Of John Locke And Marsela From Miguel De Cervantes 'Don Quixote'

From Aristotle to John Locke to Thomas Jefferson, the ideas of great philosophers influenced the foundations of the United States. When Jefferson began writing the Declaration of Independence, he wanted to make this new country based on the basic fundamentals. He wanted to base the country on what was considered the natural laws. Jefferson had many philosophical minds to ponder when writing the document, such as Aristotle and most importantly John Locke.

The Enlightenment was a time of change in Europe. There were many new ideas, and various influential thinkers that inspired new invention and also inspired revolutions. All of these thinkers had different views on people and government and different views of people and how they act. Many of these authoritative individuals thoughts still influence us even today. Many of their ideas are used in government and also as guidelines for people to live their lives by.

Mme de Lafayette’s The Princesse de Clèves was written during the time period known as ‘the Age of Reason.’ Mainly concerned with the discovery of the self, thinkers began to seriously consider the foundation of knowledge on which we understand ourselves during this era. Philosophers at the time thought that in order to understand the self, we must first come to understand our fundamental human nature and the passions that influence our everyday actions. Unlike Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy or Hobbes’ Leviathan where the passions are philosophized and discussed, The Princesse de Clèves gives an entirely new perspective to these human emotions. The psychological novel allows us insight into how these passions can complicate our

The enlightenment era arose in the modern cultural ideology of the 18th century, as ideas among philosophers had a widespread effect among the society. The age of enlightenment, in western society, projected the rejection of traditional Christianity, western philosophy, intellectual advances, scientific, and cultural life, government legitimacy and authority. Upon the enlightenment period multiple philosophers emerged, the individuals arose to leading figures using reason to understand all aspects of human life. The motivations for the enlightenment came primarily from the Englishmen, John Locke. John Locke was a philosophical influence in both political theory and theoretical philosophy, which was embraced among the era of 1789-1914 and

The foundations of law have been set in the ideas of natural laws that are given to us. There are many different theories on how our laws of nature have brought us to develop the social contracts and government of today’s society. John Locke and Saint Thomas Aquinas’s views of how social contracts are developed from natural and eternal laws are both well seated in the belief of God given rights, but differ in the politics of the governments.

Berkeley describes there is no principle difference between the two qualities, for instance he states that a secondary quality corresponds to primary qualities because secondary qualities are characteristics that one cannot imagine an object existing without it, such as one cannot come up with an idea of a colorless shape. Another example that Berkeley points out is how people perceive qualities. Locke explains that secondary qualities are observed differently to different people. Berkeley finds this can be the same for primary qualities, such as two people looking at a triangle from different angles will have different perceptions of the shape. As a result, Berkeley finds that if one thinks secondary qualities exist only in the mind of the observer and one is convinced by his explanation of there being no distinction between the two qualities, then one would also conclude that primary qualities exist only in the mind of the observer.

Over the course of this semester, students of World Masterpieces by Amanda Drake have learned about “othering” and anti-heroism. Many of the central characters in the stories and plays that were assigned, exemplified anti heroism and othering. Anti-Heroes, by definition, are typically main characters of a story, play or movie, which lack classic “heroic” traits. Due to these characters lacking heroic traits, they are othered by society and peers, making these characters outcasts.

   In the tomes of history, many philosophers have outlined their visions of a perfect society.  Until recently however, few have ventured into the waters of religious tolerance.  One such philosopher was John Locke.  Writing in the late 17th century, Locke advocated a complete separation between church and state.  He argued for an unprecedented tolerance of people of all faiths.   Although Locke's views became widely popular throughout Europe and the Americas, they did not meet with unanimous approval.  Many earlier philosophers disagreed with Locke.  Two such philosophers were Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.  Aquinas disagreed in three key respects:  Compulsion, toleration, and authority.  Aristotle, on

The reflections of each character demonstrate the contrasting ideas of sanity and the corruption of minds. Hamlet appeared to be a more dubious and introspective main character while Laertes was thought out to be an agile and confrontational foil character. The disparity between Hamlet’s thought processes when coping with news of his father’s murderer and Laertes’ discovery of his father’s death

Primary qualities, however, are objective and include aspects such as an object’s height and weight (Paquette 212). Through this, Locke claimed that the existence of objects can be made certain due to the primary qualities it possesses (Paquette 212). Similar to Descartes, Locke believed in a sense of existence. However, in his view, the facts from the primary qualities proved the object exists because the object exists within itself (Paquette 212).

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." -- Marcus Aurelius

Who are you? What defines who you are? Why makes you who you are? What is your personal identity? Have you ever sat around pondering the meaning of life, or maybe just your life? Have you asked yourself any of these questions? What were your answers? These are questions that people have been trying to answer since the beginning of time, before me and you were ever born or thought of. People live their whole lives trying to figure out exactly who they are and what their purpose is in life. In the field of philosophy, many philosophers have had theories on personal identity and a person’s “self.” These people have gone down in history books for their theories on a person’s identity: John Locke and Rene’ Descartes. These are two of the most

The novel Don Quixote, by Miguel Cervantes, is an exploration into the idea of created reality. Cervantes, through the character of Don Quixote, illustrates to readers how we as human beings often make reality to be whatever we want it to be.

“Rappaccini’s Daughter,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a short story about how beauty is within and not just physical. When Hawthorne was four years old his father was in an accident and died on the scene, leaving his mother to raise him and his siblings alone. Thus, leading him to have respect for all women, and it is reflected in the story. For instance, the main character Beatrice is this aesthetic, sweet, and a naïve woman and Giovanni is just focused more on her beauty rather than anything else. Moreover, when Giovanni first sees Beatrice in the garden, he describes her as the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen and is just blinded by her beauty. What he doesn’t know is that her father, Doctor Rappaccini, is a scientist who cares more about science more than anything else. The place where Beatrice and Giovanni spend all their time together is in the garden, which represents loneliness’, and unfortunately one of the main characters will learn that the hard way. When Giovanni meets Professor Baglioni, a professor of medicine—who is Rappaccini’s rival— he helps him get Beatrice, or at least that’s what Giovanni thinks. However, what Giovanni does not know is that “the love of his life” isn’t who he thinks she is.

A novel is long narrative written by a novelist that describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. The later, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. The first significant European novelist is Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, the first part of which, the first part of which was published in 1605. The term novel refers back to the production of short stories that remained part of a European oral culture of storytelling in to the 19th century. Fairy tales, jokes, little funny stories designed to make a point in a conversation, the exemplum a priest would insert in a sermon belong in to this tradition.