Reality, the Mind, and God Essay -- Philosophy Religion Essays

Reality, the Mind, and GodThe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Great Britain are marked by a general and persistent concern some threats to orthodoxy in religion. Many doctrines and views were seen as threatening theories about the origin and nature of human knowledge, metaphysical claims about the nature of the world, claims about human nature, about the person and action. (Yolton 3) According to the major viewpoints held in metaphysics, one of the four major categories in the study of philosophy, there are three major ways to regard the constitution of reality. Materialism is the view that all that exists is material or is completely dependent on matter (Gould 421) in order to be perceived and to exist. This is one of the two major, extreme views that exist concerning the substance of reality. The other extreme view, idealism, is the belief that reality consists of mental perception and ideas, that what exists is any an idea or a perceiver of that idea (Gould 437). According to this view, matter contains no material substance. All matter is comprised of a collection of ideas and the one who is judge and interpreting those ideas. Beyond these two extreme viewpoints is one of the most popular beliefs concerning reality, especially in Western culture. The belief of dualism denotes that reality is a uniform cabal of both material and non-material substance. This view states that reality is made of objects that contain material substance to them. But this perspective of reality holds that there is also a segment to reality that depends upon the perceiver, what mental impression he obtains from the material substance, and how he can manipulate th... ...ry sort (Thayer xv). And Newtons influence on literary expression as well as philosophical reasoning can be easily seen when viewing the works of such famous writers as John Locke or Isaac Watts. Works CitedBennett, Jonathan. Locke, Berkeley and Hume Central Themes. Oxford Clarendon, 1971. Damrosch, David, et al., eds. The Longman Anthology British Literature. Vol. 1. New York Longman, 1999. Gould, James A. ed. Classic Philosophical Questions. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River Prentice, 1995. Randall, John Herman Jr. Introduction. Thayer. ix-xvi. Thayer, H. S. ed. Newtons Philosophy of genius Selections from His Writings. New York Hafner, 1953. Watts, Isaac. Man Frail, and God Eternal. Damrosch, et al. 2638. Yolton, John W. Thinking Matter Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Minnesota U of Minnesota P, 1983.

Sophocles Antigone - Antigone Must Challenge Creon Essay -- Antigone

Antigone Must Challenge Creon in Antigone In his Funeral Oration Pericles, Athenss leader in their war with some other city-states, rallies the patriotism of his people by reminding them of the things they value. He encourages a sense of duty to Athens even to the point of self-sacrifice. He glorifies the free and democratic Athenian way of life and extravagantly praises those impulsive to die for it. In Antigone, Creon, Thebess leader in their recent civil war, also must rally the patriotism of his people. While he, too, praises the loyalty of his people, he does two other things to rally the citizens he emphasizes his own qualifications for leadership, and he reminds them what happens to traitors. Creon speaks to his people at the beginning of Antigone because he is now the only ruler of Thebes, and he wants them to be loyal to him. He knows theres a chance they might not have faith in him because in Oedipus the King he claimed to be content to leave the active leadership to o thers. Also, hes not next in line to be the king after Laius, the late, beloved king. Even more important is the fact that Laiuss grandchildren, Oedipuss sons Eteocles and Polynices, ended up on opposite sides of a war over Thebes. Some Thebans were probably loyal to Eteocles, but others may have been sympathetic to Polynices, who tried to take the throne extraneous from his brother. Now Creon, the new leader, will have the best chance for success if he gets the people to forget about Oedipus and the terrible time of his rule, and about Oedipuss sons and the rising that divided their country. Although he does praise the Thebans for respecting the royal house of Laius, saying, your loyalty was unshakable (line 187), he wants them to reali... ...ells trouble for the citys future and for his own success. Sometimes he sounds harsher and more imminent than Pericles did, but the problem of unifying people after a war between brothers is more difficult than unifying people to fight out siders (which is what Pericles had to do). After all, Pericles behind praise all the Athenians who died for their citys sake in the Peloponnesian War, but Creon cant praise all the Thebans who died in this battle. His idea for unifying Theban citizens behind him is to focus precaution on himself as an example of everything they admire, and to show them the terrible consequences for disloyalty. Given the situation, I mark this as an admirable goal, but I can also see why its inevitable that Antigone, the strong-minded daughter of Oedipus and the sister of Polynices, will see Creon as arrogant and will challenge his rule.