Logic can very often restrain us from recognising the truth when it is presented to us. Allow me to begin by asking a question.
What is man? Who are we indeed? We struggle, we grapple, we strain, grasping for truth that is always there, but we feel is out of our reach. We make ourselves prisoners by our own embankment of logic, an instrument that we work too hard. An ox that we send to the field, but provide no water for, driving it on, past exhaustion; a tool that we abuse without having even a miniscule sentiment of remorse. Who are we to think that we can fit our world, our emotions, our lives, our beliefs into neatly packaged little boxes? What right do we have to fit anyone or anything else into our own little spheres we have somehow managed to contrive? Us and our logic! What pharisees we are, what fools we can be! We think we know best; we make our little plans and we analyse our little strategies until there’s nothing left but jargon. We argue our points away until our memory is lost as to what our question was is the first place. Who cares about answers! They won’t help! Answers are of no use. I just want my opinion out there and my voice to be heard. Well, a lot of help that is when everyone is screaming so hard that all becomes numb and meaningless and silent. Just watch then as our individual universes we’ve been able to construct explode into oblivion, leaving us broken, desolate, torn. We are then left begging for love, starving our spirits in desperation, frantically stripping away our own will. What simpletons we can be! Can we not see the truth that has all this time been staring us blatantly in the eyes?
Stop grasping, I ask you, be still! Stop bellowing and just be calm! The truth is simple. The truth is bare. We need only to shred those strategies, burn those boxes, and clear the table to see the truth we’ve left buried there, watching us, hoping we will acknowledge it.
Although Hobbes has created a logical response to the Fool, I have some objections to his argument. According to Hobbes, every man has the right to self-preservation and are permitted to do whatever it takes to hold that right. This also means that the world’s worst criminal could reasonably refuse punishment. That person could escape imprisonment, lie under oath while in court, or commit theft and he or she could argue that it was all necessary for their self-preservation. Strictly speaking, this means anything one does could be deemed as necessary for his or her self-preservation and it could never be considered unjust or unreasonable. It would be difficult to determine what actions can be properly defined as unjust because everything by
In the essay “There Is Such a Thing as Truth” Errol Morris argues that truth actually exists. At 10 years old Errol encountered his first “ bet you money I’m right” argument. It was at this point were he realized that although he used logic to his argument about which city is further west: Reno, Nevada, or Los Angeles, his neighborhood friend thought otherwise. Errol Morris states, “There is such a thing as truth, but we often have a vested interest in ignoring it or outright denying it.” Not only did he go by this, he decided to test it with an innocent man who was sentenced to die. Errol fought for the process of finding the truth; he fought to find the answer to the question, “Did he do it?” The only way he knew to find this was through
A human being is a complicated entity of a contradictory nature where creative and destructive, virtuous and vicious are interwoven. Each of us has gone through various kinds of struggle at least once in a lifetime ranging from everyday discrepancies to worldwide catastrophes. There are always different causes and reasons that trigger these struggles, however, there is common ground for them as well: people are different, even though it is a truism no one seems to able to realize this statement from beyond the bounds of one’s self and reach out to approach the Other.
It is up to us to preserve the countless lives that could be lost if one man lost his temper, to stop the development of military grade weapons, and instead nurture ideas that can heal, ideas that can help the world evolve. We don’t need weapons. We don’t need bloodshed. We don’t need useless fighting or brutal violence. We don’t need to be like Batman and offer ultimatum. What we need is to heal together, to evolve together. What we need is
Searching for the ultimate truth of oneself is difficult. In the film I Heart Huckabees, existentialism plays a major role in searching for the ultimate truth of oneself. Existentialism is a philosophical point of view that stresses the individual's unique position as a self-determining agent (Cherry). It also emphasizes the importance of free will, freedom of choice, the unique experiences of each individual, and the responsibilities of one's choices and what one make of oneself (Rooney). During the movie, the existential detective, Barnard Jaffe explains to Albert Markovski that dismantle is "to help shut down your everyday perceptions and give up your usual identity that you think separates you from everything. This room, this street, this town, this country, this economy, this history, this planet. Your body, Your senses, your job. Everything that you identify With." The characters from I Heart Huckabees attempt to dismantle themselves by understanding and realizing their problems to get to their essential identities. People have different ways of understanding their essential identities in the movie; Albert Markovski understands the interconnection between himself and the world, Brad Stand realizes his insecurity, and Dawn Campbell understands that appearance is not everything.
Kant’s argues that his Categorical Imperative (CI) or, more properly, his multiple versions of the CI are universal in the sense that they apply to everyone at all times. If the CI actually is universal in this sense, it fulfills one of the major traits necessary for a moral principle (Pojman 7). The vagueness of the CI, however, makes its universalizability hard to assess. To simplify the issue, this paper will examine Kant’s response to Benjamin Constant’s objections to telling a murderer the truth. That examination will expose how the CI falls short of its claim as a universal principle through inevitable contradiction and, working from Kant’s own strategy of consequence-based reasoning,
...most sought after of God’s creations created a division of class to subjugate and vilify each other, the true meaning and purpose of life and taken a tragic hit. If humans were born to destroy humans and not live in amity with each other, wasn’t this a clear indication of mankind forgetting its purpose. The solution of life as a medium of meaning and universal problems of life could propel mankind to be far superior in intellect than thought would pose an obvious question, Would man need to reassess and relook into the ways of his purpose and change himself to save his future generations from the follies of his forebears in order to achieve concord and constancy that was and is the main ingredient to keep the human race glued to each other? I feel man failed in his fight for petty power over the kindness of the human soul. In the end, it is the pen that wins.
