Basic Ethics Essay Example for Free

staple fiber Ethics EssayAccording to Michael Boylans book Basic Ethics the study of morality concerns itself with right and wrong, judgments that assign praise or blame. In the case of ethics, these judgments are usually assigned to people or to actions (Boylan, 2009). This essay will discuss triad major estimable theories, virtue ethics, utilitarianism, and deontological ethics. It will also provide a mortalal experience to help explain the family between virtue, values, and moral concepts as it relates to utilitarianism. The three ethics theories discussed herein are the virtue ethics conjecture that examines a someones character over a long period of time and is tender-hearted of an occasional mistake that is not consistent with a persons past character. Deontological ethics or duty-based morality is a theory based on a nonconsequentialist view of people and moral decision-making. Deontological ethics supports that actions are not justified by their consequences. R ather, factors another(prenominal) than good outcomes determine the rightness of actions (Deontological Ethics, 2014).Utilitarianism in the nearly basic term is based on measuring good in terms of usefulness. Utilitarianism is often delimitate as an effort to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Also this principle advocates that the ends justify the style in other words if a negative action must be used to blow over a greater good then its justified (What Is Utilitarianism?, 2014). There are marked differences between the three ethics theories. Un alike deontic or action based theories of morality that focus on the actions a person performs, the virtue theory, aka character ethics focuses on helping people develop good character traits, like kindness and generosity, The deontological ethics is grounded in the Categorical Imperative, The Categorical Imperative simply declares, Act as if the aphorism of thy actionwere to become by thy will a universal law of natur e. The Categorical Imperative is truly similar to the Golden Rule of Christianity, and other religions (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) (Deontological Ethics, 2014). On the other hand utilitarianism revolves around the concept that the end justifies the means. A personal example I have of utilitarianism world practiced was when my Father was in hospice with terminal throat mountaincer. He ordered a DNR, do not resuscitate.My family and I did not like his wish only it is what he chose for himself and we all accepted his final wish. Although some feel this is not right to just let someone die without trying to help the person dying the attitude on these decisions is purely determined by the person dying. The utilitarian approach can be selfish in nature because the judgments is strictly that of the person thinking of his own truth in my Fathers case his last dying wish. So depending on what kind of person you are, how you were raised, the environment you live i n, your faith, the influences you may have from the social circle you belong to you all these factors could influence your ethics and depending on the situation on hand you may find yourself moving towards one or the other of these ethic theories. Morally or ethically, I would never let my Dad die without making some attempt to resuscitate him but on the other hand I set aside my moral belief and my ethics to stick out my Dad his last and final wish.ReferencesBoylan, M. (2009). Basic Ethics (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ Prentice Hall. Deontological Ethics. (2014, February 17). Retrieved from allaboutphilosophy .org http//www.allaboutphilosophy.org/deontological-ethics.htm What Is Utilitarianism? (2014, February 17). Retrieved from wisegeek.org http//www.wisegeek.com/what-is-utilitarianism.htm

The Importance of Amaterasu Essay Example for Free

The Importance of Amaterasu EssayAmaterasu is a very important figure in Nipponese lore. harmonize to Shinto belief she is a direct line of the Imperial family. Many religions have an origin story, a story that accounts for where everything originated. The Japanese origin story is no different. The Kojiki is the oldest written stories in Japanese History. From this we will bulge our Journey. Inside the Kojiki it holds stories more or less the Gods, how they came into existence and may other stories. One of the most important Gods in Japanese culture is Amaterasu. Amaterasu is a Kami or God of the Shinto religion.She is the Goddess of the Sun, and daughter of Izanagi. Izanagi The potent Who Invites and Izanami Female Who Invites were the Gods that were sent to bring into being a world. They thus created Japan and all other Gods here. When Izanami gave birth to the Fire God he burned-over her severely and she didnt survive the ordeal. Izanagi is said to have killed the infa nt and from his death many other Gods sprung about from his blood. When Izanagi lost his wife he became saddened and enraged. He sulked until he decided to bring his wife back from the dead.Izanagi then went to the land of the dead or Yomi to retrieve Izagani. When he found her she had built a house for herself there. He then persuaded her to leave with him back to the land of the living and she promised to do so as long as he did not look at her. Missing his wife dearly he disobeyed and did so anyway. He sees that she has become a rotten decaying corpse. Enraged that he had saw her this was she sent the eight-spot Thunder Gods and many others afterwards him. When they failed she went after him herself. Izagani managed to escapes and closed the exit with a boulder.Iazgani then went to cleanse himself after the trip to Yomi. As he purified himself, from his left eye Amaterasu Heaven Shining Great August divinity fudge, from his right eye came Tsukuyomi His Augustness, Moon Night P ossessor, and from his nose Susanoo His Brave Swift impetuous Male Augustness were born. The Kojiki goes on to say that Amaterasu sent her Grandson Ninigi to rule The Central Land of Reed Plains. He was sent coldcock with the eight-foot long curved jewels, The Mirror that was used to lure Amaterasu out of the cave, and The Herb Quelling Great Sword.These atomic number 18 today known as Japans 3 sacred Treasures. Ninigi eventually had a grandson named jimmy Tenno who became the first emperor of Japan. This is significant in Japanese history because Imperial family rules by Devine right, inwardness they are direct descendants of Amaterasu. The Shinto religion is a way of life in Japan. The Japanese people take pride in who they are and of their ancestry with the Gods. Amaterasu is a staple in Shinto religion their flag of a rising sun is evident of this. Every religion has background and this is Japans.

