Metaphysics
The nature of reality is a perennial topic in metaphysics because it has no fundamental constituents (Kant & Abbott, 2012). Additionally, differentiating what’s real from unreal can be one of the most daunting tasks for the humans. Nonetheless, I have found myself on several occasions wondering if superstitions are real, especially the superstition about black cats as bad omens. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that this is not real because I own a black cat and it’s not a bad omen.
Someone once told me that the physical world is not real, and that the spiritual or psychological world is real. I couldn’t believe it because my eyes, nose, and sense taste and feeling can detect the elements of the physical surrounding, unlike that of the spiritual or psychological world. Ideally, the Bible keeps insisting that there is a shadow world in which the soul of the dead reside. When my grandmother died, the bishop said that her should had left her physical body, and thus was surviving outside her, and I believed it as real because I have heard of real life stories about the dead coming back to torment the living. So, the soul can survive outside the physical body.
My parents once told me that our lives were pre-determined when I was a young girl, this was the definition of fate. This actually meant that my actions would be determined by my past conditioning. However, I believe that all people have free will because the choices I have been making in life have never been restricted by fate.
Epistemology
Standish, 2006, describes epistemology as the theory of knowledge, but how is anything known? I know that questioning the existence of God might be considered blasphemous, but I am always fascinated by how people came t...
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...t occasions, my parents could tell me that my behavior wasn’t good. As a result, I use to ask myself; how should humans behave in a society? People behave in a manner that’s morally accepted by the majority in the as ethical or right. Additionally, do people give up certain rights when they choose to live in a society?
Nowadays, I have been forced to give up my freedom of association because I can’t associate with anyone or group outside my own. I have always doubted if everyone has different values, beliefs and preferences that affect individual beliefs and it’s evident that they do, but people behave differently in a crowd than they do individually. For example, I have asked myself this question whenever people demonstrate against the government. In social learning and social condition, language contains values and thus it can be used to mold the right behavior.
“Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Dictionary.com). The novel Slaughterhouse five portrays the idea of not having free will. The award winning author, Kurt Vonnegut, tells
A main example of fate would be when Billy is on an airplane. In Slaughterhouse-Five, it states that "Billy, knowing the plane was going to crash pretty soon, closed his eyes, traveled in time back to 1944" (198). Soon after, "the plane smacked into the top of Sugarbush Mountain in Vermont. Everyone was killed but Billy and the copilot" (199). Instead of doing anything about it, Billy just waits for the plane to crash. If Billy had free will, he would have tried to warn the others on the plane, or not gotten onto it at all.
There are various definitions of free will. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines free will as “voluntary choice or decision, or freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention”. (Merriam Websters Dictionary) Shaun Nichols, writer for Scientific American writes the following about free will:
However, I have taken a more compatibilist approach towards the argument of free will, determinism, and moral responsibility. I think that determinism lays the foundation for an individual to make a decision by exposing a multitude of possibilities. But, it takes free will to make the decision which in turn makes us partially responsible for our actions since we had various options at hand. I suspect that the concept that free will and determinism can coexist and oftentimes work hand in hand. Since we are predisposed to a particular body, with different DNA, and a unique mindset, I can agree that we are predetermined to think and act a certain way because of genetics and how we were raised. However, I also believe that this is not the only force at hand whenever people make decisions. As we grow and experience the world, we are faced with situations that have us question and rearrange our perspectives and the way we think. This is where determinism comes into play. For example, a child who was taught to eat meat during their early life learns about how the meat industry functions in an Environmental Science class in high school. As a result, they decided to be a vegetarian. This causal event serves as an influence that instilled a new idea into the student. However, it takes free will to ultimately make the decision to convert because it goes against what was determined for the individual. It was their autonomous choice to convert since there were two options at hand: to change their eating habits or to remain the
There are a lot of different things that come to mind when somebody thinks of the phrase Free Will, and there are some people who think that free will does not exists and that everything is already decided for you, but there are also people who believe in it and think that you are free to do as you please. An example that explains the problem that people have with free will is the essay by Walter T. Stace called “Is Determinism Inconsistent with Free Will?”, where Stace discusses why people, especially philosophers, think that free will does not exist.
Like I said before freewill is a topic that philosophers have argued about over the years. Most times when the question ‘do you have freewill?’ is asked, a lot of individuals usually say they are free even without thinking twice. Although there are a lot of philosopher that believe we all have freewill and there are also other philosopher who have spoken up and tried to prove their point that humans have no freewill. Philosopher that argue that humans have no freewill are called the determinists. The determinists argue
Human beings always believe that what they want to do is ‘up to them,' and on this account, they take the assumption that they have free will. Perhaps that is the case, but people should investigate the situation and find a real case. Most of the intuitions may be correct, but still many of them can be incorrect. There are those who are sceptical and believe that free will is a false illusion and that it only exists in the back of people’s minds, but society should be able to distinguish feelings from beliefs in order to arrive at reality and truth.
Individuals change because of their environment and from their influences. Society cannot define neither a good or bad individual because it is impossible. In surveys, the results showed that students did not follow authority figures but followed peers. In the studies, individuals followed authority figures without question. The weakness of this study is that most individuals do not realize their behavior changes when going to a different environment or situation. Another weakness of this study is that the data does not fully represent everyone. The study only represents a small portion of a college campus. The strength of this study shows that individuals are more influenced into following their peers instead of being told what to do. The limitations of the study are that human behavior is a characteristic that is hard to understand. One second a person can be good, and the next second he could be doing evil deeds. This study needs further research and should take a closer look at how individuals are more willing to follow their peers than an authority figure. The study shows that anyone can be good or bad. Society has painted the image that individuals need to be accepted by others and are willing to forget themselves in order to get accepted. The study shows that the students that were surveyed, did not follow the rules of society. The students stuck with their morals and behavior. Society paints the images of individuals but
The argument of free will and determinism is a very complex argument. Some might say we have free will because we are in control; we have the ability to make our own choices. Others might say it’s in our biological nature to do the things we do; it’s beyond our control. Basically our life experiences and choices are already pre determined and there’s nothing we can do to change it. Many philosophers have made very strong arguments that support both sides.
I believe that all people do have free will but there are places that you live that you might not though. Take South Korea or any other dictatorship those people that live there sadly don’t seem to have free will.
...sons. Usually for bad luck or poor events that happen in someone’s life. Free will is a less superstitious belief that people who are usually self-reliant and focused have; they believe they can do anything they want to do. Jim Butcher has an interesting quote that contradicts Arthur Schopenhauer’s beliefs who stated we cannot do exactly what we please to do. “God isn't about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He's all about you making choices--exercising the gift of free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but He won't gift wrap them for you. You have to choose the actions that lead you to that life.” Whether or not you agree with Arthur or Jim does not matter. However, a concept that is highly accepted it that there is a supernatural, external force that has at least a small effect on our lives every single day.
We, as humans, hold individualism in the highest regard, yet fail to realize that groups diminish our individuality. Lessing writes, “when we’re in a group, we tend to think as that group does. but we also find our thinking changing because we belong to a group” (p. 334). Groups have the tendency to generate norms, or standards, for behavior in certain situations. Not following these norms can make you stand out and, therefore, groups have the ability to influence our thoughts and actions in ways that are consistent with the groups’ values.
The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their kinds of minds, minds that can think and be aware of their own thinking.
Epistemology, also known as theory of knowledge is the part of philosophy that discusses the nature and scope of knowledge. Some questions that study the nature of knowledge could be, Have you ever thought about how we know things? What does it mean for someone to know something? How much can we possibly know? How do you know that 2 + 2 = 4, or that the square root of 144 is 12? Do we know something from reason or from di...
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas: the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification, various problems of skepticism, the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as "What makes justified beliefs justified?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?" and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"