Locke, Berkeley & Hume Essay Example for Free

Locke, Berkeley Hume Essay Enlightenment began with an unparalleled confidence in human reason. The new sciences success in making clear the natural world through Locke, Berkeley, and Hume affected the efforts of philosophy in two ways. The first is by locating the basis of human knowledge in the human mind and its encounter with the physical world. Second is by directing philosophys attention to an analysis of the mind that was capable of such cognitive success. John Locke set the tone for enlightenment by affirming the foundational principle of empiricism: There is nothing in the intellect that was not previously in the senses. Locke could not accept the Cartesian rationalist belief in innate ideas. According to Locke, all knowledge of the world must ultimately rest on mans sensory experience. The mind arrives at sound conclusions through reflection after sensation. In other words the mind combines and compounds sensory impressions or ideas into more complex concepts building its conceptual understanding. There was skepticism in the empiricist position mainly from the rationalist orientation. Locke recognized there was no guarantee that all human ideas of things genuinely resembled the external objects they were suppose to represent. He also realized he could not reduce all complex ideas, such as substance, to sensations. He did know there were three factors in the process of human knowledge: the mind, the physical object, and the perception or idea in the mind that represents that object. Locke, however, attempted a partial solution to such problems. He did this by making the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities produce ideas that are simply consequences of the subjects perceptual apparatus. With focusing on the Primary qualities it is thought that science can gain reliable knowledge of the material world. Locke fought off skepticism with the argument that in the end both types of qualities must be regarded as experiences of the mind. Lockes Doctrine of Representation was therefore undefendable. According to Berkleys analysis all human experience is phenomenal, limited to appearances in the mind. Ones perception of nature is ones mental experience of nature, making all sense data objects for the mind and not representations of material substances. In effect while Locke had reduced all mental contents to an ultimate basis in sensation, Berkeley now further reduced all sense data to mental contents. The distinction, by Locke, between qualities that belong to the mind and qualities that belong to matter could not be sustained. Berkeley sought to overcome the contemporary tendency toward atheistic Materialism which he felt arose without just cause with modern science. The empiricist correctly aims that all knowledge rests on experience. In the end, however, Berkeley pointed out that experience is nothing more than experience. All representations, mentally, of supposed substances, materially, are as a final result ideas in the mind presuming that the existence of a material world external to the mind as an unwarranted assumption. The idea is that to be does not mean to be a material substance; rather to be means to be perceived by a mind. Through this Berkeley held that the individual mind does not subjectively determine its experience of the world. The reason that different individuals continually percieve a similar world and that a reliable order inheres in that world is that the world and its order depend on a mind that transcends individual minds and is universal (Gods mind). The universal mind produces sensory ideas in individual minds according to certain regularities such as the laws of nature. Berkeley strived to preserve the empiricist orientation and solve Lockes representation problems, while also preserving a spiritual foundation for human experience. Just as Berkeley followed Locke, so did David Hume of Berkeley. Hume drove the empiricist epistemological critique to its final extreme by using Berkeleys insight only turning it in a direction more characteristic of the modern mind. Being an empiricist who grounded all human knowledge in sense experience, Hume agreed with Lockes general idea, and too with Berkeleys criticism of Lockes theory of representation, but disagreed with Berkeleys idealist solution. Behind Humes analysis is this thought: Human experience was indeed of the phenomenal only, of sense impressions, but there was no way to ascertain what was beyond the sense impressions, spiritual or otherwise. To start his analysis, Hume distinguished between sensory impressions and ideas. Sensory impressions being the basis of any knowledge coming with a force of liveliness and ideas being faint copies of those impressions. The question is then asked, What causes the sensory impression? Hume answered None. If the mind analyzes its experience without preconception, it must recognize that in fact all its supposed knowledge is based on a continuous chaotic volley of discrete sensations, and that on these sensations the mind imposes an order of its own. The mind cant really know what causes the sensations because it never experiences cause as a sensation. What the mind does experience is simple impressions, through an association of ideas the mind assumes a causal relation that really has no basis in a sensory impression. Man can not assume to know what exists beyond the impressions in his mind that his knowledge is based on. Part of Humes intention was to disprove the metaphysical claims of philosophical rationalism and its deductive logic. According to Hume, two kinds of propositions are possible. One view is based purely on sensation while the other purely on intellect. Propositions based on sensation are always with matters of concrete fact that can also be contingent. It is raining outside is a proposition based on sensation because it is concrete in that it is in fact raining out and contingent in the fact that it could be different outside like sunny, but it is not. In contrast to that a proposition based on intellect concerns relations between concepts that are always necessary like all squares have four equal sides. But the truths of pure reason are necessary only because they exist in a self contained system with no mandatory reference to the external world. Only logical definition makes them true by making explicit what is implicit in their own terms, and these can claim no necessary relation to the nature of things. So, the only truths of which pure reason is capable are redundant. Truth cannot be asserted by reason alone for the ultimate nature of things. For Hume, metaphysics was just an exalted form of mythology, of no relevance to the real world. A more disturbing consequence of Humes analysis was its undermining of empirical science itself. The minds logical progress from many particulars to a universal certainty could never be absolutely legitimated. Just because event B has always been seen to follow event A in the past, that does not mean it will always do so in the future. Any acceptance of that law is only an ingrained psychological persuasion, not a logical certainty. The causal necessity that is apparent in phenomena is the necessity only of conviction subjectively, of human imagination controlled by its regular association of ideas. It has no objective basis. The regularity of events can be perceived, however, there necessity can not. The result is nothing more than a subjective feeling brought on by the experience of apparent regularity. Science is possible, but of the phenomenal only, determined by human psychology. With Hume, the festering empiricist stress on sense perception was brought to its ultimate extreme, in which only the volley and chaos of those perceptions exist, and any order imposed on those perceptions was arbitrary, human, and without objective foundation. For Hume all human knowledge had to be regarded as opinion and he held that ideas were faint copies of sensory impressions instead of vice versa. Not only was the human mind less than perfect, it could never claim access to the worlds order, which could not be said to exist apart from the mind. Locke had retained a certain faith in the capacity of the human mind to grasp, however imperfectly, the general outlines of an external world by means of combining operations. With Berkeley, there had been no necessary material basis for experience, though the mind had retained a certain independent spiritual power derived from Gods mind, and the world experienced by the mind derived its order from the same source. Word Count: 1374.