Paul Tillich Response to Modern Criticism Essay Example for Free

capital of Minnesota Tillich Response to Modern Criticism EssayThe later part of 20th century witness a renewed question of sensualism in philosophy of religion. The question is concerned with what patterns a sacred reason and religious language should take in determining the constituteence of divinity, the belief in immortal, the reality of a good God and the existence of evil. The approach is champi mavind by logical positivism based on bridle linguistic rules of ascertain gist only by sense love. The Modern charlatanism as discussed in this physical composition covers the period of tale end of 1500 AD to the end of 1800 AD, that is 16-19 century. This course explores the themes of capital of Minnesota Tillichs philosophical theology, with special precaution to his analysis of meaning and its app arnt loss in modern society. The course will in any case measure out Tillichs response to the problem of meaninglessness and his effort to interpret the Christian messag e. WHAT IS EMPIRICISM? According to John Scott Gordon Marsh any, empiricism, in philosophy, is the attitude that beliefs be to be accepted and acted upon only if they stolon have been confirmed by existent experience.This broad definition accords with the derivation of the name from the Greek word empeiria, meaning experience. Primarily, and in its psychological application, the term signifies the opening that the phenomena of wittingness be simply the product of sensuous experience, i. e. of sensations variously associated and arranged (Andrew M. Colman 2003242). It is olibanum pited from Nativism or Innatism.Secondarily, and in its logical (epistemological) usage, it designates the theory that every(prenominal) humane knowledge is derived exclusively from experience, the last mentioned term meaning, both explicitly or implicitly, external sense-percepts and internal re founderations and inferences exclusive of any superorganic (im significant) clever itemor. Empir icism is thus opposed to the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as stemmas of reliable belief. Its most cardinal antithesis is with the latter (i. e., with Rationalism, also called intellectualism or apriorism).Forms of Empiricism According to Catholic Encyclopedia empiricism appears in the deem of philosophy in three principal forms (1) Materialism, (2) Sensism, and (3) Positivism. a. Materialism Materialism in its crudest shape was taught by the past atomists (Democritus, Leucippus, Epicurus, Lucretius), who, reducing the sum of all reality to atoms and motion, taught that experience, whereof they held knowledge to be constituted, is generated by images reflected from satisfying objects finished the centripetal organs into the consciousness.The soul, a mere complexus of the finest atoms, perceives non the objects but their effluent images. With modern materialists (Helvetius, dHolbach, Diderot, Feuerb ach, Moleschott, Buchner, Vogt, etc. ), knowledge is accounted for either by cerebral secretion or by motion. b. Sensism whole materialists ar of course sensists. Though the parley is non the case, nonetheless, by denying any essential difference between sensations and ideas (intellectual states), sensism logically involves materialism.Sensism, which is found with Empedocles and Protagoras amongst the ancients, was condition its source systematic form by Locke (d. 1704), though Bacon (d. 1626) and Hobbes (d. 1679) had prep atomic number 18d the data. Locke derives all childly ideas from external experience (sensations), all compound ideas (modes, substances, recountings) from internal experience (reflection). Substance and cause be simply associations of subjective phenomena universal ideas ar mere mental figments. Locke admits the existence, though he denies the demonstrability, in man of an immaterial and immortal principle, the soul.Berkeley (d. 1753), accepting the b reeding of Locke that ideas are only transfigured sensations, subjectivizes non only the sensible or secondary qualities of matter as his forerunner had through, but also the primary qualities which Locke held to be objective. Berkeley denies the objective basis of universal ideas and indeed of the whole material initiation. The reality of things he places in their universe perceived and this perceivedness is effected in the mind by God, non by the object or subject. He still retains the substance-reality of the human soul and of spirits generally, God complicated.Hume (d. 1776) agrees with his ii empiricist predecessors in teaching that the mind knows only its own subjective organic impressions, whereof ideas are but the images. The supersensible is thereof transcendent the principle of causativeity is resolved into a mere feeling of successiveness of phenomena its necessity is trim back to a subjective feeling resulting from uniform association experienced in conscious ness, and the spiritual essence or substantial universe of the soul is dissipated into a series of conscious states. Lockes sensism was taken up by Condillac (d.1780), who eliminated entirely the subjective factor (Lockes reflection) and sought to explain all cognitional states by a mere automatic, motionless transformation of external sensations. The French sensist retained the spiritual soul, but his followers disposed of it as Hume had done with the Berkeleian soul relic. The Herbartians confound the image with the idea, nor does Wundt make a clear distinction between primitive concepts (empirische Begriffe, representations of respective(prenominal) objects) and the image Denken ist Phantasieren in Begriffen und Phantasierenist Denken in Bildern. c. PositivismPositivists, following Comte (d.1857), do non deny the supersensible they declare it unknowable the one source of cognition, they claim, is sense-experience, experiment, and induction from phenomena. John Stuart Mill (d . 