... , gave people an extremely optimistic view of their future and the world around them. People believed in science, philosophy, and society to bring them rational laws and standards of which to critically observe and evaluate the universe, and to guide them in their daily lives. Yet the cataclysmic destructiveness of World War One, in conjunction with continually changing ways of modern thought, seemed to not only ... mask all of this optimism, but also shatter it in a way that was, and ... still is completely unparalleled by any other time in history. One area of modern thought that was ...

• Word Count: 1360
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... autonomous, creative being, but also nature as a precondition for all living beings. Part I also analyses and interprets the philosophical and theological developments leading to these modern, interrelated conceptions of freedom and epistemology. From the perspectives of Karl La ¶with and Hans Jonas concerning human orientation to a 'higher' metaphysical dimension, the ancient Greek, eternal cosmic order appears to be normative to ... an upper limit, it has also a bottom limit now. In The Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Kant declares from a Newtonian point of view: ...

• Word Count: 4223
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

... contributions, not an individual who knew and discussed the works of philosophers. A goal of many philosophers in the ancient world was to tie ethics, metaphysics, physics, the science of knowledge, logic, and politics together so that one's theory of knowledge determined one's understanding of the universe, and 2 individuals understanding of the universe affected how one acted (Hallsall). In the modern era, for the most part, philosophers tend to concentrate ... life, and even so for the philosopher. Aristotle's scientific training kept him from dictating superhuman ideals and unattain...

• Word Count: 886
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... dedication to reason and rational thought that until quite recently the era was sometimes characterized as the Age of Reason. The turn toward what became known by 1750 as the Enlightenment began in the late seventeenth ... universe. Perhaps a similar order and rationality could be imposed on the social and political institutions. This ideal fired the imagination of the leaders of the Enlightenment, who gradually became known as philosophes, simply French for "philosophers." But regardless of ... and the feminist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) who prepared to endorse an immediate politic...

• Word Count: 862
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate