Gadamer's Analysis

Bourdieu, P. 1990 [1980]. ‘Belief and the Body’ in The Logic of Practice, Richard Nice (translator) Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp 66-79.

In Meditation Two of René Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy, he notes the sight of “men crossing the square.” This observation is important as Descartes states, “But what do I see aside from hats and clothes, which could easily hide automata? Yet I judge them to be men.” This is an important realization as Descartes argues that instead of purely noticing the men through sight, it is actually “solely with the faculty of judgement,” the mind, that perceives and concludes that the thing wearing a hat and clothes are men. I argue that this view of the outside world by Descartes is incomplete as his idea of “I” is faulty, as well as having a misunderstanding on the importance of the senses.

Despite this problem, we believe it is the same piece of wax we see, touch, or imagine. But it is not our feelings or imagination that gives us the idea. If we had evaluated these abilities, and if the wax is distorted, we would not be able to agree that it is the same wax. This study enables us to recognize that the imagination, just like sensation, does not convey the true nature of wax; rather, this difficulty indicates that only understanding, exercising its powers of conception and judgment, performs the unifying function that constitutes the self-identity of the piece of wax: “our perception of the wax is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining… but the mind alone” (68). Although the changing characteristics of the body has been transported through our senses and imagination, the identity of the matter is provided by the understanding of the wax itself. This analysis confirms Descartes’ view that “what we thought we had seen with our eyes, we actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in our mind” (68). Therefore, any sense of the body is actually an introspection of our mind, not an external inspection.

German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 – 1831) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) have traditionally been viewed as polar opposites in terms of their philosophy. Hegel has been dubbed an idealist and a systematic philosopher who identified various different types of History, theoretical entities and concepts. Nietzsche, on the other hand, is seen to be a counter-Enlightenment and counter-systematic philosopher who penned the well-known text, ‘Genealogy of Morals’. In this essay, I aim to bring to light the underlying similarities between the two thinkers that have previously been overlooked, as well as to identify the differences in Hegel and Nietzsche’s ideologies and presuppositions.

Neither one of them can be precisely placed in any of the religious categories of the period; Calvinism (both orthodox and reformed), Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, and liberal "Christocentric humanism" all exerted definite influences on both works, but both works similarly resist direct placement not only because of the syncretic nature of their programs, but the fluidity of these very traditions. Therefore, while some hesitancy is a necessary hazard of such a investigation, it nevertheless preserves a respect for the complexity of the religious history involved.

In Gadamer's writing I believe that his master metaphor is that man can only achieve higher learning through exchanged dialogue. I believe that his main point was to explain that man's limited ability to reason is due to conditional thinking. In order for man to gain knowledge he must be exposed to new concepts, idea, and situations without allowing his prejudices to interfere with his experience. He spends a great deal in the beginning of the article trying to dismantle the conventional definitions of what experience and insight mean. He emphasizes the importance of listening, ones ability to be open, and the art of asking questions. The explains that these factors are major tools in which man can be transformed into a more enlightened state.

In their case study, Bohmer and Ferlins (2008) presented the transformational change that occurred at Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) since adopting the Toyota Production System (TPS) and tailoring it to create the Virginia Mason Production System (VPMS). The authors followed a structured way of presenting the case by outlining the need for change at VMMC, the strategy that Kaplan followed to transform VMMC, and the results achieved due to this change.

BonJour begins his first part of the dialectical argument by reflecting on the nature of knowledge and experience (4). BonJour holds a broadly foundationalist perspective in which certain beliefs are basic (4). These beliefs

The coming of the Messner, who foresees the tragic ending of the siege, connects Gen to the outside situation. As Messner said, the government would never leave everyone alone inside, so the troops can come in every second. However, Gen is not willing to walk out of the idealistic illusion. Mesmerized by the harmonious relationship inside mansion, Gen refuses to face the reality. He, just like everyone else in the mansion, is an escapist when facing the fact that the siege will end eventually.

I agree with Zeilinger when she claims that the definition of success for a man that coincides with the traditional ideas of masculinity can be hollow and destructive. Men are often taught to be competitive and success in the male definition is associated with wealth, power and prestige. This often comes at the expense of one’s happiness. Living up to such a masculine driven idea of success can be destructive because it doesn’t allow for the ability to properly deal with and process failures and disappointments. This can lead to emotional distress. I define success as the ability to attain or accomplish one’s goal/aim no matter what it is. This goal and aim is set differently by different people which mean success is defined by the individual.

In the First Meditation, Descartes invites us to think skeptically. He entices us with familiar occasions of error, such as how the size of a distant tower can be mistaken. Next, an even more profound reflection on how dreams and reality are indistinguishable provides suitable justification to abandon all that he previously perceived as being truth. (18, 19) By discarding all familiarity and assumptions, Descartes hopes to eliminate all possible errors in locating new foundations of knowledge. An inescapable consequence of doubting senses and prior beliefs

Thusly it is seen that Kierkegaard seemed to almost be fixated on discrediting Hegel and the Romantics. Comparisons of such dialectically opposed philosophies are difficult to explore, since one is so critical of the other. However, as mentioned above, both must be credited to the influences of Romanticism. Hegel redefined their “world spirit”

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes strives first and foremost to provide an infallibly justified foundation for the empirical sciences, and second to prove the existence of God. I will focus on the first and second meditations in my attempt to show that, in his skepticism of the sources of knowledge, he fails to follow the rules he has set out in the Discourse on Method. First I claim that Descartes fails to draw the distinction between pure sensation and inference, which make up what he calls sensation, and then consider the consequences of this failure to follow his method. Second, I will show that in his treatment of thinking Descartes fails to distinguish between active and passive thinking.

Much attention has been paid to the notion of Recognition in the Master-Slave dialectic. However, the beginning of the path towards true recognition is marked itself by the recognition of finitude or death. The very freedom from embeddedness in natural origins of which self-consciousness is capable is intimately tied to its confrontation with the "absolute Master," death. In this dialectical move, Hegel has articulated one of the most profound and paradoxical truths of human existence, namely that an awareness of death and finitude is the inception of man's potential differentiation of self from his natural origins and the beginning of man's self-consciousness. Not only that: by the cunning of reason man's mortality is the vehicle through which natural Life redeems itself from its incarceration 'in-itself.' Thus, the very actualization of man's differentiation of self from nature which takes place in work is, as I shall show, a kind of internalization and transformation of that very finitude. Only as such, can self-consciousness realize its true self.

They disregarded the place of divine-will in their conception of self, basing it on mere experience, empirical evidence and mathematical formulations. This shift of conception is termed 'demythologization', where everything works without a purpose and results from mechanical interaction of particles regulated by universal laws which can be mathematically formulated (Greetham, B., 2006). Consequently, began the search of the self by looking within for purpose and meaning.