1870), following Hume, reduces all knowledge to series of conscious states linked by empirical associations and enlarged by inductive processes. The mind has no certitude of an external world, but only of a permanent possibility of sensations and antecedent and anticipated feelings. Spencer (d. 1903) makes all knowledge relative. The essential existence of things is their persistence in consciousness.Consciousness contains only subjective feelings. The relative supposes the absolute, but the latter is unknowable to us it is the object of trustingness and religion (Agnosticism). All things, mind included, have resulted from a cosmical process of mechanical evolution wherein they are still involved hence all concepts and principles are in a uninterrupted flux. d. Classical Empiricism Classical empiricism is characterised by a rejection of connatural, in-born knowledge or concepts. John Locke, wellspring known as an empiricist, wrote of the mind being a tabula rasa, a blank slat e, when we enter the world.At birth we know nothing it is only subsequently that the mind is furnished with informationrmation by experience. e. ingrained Empiricism This was ripe by William James, an American pragmatist philosopher and psychologist, based on the pragmatic theory of truth and the principle of consummate(a) experience, which contends that the relations between things are at least as real as the things themselves, that their snuff it is real, and that no hidden substrata are necessary to account for the various clashes and coherences of the world.James summarized the theory as consisting of (1) a postulate The only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience (2) a factual statement The relations between things, conjunctive as well as disjunctive, are just as more than matters of direct particular experience, neither more so nor less so, than the things themselves, which serves to distinguish base of operations empiricism from the empiricism of the Scottish philosopher David Hume and (3) a generalized conclusion The parts of experience hurl together from next to next by relations that are themselves parts of experience.The directly apprehended universe needs, in short, no extraneous transempirical connective support, but possesses in its own right a concatenated or continuous structure. The result of this theory of knowledge is a metaphysics that refutes the rationalist belief in a being that transcends experience, which gives unity to the world. According to James there is no logical connection between radical empiricism and pragmatism. One may reject radical empiricism and continue to be a pragmatist. Jamess studies in radical empiricism were published posthumously as Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912).According to him, it is only if it is potential to empirically test a claim that the claim has meaning. As all of our information comes from our senses, it is impossible for us to talk about that which we have not experienced. Statements that are not tied to our experiences are therefore meaningless. This principle, which was associated with a now unpopular position called logical positivism, renders religious and ethical claims literally nonsensical. No observations could confirm religious or ethical claims, therefore those claims are meaningless.Radical empiricism thus requires the abandonment of religious and ethical discourse and belief. f. Moderate Empiricism More go for empiricists, however, allow that there may be both(prenominal) cases in which the senses do not screen background our knowledge, but hold that these are excommunications to a general rule. Truths much(prenominal) as there are no four-sided triangles and 7+5=12 need not be investigated in order to be known, but all significant, interesting knowledge, the empiricist claims, comes to us from experience. This more moderate empiricism strikes galore(postnominal) as more plausibl e than its radical alternative. BRIEF HISTORY OF EMPIRICISMThe starting signal Empiricists in Western philosophy were the Sophists, who rejected such Rationalist speculation about the world as a whole and took man and society to be the proper objects of philosophical inquiry. Invoking skeptical arguments to undermine the claims of pure reason, they posed a challenge that invited the reaction that comprised Platos philosophy Plato and to a lesser extent Aristotle were both Rationalists. but Aristotles successors in the ancient Greek schools of Stoicism and Epicureanism advanced an explicitly Empiricist account of the formation of mans concepts or ideas.For the Stoics the human mind is at birth a clean slate, which comes to be stocked with ideas by the sensory wallop of the material world upon it. Yet they also held that there are near ideas or beliefs, the common notions, present to the minds of all men and these soon came to be conceived in a nonempirical way. The Empiricism of the Epicureans, however, was more pronounced and consistent. For them mans concepts are memory images, the mental residues of previous sense experience and knowledge is as empirical as the ideas of which it is composed.In medieval philosophy, most medieval philosophers after St. took an Empiricist position, at least about concepts, even if they recognized much substantial but nonempirical knowledge. The standard formulation of this age was There is nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas (122574) altogether rejected innate ideas. Both soul and body participate in perception, and all of mans ideas are abstracted by the intellect from what is given to the senses. Mans ideas of unseen things, like God and angels, are derived by analogy from the seen.The 13th-century scientist Roger Bacon emphasized empirical knowledge of the natural world and anticipated the polymath Renaissance philosopher of science Francis Bacon (15611626) in preferr ing observation to deductive reasoning as a source of knowledge. The Empiricism of the 14th-century Franciscan Nominalist William of Ockham was more systematic. All knowledge of what exists in nature, he held, comes from the senses, though there is, to be sure, abstractive knowledge of necessary truths but this is hypothetical and does not imply the existence of anything.His more peak followers extended his line of reasoning toward a radical Empiricism, in which causation is not a rationally intelligible connection but merely an observed regular sequence. In modern philosophy, the prior and unsystematically speculative phases of Renaissance philosophy, the claims of Aristotelian logic to yield substantial knowledge were attacked by several(prenominal) 16th-century logicians, and, in the same century, the role of observation was stressed. One mildly skeptical