Literary And Cultural Theory During The Modern And Postmodern Period

The body, mind, and soul are said to be capable of extraordinary properties that assist in human understanding. René Descartes, and John Locke are two primary philosophers that have shaped modern philosophy with their views on human understanding. Both philosophers assumed that the proper function of human understanding relies upon processes within the body. The processes involved in this understanding are viewed distinctly by each philosopher.

The notion of self strikes us all in someway throughout our lives. Whether we are considered by others to be of a particular persuasion or we admire or despair of our own qualities we have ingrained perceptions and beliefs about the nature of the self, of ourselves. The importance of culture and context in understanding the processes by which people come to describe, explain or account for the world and themselves is described as social constructionism. The theory of social constructionism contrasts with theories of psychodynamic perspectives and essentialism that suggest that our representations of ourselves are based on some innate and unconscious propensities. This essay will show that the social constructivist

Methods and Meditations on First Philosophy is a discourse by Rene Descartes, which largely focuses on the nature of humanity and divinity. This essay is a discussion of this discourse, and will summarize, explain and object to various parts of his work. The majority of this essay focuses on Descartes Sixth Meditation, which includes his argument that corporeal things do exist.

Everyman, by the anonymous writer, is a play that can truly be analyzed under a literary theory lens. Everyman can be analyzed under a performance theory lens, not only because it is a play, but also that the actions of the character fall within the several categories of the theory. The play can be seen as following the structure of the religious ritual while following Everyman through his completion of the sacraments. Secondly, Everyman encounters many sacred characters, including, Death, God, and an Angel. The characters portray performing objects in which throughout the play these characters are personified. The characters are personified as human companies to Everyman, although they are actually a part of him taking on the role of seven deadly sins the characters portray different influences within Everyman’s life. The goal of these morality plays were to entertain the audience, which is an aspect of performance theory, but that these players were also used as a way of teaching the

Subsequently, I will attempt to counter possible criticisms with a profounder understanding of Descartes' meaning in the “Meditations on the First Philosophy.” Finally, I will offer a concluding argument that I think correctly reflects and encapsulates my aversion towards Descartes' declaration, “I think, therefore I am.”

Max Hallman's book Traversing Philosophical Boundaries discusses many different philosophical debates and provides arguments from both sides of important moral and ethical quandaries. Instead of relying on his own individual analyses, he takes an unbiased opinion of highly controversial topics and instead uses the texts written by other philosophers, thus given voracity and authenticity to each argument. It then becomes up to the reader to research each side of the given arguments and formulate their own conclusions about which side they most agree with, if they even have a definite opinion at all. Hallman explores the concepts of self and unself through texts written by philosophers throughout time. Both the articles "On Personal Identity" by John Locke and "There is No Personal Identity" by David Hume illustrate the various opinions that have been expressed through history regarding how humans define themselves and how human beings as a whole group create and individuate identity. Other essays in the text which focus on conceptions of the self include "Cicles" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Nature of the Soul and Its Relation to the Body" by Plato, and "On the Real Distinction Between Mind and Body" by Rene Descartes. In the former two essays, the authors explore identity and the latter three essays, the authors discuss the self in terms of a being who possesses both a mind and a body and how those two things are related, if

Authors Hanan Al-Shaykh, Bessie Head, and Ngugi Thiong’O lived in a time where the idea of a universal truth deteriorated because of the ceaseless wars in the twentieth century. As a result, postmodernism took its roots in literature as people attempted to make sense of the world around them that no longer made sense. Postmodernism is the freedom to pick one’s truth from a series of truths. Short stories “Wedding at The Cross”, “The Women’s Swimming Pool”, and “The Deep River” capture this idea of competing truths as they all utilize a tone of uncertainty throughout the story. However, “The Women’s Swimming Pool” and “Wedding at The Cross” best embody this spirit compared to “The Deep River,” as the characters begin to rely less on the close figures to define their truths for them. By doing so, both stories show in more detail how post-modern movements have affected our understanding of truth as people start to independently define their own truths.

