Is it possible for there to be more than one reality, or more than one truth, yet have both still be correct? In An Occurrence at Owl Bridge, it seems this may be the case. Written by Ambrose Bierce, this short story tells the tale of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate, who is tricked by the Unionists into attempting to burn their bridge. When he fails, the Unionists are given an excuse to hang him. The catch comes when the noose breaks, and Farquhar stumbles home. Just as he is about to embrace his wife, however, he is drawn back to reality by the snap of his neck: “Peyton Fahrquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge”. However, does this have to be the only way of looking at things? If analyzed from a pluralistic philosophical outlook, there are many more interpretations than simply ‘A man imagined things before his In epistemological pluralism, there can be multiple truths, or ways of approaching truths. So just as Farquhar sees his actions in attempting to sabotage the Federalist efforts as correct, the Federalists very evidently do not share this view. In a broader sense, the Civil War itself boils down to two different groups of people with two different truths. This idea can be applied to nearly anything—I remember the phenomenon of the blue and black dress, which I ardently believed to be white and gold, but was the subject of much debate in the media. That, too, came down to two different methods our brains had for approaching the truth: something about artificial versus natural light, and the photoreceptors on our retinas. In essence, there is no one set of truths that is the ultimate truth, and so Farquhar’s morality is likewise up to individual
On the question as to whether states’ rights was the cause of the Civil War, Dew references a speech made by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, during his inaugural address as one that “remains a classic articulation of the Southern position that resistance to Northern tyranny and a defense of states’ rights were the sole reason for secession. Constitutional differences alone lay at the heart of the sectional controversy, he insisted. ‘Our present condition…illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established’”(13).
In, “Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,” Charles B. Dew analyzes the public letters and speeches of white, southern commissioners in order to successfully prove that the Civil War was fought over slavery. By analyzing the public letters and speeches, Dew offers a compelling argument proving that slavery along with the ideology of white supremacy were primary causes of the Civil War. Dew is not only the Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College, but he is also a successful author who has received various awards including the Elloit Rudwick Prize and the Fletcher Pratt Award. In fact, two of Dew’s books, Tredegar Iron Works and Apostles of Disunion and Ironmaker to
A numerous amount of generals and soldiers of the south had a predisposed idea regarding what every person was fighting for, and from the looks of it, they were more so on the same page. When referring to what the war was being fought over, Englishmen Pickett used an analogy that gives reference to a “gentlemen’s club”, and not being able to maneuver out of it (Shaara 88). The men believed that the war conceived out of the misinterpretation of the constitution in regards to what or what not they had the right to do. In all, a large number of those fighting believed that the confederate army fought to protect the southern society, and slavery as an integral part of
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true” (Kierkegaard)- Misleading oneself by accepting things as true or valid when they are not is a common phenomenon of nearly every human being, especially when faced with life changing of threatening situations. Self-deception can therefore be considered an option to escape reality in order to prevent oneself from dealing with the weight of a situation. Basically, those strong influencing psychological forces keep us from acknowledging a threatening situation or truth. However, oftentimes people do not realize that they are deceiving themselves, for it is mostly the action of the subconscious mind to protect especially the psychological well- being. This psychological state is depicted and in Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. He shows that people try to escape reality and seek refuge in self-deception when confronted with life-threatening situations, through characterization, alternate point of view, and the fluidity of time.
Many historians have tried to offer their ideology on the outcome of the Civil War. McPherson in his “American Victory, American Defeat” writes about what other historians have decreed their answers to why the Confederacy lost. He tells us the reasons that could not be the explanation for the loss, and explains the internal reasons but leaves the true cause of the loss untold. Freehling explains the defeat by discussing what could have been and then gives reasons to negate some of the cases that he states for the outcome of the Confederacy. Both McPherson and Freehling both agreed that there were other factors besides battles that needed to be looked at.
Thousands of men died in November 1863. Within in a couple of days bodies laid scattered across the battle fields while tens of thousands men sat in a hospital. All of these men participated in one thing, the Civil War. Fighting for the rights of the people and what our constitution stood for. Families and friends had to pick a side, South or the North. Each had their reasoning for why they stood to fight, but surprisingly their reasoning was similar. Each state was proud they live in a country that had broken away from British. They marveled at the idea that all men are created and equal and have certain rights. Americans were proud. Proud to the point that they never stopped pay attention to all that they did. Proud because they put laws on humans and threw them into bondage. In 1861 people started to take sides. In some ways it was unconstitutional, but in others they were fighting for the people. The Civil War had begun. The fate of our country was in the hands of the people. On opposite sides of the war, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee wrote The Gettysburg Address and Letter to His Son there were three astonishingly similarities and differences in the two works: the people are one, acts were unconstitutional and the nation is on shaky ground.