Christian thinker, Pierre Gassendi (15921655), advanced a deliberate revival of the empirical precepts of Epicurus.But the most important defender of Empiricism was Francis Bacon, who, though he did not deny the existence of a priori knowledge, claimed that, in effect, the only knowledge that is worth having (as impart to the relief of mans estate) is empirically based knowledge of the natural world, which should be pursued by the systematic, indeed more or less mechanical, arrangement of the commenceings of observation and is best undertaken in the cooperative and impersonal style of modern scientific research. Bacon was, indeed, the first to formulate the principles of scientific induction.A Materialist and Nominalist, Thomas Hobbes (15881679), combined an extreme Empiricism about concepts, which he sawing machine as the outcome of material impacts on the bodily senses, with an extreme Rationalism about knowledge, of which, like Plato, he took geometry to be the paradigm. For him all genuine knowledge is a priori, a matter of rigorous deduction from definitions. The senses succeed ideas but all k nowledge comes from reckoning, from deductive calculations carried out on the names that the thinker has assigned to them. accepted knowledge is thus not merely a priori but also analytic.Yet it all concerns material and sensible existences e reallything that exists is a body. The most elaborate and influential presentation of Empiricism of this period was make by John Locke (16321704), an early Enlightenment philosopher, in the first two books of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). All knowledge, he held, comes from sensation or from reflection, by which he meant the introspective awareness of the workings of mans own mind. Locke complicated the two issues of the nature of concepts and the justification of beliefs. His Book I, though titled Innate Ideas, is largely devoted to refuting innate knowledge.And even so, he later admitted that much substantial knowledgein particular, that of mathematics and moralsis a priori. He argued that infants know nothing that if men are said to know innately what they are unresolved of coming to know, then all knowledge is, trivially, innate and that no beliefs whatever are universally accepted. Locke was more consistent about the empirical character of all mans concepts and dis work outed in detail the ways in which simple ideas can be combined to form complex ideas of what has not in fact been experienced.One concourse of dubiously empirical conceptsthose of unity, existence, and numberhe took to be derived both from sensation and from reflection. But he allowed one a priori conceptthat of substancewhich the mind adds, seemingly from its own resources, to its conception of any regularly associated classify of perceptible qualities. Bishop George Berkeley (16851753), a theistic Idealist and opponent of Materialism, utilise Lockes Empiricism about concepts to refute Lockes account of mans knowledge of the external world.He drew and embraced the inevitable conclusion that material things are simply collectio ns of perceived ideas, a position that ultimately leads to phenomenalism i. e. , to the view that reality is nothing but sensations. He accounted for the continuity and parliamentary law of the world by supposing that its reality is upheld in the perceptions of an unsleeping God. The theory of spiritual substance involved in Berkeleys position seems to be vulnerable, however, to most of the same objections as those that he posed against Locke.The Scottish wondering(a) philosopher David Hume (171176) fully elaborated Lockes Empiricism and used it reductively to argue that there can be no more to mans concepts of body, mind, and causal connection than what occurs in the experiences that he has of them. For Hume all necessary truth is stately or conceptual, determined by the relations of identity and exclusion that hold between ideas. Voltaire imported Lockes philosophy into France and its Empiricism, in a very stark form, is the basis of sensationalism, in which all of the constit uents of human mental life are analyzed in terms of sensations alone.A genuinely original and clarifying attempt to resolve the controversy between Empiricists and their opponents was made in the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant (17241804), drawing upon Leibniz and Hume. With the dictum that, although all knowledge begins with experience it does not all arise from experience, he established a clear distinction between the innate and the a priori. He held that there are a priori concepts, or categoriessubstance and cause being the most importantand also substantial or synthetic a priori truths. Although not derived from experience, the latter apply to experience.A priori concepts and propositions do not relate to a reality that transcends experience they reflect, instead, the minds way of organizing the amorphous mass of sense impressions that flow in upon it. Lockean Empiricism prevailed in 19th-century England until the turn to Hegel occurred in the last quarter of the century. To be sure, the Scottish philosophers who followed Hume but avoided his Skeptical conclusions insisted that man does have substantial a priori knowledge. But the philosophy of John Stuart Mill (180673), logician, economist, and Utilitarian moralist, is thoroughly Empiricist.He held that all knowledge worth having, including mathematics, is empirical. The apparent necessity of mathematics, according to Mill, is the result of the unique brawn of its empirical confirmation. All real knowledge for Mill is inductive and empirical and deduction is sterile. On like lines, the philosopher of evolution Herbert Spencer (18201903) offered another explanation of the apparent necessity of some of mans beliefs they are the well-attested empirical beliefs of his ancestors from whom he has ancestral them, an evolutionary revival of the doctrine of innateness.Two important mathematicians and pioneers in the philosophy of modern physics, W. K. Clifford (184579) and Karl Pearson (18571936), defen ded radically Empiricist philosophies of science, anticipating the consistent Empiricism of the 20th century. In contemporary philosophy The most influential Empiricist of the 20th century was the cracking British philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell (18721970), who at first was Lockean in his theory of knowledgeadmitting both synthetic a priori knowledge and concepts of unobservable entities.Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951), the influential pioneer of the school of Linguistic Analysis, convinced Russell that the truths of logic and mathematics are analytic and Russell then came to believe, with Hume, that the task of philosophy is to analyze all concepts in terms of what can be directly present to the senses. In this spirit, he tried to show that even the concepts of formal logic are ultimately empirical though the experience that supplies them may be introspective instead of sensory.Doctrines developed through the collaboration of Russell and Wittgenstein yielded the Logical Positivism of the German philosopher Rudolf Carnap (18911970) and of the Vienna Circle, a intelligence group in which that philosophy was worked out. The Empiricism of Logical Positivism is especially evident in its restatement of the fundamental thesis of Humes philosophy in a form known as the verification principle, which recognizes as meaningful and synthetic only those sentences that are in principle verifiable by reference to sense experience. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF PAUL TILLICKPaul Johannes Tillich was born at Starzeddel in the province of Brandenburg, Germany, on Aug. 20, 1886. He spent his early years at Schonfliess, where his father was a Lutheran clergyman. He studied at the University of Berlin, received his doctorate from the University of Breslau in 1911, and pull in his degree in theology at the University of Halle in 1912, the year he became a clergyman in the Lutheran church. During World War I Tillich served as a military chaplain. From 1919 until 1933 he taught at t he universities of Berlin, Marburg, Dresden, Leipzig, and Frankfurt.His resistance to the Nazis cost him his job in 1933, and he went to the United States to change by reversal professor of philosophical theology at Union Theological Seminary in stark naked York City. He remained there until 1955, when he became a professor at Harvard University. From 1962 until his death on Oct. 22, 1965, he taught at the University of Chicagos divinity school. The brilliance and complexity of Tillichs thought were expressed in his lectures, sermons, and books. The most difficult of his works is Systematic Theology, on which he began working in 1925.It was published in three volumes from 1951 to 1963. His books of sermons, beginning with The Shaking of the Foundations (1948), present his thoughts more clearly for a wider audience. Other works include The Protestant Era (1948), The Courage to Be (1952), Dynamics of Faith (1957), and The Eternal Now (1963). Like Spinoza, he was a God-intoxicated m an who wanted to help his fellow human beings recapture a relevant and alive(p) religious religious belief. EMPIRICAL ARGUMENT 1. The Existentialism of GodEmpiricists believe that experience is of primary importance in giving us knowledge of the world. Whatever we learn, according to them, we learn through perception. Knowledge without experience, with the possible exception of trivial semantic and logical truths, is impossible. A more moderate form of Empiricism is that of the substantive Empiricists, who are unconvinced by attempts that have been made to interpret formal concepts empirically and who therefore concede that formal concepts are a priori but deny that categorial concepts, such as substance, cause, and God, are a priori.In this view, formal concepts would be no vaster semantical, pertaining to the relation of words to things they would be, instead, merely descriptive or rigorously syntactical, pertaining to the relations between ideas. On this basis God, would not b e an entity alongside other entities but a device for arranging a mans factual beliefs about the world the concept God would thus play a structural and not an informative role. The Response of Tillich Tillich was a central figure in the intellectual life of his time both in Germany and the United States.It is generally held that the 20th century has been marked by a widespread breakdown of traditional Christian convictions about God, morality, and the meaning of human existence in general. In assessing Tillichs role in relation to this development, some critics have regarded him as the last major(ip) spokesman for a vanishing Christian culture, a systematic thinker who sought to demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian faith to modern skeptics. Others have viewed him as a forerunner of the contemporary cultural revolution, whose discussions of the meaning of God and faith served themselves to undermine traditional beliefs.Tillich himself believed he was a boundary man, stand ing between the old and the new, between a heritage imbued with a sense of the sacred and the secular orientation of the new age. He asserted that his avocation was to mediate between the concerns voiced by faith and the imperatives of a questioning reason, thus helping to heal the ruptures threatening to destroy Western civilization. He believed that from the beginning life had prepared him for such a role, and his long career as a theologian, educator, and writer was devoted to this task with single-minded energy.Theological systems, developed by Paul Tillich, were based on the concept of figure. In it Tillich, a Rationalist asserts that there are concepts not derived from or correlated with experienceable features of the world, such as cause, identity, or perfect circle, and that these concepts are a priori (Latin from the former) in the traditional sense of being part of the minds innate or natural equipmentas opposed to being a posteriori (Latin from the latter), or grounded in the experience of facts.On the other hand, a Rationalist theory of knowledge holds that there are beliefs that are a priori (i. e. , that depend for their justification upon thought alone), such as the belief that everything must have a sufficient reason or that a process cannot exist by itself but must occur within some substance. Such beliefs can arise either from intellectual intuition, the direct apprehension of self-evident truth, or from purely deductive reasoning.His Protestant Principle obviously developed