Socrate's First Accusers and Athenian Law Of all confrontations in political philosophy, the biggest is the conflict between philosophy and politics. The problem remains making philosophy friendly to politics. The questioning of authoritative opinions is not easily accomplished nor is that realm of philosophy - the pursuit of wisdom. Socrates was the instigator of the conflict. While the political element takes place within opinions about political life, Socrates asks the question "What is the best regime and how should I live?"
We have found ourselves in the bifurcation process admitting as well "the end of history" in its most tragic sense. Philosophy plays the most important part in formation, basing of new values, innoticing emerging trends, choice of arising variants. Reflexing over culture as a whole philosophy allows to correlate the needs and potenties of the current moment with actual trends. Combining the prognostic and projective functions philosophy forms the sprouts of new world outlooks and conditions of "natural" refusal of obsolete, out of date ones. This role is not conspicuous: philosophical thought must be ready for the fact that penetrates public consciousness neither directly nor immediately, but implicitly, gradually, embracing the most diversified spheres of spiritual activity and only in long time achieving the status of the spiritual objectivized.
In the 17th century what were once considered some of the most powerful of the social systems, law and politics, were critically rejected and the powers of reason and scientific research were embraced. Along with this shift came a break with tradition and an adoption of a critical stance in regards to modern reality. Kant’s response to this question of enlightenment set the stage for countless arguments on the true meaning of this mysterious concept, and additionally marked a critical point in our existence. This notion that we as humans must obtain Enlightenment was something Kant truly believed in, but his suggestions as to how we obtain this were somewhat controversial and contentious. Nevertheless, his goal was clear.
I will first show that the strength of his criticism lies in its all-encompassing penetration of the foundations of modern philosophy, running through both the ontological and epistemological channels. Ontologically, Heidegger presents a critique of subjectivism; epistemologically, he discredits the correspondence conception of truth and its underlying visual metaphor. I will then look at his view of history and the meaning of his concept of "overcoming" in order to show that his aim is not to destroy the tradition, but to provide a wider basis for it by rescuing forgotten elements imbedded in the tradition itself. Finally, I will show that in this process of "overcoming," Heidegger did not really depart from the tradition, but absorbed some of its basic tenets, as his concept of death echoes major elements of Cartesian doubt. 1.
Although Descartes mistrusted the information received through the senses, he did b... ... middle of paper ... ...a new science, one grounded in observation and experiment.” (Rene Descartes, 2002). An interesting testament to Descartes enduring influence is the many contemporary criticisms of his work (Rene Descartes, 2002). That so many major contemporary thinkers continue to rigorously analyse and scrutinize Descartes, actually serves to demonstrate what an important role he has established in the foundations of our modern belief systems. What René Descartes contributes to modernity is a solution to mankind’s infinite quest for indubitable knowledge. He presents a model for reasoning and an assurance that certainty is a reality which can be logically achieved.
Being and Humans in Heidegger's Letter on Humanism and in his Contributions to Philosophy ABSTRACT: Heidegger's main question, the question of Being concerning human facticity, struggles to uncover the original ground to which humans belong, a ground from which modern society tends to uproot itself through the dominance of calculative and representational thinking. What is most dangerous for Heidegger about this process is that the original ground of humans and beings in general might be covered and forgotten to the extent that humans lose completely the sense of what they truly need. The task of philosophy is to help bring back humans and beings in general to the place which they originally belong, i.e., to their most fulfilled way of being which is their proper or own [das Eigene, eigen]. The term "En-own-ment" or "Ap-propri-ation" [Er-eign-is] — the key word in Heidegger's thinking since the 1930's — marks his attempt to think more originally than metaphysics the relation between Being and humans in terms of the being "enowned" of humans through Being and in terms of the belonging of humans to Being. I will rethink the question of this relation in reference to two of Heidegger's writings, and will focus on his struggle for a proper language which would be able to say what essentially remains concealed in metaphysical language: the truth (or ground) or Being as Ereignis.
GILLES DELEUZE Philosophy of Difference - Against Dialectics GILLES DELEUZE'S early philosophy is dominated by the project of attaining a kind of philosophy that can be characterized best by naming its very enemy: dialectics. Whether as a 'school' of philosophy (including the leading figures in France, KOJÈVE and SARTRE) or as an ontological approach to the world itself, which implies - no matter if in the Hegelian or Platonic version - a fundamental dualism. (In PLATO the difference between the sensual and intellectual world, in HEGEL'S dialectics the 'sublation' [Aufhebung] of real differences in the world through the synthesizing faculty of the mind qua negation).
Hegel's Philosophy in Brief Hegel's own pithy account of the nature of philosophy given in the "Preface" to his Elements of the Philosophy of Right captures a characteristic tension in his philosophical approach and, in particular, in his approach to the nature and limits of human cognition. "Philosophy", he says there, "is its own time raised to the level of thought". On the one hand we can clearly see in the phrase "its own time" the suggestion of a historical or cultural conditionedness and variability which applies even to the highest form of human cognition, philosophy itself -- the contents of philosophical knowledge, we might suspect, will come from the historically changing contents of contemporary culture. On the other, there is the hint that with such contents being "raised" to some higher level, presumably higher than the more everyday levels of cognitive functioning -- those based in everyday perceptual experience, for example. This higher level takes the form of "thought" -- a type of cognition commonly taken as capable of having "eternal" contents (think of Plato and Frege, for example).
So this kind of philosophy seems to be a fortiori charged to give a good deal of pedagogical help for its own sake. The respective philosophical educations (paideiai) have to fight against the realist as well as the idealist tendencies of interpretation. Positively it is not enough for them to represent what is essential to transcendentalism as a genus; they must particularly transmit what is specific to Kant's "Criticism", to Descartes' "Metaphysics" or to Fichte's "Doctrine of Science". I. Rene Descartes was the first one to fully realize that reliable orientation could never passively be found in "things" or "institutions".
The main goal of this movement was to encourage moving past religious beliefs and superstitious prejudices into a world that is more evolved and reason is the basis of all knowledge and authority. During this age, several theories were proven false on the basis of reasoning. The movement encouraged rationality upon the basis of which a reliable system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge was formed Furthermore, movements such as rationalism, empiricism, subjectivism and skepticism were also bought to notice upon which further “enlightenment” was accomplished. The 18th century was a period in which all intellectual, political and social matters were developed. These matters involved science, politics, society and philosophy and together they shaped the modern, western view of the world.