The authors, Ambrose Bierce of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' and Edger Allan Poe of 'The Tell Tale Heart' have unique styles to pull the reader into the story. Both authors use unreliable narrator and imagery to allow the reader to picture and follow the narrator's way of thinking. In the Tell Tale Heart, the man is very repetitious and his psychotic behavior is what intrigues the overall dark madness of The Tell Tale Heart. In Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Bierce uses illusions to allow the reader to follow wherever his ideas lead which also intrigues the overall dark madness effect.
Up until the late 1800s, slavery was widely considered acceptable in America. This ethical issue was important because African Americans were forcibly held against their will in order to fulfill the hard labor duties that were demanded by their owner. Slaves had no say in whether their lives belong to themselves. There was no sense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. African Americans were not even considered a full person. Although the slaves had families they had no control on whether or not they would stay together. Slaves were sold to different parts of the country in which sometimes they would never see their family members again. Although slavery was accepted, the northern part of America allowed African Americans to be free. This ultimately led to a bloody division between the North and the South. The south led a revolt to go to war against the north, specifically in order to keep their rights to allow slavery. Based on the principles of jus ad bellum, the south was not qualified to go to war in the first place. In order to go to war the state has to be minimally just and the south was not minimally just in doing so. Throughout this paper I will explain the six principles of the jus ad bellum and whether or not the south met any of those principles. I will also explain the south perspective within each of these principles, on why they believed it was right for them to go to war.
Each side felt connected to the previous debates made from the Founding Fathers when trying to separate from the power of the British. The Confederates would refer to themselves as rebels, like the name given to the patriots in the revolutionary war. While the Union soldiers would also feel that they were upholding the Revolutionary war, wanting to feel worthy of that heritage. The initial patriotism and ideological commitment of many soldiers resulted in transforming into hatred and a passion for revenge. The Confederate soldier’s looked into destroying the property and homes of the Union soldiers. The same attitude of revenge as seen by the confederate soldiers was mostly noted by the east Tennessee Union soldiers. But there was a more demonic take in how the Confederate soldiers wanted to take upon actions of revenge. Mentioning the need to exterminate all of the confederate soldiers and writing that “we should take horses; burn houses; and commit every depredation possible upon the men of the North… slay them like wheat before the scythe in the harvest time. I certainly love to kill the base usurping vandals, if it is sin to hate them; then I am guilty of the unpardonable one” (22). The vibe of hatred could be detected. There was definitely a lot of common characteristics among the Union and Confederate
He suggests that the physical substance (body) and mental substance (mind) are different in nature from each other. He believes that what we see could possibly be deceiving us and that this world might just be a dream.
...h the Confederacy. Even if the goal of the Emancipation Proclamation was to win the war, it was also a moral value because at the end of the war, Lincoln supported the 13th amendment, which ended slavery in the USA. Looking at different sources such as Eric Foner’s “emancipation proclamation” and McPherson James’s “how president Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation” , it is clear that opinions differed regarding the purpose of the emancipation proclamation, but both of them argued that it was both a military tactic but had also a moral value behind it.
This paper will focus on a modern worldview that uses theories and other ideas presented by the great minds of the past. I will seek to explain why some philosopher’s ideas have become engrained in our thoughts without us even realizing they exist. My goal is to invert the title of this class, A Brief History of Imagination, by using imagination to explain why many historical events occurred.
Sometimes, what we see and remember is not always accurate or real. For instance, Gould talked about a trip that he took to the Devils tower when he was fifteen, he remember that he can see the Devils tower from afar and as he approaches it, it rises and gets bigger. However, about thirty years later, Gould went back to see the Devils tower with his family, he wanted to show them the awesome view of the Devils tower when it rises as they approach closer to it, but when they got there everything was different from what he remembered. Then he found out that the Devils tower that he saw when he was younger wasn’t really...
the truth of things is here and now and is laid as a never ending
Truth can be defined as conformity to reality or actuality and in order for something to be “true” it must be public, eternal, and independent. If the “truth” does not follow these guidelines then it cannot be “true.” Obviously in contrary anything that goes against the boundaries of “truth” is inevitably false. True and false, in many cases does not seem to be a simple black and white situation, there could sometimes be no grounds to decide what is true and what is false. All truths are a matter of opinion. Truth is relative to culture, historical era, language, and society. All the truths that we know are subjective truths (i.e. mind-dependent truths) and there is nothing more to truth than what we are willing to assert as true (Hammerton, Matthew). A thing to me can be true while for the other person it may not be true. So it depends from person to person and here the role of perception comes into play. As truth is a vital part of our knowledge, the distinctions between what is true and what is false, shape and form the way we think and should therefore be considered of utmost importance. We often face this situation in real life through our learning curves and our pursuit of knowledge to distinguish between what is true and what is false. The idea of there being an absolute truth or also known as universal truth has been debated for centuries. It depends on many factors such as reason, perception and emotion.