from the insight he had gained at Halle as a norm in analyses of religion and culture, the meaning of history, and contemporary social problems. Tillichs love of freedom, however, did not make him forget his boyhood commitment to a cryptical and satisfying religious tradition and how to enjoy the freedom to explore life without sacrificing the essentials of a meaningful tradition became his early and lifelong preoccupation.It appears as a major theme in his theologic al work the relation of heteronomy to shore leave and their possible synthesis in theonomy. Heteronomy (alien rule) is the cultural and spiritual condition when traditional norms and values become rigid, external demands threatening to destroy individual freedom. Autonomy (self-rule) is the inevitable and justified revolt against such oppression, which nevertheless entails the temptation to reject all norms and values.Theonomy (divine rule) envisions a situation in which norms and values express the convictions and commitments of free individuals in a free society. These three conditions Tillich saw as the basic dynamisms of both personal and social life. In his search for solution concerning the meaning of human existence, Tillich, using his most widely read books, The Courage to Be and Dynamics of Faith, argued that the deepest concern of humans drives them into confrontation with a reality that transcends their own finite existence.Tillichs discussion of the human situation in t hese books shows a profound grasp of the problems brought to light by modern depth psychology and existentialist philosophy. The publication of his Systematic Theology made available the results of a lifetime of thought. The most unexampled feature of this work is its method of correlation, which makes theology a dialogue relating questions asked by mans probe reason to answers given in revelatory experience and received in faiththeonomys answers to autonomys questions.The dialogue of Systematic Theology is in five parts, each an intrinsic element in the system as a whole questions about the powers and limits of mans reason prepare him for answers given in revelation questions about the nature of being lead to answers revealing God as the ground of being questions about the meaning of existence are answered by the New Being made establish in Jesus Christ questions about the ambiguities of human experience point to answers revealing the presence of the sanctum sanctorum Spirit in the life process and questions about human destiny and the meaning of history find their answers in the vision of the Kingdom of God.The Being of God According to Leonard F. Wheat, the statements of Paul Tillich such as God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him, God is the symbol for God and The God of theism is dead seem to represent him as an atheistic theologian as some critics put it, but a closer look at Tillichs position makes him appear less controversial. He argued that Tillichs oft-repeated assertion that God is not a being, but being-itself. is the only possible definition of God because all other options turn God into a Supreme Being that is something less than God. If God is not being-itself, he is, in fact, in as much bondage as the old Greek gods were in bondage to fate a King indeed but only a puppet-king. Thus, his motivation for define God as being-itself is to protect the transcendence of God from idolatrous misconceptions, not to cover his atheism with ludicrous word tricks. Much the same goes for his talk of symbols.Tillichs remark that God is the symbol for God lead many to conclude that he regarded God as merely symbolic (i.e. , not real), says Wheat. However, Tillich was simply conveying the fact that human language can never fully grasp the ineffable glory of God, since our superlatives become diminutives when applied to God. However, Tillich argued that language is capable of pointing to the reality God in a symbolic fashion, although it is never identical with that reality. Thus, symbols are truly glorious things, because they allow us to describe the indescribable, opening up levels of reality that are unopen to literal language.With this in mind, his talk of the God above the God of theism makes more sense. The God of theism is the symbolically-conceived God that is ceaselessly transcended by the True God. Far from being a nonsensical phrase designed to trick population into believing, this is Tillichs way of affirming both the validity of theological speech and the complete otherness of God. Thus, while the form of Tillichs doctrine of God is certainly unconventional, I think its substance lies comfortably within the Christian tradition. REFERENCES Andrew M.Colman Oxford Dictionary of Psychology, Oxford University Press, New York, 2003. Bacon, Francis, Viscount Saint Baron of Verulam The Nature of Things. Anthony M. Quinton, University of Oxford, 1950 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, (1739) in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encoyclopaedia Britannica bookman and Home Edition. Chicago Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Immanuel Kant reexamination of Pure Reason, in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, vol.2 Oxford University, England 1690 John Scott Gordon Marsall Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, O xford University Press, New York, 2005. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive, (1843) in Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Radical Empiricism Encyclop? dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. W. H. Walsh, Reason and puzzle (1947) and H. H. Price, Thinking and Experience, 2nd ed. (1969) in Encyclop?dia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Student and Home Edition. Chicago Encyclop? dia Britannica, 2010. Internet Sources Empiricism retrieved from http//www. theoryofknowledge. info/sources-of-knowledge/ empiricism/http//www2. warwick. ac. uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/faculty/longworth/keyideasrationalismempiricism. pdf Catholic Encyclopedia Empiricism. Retrieved from http//www. newadvent. org/advert/99001 f. htm Leonard F. Whea (March 09, 2006) Was Paul Tillich an Atheist? retrieved from http//woauthority. blog spot. com/2006/03/was-paul-tillich-atheist. hypertext mark-up language on 24/10/2012.