How to Write an Essay :: Process Essays

Process Essay - How to Write an Essay   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Writing a college essay can be a very difficult task. However, there are techniques to help make this task easier. The writing process is a three stage approach to planning and creating a college essay. These stages are known as prewriting, writing, and revising. If a student follows this process, she will write a good paper.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first stage of the writing process is called prewriting. There are five prewriting techniques that help writers to understand the topic and purpose of the writing assignment and limit the topic to a manageable and appropriate idea. The techniques are brainstorming, freewriting, diagramming, making a list, and preparing an outline. In brainstorming, you generate ideas for you writing. A writer might view a film and discuss or write their impressions, write a list of ideas for an essay, or discuss a topic with a group of students. You might ask yourself some questions such as What? Why? When? Where? How? and Who? In freewriting, you write non-stop about a subject for a certain amount of time. Spelling or punctuation, mistakes, and finding exact words do not matter. It helps you to get a clearer picture of what you are trying you say. Diagramming is helpful for people who think in a visual way. You can put your idea in a circle or block and branch off examples or other ideas pertaining to it. The fourth technique is making a list. You list as many items you can that has a relation to your topic. Your goal is to make details and to gather as much material as possible so you have something to start with when you go to write your paper. The last technique is preparing an outline. The thesis statement is clearly stated on the outline and a specific outline format is followed. Outlining gives you a sense of organization and allows you to see quickly if you have enough support for your ideas. After the writer is done prewriting, she moves on to the next step.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The second stage for the writing process is called writing. In the writing phase, you make decisions about developing and organizing your ideas into writing and discover what you know about the subject. Insights gained from the prewriting phase help shape ideas into meaning for yourself and others. The writer may prepare a rough draft, focusing on the purpose of the writing and choosing a suitable form for a specific audience. You need a thesis to work with first. The thesis will be your guide while you write your essay.

