... ? Philosophers through time have had many kinds of theories about where life in nature originated. All the earliest philosophers believed that there had to be a certain basic substance at the root of all change. There had to be "something" that all things came from and returned to. They posed questions relating to the transformations they could observe in the natural world. It can be said that these philosophers ... must be air or vapor and that water was condensed air. Air was therefore the origin of earth, water, and fire. Earth, air, water, and fire are all necessary for the creation ...

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... civilization that was a contribution of Athens was government. Solon, a main known for his fairness, created reforms for the Athenian government because of a possible threat of rebellion against the poor and rich. His reforms enabled all male citizens to vote, a judicial plan, canceled debt and promoted industry. The system allowed all citizens to take part in the government, which was the first democracy. Cliesthenes later ... wise man. He would go around asking questions that was simple to answer and explore those answers with further questioning until the questions become unanswerable...

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... were taking place during that time. King talks about the oppressed blacks and how the Ku Klux Klanner were mistreating blacks. King said how the leadership that was going to be elected, all had the same intention of keeping segregation among blacks. King also spoke on the differences between just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a human law that is not ... unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation disto...

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... very important conversation/ debate regarding the justice of a proposed escape. As the discussion moves deeper and deeper, Socrates is able to reason life down to that one solitary statement. Socrates outlines his views very well in Crito, and he is thorough in both explaining and supporting his ... For who can truly judge whether or not one is "living well"? Likely, Socrates would argue that the law is the judge and that determining whether or not one is truly living well is easily assessable by asking two questions: 1.) Are they living justly? 2.) Are they living honorably? But can th...

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... same gods the other Athenians worshiped. Socrates explained, "...when the god ordered me, as I thought and believed- to live the life of a philosopher, to examine myself and others, I had abandoned my post for fear of death or anything else. That would have been a dreadful thing, and then I might truly have justly ... tell him what was wrong. The injury caused many problems in his life, even interfering with his job. People began to look down on Ivan rather than to sympathize for him, such as his wife, who didn't care that he is dying but rather troubled by the inconvenience his sufferi...

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... . The poor man on the street corner, the old lady next door, the little chold that sits down to read a book with no parents or family...they have a purpose. They mean something to this world, we all do, and when we cant find the reason for our own lives should we not ask what we do every day that impacts others lives as well ... , I stop sometimes and just smile, because I know each and every person is going to change the path of my life in some sort of way somehow. There is no answer to many of our questions that are always correct in every way and there are no direct answers to the ques...

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... is learned even though nothing is taught. All human beings passively have knowledge about everything but it is with guidance that they can come to actively know. Through questioning, knowledge is recovered from within. A good example of this is the part of Meno when Socrates questions a slave boy about a geometry problem. The boy seemed to know nothing about Socrates" problem. However, ... through a series of questions, the boy actually knew the answer without knowing he solved the problem. Although Socrates" beliefs or teachings make sense, I don't ... fully agree with some of the con...

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... and beliefs. Socrates, a Greek philosopher, spent his life seeking knowledge of what was right, in means of finding a universal truth. Professing to be completely ignorant himself, he would converse with people of power in Athens, asking questions that led them to contradict themselves and become confused. This made them furious and Socrates made enemies of many powerful people in Athens. This ultimately led ... to his trial and execution. Regardless, he is still known to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time. This is why the need to express your own opinion and beliefs is so ...

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... something previously known. It is important to differentiate between true belief and knowledge. In The Meno, for Meno, knowledge is or is not and for Socrates it always is. Meno would like Socrates to enlighten him about if virtue can be taught or not. In order to understand recollection, Socrates and Meno play a game of questions and answers. Socrates answers all Meno's questions. By doing so, Meno gets ... perplex and forces us to think. To defend the theory of recollection ... Socrates uses many examples such as the geometry problem with the slave boy. With each wrong answer from th...

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... and Socrates was cut short by the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian democracy in 399 B.C. Afraid for his life; Plato left Athens and began to travel. Plato continued in the pursuit of truth through questions, answers and additional questions. Plato traveled around to many Greek cities in search of more knowledge and truth. It wasn't until about 385 B.C that Plato returned ... . The great philosopher, Plato wrote many dialogues, which can be defined as the parts of a literary or dramatic work that represents conversation. For him, dialogues were a part of his conception of ph...

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... "nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" (Republic 338c). These are examples of Socrates response to someone else's idea. Socrates never opens with his own ideas. He merely questions the ideas of others, and reasons why they are incorrect. Thrasymachus, in fact, accuses Socrates of ... well that it is easier to ask questions than answer them. Give an answer yourself, and tell us what you say the just is" (Republic 336c). Socrates defends himself in saying he doesn't know what justice is or what anything is for that matter. People who speak ... Good. The Form of the Good cause...

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Heroic Hypocrite In Plato's work, Crito, Socrates poses many philosophical questions. He, as always, has a complex with what is just and unjust. The major theme of most of Socrates" work deals with this matter, and ... world anymore. Crito tries to persuade Socrates to escape the prison. He tries to place guilt within Socrates" conscious by telling him how all of Socrates" friends would have to suffer from having to witness his death. Crito explains that if Socrates is put to death, then all of his friends would suffer bad reputations for allowing it to happen. Socrates, being ... parent. He ...

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... extensive observation, analyzing, learning, and proving. Philosophy is a person's opinion of how something should be done. It is what people use to answer the basic questions about life. Let's look at philosophy from a religious perspective. This is where many believe it all began. What does religion say about philosophy? In Colossian chapter two verse eight, it states, "Don't let anyone lead you astray ... feared that they would be deceived by persuasive arguments of false teachers. In times past the Colossians were over powered by false teachers for lack of security and knowledge. Man...

