Introduction He goes by the name of “Benedict de Spinoza“, using the Latin equivalent of the given name (“Baruch”, meaning “Blessed”) that he discarded in his youth following his excommunication by the Amsterdam Jewish community of his birth. Little concerned with wealth, fame, or the transitory pleasures that drives others, Spinoza is motivated by the […]

Spinoza distinguishes between three levels of knowledge and describes how we can move from the lowest to the highest. We begin with the things most familiar to us, and says Spinoza, “the more we understand individual things the more we understand God.” By refining our knowledge of things, we can move from (1) imagination, to […]

Growth of interest in spirituality: Traditionally, spirituality has always been viewed within the framework of a specific religious group. Thus, there have been multiple spiritualities associated with various saints in Roman Catholicism, as well as different spiritual paths to be found within the context of particular interpretations of Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism. In this sense, […]

Growing feminism and sensitivity to women’s issues: Feminism has become a significant issue within the religious world.This concern has been expressed in a wide variety of different forms. Theologically, it has challenged understandings of God, human persons and the world of nature that some argue were implicitly rooted in male perspectives. Politically, it has striven […]

 “Greening” of Religion: This involves growing consciousness among religious groups and individuals of the importance of environment concerns. Such consciousness frequently has been a part of the mainstream in many Asian religions but even though individuals like St. Francis of Assisi in the Christian tradition held perspectives that emphasised the relations between humans and nature, […]

 Sartre and de Beauvoir met as university students at the Sorbonne in Paris. Famous the world over as the odd couple, they never married or shared a common property. De Beauvior refused to live the conventional female role. They lived in hotels and ate in cafés. But they did share a common philosophy. Their particular […]

Ludwig Wittgenstein‘s  burning ambition was to bring an end to philosophy, and he considered that he had done so – twice. He was brilliant, charming, arrogant, rude, witty, brave, and frequently suicidal. Equally as confusing as his philosophy. in fact he seemed to be two different philosophers, the older one disowning the work of the […]

In the late 1900s the USA developed its own school of thinking known as pragmatism. The gist is that ideas only useful if they can be put into action. The Americans cleaned out the philosophy cupboard and threw out everything that had no practical value. one of the leading lights  of this new age of […]

Hegel was not a modest man. He claimed that he understood all of the philosophy and history. Like Spinoza, he thought that god and the universe were inseparable. it is difficult to describe Hegel’s philosophy simply, because it isn’t simple. It is a huge, all-embracing system that moves through history like a giant snowball, gathering […]

Estranged, Alienated Labour: We have started out from the premises of political economy. We have accepted its language and its laws. We presupposed private property; the separation of labour, capital, and land, and likewise of wages, profit, and capital; the division of labour; competition; the conception of exchange value, etc.

Friendship: Friendship is a kind of virtue, or implies virtue, and it is also most necessary for living. Nobody would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things. Aristotle takes up the subject of what is lovable. He returns to his three “objects of choice”: goodness, usefulness, and pleasure, […]

Apatheia is a state of mind in Stoic philosophy in which one is free from emotional disturbance; the freedom from all passions. Apatheia is the root for the word “apathy” (i.e., indifference), but the ancient meaning of apatheia is closer to equanimity than indifference. To some extent, the Stoic term “apatheia” is misleading, even in […]

  Agreements between the Two Views:  (1) The goal of ethical philosophy is practical: the improvement of human lives, the promotion of happiness (the blessed or supremely good life). (2) hat happiness is also the ultimate end (goal) of human life.(3) That happiness is the most complete end. (4) That happiness is self-sufficient. To say […]

Epicurus is considered a major figure in the history of science as well as philosophy. In ethics he is famous for propounding the theory of hedonism, which holds that pleasure is the only intrinsic value. However, his view of pleasure is far from the stereotypical one. For Epicurus, the most pleasant life is one where we […]

Epicurus claims that there are two self-imposed beliefs that do the most to make our lives unhappy or full of pain. They are first, the belief that we will be punished by the gods for our bad actions, and second, that death is something to be feared. Both of these beliefs produce fear and anxiety, […]

For Epicurus, pleasure is tied closely to satisfying one’s desires. He distinguishes between two different types of pleasure: ‘moving’ pleasures and ‘static’ pleasures. ‘Moving’ pleasures occur when one is in the process of satisfying a desire, e.g., eating a hamburger when one is hungry. These pleasures involve an active titillation of the senses, and these […]

The virtues: Epicurus’ hedonism was widely denounced in the ancient world as undermining traditional morality. Epicurus, however, insists that courage, moderation, and the other virtues are needed in order to attain happiness. However, the virtues for Epicurus are all purely instrumental goods–that is, they are valuable solely for the sake of the happiness that they […]

Because of the close connection of pleasure with desire-satisfaction, Epicurus devotes a considerable part of his ethics to analysing different kinds of desires. If pleasure results from getting what you want (desire-satisfaction) and pain from not getting what you want (desire-frustration), then there are two strategies you can pursue with respect to any given desire:

1) Aristotle’s idea on the three forms of constitution :  There are three kinds of constitutions, and an equal number of perverted forms, which are, so to speak, corruptions of these. Constitutions proper are kingly government,  aristocracy, and timocracy. Timocracy is a form of government based upon an assessment of property, though most people are […]

In the Middle Ages, especially  in the works of the Scholastic writers, arises the problem of the relationship between theology and philosophy. An attempt was usually made to resolve this problem by resorting to the idea of subordination and recalling the old phrase “Philosophy, the Handmaiden of Theology,” from this viewpoint, philosophy is an auxiliary, […]