On Humanism and Determinism Essay

Before my first year in college started, Mama and I went to the mall to buy school-related things, including notebooks, pens, and a bag. When we arrived at the shoes-section, I found myself stuck in deciding which pair I should choose. Well, it’s not because I don’t like any—actually, I’ve found what kind of pair I want, but my mother kept on insisting another pair. It ended up that I bought what she liked for me because the pair that I liked didn’t have a size appropriate for my feet. From this situation, I wondered if I had any sense of freedom at all. It is inevitably true that the topic about freedom has always shaken the world of human beings since time immemorial. I wonder, too, if I am really a free being. For me to be able to know if I am really free, I would need to answer some questions that might fulfill my inquiry: What is freedom? What does it mean to be free? Are we free beings? To help me with my questions, I read about an argument between determinism and freedom. Also, I read Baruch Spinoza’s (a determinist and one of the most important modern philosophers) claim on freedom. Determinism is the thesis of universal causation: in simple terms, it claims that everything in this world is caused. On the other hand, freedom is the state of being free from restraints. As a doctrine, it maintains that some of our actions are free. These are both paradoxical—something inconsistent and contradictory. This is because if everything is caused, then so are the actions that we claim to be free. But they (actions) are the result of some causes which made us perform actions, so we are not free. How is that?  Baruch Spinoza, as a determinist, also stated that we are â€Å"not free agents but parts of a divine machine which thinks and acts in accordance with the eternal laws of nature†, in short we are not free. Why? I will answer my own questions by defining what freedom is. Freedom is the exemption or liberty from slavery or imprisonment. It is the liberty of choice or action. It is also the state of the will as the first cause of human actions, or self-determination in human beings [1]. To be free is to enable one to do what s/he wanted to do. To start the argument, let us first take a look at the Holy Bible. Another blessing that God gave us when He made us in His image is the gift of freewill or the freedom to choose. Through this gift we are given the power to act and not to act, and so, to perform deliberate acts of our own. Man is rational and therefore, like God, he is created with free will and is master over his acts. In this statement, it is given that we are given the freedom to do what we wanted to do. But, according to the determinist Baruch Spinoza, it might go the other way: that we are not really as free as we think. Spinoza had an inquiry on the following things: (1) What sort of world do we live in? 2) Who put us here? (3) Why? I would like to focus on question number 3, but first there must be answers on numbers 1 and 2. What sort of world do we live in? Spinoza answers that the world is infinite and eternal—it has no beginning and end in the space and time. It was never created and destroyed, and is just simply, profoundly and eternally is. For the next question on â€Å"Who put us here†, Spinoza answered that it’s God. God, Spinoza asserts, is the world. Each of us is a definite and an important part of Him—a cell in His body, a segment of him. Every human body, therefore, is a part of God’s body. Everything that happens in the world—our faith, destiny and actions—are in accordance with God’s plan. In the third question, it was asked, â€Å"Why? †. The answer to this question, according to Spinoza, is that we have been born in order to be happy. But, what is â€Å"happiness†? [2]It is the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. To be able to attain this, we must first try to find our limitations—for example, that we are only parts of God’s divine machine, and that we follow God’s will. As for human will, it also follows the laws of necessity. There is no such thing as â€Å"free will†. Why? This is because the actions that we do are determined by a cause, which is determined by another cause, and this by another, and so on to infinity. The actions that we do are dependent upon another action. This, then, follows the claim of Determinism, that every action is caused. As to the first sentence of my introduction, I had to buy things because college is starting. The cause of my action (to buy things) is because I need (necessity) those objects for school. Next is this: I had to choose the other pair of shoes because there’s no appropriate size for the one that I would like to choose. There was no choice to the situation. This is what we call a â€Å"determinist position†. It claims that no actions are free. Spinoza, as a determinist, states that â€Å"we think that we are free because we are ignorant of the causes of our actions†[3]. We choose only because we fail to realize that we are not free. Choosing when one has no choice—when one is not free—is founded on ignorance. But, if we are going to accept this thesis of determinism, then it would be paradoxical to itself. Why? If we accept this thesis, we are going to accept that no one is responsible to the action. For example, no one is responsible for me choosing the other pair of shoes, simply because it is not, nor my mother’s fault to have a feet size larger than the available sizes for the pair of