrix,\" is interesting because it addresses some important philosophical questions. The existence of human being, the reality of this world we live and the questions of the reliability of human mind are examined during the movie. When examined deeply, it is fo...

The play Oedipus the king, by Sophocles, displays how a person cannot escape fate. It doesn't matter what decisions are made, it will all benefit towards the destined situation that was already planned out before their own birth. Oedipus made decisions in his life, and didn't know ...

LYING When a married couple lays down to fall asleep, conversation usually occurs. The situation is never thought about, it just happens. Philip Larkin wrote a poem titled "Talking In Bed", in this poem he is writing about the very situation that was first mentioned. It does not s...

Imagine a hostile courtroom filled with hundreds of jurors and politicians who only wish harm upon the defendant. A rowdy audience is present, with only a scattering of supporters of the defendant and in a definite minority. This is what Socrates faced when he was the defendant, refuting charges o...

CARTESIAN DOUBT AND THE SEARCH FOR FOUNDATIONAL KNOWLEDGEDescartes desires to know the truth; he realizes that this will be a difficult enterprise because he has to discover by painful experience that much of what he has been taught and has taken for granted is false. He must destroy his "knowledge"...

In the book Gentlehands, Buddy Boyle is faced with many first impressions from different characters that he interacts with. Some of these first impressions are accurate and truthful, yet others are just merely a disguise for the real person underneath. In this novel, Buddy learns how hard it is to...

The Things They Carried The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien, is a generalization of his own experiences in Vietnam although the story itself is a work of fiction there is still much to be learned from it. Through the actions of soldiers in The Things They Carried we can begin to explore t...