Dogma Essay

His aim was to use this method of doubting everything you know to discover what we actually do know for certain. So we can prove them.

There is a reoccurring theme in the history of the world that every civilization has contributed to: it is the endless pursuit of truth and knowledge. The pursuit has never been about reaching a destination or an end point, or about acquiring all the truth and knowledge there is to acquire. Men have learned early on that the universe it too vast to unearth all its mysteries. However, throughout this pursuit, men have also learned about the limitations of their own understandings, the setbacks of their capacity to know the world as well as they would like. This acknowledgement of man’s inability to fathom the world in its entirety is what has fueled and continues to fuel the hunt for truth. The age of Enlightenment was characterized by the abandonment of age-old dogma in favor of a new way of thinking (Greenblatt and Abrams 2182-85). The scientific method, developed by Francis Bacon, had opened up several avenues for discovery and paved the way for empiricism, a prominent aspect of the era’s intellectual movement (Greenblatt and Abrams 2182-85). Among the greatest philosophers of the seventeenth century, John Locke is remembered as the most influential liberal philosopher to date. His contributions to political philosophy in what became known as modern day liberalism designated him as the apotheosis of Enlightenment thinkers, but his contributions extended far beyond politics. Locke ventured into the realm of epistemology, which is the subject of one of his most profound

Philosophy is defined by Webster as "Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline" or "Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods." This essay is a general look at those who pursued that intellectual means, those who investigated, even those who reasoned Reason. Because volumes could be written and this is a rather quick, unworthy paper: apologizes.

Victor begins to possess an unnatural drive in his quest for knowledge where he begins intense study and experimentation, “These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale from study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement” eventually isolating himself from his friends and family. As the seasons passed Victor’s obsession with his studies continued to grow, “And the same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time” highlighting how his ambition is a fatal flaw, neglecting the outside world and his loved ones. Victor’s ambition to research and attempt to create life drains him of health and sensibility, “Every night I was oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful degree” which is ironic to the goal he wishes to achieve. Shelly’s use of irony illuminates how Victor’s obsessive ambition has become a fatal flaw.

’ This description likens his efforts to those of an expectant mother, later when he actually creates life, his actions are similarly described as; ‘an anxiety that almost amounted to agony. ’ Whilst this anticipation would seem to mirror his earlier experience, his reaction to the first breath of his creation is the complete opposite; ‘How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe. ’ Instead of rapturous delight, Victor is filled with a sense of ‘breathless horror and disgust. ’ In Congruence with Punter’s assessment of the nature of the gothic genre, this scene serves to highlight the argument raised by Erasmus Darwin and other enlightenment thinkers, on the subject of reproduction. Their research suggested, that with the reproduction of plants, the male plant role was of infinitely more importance than the role of the female plant, with the female role being merely to provide nourishment and oxygenation.

While the sublime began as something traditionally beautiful and natural, like a sunset, it was Burke’s belief that something does not necessarily have to be appealing to be sublime. When experiencing a sublime moment, one is overcome by passion, and therefore can ironically be extended to that which is grotesque. The feeling of complete terror, for instance, can be described as sublime according to Burke. In his essay he writes, “No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. For fear being an apprehension of pain or death, it operates in a manner that resembles actual pain.

Tracing the roots of this highly significant bond, however, if to adapt them in any historically meaningful way, would then require us to explore the central values that have resonated most, generally speaking. For Edmund Burke, a political philosopher who was noteworthy still for excursions into what’s dubbed “aesthetic theory,” and resulted in the foundation laid for some of the earliest discourse on the sublime, with its specified grounds in beauty and terror. To traverse this line, then, and possibly even indulging onto one side over another, is, as per Burke’s treatise, quite indicative of such a sublime experience, or, “it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (Burke 36). Unnecessarily that which

Gnosticism, which was viewed as a threat to early Christian beliefs can be defined as the “thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis (King, p.5).” Besides the dictionary’s condensed definition summarizing Gnosticism, “Gnosticism” is a much more complex belief composed of numerous myths defining humans and God and viewed as an ancient Christian heresy. Gnosticism is rather a term invented in the early modern period to aid in defining the boundaries of normative Christianity. Yet, it has been mistakenly come to be thought of as a distinctive Christian heresy or seen as a religion in its own

Victor states that "even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy [Clerval's] eager mind" (Shelley 112) and that Clerval loved nature where others merely "admired" it, only to be destroyed by the results of a human's attempt to meddle with natural processes. By expressing the difference between admiration or aesthetic appreciation of nature and the true appreciation of its vital importance, Victor brings to light a great conflict in Romantic-era England between the progress of humanity in the sciences and the responsibility to preserve nature. An assumption in Bressler's synopsis of Ecocriticism, the maintenance of dialog between sciences and humanity is important to maintain to preserve the vital balance that allows us to exist on our planet.

In the Enquiry of the Sublime and the Beautiful, Edmund Burke explores the origins of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful and separates each into their own respective rational categories. For Burke, the beautiful is that which is well formed and aesthetically pleasing, while the sublime (which Burke positions as being the trigger for the strongest of emotions one is capable of feeling), has to do with the power to compel and destroy us. It is evident early on in the treatise that Burke elevates the sublime over the beautiful, which also marks the transition from the Neoclassical to the Romantic era.

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Like Schiller, Edmund Burke a British philosopher from the 18th century, also suggests the sublime is more than a transcending feeling; it includes an intense feeling of terror. In his Section VII Of the Sublime Burke writes:

The turn from the 19th to the 20th century has given to the world a whole group of literary geniuses. It was a time of cardinal changes, the death of the old principles, of revolutions and wars. Former ideas and rules disappear and it slowly, but inevitably leads to the generation of the new directions in literature, philosophy, and art. One of such movements was a new aestheticism, which roots go to romanticism. In the atmosphere of the contradictory ideas of the Victorian era, in the time of extreme optimism and extreme pessimism, a time where strict moral rules and exaggerated virtues contrasted with the widespread of prostitution and child labor, Oscar Wilde as the most notable follower of the new aestheticism has a particular position as the preacher of this new movement for which beauty was above morals, art was higher than reality (Abrams 3). Wilde urges the audience to consider that art reflects only

       Belief is a fundamental human trait. Belief in many things is what helps humans continue living their lives. Religious beliefs are one of the strongest forces of human emotion and often times those emotions can create dangerous situations. When people's religious beliefs are taken to extreme levels innocent people can be hurt. All throughout history there have been examples of just such incidents occurring. From the Inquisition, to suicide bombers in Israel, to the fighting in Ireland, to the recent events at the World Trade Center religious beliefs taken to extremes have been seen. In the United States many groups preach extreme beliefs that are harmful to the American people. One such

Like the Just war theory, the sublime has been an important term in literary criticism and theory. It was first described by the Greek rhetorician known as Longinus in the text On Sublimity, which is seen ‘as one of the most influential classical works in the tradition of European criticism’ (Norton anthology of theory & criticism 133). He defines the sublime as something that ‘contains much food for reflection, is difficult or rather impossible to resist, and makes a strong and ineffaceable impression on the memory‘ (?). He claims that there are five source of the sublime. First is ‘the power to conceive great thoughts’, second is ‘strong and inspired emotion’, thirdly ‘[c]ertain kinds of figures’, fourthly ‘[n]oble diction’ and