shoes that I originally wanted. Who or what will be, then, the one responsible for the size of my feet or for the unavailability of the feet size? Nothing could have been done to prevent me from having such feet size—I did not have it out of my own free will. Whatever caused my feet size must be caused by some earlier conditions and factors, which might have extend indefinitely to the past. This is the Determinist view. Does this exactly mean that we are not free? No, this is insufficient. In an argument we must look at the other side to see if it is valid. If there is a Determinist view, there is also a Libertarian view. If the determinist claims that we are powerless on the actions that we do and not do, the libertarian claims that it is within our power to act otherwise than we do. It means that the act depends on us whether we perform it or not. Thus, to say that an action is free is to say that â€Å"we could have done otherwise†, â€Å"that we were free to do otherwise†, and that â€Å"we have the power to do otherwise†. As for my mall-case, I could have chosen to not buy my school stuff than going with my mother. I was free to buy the pair of shoes that I originally wanted, not caring much if ever the shoes are too tight on my feet. I have the power to tell my mother that I don’t want to buy the suggested shoes just because I don’t like it, that I want the former instead. The libertarian holds that people do have free will, that there is free action, and that the thesis of determinism is false. It denies that all human actions are caused. Personally, I don’t think that nothing was done before an action occurred. No, this does not mean that I am on the determinist side, but I am also not saying that I am on the libertarian side. Either to say that â€Å"we are not free† or to deny that â€Å"all human actions are caused† is insufficient. I do not agree when the determinist says that we have no freedom or power to do otherwise, because given my situation above, I was able to make choices. After choices come decisions. It is up to me if I will let myself be bound by the causes, or free myself from it. Probably, if I, or we are going to â€Å"bend† these causes to our own will, we will be able to prove that we are free and are not powerless, unlike the claim of the determinist that we are powerless in everything that we do. Thus, from supervision, I can take and have control over the decision of my actions. On the other hand, to act freely is not to act from an uncaused mental decision, but to act from the necessity of one’s own nature. Human freedom resides in the power of reason to control the emotions because reason is determined not by external causes but from within. Reason, unlike imagination, follows a logical order in ideas. Reason allows us to understand how things follow by necessity from the Divine Nature. As a person grasps the necessity of things an sees reality as a whole, s/he is free, liberated by clear understanding. In the grip of passions, we appear to be the under the power of external forces; but as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of a passion, it ceases to be one and we are freed. In this way, a clear understanding that all things are necessary gives the mind power over the passions. This understanding, which liberates us from the bondage of the passions, at the same time instills in us an intellectual love of God’s Nature[4]. Am I free? Yes, I am free. But I am not completely a free being. Our freedom to act does not mean we are completely free to do whatever we want. There are certain laws, rules, and principles in this world that we need to follow. Of course, we can do whatever we want, as long as we do not affect negatively the others around us. Spinoza might have stated that we should realize our limitations because only through that we could obtain happiness. I think that being limited to a certain aspect would mean that one is not free.

Triump in The Scarlett Letter by Nathiel Hawthorne

The triumph of an individual against all odds has been a popular trope for all forms of story-telling throughout history. Surrounding these triumphant (or sometimes not) heroes are conflicts that can be categorized into some of the following: man versus man, man versus himself, man versus nature, and man versus society. The conflict between an individual and society is common in American literature due to the qualities of a typical American hero; they often run on their own set of morals and do not fit into their society. However by going through this struggle, characters are able to grow and develop. The varying reaction amongst characters fighting against their society help authors show important character developments as well as provide more insight to their true personalities. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne highlights the empowerment of women in society by having Hester Prynne as his protagonist. Hester is jailed and practically exiled from her town after she is disco vered to have committed adultery. She refuses to reveal her paramour and has to raise her daughter, Pearl, by herself under the scrutiny of town officials. In addition to time in jail, the town makes Hester wear a scarlet letter, which serves as a physical brand that separates her from society. There is a stark contrast between the ornate letter and her otherwise plain clothing. Though the color red is associated with her sin, it also represents Hester’s passion and love. Hester’s love for