Short Guide to Answering Exam Questions Essay Example for Free

Short Guide to Answering run Questions EssaySuch interrogative moods atomic number 18 usually very straightforward. You would usually be asked to discuss, explain or write short notes. However, the examiner may sometimes ask you to comp are, position the difference or explain the difference. This type of gesture would expect you to list out what the respective characteristics of the terms are and then identify the differences. Just be careful of overconfidence. Hypothetical questions Look first at the question the examiner wants you to answer. It is usually found in the last sentence(s) of the question. This will influence the way you manner at the hypothetical facts given. If you look at the facts before you look at the question, you may form your own question and this may result in the inappropriate answer. 1. 1. 2. Identifying applicable virtue (applicable to all questions) Once you pose place the question, this also narrows down the principles you have to use to answ er. The applicable principles can be very wide or very narrow. A shrivel question is obviously about the law of vex. But the law of contract covers many different sub-topics. Even these can be very general.For example, you have misrepresentation, mistake, lack of capacity etc. Under mistake, you have unilateral or bilateral mistakes. And the list goes on. Once you identify the appropriate wakeless principle, you should quickly write down the key points. Being able to narrow down the specific law being asked also pie-eyeds that you can elaborate much on the specific point. This will mean less time wasted on unnecessary points. 1. 1. 3. Identifying the key factors for liability (applicable to all questions) As you study, you would recognise that the law is very much like a mathematical formula.To establish liability under a principle, you would usually have to establish certain factors exist. The hypothetical usually requires you to discuss one or more of these factors. Before you are able to proceed further, you should therefore identify the key factors. Example is that for a contract to be formed, you must have the factors of offer, acceptance of the offer, an intention to create efficacious relationship and consideration. Once you identify the appropriate key principle, you should quickly jot down the key words as well as the key case to be used.Identifying the key facts (not applicable to pure theoretical questions) Once the key points have been identified, you are like a shot ready to look at the facts of the case. As you read the facts, you will be now looking to see how many of the factors actually exist in the conundrum. You have to carefully identify the miss or contentious facts. For other questions, you have to identify what the examiner wants from you. If it is similarity or difference, then you look for the similarities or differences in the principles you are expected to compare.For one thing, a lot of students think they if they cover everything, they are bound to hit something. The problem often is that you do not discuss enough about the applicable issues and much about the irrelevant ones. The student also runs out of time and this is often the reason wherefore students find that they have not enough time. Criticizing the law. Students sometimes feel it necessary to criticize a legal principle. The mistake is that you spend all the time criticizing the principle without solving the problem. Focus on solving the problem first before criticizing the law. Ignoring the law. Sometimes the legal answer seems wrong from a practice point of view. The student then decides to give practical advice instead of focusing on the legal aspects of the case. Again, give your legal firmness first before embarking on the practical solution. Confusing the solution. Students try very hard to solve the ideal problem at the same time. This often leads to convoluted and incomprehensible answers. In short, no one (including the s tudent) understands the answer. realise one problem at a time and then give the overall view at the end.

Organization of relationships Essay Example for Free

Organization of relationships EssayFunctionalism Functionalism is perhaps the oldest, and still dominant theoretical emplacement in sociology. This paradigm is based upon two related emphases application of the scientific method to the objective accessible world, and use of analogy between the individual organism and partnership. The perspective was developed by Emile Durkheim, and expanded by Talcott Parsons in the 1950s.The perspective assumes 1) that the application of the scientific method extends to the social world, 2) values provide general guidelines for style in terms of roles and norms, 3) institutions are generally composed of interrelated roles and norms, and 4) the society is a functioning organism composed of functioning institutions. Functionalists perceive the social world as objectively real observable with methods such as surveys and interviews. Rules and regulations assist in the organization of relationships between members of the social body. These inst itutions of society such as the family, religion, the semipolitical system, even the economy are interwoven. They function congruent to social needs and aspirations. They are directed to the advancement of social objectives.Functionalism has the following assumptions 1) the interrelatedness of institutions, roles, and norms is congruent with social needs 2) social need is not needfully physiological in orientation (it can be in the form of status acquisition) 3) gradual alternate is the main motor of social deviate (abrupt change is seen as something unnecessary and leading to social perturbation of actors) 4) objectivity is the primary qualification of social research (functionalism, later structural functionalism is highly correlated with the empiricist climax to social research) 5) the social world is generally governed by social actors.Functionalism addresses the following issues 1) the evolution of roles and norms in a particular social setting, 2) the development of inte rrelated institutions, 3) the efficacy of long-term change, 4) the cohesive functioning entity, and 5) the importance of role-making and empiricist research. From the v sociological paradigms discussed, conflict theory seemed to be the least useful because1) It fails to answer the evolution of roles and norms in the society (it views morality as something created by power politics) 2) While it explains the efficacy of short term (abrupt) change, it fails to fully embody the saliency of long-term (gradual) social change 3) It saw conflict as the only effective gist of altering social arrangements, roles, and norms of the society here, conflict is seen as a positive force of social change (the word positive here is morally neutral).

Ethics And Issues Essay Example for Free

Ethics And Issues EssayHow should schools deal with Internet plagiarism? There are many ways as to how a school writing of ass deal with net income plagiarism. Firstly, they should teach their students the importance of writing a fair work and the worth of hard work it has. Students pauperism to know that any piece written by them is their own accomplished hard work that is alone original. In such a way, they have learned the essential elements of the work that the school teacher cute them to work on. In other words, they have succeeded in meeting the requirements of the coursework, no matter what grade they get.Secondly, teachers should exceedingly emphasize on the topic of ethics and ethical writing to the students. Apart from these, a school has to be up-to-date regarding the different ways as to how the students plagiarize. Keeping a track on the past written document of the previous is one way. The other is to use anti-plagiarism software today. The popular software use these days by the universities is Turnitin. com or Mydropbox. com. Students should be taught that plagiarism is a crime and is equivalent to stealing.Altering digital photos Art or FraudSimilar to plagiarizing, altering digital photos is fraud and can earn even legal consequences if used for financial or academic gains. Altering digital photos and stating it as your own work is like stealing someone elses work, making some additions and stating it as your own. Just as the painting of Mona Lisa will always be the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, no matter how altered it is, any work through with(p) on anybodys vexly done work is a crime. In my opinion, altering digital photos can never be an art but a fraud because the original work is done by someone else. Photojournalism is mostly subjected to this fraud.If altering digital photos was to be considered as art, many people would misuse it to present as legal evidences. Since the natures of digital photos are, in a way, alterable, these pieces are never considered as a piece of legal evidence. Software have been developed where any alter in the digital images are spot and traced that avoids altering of any digital piece as well (Pearson, 2006). Altering any image or piece for ones own benefit in order to gain money is a crime, thus a fraud and not an art. Just as a re-mix music cannot be regarded as an original piece of art, altering digital photos, too cannot be regarded as an art.

