Spinoza: Clarifications and Criticisms on Freedom Essay

Problems #65 - #94 from page 311. Please provide your answer after each problem and submit the file with your answers through Blackboard.

Throughout the history of metaphysics the question, What is? has always been answered in an incomplete,unsatisfactory or complicated manner, but Spinoza tried to answer this question in an exceptional way simply by describing God and His essence. Based on Spinoza’s views, God’s qualities can be referred to as attributes and modes are merely affections of a substance. This paper will provide a detailed view of Spinoza’s key ontological definition of God as the only substance, his attributes, and their co-relations. The study goes further to explore the major scholarly argument between Spinoza and Descartes, in regard to their view of substance, and its attributes.

The play illustrated by Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt (2011), “Everyman” written by an anonymous writer late in the fifteenth-century (p. 265-287), interconnects religious allegories with worldly moral lessons on several main reasons that good deeds and works are required and needed, but they do not save humanity from spiritual death. The play conveys a story about Everyman’s (representing human individuals) natural life journey to death. The morality of the play helps the audience appreciate the history of Christianity. The focal point throughout the play is about humanities, life plan and a journey that requires every man to construct an unworldly firm foundation built up strong to help overcome any uprooting storm within a lifetime. Its personification comes in the form of the characters Everyman, Goods, and Goods Deeds, who embodied the concept of teaching lessons to humanity of the significance of living a Christ-centered life and learning to allow the heart restored and guided by God to help aid good judgement (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). Thomas F. Van Laan (1963) describes Everyman’s play, “The human action and its allegorical significance together form a distinct structural pattern which not only imposes discipline but also contributes its own intrinsic meaning”. From the start of the first phase 5-6, the first point of view of the play engages, “…That of our lives and ending* shows / How transitory we be all day.*…” (Adu-Gyamfi & Schmidt, 2011). The play displays how

With the exception of Native Americans, there is no race of people that originated in America. Yet today, we all come together under the colors of red, white and blue, sing the National Anthem and call ourselves "Americans". Despite our differences in religion, norms, values, national origins, our pasts, and our creeds, we all combine under one common denominator. Alain Locke addresses this issue of cultural pluralism in his article, "Who and What is `Negro'?" In this article, Locke states that, "There is, in brief, no `The Negro'. " By this, he means that blacks are not a uniform and unchanging body of people. He emphasizes that we, as Americans, need to mentally mature to a point where we do not view

‘Cogito Ergo Sum,’ - ‘I think therefore I am ‘ one of the most famous and well known quotes or arguments in all of modern philosophy; a phrase instantly recognizable to all those studying in the field of philosophy. This phrase refers to an attempt by Descartes to prove with absolute certainty his own existence; a systematic way to philosophize. The argument, while first proposed by ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Saint Augustine, was utilized as an argument by French philosopher Rene Descartes in his influential text “Meditations on First Philosophy“. This argument appears in the books second meditation and provides the cornerstone for Descartes argument in the following five meditations and serves as the basis for Descartes overall metaphysical thesis, without which Descartes reasoning system would collapse. Throughout this paper I will

IV. Preview: In order to discuss this topic, I will cover these three main points.

In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Descartes argument for God’s existence in the Third Meditation. Descartes tries to prove the existence of God with an argument that proceeds from the clear and distinct idea of an infinite being to the existence of himself. He believes that his clear and distinct idea of an infinite being with infinite “objective reality” leads to the occurrence of the “Special Causal Principle”. I will start by discussing and analyzing Descartes clear and distinct idea of an infinite being and how it the classification of ideas and the difference between formal and objective reality Special Causal Principle. Finally, I will examine the reasons Descartes offers for his belief in Gods existence and I will indicate the drawbacks within the proof. It will be concluded that Descartes arguments are inadequate and don’t clearly prove the existence of God.

You see through the ages of philosophy there have been many debates and opinions. Yet it is those opinions that are the most radical that demand the most attention. On that note, we will address two radical philosophizers: Spinoza and Hobbes. Specifically there theory's pertaining to matter and the mind-body problem posed by Descartes. As such we will first address Hobbes then move to Spinoza and end with a combined statement on matter. Therefore we must begin by introducing Thomas Hobbes.

Many ideas are important within the American culture, but to the American sense of patriotism, freedom is most fundamental. The idea of freedom is central to the American politics – which is at times referred to as liberty. Since the birth of the nation, freedom has been the vocabulary of the American language and its importance cannot be underestimated. The Declaration of Independence, for instance, ranks liberty as an inalienable right. On the other hand, the Constitution reckons that it purposes to protect civilians’ liberty. The importance of freedom has even stretched further than the political arena and has prompted the birth of civil rights movements and other activist protests. The Cold War and the Civil War were all for the cause of freedom. The importance that Americans attach to freedom can also be demonstrated from the erection of statues, banishment of slavery, use of liberty poles and a right to vote for adults. For many years, women and the African Americans have for a long time fought against denial and infringement of their freedom . However, given the importance that Americans affiliate to freedom in the conceptualization of their country, it has been the subject of modifications over the course of years especially before the Revolutionary War.

Rene Descartes Meditations is known to be one of his most famous works, it has also shown to be very important in Philosophical Epistemology. Within the meditation’s he provides many arguments that remove pre-existing notions, and bring it to the root of its foundation which Descartes, then will come up with his indubitable foundation of knowledge to defeat any doubt and to prove God is real. Descartes was a “foundationalist”, by introducing a new way of knowledge and with clearing up how people thought about things prior. Descartes took knowledge to its very foundations, and from there he can build up from it. In this essay, I will be discussing Descartes, and analyzing his first two meditations and arguing that he does indeed succeed in his argument.

It is the purpose of this essay to examine both Descartes’ Cogito argument and his skepticism towards small and universal elements, as well as the implications these arguments have on each other. First, I will summarize and explain the skepticism Descartes’ brings to bear on small and universal elements in his first meditation. Second, I will summarize and explain the Cogito argument, Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am” (it should be noted that this famous implication is not actually something ever said or written by Descartes, but instead, an implication taken from his argument for his own existence). Third, I will critique the line of reasoning underlying these arguments. Descartes attacks

The concept of God is central to the development of Cartesian and Spinozan philosophy. Although both philosophers employ an ontological argument for the existence and necessity of God the specific nature of God differs greatly with each account. While Descartes suggests a Judeo-Christian concept of God, Spinoza argues a more monistic deity similar to that of the Hindu tradition. The most significant difference however, lies within the basis and structure of each argument itself. Considered from an analytical standpoint through the lens of Gotlobb Frege, Descartes' proof of God possesses both sense and reference and is therefore capable of expressing the

The concept of freedom has long been a popular tenet for philosophers to explore. From ancient Greek origins to the present day, many individuals have discussed the importance of freedom and the role it plays within society in an effort to define its relationship to the human condition. Two philosophers that have studied freedom in depth are John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Both philosophers viewed freedom as playing a major role in society; however, they conceptualized it in different ways, particularly in relation to its role with the nation. Perhaps the most notable aspect of these stances is Kant’s definition of the relationship between freedom, reason, and morality.

In order to build a different interpretation about the Cartesian dualism and the union of mind and body, I have established two categories. I call diachronic interpretations those that maintain that Descartes was first a dualist (i.e., in the Meditations), and later on developed his stance on the union of mind and body (i.e., in the Passions).

Because man himself has been changed in this transition, the loss of his natural freedom is not a loss at all because he can no longer make any use of a freedom that requires only self-interest to exercise, whereas the freedom gained—the civil freedom that gives him a part in all the society’s undertakings—is suited perfectly to his new, moral nature.