There are hundreds and hundreds of hard and soft media daily, writing thousands and thousands articles and stories gossiping celebrities in any field that really you cannot even imagine it. Even most of so called serious materials while they become scrutinized, are full of exaggerations and somehow busy making or promoting some celebrities. Celebrity gossip […]

St. Anselm’s ontological argument St. Anselm’s life and work: ¨He was born in 1033 and died in 1109. He was from Aosta, in Piedmont. As a member of the medieval Christian and of the European community which had begun to take shape, he did not restrict  his life and activity to the country of his origin, […]

Some say 20th-century philosophy began with Edmund Husserl. He invented a new way of looking at the world. He called it “phenomenology”, meaning “how things appear”. Husserl wanted to find a foolproof method of meaning reality. Descartes‘ idea of doubting everything was a big ingredient of his philosophy. Like Descartes, he believed that consciousness is […]

When Nietzsche was a boy he was called “the little pastor”. His father was a Lutheran preacher. He expected to be a clergyman like his father, but at university he began to question his upbringing. He became a professor at the age of 24. He decided that Christianity robbed people of the will to excel. […]

 Dear friends, Hello and Respect, There are times when my capacity overflows,  and I have no choice but to relate my problem with you- my patient listeners and dear friends – my audience, and my interlocutors.  At these sort of occasions,  as if I am a frog which needed to come to the water surface to croak […]

Since the Renaissance Stoic ethics and some aspects of the stoic view of nature have attracted those who have found it impossible either to accept Christianity or to lapse into complete atheism. The Stoic sage’s sense of duty, his concern for others, his constancy, his independence of external conditions, and his freedom from irrational impulses […]

Briefness, Disconnectedness, and Suggestiveness When one begins to read Chinese philosophical works, the first impression one gets is perhaps the briefness and disconnectedness of the sayings and writings of their authors. Open the Confucian Analects and you will see that each paragraph consists of only a few words, and there is hardly any connection between […]

See what Immanuel Kant says about it. Immanuel Kant was a man of habit, living his life to a precise routine. Townsfolk used to set their watches by his afternoon walk, as he followed the same route at the same time every day. One day he stayed in to read a book and people were […]

See what are the ideas of a couple of the most well-known Greek philosophers about it. Aristotle distinguished between three types of soul in order to indicate the three different ways a body can be organized. He called these the vegetative, sensitive, and rational souls. They represent various capacities of a body for activity, the […]

http://www.academia.edu/15363751/Hofstede_s_cultural_dimensions_Comparison_between_Thailand_Germany_and_Iran_

The Scottish thinker David Hume wanted to bring philosophy to its senses. He scoffed at so-called human reason. Like John Locke, Hume believed that people knew of the world began with the senses. He set out to discover whether there was any real proof  of those things that people took for granted. Hume’s questioning of […]

 John Locke is known the father of Liberal Democracy, basis of western constitutional democracy. He was from a puritan family and he lived during the time of Hobbes. He believed that Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this state, and subjected to […]

Spinoza was a Dutch Jew of Spanish descent, whose parents had come to Amsterdam to escape persecution from  the Catholic Church due to the plight of the Jews in 16th-century Spain. Yews were forced to become Catholics or flee the country. Spinoza as a youth, studied the Jewish philosophers , but the most abiding influence […]

Descartes turned philosophy on its head and started again. First, he had to find out what he knew for certain. he did this by doubting everything. Could he believe what he saw with his eyes, when big things looked small in the distance? How did he know that he really existed? May be he was dreaming. […]

Thomas Aquinas was the son of an Italian nobleman. He was educated in a monastery, like many children during Middle Ages. This 13th century friar said that faith and reason were often two paths to the same end.  He combined the philosophy of Aristotle with the Christian religion. He argued that without God there would be […]

The murder of ordinary citizen:  Farkhunda Malikzada was a 27-year old Afghan woman who was lynched by a mob in Kabul on March 19, 2015. She was murdered after allegedly arguing with a mullah who falsely accused her of burning the Quran, the holly book of Islam. Police investigations revealed that she had not burned […]

  Stoics believed that they were part of a divine plan and that whatever happened was meant to be. Stoics got their name because Zeno taught from a porch (stoa in Greek). To the stoics, a good life meant a virtuous one. They refused to be ruled by their feelings, because emotions just got in the way […]

 ATOMISM & HEDONISM Epicureans thought human existence was just a random groupings of atoms that fell apart after death. Their motto was “don’t worry, be happy”. Epicurus tries to construct a system of simple, coherence, and plausible principles. he is a hedonist who regards the fear of death as the most dangerous source of fear, […]

One Friday a professor announced to her class that on one of their five meeting days during the next week, she would administer to them a surprise quiz. The class would not know which of the five days it would take place until the morning in which it was actually to be given. One of her […]

Its relation with the Church Aristotle studied with Plato for twenty years. He thought that Plato’s world of perfect forms was perfect nonsense and these perfect forms were part of life, not apart from it. Studying nature convinced him that everything was striving towards its own unique form of perfection.he knew that all acorns were potential […]

Empedocles came from Sicily. He disagreed that there was one basic ingredient to the universe. He said reality boiled down to the simplest parts of the four elements (fire, air, earth, and water). all change could be explained by the coming together and falling apart of these elements.He said that there are two basic forces […]

Many philosophers use issues like computer viruses to question what life really is. there are many similarities between a computer virus and a human virus. a computer virus can spread from computer to computer, just as the flu, for instance, can spread from person to person. A computer virus can lie in a computer without […]