The Family and Medical Leave Act Essay Example for Free

The Family and Medical Leave make EssayThe Family and Medical Leave represent sets regulations for job-saved leave related to family and medical reasons. FMLA applies to organizations with 50 or more employees working within 75 miles of the employees worksite (Employment Laws, n.d., para. 6). Employees who have been with their current employer for 12 months and who have worked 1250 hours of service in the previous 12 months ar eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave through FMLA (Eligibility Requirements, Revised 2013). FMLA covers the following leave reasons The birth of a child, or the nursing homement of an adopted or foster child. A serious wellness condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of their job. To care for a spouse, child or parent with a serious health condition. A qualifying exigency arising out of a covered family pieces active craft or call to active duty in the armed forced.To care for a covered family member who has suff ered an injury or illness objet dart on active duty. Employees must be restored to their position or equivalent position when returning from leave (Benefits and Protections, Revised 2013). The use of accrued paid leave cease be determined by individual organizations, but should be documented in a policy. It is substantial for an organization to create a leave policy that complies with FMLA and be consistent when applying the policy. The Family and Medical Leave Act can provide stability to employees, but can be tricky to administer.troupe X inevitably to consider a few factors to ensure FMLA compliance. Paternal leave is included under FMLA, so Company X was in compliance when they granted leave to Employee A (assuming the employee has also worked a minimum of 1250 hours). Employee A was eligible for 12 weeks of leave, but voluntarily decided to return early. FMLA does not require Company X to pay Employee A while on leave, denying that request was also in compliance with the la w. Company X met the FMLA requirements, allowing Employee A to return to the same position with the same rate of pay. My conclusion is that Company X has not violated FMLA requirements. I would recommend Company X create a policy that documents FMLA procedures and clarifies what to expect while on leave (salary and benefits). Situation BAs humans Resources professionals, it is key to be mindful of protected job classes, particularly age. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 was put in place to protect workers over 40 years of age. The ADEA applies to employers with more than 20 employees and applies to all aspects of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, lay cancelled, compensation, benefits, job assignments and training (Facts just about Age Discrimination, Revised 2008). Since the ADEA applies to the hiring process as well as the term of employment, employers are not allowed to subscribe for date of birth in any pre-hire process. There are a couple of exc eptions to the law. Employees may fall by the wayside their right to the act as long as the ADEA guidelines are met.In certain situations, high train executives may be asked to retire at 65 and for jobs with bona fide occupational qualifications employers may discriminate based on age (Exceptions to the ADEA, 2007). An example of this would be a modeling agency hiring for an ad that promotes childrens clothing. Based off of the information provided, Company X is in net violation of the ADEA. Employee B is over 40 and thusly in a protected job class. Unless they have reason to justify their decision, employee B has a clear case for discrimination. Since employee B has higher doing and longer tenure, the promotion should have been granted. My recommendation to Company X is to create a documented policy the outlines what factors are used in promotions and rank employees accordingly. In my opinion, performance should always be first. Other factors to consider could be attendance/acc ountability, education and seniority. If company X followed this policy, there would be no question of age discrimination. Situation CThe Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits job discrimination against volume with disabilities. The adenosine deaminase applies to all terms of recruitment and employment for employers with 15 or more employees (adenosine deaminase Questions and Answers, (Revised 2009). chthonic the ADA, it is illegal to discriminate against qualified individuals and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to ensure individuals with disabilities can perform the essential functions of their job. probable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the work environment that would allow someone the ability to do their job (ADA Questions and Answers, (Revised2009). Reasonable accommodations may not bring undue hardship to an employer or require significant impediment or expense. When complying with the ADA, job descriptions will help pr ovide an outline of essentials functions of a job.In order to have a go at it if someone is able to perform the essential functions, a job description must be documented. expect that Applicant C was the most qualified nominee, Company X would be in violation of the ADA for denying employment. Since Applicant C is able to perform the essential functions of the position with one modification to the office, it would be loaded to disqualify the candidate. An additional elevator keypad would not cause operational harm to the organization and cannot be considered undue hardship. My recommendation to Company X would be to make the necessary adjustments and ultimately, hire the best candidate for the job.ReferencesADA Questions and Answers. (Revised 2009). American with Disabilities online. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http//www.ada.gov/qaeng02.htm Benefits and Protections. (Revised 2013). United States part of Labor online. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http//www.dol.gov/whd/regs/complia nce/posters/fmlaen.pdf Eligibility Requirements. (Revised 2013). United States Department of Labor online. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http//www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/fmlaen.pdf Employment Laws. (n.d.). United states Department of Labor online. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http//www.dol.gov/odep/pubs/fact/employ.htm Exceptions to the ADEA. (2007). Human Resources BLOG. Retrieved on May 27, 2014 from http//www.humanresourceblog.com/2007/09/10/exceptions-to-the-adea/ Facts About Age Discrimination. (Revised 2008). EEOC online. Retrieved May 27, 2014 from http//www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html