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... is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts." (Plato 143). The prisoners see the shadows; hear the sounds and think believe them to be reality. To examine these beliefs, let us look at a scenario where the puppeteer turns the lights on and off, and during the off time, tips the ... the tree lying down. This is done over and over again, day after day. Plato would state that the prisoners will believe that all objects are shadow gray in color that the shadows are the real object. He would argue that the prisoners would think that the dark and ... All ideas of human understanding d...

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... and if there could ever be true philosopher. He talks about how it seems as if no one can ever know all there is to know. But, even though we may not be able to learn everything, we can still study and at least try and learn something. I believe that what I just stated is ... he discusses the ideas of philosophy not being practical in this world of production that we live in. Our society try's to tell us that philosophy serves no greater good for practical purposes. But Pieper argues the independence of philosophy when he says, "philosophy by itself is a free endeavor, and ... for this...

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... he accepted the fact that it was the law. In his own philosophy he believed that a persons actions must be just and he tended to prove wrong people's beliefs by questioning them into confusion. Socrates was always a man of his word. He would stand by anything that he ... Dialogue", or dialectic, he retrieved the inner knowledge from his students by pursuing a series of questions and examining the effects of their answers. Almost everyone that he came into contact with he would question. For example, Socrates methodically denies Euthyphro's idea that what makes right actions right is that ...

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... is said to be "the love of wisdom. It is the search for the larger picture, the demand for knowledge." There are many questions in philosophy, many involving the subject of religion. Does God exist? Should we believe in God? Is belief in God justified? These are just some of the questions attempted to be answered ... else. Therefore, there must be a first cause, and this is God. Another well-known argument is the teleological argument. The basis of this argument for the existence of God is the threat against the finite structure of being, against the unity of polar elements. This argument...

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... be sought. Nagel does not believe that everything is cut and dry, so to speak. It must first be proven. Typically it is difficult to prove something someone might say. One can tell an individual all fish have scales but realistically how can that be proven? One would have to examine each fish in the world in its entirety. That would be completely unattainable ... at all? The pre-Socratics sought an understanding of the universe. Aristotle believes that something is good when it ends in the means which was intended. Aristotle argued that the mind and the body were separate from each othe...

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... is said to be "the love of wisdom. It is the search for the larger picture, the demand for knowledge." There are many questions in philosophy, many involving the subject of religion. Does God exist? Should we believe in God? Is belief in God justified? These are just some of the questions attempted to be answered ... else. Therefore, there must be a first cause, and this is God. Another well-known argument is the teleological argument. The basis of this argument for the existence of God is the threat against the finite structure of being, against the unity of polar elements. This argument...

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... , and Islamic communities have similar views. Cosmological arguments are a posteriori, these tend to lean toward proving the existence of God through a sense experience. Cosmological arguments come in many varieties, such as the existence of the universe to God as its creator, cause, or explanation. Cosmological arguments were started at the time the questions of the universe were first asked. The existence of motion ... to the existence of a first mover as the cause of movement, was argued by Aristotle. This first mover ... he called God. The reason for this was that nothing caused God...

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... ). The first element of philosophy is ethics. Ethics is a system or code of moral values. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics insists on the necessity of earthly goods, to some degree, for the truly happy life, and even so for the philosopher. Aristotle's scientific training kept him from dictating superhuman ideals and unattainable degrees of perfection. He also considered ethics a large part of his logic (Copleston ... a cat" would be very generic, considering there is a difference between every cat. The metaphysics part of Plato's theory of ideas says that "cat" refers to an ideal cat, "th...

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... learn wisdom by the dissection of philosophy. After reading the selection by Russell, it all made sense to me. In my opinion if we are to learn anything at all about philosophy, we must engulf ourselves with as much philosophy as we can. Russell ... that. To sum my reaction all up I would have to say that this really opened my mind up to what philosophy is and what it can be. Russell says not to study philosophy because there are definite answers but because of the questions themselves, because these questions make us ... think more than we normally do. It expands how we view things an...

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... governed by the precepts of Poseidon (Neptune)." (Encyclopedia Americana). Even though Plato was a great and well respected philosopher, his claims with no evidence pose questions, like for example: Did the Lost City of Atlantis really exists? Or was he just under the influence? And ect There is plenty of evidence supporting Plato's ... that were true then that would mean that atlan.org is wrong. According to atlan.org, " The sunken continent of Indonesia is the burial of Atlantis." Nothing is for sure when it comes to Atlantis, not even the questions that were first stated in the beginn...

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... of the natural world. (Zalta, Edward N. 1) This field is so abstract that many people are unable to understand it. It challenges the concrete that science is built on. It questions everything that we take for granted, like numbers and relationships between them. He even used the theory to question the Gods, or any supreme being. Aristotle also came up with other very abstract theories ... . Aristotle, like everyone else at the time, accepted the theory of the four elements: water, earth, fire and air. Every element moved only on one dimension, because all the ... . He concluded the heave...

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... the soul, philosophy is a discipline of critical thinking, human interaction, and speculation. Philosophers attempt to answer age old human questions such as, "Where did we come from?" and "Where are we going?" However, a thinking mankind yearns for more than just history explained and reliable predictions of future, we want to know what makes a "good" life, what is beauty, what is justice, and how might ... think we know them innately, as the young man Socrates met outside the courthouse knew piety, or we have devoted considerable thought to, such as Descartes" "I think, therefore I am...

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