In his groundbreaking work, Meditations on First Philosophy, the French philosopher Rene Descartes lays the groundwork for many philosophical principles by attempting to “establish a bold and lasting knowledge” (171)1. The foundations for knowledge Descartes established would go on to influence a plethora of other philosophers and philosophical works. Descartes argues in his meditations first from the point of view of complete skepticism, using skepticism as a tool in order to discover what is real. Through this method, Descartes explains the existence of man as a “thinking thing,” the capacity for human error, the overall trustworthiness of our senses, the existence of a physical world, the mind and body as separate

On the temple at Delphi, a multitude of adages were written. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the command to “know thyself.” Throughout history, many great thinkers have attempted to face the challenge of how one can come to know his or herself. Among these thinkers are scholars such as Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, and countless others. However, this question is not one meant solely for philosophers; in fact, there have been many non-scholars who have taken up this challenge. When confronted with the works of these thinkers, one cannot help but to question his or her own existence and what it really means to exist. To illustrate this introspection, the works of both Rene Descartes and Gian Lorenzo Bernini will be analyzed. Both of these men used religion, out-of-the-box thinking, and the

Descartes, a philosopher, mathematician and scientist, was a fundamental player in the scientific revolution, which influenced his perspectives on the question of self. His principle tenant, the famously quoted, “Cogito, ergo sum – I think, therefore I am,” reflects his core belief of thinking and of self-awareness as key to personal identity. Descartes was strongly influenced by Plato and Augustine. Descartes philosophical underpinnings can be understood as an extension of Plato and Augustine’s dualistic view in which, “…body and soul remain irreconcibily divided, two radically different entities with diverging fates: the body to die, the soul to live eternally in a transcendent realm of Truth and Beauty” (Descartes 99). While Descartes acknowledges the body, he argued that it was secondary because it can be thought of independently. Descartes felt he was, “…able clearly and distinctly to conceive one thing apart from another, in order to be certain that the one is different from the other, seeing they may at least be able to exist separately …” (Descartes 106). Descartes argued that mind is completely different from body and it is possible for one to exist without the other.

For Sartre, our subjectivity is that which gives us the ability to choose our own paths in life. The point of departure for his philosophy is in the Cartesian cogito, "I think, therefore I am"(Sartre 40) which he characterizes as the “absolute truth of consciousness as it attains to itself.”(Sartre 40) This is one of the only truths in human existence for Sartre. That is I exist and I am radically free. Besides the fact that, we exist there is no pre-established truth in the world. Our existence precedes our essence; our existence is all we have. We are not objects of the world. We are subjects of the world. The world does not determine who we are and give us meaning. It is in fact the opposite, we determine and construct the world with meaning. As subjects, we construct our own knowledge and responsibility. Society is important to the individual on multiple levels. Sartre says that society is essential to knowing one’s self, “I cannot obtain any truth whatsoever about myself, except through the mediation of another. The other is indispensable to my existence, and equally so to any knowledge I can have of myself.”(Sartre 41) Additionally when an individual acts, he wills that that is how everyone will act. With a basis of Sartre’s account we will move

Seventeenth century philosophers René Descartes and John Locke endeavored to question the views on consciousness, self, and personal identity. They examined belief in God, the certainty of knowledge, and the role of mind and body. The goal of this paper is to deliberate John Locke’s and René Descartes views on “self” and personal identity and how each come to examine how knowledge is captured. René Descartes and John Locke both present arguments that are rational in the discussion of consciousness, self, and personal identity, but each lack conclusive evidence that would provide the proof necessary to believe one or the other philosophies are true.

The works of two philosophers Machiavelli’s The Prince and Descartes’s Meditations on First Philosophy were revolutionary in terms of setting knowledge on new foundations. In the literary work The Prince Machiavelli details the guidelines that leaders should adhere to in order to maintain stability in their controlled lands by accurately summarizing the nature of humans as being ungrateful, vain, and selfish individuals. While Descartes in his work Meditations on First Philosophy ventures on a journey to decipher the relationship between his body and mind and what in actuality exists. Both philosophers embark on a journey to comprehend and uncover the truth.

As with many philosophers worth studying, a common theme present amongst René Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant is the fact that all three philosophers challenged the traditional ways of thinking about philosophy respective to their eras. In certain aspects, all three of these philosophers also grappled with understanding, discovering, and logically explaining the power of the mind to shape whole truths. From Descartes’ foundational work with methodological doubt to Kant’s contribution to previous philosophical concepts such as synthetic judgments, all three men made undeniably valuable advances in epistemological thought despite the occasional controversies associated with their forward thinking during their time.

The modern view of self is articulated in the works of 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes. He pioneered the dualistic understanding of the human being, which is made up of the "mental substance (mind) and the physical substance (body)" (Warburton, N., 1992). Here, the body has physical properties like having weight and using space, whereas the mind is a non-material substance, responsible for thought and experience and hence is the abode of consciousness. In his view, the self is a spiritual "subject of experience" which is fundamentally different from the body and nature, where the body inessential and the mind can exist independently. His radical scepticism led to the formation of the "Illusion argument", where the bodily senses are deemed unreliable and thus the existence of the external world and body is uncertain. The only thing one can be