First of all, it is important for us to know what logic in itself is. Logic comes from a Greek word “ logike”Firstly it describes the use of valid reason in performing an activity. Secondly it tends to name normative study of what reasoning is.Logic was studied in several civilizations from China to Greece.
Man has always been driven to create. We constantly shape the world around us by inventing stories of heroes and monsters, by crafting complex but passionate ideals about good and evil. Some relish in the power that this manipulation of reality wields; others are more innocent in that they are simply yielding to a universal longing for something in which to believe.
existence of man… for the sake of which one may hold fast to the belief in
In viewing 12 Angry Men, we see face to face exactly what man really is capable of being. We see different views, different opinions of men such as altruism, egoism, good and evil. It is no doubt that human beings possess either one or any of these characteristics, which make them unique. It is safe to say that our actions, beliefs, and choices separate us from animals and non-livings. The 20th century English philosopher, Martin Hollis, once said, “Free will – the ability to make decisions about how to act – is what distinguishes people from non-human animals and machines 1”. He went to describe human beings as “self conscious, rational, creative. We can fall in love, write sonnets or plan for tomorrow. We are capable of faith, hope and charity, and for that matter, of envy, hated and malice. We know truth from error, right from wrong 2.” Human nature by definition is “Characteristics or qualities that make human beings different from anything else”. With this said, the topic of human nature has been around for a very long time, it is a complex subject with no right or wrong answer. An American rabbi, Samuel Umen, gave examples of contradictions of human nature in his book, Images of Man. “He is compassionate, generous, loving and forgiving, but also cruel, vengeful, selfish and vindictive 3”. Existentialism by definition is, “The belief that existence comes before essence, that is, that who you are is only determined by you yourself, and not merely an accident of birth”. A French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, is the most famous and influential 20th - century existentialist. He summed up human nature as “existence precedes essence”. In his book, Existentialism and Human Emotions, he explained what he meant by this. “It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will be something, and he himself will have made what he will be 4”. After watching 12 Angry Men, the prominent view on human nature that is best portrayed in the movie is that people are free to be whatever they want because as Sartre said, “people create themselves every moment of everyday according to the choices they make 5”.
In this situation, there is no “logical universe” that helps to justify a belief, but rather shows perspectives that are common in everyday life. This basically explains the set of rules that individuals go by to have a more practical and normal life. An individual would learn that the situation they may go through is not based on correspondence between a belief and a fact in society, but coherence between a belief and other beliefs in a single individual. In other words, the exposed truth is a property of other consecutive congruent beliefs one has thought in their minds before experiencing something in the present. This is the coherence theory of justification; when something is signified as true with this justification, then this strongly has the official truth even if the opposing individual argues. In most circumstances, this theory leaves no room for fitting another justification into what has already been justified to be
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.
Since human kind gained the ability of reflection we have questioned our purpose of existence. What makes a human, human? Four philosophers, representing four areas of Philosophy, attempt to answer this question. First is the Dutchman Soren Kierkegaard and his book Sickness unto Death, who is considered the “Father of Existentialism”. Prevalent through all of Kierkegaard’s work was his constant goal to move people closer to God and thus closer to discovering their authentic self. Therefore, our relationship with God is what makes us human. Next is Jeremy Rifkin and his book The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in A World in Crisis who believes that humanity is defined by our ability to empathize with other humans whether
In the area of mathematics, it has been stated that Aristotle “is the real father of logic” (Thompson, 1975, p. 7) and although it may be a minor exaggeration, it is not far off the truth. Aristotle’s ideas on philosophy and logic were great advancers in Western culture, and are still being discussed and taught today. The ancient Greeks focused their mathematics on many areas, but one main question continuously asked by the Greeks was “what are good arguments?” (Marke & Mycielski, 2001, pg. 449). This question brought about the study of logic. Aristotle’s philosophy on the importance of logic was unique for his time as he believed that logic had to be considered in all disciplines, and that the aim of logic was to provide a system that allowed one to “investigate, classify, and evaluate good and bad forms of reasoning” (Groarke). Aristotle studied and contributed to various disciplines including philosophy, science, and astronomy, but his greatest influence was in the study of mathematical logic and more specifically, the introduction of syllogism. As Ulrich (1953) states, “any discussion of syllogism necessarily involves logic as it is the field that the syllogism plays a very important role” (p. 311). Aristotle’s ideas surrounding logic and syllogism are still being used in mathematics today, and over the course of history they have influenced many mathematicians’ areas of study.